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‘Scion is not going to give you that ludicrous reward,’ Maria bit out. ‘It’s just a carrot for the asses. Are you an ass, Harald Lauring?’

‘It’s not about the money.’ He lowered his voice. ‘They have my family, Nina. Grapevine has my family.’

Grapevine?

‘These two women aremyfamily,’ Maria said, her tone soft and dangerous. ‘Hurt either of them and I will—’

‘Harald,’ Verca cut in, ‘please, let’s talk reasonably. Who or what is Grapevine?’

I had been about to ask the same question.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Harald said. ‘They told me to deliver Paige to London.’ He dug into his coat. ‘As I said, nobody needs to get hurt. Just do exactly as I say.’

He took out a vial of murky fluid. When he removed the lid, I caught the rank smell of it and stiffened.

‘Drink it all,’ he said. ‘Don’t test our patience, Paige.’

‘Paige, whatever it is, don’t,’ Verca whispered.

Her captor pressed their gun to the side of her head. Over the next few moments, I weighed the risks.

The vial was full of alysoplasm, which could be used to conceal any dreamscape. The ski masks must have drunk it to stop me sensing their approach, but they were likely amaurotic, immune to the worst effect of the drug. If I drained this vial, I would temporarily lose my ability to dreamwalk, and with it, our best hope of escape.

There might not be a choice. If I used my spirit now, at least one of them would shoot, and there could be more outside. I needed to buy time to hatch another plan.

‘You certainly did your research,’ I said to Harald, and raised the vial to him. ‘Your health.’

I steeled myself and necked the contents.

‘Thank you,’ Harald said, sounding relieved. ‘I want this to be bloodless.’

‘If this Grapevine has anything to do with Scion, it won’t be,’ I said, swallowing the aftertaste. ‘You’ll be delivering me to my death.’

The foulness chilled my throat. The æther began to fade away, as it had when Ménard forced me to drink alysoplasm in Paris. A terrible sense of desolation stole through me, and then I was trapped in my body, unable to sense the realm beyond the locked cage of my flesh.

Harald stopped me from falling over. This had to be the worst thing a voyant could experience – the removal of the sixth sense, the shearing of the self.

‘Paige, what is it?’ Maria pulled against her captor. ‘Harald, have you poisoned her?’

‘She will be fine,’ Harald said gruffly. ‘It wears off.’

‘You know what doesn’t wear off?’ Maria shot back. ‘The stain of being a traitorous shit.’

Harald didn’t answer, but a muscle started in his cheek.

‘One more precaution, before we leave,’ he muttered to himself, reaching into his coat again. ‘To be certain.’ Before I could so much as tense, two sharp points had touched my back, and a burning shock crackled through my middle, sending me to the floor in convulsions.

‘Paige,’ Verca gasped. ‘Paige, are you all right?’

Tears leaked down my cheeks. All I could do was groan at the searing pain in my back. ‘Can you leave her alone?’ Maria said hotly. Harald hauled me to my feet. ‘Harald!’

‘I am making sure that Paige will comply,’ he said, ‘and that we draw no unwanted attention.’

As he wrenched me into a freezing night, I tried to get a handle on his masked associates, but with all of us on alysoplasm, I could only rely on my physical senses. The whole group was dressed in mountaineering gear, with no obvious insignia, and each of them held a sleek rifle.

‘Harald,’ Verca said, ‘does Yousry know about this?’ Neither she nor Maria had been allowed to bring their coats. I had a feeling Harald didn’t care if they survived the night.

‘No. Yousry is clean,’ he said. ‘His only mistake was trusting me. He told me Radomír had asked him to take a person of interest to Command. I guessed it was Paige and arranged the accident, knowing Yousry would recommend me to replace him.’