“Verus?” Haken said.

“She’s coming,” I said. “Two men with her. They’re not going to shoot first.”

“Good,” Haken said. “Everyone hold fire.”

Seconds ticked by. The room was silent but for the sound of breathing. Council security shifted position, adjusting their guns. Ahead of me, I saw Lizbeth flex her fingers, eager. I took a step back. Cerulean was in the corner, arms folded. There was a lot of power in this room, and it was pointed away from me. So why was I suddenly so nervous?

The gate lit up in my magesight. I heard half a dozen men draw breaths as the surface of the arch darkened and went black, forming a lightless plane. An instant later, Vihaela stepped through.

chapter 12

There’s a saying that military life is long periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of terror. As soon as Vihaela stepped through that gate, things started happening very fast.

Vihaela was dressed in brown and black, similar to her image in the Keeper records—actually, exactly like her image in the Keeper records. She stopped abruptly at the sight of all the people facing her. Two figures in suits stepped out behind her, brushing past on either side. They looked like men, but their blank expressions and the solid lines of their futures marked them as constructs.

The futures went crazy. All of a sudden dozens of new possibilities started unfolding, combat and confrontation and magic and violence all blending together, overwhelming me with information. It was too much and for a second I froze. “Mage Vihaela,” Haken began. “Under the authority—”

Danger, pain, death. There was a threat, and it was directed at me. Instinct broke my paralysis. “Haken!” I snapped. “Trouble!”

“—of the—” Haken stopped.

Green-black light bloomed around Vihaela’s hands, tendrils materialising out of the air. In an instant they’d formed into snakelike shapes with skull faces, rearing back like scorpion tails, ready to strike. The two constructs reached up under their coats, their movements perfectly synchronised, pulling out handguns.

“Gun!” someone shouted.

“Drop the—!”

Magical auras filled the room, overwhelming to my sight, air and fire and death and water. I couldn’t see the spell behind Vihaela’s green light; she took a step back, eyes going wide in fright, then the snakes lashed out with a piercing shriek, casting a hellish glow. Guns fired, deafening in the enclosed space. There was too much going on, and I could sense danger but it wasn’t matching up with the spells Vihaela was using. One of Vihaela’s snakes hit Slate; his shield was already up and the green light splintered into shards. A construct was in the middle of firing when an air blade severed its shoulder; I caught one fleeting glimpse of the arm pinwheeling, no blood from the wound, the fingers still tightening on the trigger to send a bullet into the floor. Then all of a sudden my precognition screamed, images of pain and death and blackness flashing in front of my eyes. Someone was about to kill me and I didn’t know who or how, but I could see the futures in which I lived and that was all I needed to know. I dived left, twisting; something tugged at my shoulder and I heard a splintering thud. I hit the floor hard, pain jolting through my side, and rolled left. I came up to my feet . . .