Page 100 of The Mask Falling

“I see now whywehad to risk our necks,” I said. “Going near them puts you at risk of the half-urge.”

I had never understood why, when they were so fast and strong, the Rephaim had wanted to train humans to fight the Emim. At last, I could make sense of everything I had seen.

“Cade told me how it all works,” I said. “Most of it, anyway. You have to be bitten, clawed, anything that breaks your sarx. Salt and human blood hold it off, but you have to take aura to cure it.” Arcturus confirmed it with a nod. “There was one thing he hasn’t been able to find out. Whether or not you can also develop the half-urge if you don’t take aura.”

“No.”

I watched him with heavy-lidded eyes, one hand on my ribs.

“If we do not feed,” Arcturus said, “we become delirious. We lose our gifts. Finally, we cease to function. The pollen of the poppy anemone both hastens this process and disfigures us.”

“So you go into spirit shock,” I said. “Like when a soothsayer or an augur loses their numen.”

“It is comparable, except that voyants can die from spirit shock. For us, there is no such mercy.”

I waited for him to continue.

“How much we can perceive in that state, I do not know,” he said. “Whatisknown is that we become considerably more tempting to the Emim. The only way to reanimate us, then, is with the half-urge. Usually, our fellow Rephaim choose to remove that possibility by sequestering us.”

“That is, beheading you,” I said. “Which can only be done with opaline, because nothing else severs Rephaite bone.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

Arcturus watched the hailstones clatter on the window.

“Sequestration is not the same as mortal death,” he said. “Our bodies do not rot. Our dreamscapes remain in the æther. So far as I know, there is no way to free our spirits at that point. We cannot truly die—nor, from then on, can we truly live.”

Eternal imprisonment. Alsafi had condemned himself to that frozen state to save me.

“In the colony, I used the pollen of the poppy anemone on Kraz Sargas,” I said. “Afterward, you told me he was dead.”

“At the time, it seemed the best way to explain it. Kraz did not find a voyant in time to restore himself,” he said. “Nashira would have sequestered him.”

For all intents and purposes, I really had killed off one of the blood-heirs. I felt nothing.

“Well,” I said, “thank you for the honesty. How nice it feels to be well-informed.” I touched my burning forehead. “Ménard doesn’t know about sequestration. Not that it would matter if he did, because I doubt Nashira leaves opaline lying around.”

“No.”

“Then he still thinks Sheol II is necessary to trap you. If we tear it down, we risk losing him as a potential ally. And of course, the Emim will spread.”

“Yes. There will be consequences, as there were consequences the first time. But for the sake of all unnaturals—Rephaite and human —we cannot let Sheol II stand,” Arcturus said. “Any civilization that must subjugate a part of itself to survive is not worth saving.”

“I agree,” I said. “You’re with me, then?”

“If you will have me.”

Usually our silences were peaceful. This one was still and heavy, like the air before a storm.

“I suppose I will,” I finally said.

“You do not seem as angry as I expected.”

“Trust me, I am. I’m just too tired to shout at you.”

“I see.”

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