Page 199 of The Bone Season

‘I did not expect that memory to be so intimate,’ Warden said, very softly. ‘You were under no obligation to share it with me, Paige.’

‘I’m not ashamed of it.’

‘You have no reason to be ashamed.’

‘Thanks.’ I sat up. ‘Go on, then, sleep dealer. Interpret my past, like other voyants do the future. What does that memory tell you about me?’

Warden came to sit on his wing chair.

‘I believe I understand why it affects you so deeply.’ His gaze came to rest on mine. ‘You are quite sure you wish me to speculate.’

‘Yes.’

‘You have a profound fear there is nothing to you beyond your gift. That is the part of you see as truly valuable – your livelihood, your unique asset. You rely on Jaxon Hall, who treats you as his commodity. To him, you are nothing more than quick flesh grafted to a ghost; a priceless gift in human wrapping. But Nick Nygård showed you more than that.’

‘I didn’t love Nick,’ I said. ‘I thought I did.’

‘But it hurt you when he fell in love with Zeke,’ Warden said. ‘You saw that you were not the axis of his world, the way he was yours.’

‘Nick saved me twice. He was my home, but I wasn’t his.’

‘And you felt lost.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I didn’t have anyone else. I still don’t. My family was scattered or killed in Ireland, and my father is chained to Scion. Reuben was just a tourniquet. I never saw him again. It was stupid.’

‘No. The White Binder was losing his interest in you – or feigning a loss of interest, at least, in order to manipulate you. Without him, you had no safe place.’ He spoke without judgement. ‘You feared you might never find a home, or mean the world to anyone. That night, you found the first person who knew nothing of the Pale Dreamer, to prove to yourself they could want you. You found Reuben.’

‘Something like that.’ I glanced at him. ‘Don’t even think about pitying me.’

‘Never, but I can empathise. I know how it feels to be wanted for one specific aspect of yourself.’

For a moment, I looked away. I hated that I had let him work me out.

But it was also a relief, to have got it off my chest. I could breathe a little easier. That night had been only six months ago. Even if I had thought I was over it, it had formed a stumbling block in my dreamscape.

‘You were in pain.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I never found out why.’

‘He was amaurotic,’ Warden said. ‘He could not see all of you that night, and you knew it. You could not be yourself with him. You might not wish to be seen only as a dreamwalker, but it is integral to you. You are the sum of all your facets.’

I digested this. ‘You’re saying I couldn’t relax around him.’

‘In short. In those circumstances, your dreamscapes were like oil and water; yours was richer in all ways. Your spirit did not call to his, nor his to yours.’

He made a fair point. If Reuben had realised what I was, he would have sent me to the gallows without a second thought.

‘If voyant minds are like oil’ – I weighed my words – ‘what are yours like, Warden?’

The flames crackled.

‘Fire,’ Warden said.

Against my will, I thought of what oil and fire did together. I looked away.

‘Paige, there was another memory. I saw it unintentionally before you fell asleep,’ he said. ‘It surged up from the depths of your dreamscape.’

‘What memory?’

---