Chapters (19)
We were in the living room of what looked like a flat, an old sofa and armchairs surrounding a messy coffee table piled with books and letters. Dirty glasses and tea mugs were scattered around the papers, and one shelf was filled with bottles of spirits. It was a comfortable sort of untidy, the kind of room where it’s easy to fall asleep on the sofa. Through the window I could see London houses: we were on the second floor. I checked and rechecked the futures and confirmed that we were safe. No one was following us . . . at least not soon.
“What the hell was that?” Caldera said.
I turned to see that Caldera was glaring at me. “What?”
“How long have you known that Will and his Nightstalkers have been trying to kill you?”
“Since the last couple of times they tried.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“No.”
Caldera grabbed at me, trying to shove me up against the wall. It caught me by surprise and Sonder jumped back wide-eyed, but Caldera wasn’t fast enough to catch me, at least not wounded as she was. I knocked her hand away and she stumbled past. “What were you expecting?” I snapped. “I met you three days ago and you’re a Keeper. You think I’m going to tell you everything?”
Caldera rounded on me. “You put us in danger! You nearly got us killed!”
“And you led us in there! Which part of ‘going into Richard’s mansion is fucking insane’ did you not follow, Caldera? Was I not clear enough?”
“You should have told us!” Caldera still looked furious, but at least she didn’t seem about to lunge for me again. “We could have—”
“You could have what? I told you going into Richard’s mansion was suicidal. I told you Deleo had the place warded and there was nothing to find. I told you we were staying too long and it was time to get out, and you didn’t listen! You didn’t pay attention to anything I said that didn’t relate to your bloody job!” I shook my head in disgust. “Mages like you treat diviners like we’re some kind of information feed. You ask us a question, we pull out the answer, and you forget about us. Well, we don’t always have the answers you want, but what we are good at is telling when something’s dangerous. So next time a diviner tells you that, try listening!”
Caldera and I faced each other, glaring, until a cough broke the silence. We both turned to see that Sonder was raising his hand nervously. “Um,” he said. “Could we maybe talk about this quietly? Without the shouting and grabbing?”