The Bone Season

11 Of Weeping

I didn’t sleep well. My head hurt too much, a pain that throbbed at my left temple. I lay between the sheets and watched the candle burn to nothing.

Warden had not sent me to my room at once. He’d offered me a little food and water, which I’d accepted out of sheer dehydration. Then he’d sat by the fire, gazing into the flames. It had taken me a good ten minutes to ask if I could retire for the day, a question he’d answered with a curt affirmative.

The upper floor was cold. The windows were like paper, and there was a leak. I wrapped myself in the thin sheets, shivering. After a while, I dozed off. Warden’s words trembled in my ears—that my eyes held death and ice. XX-12’s images flashed up every few minutes, still imprinted on my dreamscape. I’d seen a few oracular images before. Nick had once shown me a snapshot of me falling off a low roof and breaking my ankle, which had happened the next week. I never questioned his weather predictions again.

XX-12 had summoned me to meet him at midnight. I saw no reason not to go.

When I woke up, the clock was striking eleven. I washed and dressed before I went down to Warden’s chamber. It was silent. The curtains had been left open, admitting the light of the moon. For the first time in several days, I found one of his notes on the desk.

Find out what you can about the Emim.

A cold shiver ran under my skin. If I had to research the Buzzers, that must mean I was destined to face them. It also meant I was free to see 12. In a way, I’d be following orders. 12 had just faced his second test. I wondered what he’d seen during the night so far. Finally I’d have some solid facts about the Emim, provided 12 hadn’t been eaten, of course.

Just before midnight I made my way down the steps, closing the door behind me. Time to do my homework.

I passed the night porter. She didn’t greet me. When I requested more numa she handed them over, but she kept her nose turned up. Still sore over the siren incident.

It was cool outside, the air misted with rain. I walked to the Rookery and picked up breakfast—skilly in a paper cup. In exchange, I parted with a few needles and rings. Once I’d forced myself to take a sip or two, I headed for the building the harlies called the Hawksmoor: the building that guarded the library and its courtyard.

12 was waiting behind one of the pillars, wearing a clean red tunic. There was a cut across his cheek. When he spotted my cup, he lifted an eyebrow.

“You eat that?”

I sipped from it. “Why, what do you eat?”

“What my keeper gives me.”

“We’re not all bone-grubbers. Congratulations, by the way.”

He held out a hand, and I shook it. “David.”

“Paige.”

“Paige.” His dark eye itself fixed on my face. The other seemed less focused. “If you haven’t got anything better to do with your time, I thought I’d take you for a little walk.”

“Like a dog?”

He laughed without moving his lips.

“This way,” he said. “If anyone asks, I’m bringing you in for questioning about an incident.”

We walked together down a narrow street, toward the Residence of the Suzerain. David was about two inches taller than me, long in the arms and thick in the torso. He wasn’t starving, like the harlies.

“Bit risky, isn’t it?” I said.

“What?”

“Talking to me. You’re a red-jacket now.”

He smiled. “I didn’t think you’d be easy meat. You’re already falling into their trap, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Segregation, 40. You see I’m a red-jacket and think I shouldn’t talk to you. Did your keeper tell you that?”

“No. That’s just how it is.”

“There you have it. That’s the whole point of this place: to brainwash us. To make us feel inferior. Why do you think they leave people in the Tower for years on end?” When I didn’t reply, he shook his head. “Come on, 40. Waterboarding, isolation, days without food. After that, even somewhere like this seems like a slice of heaven.” He had a point. “You should hear the Overseer. He thinks the Rephs should lead us, that they should be our new monarchy.”

“Why would he think that?”

“Because he’s indoctrinated.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Only since Bone Season XIX, from what I can gather, but he’s loyal as a dog. He’s been trying to root out good voyants from the syndicate.”

“So he’s a procurer.”

“He’s not very good. Nashira wants a new one. Someone who can sense the æther on a higher level.”

I was about to ask more when I stopped. Through the thin gray haze, I could see a circular building with a vast dome. It squatted in a deserted square, massive and cumbersome, opposite the Residence of Suzerain. Dim amber light filtered through its windows.

“What is that?” I looked up at it.

“The harlies call it the Room. Been trying to find out what it’s for, but nobody seems to like talking about it. No humans allowed.”

He walked ahead without even glancing at it. I jogged to catch up with him. “You said he’s been trying to get voyants from the syndicate,” I prompted. “Why?”

“Don’t ask too many questions, 40.”

“I thought that was the point of this rendezvous.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I just liked the look of you. Here’s our stop.”

Our destination was an ancient church. It must once have been magnificent, but now it was falling apart. The windows had no glass, and the steeple was skeletal and wooden slats blocked the south porch. I raised an eyebrow.

“Is this a good idea?”

“I’ve done it before. Besides”—he ducked under a slat—“from what the Overseer tells me, you’re accustomed to unsafe structures.” He looked over my shoulder. “Quick. Gray Keeper.”

I slid between the boards. Just in time: Graffias passed by the entrance, leading three undernourished amaurotics. I followed David through the church. A large protion of the ceiling had fallen into the chapel. Wooden beams and concrete had flattened the pews, and glass lay in fragments across the floor. I picked my way through the rubble. “What happened here?”

David didn’t answer the question. “One hundred and twenty-four stairs to the top,” he said. “Up for it?”

He was gone before I could answer. I followed him to the staircase.

I was used to climbing. I’d climbed hundreds of the buildings in I Cohort. Most of the steps were still intact; it seemed like no time before we reached the top. A high wind caught my hair, whipping it back from my face. The scent of fire was strong and thick. David rested his arms on a stone balustrade.

“I like this place.” He pulled a roll of white paper from his sleeve and used a match to light it. “Higher ground.”

We stood on a balcony, right below the crumbling steeple. Part of the balustrade was missing, and another sign warned of the unstable structure. I looked up at the stars. “You passed your second test,” I said. “If you want to talk, tell me about the Emim.”

Eyes closed, he exhaled the smoke. His fingers were stained. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“What they are.”

“No idea.”

“You must have seen one.”

“Not much. The woods are dark. I know it looked like a human—had a head and arms and legs, in any case—but it moved like an animal. It also stank like a cesspit. And sounded like one.”

“How can you sound like a cesspit?”

“Like flies, 40. Bzzzz.”

Buzzer.

“What about its aura?” I pressed. “Did it have one?”

“Not that I could see. It made the æther seem like it was collapsing,” he said. “Like there was a black hole around its dreamscape.”

This didn’t sound like the sort of thing I wanted to face. I looked down at the city. “Did you kill it?”

“I tried.” When he saw my face, he tapped his roll of blue. “They put a bunch of us in there, all pink-jackets. Two groups. Two reds came with us, 30 and 25. They gave us all a knife each and told us to track the Buzzer with whatever we could find. 30 said straight out that the knives were just there to make us feel better. The best way to track the thing was to use the æther.

“One of the pinks was a rhabdomancer, so we made some lots from twigs. 30 gave us a bottle of blood from some guy that got his hand bitten off—that way we could use him as a querent. We smeared the blood on the twigs and the rhabdomancer cast them. They pointed west. We kept casting lots and changing direction. Of course, the Buzzer was moving as well, so we didn’t get anywhere. 21 suggested that we bring it to us. We made a fire and did a séance, calling the spirits from the woods.”

“Are there many?”

“Yep. All the idiots that tried to escape through the minefield, according to the reds.”

I suppressed a shiver.

“We sat there for a few minutes. The spirits vanished. We heard noises. Flies started coming out of the woods, crawling over my arms. Then this thing came out of nowhere—this giant, bloated thing. Two seconds later it’s got 19’s hair in its mouth. Nearly takes her skin with it, too,” he added. “She’s screaming, the thing gets confused. It rips out some of her hair and goes after 1.”

“Carl?”

“Don’t know their names. Anyway, he squeals like a piglet and tries to stab it. Nothing happens.” He examined the burning end of his roll. “The fire was going out, but I could still see it. I tried using an image on it. I thought of white light and tried to stick it in the Buzzer’s dreamscape to blind it. Next thing I know, my head feels like it’s being run over and it’s like there’s been an oil spill in the æther. Everything’s dark and dead. All the spirits in the area are trying to get away from the mess. 20 and 14 both run for it. 30 shouts after them that they’re yellow-jackets, but they’re too scared to come back. 10 throws a knife and hits 5. He falls. The Buzzer’s on him in two seconds flat. The fire goes out. It’s pitch-black. 5 starts screaming for help.

“Everyone’s blind now. I use the æther to work out where the thing is. 5’s getting eaten. He’s already dead. I grab the thing’s neck and pull it off him. All this wet dead skin’s coming away in my hands. It turns on me. I can see these white eyes in the dark, just staring at me. Next thing I know I’m flying through the air, bleeding like a stuck pig.”

He pulled down the neck of his tunic and peeled back a bandage. Below it were four deep gouges. The skin surrounding them was a milky, bloodshot gray. “They look like poltergeist wounds,” I said.

“Wouldn’t know.” He secured the bandage over the wounds. “I can’t move. The thing’s coming toward me, dripping blood on me. 10’s been trying to help 5, but now he gets up. He’s got a guardian angel, the only spirit that hasn’t flown the coop. He throws it at the Buzzer. I send another image into its dreamscape at the same time. It screams. Really screams. Starts crawling away, making this awful noise, dragging a chunk of 5 with it. By this point 21 has set fire to a branch. He throws it after the Buzzer. I smell burning flesh. After that I passed out. Woke up in Oriel, covered in bandages.”

“And they gave you all red tunics.”

“Not 20 and 14. They got yellow. And had to pick up what was left of 5.”

We stood in silence for a few minutes. All I could think of was 5, eaten alive in the woods. I didn’t know his real name, but I hoped someone had said the threnody. What a horrific way to go.

I cast my gaze further afield. In the distance I could make out a spot of light, little more than a candle flame from here.

“What is that?”

“Bonfire.”

“What for?”

“Buzzer corpses. Or human corpses, depending who won.” He tossed away his roll. “I’m thinking they use the bones for some kind of augury.”

Ash drifted past my eyes as he said it. I caught a flake on my finger. Augurs touched the æther through signs of the natural world: the body, wildlife, the elements. One of the lower orders, in Jaxon’s eyes. “Maybe the fire attracts them,” I said. “They did say this city was a beacon.”

“It’s an ethereal beacon, 40. Lots of voyants and spirits and Rephs together. Think about how the æther works.”

“How the hell do you know so much about it?” I turned to face him. “You’re not from the syndicate. So who are you?”

“A cipher. Just like you.”

I fell silent, grinding my lower jaw.

“You’ve got more questions,” he said, after a brief silence. “Sure you want to ask them?”

“Don’t you start.”

“Start what?”

“Telling me what I want to know. I want answers.” The words came fast and hot. “I want to know everything about the place I’m supposed to be living in for the rest of my life. Can’t you understand that?”

Looking over the balustrade, we gazed down at the Room. For fear that it might crumble under my touch, I tried not to put too much weight on the stone.

So I said, “Can I ask these questions?”

“This isn’t a parlor game, 40. I’m not here to play Twenty Questions. I brought you here to see if you really were a dreamwalker.”

“In the flesh,” I said.

“Not always, from the sound of it. Sometimes you jump out of that flesh.” He looked me up and down. “They got you from the central cohort. From the inner sanctum of the syndicate. You must have been careless.”

“Not careless. Unlucky.” I stared him out. “What’s their concern with the syndicate?”

“It’s keeping all the good voyants for itself. It’s hiding all the binders and dreamwalkers and oracles—all the higher orders, the ones Nashira wants in her colony. That’s their concern with the syndicate, 40. That’s why they’re going to sign this new Act.”

“What does it say?”

“Nashira’s been struggling to get hold of decent voyants. They’re all protected by gangs. Until they figure out how to disband the mime-lords in London, they have no choice but to expand to get better ones. The Act promises that a Sheol II will be established within two years, with Scion Paris as its harvest citadel.” He traced the wounds on his chest. “And who’s going to stop them, with the Emim there to kill us if we try?”

A strange, cold feeling came over me.

Nashira considered the syndicate a threat. That was news to me. I knew the mime-lords as a band of backbiting, self-seeking egoists—at least, that was what the central ones were like. The Unnatural Assembly hadn’t met for years; the mime-lords had been allowed to do as they liked in their own areas, seeing as Hector was too busy whoring and gambling to manage them. Yet far away in Sheol I, the blood-sovereign of the Rephaim feared the lawless rabble.

“You’re one of her loyal followers now.” I glanced at his red tunic. “Are you going to help them?”

“I’m not loyal, 40. That’s just what I tell them.” He looked at me. “Have you ever seen a Reph bleed?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Their blood is called ectoplasm. Duckett’s ultimate obsession. Rephs are something like the æther in flesh. Their blood is the æther liquefied. You see ectoplasm; you see the æther. You drink it; you become the æther. Like them.”

“Wouldn’t that mean amaurotics could use the æther? All they’d have to do is touch a bit of ectoplasm.”

“Right. For rotties, in theory, ecto would act as a kind of substitute aura. Short-term, of course. The side effects only last about fifteen minutes. Still, if we did some science and smoothed out the rough edges, I’m willing to bet we could sell an ‘instant clairvoyance’ pill within a few years.” He gazed out down at the city. “It’ll happen one day, 40. We’ll be the ones experimenting on these bastards, not the other way around.”

The Rephs had been foolish to make this man a red-jacket. It was clear that he despised them.

“One more question,” David said.

“Fine.” I paused, then thought of Liss. “What do you know about Bone Season XVIII?”

“I wondered if you’d ask about that.” He moved another slat aside, exposing a broken window. “Come on. I’ll show you.” I followed him through it.

There were spirits in this room. I wished I could see how many there were; I guessed about eight or nine. The air was mildewed, tinged with the sickly smell of dying flowers. A shrine had been assembled in the corner. A roughly cut oval of metal, surrounded by humble offerings: candle stubs, broken sticks of incense, a wilted sprig of thyme, labels with names. In the center of it all was a small bouquet of buttercups and lilies. It was the lilies that were giving off the smell. They were fresh. David pulled a torch out of his pocket.

“Take a look at the ruins of hope.”

I looked closer. Words were scored onto the metal.

FOR THE FALLEN

28 NOVEMBER 2039

“2039,” I said. “Bone Season XVIII.”

One year before I was born.

“There was a rebellion that day, on Novembertide.” David kept the torch on the shrine. “A group of Rephs rose up against the Sargas. They got most of the humans on their side. They tried to kill Nashira and evacuate the humans to London.”

“Which Rephs?”

“No one knows.”

“What happened?”

“A human betrayed them. XVIII-39-7. One weak link in the foundation and the whole thing came crashing down. Nashira tortured the Reph perpetrators. Scarred them. The humans were all slaughtered by the Emim. Rumor has it there were only two survivors, apart from Duckett: the traitor and the kid.”

“Kid?”

“Duckett told me everything. He was spared because he was too much of a yellow-jacket to rebel. He begged on his knees for them to spare him. He told me there was a kid brought here that year—four, maybe five years old. XVIII-39-0.”

“Why the hell would they bring a child here?” Ice settled in my stomach. “Children can’t fight Buzzers.”

“No idea. He thinks they were trying to see if she’d survive.”

“Of course she wouldn’t survive. A four-year-old couldn’t live in that slum.”

“Exactly.”

My insides started to twist. “She died.”

“Duckett swears her body wasn’t found. He had to clear up the corpses,” David said. “Part of the exchange for his survival. He says he never found the little girl, but this says otherwise.”

He shone his torch at one of the offerings. A filthy teddy bear with button eyes. Around its neck was a note. I held it up to David’s light.

XVIII-39-0

No life lived is lost

Silence fell, broken by a distant chime. I laid the bear back among the flowers.

“Who did all this?” My voice hurt. “Who made this shrine?”

“The harlies. And the scarred ones. The mysterious Rephs that rose up against Nashira.”

“Are they still alive?”

“No one knows. But I’m willing to bet they’re not. Why would Nashira let them walk around the city, knowing they’re traitors?”

My fingers shook. I hid them under my sleeves.

“I’ve seen enough,” I said.

David walked me back to Magdalen. It was still a few hours until dawn, but I didn’t want to see anyone else. Not tonight.

When the tower was in sight, I turned to face David. “I don’t know why you spoke to me,” I said, “but thank you.”

“For what?”

“Showing me the shrine.”

“You’re welcome.” His face was cast in shadow. “I’ll give you one more question. Provided I can answer it in less than a minute.”

I thought about it. I still had so many questions, but one had bothered me for a few days.

“Why are they called Bone Seasons?”

He smiled.

“Don’t know if you know, but bone used to mean ‘good,’ or ‘prosperous.’ From the French, bonne. You might still hear it on the streets. That’s why they named it: the Good Season, the Season of Prospect. They see it as collecting their reward, the great condition of their bargain with Scion. Of course, the humans see it differently. To them, bone just means that: bones. Starvation. Death. That’s why they call us bone-grubbers. Because we help lead people to their deaths.”

By now my whole body was cold. Part of me had wanted to stay out here. Now I wanted to leave.

“How do you know all this?” I said. “The Rephs can’t have told you.”

“No more questions, I’m afraid. I’ve already said too much.”

“You could be lying.”

“I’m not.”

“I could tell the Rephs about you.” I stood my ground. “I could tell them what you know.”

“Then you’d have to tell them that you know, too.” He smiled at me, and I knew I’d lost. “You can owe me a favor for the information. Unless you want to pay me back now.”

“How?”

My answer came when he touched my face. His hand pressed against my hip. I tensed.

“Not that,” I said.

“Come on.” His hand stroked up and down my waist, and his face came closer to mine. “You hock up your pill?”

“What, you want some sort of payment?” I pushed him away, hard. “Go to hell, red-jacket.”

David never took his eyes off me.

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Found this in Merton. See if you can make anything of it. You’re smarter than I thought.” He pressed something into my hand. An envelope. “Sweet dreaming, 40.”

He walked away. I stood there for a moment, stiff and cold, before I leaned against the wall. I shouldn’t have gone to that place with him. I knew better than to walk with strangers on dark streets. Where were my instincts?

I’d learned too much in one night. Liss had never mentioned that Rephs—Rephs—had been partially responsible for the uprising of Bone Season XVIII. Perhaps she didn’t know.

The scarred ones. I should look for them, for the ones that had helped us. Or perhaps I should keep my head down and get on with my new life. That was safe. That was easy.

I wanted Nick. I wanted Jax. I wanted my old life back. Yes, I’d been a criminal, but I had also been among friends. I’d chosen to be with them. My position as a mollisher had protected me from people like David. Nobody had dared touch me in my own territory.

But this wasn’t my territory. Here I had no power. For the first time I wanted the protection that lay inside the stone walls of Magdalen. I wanted the protection Warden’s presence guaranteed, even if I hated it. I pocketed the paper and headed for the door.

When I got back to the Founder’s Tower, I expected to find an empty room. What I found was blood.

Reph blood.