Given that Torvald had displayed all the discretion and subtlety of a stampeding elephant, tracing him hadn’t been hard. It had taken me an hour to learn his name, a day to track him down. I’d called it in to Caldera, she’d reported it to her captain, we’d been told to wait for authorisation before taking further action . . . and we’d sat around for forty-eight hours without hearing anything.

During which time Torvald had figured out that he was being traced, and promptly vanished.

“We know what the guy did,” I said. “We know where he lives. Or where he lived, anyway, God knows where he is now. What was the point of following this up if we weren’t going to do anything about it?”

“He didn’t break the Concord.”

“Oh, bullshit. Maybe he didn’t hurt any mages, but this was a blatant breach of the secrecy-of-magic clause. Besides, even if he didn’t break the Concord he must have broken half a dozen national laws.”

“Probably.”

“Did you tell them that?”

“No, I turned in a blank report. What do you think?”

“Then why haven’t they authorised us to do anything about it?”

Caldera sighed and finally looked up at me. “How am I supposed to know?”

“Well, give me your best guess.”

“The fight got reported as a bar brawl that started an electrical fire,” Caldera said. “The police threw out the supernatural stuff, and the only witnesses who believed what they were seeing were adepts and sensitives. Fourth clause of the Concord is only gross violations of secrecy; this doesn’t qualify. Without that there isn’t enough to justify a raid, especially when we don’t know anything about his master or potential allies.”

“This is such bullshit. So what—the guy lies low for a while, then goes right back to doing the same thing?”

Caldera didn’t answer. “Okay, this?” I said. “This is why people don’t trust the Keepers. Those adepts at the bar, how do you think they’re going to see this? They just saw one of their friends get fried right in front of them. When Torvald shows up again two or three months later and no one’s doing anything about it, what do you think their takeaway message is going to be?”

“And what do you think we should be doing?” Caldera said. “Kick Torvald’s door down, and go in shooting? Start a fight with whoever’s there, maybe end up with a few dead bodies? Is that your plan?”

“I didn’t say—”

“Really? ’Cause that’s what it sounded like. What did you think was going to happen if we got the go order? You thought Torvald would come along quietly?”

“. . . No.”

“So what? You want to see dead bodies that much?”

“I’m not looking for a fight. It’s just . . . I don’t like being able to do something about it and doing nothing.”

“No.” Caldera pointed at me. “You don’t get it. You’re not the one who makes that decision.”