The adept (his name was Lucian) hesitated for a second before deciding to tell the truth. “Five.”

“So at least you’re not on your own. Okay, I’m guessing there’s something specific you’re worried about, so why don’t you give me a rundown on which of your friends you think are in danger and why. I can’t promise anything, but I can probably give you some advice that’ll make it more likely that if something goes wrong, it won’t happen to you guys.”

We talked it over. It took a while because the conversation kept on being interrupted by other customers: a girl who wanted to sell a dagger focus, three people buying various mundane items, two different guys wanting to buy magic tricks, and a latent mage just starting to come into her power who’d gotten in touch with me via e-mail. I bought the dagger off the first, sold the next three the things they wanted, gave the two would-be magicians business cards from the box on the counter, and booked a time with the last girl for a longer chat.

“Anyway, that’s the best advice I’ve got,” I said at last. “Look, you can give me a call if anything happens. Doubt I’ll be able to do anything directly, but I can give you some suggestions.”

“All right.” Lucian started to leave, then hesitated. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“No, I mean . . . Kath said I shouldn’t come. She thought you were supposed to hate adepts.”

“I’ve heard that too.”

“But you don’t, right?” Lucian said. “I mean, that thing with the Nightstalkers. You didn’t go after them because you wanted to, did you?”

“I wish everyone else would believe that. Look, you want to do me a favour back? Tell the other adepts you know that I’m trying to be one of the good guys.”

“Oh.” Lucian paused. “Okay.” He left, and I went back to dealing with the rest of the customers.

When you’re forced to see things from someone else’s point of view, it helps you put things in perspective. I often feel vulnerable in mage society—in both power and influence, compared to someone like Caldera, I’m a lightweight. But just as other mages are above me, there are others that I’m above in turn. I might be weak by mage standards, but I’m still a mage, and that gives me a certain automatic level of status and bargaining power. For adepts like Lucian, and for novices like that girl, magical society is a very scary place. Things can go wrong very fast and very badly, and when they do there isn’t much of a safety net. It was a reminder that my life could be a lot worse.

It was also a reminder that this wasn’t just about me. Whatever Richard and Morden were planning, it was going to have trickle-down effects to everyone. More lives than our own were going to be affected by this.

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