Cursed

As you’d guess from the name, Canary Wharf wasn’t always a financial district. Only a few decades ago it was a dock, part of the vast wharf network running along both sides of the Thames in what used to be the greatest port in the world. Nowadays it’s steel and glass, skyscrapers rising up past the Docklands Light Railway and mixing with cafés and shopping malls, but the layout is still that of the old Docklands. Channels are carved out of the mud, inlets flowing in from the Thames. It’s gracefully landscaped and framed with stone but there’s no hiding the huge bodies of water, enough to make the skyscrapers feel almost like islands. I walked along one of the old piers, watching the crowds thronging the plazas. The concrete was warm from the late-afternoon sun but the breeze off the water was cold.

Meredith was still with me. She seemed to have come out of herself since meeting Belthas and I could tell she was about to speak. There was a stone bench near the waterside, and I sat down on it. “Thank you,” Meredith said.

“For what?”

“Agreeing to help.” Meredith sat down next to me, close enough that our knees were touching. It might just have been the cold. “I know you didn’t have to.”

Meredith’s dark eyes looked up at me but I avoided meeting them; I probably would have said yes to Belthas even without her, and I felt uncomfortable being thanked for it. “What about you? Why did you sign up with him?”

Meredith’s gaze drifted down and she looked out over the water. “I’m not sure.” Her voice was doubtful. I looked at her as she gazed away, watching her brush her long hair back as she stared over the Thames. “I mean, he offered the same things … favours, credit, you know. It’s been so much harder since last year, since …” She seemed to realise what she was saying and looked back at me. “Do you think I should have said no?”

“I’m not sure.” Meredith was right next to me, looking into my eyes, and it was really difficult to think straight. I forced myself to look away. “It’s your choice to make.”

Meredith sat quietly. “What should we do now?” she said at last.

“I can think of a couple of things,” I said. I braced myself and turned to Meredith. “The question is what you’re doing.”

Meredith looked up at me in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Look, Meredith, it’s pretty obvious you’re not too keen on the parts of this that involve people trying to kill you. And I can promise you it’s not going to get any safer. Are you sure you want to stick around?”

“Belthas said—”

“I don’t care what Belthas said. The investigation side of this is going to be dangerous. If you want to stay out of it, it might be best if we found you a place to stay out of trouble.”

Meredith hesitated, and I felt the forks of a decision opening up before her. She was really thinking about this. Then the futures settled and she shook her head. “No.”

“Are you—”

“I want to stay with you. And I won’t be useless. I can help.”

Now it was my turn to hesitate. But Meredith’s answer had put me on the spot and it was likely I really would need the help. “All right,” I said at last. “We could ask around to find out more about this cabal. But that was what you were doing when you got targeted, right?”

Meredith nodded. “Did you have any leads?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I thought I was getting somewhere but …”

“But some of the people you were asking tipped off the people you were looking for.”

Meredith looked at me in surprise. “How did you know?”

I shrugged. “Not hard to guess.” Asking around about a mage is dangerous. Mages who aren’t prepared for trouble tend not to live very long so one of the first priorities of most mages is to establish an early-warning network to spot potential threats, in the same way I’d been warned by Starbreeze. And anyone willing to sell you information about the mage you’re looking for is just as likely to sell the information to them the instant you turn your back. “Anyway, it sounds like this cabal’s gone into war mode. I don’t think there’s much point going fishing. Last thing we want is for them to jump us halfway through.”

Meredith nodded with obvious relief. Apparently she hadn’t been looking forward to that idea either. “So let’s try Belthas’s plan,” I said. “Check out the factory.”

“Right now?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I need to make some calls.”

The classic thing to do in this situation would have been to go to the factory, magnifying glass in hand, and look for clues. There were several good reasons why I wasn’t going to do that, the main one being I’d already tried it and it hadn’t worked. I hadn’t been able to find much on a search even before a bunch of mages and Council security spent several hours tromping around the place. Besides, why root around when someone’s done it for you?

I called Talisid but came up dry. The investigation of the barghest and factory hadn’t turned up anything else useful. In exchange, I relayed the information from Arachne. “Harvesting nonhumans?” Talisid said in surprise. “Really?”