I hesitated, belatedly remembering that I was going to go interview Deleo that same night. I hoped Luna and the others were keeping a straight face. If I offered to bring Caldera along, would she accept that instead? No, bad idea, very bad idea. As soon as Deleo spotted Caldera she’d vanish, and that was if we were lucky. Given the choice between breaking into Richard’s mansion and pissing off Deleo, I’d rather break into the mansion.

“So are you in or out?” Caldera said, mistaking my hesitation. “Look, all the information I’ve got says the place is deserted. And you’re a diviner, aren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to be good at sniffing out traps?”

I really didn’t like the idea. Diviners are good at sniffing out traps, and I’m good even by diviner standards, but it’s the kind of thing you don’t want to do unless you have to—there are a lot of things that can go wrong. On the other hand it’s something I know how to do, and looking into the future I could see that Caldera wasn’t going to be bargained down. “All right,” I said at last, not trying to hide my reluctance. “My help on a trip into Richard’s mansion, in exchange for the information on the adepts.”

“I can get that to you in a couple of days.”

“Or you could give it to me right now.”

Caldera raised her eyebrows. “How do you figure?”

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I think you know how to do your job. And since these adepts are obviously connected to the rumours about Richard, I think you already looked them up.” I’d also looked into the future and seen fragments of her telling me about them, but I left out that part. “So how about it?”

“So what’s stopping you from doing a vanishing act as soon as I tell you what you want to hear?”

“At some point we’re going to have to trust each other,” I said. “And if you don’t trust me, then you really shouldn’t be relying on me to break you into a Dark mage’s mansion.”

Caldera studied me for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine. Then we’re hitting the mansion tomorrow morning.”

“Are you in some sort of hurry?”

“Aren’t you?” Caldera stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

I took it. “Deal.”

We shook hands, and I felt the tension in the shop go away. “How do you know about these guys?” Luna asked.

“Ways and means,” Caldera said. She leant back against the wall and glanced at me. “Ready?”

I got a notebook and a pencil. “The guys you’re talking about are an adept vigilante group,” Caldera said. “They got going about a month ago and they’re calling themselves the Nightstalkers.”

I looked up from the page, eyebrows raised. “The Nightstalkers?”

“You listening or not?”