Page 166 of The Bone Season

Nick floored Carl with a spool. He was running after Danica when Warden blocked his path. I thought my heart would stop as they squared up to each other – my keeper, pitted against my best friend. A collision of different sides of my life. I started towards them, even as I felt the æther ripple. Nick was about to send a volley of visions.

Before I could get to them, Eliza attacked me.

Spirits flew at me from every direction. Given a choice, they usually sided with mediums. Three of them slammed into my dreamscape. I stumbled, blinded by visions of their memories: towering waves, the blast of muskets, fires raging on the deck of a ship – screaming, chaos – then Eliza gave me a shove, and I fell. I thrust up all my mental defences, while Eliza tried to hold me down.

‘Keep at it, all of you,’ she urged the spirits. ‘You have to buy us time!’

My dreamscape was flooding. Cannonballs ripped through it, and burning wood fell past my eyes. With a huge effort, I forced out the spirits and gripped Eliza by the arm. I squeezed it hard, willing her to understand.

Eliza was drenched in sweat. She must be terrified, to have forced herself to fight that hard – too afraid to distinguish that press of her arm from another cruel hand, or to pay closer attention to my aura. I pushed her away from me and scrambled back, cutting my hand wildly across my throat. I saw her hesitate – just for a moment – before she went for her gun, a pocket revolver.

This was a lost cause. If I were her, I knew I wouldn’t stop. I would shoot.

I knew, because I had not stopped to listen to the Overseer.

Warden noticed my predicament. Almost in a single motion, he wove together an intricate spool and sent it flying towards Eliza. It entangled her senses as well as a net. She dropped the gun and buckled.

‘Muse,’ Nick bellowed.

Warden was still in his way. Now so were Tertius and Situla. He looked between them, his wig awry, my revolver in hand. Hot tears of denial sprang to my eyes. His name burned in my throat. I wanted him to run. Even with his visions, he couldn’t fight all three of them.

Nick Nygård stood his ground. I had to help him fight the Rephs.

Just as I rose, I felt the blow coming. I turned just in time to block a bloody cane with my rifle, the jarring force almost disarming me.

‘A dreamwalker in uniform,’ Jaxon said softly. ‘Where did Scion find you?’

My arms were shaking. For a man who rarely left his own home, Jaxon was strong.

‘Perhaps you were hidden away in the suburbs. Or in another citadel.’ He leaned in close to me, staring into the eyeholes of the mask. ‘You can’t possibly bemydreamwalker. She is dead. If not, I would already have found her. I have scoured every prison, every dark corner and cesspit of this citadel.’ The cane strained closer. ‘So who are you?’

Heat pricked my eyes again. He really had looked for me.

Before I could do anything, Jaxon was thrown back by another massive spool, larger than any a human could make. It made him lose his footing. His boundlings retaliated in a fury, shooting towards Warden.

Jaxon lashed out blindly. Instinct jerked my head to the left, and the cane scraped across one side of my mask. I raised my gun, just to ward him off, but a second blow knocked it clean out of my hand.

Danica had installed a blade for him. He could either draw it out fully, or expose the end, like a bayonet on an old musket. The sharp tip flashed across my right arm, cutting through my jacket, deep into flesh.

‘Come, dreamwalker, use your spirit!’ Jaxon pointed the blade at me, laughing in delight. ‘Let go of the pain and fly. Use it to propel yourself.’

Even now, his work came first. I backed away from him, grasping my arm with my bad hand. Already my fingers were covered in blood.

A crowd of amaurotics were on the edge of Trafalgar Square, some of them on their phones. The Vigiles were stopping them from getting any closer.

‘Ah, the general public,’ Jaxon observed. ‘Just as I was enjoying myself.’

Carter ran to join Nick. Her hat was gone, exposing her cascade of dyed crimson hair. Her face was pinched and gaunt, but I remembered it. In desperation, I grabbed Jaxon by the cheeks and shook him as hard as I could. Jaxon stared at me as I tried to say his name.

Antoinette Carter distracted us both.

One moment, she was standing by Nick. The next, the æther drew itself around her, like cloth gathered into a hand. Her eyes rolled back. Even from here, I could feel the change in her aura, an ember blown into a flame. It mocked the blue streetlights of the citadel, the ones designed to soothe the troubled mind. With no hesitation, she physically attacked all three Rephs, hitting them with her fists and boots.

When I had charged at Warden, I had come off worse. Carter was forcing them back. Ten spirits swooped at Situla, not letting her get a hit in edgeways.

‘Binder,’ Nick bellowed. ‘Let’s go!’

Jaxon looked at me, and I looked at him. I tightened my grip on his face.

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