Bone Season 01: The Bone Season: A Novel (56 page)

“Just get to the train, Jaxon.”

I didn’t hear his reply. Nick came after me, reached for my arm. “Where are you going?”

“Just go with Jaxon.”

“We
have
to leave. If the NVD see my aura—”

He stopped talking when we reached the deserted hall.

The darkness filled every corner of the room. Most of the candles had gone out, but three red lanterns still shone where they’d fallen. The drapes where Liss had been performing had fallen into two folded heaps. I stepped toward them, sensing the dim flicker of a dreamscape. I ran across the marble floor and threw myself on my knees.

“Liss.” I grabbed her hand. “Liss, come on.”

What had brought her back to the silks? Her hair was matted with blood. She couldn’t be dead, not after we’d saved her life. Not after all we’d worked for together. She couldn’t die. Seb had died; why did Liss need to follow?

Liss cracked her eyes open, just a little. Still dressed as a victim of the king. Her lips formed a tiny smile when she saw me.

“Hey.” Her breath rattled. “Sorry I was—late.”

“No. Don’t you dare die, Liss. Come on.” I squeezed her hand. “Please. We thought we’d lost you before. Don’t make us lose you again.”

“Glad somebody cares.” There were tears in my eyes: cold, trembling tears that didn’t fall. Blood ran from her mouth. I couldn’t tell where the stage blood ended and hers began. “G-get out,” she said, her voice faint. “Do what I c-couldn’t—I just couldn’t. Just wanted to—to see home.”

Her head rolled to the side. Her fingers loosened in mine, and her spirit slipped away into the æther.

For a minute I sat there, looking at the body. Nick bowed his head, pulled a drape over her face.
Liss is gone.
I made myself think it.
Liss is gone, just like Seb. You didn’t save them. They’re gone.

“You should say the threnody,” Nick murmured. “I don’t know her name,
sötnos
.”

He was right. Liss wouldn’t want to stay here, in her prison.

“Liss Rymore”—I hoped it was her full name—“be gone into the æther. All is settled. All debts are paid. You need not dwell among the living now.”

Her spirit disappeared.

I couldn’t look at the body. Not Liss—the body, the shell, the shadow on the world she’d left behind.

The flare gun lay under the cold hand. It had been her job to fire it. I gently pulled it from her grasp. “She wouldn’t want you to give up.” Nick watched me check the gun for flares. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to die for her.”

“Oh, I think she would.”

I knew that voice. I couldn’t see Gomeisa Sargas, but his voice echoed all through the room. “Did you kill her, Gomeisa?” I stood. “Is she good enough for you, now she’s dead?”

The silence was damning.

A low voice came from behind me. “You should not hide in the shadow, Gomeisa.”

I looked. Warden had entered the hall, and his eyes were fixed on the gallery. “Unless you fear Paige,” he continued. “The city burns outside. Your facade of power is already dissolved.”

Laughter. I tensed.

“I do not fear Scion. They handed their world over on a silver platter, Arcturus. Now we will dine.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

“I do not fear you either, 40. What have we to fear from death, when we
are
death? Besides, to be displaced from this decaying world—your little world of flower and flesh—well, that would almost be a blessing. If only there was not so much more to be done with it.” Footsteps. “You cannot kill death. What fire can scald the sun? Who can drown the ocean?”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” I said.

My voice was steady, but I was shaking. Whether it was anger or fear, I could no longer tell. Behind Warden, another male Reph had appeared. At his side was Terebell.

“I would like you both to picture something. Especially you, Arcturus. Given what you have to lose.”

Warden said nothing. I tried to pin down where the voice was coming from. Somewhere above me. The gallery.

“I would like you to imagine a butterfly. Picture it: its colored, iridescent wings. It is beautiful. Beloved. And then look at the moth. It takes the same shape—but look at the differences! The moth is pale and weak and ugly. A pitiful, self-destructive thing. It cannot command itself, for when it sees a fire, it desires the heat. And as it finds the flame, it burns.” His voice echoed everywhere. In my ears, in my head. “That is how we see your world, Paige Mahoney. A box of moths, just waiting to be burned.”

His dreamscape was so close. I readied my spirit. I didn’t care how much damage I did. He’d killed Liss; now I would kill him. Warden grasped my wrist. “Don’t,” he said. “We will deal with him.”

“I want to deal with him.”

“You cannot avenge her, dreamwalker.” Pleione didn’t take her eyes off the enemy. “Go to the meadow. Time is short.”

“Yes, go to the meadow, 40. Take
our
train to
our
citadel.” Gomeisa emerged from behind the pillars. His eyes were fresh with aura—the last he’d ever take from Liss Rymore. “Was it so terrible here, 40? We offered you our sanctuary, our wisdom—a new home. You were not unnatural here; lower, yes, but you had a place. To Scion you are a symptom of the plague. A rash upon their shallow skin.” He held out his gloved hand. “You have no home there, dreamwalker. Stay with us. See what lies beneath.”

My muscles were stretched to breaking point. He looked straight at me—into my eyes, into my dreamscape, into the darkest parts of me. He knew his words made sense. He knew his twisted logic well; he’d relied on it for two centuries, using it to tempt the weak. Before I could answer him, Warden swept me back with his arm, right off my feet. A curved blade came singing over his shoulder, over my head. I hadn’t seen it in the darkness. As I hit the floor, he ran toward Gomeisa. Terebell and the male went after him, both gathering spools, chiming out horrific sounds. Nick pulled me back to my feet, but I couldn’t feel his hands. All I could feel was the æther, where the Rephaim were dancing.

The air around me thinned to a silver gauze. I couldn’t see the four Rephs, but I felt their movements. Each flex of muscle, each turn and step sent a shockwave through the æther. They were dancing on the edge of life. A dance of giants, the
danse macabre
.

The spirits of the Bone Season still lingered in the hall. Terebell’s spool flew through the pillars: thirty spirits, all weaving and rising together, converging on his dreamscape. No voyant could survive being hit by so many at once. I waited for the blow to fall. at once.

Gomeisa’s laugh rose to the ceiling. With a wave of his hand, he shattered the spool. Like glass shards from a mirror, the spirits burst all over the hall. Terebell’s limp body was thrown into a pillar. The sound of bone on marble snapped through the chilled air. When the other Reph charged at him, Gomeisa simply cut his hand upward. The motion flung his attacker onto the stage. The boards splintered under his weight, sending him into the trap room.

I pushed myself back, my boots sliding on blood. Was Gomeisa some kind of
poltergeist
? He could use apport—move things without touching them. The realization made my heart pound thick and fast against my ribs. He could smash me into the ceiling on a whim.

Only Warden was left. He turned to face his enemy, terrible in the half-light. “Come, then, Arcturus,” Gomeisa said, spreading his arms wide. “Pay for your bounty.”

That was when the stage exploded.

29

His Parting from Her

The gust of heat blew me back across the room, deafening me. I landed hard on my right side, cracking my hip. I felt Nick grabbing my wrist, hauling me to my feet, pulling me out of the way, into the foyer. We barely reached the door before the flames caught up. I threw myself at the ground, covered my head with my arms. Fire burst from the Guildhall, shattering the windows. I kept low, moving as fast as I could. The flare gun was still in my hand.

None of the harlies had the kind of ordnance to cause such an explosion. Julian must not have told me something. Where had he found a mine, or the time to plant it? Had he taken it from No Man’s Land? And what kind of mine sent roaring fire straight through a building?

In the thick of the smoke, Nick took my elbow and hauled me to my feet. Glass fell from my hair. I coughed from my chest, my eyes burning.

“Wait.” I strained away from Nick’s hand. “Warden—”

He couldn’t be dead. Nick was shouting something, but he sounded distant. I tried to use the golden cord. To see, to feel, to hear. Nothing.

Outside, the sirens were howling and a rampant fire smoked in the next street. The Room belched flame and black cloud. One—no, two of the residences were ablaze. One of them was Balliol, the only building with electricity. The emissaries would have trouble getting word out to the citadel now.
Thank you, Julian
, I thought.
Wherever you are, thank you
.

Nick lifted me into his arms. “We’ve got to move,” he said, his voice ragged. He looked at the unfamiliar city, his face drawn with stress. “Paige, I don’t know this place—how do we find the train?”

“Just keep going north.” I tried to get down, but he gripped me too tightly. “I can run, damn it!”

“You just survived an explosion and a poltergeist,” Nick shouted at me. His face was red with anger. “I didn’t come all the way here for you to go and get yourself killed, Paige. For once in your
life
, just let someone carry you.”

Sheol I was in a state of warfare. Now the Guildhall was broken, the rebels had spread out across the streets, where they were fighting with all they had against the Rephaim. Scion emissaries were fleeing in every direction, trailing their bodyguards, who had opened fire on the voyants. Julian’s unit, the ones in charge of arson, had risen to their challenge with murderous enthusiasm—they’d already set fire to most of the Rookery. I wanted to stay, to fight, but I had to set off the flare. I’d save more lives that way.

Nick took the safest route, away from the fighting, through a narrow street. I caught sight of another skirmish. Harlies fighting alongside amaurotics and jackets, teaming up to take out individual Rephs—even Cyril had joined the struggle.

A piercing scream reached my ears. I looked over Nick’s shoulder. Nell. Her hands were restrained by two Rephs. “You’re not going anywhere, 9. We need to feed.” One of them pulled her head against him, holding her by the hair.

“No! You get your hands off me! You’re not ever feeding on me again, you parasite!”

Her screams were cut short when her keeper clapped a hand over her mouth. “Nick,” I shouted.

He heard the frantic edge to my voice. His arms loosened. I hit the ground running, straight toward Nell. I had no weapons—but I did have my gift. No longer my curse. Tonight it would save a life, not take one.

I threw my spirit at the bigger Reph. I pushed against his dreamscape, forcing my way into his hadal zone, and sprang straight back to my body. I was there in time to throw my hands out, stopping my chin from smacking into the ground. With no idea what had happened, Nell pulled her hands free of the Rephs and knifed the one on her right, stabbing deep into his side. At the same time, she pulled a spirit from nowhere and hurled it into his face. He let out an awful snarl. His companion was still reeling from my attack. Nell grabbed her fallen supplies and sprinted for her life.

The two Rephs were injured, but they were still threats. The one I’d attacked looked up at me, and his eyes—orange—came into focus. He took a blade from a sheath on his arm. “Go back to the æther, dreamwalker.”

The blade flashed toward my face. I didn’t duck fast enough: it caught my arm. Nick let off a round. The bullet hit the Reph in the chest—to no avail. I sent my spirit at his dreamscape. The second attack weakened him. I picked up the blade he’d thrown and drove it into his throat.

My mistake was forgetting about his companion. All the breath was knocked from my lungs as the second Reph crashed into me, pinning me to the ground. His giant fist smashed down, half an inch from my head.

Nick tossed his gun away. As the Reph raised a fist for a second try, Nick snatched three nearby spirits and hurled them in quick succession. I sensed the surge in the æther as he sent a vivid snapshot into the Reph’s dreamscape, blinding him. In the second the Reph rolled off me, fighting the spirits and the vision, I was on my feet and running back to Nick.

We hadn’t gone far before my my sixth sense stung. My head jerked around to face the threat.

“Nick!”

He knew. In one seamless movement, he threw down his backpack and reached for another spool. The target was familiar: Aludra Chertan.

“Dreamer.” She didn’t even glance at Nick. “I believe I still owe you for your little display in the chapel.”

“Stay back,” Nick warned.

“But you look so
refreshing
.”

Her eyes changed color.

Nick’s face contorted. Blood swelled in his tear ducts, and the veins in his neck strained out. “Almost as refreshing as the walker,” Aludra continued, moving toward us. “I might just keep you, oracle.”