Page 165 of The Bone Season

I clenched my fist. Even if my gang wasn’t outnumbered, they were out of their depth. Each Reph had the strength of multiple humans – and the resilience of a tank, apparently. I had to help them even the odds.

My broken wrist was throbbing. I pulled out the syringe of adrenalin and slammed the needle into my thigh. After a few moments, all the pain – old and new – dulled to a distant ache. My vision wouldn’t settle, but it wasn’t incapacitating.

Amelia kicked Nadine back, aiming her rifle. Before I quite knew what I was doing, I aimed mine. The dart hit Amelia in the back. She dropped like a stone.

Nadine whirled around. She hadn’t seen me shoot, but now she did see me – not her mollisher, but a masked figure with a dart gun, an agent of the anchor. Without hesitation, she drew her pistol and pointed it.

The best shot in the gang. She would kill me without question, and with ease. Before she could fire, I sprinted across the square and tackled her, taking her down by the waist, straight into the fountain. The water turned luminous red as the security level changed.

Nadine surfaced just after me, hair plastered to her face. I waded back, the water swashing to my knees.

‘Take that mask off, coward,’ she shouted at me. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

I kept my flux gun trained on her, shaking my head. Nadine opened her coat and chose a knife. She had always preferred steel to spirits.

Time seemed to slow. I felt my heartbeat everywhere, right down to my fingertips. Nadine was almost as good with a knife as she was with a gun, and my body armour would only provide so much protection. It left my limbs and throat exposed. In water, I would be slower.

Nadine knew this, and smiled.

She threw the first blade. I lurched away, and it glanced off my mask. Before I could even draw a breath, a longer knife was in her grasp. If she managed to hit the right point on my thigh, I would bleed out.

David chose that moment to appear. Just as Nadine was about to let fly, he put a dart between her shoulders. Her face slackened. She tottered back, swayed, and fell against the edge of the fountain with a splash.

I called her name, but all I could make was a muffled sound, trapped behind my lips. David pulled her halfway out of the water and took her head between his hands. Just as Nashira had done to Seb.

In the heat of the moment, David must have forgotten his orders. He was about to kill Nadine.

I didn’t even pause to think. For the second time, I projected my spirit.

I struck the wall of his dreamscape.

And suddenly, I passed through it.

As soon as I was in there, I kept going. Not stopping to see my surroundings, I reached his sunlit zone and shoved his spirit aside. Now I was seeing through his eyes, feeling the solid hammer of his heart. I forced him to release Nadine. I watched myself slip underwater.

The sight tightened my silver cord. It flung me back into my own dreamscape, my own body. Now I was thrashing out of the water, my nose burning, soaked to my skin. Barely able to see, I ran towards David and threw myself at him. We both went crashing to the ground.

My vision turned black for a moment. I lay stunned, my lips trembling as I tried to pull a deep breath in. I had just possessed a human.

I had done what Nashira wanted of me.

Tertius had seen; so had Situla. The eyeholes of both their masks were aglow.

Beside me, David clutched his head, a wordless groan in his throat. I used the fountain to drag myself up, blinking away droplets, my clothes heavy.

Nadine was still fighting the flux. Dazed, she made it to the other side of the fountain and rolled herself out. Zeke was there to catch her. A dart protruded from his side, but he was immune to phantasmagoria.

Not so for his sister. Nadine had only held out for this long because her survival instinct had kicked in. He had to get her out of here.

Carl was circling Antoinette Carter, trying to get a dart in her. Somehow, she was holding her own against Situla, keeping her at bay with spools.

My head was about to erupt. It had been worth it. I did a sweep of Trafalgar Square, assessing the situation. David and all three Bone Season veterans were down, while my gang had only lost Nadine.

Now they had a fighting chance.

‘Fury,’ Zeke shouted, his voice cracking. ‘Get Bell out of here, now!’

Danica was bruised and bloody, but she had always been strongest. She got Nadine over her shoulders and huffed away from the square.

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