Page 85

13

NIENTE

I opened my eyes to a plasterwork ceiling. At first, I thought I must be in Venice, but before long, I started to notice signs of decay in the room where I now found myself. By the faint light of a candle, I saw the cracked and flaking paint, the broken shutters on the windows.

My hair was damp and crisp. The ribs on my left side felt bruised, but all my cuts and grazes had been dressed. A leaden exhaustion clung to my bones.

It took a moment to remember. When I did, I closed my eyes, wishing I hadn’t woken up.

I had danced with death for many years. My life had been a tightrope walk. Yet since I was a child, I had maintained an iron will to live. I’d vowed I would make Scion pay for murdering my cousin, and I’d always meant to survive long enough to make good on it. Each time I had risked my own life, it was because I had believed it might bring Scion down.

Now I felt indifferent to my own existence. I wanted to escape the grief before it could hit me in full. It would chip at every good part of my life, every happy memory, until nothing seemed worth the trouble of breathing.

Nashira had stopped Arcturus from taking aura. A voyant might survive a separation from the æther, but for Rephs, there was no coming back. They would be for ever locked into their bodies, unable to move or see.

We call it latency. I remembered our conversation in Paris.How much wecan perceive in that state, I do not know. Whatisknown is that webecome considerably more tempting to the Emim. They can senselatent Rephaim from great distances.

He had foretold his own fate. I wondered if he had been proud to the end, or if he had been forced to his knees, made to beg for what he needed. The thought was more than I could stand.

As I lay there, my own question came back to me:You can still become Buzzers, then?

To our knowledge, that is the only way a latent Rephaite canever move again.As I recalled those words, ice started to needle through the shell around me.Our fellow Rephaim usually choose to remove thepossibility by sequestering us.

That is, beheading you. Which can only be done withopaline.

I snapped upright, a terrible chill rushing through me. Ignoring the pain, I pulled on the clothes that had been left for me. My wetsuit was nowhere to be seen.

Nick and Maria were in a derelict parlour, both looking gaunt and tired, a candle guttering on a table between them. When I appeared, they stood.

‘Paige,’ Maria said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Where is he?’

She hesitated, and they exchanged a defeated look.

‘Terebell is watching over him,’ Nick said. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart.’

The words sank in.

‘We’re about two hours northeast of Naples,’ Maria said. ‘Verca took a train back to Venice to update Command. The Ranthen said we needed to stay in an isolated area to … do what needs to be done.’

‘Terebell says the Buzzers will come for him,’ Nick said. ‘That’s why we took a detour here.’

‘It’s also why Nashira put him on the island. To … turn it into a trap. Like we thought.’ My voice sounded distant to my own ears. ‘Even if we survived, all we’d find there was his body.’

‘It was a cruel trick. Scion never plays clean.’ Maria sighed. ‘The one Reph who was really on our side. I can’t believe it.’

‘We made Terebell wait for you.’ Nick touched my shoulder. ‘He’s downstairs, sötnos.’

‘Yes. You should go to him,’ Maria said, pity shadowing her eyes. ‘I doubt they’ll let you have too long.’

The last memorial I attended had been when I was six. I had worn a black dress and a bow in my hair. We had all spoken in whispers, afraid the soldiers might find us; I remembered Aunt Sandra muffling her sobs. I had not spoken one word since the day of the Imbolc Massacre.

Sandra had got me out. Working at a hospital, she had been among the first to hear about the bloodshed. She had abandoned her post and driven straight for central Dublin, fearing that Finn had gone to the protest, even though she had warned him against it. By then, she knew Scion had come. She had slipped from her car and crawled through the streets, searching for her son and niece among the bodies, certain she would die if she was seen.

I had reached her first. Even with a nascent gift, I had been able to find my aunt. I had climbed out from under Molly Malone, soaked in blood, and stumbled towards her dreamscape. Sandra had carried me to the car, and we had fled to my grandparents in Tipperary, where we had mourned my cousin and the love of his life.

I had seen Kay die, but her body had been out of our reach. From what I heard later, most of the dead had been thrown into the river.