Page 243 of The Bone Season

The train was the sort you saw on a light rail, sleek and modern. The wordsSCION AUTOMATED TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMwere emblazoned across the back. The carriages were white, the anchor printed on each door. As Warden approached, the nearest ones slid open, and the lights turned on inside.

‘Welcome aboard the Pentad Line,’Scarlett Burnish said.‘This train will depart in three minutes. Destination: Whitehall, Scion Citadel of London.’

With gasps of relief, most of the survivors poured into the carriages, leaving their makeshift weapons on the platform. Some of them stayed where they were, clearly unable to believe this was happening, braced for a trick.

Warden set me down. I looked up at him, wishing I had the words.

‘Thank you,’ I finally said. ‘You never had to help us, Warden.’

‘You owe me no thanks for your freedom. It was already yours by right.’

‘You have a right to freedom, too.’

‘Yes. It has taken me twenty years to find the strength to reclaim it.’ Warden took my hands. ‘I have you, and you alone, to thank for that.’

My reply caught in my throat. A few more people boarded the train, Nell and a cryomancer named Charles among them. Zeke leaned out.

‘Paige, get on,’ he shouted.

‘I’m coming, Zeke. Give me a minute.’

‘You have two,’ Nadine called down the platform. ‘See you on the other side.’

She hit a button inside their carriage, and the doors closed. An amaurotic and a soothsayer lurched into the next one, supporting each other. I needed to join them, but I could only hold on to Warden.

‘How strange and unexpected,’ he said, ‘that this should be so difficult.’

An empty ache filled my chest. I glanced down at his gloved hands, cupping my pale ones, with their grey nail beds and blue rivers of vein.

The realisation came slowly, like dusk encroaching on the sun. The realisation that I might never see him again, as long as I lived. These could be the last moments I ever spent with him.

‘Come with us,’ I said. ‘Come with me, to London.’ I let my hands drift to his shoulders. ‘Oxford is already burning. Save yourself, Arcturus.’

Warden held my gaze. I saw him with clear eyes, grounded in myself.

I didn’t love him, even if I had kissed him. Our fragile bond could never have survived in this place, in our circumstances – but I wanted to understand what I did feel. To let it unfold, let it breathe, let it steep, far away. I didn’t want him to die here, lost to the lost city.

But anything between us was impossible. In the end, he was immortal. And from the look in his eyes, wanting might not be enough.

‘One minute to departure,’Burnish said.‘Please make yourselves comfortable.’

‘I cannot forsake my allies,’ Warden said. ‘But you must go without me. You have survived to fight another day. That is what I wanted for you.’

‘It’s not all I want.’

‘Hm. And what else do you want?’

‘So much. More than I can say,’ I said quietly. ‘I just know I want you with me.’

Warden drew me close, silent. Perhaps our worlds were too different to unite – the dreamwalker, the sleep dealer. The thief and the giant.

But I could sow a seed of secret hope, somewhere in my poppy field. I could plant it and tend it and wait for a flower to blossom, red as blood.

‘My allies and I will attempt to seize the city,’ Warden told me. ‘We will save any humans we can. If we destroy Nashira, her loyalists may scatter. Our chances are very small, but we can only try.’ He lifted my chin. ‘Paige, hear me. If you never see me again, it will mean all is well. But if we fail tonight, and Nashira still holds power by dawn, I will come to warn you.’

‘Find me either way.’ I tightened my hold on him. ‘I don’t know where I’ll be. Not in Seven Dials. I’m … not sure I have a home now.’

‘Wherever you are, I will know where to seek you.’ He pressed my hand to his chest with one hand, framing the curve of my cheek with the other. ‘The night we met, you told me I had brought the wrong voyant to this place. It seems you were exactly the right one, Paige Mahoney.’

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