Page 91 of The Song Rising

“No. I’ll take Eliza and start scouting for information about the depot elsewhere.” She dropped the roll and ground it out underfoot. “Vance will already be ahead of us, but let’s not let her get too far.”

Back in the house, I unearthed a map of Edinburgh and spread it out on a table. The Rephaim had gone out—presumably to find some unsuspecting voyants to feed on. I could feel fear building underneath my exhaustion. Eight hours had passed since we had left the factory. For all I knew, Vance was already here.

Nick came down the stairs, looking as tired as I felt.

“Where are you going,sötnos?”

“To find the Edinburgh Vaults. Tom thinks—thought—they were a hideout for a group of voyants who have been active in this citadel for decades.” My finger skated across the map, over the latticework of closes and wynds that branched off the Grand Mile and then south a little, until I found the Cowgate. It wasn’t far. “He said they were somewhere around here. Coming?”

“Of course.” He reached for his coat. “Vance could be here by now. Dare I ask if the depot is on the map, so we can avoid having to ask the local voyants for help finding it?”

“That would be too easy.”

I zipped up my puffer jacket and buckled my boots. A clock was ticking somewhere in the house. There was no time—but there was something I had to say to him.

“Nick,” I said, “we . . . never spoke about the séance. What happened to your sister.”

He turned away from the firelight as he shrugged on his coat, obscuring his expression.

“There’s not much to say.” He saw my face and sighed. “The soldiers were on patrol in the forest in Småland, close to where we lived at the time. Lina had gone there without permission to camp with some of her friends for her birthday. They had bought some bottles of Danish wine on the black market. Our father sent me after them. Hours too late.” He drew in a long breath. “Later, Tjäder justified it by saying they’d bought the wine to induce unnaturalness in themselves. Håkan, Lina’s boyfriend, was the eldest. He was fifteen.”

I lowered my gaze. Birgitta Tjäder’s reign of terror in Stockholm was common knowledge—she saw any infringement of Scion law as high treason—but I couldn’t imagine what sort of mind would perceive a group of children drinking wine as deserving of the death penalty.

“I’m so sorry, Nick,” I said softly.

“I’m glad it was in the séance. It means that Lina is in everyone’s memories now,” he said, his tone stiff. “Tjäder was under Vance’s command. Whatever we do to hurt her is worth the risk.”

I felt the golden cord and glanced up. Warden was in the doorway, his irises hot from a feed.

“Do you know Edinburgh, Warden?” I said, straightening.

“Not as well as I know London,” he said, “but I had cause to visit during my time as blood-consort.”

“Have you heard of the Edinburgh Vaults?”

“Yes.” He looked between us. “Would you like me to take you there?”

16

The Vaults

Even in the situation we found ourselves in, I could appreciate the beauty of the Old Town. Its buildings were beautiful and motley, with spires and rooftops that clambered skyward—as if they longed to reach the same heights as the nearby hills, or to touch the sky the sun had warmed to a finger-painting of amber and coral. Warden led us up the flight of steps outside the safe house, past a smear of white graffiti.ALBA GU BRÀTH. A cry for a lost country.

“Paige,” Nick said, “what’s going on between you and Warden?”

Warden was a fair way ahead of us, too far to hear if we kept our voices down (unless Rephaim had uncannily good hearing, which had proven far from impossible). “Nothing.”

Nick looked like he wanted to ask more, but, seeing that his long strides had taken him too far from the humans, Warden had stopped to let us catch up.

I had thought I was acting as I always had around him in public, but something had betrayed me to Nick. As I walked at Warden’s side, I was conscious of my expression, my body language, my heartbeat.

“When were you here last?” I said to him.

“Eight years ago.”

The steps led us up to the Grand Mile, where cast-iron streetlamps burned from the fog—clean, pale fog, the breath of the sea. Beneath our feet were broad, piebald cobblestones, sheened by rain. Restaurants and coffee houses were filling up with evening trade, their patrons gathered near outdoor heaters, hands clasped around steaming glasses, and close by, a young man played an air on acláirseach. Farther down the street, a squadron of day Vigiles was on patrol. Warden could just about pass as human in fog as thick as this, although he was taller than everyone else on the street.

We shadowed him down an incline, into a slum that sprawled beneath a bridge, darkened by a canopy of laundry, where the smells of cooking and sewage basted the smoke-thickened air. Tattered Irish flags—green, white, and orange—were draped across the bridge; accents like mine flitted between windows. It was forbidden to display the old Irish tricolor under any circumstances—Vigiles must never come through this district. Families huddled around outdoor fires, warming their hands, while a wizened man lifted clothes from a barrel and wrung them through a hand-operated mangle. A sign above his head readCOWGATE.

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