“I’m guessing that at least half the team are in the pay of or onside with someone who’s not the Keepers.” I didn’t lower my voice, but I’d already checked around us to make sure that no one else was within earshot. “Do you know who’s with who?”

Caldera looked away.

“I’m just saying it’d help.”

“They work for the Keepers.” There was a definite warning note in Caldera’s voice.

“Officially.”

“Verus.” Caldera gave me a look. “This doesn’t help. Okay?”

“I’m not sure if you quite understand the difference in our respective positions.” I kept my voice calm and didn’t look away. “You’re a Keeper and a Light mage. I’m not. So given that I’m about to go off on a mission with a group of people whose collective objectives might include disposing of me, then yes, I’d say that knowing exactly who they’re working for would very much help.”

We stared at each other for a couple of seconds. Two more people passed by, skirting around us to head through the door and down the stairs. Caldera was the first one to look away, but she still didn’t answer.

“Okay,” I said. “How about a compromise? I’ll head off to work and do my job. You stay on standby. If things don’t go to plan and some of these guys turn out not to be so friendly, you can back me up.”

“I’m not cleared for active duty.”

“Thought you just said you were fine.”

Caldera gave me a narrow look. “You’re trying to get me to pull this too?”

Voices sounded from the corridor behind us. I looked back to see the Keepers coming out of the room: Haken and Lizbeth, Slate and Trask, Cerulean and Coatl, Abeyance on her own at the back. “Think it over,” I said. “Talk to you later.”

The other Keepers caught us up. I let them pass before falling in behind, leaving Caldera up on the landing as I followed the group down the stairs.

| | | | | | | | |

We geared up, moved out, and began gathering information. Hours passed, and afternoon became evening.

Sunset found me in Bank, right in the heart of the City. If you’re not connected to the London finance industry, then Bank is one of those districts that you pass through without stopping in, a strange place of towering walls and narrow streets, where buildings a hundred years old house newly furnished offices. There’s not much to see from the outside, just dingy stone frontings with faded nameplates. Tucked away around the corners are the sort of pubs where you pay for a drink and a burger with a twenty-pound note, filled with men in suits talking office politics and going outside to smoke. Around one of those corners was a plain black van.

I sat inside the van, eyes closed, and I path-walked. Every future began the same way, with me getting up, opening the rear doors, and heading left. From there they diverged. My future selves were meant to turn left, go right down the alley, and make their way into an unmarked door on an unmarked building about halfway down. It had been easier earlier in the afternoon, when everyone was still at work. Now the skies were going a dusky grey and the streets were filling up with bankers and stockbrokers and all the people who worked for them. The people on the streets kept disrupting my path-walking, breaking the delicate chain and forcing me to retrace my steps and start again.