“And I’m in the middle of it.”

“Yes.” Talisid paused. “Verus . . . I haven’t said anything about your choice to work more closely with the Keepers. I understand that in some ways it was a logical decision. However, given the direction things are taking, it might be advisable to reconsider.”

“Right. Wouldn’t want your prospective mole with Richard to associate himself too visibly with the other side, would we?”

“I understand that—”

“I’m not going back to Richard.” My voice was flat. “Not as a double agent, not as a triple agent, not for you, and not for anyone else either. It’s not going to happen. Ever. Understand that.”

“Becoming involved in a conflict between Council factions will not help that goal in any way.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.” I looked at the clock: it was past eleven. I needed to get moving. “I have to go.”

Talisid paused again, and futures of him trying to persuade me further flickered briefly before vanishing. “All right. Good luck.”

I cut the connection and prepared quickly for my trip, checking my phone as I did. There was a message from Luna: she’d arranged an appointment with Chalice for this afternoon. It was an e-mail rather than a voice mail, which I suspected she’d done so that it would be harder for me to tell her not to do it. I was still uneasy about sending her off to meet Chalice, but she had Anne, and I had too many other things on my plate already. I sent her a short message and put it out of my mind. Time to visit the War Rooms.

chapter 9

Beneath the Treasury in Westminster is an underground complex called the Churchill War Rooms. It’s a museum, though not a well-known one; the tourists that crowd London in the holiday seasons usually want to see places like the British Museum and the National Gallery, and the Churchill War Rooms get less than a tenth of the visitors of either of those. It was built on the eve of the Second World War, a concrete labyrinth designed to withstand bombing raids, and during those long dark years it was the place from where Churchill and his cabinet directed the wartime efforts of Britain.

But the Churchill War Rooms isn’t the only tunnel network beneath this city. People have been living in London for a very long time, and while there have been people, there have been mages. It was inevitable that the Council would set up their headquarters there. The original centre for the Council was a sprawling complex of spires and towers situated near the old St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City. It was burnt to ash in the 1666 Great Fire of London, along with the old cathedral, the Royal Exchange, and pretty much everything else within the City limits. (Depending on who you believe, the destruction of Council headquarters might have been the reason for the Great Fire, and the “started in a bakery” explanation a cover-up, but that’s another story.)