I had seen the bodies that swayed on the Lychgate. The jut of their broken necks.
Warden had retired around midnight. He lay still in his bed. Heavy-eyed, I got up and used the tongs to move another log on to the embers of the fire. I stood by the window and looked at the stars. I drank another small measure of wine, hoping it would knock me out. And at last, I sank back on to the daybed and continued to stare at the ceiling.
The clock mocked me with its ticking. Finally, a hand on my shoulder made me turn my head.
Warden. He pressed a different goblet into my hands, half-full of a pale drink.
‘This will help,’ he said.
Too tired to ask questions, I sat up and knocked it back. It was rich and milky, with an herbal aftertaste.
‘You will be all right.’ He took the goblet away. ‘Sleep. You have earned it.’
I nodded and laid my head back down, warmer.
Whatever he had given me, it worked for a while. When I woke, the delicate glow of dawn tinted the room, and Warden was a silhouette by the window.
‘Wild oat.’
I stirred. ‘What?’
‘When you were fevered, you asked if I would plant wild oat on your grave.’ His voice was so low that it was little more than a tremor. ‘Why do its flowers speak to you?’
‘I like their meaning. The witching soul of music,’ I murmured. ‘Music seems as good a thing as any to die for, doesn’t it?’
Even though his face was almost hidden by the shadows, the cord whispered of understanding.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose it does.’
Chapter 5
Scars
SCION CITADEL OF PARIS
7 JANUARY 2060
I could no longer sleep without any light. Since our arrival in the safe house, I had kept the shutters cracked by day and a lamp on through the night. Light had always disturbed me before, but if I turned it down to an ember-like glow, I could just about drift off. I always did it. There was always light.
So when I woke to absolute darkness, I knew why.
There was no alarm clock this time. Just the never-ending black of the Westminster Archon.
Fear paralysed me. Even my jaw was locked. I breathed hard through my nose, staring at where the ceiling had been, where now there was a void.
Darkness. Chains around my limbs. And close by, unmistakable, the drip, drip, drip of water.
Flux. The new versions must be doing this to me. Taunting me with visions of safety and freedom. Giving me hallucinations so solid, so authentic, that they were indistinguishable from reality. I had fever-dreamed myself to Paris, lived for seven days there. How long had it been in the cell?
How long until my execution?
Heat wavered in my eyes. I clenched my fists. If Nashira wanted me to beg for death, I would. Let Suhail come. Let it end.
As if I had summoned my death, the door opened.
The rush of my blood was deafening. A flood in my head, the herald of the water. I had thought I would be brave, even grateful, when my killer came – but now the moment was at hand, I remembered all the things Nashira had said to me. About witches, drowned and burned for nothing. About traitors, hanged and drawn and quartered.
I was a witch. I was a traitor. The executioner would butcher me with a red-hot blade, drag out my entrails while I was alive. Nashira would hear me scream before I left this world. She would make me suffer for standing against her, for taking what had once been hers …
Whimpers escaped my lips. A tear seeped past my temple and soaked into my hair. I had to move. I struggled to escape my chains, but my limbs only half-worked. Held in place. Buried alive.
Somewhere in the roar, a voice. More questions. More threats. More whispers about sordid humans. Whatever it was, I refused to let it be the last thing I heard.
I sensed movement. Suhail Chertan, come to take me to my doom. Blood pooled in my middle, turning my fingertips to ice. I wrapped them around the nearest object and flung myself at the monster in the dark.
Colliding with the bulk of Suhail was almost enough to knock me back on to the waterboard. I swung my weapon with all my might. It rushed through empty air. The momentum buckled me. With a scream of frustration, I struck again, with such force that my weapon flew from my hand.
The darkness kept me blind on one plane. Not on the other. I reached for the æther, lunged for the dreamscape, and then I was on him again, groping for his throat. I could hear my own voice, but the words had no shape. This was the language of terror.
Yellow eyes ignited in the dark. Rephaite eyes. I went limp with dread, my fingers loosening, every bone and nerve giving up in one go. His aura was all over me. Before I knew it, a huge pair of hands had scooped under my arms, and I was weightless.
I found myself on a soft, flat surface. For an instant, there was space. I was unbound. I could breathe. Moments later, panic kicked in again. The darkness grew and thickened until it smothered me. Coughing and heaving, I scrambled back until my head smacked into wood, and I curled up like a child in the womb, pleading for mercy.
The fight was lost. Even if I could escape this room, I would only run in circles until someone caught me, hauled me away. I would die in this place, in darkness and agony—
‘Paige,’ a voice barked.
My name.
Suhail had never used my name.
In an instant, a hush fell in my mind. Every breath was magnified. I could feel the mattress under my knees, the headboard grating on my spine. A bed. Not the waterboard.
‘Who is that?’ I tasted salt. ‘T-tell me.’
‘Only me, little dreamer.’
Warden. The disembodied voice did sound like him.
‘What—’ I could hardly breathe through my pinhole-sized throat. ‘What time is it?’
‘It is almost midnight.’
My heart was hammering.
‘No.’ I slid my fingers into my hair and let out a weak sob. ‘No. I’m not here. It’s not you. It’s not real.’
‘If you are not here, and I am not me, and none of this is real,’ was the tranquil reply, ‘then I cannot think how this conversation is taking place. We seem to have entered the realm of metaphysics.’
The darkness tempted me to trust it. It knew my weaknesses. Only Arcturus Mesarthim would have snuck a word like metaphysics (whatever that meant) into his attempt to calm me down.
‘The lamp.’ There was a rattle in my voice. ‘I left a light on.’
‘The storm has caused a power outage.’
Even as his words sank in, I kept a firm grip on the headboard. This could still be a trick. There were no borders left between illusion and reality. If the light came on and it was Suhail, I would shatter. I would shriek with laughter until I was hanged.
My nightshirt was drenched in sweat. I heard the hiss of a match being lit, saw the flame appear. What it revealed was Warden. I almost buckled with relief before I noticed his dishevelment. His hair was awry – more so than usual – and the top of his shirt was ripped open, two of the buttons pulled right off.
‘Warden.’ Shock rooted me in place. ‘Warden, I didn’t – I didn’t mean – I didn’t think it was you.’
‘Suhail.’
‘Yes. I’m s—’
‘If you are about to apologise, Paige, I bid you remember our agreement.’
No apologies. On the day we arrived, we had decided.
‘Why the hell did you let me attack you?’ My chest heaved. ‘You could have stopped me.’
‘Because I would have had to restrain you.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I did not think that would be the wisest course of action.’
He was right. If his iron-hard arms had come around me, it would have been akin to being chained. Instead of trying to hold me still, he had lifted me away from him, back into my own space. With a whimper, I tucked myself against the headboard and gave way to the shaking.
Warden knelt beside the bed, so his gaze was about level with mine. I stayed exactly where I
was.
‘Paige,’ he said, ‘I want you to come and sit with me. As we used to sit together in Magdalen.’
Hair clung to my wet face. ‘Why?’
‘Because I want you to tell me what happened to you.’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘We spoke of it when we arrived here. You told me about your room. I told you about mine.’
The rooms where we had lost part of ourselves. For him, it was the tower where he had been mutilated. For me, it was the pitch-black basement where I had been meant to die.
‘I was tortured alongside my Ranthen-kith.’ His eyes pierced me. ‘There was cruelty and design in that – I often wished it otherwise, wished that no one I cared for had borne witness to my ruin – but I knew, at least, that there were others who understood what I had suffered. In the end, it became a comfort. You were alone, Paige.’
Tears seeped down my cheeks.
‘A secret, held within, can become a poison.’ He kept hold of my gaze. ‘Even if you cannot tell me the whole story, perhaps you could explain what has changed since that first day.’
He was right. I had been able to talk to him, to touch him, on the day we arrived in Paris. I had held on to his shoulders and let him guide my breaths while I bathed for the first time. He had carried me when I was too weak to stand. Perhaps it was because there had been no time to look back in those hours after the escape – only forward, to survival.
Then I had recollected it all. Every vile detail of the room. He was an oneiromancer, the master of memory, but I needed to forget. His gift was a threat to my sanity.
Warden seemed to accept that no reply was coming.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘if you prefer, we can speak of other things. You are not, in fact, obliged to say anything to me at all. Either way, I would be glad of your company.’
I recovered enough clarity to take a deep, slow breath. The now-familiar stab echoed it. If I stayed here, I would have no choice but to sit in the dark until the power returned.
‘Okay,’ I said.
Warden took the candle with him. Once I was bundled up in my cardigan, I followed him down the corridor, arms crossed. He went to the kitchen. I went to the parlour.
He had lit a few more candles. They glowed on the mantelpiece and the coffee table, painting the walls with light and shadow. I sank on to the couch.
When Warden came back, he was carrying a mug of coffee and a bottle of illegal wine.
‘Your vice,’ he said, ‘and mine.’
He set the mug in front of me. I took it between chilled hands. Warden sat in the armchair.
The coffee had more flavour than the stew. He must have taken note of how I made it. I wrestled with myself while he sat, wordless, and poured himself a glass of wine.
I had feared this opportunity to bare my soul to him. When such a chance arose, I always wanted to take it. Warden was patient, and he listened. The screaming inside me longed to be heard.
And I realised I did want to tell him. Hiding what had happened made it feel filthier than it was.
‘If I do this, I want you to promise me something,’ I said. ‘That you will never look for yourself. That no matter how curious you are, and no matter how much you want to understand, you will never look at my memories of what happened in that basement. Promise me, Arcturus.’
‘I promised you I would never invade your privacy again. It is not a promise I mean to break.’
‘Not even if you think it will save me. No matter how you try to justify it, I will never forgive you.’
‘You have my word.’
The moment of truth. I took an unsteady sip of coffee and put the mug down. My hands remained so cold that my fingernails had a grey tinge, the way they did after I dreamwalked.
‘I woke up. Everything was dark and silent.’ I stared at the wall. ‘At first I thought I was in the æther, but then I realised I was chained. With my arms above my head.’
As soon as I started talking, there was a small and distant sense of relief. The slightest relaxation in my back, as if something there had been clenched for days. At the same time, most of my body was on edge, as if I was about to jump from a height. My palms began to sweat. My pulse quickened. A deep ache gnawed at my wrists and shoulders.
‘Have you ever seen a waterboard?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then you’ll know it’s angled so the head is lower than the rest of the body.’
‘I have never seen it done.’
I gave a stiff nod.
‘You feel as if you’re drowning from the moment it begins. You are drowning,’ I said. ‘The water makes you gag, and there’s a cloth on your face, like skin over your mouth. Like you have no mouth or nose at all. Air comes up, so you need to breathe in straight away. You know you can’t. You still do, because your body gives you no choice.
‘I’ve never been afraid of water. I always thought I’d manage, somehow, if I ended up on the board. A dreamwalker knows how to go without breath … but it took me five seconds to understand. Why a person would say anything to make it stop. Why they break their own bones trying to get free.
‘I tried to be quiet. I wanted to endure it in silence, to not show fear. Part of me must have thought I could just lie there and swallow pints of it down like a fish. That it wasn’t going to hurt.’ I smiled mirthlessly. ‘Sounds absurd when I say that out loud. Arrogant.’
‘No, Paige.’
The air turned to cotton wool in my throat.
‘And then it was just … agony,’ I said. ‘It was in my stomach, in my lungs, my head. I screamed. I couldn’t stop myself from struggling. I didn’t answer his questions, but that might be because half the time I couldn’t even understand what he was saying, I was so desperate for air.’ As I spoke, I rubbed my wrist, where a manacle had rubbed shallow wounds into my skin. ‘I’ve always had an … awareness of my body. As separate from me, I mean. It was a cage, but I had a key to it.’
‘Your gift.’
Another small nod.
‘In the Archon,’ I said, ‘they took the key. Stopped me escaping from my body.’ I clenched my fist. ‘They turned me into one of their torture devices. My ribs were the bars. My muscles were chains. I was doubly imprisoned. Suffocated by the water, but also by my own skin.’
I was shivering now, remembering the cold.
‘I don’t know exactly how long he kept me in there. In the cold. There was no light, except when he turned one on. The blinding light above the board.’ I circled the jutting bone of my wrist. ‘I might have slept. I don’t remember. It was so dark, I couldn’t tell the difference. I still can’t. And I still can’t get warm. I’m so cold. All the time.’
My face burned. I hid behind my hair.
‘He—’ I drew my knees closer. ‘He never unchained me. Not for days. Not until they moved me to a cell. And of course, I was swallowing more water than my body knew what to do with.’
I waited for him to draw the right conclusion. Shame washed over me in hot waves.
‘I see.’
His voice was soft and cold. I closed my eyes as the silence returned – a silence filled with what I knew, and what he could only imagine. What he was likely trying not to imagine.
‘Did Jaxon know what was being done to you?’ Warden finally said.
‘I don’t know exactly how much he knew. But he can’t have been oblivious.’ My arms quickened with gooseflesh. ‘I was sick. Over and over. When it got into my stomach. And—’
I could smell and taste the flood again, so strong it clenched my throat.
‘The water didn’t taste … clean,’ I managed. ‘I keep thinking about what he might have put into it.’
Warden was very still. His jaw formed a hard line.
‘He said that if you could see me, you’d be repulsed. Kept telling me how sordid I was. How low your standards must be.’ Closing my eyes again, I forced myself to keep talking. ‘At the time, I didn’t really listen. I was trying to survive.
To not betray my friends. To find the will to keep fighting for long enough to get to Senshield. But now—’
My voice cracked into nothing.
‘You have had time to remember,’ Warden finished. ‘To reflect on what happened.’
The golden cord was taut.
‘I wondered if it was the beatings,’ he said. ‘If that was why you were afraid to be touched.’
‘They did beat me. That was another kind of degradation. Like I was back at that f-fucking hellhole of a school.’
Now I was talking to him, it was all seeping out of me like blood from a wound.
‘So,’ I went on, ‘when it happened in the Archon, I thought I’d be able to stand that, too. But they kept calling me brogue, boglander – all the things those girls used to whisper in the corridors – and I realised that nothing had changed in Scion since then. And I tried to be brave, Warden. But now I just – everything hurts, and I remember it all, and I can’t even – I can’t—’
My arms tightened.
‘I still feel trapped. I’m afraid I won’t ever be able to touch anyone again, because even the lightest touch will feel like a chain,’ I forced out. ‘I see what Suhail was trying to do. Jaxon did almost the same thing, and I took the bait. They wanted to restore the natural order between you and me. To make me fear the touch that makes us equal.’
‘The idea did not come from Suhail, if so,’ Warden said. ‘He is not cunning enough for that. This is Nashira.’
‘That’s the worst of it. Suhail is a coward and a brute. That was deliberate on her part. Choosing him to degrade me.’ The candles flickered. ‘Glimpsing the trap doesn’t make me any less caught in it. Every time you’ve been close to me, I’ve remembered what he said. Thought about how disgusting I must seem to you. I j-just want—’
A wordless sound ground up my throat. I pressed my face into my hands to stop it. Shudders racked my frame, each one jolting my bruises. All I could feel was pain.
Warden rose. The couch sank a little as he sat beside me, leaving space between us.
The Dawn Chorus Page 8