Bone Season 01: The Bone Season: A Novel (13 page)

“He always leaves.”

“Why?”

“No idea.”

Julian looked at me for a long time. This close, I saw that he was full-sighted, like Liss. Half-sighted people could switch their spirit sight on and off, but Julian was forced to see the little threads of energy all the time.

“Let me come outside,” he said. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. Evening. Whatever.”

“Can you get permission?”

“I can ask for it.”

I watched his shadow disappear into the residence. It occurred to me that he might never come out.

I waited for him near the Rookery. I was about to give up when a flash of white tunic caught my eye. Julian emerged through a small doorway, his hand over his face. I beckoned him.

“What happened?”

“The inevitable.” He sounded congested. “She said I could have food, but I wouldn’t be able to smell it. Or taste it.”

He took his hand away from his face. I drew in a sharp breath. Thick, dark blood seeped down his chin. Bruises were beginning to form under his eyes. His nose was red and swollen, shot with broken vessels. “You need ice.” I pulled him behind a plywood wall. “Come on. The performers will have something to treat it.”

“I’m all right. I don’t think it’s broken.” He touched the bridge of his nose. “We need to talk.”

“We’ll talk with food.”

As I made my way through the Rookery with Julian, I searched for any sign of a weapon. Even something crude would do: a sharp hairpin, a shard of glass or metal. Nothing jumped out at me. If the performers really were unarmed, they had no way to defend themselves if the Emim were to breach the city. The Rephs and the red-jackets were their only protection.

Inside the food shack, I forced Julian to eat a bowl of skilly and some toke, then slipped my remaining numa to a soothsayer in exchange for a stolen pack of acetaminophen. He wouldn’t tell me who he’d stolen it from, or how he’d done it, and he vanished into the crowd as soon as the needles were in his hand. He must be a real acultomancer. I moved Julian to a dark corner.

“Take these,” I said. “Don’t let anyone see.”

Julian didn’t say anything. He popped two capsules and washed them down. I found a cloth and some water in an empty shack. He used it to mop up the drying blood.

“So,” he said, a little thickly, “what do we know about the Emim?”

“Nothing on my end.”

“I’ve been finding out a bit about how this place works, if you’re interested.”

“Of course I’m interested.”

“The white-jackets go through the basics for a few days. Mostly spirit combat—showing you can make spools, that kind of thing. Then you get your first test. That’s when you have to verify your gift.”

“Verify it?”

“Prove it’s useful. Soothsayers have to make a prediction. Mediums have to incite a possession. You get the picture.”

“What do they count as useful?”

“You have to do something to prove your loyalty. I spoke to the porter at Trinity about it. He didn’t want to say much, but he said his prediction got somebody else brought into Sheol I. You have to show them what they want to see, even if it puts another human in danger.”

My throat tightened. “And the second test?”

“Something to do with the Emim. I guess you get to be a red-jacket if you live.”

My gaze wandered across the shack. There were one or two yellow tunics among the performers. “Look,” Julian said, keeping his voice low. “The one in the corner. Her fingers.”

I followed his line of sight. A young woman was scooping up her skilly, talking to a sickly looking man. Three of her fingers were stumps. When I looked around the room again, I noticed other injuries: a missing hand, bite marks, clawlike scars on arms and legs.

“Guess they do have a taste for human flesh,” I said. Liss hadn’t lied.

“Looks like.” Julian offered me his bowl. “You want to finish this?”

“No, thanks.”

We sat in silence for a while. I didn’t look, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the injuries these people had sustained. They’d been gnawed on like chicken bones, then thrown out with the rubbish. They were always at risk in this miserable, unprotected slum.

I didn’t want the Rephaim to know what I was. To pass the first test, I’d have to show them.

Did I
want
to pass these tests? I ran my fingers through my hair, thinking. I’d have to wait and see what the Warden expected me to do when he returned. He had so much control over my fate.

After a few minutes of watching the performers, I spied a familiar face: Carl. There was a hush. The performers cleared a path for him, their gazes cast down. I craned over their heads and saw what they were looking at: his pink tunic. What was he doing in the Rookery?

“Tilda told me he passed his first test,” I said to Julian. “What do you think he had to do? Just dob Ivy in?”

“He’s a soothsayer. He probably just had to find his dead aunt in a teacup,” he said.

“That’s augury. And aren’t
you
a soothsayer?”

“I never actually said I was a soothsayer.” He gave me a faint smile. “You’re not the only one with a deceptive aura.”

That gave me pause for thought. Soothsayers were considered the lowest class of voyants; certainly the commonest—he might find the label insulting. Or maybe I wasn’t as good at identifying voyants as Jax had claimed I was.

Jax. I wondered what he was doing. Whether or not he was worried about me. But of course he was worried about me—I was his dreamwalker, his mollisher. How he would find me, I didn’t know. Maybe Dani or Nick could work it out. They had Scion careers. There must be a database of prisoners somewhere, hidden by the Archer.

“They’re trying to bribe him.” Julian watched two performers. They were holding out numa to Carl, talking to him. “They must think he has sway over the Rephs now.”

It did look that way. Carl waved them off, and they retreated.

“Julian,” I said, “how many pills do you get?”

“One.”

“What does it look like?”

“Round and red. Think it’s iron.” He swallowed his skilly. “Why, how many do you get?”

Of course. Scion did produce an injection for male contraception, but it made no sense to sterilize both sexes. I was saved from answering the question by Carl.

“So then I looked into the stone,” he was saying to a white-jacket, watched by several harlies, “and I decided to scry for her
desires
. Turns out she’s very keen on finding this White Binder, and of course, as soon as I saw his face, I knew precisely where he was. Apparently he’s the mime-lord of I-4.”

A deathly cold swept over me. That was Jaxon.

“Paige?” Julian said.

“I’m fine. Won’t be a second.”

Before I knew it, I was walking straight toward Carl. His eyes popped when I grabbed his tunic and dragged him into a corner.

“What did you see?”

My voice came out as a hiss. Carl stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. “What?”

“What did you tell her about the White Binder, Carl?”

“It’s XX-59-1.”

“I don’t care. Tell me what you saw.”

“I don’t see what business it is of yours.” He eyed my white tunic. “You don’t seem to have progressed as quickly as everyone thought you would. Did you disappoint your special keeper?”

I moved my face so it was about two inches away from his. He looked even more like a rat at this proximity.

“I’m not playing games, Carl,” I said, my voice low. “And I don’t like turncoats. Tell me what you saw.”

The nearest lanterns flickered. Nobody seemed to notice—the performers had already turned their attention to other things—but Carl did. There was a glint of fear in his eyes. “I didn’t see exactly where he was,” he admitted, “but I did see a sundial.”

“You scried it?”

“Yes.”

“What does she want with the Binder?” My grip on his tunic tightened.

“I don’t know. I just did what she said.” He pulled away from me. “Why are you asking all this?”

Blood roared in my ears. “No reason.” I let go of his tunic. “I’m sorry. I’m just nervous about the tests.”

Carl softened, flattered. “That’s understandable. I’m sure you’ll get your next color soon.”

“And what happens after that?”

“After pink? We join the battalion, of course! I can’t wait to get my hands on those filthy Buzzer bastards. I’ll be red in no time.”

He was already under their spell. Already a soldier, a killer in the making. I forced a smile and left.

Carl had reason to be proud. He was a good seer. He had used Nashira to call a subject into focus, to see it in the gleaming surface of whichever numen he favored. That was the gift of soothsayers, as well as some augurs. They could dovetail their gifts with the desires of another person—the querent—in order to read their future. Cartomancers and palmists did it all the time. And no matter what Jaxon said, it often came in handy. The æther was like the Scionet: a network of dreamscapes, each containing information that could be accessed at the click of a button. The querent provided a kind of search engine, a way to see through the eyes of drifting spirits.

Carl had found the perfect querent in Nashira. Not only had he seen Jax, but he had also seen a clue as to his location. One of the six sundials on the pillar.

I had to warn him. Soon. I didn’t know what she wanted with Jax, but I wasn’t going to let her bring him here.

Julian followed me outside. “Paige?” He caught my sleeve. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing.”

“You look pale.”

“I’m fine.” It was only when I caught sight of the toke in his hand that I remembered Seb. “Are you going to eat that?”

“No. You want it?”

“Not for me. Seb.”

“Where did you find him?”

“Amaurotic House.”

“Right. So they lock up voyants
in London and amaurotics here?”

“Maybe it makes sense to them.” I pocketed the toke. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Dusk?”

“Dusk.” He paused. “If I can get out.”

Amaurotic House was dark when I arrived. Even the lamps outside had been extinguished. I knew better than to try and talk my way past Graffias; instead I climbed straight up the drainpipe.

“Seb?”

There was no light in the room. I could smell the dank, cold air inside it. Seb didn’t reply.

I grasped the bars and crouched on the ledge. “Seb,” I hissed. “Are you in there?”

But he wasn’t. There were no dreamscapes in this room. Even amaurotics had dreamscapes, albeit colorless ones. No emotional nuances, no spiritual activity. Seb had vanished.

Maybe they’d taken him to a residence to work. Maybe he’d be back.

Or maybe this was a trap.

I pulled the toke from my sleeve, stuck it between the bars, and climbed down the drainpipe. Only once I was back on solid ground did I feel safe.

The feeling didn’t last. As I turned back toward the inner city, my arm was caught in what felt like a vice. Two scalding eyes, hot and hard, locked on mine.

7

The Bait

He was standing very still. He wore a black shirt with a high collar, edged with gold. Its sleeves concealed the arm I’d bandaged in the day.

He gazed down at me with no expression. I wet my lips, trying to think of an excuse.

“So,” he said, drawing me closer, “you bandage wounds
and
feed the amaurotic slaves. How quaint.”

Revulsion made me jerk my arm away. He let me do it. I could fight him if I wasn’t cornered—but then I saw the others. Four Rephs, two male and two female. All four had those ironclad dreamscapes. When I took up a defensive stance, they laughed at me.

“Don’t be a fool, 40.”

“All we want to do is speak to you.”

“Speak to me now,” I said.

My voice was nothing like my own.

Warden had never taken his eyes off my face. In the light of a nearby gas lamp, those eyes boiled with a new color. He hadn’t laughed along with the others.

I was a hunted animal, surrounded. Trying to get out of this situation wouldn’t just be stupid—it would be suicidal.

“I’ll go,” I said.

Warden nodded.

“Terebell,” he said, “go to the blood-sovereign. Tell her we have XX-59-40 in custody.”

In
custody
? I glanced at the female. This must be Tilda and Carl’s keeper, Terebell Sheratan. She looked back at me with steady yellow eyes. Her hair was dark and glossy; it curved around her face like a hood. “Yes, blood-consort,” she said.

She went ahead of the escort party. I kept my eyes on my boots. “Come,” Warden said. “The blood-sovereign is waiting.”

We walked toward the city center. The guards dropped back, keeping a respectful distance from Warden. His eyes really were a different color: orange. He caught me looking.