Page 61 of The Song Rising

“We have to leave,” I said. “Now.”

Even as I said it, an eldritch scream echoed over the snowdrifts. A sound exactly like the cries that must have risen from this village when the creature came, a sound that grated along my spine and raised every hair on my nape. Eliza grabbed my arm.

“Is it close?”

“I can’t sense it.” All that meant was that it was slightly more than a mile away. “It will come back here, though, to its cold spot. Come on. Comeon,” I barked at Maria, who seemed rooted in place.

So we pressed on through the fields, away from the village of the dead.

Nashira had told us that Sheol I had been there for a reason: to draw the Emim away from the rest of the population. They were attracted to ethereal activity like sharks to blood. “No matter what the costs of that colony, it served well as a beacon,” Warden had told me. “Now they will be tempted by the great hive of spirits in London.” London and elsewhere, it seemed. The voyants gathered in the enclave must have tempted the Emite from its lair.

I had never wanted to believe that Nashira was right: that by rendering the colony useless, I had put lives at risk. That Warden and I might be responsible for the deaths of everyone in that village.

An hour later, we were crossing yet another field, our heads bowed against the roar of the wind, leaden with exhaustion. It felt as if splinters of glass were slashing me across the eyes. It was only fear of the Emite that kept us moving, but it stayed off my radar. It hadn’t caught wind of us.

We heard the car coming from a long way off. The engine sounded like a death rattle of a rusty tractor, so it was unlikely to be a Scion vehicle, but we couldn’t take any chances. Wordlessly, we made for the hedgerow that ran alongside the main road and hunkered down behind it. Minutes later, our faces were dappled by the glow of headlights.

The car pulled over close by. Too close. It was a small, urban runaround, coated in soot. I told myself it was just turning—until the door opened, and a silhouetted figure emerged.

“Paige Mahoney!”

We stared at each other.

“Hello?” A muttered curse. The newcomer tramped across the road and peered over the hedgerow. “Look, if you don’t come with me now, you’ll be on your own out here.”

Despite the urgency, his voice was somehow mellow, with a rolling accent I had occasionally heard at the black market. At first, I stayed put. Vance was laying traps for me, and I had no intention of running into her net again. But there was only one dreamscape in the car—no Vigiles lying in wait, no paratroopers above.

I rose, ignoring Maria’s hiss for me to get down. A flashlight glared in my direction.

“Ah, good. Found you,” the voice said. “Get in, quick. We don’t want to run into a night patrol.”

The wordsnight patrolgot the others moving. I squeezed into the back of the car with Tom and Eliza while Maria swung herself into the front. The man behind the wheel was probably in his mid-twenties, tangle-haired and bespectacled. His dark skin was smattered with freckles and small moles, and a good few days of stubble coated his jaw.

“Underqueen?” When I raised a hand, he glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. “I’m Hari Maxwell. Welcome to the North West.”

“Paige,” I said. “These are my commanders, Tom and Maria, and Muse, one of my mollishers.”

“Your what?”

I searched for a suitable alternative. “Second-in-command. Deputy.”

“Ah, right. I can call you Paige, can I? You don’t expect ‘Your Majesty?’”

He said this without a trace of sarcasm. “Just Paige,” I said.

A fine layer of coal dust surrounded his eyes. He had the aura of a cottabomancer, a rare type of seer that dealt with wine. “Sorry, what was your name, again?” he asked Eliza.

It took her a moment to notice who he was talking to. “Me?” She tilted her head. “Muse.”

“Doesn’t sound like a real name.”

“I only tell my friends my real name.”

Hari grinned and turned the car, yanking the gearstick. The engine retorted with a coughing fit.

“I waited for you at the station, then thought I’d head out to find you,” he said, once we were on our way. “Anyway, sorry to leave you stranded for so long. What happened?”

“There was a spot check at Stoke-on-Trent,” I said. “Underguards.”

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