Page 13 of The Dark Mirror (The Bone Season #5)

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 ?ther, 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 we can perceive in that state, I do not know. What is known is that we become considerably more tempting to the Emim. They can sense latent 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 can ever move again. As I recalled those words, ice started to needle through the shell around me. Our fellow Rephaim usually choose to remove the possibility by sequestering us.

That is, beheading you. Which can only be done with opaline.

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. ‘Ver?a 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, sotnos.’

‘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.

Finn had never been religious. So when I approached his grave with the others, I had thrown earth on the empty box, summoned all my silent rage and prayed to Ireland itself.

I called upon the aos sí, the mountain hags and Crom Cruach; I bargained with the Fomhóraigh. I told the hungry grass to grow beneath the conquerors’ boots, so they would eat our crops and drink our wine, but never once be full. I implored the mná sí to scream their deaths into their ears. I willed them grey and worm-eaten, their bones stripped for the dúlachán to spoke the wheels of his grim coach. I beseeched my island to defend itself.

To no avail.

I would not wear black to mourn Arcturus. Funerals had never been a part of voyant culture in London. We knew the spirit had departed; the body was just leftovers. Only syndicate rulers had their remains collected and preserved, so their bones could be used for readings.

It was different for Arcturus, whose body was now a sealed tomb for his spirit. It would never decay.

The Ranthen had put him in the wine cellar, which seemed appropriate. They could defend this room if the Buzzers came, long enough to decapitate him. It would stop him from coming back as a monster.

Sequestration is not the same as mortal death . My footsteps echoed on the steps. Our bodies do not rot, and our dreamscapes remain intact, caging our spirits. As far as I know, there is no way to reverse this.

Terebell stood guard outside. When she saw me, her stance changed, her chin lifting.

‘You are awake.’

She had done away with her coat, showing the blade at her side.

‘I hadn’t realised you had one of those,’ I said dully. ‘Arcturus found one in Versailles.’

‘All seven Wardens bore one under the Mothallath,’ she said. ‘Nashira confiscated mine when she removed my title, but Adhara Sarin offered hers in tribute when she joined the Ranthen.’

Adhara had done that only after learning that I had deactivated Senshield, proving that I was a competent leader. Terebell would not have that blade if not for me.

I had laid every paving stone to his end.

‘I must sequester Arcturus before cold spots begin to form,’ Terebell said. ‘This will not be another Capri.’

‘Oxford and Versailles,’ I said. ‘Did they attract the Buzzers because latent Rephs were kept there?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In Oxford, they were stored in a Norman crypt to the west of Magdalen, beneath the former St Edmund Hall. The Sargas laid their fallen there. That is why the Emim were attracted to that city, first and foremost. It is what sustained the myth of Oxford.’

My nod was small and wooden. The thought must have been forming unnoticed for a while, but seeing that island, turned into a death trap by one Reph, had finally given it shape.

‘What will you do with Arcturus?’

‘He is in a state we call latency, which he clearly explained to you,’ Terebell said. ‘There is no way to wake him, unless he were to turn Emite. To prevent that, I must sequester him. I will hide the head – and, by extension, his trapped spirit – in the Netherworld. As for the body, we must bury it deep, so the Sargas can never mistreat it again.’

Each word made me want to shrivel into nothing. For so long, I had thought of Arcturus as too strong to defeat. I had never imagined losing him to anything but my own death.

‘I’d like the night,’ I said. ‘To say goodbye.’

‘Arcturus may not be able to hear you.’

‘I don’t mind.’

Terebell considered me.

‘I will give you until dawn,’ she said. ‘And then Arcturus will be lost to us, like Alsafi. Two of our best, for the sake of you. Let us hope that you will one day be deserving of that sacrifice, dreamwalker. That you might one day be enough to balance the weight of their loss.’

She strode up the steps. After a minute, I walked into the room beyond, my eyes stinging.

You had better be worth all of this, Underqueen.

Scarlett Burnish had said the same thing, in as many words. Now she was dead, too.

And I still didn’t know if I was worth it.

A few candles flickered in the wine cellar. I closed the door behind me and stepped around a shelf.

Arcturus was lying on an old bed, head propped on a cushion, one hand resting on his chest. Terebell must have positioned him. She knew the way he slept, like I did. One of the Ranthen had poured salt around the bed, to hold the Buzzers back. Knowing Terebell, it was one of several lines of defence. I stepped over the salt to sit at his side.

‘This is the last time I’ll ever speak to you,’ I said, ‘and I don’t even know if you can hear a word I’m saying.’ I drew my knees to my chest. ‘Isn’t that just our luck?’

For a long time, I was quiet, gazing at the wall.

‘I sometimes can’t believe we only met last year, and now I can’t imagine a world where you’re not with me. Where you’re not there at all,’ I murmured. ‘I don’t know how to explain what you meant to me. I wish I could have found the words in my own time, but … I can’t let the last thing I said to you be that you were a monster. I thought you were, the first time I saw you. And then you spent nearly a year proving me wrong.’

Only silence answered me.

‘It kills me that I’m never going to hear you call me little dreamer again,’ I admitted. ‘I’d have decked anyone else, but it made me feel like I could be smaller with you. Not in worth or importance, but … like I didn’t have to stretch myself so far, to be so much. I didn’t have to be the Pale Dreamer or Black Moth or the Underqueen or Flora Blake. Every time you held me, you gathered all those people into one. With you, I could just be Paige.’

I remembered being in his arms. How much I had loved and craved that feeling of security.

‘The other thing that kills me is that I’m never going to know if you were ever actually trying to be funny,’ I said. ‘Either way, you made me laugh. You made me feel safe and wanted and warm. You were patient and kind, and you never lost faith in me. I’ve no idea why you thought I was worth it, but in the short time we had, I was happy.’

At last, I worked up the courage to face him.

‘You weren’t perfect,’ I said. ‘But I think you might have been perfect for me.’

No reply. He looked the same as when I had last seen him, his sarx unmarked by weeks in the sea. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought he was asleep.

‘I can’t stand the thought of you trapped in that coffin. Or in your dreamscape,’ I said, ‘while I’m in the free world without you. You would have loved Prague. But you were in so much pain, for so long. Maybe you’ve earned your rest. I hope you can’t feel the scars any more.’

Before I could stop myself, I stroked his cheek. His sarx had always been so warm. Now it was cold as brass.

This body had taken bullets for me, held me without fear or shame, and Nashira had thrown it away. Terebell would bury him out of sight and mind, like the evidence of a crime.

I brushed damp strands of hair off his forehead. They were stiff with salt, like his clothes.

‘I’m sorry I believed the worst of you, even when you’d shown me every day how much you loved me. I’m sorry I was already so broken by the time we met,’ I said. ‘Whatever we’ve been to each other, you were my friend, first and foremost. I failed that friendship when I thought you were capable of betraying me.’ My voice thickened. ‘I think I did work it out, in the end. Cordier stopped me reaching you, but I need you to know that I would never have given up. I meant what I said in Paris. I wanted to be with you. I was ready.’

It felt selfish to cry, but a single tear fell. I had spent years tamping my feelings down, because my father had never known what to do with them, and Jaxon had resented their existence.

Arcturus had been nothing like them. Even though he revealed so few of his own emotions, he had never expected me to restrain mine. When I had broken down after my torture, he had afforded me the space to express my pain, letting me know he was there to listen. No matter how far I had plummeted, he had always been there, ready to break my fall.

‘You wouldn’t have wanted me to avenge you. I can’t make any promises,’ I said quietly. ‘Either way, I will do everything we meant to do together. I’ll bring Scion down, even if it takes me the rest of my life. I’ll fight for Rephs and humans to share this world in peace.’

I was shivering all over now, and not because the cellar was so cold.

No one would ever love me the way Arcturus Mesarthim had.

‘I wish I could have shown you the Golden Vale. I wish we could have gone back to Paris,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could have convinced Domino to give us that apartment, once all this was over. I don’t need a lot to be happy. I just wanted you, and a place where we could be together. That was all I ever wanted.’

My voice cracked on that final word. I rested my head on his chest, so I could pretend I would wake up in Paris, with his arms around me and our whole lives ahead of us, knowing he would be there for as long as I drew breath.

I must have drifted off for a while. When I woke, I glanced up and found Arcturus in exactly the same position.

My watch glowed as I tilted it. It was still the middle of the night, but I needed to leave now, or Terebell would have to put me in the ground with him. I placed my hand over the one on his chest.

‘You gave me an overture,’ I whispered. ‘You’ve left me to write the coda, and I’m no musician. But I’ll try.’ I touched my lips to his forehead, to press the exact feeling of his sarx into my memory. ‘Codladh sámh, a chara, a chosantóir. Mo ghrá go daingean tú, go deo. Maith dom.’

As I stood, tears washed my face. I would never feel his gentle touch or hear his voice again. I had lost my home, lost my entire family to Scion, but this might be the pain that broke me. Step by step, I backed away, only to slide to the floor in a heap, my knees buckling.

I didn’t know how to leave him.

Someone would have to drag me away.

And then, out of nowhere, I recalled the fifth card in the reading Liss had given me. I know the world will change around you . Her voice was clear as a bell. Death itself will work in different ways.

Death, inverted.

I paused, my gaze fixed on Arcturus. The fourth card had promised that we would be lovers, and not just for one night. The card has weight , Liss had told me. This will be a pillar of your life .

How could he be meant to leave me now, when there was so much left undone?

Think.

There was one thing I could try. It had never even crossed my mind, to enter a dreamscape that was also a tomb. There was no reason it should work; it felt like desecration, like trespassing. But all I had left were my instincts, and that morsel of hope that Liss had left me.

I returned to Arcturus and curled up at his side, so our faces were close together. Leaving a shadow of awareness behind, as he had taught me in London, I dreamwalked into him.

Like most of the tarot, the Death card wasn’t always to be taken literally. It was the card most often seen in voyants’ readings, that symbolised the ?ther itself. In my limited experience, it heralded a time of new beginnings, but in the inverted position, in this context, I wondered if I was meant to fight the change. To not give up on Arcturus.

He was hovering as close to death as Rephs could get. Perhaps that state could be reversed, regardless of what the Ranthen believed.

His dreamscape was as dark as that stone coffin must have been. Even my dream-form no longer glowed, as it usually did when I walked in his mind, but the golden cord held strong. I reached out a hand, finding one of the red drapes.

The cord was only just alight. I retraced the familiar steps around the drapes, putting my trust in our connection, which had, against all odds, survived his separation from the ?ther.

Even if this was false hope, I would follow it. I was voyant, and I would put my faith in the Death card, no matter its position.

I bumped into one of his spectres, a towering manifestation of memory. Under normal circumstances, it might have noticed an intruder in his dreamscape. Instead, it only listed, as if I had unbalanced it. As I backed away, I glimpsed my own terrified face in its eyes. Don’t choose the side I’m not standing on , it said in my voice. I don’t think I can bear to be your enemy.

If the spectre touched me, that memory might leak, and I couldn’t stand to go back to that night. I kept moving.

At last, I found Arcturus. I knelt beside him, like a mourner, and pressed my forehead against his, feeling his presence ring through my being. The essence of him, in direct contact with the essence of me.

It was as close as I had ever been to anyone.

‘Come back. We still have more to do.’ I touched his face. ‘And I still want you with me.’

It was the longest of long shots. For several moments, nothing happened, and I faced the unbearable possibility that I had misinterpreted the card. That I was going to have to turn my back on him, to walk away a second time. To abandon him to his dark room for ever.

And then my fingertips sparked, and a tremor rolled to the outermost circle of his mind, breaking against its edge like a wave.

Whatever had just happened, I had caused it.

I listened and waited, not letting go. And then light seared in from above, so bright it was blinding. The brilliance shocked me back into my body, where I met a pair of golden eyes, dim as windblown candles.

‘Arcturus?’

He stared at me, as if he had never seen me before. I stared back in wonder, my own eyes brimming.

And then I was flat on my back, and my wrists were pinned on either side of my head, held there by an iron grip.