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

5

SNOW AND RUST

ZILLERTAL ALPS

21 September 2060

I woke in the absolute darkness of the Westminster Archon. Once again, my wrists were bound. I tried to flex a hand free, but nothing happened.

This time, the water didn’t hit me from above. It wrapped and invaded my entire body, filling my throat, my chest, my stomach. I was trapped in the black depths, unable to move an inch. He gave himself up for you , Suhail whispered. He loomed from the shadows, eyes red and soulless. The concubine is ours now, dreamwalker. He will be ours for as long as you live.

‘Paige?’

I blinked, and he melted away. A bead of sweat trickled from my hairline.

‘Maria,’ I said. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes. Harald says we need to walk from here.’ Her face slowly came into relief, brow lined in concern. ‘Paige, you’re very pale. Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. Just … forgot where I was.’

‘I’ll remind you next time.’

My eyes were dry as smoke. The illuminated clock on the dashboard told me it was just past six in the morning. When I listed out of the car, my boots sank into snow.

The faint blue light of dawn revealed the mountains around us. I drew my jacket closer, my shivers worsening.

The Alps were not the gentle hills that had surrounded my grandparents’ farmhouse, or the Galtees, which had seemed impossibly tall when I was young. Untouched snow and evergreens covered their rugged slopes. I was so used to living in a citadel, I had fallen out of touch with this sort of natural beauty.

Mist feathered in my breath as the wind blew, leaving wisps of snow in my hair. The cold would keep me awake, though it didn’t help my sudden chill, or the stiffness in my fingers. That had been the worst flashback in a while.

Harald had brought us to a sleepy village. He knocked on a door and spoke to a grey-haired woman, then came back to us.

‘The villagers have not seen any patrols,’ he said, ‘but we should proceed with caution, in case of drones.’

‘I’m not convinced I know what a drone is,’ I said.

‘It’s a small uncrewed aircraft, often used for surveillance. Scion does deploy them for military purposes, but not in its citadels,’ Harald said. A sheep bleated. ‘If a drone detects us, it may draw the attention of a ground patrol, which I would prefer to avoid.’

My nod was terse. Admitting my lack of knowledge to Maria was one thing, but having to do it in front of the others filled me with a hot rush of shame. I wanted to blame Scion, but I could have taken more of an interest when traders came from elsewhere. I could have looked harder for knowledge – but Jaxon had wanted me wed to London, so London had become my world.

‘I never went this way through the Alps,’ Ver?a said. ‘How long will it take?’

‘Around six hours. A car will be waiting on the other side, so I can drive you to Command.’ Harald took a huge rucksack from the passenger seat and hitched it on to his shoulders. ‘Domino maintains a supply cabin in the pass. We’ll rest there, then continue to the border.’

A path led out of the village. Harald stuck in a pair of earphones, pulled on a woollen hat, and set off. I glanced at the sky, searching for aircraft, before I followed.

For the first hour, I tried to savour the sights and sounds, without much luck. Walking left me with too much room for contemplation. With every step, I wondered if I was moving any closer to Arcturus. When I sent another nudge along the golden cord, nothing came back.

I didn’t know what that meant. If Arcturus had been executed, surely the cord would have broken. If not, he was almost certainly with Nashira. She liked keeping her trophy close.

I had no idea where she would be. London had been her seat of power for some time, but the airstrikes would have rattled her, and Versailles and Oxford were both compromised.

Scion had been founded on the promise of security for those who submitted. The airstrikes would have destroyed that illusion overnight. Now even its founders were running out of safe places. I allowed myself some bitter satisfaction at that dose of poetic justice, even if it might not last. I was a fugitive with no home of my own, but if anything I had endured had made Nashira Sargas less comfortable, I could live with it.

The sun climbed into a clear sky. We climbed with it, past larch trees and piles of timber, following a distant line of pylons. Maria and Ver?a waited for me, but I soon fell behind, weighed down by the fatigue.

To conserve strength, I had tried to keep my attention off the ?ther, but Harald had mentioned the possibility of patrols, so I let my awareness widen. At once, I sensed them.

‘Maria,’ I called. She turned and came back towards me. ‘There are dreamscapes about a quarter of a mile ahead of us. Feels like eight or nine humans, and three animals. Can you warn Harald?’

She cursed and broke into a jog. I trudged after her, watching as she and Harald talked beside a boulder.

‘This may be a patrol with dogs,’ Harald said when I caught up. ‘They could have set up a checkpoint or blockade.’ He scratched at a scar on his lip. ‘We’ll have to go around.’

Ver?a blew into her palms. ‘And how long will that take?’

‘It will extend our journey by several hours. We’ll have to stay in the Alps tonight. Our supply cabin is small, but it will keep us warm.’

‘Let’s go, then.’ Maria took a sweater from her pack. ‘I refuse to come to blows with a dog.’

We retraced our steps to a fork in the path. The first time we had reached it, Harald had marched straight ahead. This time, he turned south, into a wild and sweeping valley, and took us along the remains of a trail, following a stream. It must have been an hour before we stopped beside a shallow pool, where Maria eased off her combat boots and washed blood from her heels.

‘Harald,’ Ver?a said, giving her a plaster, ‘how much farther to this cabin?’

‘And does it have food?’ Maria asked.

‘Tinned food. Nothing too appetising.’ Harald checked his chunky watch. ‘If we maintain this pace, we should reach the cabin by sunset. We’ll sleep there and take the bridge at dawn.’

I rubbed my eyes. ‘What bridge?’

‘It crosses an artificial lake. Using it will allow us to bypass the blockade, if that is what it was.’ He took a whey drink from his rucksack and tossed it to me. ‘For energy. The next part is the last and hardest. We need to go over that ridge to reach the cabin.’

He nodded to the peaks that towered right above us. Maria followed his line of sight. ‘I thought you said we wouldn’t be mountaineering?’ she said, horrified. ‘Look at my feet.’

‘Think of the view.’ Harald offered her a can. ‘Come along. No point in putting this off.’

Maria looked up at Ver?a. ‘Glad you came?’

‘Of course.’

The way up the ridge was narrow and steep. The four of us ascended without speaking, saving our breath. The only sound was the moan of the wind and the gravelly scuff of our shoes.

I had scaled cranes and skyscrapers, but mountains were a different matter, carved by wind and time. I had to stop every so often to let the ache burn through my body, like a flame along a match. At least I could breathe without coughing, which was more than I had been able to do in Paris.

The others attacked the ridge in their own ways. Ver?a assessed each slope carefully, while Maria moved in scrambling bursts and Harald went like well-oiled clockwork. Before long, thicker snow was crunching underfoot. I pushed through the discomfort.

All the while, I never looked up. Looking up would show me how much farther I had to climb. I couldn’t do that. I could only keep going.

I only realised Harald had stopped when I walked into him. ‘Sorry,’ I said, sleeving cold sweat from my brow.

‘No problem. Take a break,’ he said. ‘We’re at the top.’

At last, I let my gaze wander. All I could see were mountains, rising from a thin layer of cloud in all directions. Far below, a lake spread north, shocking blue against the snow. Maria appeared at last, doubled over.

‘Fucking mountains,’ she wheezed out. ‘Nothing but … jumped-up hills.’ She clutched her side. ‘Taking up space for eons, being outrageously hard to climb.’

I gave her a hand. ‘You all right there, champ?’

‘No, I’m dying. Let me expire.’

‘Didn’t you walk across Europe to get to London?’

‘When I was your age. Now I get backaches for no reason,’ she said, puffing. ‘Nothing like a surprise hike to show you how unfit you are. Why did I smoke all those years?’

‘Extreme stress?’

‘I could have taken up gardening.’

‘Come a little higher,’ Ver?a called, hair blowing in the wind. ‘It’s beautiful!’

‘You work indoors,’ Maria despaired. ‘How are you fitter than a career criminal, a commander of rebels?’

‘Radek makes sure we’re ready for anything. Did you never use the gym at the Boneyard?’

‘Absolutely not. I gave up on all exercise the moment I left Scion.’

She collapsed into the snow, grumbling in Bulgarian. I cracked open the shake and shielded my eyes from the sun, looking south. Tomorrow we would be in Italy.

Just as I was about to take a sip, I became aware that Harald was observing me. For no reason that I could explain, it raised the hairs on my nape. I pretended to drink, swallowing twice.

You only had eyes for the king and queen , Arcturus had warned me once, while we played chess. Remember not to overlook the other pieces. It might have done me good to listen every now and then.

The cabin was hidden some way off the trail. We pressed on with as much caution as we could muster in our state, boots slewing on loose chips of stone. Not stopping to rest would be dangerous soon. When Harald wasn’t looking, I emptied the can into the snow.

Maria knelt to tie her bootlaces. I waited beside her.

‘Do you trust Harald?’

She glanced at me. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘No particular reason.’

‘I don’t know him very well, but Radomír will have vetted him. Don’t worry.’

Radomír did strike me as the sort of man who did his research. I brushed off the misgiving and followed the others.

It was dusk by the time we got to the cabin. From a distance, it must look like part of the mountain, weathered grey and tucked beneath an overhang. You would only find it if you knew where to look.

Nearby, a suspension bridge stretched across the valley, so thick with rust it looked as if it was made of copper. It was high enough above the lake that a fall would certainly be fatal.

‘That looks stable,’ Maria said drily.

‘It was closed several years ago,’ Harald said, ‘but it will hold if we cross one by one. I’ve tested it.’ He unlocked the cabin. ‘Domino built this place years ago, for anyone who needed to lie low. We can’t risk lighting a fire, but there should be blankets and heat packs.’

I stamped the snow from my boots. ‘So Domino even has safe houses outside Scion?’

‘There is nowhere on Earth the anchor can’t reach.’

He said it nonchalantly, but the reminder was chilling. I took off my jacket and boots without comment.

The cabin was rudimentary, made up of three cramped rooms. Inside were pots and pans, firewood, other necessities for cooking without electricity. I sank to the floor, muscles fluttering in my legs.

Harald walked past me. I heard him talking amicably to Ver?a and Maria while they searched for food. Perhaps my instinct had been wrong. I was no longer confident in my own judgement.

‘Paige.’

I looked up. Harald held out a fleece blanket, which I took.

‘You should sleep with the others, for warmth.’ He had dark circles under his eyes. ‘I’ll keep watch.’

‘I can go first, if you like.’

‘I insist. You look tired.’

Pressing the issue would look strange, and I was in desperate need of sleep. I went into the next room, where Ver?a was cocooned in a blanket, opening a pack of salted crackers.

‘Maria says you’re concerned about Harald,’ she said, too soft for him to hear. ‘I checked his record before I left. He trained at the Libu?e Institute, went into Sweden, then started work as a courier for Command. A total of thirteen years with Domino.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know him.’

‘I understand.’ She passed me a cracker. ‘I spoke to my friend about your aster poisoning.’

‘Is that what I have?’

‘Yes. You are still on the brink of a whiteout. I suspect your captor was using some kind of stimulant to keep you awake, and when you escaped, the accumulation of white aster suddenly overwhelmed you. If your captor had given you any more, the whiteout could have been impossible to break, leading to complete memory loss.’

I snapped the cracker. ‘Will the amnesia wear off?’

‘Ev?enie told me the memories can return, but it takes a long time, even in mild cases. Apparently, recent events will come back to you first. I have a way to speed things up.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, I hope so. I used blue aster to stop the whiteout. Have you ever tried it before?’

‘No. I promised a friend I’d never touch ethereal drugs.’

‘The purple sort is dangerous, but blue and pink are not. In fact, they can be very useful.’ She pulled her bag into her lap. ‘Many people don’t understand what each one does.’

‘Go on.’

‘Purple aster distorts the dreamscape. We can’t usually change the way it looks, so this can be thrilling, but over time, it makes the user anxious and paranoid. White aster leaves a kind of dust on the dreamscape, which builds with prolonged use, burying memories, disturbing the spirit. That’s why they’re not just addictive, but harmful. It’s also why you’re so tired. Your spirit can’t reach a deep state of rest with all that dust in its sanctuary.’

‘What about pink and blue?’

‘They strengthen the silver cord, with different results. Pink seems to improve the connection between the spirit and the body, which is why it is often used as an aphrodisiac.’ She unzipped the bag. ‘And blue improves the connection between the spirit and the dreamscape. This makes you feel safe and grounded, and can serve to clarify recent memories.’

‘So you can use blue aster to counteract purple and white?’

‘To some extent.’ She handed me a small tin. ‘I didn’t want you to have to smoke, so I had the essence infused into patches. It should fortify your silver cord. If nothing else, you’ll sleep better.’

‘Thank you.’ I tucked the tin away. ‘I appreciate you looking into it.’

‘You’ve been a good friend to Maria,’ Ver?a said. ‘That makes you my friend as well.’

Now I had stopped moving, I could no longer hold off the exhaustion. When Maria returned, I wrapped myself in the blanket, and the three of us lay close together. Within a minute, I was out cold.

I woke with a sudden and inexplicable sense of danger. Slowly, I opened my eyes to see Harald, his face illuminated by the green light from his watch, aiming a pistol at my face.

‘Come with me,’ Harald said. ‘If you please, Underqueen.’

I had never been so angry to be right. I reined in my spirit, tasting blood. ‘Who are you?’

‘Someone whose instructions you must follow,’ he said. I sat up. ‘Don’t try to use your spirit, or Nina and Veronika will die. I will shout the order before you have time to stop my tongue.’

Maria and Ver?a were a wall away. They must have got up in the night and been ambushed in the other room, or the disturbance would have woken me. Harald took a step back, levelling the pistol at my head.

‘Please,’ he said, ‘put your jacket and boots on. And keep your hands where I can see them.’

My legs hurt from the climb. Once I had done as he said, he walked me at gunpoint to the next room, where six muscular strangers, all wearing ski masks, had restrained Ver?a and Maria.

‘What the hell is this?’ Maria said through gritted teeth. ‘Harald?’

‘I am taking Paige.’

‘Over my dead body.’

‘Stay calm, please, Nina. Nobody needs to get hurt.’ Harald checked his watch. ‘I’m sorry you and Veronika had to be involved, but now you are here, I may as well take you all to Scion. I doubt they will refuse two agents from a hostile organisation.’

I lifted my chin. ‘You work for Scion, then?’

‘In a manner of speaking. I’ve been searching for you since I lost track of Eléonore.’

It took a moment to sink in.

‘Cordier,’ I managed. ‘You know her?’

‘Not as well as I thought.’ Harald kept his pistol trained on my face. ‘I am not here to answer questions, Paige. All you need to know is that your escapade is over.’

‘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 are my family,’ Maria said, her tone soft and dangerous. ‘Hurt either of them and I will—’

‘Harald,’ Ver?a 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,’ Ver?a 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 ?ther 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,’ Ver?a 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,’ Ver?a 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.’

‘You contemptible—’ Maria fumed. ‘You could have killed the man!’

‘This is the only way. Again, Nina, I am sorry.’

‘You’re terrible at being a traitor, Harald. At least commit to villainy and stop apologising.’

‘I am doing this so I won’t have to betray Domino any more than I already have. It will be over now,’ he said, more to himself than us. ‘When I deliver Paige.’

Of course. I was nothing but a parcel, to be passed around and traded. First Cordier and now this.

In that moment, I saw my life as a path drawn by others, from the day my father had put me on a plane to England. For twelve years, I had tried to claw back some control, only to end up here, on this cold mountain, at the mercy of strangers.

I refused to be taken back to Scion against my will. When I returned, it would be on my terms.

The group escorted us towards the bridge. It might be our one and only chance to tip the scales in our favour. I searched for anything I could exploit, my eyes straining against the dark.

Harald stopped, keeping a firm grip on my shoulder. One of his people approached the bridge first. As they put their weight on it, the cables gave a tortured creak that carried right the way across the valley.

‘Harald, this is madness,’ Ver?a said, staring at the decayed structure. ‘You’re going to kill us all.’

‘We’ll be fine. One at a time.’

Ver?a huffed. ‘One death at a time?’

We waited for the bruiser to cross. Maria was shivering. Once the chirps and shudders had subsided, her captor jabbed her between the shoulders with his rifle.

‘Touch me again,’ she said, ‘and I promise you, I will burn you alive.’

The next shove almost knocked her over. ‘Enough,’ Harald said, with a note of genuine anger in his voice. ‘We agreed there would be no violence. No bloodshed.’ He blotted sweat from his upper lip, pupils down to pinpricks. ‘Nina, please. These people do not work for me.’

Maria ignored him. She hooked a thumb into her back pocket, where I could just see the lid of a lighter.

Harald had been so concerned with bridling my gift, he had forgotten to do the same to the others. Maria could use that lighter to ignite the few spirits in the area, but couldn’t risk it yet, with rifles pointing at us. From the way Ver?a had described her clairvoyance, she wouldn’t be able to help in a fight, but if I could get her away from the guns, Maria would be free to act.

I took stock of the bridge again, noting the ice and snowmelt. The stabilising cables looked weak, corroded. A few safety railings had rusted away.

Maria strode out in defiant silence. Once she had made it over, her guard went after her. As we waited for the bridge to stop trembling, I spied a glimmer of torchlight in the distance, on the far side of the lake.

‘That was a real patrol we ran into earlier, then,’ I said to Harald.

‘Yes.’ He let go of me. ‘Go across, please, Paige. We don’t want any more company.’

‘The present company is scintillating.’

‘Don’t try anything, Underqueen,’ came a muffled voice from under a ski mask. ‘It can get much worse.’

I shook my head and stepped on to the bridge, conscious of the guns at my back. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Harald standing behind Ver?a, big and muscular, almost a head and shoulders taller.

Steel and wood squeaked as I walked. An idea was coming together. By the time I was halfway across the bridge, the darkness had thickened, and my heart was hammering. This needed to look authentic. I was going to have to commit to the bit. As soon as I saw a gap in the railings, I fell hard beside it, hoping my scream was convincing.

Torchlight gleamed towards me from both sides of the bridge. I had already swung half my body over the edge, holding on tight to the railings.

‘Someone help me up,’ I called out, my voice laced with true fear. The bridge quaked as Harald started on to it. ‘Not you, you hulking great idiot – you’ll take us all down!’

He froze.

‘Harald, I’m lightest,’ Ver?a said, catching on. ‘Let me go.’

‘This had better not be a trick, Paige,’ Harald barked at me.

‘Does it look like a fucking trick?’ I snarled back. ‘You think I would risk my life for a trick?’

‘Hold on, Paige.’ Ver?a grasped the sides. ‘Hold on.’

One of the railings was already starting to strain in my grasp. My left wrist throbbed, and my arms were tired out from the climb. I fought to keep my elbows on the walkway. I hadn’t feared heights for years, but my hands sweated as I thought of the death that waited down there. The cold black lake would hit me like concrete, shattering my bones.

This might have been a bad idea.

As Ver?a approached, the railing snapped. Without hesitation, she dived for me, seizing my arm just in time. I clung to her with one hand and clawed for the walkway with the other.

‘I’ve got you. Come on,’ Ver?a urged. I hooked a knee on to the bridge. ‘Paige, what were you thinking?’

‘I had to separate you. We need—’

Fire erupted at the end of the bridge, followed by gunshots. Almost blind in the dark, without the ?ther to guide me, I scrambled to my feet and pushed Ver?a in front of me, shielding her.

Our footfalls made the bridge shudder. As Maria wielded flaming spirits on her side, one of the masked bruisers barrelled past Harald.

‘Back off,’ I shouted at them. ‘Back off !’

Too late. With a thwang , a cable gave way, and the bridge swung loose with a screech of rusted steel. It careered to the right, pitching me with it. Ver?a made a desperate grab for a railing.

A strangled cry went up as our pursuer fell. Harald was bellowing for all he was worth, but I couldn’t hear over the deafening shriek of metal, the wind, my laboured breathing.

We lunged forward, trying to both move and hold on, as the bridge started to list, tilting us towards the chasm. Ver?a let go of the railing to our left, only to stumble and slam into the other side. A metal rod broke under her weight, but the others held, stopping her from tumbling off the bridge altogether. A moment later, I lost my balance and joined her against the railings, teeth clenched. If the bridge leaned much farther, we would be hanging over the drop by our fingertips.

Now the whole thing was coming apart. With a twist that uprooted my stomach, it rolled left, dumping us back on the walkway. Before it could steal our footing again, we picked ourselves up and sprinted for the end. Ver?a made it, right as two more cables sprang free.

I was too far behind. Realising what was about to happen, I wrapped an arm and a leg around the railings – seconds before the wind ripped through my hair, and I was weightless, holding on to one half of a torn bridge.

When it struck the cliff face, I lost my grip. I plummeted for two heartbeats, and then I caught myself.

The shock washed off me. As I heaved for breath, the other section of the bridge gave a groan before it crashed into the lake. The explosion of water soaked me to the skin. Somehow I fought off the panic and held on, kicking for a foothold.

The ruin made an ominous sound. Blinking water off my lashes, I stared up twenty feet, craning my neck. My side was still attached to the cliff. I was going to have to scale this skeleton of a bridge like a ladder.

I reached up and gripped a railing.

Cramps shot through my hands. My wrist was on fire. As I shinned between handholds, losing strength for every gain, I remembered climbing a ladder in Paris, saving myself from death once more. I had been tired then, as I was now. So tired I could hardly see.

No matter how far I ran, I always seemed to end up like this, trying to stop the world shaking me off, into the ?ther. The temptation to let it loosened my fingers. The thought of Arcturus firmed them again. If I didn’t do this, I would never know what had happened.

Just as I thought my wrist would fail me for the last time, I glimpsed Maria and Ver?a at the top, shouting my name. Their hands found mine, and together, they pulled me up. I collapsed into their arms, shaking all over, as the rest of the bridge left its moorings and fell.

‘You,’ Maria said hoarsely, ‘are the luckiest woman alive.’

‘I strongly disagree,’ I croaked.

Two bodies were on fire nearby. I turned to face the cliff where Harald Lauring must still be.

‘Do you think this changes anything for me?’ His voice came from the darkness, carried by the wind. ‘Yes, well done, you got away. Well done, Underqueen!’ Maria drew us both closer. ‘I cannot, will not, let my family die. So now I will have to betray all of Domino! I will have to hand everyone to her, to Grapevine. Don’t you understand that I know everything about Command, as their courier – where they are, who they are?’

‘No,’ Ver?a breathed.

‘And now I will have to kill you,’ Harald roared, ‘so you don’t warn them!’ Maria wiped blood from her chin, panting. ‘I told you all what was at stake. You made me do this!’

Before any of us could move, bullets sparked off what remained of the bridge. The entire valley reflected the din as we hit the ground, Ver?a smothering a cry. With all my might, I tried to dreamwalk, but all I did was give myself a nosebleed and a blinding headache. Instead, I went for the corpses, their weapons. Harald might be shooting blind, but one stray bullet could still find us.

On our side, a clipped gunshot rang out.

When the echoes had faded, silence descended on the valley. I looked around to see a tall woman step into the firelight, dressed for the cold, a sniper rifle in her grasp. She took in the two bodies, then me.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I see you remain a force of infinite chaos, Flora Blake. I can’t say I missed it.’ She held out a gloved hand. ‘But it’s comforting to know some things don’t change.’

‘Ducos,’ I said, with a laugh of relief.

My former Domino supervisor gave me a firm tug back to my feet. ‘I am going to kill you,’ Isaure Ducos said, her dark eyes reflecting the fire. ‘Later.’

‘Thank you. I mean, yes, fine.’

Maria suddenly hissed, making Ducos raise her rifle. ‘Yoana,’ Ver?a said, ‘what is it?’

She fumbled a torch from the snow and shone it on Maria, revealing the hilt of a knife, protruding from her sleeve.

‘Oh.’ Maria let out a pained chuckle. ‘I probably should have noticed that sooner.’