Bone Season 01: The Bone Season: A Novel (59 page)

Warden lifted the access hatch: a heavy door, covered by concrete, which concealed a narrow staircase. The empty padlock clattered away. Warden hitched me over his shoulder, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. The humans spilled down the steps, still firing at the NVD. Tjäder grabbed a dead Gilly’s gun. The bullet hit Cyril in the neck, killing him. I caught sight of the city—the light on the sky, the beacon in the dark—before Warden followed the survivors. His warm, solid frame was the only thing I could focus on. My perception returned in painful jolts.

The tunnel was cold. I could smell it: the dry, musty odor of a room that was rarely used. The shouts from above blurred into a senseless cacophony, like the barking of dogs. I clenched my fingers, gripping Warden’s shoulder. I needed adrenaline, amaranth, something.

The tunnel wasn’t large, barely the size of an Underground tunnel, but the platform was long and wide enough to accommodate at least a hundred people. Stretchers stood at the far end, piled up on top of one another. I smelled disinfectant. They must have been used to take fluxed voyants from here to the Detainment Facility, or at least to the street. But I was sure I could hear something in the darkness: the vibrant hum of electricity.

Warden shone his torch toward the train. A moment later, the lights came on. I narrowed my eyes.

Power.

The train was a light metro, not designed to carry many passengers. The words
SCION AUTOMATED TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
were printed across the back of the train. The carriages were white, with Scion’s insignia on the doors. As I looked at them, they opened, and the lights turned on inside. “
Welcome aboard
,” Scarlett Burnish said. “
This train will depart in three minutes. Destination: the Scion Citadel of London
.”

With gasps of relief, the survivors went through into the carriages, leaving their makeshift weapons on the platform. Warden stood still.

“They’ll realize.” I sounded tired. “They’ll realize the wrong people are on the train. They’ll be waiting for us.”

“And you will face them. As you face all things.”

He let me down, but he didn’t release me. His hands cradled my hips. I looked up at him. “Thank you,” I said.

“You do not need to thank me for your freedom. It is your right.”

“And yours.”

“You have given me my freedom, Paige. It has taken me twenty years to regain the strength to try and claim it back. I have you, and you alone, to thank for that.”

My reply caught in my throat. A few more people boarded the train, Nell and Charles among them. “We should get on,” I said.

Warden didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure what had happened over the last six months—whether any of this was real—but my heart was full and my skin was warm, and I wasn’t afraid. Not now. Not of him.

There was a distant sound, like thunder. Another mine. Another pointless death. Zeke, Nadine, and Jax staggered into the tunnel, supporting a semiconscious Dani. “Paige, are you coming?” Zeke said.

“You get on. I’ll be there.”

They went into a carriage near the back. Jaxon looked out of the door at me.

“We’ll talk, my dreamer,” he said. “When we return, we will talk.”

He hit the button inside the carriage, and the doors slid shut. An amaurotic and a soothsayer stumbled into the next carriage, one with a bloody shirt. “
One minute to departure. Please make yourselves comfortable
.” Warden tightened his arms around me.

“How strange,” he said, “that this should be so difficult.”

I studied his face. His eyes were dim.

“You’re not coming,” I said. “Are you?”

“No.”

The realization came slowly, like dusk encroaching on a star. I realized I’d never expected him to come—only hoped for it, in the last few hours. When it was too late. And now he was leaving. Or staying. From this point on, I was alone. And in that solitude, I was free.

He touched his nose to mine. A slow, sweet ache rose inside me, and I didn’t know what to do. Warden didn’t take his eyes off my face, but I looked down. I looked down at our hands, his larger hands on mine: shielded by gloves, hiding the rough skin beneath—and my pale hands, with rivers of blue vein. My nails, still tinged with lilac.

“Come with us,” I said. My throat felt sore, my lips hot. “Come with—with me. To London.”

He had kissed me. He had wanted me. Maybe he still did.

But anything between us was impossible. And from the look in his eyes, I knew that wanting me wasn’t enough.

“I cannot go to the citadel.” He rolled his thumb over my lips. “But you can. You can go back to your life, Paige. That chance is all I want for you.”

“It’s not all I want.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know. I just want you with me.”

I had never said those words aloud. Now that I could taste my freedom, I wanted him to share it with me.

But he couldn’t change his life for me. And I couldn’t sacrifice my life to be with him.

“I must hunt Nashira from the shadows now.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “If I can draw her away from here, the rest may leave. They may give up.” His eyes opened, burning his words into my mind. “If I never return—if you never see me again—it will mean that everything is all right. That I have ended her. But if I return, it will mean that I have failed. That there is still danger. And then I will find you.”

I held his gaze. I would remember that promise.

“Do you trust me now?” he asked.

“Should I?”

“I cannot tell you that. That
is
trust, Paige. Not knowing whether you should trust at all.”

“Then I trust you.”

As if from miles away, I heard a pounding. Fists on metal, muffled shouting. Nick came running into the tunnel, accompanied by the remaining survivors, who piled onto the train just before the doors snapped closed. “Paige, get on,” he shouted.

The countdown was over. Out of time. Warden pulled away from me, his eyes hot with remorse.

“Run,” he said. “Run, little dreamer.”

The train was moving. Nick swung himself over a rail onto the back and held out a hand.

“
PAIGE
!”

I came back to myself. My heart leapt, and all my senses hit me like an iron wall. I turned and ran along the platform. The train picked up speed, almost too fast. I grabbed Nick’s outstretched hand, vaulted over the rail, and I was on the train, I was there, I was safe. Sparks flew across the track, and the metal frame shook beneath my feet.

I didn’t close my eyes. Warden had vanished into the darkness, like a candle blown out by the wind.

I would never see him again.

But as I watched the tunnel race before my eyes, I was certain of one thing: I did trust him.

Now I had only to trust in myself.

Glossary

The slang used by clairvoyants in
The Bone Season
is loosely based on words used in the criminal underworld of London in the nineteenth century, with some amendments to meaning or usage. Other words have been taken from modern colloquial English or reinterpreted. Terms specific to the Family—those humans who reside in Sheol I—are indicated with an asterisk*.

Æ
ther
: [noun] The spirit realm, accessible by clairvoyants. Also called the Source.

Amaurosis
: [noun] The state of non-clairvoyance.

Amaurotic
: [noun
or
adjective] Non-clairvoyant.

Barking irons
: [noun] Guns. “To raise one’s barking irons” = to prepare for a struggle.

Bleached mort
: [noun] A fair-haired woman. Mildly offensive.

Blow
: [verb] Tattle; whistle-blow.

Bob
: [noun] Slang term for a gold coin; one British pound.

Bone
: [adjective] Good or prosperous.

Bone-grubber*
: [noun] A derogatory term for a
red-jacket
.

Bones*
: [adjective] Dead.

Brain plague
: [noun] A slang term for
phantasmagoria
, a debilitating fever caused by Fluxion 14.

Breacher
: [noun] A spirit that can cause an impact on the corporeal world due to its age or type. Includes poltergeists and archangels.

Broads
: [noun] Cards used for clairvoyance, usually Tarot cards.

Broadsider
: [noun] An outdated term for a cartomancer. Still recognized in conversation but rarely used in the citadel.

Buck cab
: [noun] A rogue, unlicensed cab, generally frequented by clairvoyants.

Busking
: [verb] Cash-in-hand clairvoyance. Most buskers offer to read fortunes for money. Not permitted within the clairvoyant crime syndicate.

Buzzers*
: [noun] Emim.

Cokum
: [adjective] Shrewd; cunning.

Cold spot
: [noun] A small tear between the æther and the corporeal world. Manifests as a permanent patch of ice. Can be used, with ectoplasm, to open a conduit to the Netherworld. Corporeal matter (e.g., blood and flesh) cannot pass through a cold spot.

Courtier
: [noun] Purple aster addict. The name comes from St. Anne’s Court, Soho, where the purple aster trade began in the early twenty-first century.

Crib
: [noun] Place of residence.

Dethroned
: [adjective] Being fully recovered from the influence of purple aster.

Dollymop
: [noun] An affectionate, if condescending term for a young woman or girl (often shortened to
dolly
).

Donop
: [noun] A pound; weight measurement. Used primarily within the ethereal drug community.

Dreamer
: [noun] Shorthand for
dreamwalker
, typically used by Rephaim.

Dreamscape
: [noun] The interior of the mind, where memories are stored. Split into five zones or “rings” of sanity: sunlight, twilight, midnight, lower midnight, and hadal. Clairvoyants can consciously access their own dreamscapes, while amaurotics may catch glimpses when they sleep.

Drifters
: [noun] Spirits in the æther that have not been banished to the outer darkness or last light. They can still be controlled by clairvoyants.

Duckett
: [noun] A vendor. Also the alias of Sheol I’s pawnbroker.

Ecto
: [noun] Ectoplasm, or Rephaite blood. Chartreuse yellow. Luminous and slightly gelatinous. Can be used to open cold spots.

Emim, the
: [noun] [singular
Emite
] The purported enemies of the Rephaim; “the dreaded ones.” Described by Nashira Sargas as carnivorous and bestial, with a taste for human flesh. Their existence is shrouded in mystery.

Family, the*
: [noun] All humans that reside in Sheol I, with the exception of
bone-grubbers
and other traitors.

Fine-wire
: [verb] To pickpocket skilfully.

Flam
: [noun] Lie.

Flash house
: [noun] An oxygen bar or other social area. Generally patronized by criminals.

Flatches
: [noun] Money; keep. “To earn one’s flatches” = to earn a living.

Flimp
: [noun] Pickpocket.

Floxy
: [noun] Scented oxygen, inhaled through a cannula. Scion’s alternative to alcohol. Served in the vast majority of entertainment venues, including oxygen bars.

Flux
: [noun] Fluxion 14, a psychotic drug causing pain and disorientation in clairvoyants.

Gallipot
: [noun] A specialist in ethereal drugs and their effect on the dreamscape.

Ghost
: [noun] A spirit that has chosen a particular place in which to reside, most likely the place in which he or she died. Moving a ghost from its “haunt” will annoy it.