The Bone Season

28 The Prohibition

The Overseer swept out, dressed to dazzle. He wore a long red cloak, done up to the neck, that covered his entire body. He bowed.

“Salutations, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to Sheol I! I am the Overseer, Beltrame. I look after the human population of the city. A particularly heartfelt welcome to those of you who have come from unconverted parts of the Continent. Fear not; after the show, you shall have the chance to alter your cities into Scion citadels, as many other cities have. Our program enables governments to root out and segregate clairvoyants while they are still young, without the expensive necessity of mass execution.”

I tried not to listen. Not all countries used NiteKind to execute clairvoyants. Many used the lethal injection, or a firing squad, or worse.

“We have already made plans for Sheol II to be established in association with Scion Citadels of Paris and Marseilles, which will become the first French satellite citadels.” Applause. Mynatt smiled. “Tonight, we hope to pin down potential locations of at least two more control cities on the Continent. But before all that, we have a little play to show you, to prove that many of our clairvoyants use their abilities to do good. Our play will remind us of the dark days before the Rephaim arrived, when the Bloody King still held power. The king who built his house on blood.”

The clock chimed. I watched as the performers walked out in a line, twenty of them. They were going to perform the life story of Edward VII, from his purchase of a séance table and the five murders to the knife in his quarters and his flight from England with the rest of his family. The beginning of the so-called epidemic, and a testimony to why Scion needed to exist. Liss was up there, standing in the background. On either side of her were Nell—the girl who’d been her substitute when she was in spirit shock—and a seer who I thought was called Lotte. All three were dressed up as some of the Bloody King’s victims.

In the center of the stage, the Overseer threw off his cloak to reveal a monarch’s regalia. The crowd jeered. He was playing Edward in his days as heir apparent to Queen Victoria, decked in furs and jewels.

The first scene seemed to take place in his bedchamber, where a garish calliope piped out “Daisy Bell.” The harlie actor nearest the audience introduced himself as Frederick Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby—Edward’s private secretary. It was through his eyes that the play would be seen. “Your Highness,” he said to the Overseer, “shall we take a turn outside?”

“Do you have your short jacket, Ponsonby?”

“Only a tailcoat, Your Highness.”

“I thought everyone must know,” the Overseer boomed, with a risibly aristocratic English accent, “that a short jacket is always worn with a silk hat at a private view in the morning. And those trousers are quite the ugliest pair I have ever seen in my life!”

Jeering. Hissing. That licentious beast had dared to call himself Victoria’s heir. Ponsonby turned back to the audience. “It was after a long awakening of afflictions—for example, with my tailcoat, and my poor trousers”—laughs—“that the prince grew tired of his finery. On that very afternoon, he asked me to accompany him on an excursion. Oh, my friends! Human suffering has never surpassed that of the queen, watching her son tread the path toward evil.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Warden’s reaction, but he wasn’t there.

The repartee between Edward and Ponsonby went on for a while. Each scene was engineered to show Edward as a cruel, lustful idiot and a failure to his mother. I found myself watching, fascinated. They exaggerated his role in Prince Albert’s death to a ridiculous degree, even introducing a duel. The widowed Queen Victoria made an appearance, wearing her small diamond crown and veil. “I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder,” she admitted to the audience. “He is as unnatural to me as a changeling.” They cheered. She was a bastion of goodness, the last unsullied monarch before the plague. As the emissaries were charmed by the actress, I kept a sharp eye on the clock. Nearly half an hour had elapsed, and I still didn’t know what time the train left.

Next was the crux of the play. The séance. Red lanterns were brought onto the set. When I looked back at the stage, I had to stifle a laugh. The Overseer was really getting into his role. “Earthly power is not enough,” he said, almost panting with the sheer evil of his character. The séance table was out, and he was waving his arms in circles above it. “The Victorian era, they say? But what will Edward’s era be? What king can truly rise, encumbered by the shackles of mortality?” He leaned over the table, rocking it with his hands. “Yes, rise. Rise from the shadows. Rise through the gateway, spirits of the dead. Come into me, and into my followers! Breed in the very blood of England!”

As he spoke, the red lanterns moved from the stage, carried by actors dressed in black. They represented the unnatural spirits. They scattered across the room, grabbing at people, making them shriek. They were the plague of unnaturalness.

The music and the laughter of the actors was too loud. My head was spinning. The Overseer roared his incantations. In the darkness and confusion, Warden took my arm. “Quickly.” His voice was a thrum against my ear. “Come with me.”

He led me to the trap room: the small, dark space below the stage, piled high with storage crates. The only light was what filtered through the boards. Red, like the lanterns. Dense velvet drapes hung down the length of one side of the room, hiding us from the hall above. It wasn’t easy, in this darkened space, to think of what I might soon face upstairs.

It was quieter here. The actors danced above us, but the sound was muffled by the boards. Warden turned to face me.

“You will be the play’s last scene. The final act.” His eyes were hot. “I heard her with Gomeisa.”

My skin prickled. “We knew it was coming.”

“Yes.”

I’d known from the beginning that Nashira was going to kill me, but hearing it from him made it all the more real. A part of me had hoped she might wait—wait a few days, giving me a chance to get away with the others on the train—but Nashira was cruel. Of course she wanted to do it in public, before Scion. She wouldn’t risk keeping me alive.

The light from his eyes made the shadows deeper. There was something different about them: something raw, something volatile.

Cold tremors seized my legs and abdomen. I sank onto a crate. “I can’t fight her,” I said, “her angels—”

“No, Paige. Think. For months she has waited, biding her time until you could possess another body. If you did not exhibit that skill, there was a danger that she might not gain it from you. She made you a yellow-jacket to ensure your life was never again endangered by the Emim. She placed you under the protection of her own consort. Why would she do so much to preserve you if you did not have a gift she not only wanted, but feared?”

“You taught me how to do it all. All that training on the meadow. The butterfly and the deer. Exercising my spirit. You led me to my death.”

“I was assigned by her to prepare you. That was why she allowed me to take you into Magdalen,” he said, “but I do not intend for her to have you. I have committed myself to developing your gift—but for you, Paige. Not for her.”

I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say.

Warden tore one of the drapes. With a soft touch, he started to remove my makeup. I let him. My lips were numb, my skin like ice. I could be dead in the next few minutes, drifting around Nashira in a state of mindless servitude. When he was finished, Warden stroked my hair back from my face. I let him do it. I couldn’t focus.

“Don’t you dare,” he said. “Don’t you dare let her see it. You are more than that. You are more than what she wants to do to you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

His gaze ran across my face. “You should be,” he said. “But do not show it. Not for anything.”

“I’ll show her what I like. You’re in no position to give me orders.” I disengaged my head from his hands. “You should have just let me go. You should have let Nick take me back to Dials. That was all you had to do. I could have been home by now.”

He leaned down so our faces were level. “I brought you back,” he said, “because I could not find the strength to fight her without you. But for that same reason, I will do everything in my power to see you safely to the citadel.”

Silence fell. I didn’t break his gaze.

“Your hair must be tied.” His voice was different, quieter. He pressed an ornamental comb into my hand.

The comb was cold. My fingers shook. “I don’t think I can.” I took a deep, slow breath. “Will you do it?”

He said nothing. But he did take the comb. As if he were handling the very finest gossamer, he swept my hair to one side of my neck, then gathered it into a knot. Not a psyche knot, like I usually did: an elaborate, braided coiffure that drew together at my nape. His callused fingers ran over my scalp, arranging the comb. The softest tremor ran down my spine. Warden released my hair, and it held.

His touch had felt strange. Warmer. It was only when I saw his hands that I realized.

He wasn’t wearing gloves.

I reached up to my hair, traced the intricate design. Hands as large as his should never have achieved such complexity. “The train will leave at one o’clock precisely,” he said against my ear. “The entrance is under the training ground. Exactly where we stood.”

I’d waited so long for those words.

“If she kills me, you have to let the others know.” A thickness rose in my throat. “You have to lead them.”

His fingers brushed the back of my arm. “I will not need to lead them.”

My body ran with shivers—but not the kind I expected. When I turned my head to look at him, he tucked a stray curl behind my ear. His other hand came to rest on my abdomen, pressing my back to his chest. The warmth of him was comforting.

And I could feel his hunger. Not for my aura, but for me.

He nuzzled his head against my cheek. His fingers traced my collarbone. His dreamscape was close, his aura intertwined with mine. My sixth sense heightened, taking him in. “Your skin is cold,” he said throatily. “I never—” He stopped. My fingers pushed between his naked knuckles. I kept my eyes open.

His lips moved to my jaw. I guided his hand to my waist. The lure of his touch was excruciating; I couldn’t flinch. I couldn’t refuse him. I wanted this, before the end. I wanted to be touched, to be seen—here in this dark room, in this red silence. I lifted my chin, and his lips closed over mine.

I had always known there was no heaven. Jax had told me so, many times. Even Warden had said so. There was only white light, the last light: a final rest on the edge of consciousness, the place where all things meet an end. Beyond that, who knew. But if there was a heaven, this was what it would have felt like. Touching the æther with my bare hands. I could never have anticipated this, not from him. Not from anyone. I clutched his back, pulling him up against me. He caught the nape of my neck in his hand. I could feel each callus on his palms.

His breath was hot. The kiss was slow. Don’t stop, don’t stop. I couldn’t think of anything but those words: don’t stop. His hands ran up my sides, my back, and clasped me. He lifted me onto a crate. I placed my hand against his neck. I felt the thick beat of him. His rhythm. My rhythm.

My skin burned. I couldn’t stop. I’d never felt anything like this in my life—this rising in my chest, this need to touch. His lips nudged mine apart. My eyes opened. Stop. Stop, Paige. I started to pull my head away. A word escaped me: maybe “no,’’ maybe “yes”. Maybe his name. He framed my face in his hands, traced my lips. His thumbs ran over my cheeks. Our foreheads touched. My dreamscape scorched. He set fire to the poppies. Don’t stop, don’t stop.

Only a moment passed. I looked at him, and he looked at me. A moment. A choice. My choice. His choice. Then he kissed me again, roughly this time. I let him. His arms came around me, lifting me. And I wanted it. I did. Too much. So much. My hands were in his hair, gripping his neck. Don’t stop. His lips were on my mouth, my eyes, my shoulders, and the hollow of my throat. Don’t stop. He ran his palms over my thighs. Firm, bold strokes, full of surety. Awakening.

I opened his shirt. My fingers slid over his chest. I kissed his surging neck, and he grasped a thick handful of my hair. Don’t stop. I’d never touched his skin. It was hot and smooth, and it made me want the rest of him. My hands went under his shirt, found his back. Scars under my fingers. Long, cruel welts. I’d always known they were there. The scars of a traitor. He tensed under my touch. “Paige,” he said softly, but I didn’t stop. He made a low sound in his throat, and his lips came back to mine.

I wouldn’t betray him. Bone Season XVIII was history, and it would not repeat itself.

Two hundred years was more than enough.

My sixth sense shook me from the haze. I pulled back from Warden. He kept his hands on my waist, locking me against him.

Nashira was there, half-hidden in the shadows. My heart squeezed out a sickening thump.

Run, my numb brain said, but I couldn’t run. She’d seen everything. She could see everything now. My skin, glossed with sweat; my puffy lips, my wild disheveled hair. His hands still clasping my hips. His open shirt. My fingers still trespassing on his skin.

I couldn’t move them. I couldn’t even shift my gaze.

Warden drew me behind him. “I forced it on her,” he said, his voice thick and rough.

Nashira said nothing.

She stepped into the dim light that filtered through the drapes. And there was something in her hands—the bell jar. I looked into it, my ears ringing. Inside was a flower. A flower in full bloom, strange and beautiful, its eight petals wet with nector. The flower that had once been dead. “There can be no mercy,” she said, “for this.”

For a moment Warden looked at the flower, his eyes aglow. His gaze moved to meet hers.

Nashira dropped the bell jar. The glass crashed against the floor, startling me from my paralysis.

I’d just destroyed everything.

“Arcturus Mesarthim, you are my blood-consort. You are Warden of the Mesarthim. But this cannot happen again.” Nashira stepped toward us. “There is only one way to stop treachery, and that is to make an example of traitors. I will hang your flesh from the walls of this city.”

Warden didn’t move. “Better there than used for your pleasures.”

“Always so fearless. Or foolhardy.” She touched her fingers to his face. “I will see to it that all your old companions are destroyed.”

“No.” I stepped out from behind him. “You can’t—”

I didn’t have time to move. The blow she gave me knocked me off my feet. The corner of a crate glanced across my head, opening a cut above my eye. My hands went straight into the broken glass. I heard Warden say my name, his voice shot with rage—but then Thuban and Situla were there, her trusted servants, the ones that wouldn’t let him go. Thuban took the end of his knife and smashed it into Warden’s head. But he didn’t fall. He wouldn’t kneel before the Sargas this time.

“I will deal with your offenses later, Arcturus. I divest you of your position as blood-consort.” Nashira stepped away from him. “Thuban, Situla—take him to the gallery.”

“Yes, my sovereign,” Thuban said. He grasped Warden by the throat. “Time to pay your dues, flesh-traitor.”

Situla dug her fingers into his shoulder. Ashamed of her traitor cousin. He didn’t say a word.

No, no. It couldn’t end like this, not like Bone Season XVIII. He was no longer blood-consort. He was ruined. I’d put out the last ray of light. I sought Warden’s gaze, desperate for something to hope for, to salvage—but his eyes were still and dark, and all I could feel was his silence. Between them, Thuban and Situla dragged him away.

Nashira walked through the broken glass. I stayed where I was, on the floor, in the wreckage. Bitter heat rose to my eyes. I was such a fool. What was I thinking? What was I doing?

“Your time has come, dreamwalker.”

“At last.” Blood seeped from my head wound. “You waited long enough.”

“You ought to rejoice. From what I understand, dreamwalkers crave the æther. Tonight you can join with it.”

“You’ll never have this world.” Now I looked up, and my body was shaking—with anger, not with fear. “You can kill me. You can claim me. But you can’t claim us. The Seven Seals are waiting. Jaxon Hall is waiting. The entire syndicate is waiting for you.” I raised my chin and stared her in the face. “Good luck.”

Nashira pulled me to my feet by my hair. Her face came close to mine. “You could have been more,” she said. “So much more. As it happens, you will soon be nothing. Everything that you were will be mine.” With a push of her arm, she flung me into a Rephaite’s iron grip. “Alsafi, take this bag of bones to the stage. It is time for her to surrender her spirit.”

I didn’t stop to think as Alsafi walked me up the steps. A bag was over my head. My lips were sore, my cheeks were hot. I couldn’t breathe or think straight.

Warden was gone. I’d lost him. My only Reph ally, and I’d let him get caught. Nashira wouldn’t just kill him, not when he’d stooped so low as to touch a human with his bare hands. It was more than betrayal. By kissing me, holding me, the blood-consort had debased his entire family. He was no longer a worthy candidate. He was nothing.

Alsafi kept a firm grip on my arm. I was about to die. In less than ten minutes, I would join with the æther, like all the other spirits. My silver cord would break. I would never be able to return to my own body, the body I’d inhabited for nineteen years. From then on, I would have to serve Nashira.

The bag came off my head. I was at the side of the stage, watching the end of the play. Two Rephs—Alsafi and Terebell—stood on either side of me. Terebell leaned down to my level. “Where is Arcturus?”

“They took him to the gallery. Thuban and Situla.”

“We will deal with them.” Alsafi released my arm. “You must delay the blood-sovereign, dreamwalker.”

I’d known Terebell was one of Warden’s collaborators, but not Alsafi. He didn’t look like a sympathizer, nor did Warden.

The Overseer fled the stage, his costume drenched in artificial blood, leaving his knife behind him. His screams for mercy echoed through the Guildhall. The emissaries cheered as a group of actors chased him out onto the street, all wearing Scion uniforms. The applause was deafening. It continued as Nashira walked up the steps, back onto the stage.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kindness. I am pleased you enjoyed the production.” She didn’t look pleased. “I am also pleased, to end the evening, to give you a brief demonstration of our justice system here in Sheol I. One of our clairvoyants has displayed such disobedience that she cannot be allowed to live. Like the Bloody King, she must be banished beyond the reach of the amaurotic population, where she can do no more harm.

“XX-59-40 has a history of treachery. She hails from the dairy county of Tipperary, deep in the south of Ireland—a region long since associated with sedition.” Cathal Bell shifted his weight uncomfortably. A few of the emissaries murmured. “After coming to England, she immediately became embroiled in the crime syndicate of London. On the night of March the seventh, she murdered two of her fellow clairvoyants, both Underguards in the service of Scion. It was a cold-blooded, cruel affair. Neither of 40’s victims died quickly. On that same night, she was brought to Sheol I.” Nashira paced across the stage. “We hoped we could educate her, teach her to control her gift. It pains us to lose young clairvoyants. It also pains me to admit that our endeavor to reform 40 has failed. She has repaid our compassion with insolence and brutality. There is no option left for her but to face the judgment of the Inquisitor.”

I looked past her. There was no scaffold on the stage; no gurney, no block. But there was a sword.

My blood stopped in my veins. That was no ordinary sword. Gold blade, black hilt. That was the Wrath of the Inquisitor, the sword that beheaded political traitors. It was only used when clairvoyant spies were discovered within the Westminster Archon. I was the daughter of a prominent Scion scientist. A traitor in the ranks of the naturals.

Alsafi and Terebell disappeared beneath the stage. I was left facing Nashira. She turned her head.

“Come forward, 40.”

I didn’t hesitate.

There was a hush as I emerged from behind the drapes. “Traitor,” Cathal Bell called, followed by some booing from the emissaries. I still didn’t look at them. It was rich of Bell to call me a traitor.

I walked with my head held high, forcing myself to focus only on Nashira. I didn’t look at the emissaries. I didn’t look at the gallery, where Warden had been taken. I stopped a few feet away. Nashira circled me, slowly. When she wasn’t in my line of vision, I looked straight ahead.

“You may wonder how we deal out justice here. With the noose, perhaps, or the fire of ancient days. Here is the Inquisitor’s sword, delivered from the citadel.” She indicated the Wrath. “But before I swing it, I wish to exhibit something else: the great gift of the Rephaim.”

There was a murmur.

“Edward VII was a curious man. We know all too well that he meddled in things that should not be meddled with. He tried to control a power beyond human knowledge. A power we Rephaim know very well.”

Birgitta Tjäder was staring at the stage, her brow furrowed. Several of the emissaries looked at their SVD bodyguards, Bell among them.

“Imagine the most powerful kind of energy on Earth.” Nashira held out a hand toward a nearby lantern. “Electricity. It powers your lifestyles. It lights your cities and your homes. It allows you to communicate. The æther, the Source—the life force of the Rephaim—is rather like electricity. It can bring light to the darkness, knowledge to ignorance.” The lantern glowed with a sudden light. “But when used incorrectly, it can destroy. It can kill.” The light went out.

“I have a gift that has proved very useful over the past two centuries. Some clairvoyant humans display particularly erratic abilities. They channel the æther—the realm of the dead—in ways that can result in madness and violence. The Bloody King had such an ability, resulting in his tragic killing spree. I am able to take those dangerous mutations of the gift away.” She motioned toward me. “Clairvoyance, like energy, cannot be destroyed—only transferred. When 40 dies, another clairvoyant will eventually develop her gift. But by holding it inside me, I will ensure it is never used again.”

“You like making things up, don’t you, Nashira?”

I said it before I’d registered the thought. She turned to look at me. Her eyes flared.

“You will not speak again.”

Her voice was soft.

I risked a glance at the gallery. Empty. Below me, Michael slipped a hand into his jacket. He had one of the guns.

At the back of the Guildhall, a door opened. Terebell, Alsafi, and Warden. I met his eyes over the heads of the emissaries. The golden cord trembled. I saw a picture of the knife, the one on the floor, the one the Overseer had left behind. It lay a few feet away from Nashira. As she turned back toward the audience, my spirit shot across the space between us. With every ounce of strength I could muster, I broke into her hadal zone. She hadn’t been expecting the attack. I pictured myself with a massive dream-form, a behemoth, big enough to break down every barrier.

The æther reverberated. Spirits flew across the Guildhall, coming at Nashira from all angles. They joined me at the edges of her dreamscape, breaking down her ancient armor. The five angels were trying to defend her, but now twenty, now fifty, now two hundred spirits had descended on her, and the walls were starting to give. I wasted no time. I hauled my way through the shadows and threw myself into the very heart of her dreamscape.

I could see through her eyes. The room was a whirling blur of color and darkness, light and fire, a spectrum of things I’d never seen. Was this how Rephs saw? There were auras everywhere. I was sighted—but now I was blind, and her eyes were refusing to see. They didn’t want me to see. These weren’t my eyes. I forced them open, looked down at my hand. Too large, gloved. My vision clenched. She was fighting me. Hurry, Paige.

The knife. The knife was there. Hurry. I reached for it. Just moving my hand was like trying to lift a barbell. Kill her. My ears rang with screams and strange new sounds, voices, thousands of voices. Kill her. My new fingers curled around the handle.

The knife. It was there. I drew back my arm, and with a single stab, drove the blade into my chest. The emissaries shouted. My vision tunneled again. Everything flickered. I twisted the knife with my new hand, grinding it into whatever the hell it was that made Nashira’s body. No pain. She was numb to the bites of an amaurotic blade. I stabbed again, this time on the left, aiming for where the heart would be on a human. Still no pain. But when I raised my arm a third time, I was thrown out of her body.

Spirits scattered across the room, extinguishing every candle. The Guildhall descended into chaos. When my vision returned, I couldn’t see a thing. My ears were full of screaming.

The candles came back to life. Nashira lay across the boards. She didn’t move. The knife was embedded in her chest, right up to the handle. “Blood-sovereign,” a Reph shouted.

The emissaries had fallen silent. My hands shook as I dragged myself across the boards to Nashira. I looked at her face, the eyes devoid of light. The spirits of Bone Season XVIII still hovered around her, as if waiting for her to join them in the æther.

Then a dim glow filled into her eyes. Slowly, her head turned. I felt myself shivering uncontrollably as she rose to her full height.

“Very clever,” she said. “Very, very clever.”

I kept moving, my fingers scraping on the boards. As I watched, she pulled the knife from her chest. There were gasps from the audience. “Show us more.” Drops of light fell like tears. “I have no objections.”

With a flick of her hand, the knife was in the air. It hung there for a moment, as if on an invisible thread—then it came flying toward me. It caught my cheek, leaving a glancing wound. The candles guttered.

One of her angels was a poltergeist. It was rare that they could actually lift physical matter, but I’d seen it happen before. Apport, Jaxon called it. Spirits moving objects. A film of cold sweat coated my skin. I shouldn’t be afraid. I’d faced a poltergeist once. Now my spirit was mature, I could defend myself.

“If you insist,” I said.

This time I couldn’t catch her unawares. She threw up every layer of armor she had on her dreamscape. As if two giant doors had slammed in front of me, I was launched straight back into my own body. My heart stirred. The helmetlike pressure on my head intensified. I heard a familiar voice, but it was lost to a long, high-pitched sound in my ears.

Move. I had to move. She wouldn’t stop. She would never stop hunting my spirit. I pushed myself back on my elbows, trying to find the knife. Her outline came into focus, moving toward me.

“You look tired, Paige. Give into it. The æther calls you.”

“Must have missed that call,” I forced out.

I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. All five of her angels spooled together and flew at me.

Like a black wave they smashed through my defenses. Outside my dreamscape, my head smacked into the floorboards. Inside it, the spirits tore a path through everything, scattering red petals. Images flashed past my eyes. Every thought, every memory was broken. Blood, fire, blood. A moribund field. A giant hand seemed to press down on my chest, pinning me in one place. In a box, in a coffin. I couldn’t move or breathe or think. The five spirits cut through me like a sword, snatching pieces of my mind, my soul. I rolled onto my side, twitching like a crushed insect.

Small muscles spasmed in my arms and legs. I opened my eyes. The light burned them. All I could see was Nashira, her hand outstretched, the blade bright under the candles. Then she was gone.

With an effort that forced moisture from my eyes, I raised my head from the boards. Michael had thrown himself onto her back, distracting her. There was a knife in his hand. He stabbed at her neck, missing by inches. With a flick of her arm, Nashira threw him off the stage. He landed on a harlie, sending them both crashing to the ground.

She would turn back in a moment. This time she would finish me off. Her face appeared above me, and her eyes turned red. Her features softened to a haze. She was weakening me, making sure I couldn’t use my spirit again. Disrupting my link to the æther. I was dead. She knelt beside me and lifted my head into the crook of her arm.

“Thank you, Paige Mahoney.” The tip of the knife pressed into my throat. “I will not waste this gift.”

This was it. I didn’t even have a final thought. I managed, with my last scrap of energy, to look into her eyes.

Then Warden was there. He was driving her back, using immense spools, whirling them into shields, like a fire-eater with torches. If I were sighted, I thought vaguely, it would probably look magnificent. Terebell and Alsafi were with him; and others, too—was that Pleione? Their outlines ran together. My dreamscape sent strange mirages across my line of sight. Then someone was scooping me into their arms, taking me from the stage.

The world came in flashes. There was a storm in my dreamscape: memories pouring through lightning-like cracks, flowers torn apart by a high wind. My mind had been pillaged.

I was only half-aware of the outside world. Warden was there. I recognized his dreamscape, a familiar presence against mine. He was carrying me up to the gallery, away from whatever had happened in the few minutes I’d been unconscious. As he lowered me to the floor, I could feel the blood drying on my face. I could barely remember where I was.

“Paige, fight it. You must fight it.”

His hand stroked over my hair. I watched his face, trying to make the lines stop blurring.

Another pair of eyes appeared. I thought it was Terebell again. I checked out for a while, only to wake with a hollow roaring in my ears. The noise pressed at my temples. When the pain forced me back to meatspace, Warden was looking down at me. We were in the gallery, above the clamor in the hall. “Paige,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

It sounded like a question. I nodded.

“Nashira.” I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper.

“She lives. But so do you.”

Still alive. Nashira was still here. I felt the faint stirrings of panic, but my body was too weak to respond. This wasn’t over yet.

The sound of a gunshot rang out from below. Save his eyes, everything was dark. “There was—” Warden leaned closer to my lips to hear me. “There was a poltergeist. She has a . . . poltergeist.”

“Yes. But you came prepared.” His finger traced my neckline. “Did I not say this could save your life?”

The pendant caught the light from his eyes, the sublimed object, designed to repel poltergeists. The one he’d given me. The one I’d tried to refuse, and might not have worn. Warden lifted me against his chest, keeping one hand at the back of my head. “Help is coming,” he said, very softly. “They came for you, Paige. The Seals came for you.”

There was another blind spot, during which the noise intensified. My dreamscape struggled to heal. The damage had been severe; it wouldn’t start to repair itself for days. It might not start at all. Either way, I couldn’t move, but time was running out—I had to reach the meadow, to find the exit. I was going home. I had to go home.

When I opened my eyes again, a vicious light scalded them. Not candlelight. I tried to block it, my chest was heaving. “Paige.” Someone took my outstretched hand. Not Warden. Someone else. “Paige, sweetheart.”

I knew that voice.

He couldn’t be here. It must be an apparition, an image from my damaged dreamscape. But when he took my hand, I knew he was real. My head still lay on Warden’s lap. “Nick,” I managed to say. He was dressed in his black suit and red tie.

“Yes, sötnos, it’s me.”

I looked at my fingers. They were turning gray. My nails sat in beds of dark, bluish purple.

“Paige,” Nick said, his voice low and urgent, “keep your eyes open. Stay with us, sweetheart. Come on.”

“Y-you have to go.” I rasped it.

“I am going. So are you.”

“Get a move on, Vision. No time to lose.” Another voice. “We’ll treat our little lost Dreamer when we reach the citadel.”

Jaxon.

No, no. Why had they come? Nashira would see. “It’ll be too late by then.” The same harsh light gleamed into my eyes. “No pupil response. Cerebral hypoxia. She’ll die if we don’t do this.” A hand moved my hair back from my clammy face. “Where the hell is Danica?”

I couldn’t work out why Warden wasn’t speaking. He was there, I could feel it.

Another blackout. When my vision returned, there was something clamped over my nose and mouth. I recognized the plastic smell of it—PVS2, a portable cousin of Dani’s life-support system. There were more dreamscapes nearby, clustered around me. Nick cradled me in the crook of his arm, keeping the mask cupped over my mouth. I drank in the extra oxygen, heavy-eyed. I had never felt so completely spent in my life.

“It’s not working. Her dreamscape’s fractured.”

“That train will not wait for us, Vision.” Jaxon’s voice had an edge. “Carry her. We’re leaving.”

The words crawled into my brain. For the first time in several minutes, Warden spoke: “I can help her.”

“Don’t come near her.” Nick said.

“There is no time to waste. The NVD will be on their way from the bridge. They will see your aura immediately, Dr. Nygård. Your reputation in Scion will be lost.” Warden looked at them. “Paige will die if you do nothing. Her damaged dreamscape can be repaired, but only if we are quick. Do you want to lose your dreamwalker, White Binder?”

“How do you know my name?” Jaxon flipped like a coin. I couldn’t see him in the dark, but I sensed the sudden change in his dreamscape, the rising of defenses.

“We have our ways.”

Their words were like a sequence of patterns, impossible to unravel. I couldn’t make sense of them. Nick leaned down, exhaling warm air across my cheek. “Paige,” he said into my ear, “this man says he can heal you. Can I trust him?”

Trust. I recognized that word. A sun-drenched flower on the edge of perception, beckoning me into a different world. A different life, before the poppy field.

“Yes.”

As soon as I said it, Warden moved toward me. Over his shoulder I could see Pleione. “Paige, I need you to drop all the mental defenses you can,” he said. “Can you do that?”

Like I had a shred of defense left.

Warden took a vial from Pleione’s gloved hand. A vial of amaranth, almost empty. Scarred one. They must have been stockpiling them, saving every drop they could. He put a little under my nose, and a little more onto my lips. Heat seeped under my skin. It seemed as if the æther was calling to me, asking me to open my mind. A surge of warmth came in, stitching the rips in my dreamscape. Warden stroked his thumb across my cheek.

“Paige?”

I blinked.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think so.”

I sat up, then tried to stand. Nick helped me back to my feet. No pain. I rubbed my eyes and blinked, trying to adjust to the darkness. “How the hell did you get here?” I said, gripping his arms. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was real, he was here.

“With the Scion party. I’ll explain later.” He wrapped his arms around me, crushing me to his chest. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

Jaxon stood a few feet away, his cane grasped in both hands. On either side of him were Danica and Zeke. They were all dressed in Scion colors. On the other side of the gallery, Nadine was taking pot shots at the emissaries with her pistol. The two Rephaim watched me.

“Warden, how much—” I took in a deep breath, “how much time do we have?”

“Fifty minutes. You must go.”

Less than an hour. The faster we reached the train, the faster I could send a flare up for the other voyants.

“I trust you still know where your loyalties lie, Paige,” Jaxon said. He looked me up and down. “You almost made me doubt you, my mollisher, with that little act in London.”

“Jaxon, there are people dying, voyants dying in this place. Can we just put that incident aside and concentrate on getting the hell out of here?”

He never had a chance to reply. A group of Rephs burst into the gallery, wielding great spools. Warden and Pleione stepped in front of us.

“Go,” Warden said.

I was torn. Jaxon was already heading down the stairs, followed by the others. “Paige, come on,” Nick urged.

Pleione blocked a spool. Warden turned to face me.

“Run. Get to Port Meadow,” he said. “I will meet you there.”

I had no choice; I couldn’t force him to come with me—I could only do as he said, and hope I was doing the right thing. Nick grabbed my arm, and we ran down the stairs, out into the foyer of the Guildhall. There was no time left to stop.

The harlies and the Rephs had spilled onto the streets. Panicked emissaries and their NVD guards ran through the foyer. Nick was following them. I stopped when the æther trembled.

I turned to face the hall. Something was wrong, I was sure of it. Before I knew what I was doing, I was running back to the flat stone steps. Jaxon called after me: “And you are going where?”

“Just get to the train, Jaxon.”

I didn’t hear his reply. Nick came after me, reached for my arm. “Where are you going?”

“Just go with Jaxon.”

“We have to leave. If the NVD see my aura—”

He stopped talking when we reached the deserted hall.

The darkness filled every corner of the room. Most of the candles had gone out, but three red lanterns still shone where they’d fallen. The drapes where Liss had been performing had fallen into two folded heaps. I stepped toward them, sensing the dim flicker of a dreamscape. I ran across the marble floor and threw myself on my knees.

“Liss.” I grabbed her hand. “Liss, come on.”

What had brought her back to the silks? Her hair was matted with blood. She couldn’t be dead, not after we’d saved her life. Not after all we’d worked for together. She couldn’t die. Seb had died; why did Liss need to follow?

Liss cracked her eyes open, just a little. Still dressed as a victim of the king. Her lips formed a tiny smile when she saw me.

“Hey.” Her breath rattled. “Sorry I was—late.”

“No. Don’t you dare die, Liss. Come on.” I squeezed her hand. “Please. We thought we’d lost you before. Don’t make us lose you again.”

“Glad somebody cares.” There were tears in my eyes: cold, trembling tears that didn’t fall. Blood ran from her mouth. I couldn’t tell where the stage blood ended and hers began. “G-get out,” she said, her voice faint. “Do what I c-couldn’t—I just couldn’t. Just wanted to—to see home.”

Her head rolled to the side. Her fingers loosened in mine, and her spirit slipped away into the æther.

For a minute I sat there, looking at the body. Nick bowed his head, pulled a drape over her face. Liss is gone. I made myself think it. Liss is gone, just like Seb. You didn’t save them. They’re gone.

“You should say the threnody,” Nick murmured. “I don’t know her name, sötnos.”

He was right. Liss wouldn’t want to stay here, in her prison.

“Liss Rymore”—I hoped it was her full name—“be gone into the æther. All is settled. All debts are paid. You need not dwell among the living now.”

Her spirit disappeared.

I couldn’t look at the body. Not Liss—the body, the shell, the shadow on the world she’d left behind.

The flare gun lay under the cold hand. It had been her job to fire it. I gently pulled it from her grasp. “She wouldn’t want you to give up.” Nick watched me check the gun for flares. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to die for her.”

“Oh, I think she would.”

I knew that voice. I couldn’t see Gomeisa Sargas, but his voice echoed all through the room. “Did you kill her, Gomeisa?” I stood. “Is she good enough for you, now she’s dead?”

The silence was damning.

A low voice came from behind me. “You should not hide in the shadow, Gomeisa.”

I looked. Warden had entered the hall, and his eyes were fixed on the gallery. “Unless you fear Paige,” he continued. “The city burns outside. Your facade of power is already dissolved.”

Laughter. I tensed.

“I do not fear Scion. They handed their world over on a silver platter, Arcturus. Now we will dine.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

“I do not fear you either, 40. What have we to fear from death, when we are death? Besides, to be displaced from this decaying world—your little world of flower and flesh—well, that would almost be a blessing. If only there was not so much more to be done with it.” Footsteps. “You cannot kill death. What fire can scald the sun? Who can drown the ocean?”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” I said.

My voice was steady, but I was shaking. Whether it was anger or fear, I could no longer tell. Behind Warden, another male Reph had appeared. At his side was Terebell.

“I would like you both to picture something. Especially you, Arcturus. Given what you have to lose.”

Warden said nothing. I tried to pin down where the voice was coming from. Somewhere above me. The gallery.

“I would like you to imagine a butterfly. Picture it: its colored, iridescent wings. It is beautiful. Beloved. And then look at the moth. It takes the same shape—but look at the differences! The moth is pale and weak and ugly. A pitiful, self-destructive thing. It cannot command itself, for when it sees a fire, it desires the heat. And as it finds the flame, it burns.” His voice echoed everywhere. In my ears, in my head. “That is how we see your world, Paige Mahoney. A box of moths, just waiting to be burned.”

His dreamscape was so close. I readied my spirit. I didn’t care how much damage I did. He’d killed Liss; now I would kill him. Warden grasped my wrist. “Don’t,” he said. “We will deal with him.”

“I want to deal with him.”

“You cannot avenge her, dreamwalker.” Pleione didn’t take her eyes off the enemy. “Go to the meadow. Time is short.”

“Yes, go to the meadow, 40. Take our train to our citadel.” Gomeisa emerged from behind the pillars. His eyes were fresh with aura—the last he’d ever take from Liss Rymore. “Was it so terrible here, 40? We offered you our sanctuary, our wisdom—a new home. You were not unnatural here; lower, yes, but you had a place. To Scion you are a symptom of the plague. A rash upon their shallow skin.” He held out his gloved hand. “You have no home there, dreamwalker. Stay with us. See what lies beneath.”

My muscles were stretched to breaking point. He looked straight at me—into my eyes, into my dreamscape, into the darkest parts of me. He knew his words made sense. He knew his twisted logic well; he’d relied on it for two centuries, using it to tempt the weak. Before I could answer him, Warden swept me back with his arm, right off my feet. A curved blade came singing over his shoulder, over my head. I hadn’t seen it in the darkness. As I hit the floor, he ran toward Gomeisa. Terebell and the male went after him, both gathering spools, chiming out horrific sounds. Nick pulled me back to my feet, but I couldn’t feel his hands. All I could feel was the æther, where the Rephaim were dancing.

The air around me thinned to a silver gauze. I couldn’t see the four Rephs, but I felt their movements. Each flex of muscle, each turn and step sent a shockwave through the æther. They were dancing on the edge of life. A dance of giants, the danse macabre.

The spirits of the Bone Season still lingered in the hall. Terebell’s spool flew through the pillars: thirty spirits, all weaving and rising together, converging on his dreamscape. No voyant could survive being hit by so many at once. I waited for the blow to fall. at once.

Gomeisa’s laugh rose to the ceiling. With a wave of his hand, he shattered the spool. Like glass shards from a mirror, the spirits burst all over the hall. Terebell’s limp body was thrown into a pillar. The sound of bone on marble snapped through the chilled air. When the other Reph charged at him, Gomeisa simply cut his hand upward. The motion flung his attacker onto the stage. The boards splintered under his weight, sending him into the trap room.

I pushed myself back, my boots sliding on blood. Was Gomeisa some kind of poltergeist? He could use apport—move things without touching them. The realization made my heart pound thick and fast against my ribs. He could smash me into the ceiling on a whim.

Only Warden was left. He turned to face his enemy, terrible in the half-light. “Come, then, Arcturus,” Gomeisa said, spreading his arms wide. “Pay for your bounty.”

That was when the stage exploded.