The Bone Season

9 Variety

I had to get out of this place. That was my first thought when I stepped into the bitter cold. Sheol I looked just the same as it did before, just as if Seb had never walked its streets—but I looked different. Instead of white, I wore a pale pink tunic. On my new gilet, the anchor was the same sickly pink. I was stained.

I couldn’t take another test. I couldn’t. If they’d killed a child in the first, what would they do to me in the second? How much blood would be spilled before I was a red-jacket? I had to leave. There had to be some way out, even if I had to dance around land mines. Anything was better than this nightmare.

As I found a path through the Rookery, my right leg weak and heavy, an unfamiliar cold spread through my gut. Each time a performer looked at me, their expression changed. Their features went blank. Their heads went down. My tunic was a warning: turncoat, traitor. Stay away. I am a killer.

I wasn’t a killer. Nashira had killed Seb, not me—but the performers didn’t know that. They must despise anyone who wasn’t a white-jacket. I should have just stayed at Magdalen for the night. But then I would have had to be with Warden, and I couldn’t bear to spend another moment in his company. I limped through the claustrophobic passages. I had to find Liss. She could help me out of this nightmare. There had to be a way.

“Paige?”

I stopped, my leg shaking. The effort of walking was exhausting. Liss was looking out of her room. She took one glance at my pink tunic and stiffened. “Liss,” I started.

“You passed.” Her face was dark.

“Yes,” I said, “but—”

“Who did you get arrested?”

“No one.” When she looked disbelieving, I realized I had to tell her. “They tried to make me kill—Seb. The amaurotic.” I looked down. “And now he’s dead.”

She flinched.

“Right,” she said. “See you later, then.”

“Liss,” I said. “Please listen. You don’t—”

She yanked the curtain across her door, cutting me off. I slid down the wall, drained. I wasn’t one of them.

Seb. I said his name in my head, trying to coax his spirit from wherever they’d hidden it, but there was nothing from the æther. Not even a twinge. Even with his surname, there was nothing; I had to be missing a name. The boy that had been so dependent on me, so certain that I would save him, was still a stranger to me in death.

The curtain seemed to glare at me. Liss must think I was pure scum. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the dull ache in my thigh. Maybe I could find another pink-jacket to exchange information with—but I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t trust them. Most of them were murderers. Most of them had turned somebody in. If I wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t a turncoat, I had to prove to Liss that she could trust me. With an effort that left me coated in sweat, I pulled myself up and headed for the food shack. I might find Julian there. Not that he’d want to talk to me, either, but he might give me a chance.

A light caught my eye. A stove. A group of performers were smoking in a tiny lean-to, slumped on their sides, snatching at the air. Aster again. Tilda was among them, her head propped on a cushion, her white tunic filthy and crumpled, like a used tissue. I groped in my gilet for the green capsule I’d taken. I had the pill with me. Minding my leg, I knelt beside her.

“Tilda?”

Her eyes cracked open. “What s’matter?”

“I brought the pill.”

“Hold on. Still reigning. Give me a minute, doll. Maybe two. Or five.” She rolled onto her stomach, racked with silent laughter. “Dreamscape’s gone all purple. Are you real?”

I waited for the aster to wear off. Tilda spent a solid minute laughing, flushed to the roots of her hair. I could sense the wildness in her aura, the way it jerked and shifted with the drug. The other voyants showed no sign of wanting to wake up. With shaking hands, Tilda rubbed her face and nodded.

“Okay, I’m dethroned. Where’s the pill?”

I handed it to her. She looked at it from every angle. Ran her finger over it, testing the texture. Split it in half. Crushed one half between her fingers. Smelled the residue, tasted it.

“Your keeper’s out again,” I said.

“She’s out a lot.” She handed me the remnants of the pill. “It’s herbal. Couldn’t tell you which herb.”

“Do you know anyone who could tell me?”

“There’s a jerryshop in here. The guy that sold me the aster might be able to tell you. Password’s specchio.”

“I’ll see him.” I stood. “I’ll leave you to your aster.”

“Thanks. S’later.”

She collapsed back onto the cushion. I wondered what Suhail would do if he found them.

It took me a while to find the jerryshop. The Rookery had many rooms, most of which were occupied by groups of two or three. They spent their days in cramped shacks, huddled around a paraffin stove, and slept on sheets that reeked of damp and urine. They ate what they could find. If they found nothing, they starved. They stayed together for two reasons: because there was no room for them to do otherwise, and because of the bitter cold in the city. There were no hygiene facilities and no medical supplies, except for what they obtained through theft. This was where you came to die.

The jerryshop was hidden behind a series of thick curtains. You had to know where to look; I only found it after interrogating a harlie for its whereabouts. She seemed reluctant to tell me, warning me of blackmail and high prices, but pointed me in the right direction.

Guarding the shop was the julker boy I’d seen at the oration. He sat on a cushion, playing with dice. No sign of his white tunic. He must have failed his test. What use did the Rephaim have for a julker?

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi.” A pure, sweet note. A julker voice.

“Can I see the pawnbroker?”

“What’s the password?”

“Specchio.”

The boy stood. His right eye was thick with paste. Infected. He pulled the curtains aside, and I went through.

London jerryshops were usually small, unlicensed places in the bad parts of the central cohort. There were lots in the Chapel, over in II-6. This was no different. The pawnbroker had set up shop in a kind of tent, made from the sort of drapes Liss used in her performances. Lit by a single paraffin lamp, half the space had been turned into a house of mirrors. The pawnbroker sat on a battered leather armchair, staring into the spotted glass. The mirrors betrayed his speciality: catoptromancy.

He was a gray-haired man with too much of a full stomach to be a performer. When I entered, he raised a monocle to one eye and looked at my reflection. He had the misty eyes of a seer that had seen too much.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. In my mirrors or my shop.”

“Bone Season XX,” I said.

“I see. Who owns you?”

“Arcturus Mesarthim.”

I was sick of that name: hearing it, saying it.

“My, my.” He patted his stomach. “So you’re his tenant.”

“What’s your name?”

“XVI-19-16.”

“Your real name.”

“I no longer remember it, but the performers call me Duckett. If you prefer to use real names.”

“I do.”

I bent to look at his stock. Most of the items were numa: cracked hand mirrors, glass bottles of water, bowls and cups, pearls, bags of animal bones, cards, and show stones. Then there were the plants. Aster, briar, sage, thyme, other burning herbs. There were more practical items, too, essential for survival. I looked through the pile. Sheets, limp cushions, matches, a pair of tweezers, rubbing alcohol, aspirin and oxytetracycline, cans of Sterno, a dripper bottle of fusidic acid, bandages, and disinfectants. I picked up an old tinderbox. “Where did you get all this?”

“Here and there.”

“I presume the Rephs don’t know about it.” He smiled, just slightly. “So how does this illegal shop work?”

“Well, say you were an osteomancer. You would require bones to supplement your clairvoyance. If the bones were confiscated, you would have to find more.” He indicated a bag marked COMMON RAT. “I would give you a task to do. I might ask you to bring more supplies, or to carry a message for me—the more valuable the item you needed, the more dangerous the task. If you managed it, I would give you the bones to keep. For a limited loan, you would have to bring me a certain number of numa, which I would return to you when you returned the item. A simple, but effective system.”

It didn’t sound like a conventional jerryshop, which loaned money in exchange for pawned items. “What do you charge for information?”

“That depends on the information you seek.”

I put the remaining half of the pill in front of him. “What’s this?”

He peered at it. He dropped his monocle, picked it up. His thick fingers were shaking. “For this,” he said, “I will give you anything you like from the shop. Free of charge.”

I frowned. “You want to keep it?”

“Oh, yes. This is very valuable.” He placed the half in his palm. “Where did you get this?”

“Information costs, Mr. Duckett.”

“If you bring me more of these, I will never charge you anything. Take whatever you like. One item per pill.”

“Tell me what it is or no deal.”

“Two items.”

“No.”

“Information is dangerous. One can’t put a price on it.” He held the pill near the paraffin lamp. “I can tell you that it is an herbal capsule, and that it is harmless. Is that enough?”

Two items in exchange for the pills. Items like these could save lives in the Rookery.

“Three,” I said, “and we’ve got a deal.”

“Excellent. You are a shrewd businesswoman.” He steepled his fingers. “What else are you?”

“Acultomancer.”

It was my standard lie. A test of competence, in a way. I liked to see whether or not they’d believe me. Duckett chuckled. “You’re not a soothsayer. If I were sighted, I think you’d be on the other end of the spectrum. Yours is a hot aura. Like embers.” He tapped his fingers on a mirror. “We might have another interesting season this year.”

I tensed. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just talking to myself. Best way to keep one’s sanity after forty years.” A smile tempted his mouth. “Tell me—what do you think of the Warden?”

I put the tinderbox back on the table.

“I’d have thought it was obvious,” I said.

“Not at all. There are a variety of opinions here.” Duckett ran his thumb over the lens of his monocle. “The blood-consort is considered by many to be the most attractive of the Rephaim.”

“Maybe you think so. I find him repulsive.” I held his gaze. “I’ll take my items.”

He sat back in his seat. I picked out a Sterno can, a few aspirin, and the fusidic acid. “Nice doing business with you,” he said, “Miss––?”

“Mahoney. Paige Mahoney.” I turned my back on him. “If you prefer to use real names.”

I walked out of the den. His eyes stung my back.

Those questions had felt like an interrogation. I hadn’t said anything wrong, I was sure. I’d said exactly what I thought about Warden. Why Duckett wanted me to say anything otherwise, I had no idea.

On my way out, I tossed the fusidic acid to the julker. He looked up at me with a tilted head.

“For your eye,” I said.

He blinked. I kept on walking.

When I reached the right shack, I rapped my knuckles on the wall outside. “Liss?” No reply. I knocked again. “Liss, it’s Paige.”

The curtain was pulled back. Liss was carrying a small lantern. “Leave me alone,” she said, her voice thick and embittered. “Please. I don’t talk to pinks or reds. I’m sorry, I just don’t. You’ll have to find other jackets, okay?”

“I didn’t kill Seb.” I offered the Sterno and the aspirin. “Look, I got these from Duckett. Can I just talk to you?”

She looked from the items to my face. Her forehead creased, and her lips pursed. “Well,” she said, “you’d better come in.”

I didn’t cry when I told her about the test. I couldn’t. Jax hated tears. (“You’re a ruthless street trasseno, darling. Do act like one, there’s a good dolly.”) Even here, where he could never get to me, I felt that he watched my every move. Still, the thought of Seb’s broken neck made me sick. I couldn’t forget the shock in his eyes, the scream of my name. I sat in silence once I’d told the story, keeping my stiff leg stretched out in front of me.

Liss handed me a steaming glass.

“Drink this. You’re going to have to keep your strength up if you want to avoid Nashira.” She sat back. “She knows what you are now.”

I sipped. It tasted of mint.

My eyes were hot and my throat still ached, but I wouldn’t cry for Seb. It felt disrespectful to cry with Liss sitting next to me. Her face was swollen, her neck bruised by fingers, and her shoulder dislocated—yet she’d still put my welfare above hers. “You’re part of the Family now, sister,” she said, and treated my brand one-handed with a warm poultice. The raw burn in my skin was easing, but she said it would definitely scar. That was the point. To remind me, every day, to whom I belonged.

Julian was asleep under a discolored sheet. His keeper had gone to meet with her family, the Chertan. I’d given him some aspirin before he drifted off. His nose looked a bit better. He’d come looking for me after my no-show at dawn, and Liss had taken him in. The two of them had patched up the shack as best they could, but the place was like an icebox. Still, Liss had invited me to stay for the whole night, and I had every intention of doing just that. I needed to get away from Magdalen.

Liss cracked open the Sterno with an old tin opener.

“Thanks for getting this. Haven’t seen canned heat for a while.” She took out a match and lit the jellied alcohol. A clean blue flame appeared. “You got this from Duckett?”

“For a price.”

“What did you give him?”

“One of my pills.”

Liss raised an eyebrow. “Why would he want one of those?”

“Because I get a pill that no one else gets. No idea what it is.”

“If you can use them to bribe Duckett, they’re worth keeping. His tasks are risky. He makes people go into the residences and steal for him. More often than not, they get caught.”

She winced and reached for her shoulder. I took the Sterno from her hand and placed it between us. “Gomeisa did this,” I said.

“He gets bored of the cards after a while. Doesn’t always like what they show him.” She lay on her back, pulling the pillow under her neck. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t see him very much. I don’t think he’s even in the city most of the time.”

“Were you his only human?”

“Mm. That’s why he hates me. I was in exactly the same situation as you, taken in by a Reph that had never chosen a human before. He thought I had potential, thought I could be one of the best bone-grubbers in Sheol I.”

“Bone-grubbers?”

“It’s what we call the red-jackets. He thought I’d earn that color. But I disappointed him.”

“How?”

“He asked me to do a reading for one of the harlies. They thought he was a traitor, that he’d tried to run. I knew it was true. The reading would have incriminated him. I refused to do it.”

“I didn’t want to do it. She still saw what I was.” I rubbed my temple. “And now Seb’s dead, too.”

“Amaurotics die all the time here. He would have been bones whatever you did.” She sat up again. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

She reached over to her wooden chest. I stared at what was inside: a packet of coffee granules, cans of beans, four eggs. “How did you get those?”

“I found them.”

“Where?”

“One of the amaurotics hid them near his residence. Leftovers from the Bone Season supplies.” Liss took out an iron pot and filled it with water from a bottle. “We’ll eat like queens.” She pushed the pot over the Sterno. “How are you holding up, Jules?”

Our voices must have woken him. He pushed off the sheet and sat cross-legged. “Better.” He pressed his nose with his fingers. “Thanks for the meds, Paige.”

I nodded. “When do you take your test?”

“No idea. Aludra’s supposed to be teaching us about subliming, but she spends most of her time kicking us around.”

“Subliming?”

“Turning normal objects into numa. Those batons we were using the other night, when you came to see me—they were sublimed. Anyone can use them, not just soothsayers.”

“What do they do?”

“They exert some control over the nearest spirits, but they can’t be used to see the æther.”

“So they’re not really numa.”

“Still dangerous,” Liss said. “Rotties can use them. The last thing we need is an ethereal weapon Scion can use.”

Julian shook his head. “Scion would never use numa. They’re repulsed by clairvoyance.”

“Not by the Rephaim.”

“I doubt they like the Rephs,” I said. “They’re clairvoyant. They just don’t have a choice but to obey, with the Emim at their doorstep.”

The water boiled and steamed. Liss poured it into three paper cups and mixed it with coffee. I hadn’t smelled coffee in days, or weeks. How long had I been in this place?

“Here.” She handed one cup to me, one to Julian. “Where does Aludra keep you, Jules?”

“A room with no lights. I think it used to be a wine cellar. We sleep on the floor. Felix is claustrophobic, and Ella misses her family. They spend half the day crying, so I don’t sleep.”

“Just get evicted. It’s harsh out here, but not as harsh as it is to have a keeper. We only get fed on if we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Liss sipped from her cup. “Some people can’t take it. I had a friend who stayed in here with me, but she begged her keeper for another chance. She’s a bone-grubber now.”

We drank our coffee in silence. Liss boiled the eggs, and we ate them straight out of the shell.

“I was thinking,” Julian said, “can the Rephs actually go back to wherever they came from?”

Liss shrugged. “I guess so.”

“I just don’t understand why they stay. I mean, they weren’t always here. What did they do for aura before they found us?”

“It might be about the Buzzers,” I said. “Nashira said they were a ‘parasitic race,’ didn’t she?”

Julian nodded. “Think the Buzzers took something from them?”

“Their sanity?”

He snorted. “Yeah. Or maybe they used to be nice until the Buzzers sucked it all out of them.”

Liss didn’t laugh. “It could be the ethereal threshold,” I said. “Nashira did say they appeared when it broke.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know.” Liss sounded tense. “It’s not like they’re going to broadcast it.”

“Why not? If they’re so powerful and we’re so feeble, where’s the need for secrecy?”

“Knowledge is power,” Julian said. “They have it. We don’t.”

“You’re wrong, brother. Knowledge is dangerous.” Liss pulled her knees up to her chin. It was just what Duckett had implied. “Once you know something, you can’t get rid of it. You have to carry it. Always.”

Julian and I exchanged a glance. Liss had been here for a long time; maybe we should just take her advice. Or maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe her advice would kill us.

“Liss,” I said, “do you ever think about fighting back?”

“Every day.”

“But you don’t do it.”

“I think about gouging out Suhail’s eyes with my bare hands.” She said it through gritted teeth. “I think about shooting Nashira a hundred times, in every part of her body. I think about stabbing Gomeisa in the gullet, but I know they’d kill me first, so I don’t do it.”

“But if you think like that, you’ll be stuck here forever,” Julian said gently. “Do you want that?”

“Of course I don’t want that. I want to go home. Whatever that means.” Liss turned her away. “I know what you must think of me. You think I’ve got no backbone.”

“Liss,” I said, “we didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did. I don’t blame you. But let me tell you something, if you want knowledge so much. There was a rebellion here during Bone Season XVIII, back in 2039. The whole human population of Sheol I rose up against the Rephs.” The pain in her eyes aged her by decades. “They all died—amaurotics, voyants, the whole lot. Without the red-jackets to fight them, the Emim got in and killed them all. And the Rephs just let them do it.”

I looked at Julian. He didn’t take his eyes off Liss.

“They said they deserved it. For their disobedience. It was the first thing they told us when we arrived.” She ran her cards between her fingers. “I know you’re both fighters, but I don’t want to see you die here. Not like that.”

Her words silenced me. Julian rubbed a hand over his head, looking at the stove.

We didn’t go back to the subject of rebellion. We ate the beans, scraping the cans clean. Liss kept her deck on her lap. After a minute, Julian cleared his throat.

“Where did you live, Liss? Before this.”

“Cradlehall. It’s near Inverness.”

“What’s Scion like up there?”

“Same as down here, really. The big cities are all under the same system, but with a smaller security force than London. They’re still bound by Inquisitorial legislation, like the citadel.”

“Why did you come south?” I said. “Surely the Highlands were safer for voyants.”

“Why does anyone go to SciLo? Work. Money. We need to eat just as much as amaurotics.” Liss drew a sheet around her shoulders. “My parents were too afraid to live in central Inverness. Voyants aren’t organized there, not like the syndicate. Dad thought we should try our luck in the citadel. We spent our savings to get to London. We approached some mime-lords, but none of them needed soothsayers. Once the money ran out, we had to busk just to get a doss at night.”

“And you were caught.”

“Dad got too ill to go out. He was in his sixties, giving himself all sorts of bugs on the streets. I took his usual stake. A woman approached me and asked for a reading.” She ran her thumb over the tops of her cards. “I was nine. I didn’t realize she was NVD.”

Julian shook his head. “How long were you in the Tower?”

“Four years. They put me on the waterboard a few times, tried to make me tell them where my parents were. I said I didn’t know.”

This couldn’t be making her feel better. “What about you, Julian?” I said.

“Morden. IV-6.”

“That’s the smallest section, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s why the syndicate doesn’t bother with it. I had a little group, but we didn’t do mime-crime. Just the odd séance.”

I felt a bitter pang of loss. I wanted my group.

Julian soon succumbed to his exhaustion. The fuel ran lower and lower on the Sterno. Liss watched it to the end. I pretended to sleep, but all I could think about was Bone Season XVIII. So many people must have died. Their families would never have been told. There would have been no trials, no appeals. The injustice of it made me sick. No wonder Liss was so afraid to fight.

That was when the siren sounded.

Julian jerked awake. The noise cranked and creaked, working itself up like heaving bellows, before it let out a scream. My body reacted at once: a prickling at my legs, a thumping heart.

Footsteps thundered through the passages. Julian peeled back the rag door. Three red-jackets ran past, one carrying a powerful torch. Liss opened her eyes, perfectly still.

“They have knives,” Julian said.

Liss pushed herself into the corner of the shack. She picked up her deck of cards, scooped an arm around her knees, and put her head down. “You have to go,” she said. “Now.”

“Come with us,” I said. “Just sneak into one of the residences. You’re not safe in—”

“Do you want to get a slating from Aludra? Or the Warden?” She glared up at us. “I’ve been doing this for ten years. Get out of here.”

We exchanged glances. We were already late. I didn’t know what Warden would do to me, but we both knew how violent Aludra Chertan was. She might just kill him this time. We ducked out of the shack and ran like hell.