I’d been out of contact and I knew I ought to be checking in, but I felt a strange reluctance to talk to anyone; it felt as though it could be dangerous. Miserable as it was, the abandoned pub was safe, and in the end I stayed there for hours, while the sun set and the sky turned from blue to purple to grey. Only after night had fallen did I leave, and even then it was only hunger that forced me from the building. There was a cluster of shops at the end of the road but I didn’t want to draw the attention of shopkeepers; the summer night was too busy and it made me nervous. Clusters of men and women passed by in the darkness, and it felt as though all of them were looking at me. It was too much and I turned down a small residential street, used my divination magic to find an empty house, and broke in through the back door.

Once I’d stolen a makeshift meal from the kitchen, I finally took out my phone. As soon as I placed it on the kitchen table and thumbed the button the screen lit up with a dozen messages. My mist cloak really messes up incoming signals—usually I don’t wear it long enough for it to matter, but by now I’d been wearing it for more than a day straight. Most of the messages were from Luna and Anne and at a glance they sounded worried, but I didn’t want to answer them. The last message was from Caldera and it asked me to call her back as soon as possible. I touched the screen to return the call and sat in one of the kitchen chairs, waiting. Caldera answered on the fourth ring.

One of the dubious privileges of being a diviner is never having to wait for bad news. Usually conversation is unpredictable—there’s too much randomness and free will to see more than a few seconds ahead. But when someone’s already decided what they’re going to tell you, then every possible conversation goes the same way. The only question is how long it’ll take to get to the point. “Verus,” Caldera said.

There was a new note in Caldera’s voice, one I hadn’t heard before. She sounded . . . subdued. “Feeling better?” I said.

“What? Oh.” Caldera brushed it off. “I’m fine. You?”

“I’m alive,” I said. I didn’t really want to talk. “So?”

Caldera didn’t answer. “You said you were taking this to the Council,” I said. “You said to stay out of it and keep my head down.”

“Yeah,” Caldera said after a pause. She didn’t sound happy, and in a sudden flash of insight I wondered how often she had to do this in her job. Give bad news and then walk away . . .

“So?”