Page 177 of The Bone Season

‘You got yourself thrown out?’

Julian nodded. ‘Like you said, it isn’t worth my life. And I can be with Liss.’

‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ Cyril hissed at me. ‘No jackets allowed until the Bicentenary.’

‘I won’t stay long.’ I passed him my backpack. ‘Here. I brought some food.’ He grabbed it at once, and I knelt beside Liss. ‘How is she?’

‘Still fighting,’ Julian said.

‘How often is she conscious?’

‘She wakes up a couple of times a day. Not for long, though.’

Liss was in a fitful sleep. In less than a month, she had grown thin. I touched her forehead. Her skin was icy, even with the duvet.

Now she could no longer connect with the æther, her spirit wanted to abandon her body, to flee to the other side. Like a candle nearing the end of its wick, her aura was starting to gutter and fade. If it disappeared altogether, she would be amaurotic, whether she lived or died.

Some kind of ointment had been smeared on her burned hands. Cyril drummed his fingers on his knee, watching her with an owlish intensity.

‘Come on, Rymore,’ he mumbled. ‘Don’t leave us in the lurch for the Bicentenary.’

‘You’ve been away for a while,’ Julian murmured to me. Liss turned her head. ‘I heard you’d been sent on an assignment. Was it to London?’

‘Yes. I was sent to arrest my own friends,’ I said. ‘I managed to avoid killing them, but one of them stabbed me in the liver. I’ve been having a great few days.’ He snorted. ‘Have you been able to get Liss to eat or drink?’

‘Enough to keep her alive, but she won’t last much longer.’ Julian ground his jaw. ‘At least Suhail and the Overseer are leaving her alone, for now. Nell volunteered to step in – she’s an aerialist, too – so they’re satisfied they’ve got someone to take over for the Bicentenary.’

‘Nell isn’t as good,’ Cyril informed us. ‘She falls. Rymore never falls.’

‘She’s getting weak,’ I said. ‘This can’t go on.’

‘But we can’t do anything,’ Julian said, his voice rough with frustration. ‘Even if we find a new deck, there’s no guarantee she’ll connect with it.’

‘We have to try.’ I looked towards Cyril. ‘There must be an unclaimed deck of cards somewhere in this city. Do you have any ideas, Cyril?’

‘The House,’ Cyril said, without hesitation. ‘That’s where the Rephs store a lot of their supplies – confiscated or abandoned numa, and the weapons the red-jackets use in the woods. If a cartomancer died here, the deck would either have been destroyed or sent to the House.’

I nodded. ‘Then that’s where I’ll go.’

‘You’ll die.’

‘Trust me, when it comes to stealing, I’m the right voyant for the job.’ I paused. ‘Wait. Cyril, did you say there were weapons in there?’

‘Paige?’

Liss had opened her eyes. I went back to her at once, taking the frail hand she held up.

‘Liss,’ I said softly. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’ve felt better. Being voyant is what put me in this place, but … I’m just now realising how much I would miss the æther.’ Liss swallowed. ‘Jules, Cyril, could you leave us alone for just a moment?’

They did as she asked. I waited, braced for her to tell me she hated me.

‘Jules said you went to London,’ Liss said in a faint voice. ‘But you’re here now. You didn’t try to escape, then?’

‘They put a tracker in me. But even if I had escaped, I would have come back.’

‘Then you’re not the White Binder.’ She wet her cracked lips. ‘I won’t ask you why you worked for him, Paige. I’m sure you had your reasons … but I don’t think you’re like him. If he was the King of Wands in your reading, I might be afraid you admired him, but the card was inverted. I think you see him for what he is.’

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