“The Keepers think those people and White Rose are the same people,” Luna said. “Right?”

“Right, which I’m not buying.” I touched the tip of the pencil to the last corner, labelled with a name and a question mark. “And finally, we’ve got our dark horse. The ones who hired Chamois. That’s where this whole thing started. Chamois crashed the meeting between Rayfield and Leo at Pudding Mill Lane, he either killed Rayfield or made him disappear thoroughly enough that no one’s found him, and the focus got lost in the fight.” I tapped my pencil on the question mark. “This is the key to the whole thing, I’m sure of it. If we can figure out who Chamois is working for, and why he attacked Rayfield, we’ll understand what’s really going on.”

“Okay . . .” Luna said. “So how do we do that?”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “I have no idea. So we’ll have to work on the two groups where we do have something to go on.” I moved my pencil to the other two points. “I’ll go talk to Caldera tomorrow, find out what she knows about White Rose. What I can’t ask about is this Council group. I’ve got my suspicions, but if I go poking around it could lead to really bad things. You guys are apprentices though. Especially you, Vari—I think Landis might know a bit he’s not telling.”

Vari nodded. “I want to try talking to Chalice,” Luna said.

“In the middle of this?”

“Well, since someone won’t let me come along on their important official Keeper stuff, there’s not much else I can do, is there? Besides, none of the guys you’re talking about would know anything about what’s happening on the Dark side of the fence. And we already know she wants to talk to me.”

I sighed. “All right, but I want you to take Anne along for backup. We don’t have any good reason yet to believe that Chalice is a danger, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t.”

“Oh well.” Variam yawned and stretched. “I’m off home. Sounds like tomorrow’ll be interesting.”

| | | | | | | | |

The next morning was overcast, white cloud filling the sky all the way to the horizon. It had rained during the night, and the weather forecast promised more to come. Luna had stayed over, and we had breakfast together and discussed plans before I went off to see Caldera.

Caldera lives in Hackney, in a seedy-looking area with a lot of council estates. It’s not quite a dump, but it’s not high-class, either, and I doubt you’d find many other mages living there. Caldera has a flat on the second floor of a converted house; I got inside, climbed the stairs, and knocked.

There was a pause. The door and walls around the flat were warded, and I could feel the latent energy waiting to be used. Then they shifted slightly, and all of a sudden the configuration was less threatening. Caldera opened the door and looked me up and down. “Oh, it’s you.”