The oracle didn’t look at her, but stared into space beyond her shoulder. Finally it mumbled, and B sighed. “He doesn’t know,” B said. “He says that is hidden from him.”
Marla had expected Mutex to hide himself and his movements, but oracles were normally adept at penetrating such veils, and this was a true oracle, despite being generated by B’s own psychic powers. If B’s oracle couldn’t find Mutex, then that meant…shit. It meant Mutex had cast his spell with the help of the Cornerstone, and it would take seriously big magic to peer into the future through a curtain that thick. Marla considered the unwelcome possibility that she might have to fall back on her other plan, seeking out the surviving sorcerers in the city and trying to find Mutex that way. She’d hoped for a more elegant, direct solution.
And maybe there was one. “All right,” she said. “Then we need to find a better oracle. Where can we find the biggest, strongest, most powerful, all-seeing oracle in the vicinity?”
“Ah, shit,” B said, clutching his head. “I got a headache all of a sudden.”
But the monochrome oracle was mumbling, and gesturing with its paper-white hands, and B nodded, wincing as he did so. This question was taking something out of B to answer, even by projected proxy. Finally the oracle stopped talking, and sagged against the wall, like a half-deflated balloon version of itself. “Okay,” B said. “I know. But we have to pay for this, first, before I can tell you.”
Marla nodded. There was always a price to pay for help of this nature. The better the oracle, the bigger the price. It turned out that the price for this one was minimal. Marla went into Vesuvio and ordered a red eye to go. She carried the cup of espresso and coffee out into the alley, and gave it to B. He solemnly, almost ritually, poured it out at the oracle’s feet. Steam rose up from the ground, and the oracle turned into steam itself, satisfied with a drink of hot life.
“We have to go to Alcatraz,” B said. “That’s where the big oracle is.”
Marla nodded. This would be something different. Not a projection of B’s psychic prowess, not one of his convenient oracles-on-demand, but an ancient, strange, inhuman thing. “Does it have a name?”
“The Portable Witch?” B said. “The Pebbled Witch? The Potable Witch? I’m not sure. Something like that. The oracle mumbled.” B rubbed his temple. “My headache’s going away, at least.”
“That’s good,” Marla said. “So how do we get to Alcatraz? Steal a boat?”
“I hope not,” B said. “But we might have to. The tours are usually sold out weeks in advance.”
They made it to Pier 41 just in time to take the last ferry to Alcatraz, at 2:15. Marla would have just sneaked onto the ferry, but B went to try to buy tickets before she could stop him. The ticket sellers just laughed when B asked if there were any late cancellations. Marla couldn’t cast a look-away spell, not while the ticket sellers were so conscious of their presence. So she cast a nasty but ultimately not debilitating nausea spell on a couple of tourists, who sold Marla their tickets at a generous markup; she felt they deserved a little extra money, since they’d be puking for most of the afternoon. Marla had to lean over the side of the ferry to vomit herself before long. The nausea spell was based on sympathetic magic, and she had to make herself at least a little sick in order for it to have any effect. Such were the sacrifices that sorcery demanded. At least Marla was willing to make the sacrifices herself. Mutex, by contrast, wanted everyone else to be sacrificed.
“So do we know what to expect when we get to the island?” Marla asked, sitting next to B on a bench. There was no one nearby, so Marla didn’t bother to cast a quiet spell. And if anyone heard them talking, they’d just assume Marla and B were insane. No harm there.
“Not really,” B said. “We’re supposed to go to a particular cell—not one of the famous ones—and step inside, face the back wall, close our eyes, turn around three times, and walk forward, with our eyes still closed. Which, logically, would make us bump into the far wall, but I assume that won’t happen. After that, we’ll find the Parable Witch, or whatever her name is.”
“If it’s even a her. Or, rather, if it even appears to be a her. Because, honestly, it’s going to be an ‘it.’”
“This feels different,” B said. “I talk to supernatural creatures all the time, but this…”