Page 119 of The Song Rising

“These new scanners. As soon as they’re operational, the rumor is the unnatural lot will be obsolete. All Okonma has to do is sign the execution warrants, and they’ll swing.”

A rubber sole tapped on concrete. “I was thinking of handing in my notice,” the man said. “Martial law’s going to be hell for us. Extra hours, seven-day weeks. In the barracks they’re saying they’re going to dock our pay so they can give more to the krigs. We’ll be drudges.”

“Keep it down.”

They were silent for a long time. The drug was clouding my thoughts again, a siren song to oblivion. I pinched the delicate skin of my wrist, forcing my eyes open.

“You seen all these foreigners in the building? Spaniards, I heard. Ambassadors from their king.”

“Mm. They were with Weaver in his office all day.” A light rap on the door. “Who do you reckon they’re keeping in there?”

“Nobody told you? It’s Paige Mahoney.”

“Right, nice try. She’s dead.”

“You saw what they wanted you to see.” I heard the view-slot open. “There.”

“The unnatural who took on an empire,” the woman said, after a pause. “Doesn’t look like much to me.”

Time passed. Meals came. Drugs came. And then, one unexpected day—if it was day, if day existed any longer—I was woken with a splash of water, dragged up from the subterranean vault by two Vigiles, and pushed into a cubicle.

“Go on,” one guard said.

I stumbled away from the shower. The taller Vigile slammed me into the tiles.

“Clean yourself. Filth.”

After a moment, I did as I was told.

I was thinner. My skin had a gray undertone that could only have come from flux. Bruises, blue and purple and pear-green, marked the injection sites on my arms, and my legs were badly discoloured from the Vigiles’ boots and fists. A blackberry stain fanned out below my breasts, where a ring-shaped wound sat just under my sternum.

A rubber bullet. It must have been. I stood there like a mannequin, my legs shaking under my weight.

Moments after I had stepped into the shower, the Vigiles slotted my arms into a clean shift and took me out of the cubicle. Soon concrete gave way to bloodshot marble, painful on the soles of my feet. My head spun like a carousel as they steered me through the Archon, along sun-drenched corridors that hurt my tender eyes.

Slowly, I became more alert. My feet slewed on the floor. This was it. The last walk.

“No,” a Vigile said. “You’re not dying yet.”

Not yet. I still had time.

Somewhere in the Archon, music was booming. It grew louder as the Vigiles manhandled me up flights of stairs. Franz Schubert—“Death and the Maiden.”

A plaque on a heavy door readRIVER ROOM. One of the Vigiles knocked and pushed it open. Inside, honeyed light poured through windows overlooking the Thames, slicing between blood-red damask curtains. It gleamed on marble busts and a glass vase of nasturtium.

I stopped in my tracks. He wore a waistcoat the same red as those curtains, sewn with complex foliate patterns. He didn’t look up from his book when he spoke.

“Hello, darling.”

My legs wouldn’t move. The Vigiles took hold of my arms and bundled me into the opposite seat.

“Would you like her restrained, Grand Overseer?”

“Oh, no need for that sort of tomfoolery. My erstwhile mollisher would never be so foolish as to run.” Jaxon still didn’t look up. “If you wished to be even modestly useful, however, you can remind your underlings to bring the breakfast I ordered twenty-six minutes ago.”

The Vigiles’ visors concealed most of their faces, but I heard one of them mutter something about “bloody unnaturals” as they exited the room.

An unruly stack of paper sat on the table to my left. Between us was a silver teapot on a lace tablecloth. A surveillance camera was reflected in its side.

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