The Mask Falling

by Samantha Shannon

  While I controlled her, she would effectively be unconscious. I needed a cover story to explain her memory loss, and I found it when I went through her medical history again. Frère had low blood pressure, which had caused fainting spells during two of her pregnancies. If I was careful, she would think she had blacked out for the time I possessed her.

  This would only work once—twice, perhaps, at most. After that, she would know something was amiss.

  Once I was confident that I could handle the jump into Frère, I gave us both a break from my possessions. Rephaim usually only needed rest once every four days, or thereabouts. Since I had started using Arcturus as my host, he took to his bed almost as often as I did. Sometimes I joined him. One night, when I woke disoriented yet again, I found his door ajar, and him asleep on one side of the bed, leaving room for me on the other.

  By day, I turned my attention to other tasks. I studied a floor map of the Hôtel Garuche. I watched endless recordings, rehearsed speaking and acting like Frère. And I absorbed everything I could find on the Scionet about my target.

  Georges Benoît Ménard. Born in the burning summer of 2019, he had spent his childhood in Strasbourg, a port city on the Rhine. In a rare personal interview, Ménard recalled seeing free-world children beyond the electric fence that separated it from Germany.

  There was a French-speaking Swiss family who lived on the other side. They had several children, and every few days, those children grew bored and strayed to the border to mock us as we walked along the riverside path on our way home from school. Sometimes they would bring unnatural paraphernalia and throw it over the fence.

  In Germany and Switzerland, there are clocks mounted with wooden birds that pipe the same notes every hour. They are called pendules à coucou, and coucous is what these children called us—mad and mechanical, unable to do anything but sing our anthem, which we often did when they approached. They were blind to the truth: that it was they who were automatons, their clockwork wound by unnatural hands.

  Pendules à coucou. That gave me pause. Only a few weeks ago, Nick had seen a vision of a waterboard and a cuckoo clock.

  I had to get this possession right.

  Disgusted by the influence of the free world on Strasbourg—its architecture, its cuisine, its river that had the absolute gall to run from the mountains of Switzerland—Ménard had moved to Paris to study law. Not long after receiving his degree, he had secured his first job as a judicial clerk at the Inquisitorial Courts.

  Ménard was a man on the rise. He had been a fixture in the Forteresse de Justice, praised for his intelligence and his meticulous approach to every task. It seemed odd, then, that at twenty-six he had suddenly departed for the Scion Citadel of Lyon, where he had served as “expert counsel” to the Ministry of the Interior. With a vague title and no further record of his movements at that time, I was certain he had been involved in the hidden cruelties of Scion. Interrogator, perhaps.

  In 2049, he had returned to Paris as Minister for Justice. Within four years, his devotion to Scion was repaid in full when, upon the death of Jacquemine Lang, he became the youngest ever Grand Inquisitor of France at thirty-four. One of his first acts had been to almost wholly remodel the city of Strasbourg, and to increase the voltage of the electric fence on the border. Now that fence was lethal.

  His official photograph showed a clean-shaven man with a high forehead and dark walnut hair, neatened with pomade. A crescent-shaped birthmark curved under one cheekbone. Small brown eyes stared out from beneath solid brows. His popularity seemed to be rooted in his impeccable manners, good looks, and a hard-line approach to unnaturalness.

  He was forty now and had been Grand Inquisitor for almost seven years. In that time, he had given only a handful of interviews. I watched them all. They revealed a cool and self-possessed demeanor that gave me a chill. He would consider for a long time before he answered a question, knowing the journalist would wait on tenterhooks for as long as it took for him to speak. He was all mild courtesy. He never gesticulated, and his smiles were lukewarm at best.

  Frank Weaver behaved like the dummy he was. You could almost see the hinge on his jaw. Ménard was entrancing. Without ever raising his voice, he commanded attention.

  I asked Arcturus to test my knowledge. When I could answer each question off the cuff, I devoted myself to refining my French, seeking obscure and technical words that had eluded me before.

  Sometimes the sheer audacity of the mission daunted me. All I knew of Frère was her public veneer. I was going to be dealing with people who lived with her, who knew her intimately. Then there was the security unit of eighty elite Vigiles, some of them former soldiers, who protected the Inquisitorial family and must know exactly how their employers behaved.

  I had so little time to obtain the two pieces of information I needed. One of them—the source of the tension between Ménard and Weaver—I would pass to Domino. The other I would share only with Arcturus.

  Everyone had a key. No matter how complex the lock, Benoît Ménard was no exception.

  ****

  I sensed Isaure Ducos again on the last night of January, while I was perusing a thick French dictionary in bed, having spent the day with a fever, coughing myself to distraction. Arcturus had brewed me a mug of hot lemon water and honey to help. I finished it as I joined him in the parlor.

  “Ducos is coming.” I sank into a heap beside him. “You may as well stay. She’ll want to meet you sooner or later.”

  “Very well,” he said. “How is your fever?”

  “Better, I think.”

  He handed me a thermometer. I stuck it into my ear and held it there until it let out a tiny beep and turned red.

  “It’s come down a bit. One hundred degrees.” I passed it back to him. “I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

  “I know you are finding it difficult to drink, but you must. You are likely dehydrated.”

  “I drink all the time.”

  “Yes. Coffee.” He took my mug. “I will brew you some more lemon water.”

  “All right.” I nudged him with my foot. “You big hen, you.”

  “Cluck,” he said, straight-faced.

  My smile faded when I noticed the news. ScionEye was providing regular and enthusiastic updates on the invasion of Portugal. According to the report, the battle for Lisbon had now begun.

  A map appeared on the screen. Lisbon sprawled beside a vast estuary of the River Tagus. Graham Harling, the Grand Admiral of Scion England, had sent a fleet of warships to blockade it. Meanwhile, soldiers marched on the capital from two sides and air strikes hammered the heavily populated cities of Coimbra and Porto. Weaver vowed the bombardment would stop the moment the President of Portugal, Daniela Gonçalves, issued her formal and unconditional surrender. Portugal needed the anchor. It must accept the inevitable.

  At twenty-nine, Gonçalves was a young leader. ScionEye described her as inexperienced and weak. So far, she seemed to be holding her nerve.

  “I urge President Gonçalves to accept the inevitable,” Weaver said from the screen. “You are infested with unnaturalness. Only Scion can cleanse it. Lay down your arms and embrace the anchor, and it will embrace you in return. Your people will be treated with dignity. Continue to fight, and we will treat you as we would a house tainted with plague. Only ashes will remain.”

  He meant it. If Portugal fought to the end and still lost to the anchor, it would suffer the way Ireland and parts of the Balkans had. Its people would forever be marked as troublemakers, stained by their defiance. Still, I willed them to fight on. I willed Gonçalves not to bend.

  “Can we trust any of this?” I said, when Arcturus returned. “They wouldn’t share their actual tactics with the public, would they?”

  “No. Scion will report whatever it thinks will ensure continued support for the invasion.”

  “Then for all we know, Portugal might be winning.”

  “It might.”

  He didn’t believe it. I didn’t, either, but it ma
de me feel better to consider the possibility.

  Ducos stepped into the room a few minutes later, hair pin-curled, the collar of her dark gray coat turned up.

  “Good evening, Flora.” She appraised Arcturus. “And you must be the auxiliary.”

  Arcturus inclined his head. “Good evening.”

  Though her face resisted scrutiny, I could see her trying to make sense of him without letting on that she was doing it.

  “I am pleased to see that neither of you has risked another late-night jaunt to the river.” She folded her arms. “I came to confirm that you are ready for your assignment, Flora. Command awaits your report. You would ideally make your first attempt at a possession tomorrow.”

  So soon. “I can do it,” I said, “but I suspect I’ll be caught quickly.”

  “You don’t need long. Find out what is between Ménard and Weaver, then get out.”

  “Fine, but I’d like to see your medical officer first. I haven’t been able to shake off this cough.”

  “Cordier is due to join us tomorrow, but she may not have time to examine you before the possession.” Ducos paused. “Do you feel well enough to proceed?”

  I thought about telling the truth, which was that I barely felt well enough to get up in the morning. “Does Cordier know anything about how my gift works?” was what I said. “Does she know how to monitor me?”

  “She knows as much as I do, but an experienced assistant would be useful,” Ducos said. “I rather hoped your auxiliary might feel able to step in.”

  “I am able,” Arcturus said.

  “Good. I feel warmly toward people who make themselves useful. Especially when Domino is providing those people with free accommodation.” Ducos handed me a key with an address tag and a code attached. “Our intelligence indicates that Frère begins her day around seven. I will meet you at this address at six. Any problems, call the number on the back of the tag.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and was gone in a waft of rose-scented perfume.

  “Did she just call you a freeloader?” I said to Arcturus, one eyebrow raised.

  “I believe that was the insinuation.”

  “Must have been covering her nerves.” My drink had gone cold. “She had no idea what to make of you. Interesting, since Burnish must have told her supervisors the truth behind Scion.”

  “Burnish may not have been able to safely communicate the specifics. Even if she did, I do not imagine her supervisors have shared the information with agents in the field, like Ducos.”

  “Right. Need-to-know basis.” I set the mug aside. “I’d better get an early night.”

  “You have not eaten.”

  “It’s fine. I’m not hungry.”

  “You have had little appetite for several days.” He watched me rise. “Your condition is not improving. Ducos will postpone the assignment if you ask her.”

  “There’s no time to postpone,” I said, thinking of all I wanted to accomplish inside. When he narrowed his eyes, I wiped my expression clean. “We’re on the brink of war, remember?”

  “Yes.” After a moment, he returned his attention to the evening news. “Sleep well, Paige.”

  “I’ll try.”

  In the bathroom, I locked the door, then hacked something thick and yellowish into the sink. With a shudder, I rinsed the stuff away. It was just a cough. It would go in the end.

  By the time I got to bed, Arcturus had tucked a heat pad under the duvet. For once, it did nothing to drive out my chill. I lay sleepless, nerves in knots, exhausted past the point of no return.

  Tomorrow I would enter another Scion building. The news was not conducive to a restful night. Every time I thought I might drift off, memories of my torture crested.

  By half past eleven, I was desperate. I needed sleep. If I was tired in the morning, I would never be able to dreamwalk. After half an hour, still wide awake, I hauled myself back out of bed.

  Jaxon had always slept like a stiff after his nightcap. I could take one leaf out of his book. I took a glass from the cabinet and opened a decanter of what looked like red wine.

  I took tiny sips at first. Just enough to sedate me. But the wine was rich and sweet, and suddenly I had drained the whole glass, and I was warm all the way through. As I poured out more, I remembered long nights with the gang. Their laughter and companionship. The family I had found in London.

  I was a ghost untethered from its haunt. Having Arcturus with me had stifled the homesickness, but now I was alone, it burst its banks. I missed Maria. I missed Eliza. Most of all, I missed Nick, my best friend, my rock, who had also been snatched away to work for Domino. A splintered part of me, buried deep and leaking shame, even missed Jaxon Hall.

  And then I missed Ireland. It had been twelve years. Twelve years since I had last seen my grandparents. I drank until I could see the bottom, then flooded the glass with red-black comfort again.

  “Paige.”

  I raised my spinning head. Arcturus was in the doorway, hair tousled from the pillow.

  “Hello, you.” My words slid out a little too fast. “Can’t sleep?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.” I held up the glass. “Thought this might help.”

  “It might also dull your gift.” Arcturus picked up the decanter. Only a small amount of wine was left. “This is a fortified wine.”

  “Good. I need fortification.” With a heavy-eyed smile, I patted the couch. “Keep me company?”

  “If you refrain from finishing that glass.”

  I placed it dutifully on the coffee table. Arcturus sat beside me.

  “I might ask why you would risk drinking so much,” he said.

  “Why do you?” I asked slackly.

  “To quell pain. Perhaps you are trying to do the same.”

  “Think you’re onto something there.” I slumped deeper into the couch. “I was thinking about the fact that I don’t have a home any more. Wondering if I’ll ever have one again.”

  Arcturus looked toward the window. “I wonder the same.”

  His home was in decay, and mine lay in the shadow of the anchor. Scion had made wanderers of us.

  “Humans cannot remember their own births. An oneiromancer forgets nothing,” he said. “I emerged into a forest, under eternal dusk. Amaranth made wreaths around the trees, and chol-birds sang.”

  The light from the streetlamp washed him in blue. He was all clouded edges and strange beauty. Carved in a human shape—yet this close, I could see the fine details that set him apart.

  “Except for the birds, there was a silence I have never found on this side of the veil,” he said. “A stream flowed through the forest. After passing through the domain of the Mesarthim, it reunited with the Grieving and poured into the Fall.”

  “Fall?”

  “The door to the æther from our realm. When spirits were ready to accept their deaths—to go to the last light—we would lead them to this chasm, and they would cast themselves over.”

  “Sometimes I wonder what comes after it,” I said, sobering up a little. His intention, perhaps. “If there’s a final resting place.”

  “The Mothallath claimed to know. They told us they were sent from it by higher beings—the Anakim, the creators of the æther— and compelled us to worship them. Some Rephaim resented being told they were inferior. Nashira was the most outspoken of these dissidents.”

  “You believed it.”

  “I kept the faith of my sovereigns.”

  “And now?”

  “I have seen too much for blind devotion. If higher beings do exist, I wonder that they did not intervene to stop the war. To avert the foundation of Scion. To prevent all of this.”

  When he spoke about the war, he sounded as ageless as he was. It was too easy to forget.

  “I saw your home in your memory,” I said. “It was beautiful.”

  The barest nod answered me.

  “It is a cruel thing,” he said, “to find oneself rootless.”

  Fie
lds walled by sweet yellow furze that lured the bees in spring. Hills where castles were enthroned beneath a wide-flung sky. A windfall of golden apples in our orchard. Frost on the kissing gate. The mountains—white in winter, green elsewhen. Green as far as the horizon. I sometimes thought I must have misremembered Ireland—that it could never have sung with such beauty—but still I yearned for it.

  “I would like to have seen your home,” Arcturus said.

  “I would have liked that, too.”

  It still existed in my memory. I could show him. He could reach into the annals of time and resurrect the place I remembered. I wished I had the courage to let him take me back.

  “If the Netherworld is never restored,” I said, “could you ever think of this world as home?”

  It took Arcturus a very long time to answer.

  “Yes,” he said. “For a time, at least.”

  Silence thickened between us. The parlor swayed like a pendulum.

  “Why are we connected?” I could barely hear myself. “The æther pulled us together for a reason. Why us, and why now?”

  “Would that I knew.”

  The ache started low in my stomach. It fought against the restraints I had put on it. Before I knew it, I had reached out and gently turned his face toward me, and his gaze was on mine.

  “Do you mind it?” I asked softly. “Being linked to me?”

  The silence rang with something I recognized.

  “No.” His voice was a shadow. “It roots me again. You remind me what it is to have a home.”

  A laugh escaped me. “Dreamwalkers are rootless. Scion wants me dead because I have no anchor.” I traced his stone-cut features. “If you make me your home, you’ll wander forever.”

  “I am not known for my wise choices, Paige Mahoney.”

  His sarx was warm under my fingertips. I could feel the strong bone of his jaw, its solidity, so at odds with his nature as a being of the in-between. He felt human. Present. Real.

  For once, I didn’t want to be reserved with him. I wanted to solve the puzzle of his features. I wanted to glide into his dreamscape again and slow dance with his most intimate self. I wanted to embrace his dream-form, and to know it—know him—like no one else ever could. His gaze was a world I had yet to discover, an open door to the infinite.