Page 232 of The Bone Season

‘Liss.’ My voice sounded nothing like mine, thin and unsteady. ‘Liss?’

She cracked her eyes open, just a little. Her lips formed a tiny smile when she saw me.

‘Funny,’ she said. ‘I never fall.’

‘You didn’t fall. You just … needed a little rest. Now you need to get up.’

‘No.’ Liss drew a laboured breath, lashes fluttering. ‘The æther warned me. In August, I drew two cards for myself. One was the Tower. The other was … Fortitude. I’m glad I still chose Fortitude.’

The Tower, the card of change and destruction. It showed two people falling to their deaths from a great height. Sometimes the æther sent complex riddles.

Sometimes it could be plain as a picture.

‘That’s the problem with … seeing the future. I told you and Jules that knowledge is dangerous.’

‘No,’ I said, my jaw trembling. ‘Liss, I told you I’m getting you out of here. We’re going to London, and then I’m going to take you back to Inverness. We’ll find that beautiful clearing, the one in your dreamscape. You’ll be safe in the Highlands.’

Even as I spoke, tears were dropping down my cheeks. My fingers had found the back of her skull, the place the blood was flowing thick.

‘Nick,’ I screamed over my shoulder. ‘Nick!’

Liss gazed at the ceiling. I could sense her silver cord, frail as a cobweb, thinning. This could not happen – not to her, after everything.

Nick rushed to my side, holding a torch. When he shone it across the scene, I saw the spreading pool of blood. He did his gentle checks before he shook his head at me. I swallowed against the knot in my throat.

Perhaps he could have saved her life, if there had been a hospital – but if Nick couldn’t help Liss now, no one could.

‘You already brought me back once, Paige,’ Liss said. ‘You have to live. For the last card.’ A tear ran down her cheek. ‘It’s all right. You can leave me.’

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘You never left me.’

Liss moved her hand, and I took it. She drew one more rattling breath before her fingers loosened. Her spirit rose, a kite cut from its line, drifting into the æther. I clasped her body close, numb to my core.

‘You should say the threnody,’ Nick murmured. ‘I don’t know her name, sötnos.’

He was right. Liss wouldn’t want to stay here, in her prison.

‘Liss Rymore, be gone into the æther. All is settled. All debts are paid.’ My voice was shaking. ‘You need not dwell among the living now.’

Her spirit disappeared.

I lowered her with care. This was no longer Liss – just the shell of her, an empty house that would grow cold. Liss was on her way to the outer darkness, where no one would ever be able to imprison her again.

‘Paige.’ Nick placed a hand on my back. ‘I didn’t know Liss, but I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted you to give up. We have to go now.’

‘I think not.’

I knew that voice. Now the candles had gone out, I couldn’t see Gomeisa Sargas, but his words resonated. Even the walls seemed to magnify them.

‘Gomeisa,’ I said. ‘Did you do this?’

The silence was damning.

I looked up. Liss had not fallen. Both of her silks had been physically ripped, right below their rig – a straight cut, almost impossibly so.

A low voice came from behind me: ‘You should not hide in the shadows, Gomeisa.’

I looked back over my shoulder, my cheeks damp. Warden had returned to the hall, and his gaze was fixed on the gallery.

---