The Bone Season

6 Community

I was back at the residence by dawn. The red-clad day porter gave me a spare key to the Warden’s chamber. “Leave it on his desk,” he said. “Don’t even think about keeping it.”

I didn’t reply. I went up the dark staircase, avoiding the two guards. It chilled me how their eyes shone in the passages, natural searchlights in the dark. This was supposed to be a safe residence. I couldn’t imagine what the others must be like.

The bells chimed from the tower, calling the humans back to their prisons. Once I was in the chamber, I locked the door and left the key on the desk. No sign of the Warden. I found a box of matches in a drawer and used them to light a few candles. There were three identical pairs of black leather gloves in the same drawer, and a broad silver ring, set with a real jewel.

A curio cabinet stood against the wall, made of dark rosewood. When I opened the glass-fronted doors, my sixth sense twinged. A collection of instruments sat inside. Some I recognized from the black market. Some were numa. Most were just bric-a-brac: a planchette, some chalk, a spirit slate—useless bits of séance equipment, the sort of thing amaurotics hysterically associated with clairvoyance. Others, like the crystal ball, could be used by seers to scry. I wasn’t a soothsayer; none of the objects were useful to me. Like Graffias, I didn’t need objects to touch the æther.

What I needed was life support. Until I could find some oxygen apparatus, I’d have to be careful how often I detached my spirit. That was how I widened my perception of the æther: I could push my spirit from its natural place, to the farthest edges of my dreamscape. Problem was that if I did it for too long, my breathing reflex stopped dead.

Something caught my eye. A small case, rectangular, with a stylized heartwood flower engraved in the lid. Eight petals. I flipped the clasp and opened it. Inside were four crimp vials, each containing a viscous liquid, such a dark red it was almost black. I closed it. I didn’t want to know.

A dull pain stabbed at my eye. I couldn’t see any nightclothes. Why I’d expected them, I had no idea. He didn’t care what I wore or how well I slept. His only concern was that I drew breath.

I kicked off my boots and lay on the daybed. The room was cold as stone without a fire, but I didn’t dare touch the sheets on his bed. I set my cheek against the velvet bolster.

The flux attack had left me weak and tired. As I drifted on the verge of sleep, my spirit wandered in and out of the æther. I brushed past dreamscapes, catching waves of memory. Blood and pain were common denominators. There were other Rephs in this residence, but their minds were as impenetrable as ever. The humans were more open, their defenses thinned by fear. Their dreamscapes gave off a harsh, tainted light—signal of distress. Eventually I slept.

I woke to the sound of floorboards creaking. I opened my eyes to see the Warden come through the doorway. Aside from the two remaining candles, his eyes were the only light. He walked across the room toward my corner. I feigned sleep. I lay still. Finally, after what seemed like aeons, he left. This time his footsteps were less cautious, and I could tell from their pattern that he was sporting a heavy limp. The bathroom door slammed shut behind him.

What could injure such a creature as a Rephaite?

He was gone for a few minutes. In that time I could count every heartbeat. When the lock turned in the door, I dropped my head back into my arms. Warden stepped out, naked as sin. I closed my eyes.

I kept up my act as he moved toward the four-poster, knocking a glass orb to the floor. Ripples flickered through the æther. He wrenched the drapes around the bed, concealing him from view. Only when his mind quieted did I open my eyes and sit up. No movement.

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?”

“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.