Bone Season 01: The Bone Season: A Novel (12 page)

Barefoot, I approached the bed and I slid my fingers between the drapes, opening them just enough to see him. He lay on his side, covered by the sheets, his skin glistening in the half-light. His coarse brown hair was snarled over his face. As I watched, a dim light spread through the bedding, close to where his right arm lay.

I brushed his dreamscape. Something was different. I couldn’t get much from it, but it wasn’t quite as it should be. Every dreamscape had a kind of invisible light: an inner glow, imperceptible to amaurotic senses. Now his vital light was going out.

He was still as the grave. When I looked down at the sheets, I found them spotted with a softly luminous, yellow-green liquid. It had a thin, metallic scent. My sixth sense felt as if it was being plucked, as if I was inhaling the æther. I rolled the heavy bedclothes down.

A bite oozed on the inside of his arm. I swallowed. I could see the faint imprints of teeth, skin ripped in a vicious frenzy. The wound wept beads of light. Blood.

It was his
blood
.

He must have told the other Rephaim he was going somewhere. They would have known he was doing something dangerous. There was no way they could find the evidence to blame me if he died.

Then I remembered what Liss had said to me in the shack.
Rephs aren’t human. No matter how much they look like us, they’re not like us.

Like they would care if there was no evidence. They could fabricate evidence. They could say whatever they liked. If he died on this bed, they could easily claim I’d smothered him. It would give Nashira an excuse to kill me early.

Maybe I should do it. This was my chance to get rid of him. I’d killed before. I could do it again.

I had three options. I could sit here and watch him die, kill him, or try and stop it. I’d rather watch him die, but I sensed it might be better to save him. I was reasonably safe in Magdalen. The last thing I wanted to do at this stage was move.

He hadn’t hurt me yet, but he would. To own me he would have to subjugate me, torture me, make me obey by any means necessary. If I killed him now, I might save myself. My hand reached for a pillow. I could do it, I could suffocate him.
Yes, come on, kill him
. I flexed my fingers, grasped the cotton.
Kill him!

I couldn’t. He’d wake up. He’d wake up and break my neck. Even if he didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to escape. The guards outside would string me up for murder.

I had to save him.

Something told me not to touch the sheets. I didn’t trust that liquid. The glow said
radioactive
, and I couldn’t forget Scion’s warnings of contamination. I went to the drawer and pulled on a pair of his gloves. They were massive, made for Rephaite hands. My fingers lacked dexterity. I ripped up one of the cleaner sheets. Flimsy things, useless for warmth. Once I had a few long strips, I took them to the bathroom and soaked them in hot water. This might not work, but it might just buy him a few hours to wake up and seek treatment from the other Rephaim. If he was lucky.

Back in the chamber, I steeled my nerves. Warden looked and felt like death. The cold seeped through the gloves. His skin had a gray tinge. I wrung out the sheet and set to work on the wound. At first I was cautious, but he didn’t stir. He wasn’t going to wake.

Outside, through the windows, the play of sunlight began to change. I squeezed water on the wound, cleaned away the blood, coaxed grit from the mangled flesh. After what seemed like hours, I’d finally made a dent in the mess. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the soft surge in his throat. I used another sheet to pad the wound, secured the makeshift wadding with the sash of my tunic, then pulled the bedding over his arm. It was up to him to survive now.

I woke a few hours later.

I could tell from the silence that the room was unoccupied. The bed was made. The sheets had been replaced. The drapes were tied with embroidered sashes, waxing the walls in the light of the moon.

Warden was gone.

The windows dripped with condensation. I went to sit by the fire. I couldn’t have imagined the whole encounter; not unless I was still having flux flashes—but I had taken the antidote. My blood was clean. So that meant Warden, for whatever reason, had left again.

There was a fresh uniform laid out on the bed, along with a second note. Written in the same bold hand, it simply read:

Tomorrow.

So he hadn’t passed away in his sleep. And my training was delayed for yet another day.

The gloves were gone. He must have taken them. I went to the bathroom and scrubbed my hands with hot water. I changed into my uniform, popped the three pills from their packets, and washed them down the sink. I would find out more today. I didn’t care what Liss said—we couldn’t just accept
this. I didn’t care if the Rephs had been here for two hundred years or two million: I would not let them abuse my clairvoyance. I wasn’t their soldier, and she wasn’t their lunch.

The night porter signed me out of the residence. I headed into the Rookery and bought a bowl of porridge. It tasted as bad as it looked—like cement—but I forced myself to eat it. The performer whispered that Suhail was on the prowl; I couldn’t sit down to eat. Instead I asked her whether she knew where I might find Julian, describing him in as much detail as I could. She told me to check at the central residences, giving me their names and locations before she returned to her paraffin stove.

I stood in a dark corner. As I ate, I watched the people milling around me. They all had the same dead eyes. Their bright clothes were almost offensive, like graffiti on a headstone.

“Makes you sick, doesn’t it?”

I looked up. It was the whisperer who was detained with me that first night. She wore a filthy bandage on her arm. Looking ahead, she sat down beside me.

“Tilda.”

“Paige,” I said.

“I know. I hear you ended up at Magdalen.” She had a roll of paper in her hand. Smoke wafted thickly from the end, smelling of spice and perfume. I recognized the bouquet of purple aster. “Here.”

“I don’t, thanks.”

“Come on, it’s just a bit of regal. Better than tincto.”

Tincto—laudanum—was the favored vice for those amaurotics willing to risk altering their mental state. Not all of them liked Floxy. Occasionally an amaurotic would be arrested on suspicion of unnaturalness, only for the NVD to discover they’d been poisoning themselves with tincto. It didn’t do much for voyants; it wasn’t strong enough to dent our dreamscapes. Tilda must use for the sake of it.

“Where did you get it?” I said. I couldn’t imagine the Rephs allowing the use of ethereal drugs.

“There’s a gallipot in here who sells it by the donop. Says he’s been here since Bone Season XVI.”

“He’s been here forty years?”

“Since he was twenty-one. I got talking to him earlier. He seems all right.” She offered her roll. “Sure you don’t want a smolder?”

“I’ll pass.” I paused to watch her smoke. Tilda had the dab hand of an aster junkie, or courtier, as they called themselves; only they would call a pound a donop. She might be able to help me. “Why aren’t you training?”

“Keeper’s gone somewhere. Why aren’t
you
training?”

“Same reason. Who’s your keeper?”

“Terebell Sheratan. She seems like a bit of a bitch, but she hasn’t tried to slate me yet.”

“Right.” I watched her smoke. “Do you know what’s in the pills they give us?”

Tilda nodded. “The little white one is a standard contraceptive. Surprised you haven’t seen it before.”

“Contraceptive? What for?”

“To stop us breeding, obviously. And bleeding. I mean, would
you
want to punch out a sprog in this place?”

She had a point. “The red one?”

“Iron supplement.”

“And the green one?”

“What?”

“The third pill.”

“There’s no third pill.”

“It’s a capsule,” I pressed. “Sort of olive green. Tastes bitter.”

Tilda shook her head. “No idea, sorry. If you bring me one I can take a look at it.”

My gut clenched. “I will,” I said. She was about to take a mouthful of fumes when I interrupted: “You went with Carl, didn’t you? At the oration.”

“I don’t associate with that turncoat.” I raised an eyebrow. Tilda exhaled lilac smoke. “Didn’t you hear? He’s turned nose. That palmist, Ivy—the one with blue hair—he caught her sneaking food from a rottie. Blew to her keeper. You should see what they did to her.”

“Go on.”

“Beat her. Shaved her head. I don’t want to talk about it.” Her hand shook, just a little. “If that’s what you have to do to survive in this place, then send me to the æther. I’ll go quietly.”

Silence stretched between us. Tilda tossed away her roll of aster.

“Do you know which residence Julian is at?” I said after a while. “26.”

“The bald guy? Trinity, I think. You can have a look through the gates at the back; that’s where the rookies have been training, on the lawns. Just don’t let any of
them
see you.”

I left her to light another roll.

Aster was a killer. Possibly the most abused plant on the streets. Addiction was rife in places like Jacob’s Island. Its flowers came in white, blue, pink, and purple, each of which had a different effect on the dreamscape. Eliza was addicted to white aster for years; she’d told me all about it. In comparison with blue, which restored memories, white aster produced an effect we called whitewashing, or partial memory loss. For a while she’d forgotten her own last name. Later she got hooked on purple, saying it helped with her art. She’d made me swear never to touch any ethereal drug, and I saw no reason to break that promise.

It chilled me to discover that I had an extra pill. Unless Tilda was unusual to have two. I’d have to ask someone else.

The Residence of Trinity was guarded on the street side. I skirted round the edges of the shantytown, using my limited knowledge of the city to work out where the back of the residence would be. I ended up outside the palisade that enclosed its massive grounds. Tilda had been right: there was a group of white-jackets on the lawn, directed by a female Reph. Julian was among them. They were using flanged batons to push spirits through the air, working by the light of green gas lamps. At first I thought they were numa: objects through which the æther could flow, from which soothsayers drew their power, but I’d never seen objects being used to
control
spirits.

I let my sixth sense take over. The dreamscapes of the humans were all clustered together in the æther, with the Reph acting as a sort of linchpin. They were drawn to her like insects to a hanging lantern.

The Reph chose that moment to pick on Julian. She swiped her baton, sending an angry spirit hurtling toward him. He crashed to the ground on his back, stunned.

“On your feet, 26.”

Julian didn’t move.

“Stand up.”

He couldn’t do it. Of course he couldn’t—he’d just been hit in the face by a furious spirit. No voyant could just
stand up
after that.

His keeper delivered a hard kick to the side of his head. The white-jackets all stumbled back, as if she might turn on them next. She gave them a cold look before she swept away to the residence, her black dress billowing behind her. The humans exchanged glances before they followed. Not one of them stayed to help Julian. He lay on the grass, curled into the fetal position. I tried to push the gates open, but they caught on a heavy chain.

“Julian,” I called.

He twitched, then raised his head. When he saw me, he pushed himself back up and walked to the gates. His face glistened with sweat. Behind him, the lanterns went out.

“She likes me really,” he said. His mouth tweaked in a half-smile. “I’m her star pupil.”

“What kind of spirit was it?”

“Just an old ghost.” He rubbed his raw eyes. “Sorry, still seeing things.”

“What do you see?”

“Horses. Books. Fire.”

The ghost had left an impression of its death. It was an unpleasant aspect of spirit combat.

“Which Reph was that?” I said.

“Her name’s Aludra Chertan. I don’t know why she volunteered to be a keeper. She hates us.”

“They all hate us.” I looked at the lawn. Aludra hadn’t returned. “Can you come outside?”

“I can try.” He raised a hand to his head, grimacing. “Has your keeper fed on you yet?”

“I’ve barely seen him.” Something told me not to mention what had happened the night before.

“Aludra fed on Felix yesterday. He couldn’t stop shaking when he came round. She still made him train.”

“Was he okay?”

“Terrified. Couldn’t feel the æther for two hours.”

“They’re insane to do that to a voyant.” I looked over my shoulder, checking for guards. “I won’t let them feed on me.”

“You may not have a choice.” He unhooked a lantern from the gate. “Your keeper has quite the reputation. You say you’ve barely seen him?”