Taken

If my clothes were understated, Luna’s were the opposite. She wore a narrow dress cut in such a way that she seemed to be wearing nothing else, the cloth following the lines of her body and emphasising her shape. The dress was a vivid emerald green, shimmering in the light. It was beautiful and eye-catching but there was something disturbing about the colour. It made me think of poison, like a venomous snake.

“Wow,” Sonder said. He was staring again. “You look . . .”

“Perfect,” Arachne said.

Luna looked uncomfortable. “I feel like the evil queen in Snow White.”

“Where you’re going that’s exactly how you want to look.” Arachne scuttled forward and peered down at me nearsightedly with her eight eyes, then settled back. “You’ll do too.”

Luna gave me a glance, then a curious look. “Hey, did you lose weight all of a sudden?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it. Arachne, you keep talking about ‘where we’re going.’ What are we getting into?”

“Tiger’s Palace?” Sonder said in surprise. “Haven’t you ever been?”

“I’m not exactly high up on the social circuit, Sonder.”

“Um,” Sonder said, hesitantly. “But it’s not—I mean—”

“What Sonder is trying to say,” Arachne said, “is that given the reputation of Tiger’s Palace, most people would expect you to fit right in.”

“What reputation?”

Arachne made a clicking noise, her equivalent of a sigh. “You really should get out more. Tiger’s Palace is a . . . meeting point, a place of exchange. There are no entry requirements but it’s not a place for the vulnerable or the careless.” Arachne glanced at Luna. “Apprentices don’t typically go. If you do, make very sure not to look like prey.”

Luna and I looked at each other for a second, then I turned back. “Sonder—”

“I know,” Sonder said resignedly. “You want me to go research. I can do other things too, you know.”

“You haven’t got anything to prove,” I said with a smile. “But if someone’s targeting me—and it looks as if they are—then going there together will make you a target as well.”

“You’re still taking—” Sonder began, then stopped. “All right. Be careful.”

“Good luck, both of you,” Arachne said. “And Sonder is right. The information you’re looking for may be there or it may not, but either way I suspect the people there won’t react favourably to nosing around.”

*  *  *

“No ribbon this time?” I asked Luna as we walked up the polished stone of the exit tunnel.

Luna shook her head. The last time we’d gone together to a party like this Arachne had made her a one-shot that absorbed and neutralised Luna’s curse, making her able to touch people without fear of hurting them, just for a little while.

“She’d do it if you asked,” I said.

“I know,” Luna said. “But . . . I know it’s hard for her to make those.”

“Is that the only reason?”

Luna walked in silence for a little while. “I don’t want to get too used to it,” she said at last.

I nodded. “I think that’s the right choice.”

Luna looked sharply at me. “Items can be taken away,” I said. “You don’t want to get too dependent on them. The only things that are really yours are your magic and your mind and your body.”

We reached the entrance and Luna hung back as I activated the trigger to make the earth ahead of us part with a rumbling sound. Arachne’s lair is on Hampstead Heath, hidden beneath a ravine in the deep woods where few people go. It had turned into a clear, cold night, bright stars shining down out of a winter sky, and both of us shivered as we came out into the open. The entrance to the lair closed behind us and we turned our feet towards the Tiger’s Palace.

chapter 6

The Soho street was noisy, music from a dozen bars blending together into a confusing racket. Neon lights flashed through the shadows, making the dark stone and brickwork flicker red-blue-green. People appeared and disappeared in groups, emerging from doorways and vanishing into the gloom. Buildings went up and up into the darkness, fading into an orange sky, but the lights and crowds couldn’t hide the chill of the winter air.

Luna and I were sheltering in a doorway, looking at the building opposite. It was blacked out, dark except for a neon sign blinking on the roof, and I looked at it for a moment before glancing sideways at Luna. Her face was lit up by the sign above, flickering from red to blue. “Think this is the place?”

“It’s the right number,” Luna said.

I looked into the future, searching for the consequences of us entering that building. “So Anne’s . . .” Luna said. “I mean, the guy we’re meeting. He’s a rakshasa?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s a rakshasa?”

“Creatures from India,” I said. “Or maybe they were before India and the Indians just gave them the name. In their true form they’re supposed to look like a cross between a human and a tiger.” I paused. “Oh, and their hands are supposed to be backwards.”

“Backwards?”

“Reversed. The palms are where the backs should be.”