The city had changed a lot since Valkyrie had been away, rebuilt after the battle with Darquesse. The eastern quarter had been obliterated in the fighting, but fortunately it had been mostly uninhabited at the time. It was still largely uninhabited, though, even with brand-new buildings and roads. Those who had to live there, because of the massive influx of residents over the last five years, reported crippling psychic stresses and traumatic dreams. Those sorcerers whose abilities lay on the Sensitive spectrum couldn’t go any further east than Testament Road, for fear of permanent neurological damage.

Just one more thing for Valkyrie to feel guilty about.

Roarhaven’s population had surged in the last few years. There were magical communities all around the world – some consisting of nothing more than a single street, and some as big as a mid-sized town. There were even three Mystical Cities that only appeared on earth every few decades, places of wonder and absolute freedom. But Roarhaven … Roarhaven was not only the biggest sorcerer city there ever was, it was the first to become part of the landscape. Mages came with their families, and they suddenly didn’t have to hide who they were or what they could do. Those who didn’t find jobs immediately worked at creating them. It may have been a city of mages, but it was still a city, and like any city it ran on its businesses. It had its shops and its stores and its restaurants and cafés, and it had cinemas and theatres and libraries and swimming pools. It had its own financial sector, albeit a small one, and it was all linked to – and dependent on – the mortal world beyond the wall. The highest salaries went to the people who integrated Roarhaven’s activities with the rest of the world without mortal accountants or lawyers or politicians noticing anything amiss. Roarhaven: the Invisible City.

Once they were through Oldtown, the traffic eased up. Travel here was mainly by silent trams that hovered centimetres off the ground, as any cars other than those with Sanctuary tags were forbidden to enter the Circle zone.

In the middle of the Circle stood the High Sanctuary, a palace by any other name, raised thirteen marble steps above street level. Its walls were thick, formidable, and its towers and steeples stretched for the sky as if rejoicing in their own splendour. Twelve years ago, the Sanctuary had been located beneath a waxworks museum in Dublin. When that had been destroyed, it had moved to a flat, unimpressive circular slab of a building that had once stood here.

Now, that slab was hidden deep within this majestic structure, an imperfection to be painted over and forgotten about.