Taken

“She wasn’t a Dark apprentice,” I said in frustration. “Her or Variam. They got kidnapped into it.”

“How do you know?” Talisid asked.

“They told me.”

“Has anyone else confirmed that story?”

“No . . .”

“I see.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Someone’s been trying to kill Anne. She’s the target.”

“Didn’t you say you thought there were two groups doing this?” Talisid said. I started to answer but he carried on, cutting me off. “Look, it’s not yet established that she’s a willing accomplice. She could be being used as an information source without her knowledge.”

I thought of how Anne always seemed to know what was going on amongst the apprentices. Luna’s words: The younger apprentices really like Anne. They tell her everything. Something uneasy twisted inside me.

I heard the sound of raised voices ahead. One of the voices was Variam’s, and as I heard it something fell into place. “I’ve found them,” I said. “I’ll call you back.”

Talisid sighed. “Please try not to do anything stupid.”

“When have I ever done that?”

“I’ll let you fill in the response to that yourself,” Talisid said. “Good luck.”

I switched off the phone and looked down the corridor. A mage was standing in front of a closed door, arms folded, and Variam was shouting at him. One or two heads were peeking out of doors to see what the noise was about, but the tournament was still running and most of the mansion’s population was in the duelling hall.

I walked out around the corner. “You can’t do this!” Variam was shouting. “You have to—”

“Variam,” I said. “We need to talk.”

Variam and the mage both turned to me. The mage was lean and tough-looking, his eyes impassive. “This one yours?” he asked me.

“Variam,” I said again.

Variam shot the mage a glare, then stalked down the corridor towards me. “They’ve got Anne in that room,” he said as we turned the corner. “They won’t let me in—”

I opened a door to the left. It led into a small boxroom. Variam walked in and I closed the door behind us as Variam kept talking. “Look, you’ve got to do something. They think she—”

“Shut up,” I said.

Variam stopped, turning to stare in surprise.

“I just got off the phone with Talisid,” I said. “Remember Talisid? The guy who got me to investigate these disappearances?”

“Yeah.” Variam still looked taken aback. “So wh—”

“How did you know that?”

“What?”

“How did you know I was working for Talisid?”

“Uh—you were talking about it, last—”

“Last night in the woods, yeah. But you knew before. You told me at the motorway services while Anne was having that chat with Hobson.”

Variam hesitated. “You must have—”

“After I got home from that duelling class four days ago I got a message pointing me towards Fountain Reach,” I said. “You know what really bothered me about that message? How fast it was. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I started to think that the one who’d sent it must have been at the duelling class too. But even then there was a problem. Talisid hadn’t shown himself to you or Lyle or Charles or Natasha or anyone else. All you guys saw was me and Luna leaving the room and then coming back. But that doesn’t matter to Anne, does it? She can pick out a living person through a wall with no trouble at all. She would have known we were talking to Talisid. And she trusts you. She would have told you.”

Variam didn’t move. “So you sent me that message,” I said. “And I think I know why. Talisid just told me that all four missing apprentices had a connection to Anne. I think you’ve known that for a long time and you’ve been terrified someone else will find out. That was why you sent me to Fountain Reach. You were trying to get me looking there instead of at her.”

“I—” Variam stopped. “No, I didn’t.”

“You probably sent the same message to Onyx too,” I said. “And nearly got me killed as a result, not that you seem to care. For all I know you spammed a dozen mages and we’re just the ones who happened to pay attention. What I want to know is why. You didn’t pick Fountain Reach out of a hat. What did you know about this place that made you send us here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

Variam hesitated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”