Page 198 of The Bone Season

Reuben bent to kiss the tops of my breasts. I had no idea what to expect when he drew me against him, both hands on my hips. He was trembling. I drank in the glazed desire in his eyes. He stared at me in a daze.

Then pain – stunning pain, like a swift uppercut into my stomach.

Reuben was oblivious. As he pushed into me, or tried, I could only hold still and wait, willing the deep ache to pass. He noticed my tension.

‘Eva?’

‘I’m fine,’ I managed.

He blinked. ‘Is this your first time?’

‘No.’ I wrapped my arms back around his neck, trying to distract myself. ‘Go on.’

He kissed me again. When he moved, it came again – a vicious, racking pain. This time, I couldn’t hold in a gasp of shock. Reuben drew back.

‘It is,’ he said. ‘Eva, it’s okay. We don’t have to do this.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I stammered out. ‘Just try again. I want—’

‘Eva, you’re beautiful. But you don’t look as if you’re enjoying this.’ His throat worked. ‘Look, I just don’t think we should. Can I call you?’

‘Fuck you.’ I pushed him away, so hard he fell into a rack. ‘Just leave me the fuck alone, then. I don’t want you. I don’t need anyone. Got it?’

He stared at me, shaken.

I was already halfway out of the door, pulling my dress back down my legs, forgetting my coat. By the time Reuben came after me, I had already locked myself into the toilet. I sensed him returning to his friends, then leaving.

My lower stomach was cramping, the pain heavy in my pelvis. I held my head in my hands and shook with silent tears.

When I emerged, the old waitron blocked the passageway, arms folded. Seeing my tearstained face, he frowned a little. I tried to compose myself.

‘I know a fake card when I see one, Pale Dreamer,’ he said. ‘I was going to tell the Wicked Lady.’ Pause. ‘But just this once, I’ll let you off.’

I watched him. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve clearly already had a rough night.’ He took me by the shoulder and steered me out. ‘I’ll call you a cab. Get back to where you belong.’

He shoved me on to the street. I stood alone in the slush of the citadel, tears chilling my cheeks, wondering where I would tell the driver to take me – the girl with no home, dancing upon nothing.

HALLS OF MAGDALEN

The intensity of that memory sent me into a long sleep. I had relived every detail of that night, down to the taste of my tears, and the pain. I woke to shadow and firelight. ‘It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie’ strained from the gramophone.

Warden had covered me again. I stared into the fire, not wanting to face the music.

He had just seen the hardest night of my time as the Pale Dreamer. The night I had realised how terrible Jaxon could be, and the Seven Seals had strained at the seams. The night I feared I had lost Nick.

It could have been so many other memories. I had lived through the first two years of the Molly Riots, the separation from my grandparents, years of cruelty at school – yet it was that night, when I had needed something indefinable, that had been knotting up my poppies.

Jaxon did not believe in hearts. He believed in dreamscapes and spirits. Those were what mattered – but my heart had laid me low that day. For the first time in my life, I had been forced to acknowledge its fragility.

A tongue of fire still tantalised the embers in the hearth. It cast light on the figure by the window.

‘Welcome back,’ Warden said.

I sat up, braced for an echo of the pain. There was nothing.

‘I hope that was entertaining for you,’ I said.

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