Page 16 of The Mask Falling

SUPPORT THE IBERIAN EFFORT

SOUTENEZ L’EFFORT IBéRIQUE

The white-hot flash and smoke of tankfire. Bloody hoofprints. Limbs entangled on the bridge. Bodies flung into the river. I walked on, faster, ears ringing, but the memories screamed after me.

The Iberian Effort, as it was known to the average denizen—or Operation Madrigal, as it was called behind the curtain. Scion had revealed it to the public on the twelfth of January. How much of Scion’s progress was propaganda, I had no idea, but its aim was to annex Spain and Portugal. If the operation succeeded, Scion would control eleven countries.

Arcturus waited by a streetlamp. We fell into step on our way down to the riverfront, where there were no cameras and not many people.

“What is it?” he said.

I glanced at him. He was looking straight ahead.

“Paris.” I cast my gaze over the river. “It’s magnificent. So much of Scion is. Isn’t that sick?”

“It is a beautiful mask, but all masks fall. In the end.”

“Not fast enough.” I thrust my hands into my pockets. “Spain and Portugal will be under the anchor soon. Not one month ago, they had emissaries in London, like they had a chance of stopping this.”

“They may be able to resist ScionIDE, as Ireland did.”

“Ireland was defeated on the day of the Dublin Incursion, when an army marched in and murdered hundreds of unarmed people,” I said, my tone clipped. “Scion does its worst in the early days. It goes straight for the soul. Everything after that is just . . . death throes.”

We walked beneath a bridge, past skeletal trees and moored barges, painted red and white and gold. Frost glittered on every surface.

“We may not be able to stop this invasion,” Arcturus said, “but we can keep building our own army. We can cooperate with Domino. We can make a difference.”

I tried to believe it. I had to believe it. When we reached the steps to a footbridge, Arcturus pulled ahead again.

A breeze dredged a heavy green smell from the Seine. Halfway across the bridge, I stopped and rested my elbows on the railing, giving him a chance to put some distance between us. Sunlight sparkled on the water. Despite the danger, I allowed myself to imagine that I was an ordinary woman, taking in the sights of a new country. It took my mind off war and blood.

The illusion shattered when I spotted two Vigiles at the other end of the bridge. I joined a long column of sightseers, who were gossiping in Swedish. Neither of the Vigiles spared us a glance. As soon as we were past them, I deserted the group and kept walking. Day Vigiles might be amaurotic, unable to see or sense auras, but it was best for them not to get a close look at my face. Smoked lenses and a coat of dye would only do so much.

The Swedish tour group bustled in the opposite direction. While vacationers still came from elsewhere in Scion, I realized it had been months since I had last seen any free-world tourists.

Outsiders had once been allowed to visit the Republic of Scion under strict conditions. It was how Zeke and Nadine had first come to London, on a tour for students. Zeke had later told me their phones and recording devices had been confiscated at the airport, and they were told not to leave their hotel without a Scion-approved guide, presumably to stop them seeing any evidence of executions. Of course, they had found ways to break that rule.

That was when Scion had cared about foreign relations. Now it seemed Nashira was starting to cut ties.

I followed Arcturus up one street for what felt like an eternity. Stabbing pain echoed my breaths. By the time we met beneath a red plaque readingrue des forges, my brow was clammy.

“The Court of Miracles.” Arcturus nodded to a crumbling brick archway. The smells of sizzling grease and woodsmoke oozed through it. “It would appear it still exists.”

Too winded to do anything but nod, I leaned against the wall and pressed a hand flat to my chest.

“We can turn back,” Arcturus said.

“No.” Taking the deepest breath I could manage, I straightened. “Time to make some friends. Or enemies, knowing my luck.”

No one stopped us from passing through the archway. The street beyond was unpaved, wet with snowmelt. From the first step, there was evidence of hardship—shedding paint, broken windows, families sleeping rough.

The Court of Miracles was not the cauldron of decadence Jaxon had promised. The reality was quieter. Rubbish was strewn across Rue des Forges, where the vagabonds of Paris talked and dozed and cooked beneath tarpaulins. None of them were dressed for snow. One group was split between two mattresses, sharing a few bags of chips. Over the largest of several pit fires, a muddy stew bubbled in a pot.

I knew from the map that the shantytown hooked around a block of flophouses. As I followed the path, I remembered what Jaxon had told me about the people who had lived here in the past, the malingreux. They had crafted the appearance of disease in the hope of earning more generous alms from the public, but once they returned to the slums, their rashes and sores evaporated. That was how these pockets of deprivation had first earned their name.

There was only one miracle I could see here now, and that was voyants and amaurotics sharing one cramped street in peace, with the rotties clearly aware of the unnaturals in their midst. They spoke in a mix of French and English, switching seamlessly and often.

Two women danced while a whisperer played an air on a fiddle. In the middle of one cluster of people, a hydromancer stirred a pail of murky water, watched with interest by several amaurotics. Everyone seemed to be getting on like wick and flame.

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