Page 28 of The Song Rising

“Why would they care?”

“Because they have to take me alive.”

Nashira wanted my spirit. If I was swept away by the river, she would never get it.

We were deadlocked. The helicopter hovered above the water. It might not shoot while we were here, but it would follow us until we had to leave the ice—and as soon as we were on solid ground, it would incapacitate me and kill the others. Sickening fear took hold as I pictured it. We might have eluded Vance for an instant, but she had us in a corner.

I smelled something acrid on the wind and risked a look. Smoke was billowing across the ice, carried by a stream of spirits. The capnomancers—they were giving us cover. I took a step back, forcing the others into the cloud. The helicopter banked before it disappeared from view.

The cover might not last. We started moving, faster than on our journey here. Too fast. As we neared the end of the ice a deep fracture coursed beneath my boots and forked off in all directions. There was no time to think. I drove my shoulder into Driscoll, shunting him away from the splintering, just before my foothold collapsed.

For a blinding instant, I thought I was dead.

Somehow I resisted gulping as I plunged into the blackness of the Thames. I went down like a diving bell. Blades impaled my ribs and sliced along my legs, carved me open from navel to throat, but I didn’t let the water in.

As I sank deeper, my lungs bayed for oxygen. I was burning without heat, on fire without flame. I wrestled with the river, screaming inside as it scourged my skin, but my limbs had turned to stone.

London does not forget a traitor, Jaxon whispered from my memory.It will suck you down, O my lovely. Into the tunnels and the plague pits. Into its dark heart, where all the traitors’ bodies sink.

Damn him to hell. I would not die like this. Some deep reserve of strength glowed within me, warming my arms enough to get them moving. My hands tore my boiler suit open; I freed myself from it and clawed through the foul-tasting water, but the darkness was disorienting. Frantic, I kicked and scrabbled, not knowing which way was up, until my head shattered the surface. White breath plumed from my mouth. A vicious current roared against my body, carrying me faster than my shocked muscles could fight.

I was too far from the bank. I was too cold to swim.

I wasn’t going to make it out of this alive.

My head slipped under again. The river took hold of my body with greed.

That was when I felt an aura against mine, and an arm scooping me back to the surface.

My hands found a pair of shoulders. As I gasped and coughed, I found myself faced with Rephaite eyes.

“Warden—”

“Hold on to me.”

My arms were so weak, but I managed to sling them around his neck. The muscles of his back shifted fluidly as he swam through the Thames, cutting through it as if the current was just a whisper against him.

I must have blacked out for an instant—then I was aware of being lifted from the river, of water cascading from my body. When the night air hit me, it was as if frost was covering my lungs, creeping around my ribs, glazing every inch of skin. His familiar voice said, “Paige, breathe,” and I did. Warden pressed me tightly to his chest, against heat, and wrapped his coat around me, sheltering me from the snow. I shivered uncontrollably.

He stayed with me until the others found their way to us. Nick kept me awake on the drive to safety, talking to me, asking me questions. I swung between moments of painful clarity, like seeing Driscoll break down in tears, and darker periods, when all I could do was try to keep warm.

We retreated to a safe house in the central cohort. As soon as we were inside, Nick went into doctor mode. On his orders, I took off what was left of my clothing and washed in tepid water. Once he had checked me for open wounds and ordered me to tell him straight away if I felt sick or feverish, I was swaddled in thick blankets and left to dry. I made myself a warm cocoon and focused on preserving heat.

I dozed for a while. When I lifted my head, there was a Rephaite in an armchair opposite me, gazing into a fire. For a chilling instant, I thought I was in Magdalen—that we were in the penal colony again, in that tower, still uncertain of each other.

“Warden.”

His hair was damp. “Paige.”

Prickles raced along my skin. I pushed myself up on my elbows.

“Dani,” I said, my voice thick.

“She is safe. It will never be traced back to her,” he said. “False information about the warehouse was planted across several Scion departments. They have no way of knowing which was the leak.”

Vance must have only suspected that I had someone on the inside, then. As I pinched the blankets closer, I noticed that my hands were steady. I wanted them to shake. I wanted to feel myself responding to my voyants’ lives being pointlessly lost, but I had seen death on the screens since I was a child: it was drip-fed to us every week, breathed into our homes, our lives steeped in it, until blood was as commonplace a thing as coffee—and after all I had seen in the last few months, it seemed I had stopped being able to react. I hated Scion for it.

“You got me out of the water.”

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