Page 19 of The Dark Mirror (The Bone Season #5)

19

CUCKOO

Ducos drove without speaking. I exchanged a glance with Arcturus, who was wrapped up in a heavy coat and gloves.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We’re out of Venice. Care to explain what’s going on?’

‘When Pivot first learned that Grapevine had turned one of our agents, she started to monitor all communications from headquarters. Even mine,’ Ducos said. ‘In the early hours of this morning, she called me to see her. Spinner had sent a message to persons unknown.’

She passed me her own phone, which showed me a screenshot.

EXTRACT 2 – PRIORITY ULTRA – 23:00

‘He wants to extract two people at eleven.’ I looked at her. ‘Is that what it means?’

‘So it would appear.’ She took the phone back. ‘I suspect the targets are you and Warden.’

‘Are you saying Spinner is an infiltrator?’

‘I have my suspicions.’ She changed lanes. ‘The night you arrived, I had dinner with a woman named Rocío. She used to be a member of Mannequin, but now works for Spinner. Over the last few weeks, she had observed a change in his demeanour. He was becoming short-tempered and cagey, which she found worrying, in light of recent events. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. But the moment I saw that message, I had a gut feeling.’

‘If Grapevine has a spy in Command, Domino is done. You’re not coming back from that.’

‘It may not be Grapevine.’

‘Who, then?’

‘Last night more than convinced Spinner that everything you told us is true,’ Ducos said. ‘He insisted our benefactors should know about Advena sapiens as soon as possible, arguing that we had an overriding moral duty to inform all countries opposed to Scion. Pivot and I were against this. We reminded him that we only serve the countries that fund our network; any decisions on disseminating the information farther would have to come from them. Spinner relented. Now I wonder if another party has been greasing his palm.’

‘You think he’s already told someone about the Rephs?’

‘I think he’s told Tinman.’

‘Why?’

‘I told you how they earned that name. Tinman is known for underhanded tactics and extreme self-interest, and we already know its agents want you. I can see them hatching this plan.’

‘But Spinner knew I was leaving for Rome. Why didn’t he grab me sooner?’

‘I led him to believe that you were due to leave on Tuesday, not tonight. That’s why I told you to disguise yourself when you left your room, so he wouldn’t realise you were gone,’ she said. ‘We need him to believe that you and Warden are still in Venice.’ She gave me a sidelong look. ‘If Tinman gets hold of you, they’ll want to turn you into their instrument by any means. If they get hold of Warden, I can almost guarantee he’ll be locked in a military installation on some godforsaken black site and vivisected. You’ll never see him again.’

Arcturus caught my gaze in the mirror.

Terebell had trusted me by agreeing to attend that meeting. I imagined Spinner calculating which of them would be easier to capture. Arcturus was the obvious choice, in his state.

‘It was Spinner who suggested that we speak to Warden a second time,’ Ducos said. ‘It seemed reasonable, but when I saw that message, I acted.’ She opened her window. ‘Now you’re both out, Pivot can secure the Palazzo del Domino. We’ll catch Spinner in the act.’

‘What about Maria and Nick?’

‘They’ll be fine. Pivot has it all under control.’

‘I’m glad someone does,’ I said tightly. ‘Are you sure Spinner isn’t aligned with Grapevine?’

‘No. I’m not sure. But we’ll know by tomorrow.’

‘Wait.’ I sat up straighter. ‘Are you taking us both to Rome?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Cade knows Arcturus. That means he can detect him in the ?ther.’

‘I have alysoplasm, Paige.’ Arcturus spoke for the first time. ‘I can use it to—’

‘Not on my watch.’ I rounded in my seat to glare at him. ‘You think poisoning yourself for days is going to help you get better?’

If he was surprised by my outburst, he concealed it, meeting my gaze levelly. I flushed.

‘I will not have to take it for long,’ he said. ‘When Terebell returns to Italy, I can leave with her.’

‘I’m telling her right now.’ I dug into my pocket. ‘She might not have reached the cold spot in the Apennines. You need someone with you.’

‘How do you mean to contact her?’

‘I gave her a phone.’

‘She would have discarded it. After Senshield, she swore never to use human technology.’

‘Fucking hell,’ I exploded. ‘No wonder the Sargas are winning!’

‘Calm down, Flora,’ Ducos said firmly. ‘I understand why you’re angry, but Warden is conspicuous and unwell, and we can’t just put him anywhere. I can get him to a sanctuary, but I’ll need a few days.’

‘Fine.’ I sat back in my seat. ‘Arcturus, if I haven’t killed Cade within those few days, you need to leave. You know full well you can’t be on alysoplasm for any longer.’

He looked out of the window. ‘As you wish, Underqueen.’

‘Ducos,’ I said, ‘what will happen to Spinner?’

‘If he’s been leaking information to Grapevine, he may be charged with treason in Australia, where he’s from,’ Ducos said, ‘but Australia is closely allied with America, so if it’s Tinman he’s been serving, he may not be punished.’ She took out her box of cigarettes. ‘Turn your phone off. Spinner shouldn’t notice your absence, but you ought to stay off the radar.’

‘What if the others call?’

‘You can’t help anyone from here.’ She reached under her seat and passed me a blanket. ‘Take your mind off it and sleep. I’ll wake you when we’re getting close.’

I switched off my phone. Before I settled in to sleep, I glanced over my shoulder at Arcturus. Even if I was afraid for him, I was relieved he was still with me.

I woke to a gentle trill. Ducos hooked an earpiece on and gave it a tap, making her phone glow on the dashboard.

‘Widow,’ she said.

I blinked a few times. From the clock on the dashboard, we had been driving for over two hours.

‘I have no idea,’ Ducos said. ‘Why, are you concerned?’

She listened for a while.

‘That has to be a misunderstanding. I’m taking her on Tuesday,’ she said. ‘She might be with Noemi. She hasn’t been outside Scion since she was a child. We don’t want to keep her cooped up in the Palazzo.’

I could just hear a voice on the other end of the line.

‘She was a career criminal. I’m sure she can handle herself in a city as safe as Venice at night.’ She waited again. ‘He was there when I left. I wouldn’t disturb him. We’ll have plenty of time to question him on Sunday.’ Her eyes reflected the headlamps in the other lane. ‘No, I’m heading for Matera to see Valentina Chen. I’ll be back for the meeting.’

My heart thudded.

‘Very good. See you then.’ Ducos ended the call. ‘That was Spinner. Pivot will cover your absence.’

Arcturus was asleep. I rested my head on the window, watching the other vehicles on the motorway.

‘That black car,’ I said, tensing. ‘There’s no dreamscape.’

‘Remind me what that means.’

‘It means the driver is concealing themselves.’

Ducos glanced at the rear-view mirror. ‘Italy is the leading manufacturer of autonomous cars. That’s one of them. There is no driver,’ she said. ‘It’s probably just a test run.’

Another strange fact about the free world. I reclined my seat and tried to get back to sleep.

A bright nest of lights soon appeared in the dark, rousing me again. Ducos parked the car and hooked it up to a charging point.

‘This will take a while,’ she told me. ‘I’m going inside for a coffee. Do you want to come?’

‘I’m grand.’

She looked at me, then at Arcturus. ‘I’ll bring you something to eat.’

‘Thanks.’ I noticed the clock. ‘It’s past the time of the extraction.’

‘Yes. Pivot hasn’t called, but I suspect she has her hands full.’ Ducos checked her phone. ‘I’ll touch base once we get to Rome.’

She strode into the service station. I resisted turning my phone on. Maria and Nick would have been able to defend themselves, if necessary.

Arcturus stirred in the back seat. He looked around the car before his gaze came to rest on me.

‘Guess it wasn’t goodbye after all,’ I said.

‘No. It seems that, as the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome.’

‘I’ve never heard that.’ I wound a curl around my fingers. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you to that meeting. I knew there had been leaks in Domino, but I trusted that Command was clean.’

‘You are not at fault.’

His eyes were too dim for my comfort. In Paris, he had fed every two or three days.

‘Arcturus,’ I said, ‘when did you last take aura?’

‘The night you revived me. I will endure until we reach Rome.’

I doubted it.

‘You could use mine,’ I said, after a moment. ‘It would be easier than trying to find a stranger.’

‘I will not feed on you, Paige.’

‘You’re clearly in no state to look for random voyants in a city you don’t know. Otherwise you’d have done it in Venice. You can’t risk being seen in Rome.’

‘I have never been seen.’

‘Fine.’ I undid my seatbelt. ‘Stay here. I won’t go far.’

Outside in the fog, I paced near the chargers, trying to stretch the ache from my back. Hours in one position had left me stiff, and my shoulder was killing me.

I was going to be alone with Arcturus for a few days. I had no idea how to handle that, or why it was irritating me that he refused to use my aura. As I blew into my hands, a black car turned off the motorway and drove towards the charging stations, just as several others had.

Except this one was different. This was the same car I had noticed earlier.

At once, I returned to my seat and reached across to lock the doors. The car approached ours.

‘Paige,’ Arcturus said. ‘What is it?’

‘Wait,’ I said.

The car passed us without stopping. It had tinted windows, so dark I couldn’t make out anything inside. It circled to the back of the service station and vanished from sight.

‘Never mind.’ I released my breath. ‘I really am getting paranoid.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘No, I am. All the double-crossing is driving me insane.’ I kneaded my forehead. ‘I could deal with the concept of fighting Scion. That was simple. But now there are multiple factions in the mix, and they all seem to either want me dead or working for them.’

‘Grapevine is the faction that ought to concern us most. Vindemiatrix Sargas is shrewd, and I suspect her knowledge of humans is second only to mine. Her agents stand ready to disseminate propaganda and buckle free-world nations from within. Fitzours may be able to force governments to convert, but the people will require further conditioning.’

‘At least he can’t possess everyone.’ I slouched into my seat. ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier. Cade is stronger than me. If we lose the element of surprise, I’ve no advantage.’

‘We do not yet know the extent of your abilities.’

‘No, but he’s clearly willing to go much further than I am. What he did to both of us in Paris – I wouldn’t do something like that to my worst enemy. I don’t think I have it in me.’

‘If you did,’ Arcturus said, ‘what would distinguish their side from ours?’

I looked at him. He always knew exactly what to say.

Ducos chose that moment to return from the service station. ‘You don’t eat, do you?’ she said to Arcturus. He shook his head. ‘Coffee for you, Flora.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

She passed it to me, along with a pot of chopped fruit and a sandwich, and took out a salad for herself. While we picked at our early breakfast, she kept an eye on her phone. When a light on the dashboard flashed, indicating a full charge, she started the car again.

‘You had better take your … alysoplasm,’ she said. ‘We’ll be in Rome in forty minutes.’

‘I would be grateful for a syringe, if you have one,’ Arcturus said to her. ‘My dosage must be precise.’

‘Why?’

‘It makes him sick,’ I said offhandedly. ‘Sicker than it does me.’

Terebell would never forgive me if I let the truth slip. Even my closest friends had no idea that the Rephs could become Buzzers.

Ducos unzipped a medical kit and handed a syringe over. Arcturus used it to draw a tiny dose of diluted alysoplasm from a vial. I sipped from the one Terebell had given me, and the ?ther faded again.

‘You both look as if you’re about to die,’ Ducos observed as she drove out of the station.

‘Yeah, thanks.’ I covered my mouth. ‘I need to be quiet now, or I’ll throw up.’

‘Please don’t. This is a work car.’

Ducos drove along a deserted stretch of motorway. Arcturus sat in rigid silence. I kept glancing at him, even as my skin turned clammy and my stomach cramped. Rephs could only tolerate one or two drops of pure alysoplasm when they were on good form. Even watered down, I couldn’t stop worrying about the havoc it might be wreaking on his body.

I let myself doze off again, if only to escape the discomfort. I couldn’t stand not being able to sense the ?ther. If I didn’t find Cade quickly, I might have to endure it for days.

A sickening crash jolted me awake. I snapped forward before my seatbelt went taut. Ducos had barely spun the wheel before the car swung to the left, and suddenly we were careening off the road.

Ducos hit the brakes. The car slewed and tipped, and before I knew it, glass was exploding around us. Her phone escaped its holder and clipped my cheek. I kept my eyes shut and my heels on the floor until I was slammed back against my seat, pinned there by an inflated airbag.

There was no light. I could hear my own laboured breaths, then Arcturus: ‘Paige, are you injured?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, shaken. ‘Are you?’

‘No.’

‘Ducos?’

‘I’m alive,’ she said, her voice straining.

‘Fuck.’ I tried to catch my breath. ‘Did we roll over?’

‘Yes. A car ran us off the motorway.’ She pressed her gun into my hand. ‘It’s either bounty hunters, or Spinner got wind of us. Shoot to kill, if you must. I’ll be right behind you.’

I only had one knife on me. Ducos had locked my other weapons in the boot. Once my seatbelt was off, I tumbled out of the car, using the door as a shield while I readied the gun. I was going to have to fight in the dark with only five of my senses.

The yellow lights of the motorway shone up ahead; so did a pair of headlamps. I ran, leading them away from Ducos and Arcturus. The car veered towards me and gave chase.

Had someone really come for that obscene reward?

Nick had trained me to have quick reflexes, but that had been with my clairvoyance. It was as much a part of me as my sight or my hearing, and the loss of it had unbalanced me. I fired at the windscreen, but the car still struck my thigh as it passed, knocking me down.

The car reversed with a wet screech. Teeth set, I pointed the gun, but even with all six of my senses, I had never been a crack shot. I landed a hit on one of the tyres, blowing it out just before the car reached me.

Someone got out of the passenger side. I raised my torch, aiming for the eyes. The beam revealed a massive bald man I recognised. Bohren, the unreadable who worked with Cordier. He grinned at the sight of me, turning my blood cold.

My gun went off.

The unreadable looked down at his chest. I froze as the grin slipped off his face, and a stain darkened his shirt. He collapsed to the ground, revealing a pale woman with short black hair. All the memories came pouring over me, roughening my skin with goosebumps.

‘There you are.’ Cordier levelled a small pistol at me. ‘Get in the car, Paige.’

‘I’d rather you shot me,’ I said, my voice on the verge of cracking.

‘If you insist, I’ll aim for your knees.’

I had seen enough kneecapping to know I wouldn’t recover from that sort of injury in a hurry.

‘All right.’ I threw away the gun. ‘I’ll come with you. Just leave the others alone.’

‘You’re in no position to make demands.’ She marched towards me. ‘You’d have used your trick by now, if you could.’

Arcturus suddenly came into the light of the headlamps. Seeing him, Cordier grabbed me and locked me against her, one arm across my throat, her gun jammed to my temple.

‘Well, look at that,’ she said, with a surprised laugh. ‘You made it out.’ Arcturus watched her back me towards the car. ‘I will blow her jaw off if you come any closer, Warden.’

‘I doubt that,’ he said. My ears rang from the gunshot. ‘Paige clearly has value to you, Dr Cordier.’

‘Paige does,’ she agreed. ‘I can live without her teeth.’

‘There is no cause for violence.’

‘What, you’re just going to let me take her, are you?’ she asked. ‘Because I do have to take her.’

‘Then we are at a stalemate.’

His gaze seared into mine as he spoke. Through the dread, I understood that he was distracting her. I drove my elbow into her side, right where I had stabbed her in that final memory. She let go of me with a cry and dropped her pistol, which I kicked towards Arcturus.

‘You vicious little—’ She bent almost double, clutching her side. ‘I should have left you in a hole to starve.’

‘I remember it. All of it.’ I grabbed her by the collar of her coat. ‘You took me from Paris. Why?’

Her hand found my left wrist and pulled. Even with the brace, it was agony. As my sight went grey, she threw me aside, drew a revolver, and shot Arcturus. I had seen him absorb bullets without even flinching, but now that he was tired and poisoned, the rounds floored him.

The anger that rushed over me was uncontrollable, as if my body had been taken over by a poltergeist. Cordier turned the gun on me and wrenched me towards the car.

She hadn’t expected me to know where she was wounded, or to lose her accomplice. With all the strength I could muster, I pinned her to the ground. My old self reared, the mollisher with a debt to collect, and before she could writhe away from me, I had a knife to her throat.

I was in the sewers of Paris again, a sickle in my grasp, the blade pressed against skin. A pair of dark wings seemed to cover my eyes. All I had to do was cut, and the Devil would bleed.

‘Flora,’ Ducos shouted. ‘Don’t. We need her alive.’

My hand tightened around the knife.

‘Paige.’

Arcturus had managed to come to my side. I looked up at him through a stinging haze.

‘She did this to us,’ I whispered. ‘She betrayed you to Scion.’

‘If you kill her, we may never know why.’ His voice was soft. ‘Stay your hand, for both our sakes.’

Cordier looked between us, her face slick with sweat. I turned back towards her, just as she reached up to weakly grasp the blade, blood on her driving glove.

‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘Paige. I’ll tell you.’

After a pause, I shoved her down in disgust, resisting the urge to punch her. Arcturus passed me her pistol, which I trained on her as Ducos caught up, taking in her former colleague and the corpse.

‘Eléonore.’ With some difficulty, she picked up her gun. ‘You have some explaining to do.’

Cordier had chosen the perfect spot on the motorway for an ambush. No one had come to investigate the collision. Now she was sitting on the grass, her wrists and ankles secured with cable ties. Despite her pallor and the blood leaking from her side, her gaze was defiant.

Ducos leaned on the hood of the car. From what she could tell, her seatbelt had broken a rib in the rollover. I had escaped with a bruised cheekbone and some cuts from the glass, while Arcturus had four bullets in his chest and a fifth in his shoulder. With the alysoplasm in him, I doubted his body would be able to force them out, as it usually could.

‘You could have killed us,’ Ducos said to Cordier. ‘Then again, your morals seem to have evaporated. Albéric worked with us both for years, and you betrayed him to the Vigiles.’

Albéric had been another member of Mannequin. Cordier had sold him out to Scion, too.

‘Don’t talk to me about morals,’ Cordier said hoarsely. ‘I needed money. It wasn’t personal.’

‘That makes it fine, then,’ I said.

‘Give it a few years out here, Paige. You’ll realise there’s no bottom to the cesspit of humanity.’

‘I doubt she’ll need a few.’ Ducos braced her ribs. ‘How did you find us?’

‘I could see Paige in the Alps before the tracker failed, and Harald Lauring had told me where Domino had its headquarters, so I … guessed that was where she was going,’ Cordier said. ‘Sooner or later, she had to come out. I told them I’d get her back.’

‘Who?’

‘Tinman.’

Ducos nodded. Her instinct had been right. ‘When did you get involved with them?’

‘I was never not involved.’ Cordier took a shallow breath. ‘I’ll try to keep it short. After my parents’ divorce, I stayed with my father in Roberval. My mother took my sister to Istanbul. I was fourteen at the time, and my sister was eight. Two years later, I was told that my sister and mother had been killed in a car accident. Their deaths led me to train as a paramedic.’

If she was hoping to tug my heartstrings, she was going to be here for a while.

‘I joined an ambulance service in New York City. Four years later, I was approached by the Atlantic Intelligence Bureau,’ she said. ‘The recruiter said there was reason to believe my mother and sister were alive in the Republic of Scion, and promised me the means to find them if I worked for him. I quit my job and signed up without question.’

Now the link made sense.

‘The recruiter wanted me to go undercover inside a European espionage network called the Domino Programme, so I could siphon their intelligence about Scion off to Tinman. We’re called cuckoos,’ Cordier said. ‘You ever see what a cuckoo does with its eggs?’

‘The cuckoo is a brood parasite,’ Arcturus said in an undertone. ‘It leaves its eggs in other birds’ nests. The host bird may never realise that the chick it is rearing is an imposter.’

‘Smart and handsome. Got yourself a real catch there, Paige,’ Cordier said. I stiffened. ‘Yes. I was a cuckoo among the warblers. There are others.’

Ducos clenched her jaw. ‘How much have you told them, Eléonore?’

‘I told them everything.’

‘Do they know the secret behind Scion?’

‘They know there is one. When I reported what I saw in Paris, they knew they were on to something good. A man … who didn’t look human. A woman who could possess anyone. They couldn’t let Domino keep two rare gems like that. America must always prevail.’

‘That’s why they came after Paige. They want to know what they’re dealing with.’ Ducos said it more to herself than to any of us. ‘Go on. How did they manage to plant you in Domino?’

‘A recruiter at Yerebatan is a cuckoo. He pretended to headhunt me, presenting me as a woman named Aysel Ekren, whose identity I stole.’ Cordier looked at me. ‘See, Paige – we’re not so different. You voyants speak to the dead; we spies borrow their names.’

‘Fuck you,’ I said.

‘You were sweeter when you had amnesia.’

It took all my restraint not to throttle her.

‘I found documents pertaining to my sister at Yerebatan. Operation Stiletto – a successful first attempt to plant deep-cover agents in Scion,’ she said. ‘My mother and Alice were selected. Alice was always precocious – highly perceptive and intelligent, even when she was eight. Domino gave her a new identity and faked her death in Istanbul.’

‘Alice.’ I paused. ‘Do you mean Scarlett Burnish?’

‘Yes,’ she said, sweat beading on her forehead again. ‘Even if we’d been separated for years, Alice was my sister. I couldn’t abandon her, knowing she never had a choice. She was a child when Domino put her in Scion. A fucking child , Isaure. You criticise Tinman for its tactics, but she was ten years old. Don’t you dare mention morals again.’

‘So this was about vengeance,’ Ducos said coolly. ‘All those extended assignments. You would disappear for weeks at a time.’

‘Sometimes I was harvesting intelligence from other sub-networks. When I wasn’t doing that, I was either at the Fluke, sharing it with my birdwatcher, or in London,’ Cordier confirmed. ‘I found my mother in Mayfair. She pretended she didn’t know who I was, but I left her a means to contact me in Paris, in case she or Alice wanted to get out. I didn’t hear a word for years.’

Claude Burnish kept a low profile, but I had glimpsed her in the Descendant every now and then. Now I wondered whether her Scion-born spouse had known the truth about her.

‘In the Archon,’ Cordier went on, ‘Alice worked with a … sympathiser, code name Lepidopterist.’

Ducos narrowed her eyes. ‘Another Domino agent?’

‘No. An independent defector,’ Cordier said. ‘In December, Alice sent him to Paris to find me. To tell me she had accepted her duty, and that I should leave Scion. Leave her.’ She closed her eyes. ‘A week after Versailles, the Lepidopterist got in touch again. Alice had entrusted him with something of immense value, which he was meant to pass to me, but he wanted something in return – Paige. He knew I could get her. That’s why I did it.’

‘You’re lying,’ I said. ‘You put the tracking unit in me before Versailles.’

‘Yes, because Tinman had separately ordered me to extract you and Warden.’

‘Why?’

‘Why do you think?’ Cordier wheezed a laugh. ‘You’re a miracle, Paige Mahoney. Don’t you know how devastating a weapon you would be in the right hands, or the wrong ones?’

‘I’m aware.’

‘I really don’t think you are,’ she said. ‘The Lepidopterist stipulated that I had to split you up from Warden. As soon as you left the safe house, I got him detained.’

So the Lepidopterist knew about Warden. That narrowed down the number of people it could be.

‘You held me for six months,’ I said. ‘What were you waiting for?’

‘He wanted you kept away. And he didn’t want you anywhere near Warden.’ Cordier took a deep breath. ‘Tinman smelled a rat. My birdwatcher had told me to bring you to Amsterdam, but I couldn’t risk the loss of whatever my sister got out of the Archon, so I took you to Switzerland instead. From there, we had to go on the run.’

‘Tell us how Harald Lauring got involved,’ Ducos said.

‘Harald had more experience with voyants than I did. He found a Domino associate who could keep Paige under control. His gift made him immune to hers.’ Cordier glanced at the corpse. ‘I hadn’t realised Harald was Grapevine. When I realised he was going to try to take Paige, we gave him the slip. I bribed Lennart to come with me.’

‘Harald found her,’ Ducos said. ‘He was on his way to Scion with her when our paths crossed.’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shame. He was a good man, at one point.’

‘Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,’ I said. ‘Not only did you hold me hostage for months, but you condemned Arcturus to a torture chamber.’

‘I did try other ways. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,’ Cordier said to Arcturus. ‘I’m glad you made it out, handsome.’

‘You just shot him,’ I bit out.

‘He can take it. Besides, there are worse things in store for him if you’re not careful, Paige.’

‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘Our world is about to change. The secret is bursting its bounds. Too many people know or suspect,’ she said. ‘It’s only a matter of who gets to it first, and who is the one to reveal it. Tinman is grasping the extent of this. They’ll do anything to get their hands on a specimen.’

‘They’ll have to come through me.’

‘I’m sure they’d enjoy that opportunity. They have a tracker in me now, by the way,’ she added to Ducos. ‘You should move.’

‘You’re working for them again?’

‘They caught up to us when Paige stabbed me. Thanks for that, by the way,’ she said to me. ‘I told them I could find her, but … they don’t trust me on my own.’

‘Tell me about Spinner,’ Ducos said.

‘Who?’

‘John Prentice. He’s a member of Command.’

‘Oh, the Aussie.’ Cordier took another breath. ‘Tinman pays him for dirt on your benefactors. He was meant to facilitate a raid on headquarters last night, so they could take Paige and Warden. I was there as a safety net. I saw you leave.’

‘And now here you are.’ Ducos knelt in front of her. ‘I’m taking you to Venice. If you give us concrete information on what Tinman has been doing in Europe, you’ll be given a new identity.’

‘They’d find me.’ Her smile was thin. ‘Alice was my reason for doing this. She’s gone, isn’t she?’

‘Scion executed her. Do you know why?’ Ducos said. ‘Because she saved Paige. If you had sent Paige to any of these factions – none of whom can mean her well – you would have rendered your sister’s death meaningless.’

I stayed quiet while Cordier absorbed this.

‘Without Paige, I can’t secure the intelligence that Alice collected. It was all for nothing,’ she said. ‘And when the cuckoo is found out, it either gets killed or abandoned.’ She looked at her old friend. ‘Tell me once more, Isaure. When does a spy know she needs to retire?’

Ducos answered, after a long pause: ‘The day she becomes ensnared in her own web.’

‘It was a good lesson, even for a cuckoo.’ Cordier smiled again. ‘Lennart back there mentioned a voyant custom, Paige. My name is Margaux Taylan. That’s the name I still hold close.’

She tightened her jaw, and her throat shifted.

‘No.’ Ducos caught her as she slumped over. ‘Margaux—’

Cordier shook her head and choked. Bloody foam escaped her lips.

‘I told you not to keep it in your mouth,’ Ducos ground out. ‘I told you.’

All Domino agents were issued with a silver pill, allowing them to end their lives before Scion could get to them. Ducos had assured me that it caused a quick and painless death, but Cordier kept writhing and twitching for some time. Arcturus stayed beside me as I watched it happen, wondering if I should just relent and shoot her.

Ducos did it first.

Cordier lay on the grass. Even if I couldn’t feel it, I knew her spirit had come untethered from her body. I glanced at Arcturus, who gave me a small nod.

‘Margaux Taylan,’ I said, ‘be gone into the ?ther. All is settled. All debts are paid. You need not dwell among the living now.’