Taken

Onyx.

Onyx is the Chosen of a powerful Dark mage named Morden. Morden was one of the two major players competing for the fateweaver back in April; he coerced me and a small cabal of Dark mages to go get it for him and sent Onyx along to ensure our cooperation. It turned out that Onyx’s idea of cooperation involved him leaving with the fateweaver and everyone else not leaving at all. I got hold of the fateweaver before Onyx did and we had a frank exchange of views.

It ended up with Onyx on the floor and bleeding, barely escaping with his life. Unfortunately I’d only won because of the fateweaver, and the price tag on those powers turned out to be a hell of a lot higher than I was willing to pay. The fateweaver was gone but Onyx was still around, and that was bad news because Onyx was one of the deadliest battle-mages I’d ever had the misfortune to run up against. I wondered if he held a grudge against me for humiliating him like that. I had the feeling the answer was a definite yes.

The person waiting at the viewpoint near the top of the hill was a girl, nineteen or so. She was just a shadow in the darkness, but by looking into the futures in which I switched on my light I recognised her as one of Morden’s slaves. I had to think for a minute before I remembered her name: Lisa. I hadn’t really expected to see her again. Slaves to Dark mages have a high turnover rate. I let myself fade into the shadows and waited.

Onyx arrived five minutes later. He was obviously trying to be quiet but I had the impression he didn’t spend much time in the woods and it wasn’t hard to hear him coming. Unlike me his magic didn’t give him any way to see in the dark and he’d resorted to some kind of black-light spell that cast a murky glow. I felt Lisa go tense as she saw him.

“Who did you see?” Onyx said as he walked up into the clearing.

“N-nobody.”

“Verus was in there.” Onyx was young, but his voice was flat and cold and sent a chill down my spine. “When did he go in?”

“I don’t know—”

The blow didn’t look powerful but it was augmented with force and took Lisa off her feet. Onyx had already turned away and was staring down at Fountain Reach. There was a sort of casual indifference to the whole thing. Onyx had been annoyed and Lisa had been in front of him, so he’d hit her. He didn’t care whether it had been her fault and in fact he seemed already to have forgotten that she was there. Lisa stayed on the ground for a while, cringing, then pulled herself upright.

Onyx shook his head and turned away. The darkness shrouded his face but his body language looked frustrated. Magic flared around him as he opened a black gateway; he stepped through and Lisa hurried through after him without needing to be told. The gateway closed and I was left alone on the hillside.

I watched thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to make my way home.

*  *  *

“But what was Onyx doing there?” Sonder asked an hour and a half later.

Arachne’s cave is wide and oval-shaped, hidden under Hampstead Heath and hollowed out of stone that’s been worn smooth by the passage of hundreds of years. Clothes cover the furniture and every inch of the walls, turning the cave into a riot of green and blue and yellow and red. There are small changing rooms to one side and at the far end a tunnel leads down into darkness.

Sonder was sitting on the edge of one of the chairs, his clothes rumpled from a day spent indoors. He has messy black hair, a pair of glasses, and a way of peering at whatever he’s reading that makes it look like he’s completely oblivious to everything else, which is usually true. He’s twenty-one but looks like a first-year university student. He still had his arms full of papers, and the reports he’d been reading were spread out over a pile of coats on the table in front of him. He pushed his glasses up automatically as he waited for my answer.

“I don’t know,” I said from my sofa. I was more tired than I should have been; the escape from Fountain Reach had taken a lot out of me and I obviously hadn’t fully recovered from Anne’s spell yet. “But I’m pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be there either.”

“Do you think it’s him?” Luna called. She was hidden behind the curtain of one of the changing rooms. “Him and Morden, I mean.”

“They’re vicious enough,” I said. “But it seems like an odd thing for him to do.”

“Onyx?” I could feel Luna shudder. “He’d do anything.”

“Anything Morden tells him to. Don’t forget that.”

“We know they take slaves,” Luna said. “Like that girl Lisa. Maybe that’s where the apprentices are going.”

“There’s no way Morden would take that kind of risk,” I said. “The reason he got involved in the hunt for the fateweaver was because he wanted to become Council representative of the Dark mages. If he kept them as slaves it’d get out sooner or later, and as soon as that happened he’d lose any chance he ever had of getting that position.”

“But what if—Oh, Arachne, could you have a look?”

“Of course, dear,” Arachne said from her perch in the corner. She was working on something in vivid green. “Come right out.”

Arachne is a weaver, the best I know, and everything in her lair is her own work. She’s been making clothes since before I was born—probably since before my great-great-grandparents were born. She trades the clothes to mages and adepts in return for services and information, but honestly, I think she’d be just as happy to give them away. Arachne’s a maker, and for her creating is its own reward.

She’s also a giant spider, which bothers most people, although these days I hardly notice. Arachne had been working on the cloth in front of her with her four front legs, but now she turned her eight opaque eyes upwards as Luna stepped out from behind the curtain wearing a rose-coloured dress with a square neckline and ruffles. “What do you think?” Luna said doubtfully.

Sonder looked up as soon as Luna started to come out, and now he stared. “Um,” he said at last. “It’s, uh, good. Really good.”

“Definitely not,” Arachne said firmly, clicking her mandibles. “Not for where you’re going. We’ll save that one for the summer.”