Page 105 of The Song Rising

“I won’t leave you in the lurch. I’m not going to abandon the Mime Order, but I’ve proven that I’m not the person you need to lead it. You need someone who can win the voyants’ support after this, someone who can achieve a strong enough victory against Scion to persuade Adhara of their worth. Maria is probably your best bet. She understands war, and she gets on well with most of the Unnatural Assembly. She’s reckless, though. If not her—”

“Paige.”

“—Eliza would do well. She knows London, and she’s stronger than she realizes. There’s Glym, too, if he wants to continue. And Nick. He survived for years in Tjäder’s Stockholm. He’d make you proud. Any of them would.”

Warden didn’t move. I chanced a look at him, trying to see something,anythingin his expression.

“Paige Mahoney,” he said, “I never thought that you, of all people, would prove worthy of your yellow tunic.”

I was too drained to be hurt.

“You’re right,” I said. The cold made it harder to speak. “I am a coward. I—I left them in the shadow . . .”

“Who?”

“My family. Did you know about Ireland, Warden? Do you know what the anchor did to Tipperary?”

His face didn’t change. “I thought you knew.”

“No,” I said, with a weak laugh. “No. But it doesn’t matter. I know what I have to do. If the Mime Order’s going to have a chance, I have to abdicate.”

The shadows set his eyes on fire.

“Fool,” he said softly. “Do you think so little of yourself?”

“Call me a fool again,” I said, just as softly.

“Fool. You have swallowed the same poison that Vance is pouring into her denizens’ wine.”

Warden moved the tin of fire from between us and sat beside me, I looked up at him, taking him in.

“I did not let you give up your memory of ScionIDE for the séance,” he said. “I want you to find it now.”

“Why?”

“Because it is time you remembered.”

The golden cord was taut as a violin’s string, quavering with our proximity. He was the bow, and I was the music.

“Tell me how,” I said.

“Only you know.”

His aura intertwined with mine. So did his arms. He reached into my memory.

Golden light filled my vision, and the taste of copper sickened me. The ground fell away. A bitter taste flooded my mouth before a dam ruptured, and I was swan-diving through time and space—my body ripping itself to shreds, fracturing and re-forming again and again and again—

And then—

Kayley Ní Dhornáin on the street in Dublin, auburn hair on fire under the sun. Finn, my cousin, vanishing from sight, roaring incoherent anguish. Kay’s shirt is black, but the blood shines through. She never saw the gun that killed her.

Hands, small hands, shaking her. My hands.Kay.A sob in my ears, a child’s sob.Kay, wake up, wake up.

The flags of Ireland all around her. A man, one of Finn’s friends, raising his hands above his head.

Stop, he pleads.She wasn’t armed.

He, too, is unarmed. They shoot him dead. The man who knows his freedom is a threat.

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