Page 62 of The Bone Season

Warden stood aside, allowing me to pass. I made a point of catching his gaze before I brushed past. He made a point of locking me out.

I really hadn’t thought he could get any more uptight.

Across the landing, I took the steps to the top and opened the door to the attic. The room had one small window, low down. The bed was simple, with a fleece blanket on top of the sheets.

I turned up the paraffin lamp by the bed. This room had no fireplace, and a draught was whispering from somewhere. It was still better than sharing even a hairline of my personal space with Warden.

Just as I had downstairs, I checked every corner and nook. I soon realised the window had been put in where a fireplace had once been. The old chimney went up a long way, but it had been sealed fast.

As well as a nightstand, there was a narrow closet for my uniform. Beside it, another door stood open, leading to a rudimentary bathroom. No window in there, but it did have a toilet and sink.

As promised, the nightstand was stocked with dressings and salve, along with some hygiene supplies: soap, comb, a toothbrush and paste, a frayed towel. As I scrubbed my teeth, I thought of Julian in his dark cellar, Liss in her cold shack. It might not be a hotel in here, but it was secure, and I had some privacy. I could sleep without fear that someone would steal from me.

Of the three of us, I was in the best position to resist. If I wasn’t fighting to survive, I could devote my attention to the matter of escape.

I couldn’t see any nightclothes. Once I was down to my undershirt, I dimmed the lamp and got into bed, each movement pulling at the tight skin of my shoulder. I curled into a ball for warmth.

I should have been out like a light, but I found myself skimming the edge of sleep, thinking of the past. I thought back to the first time I met Nick – Nicklas Nygård, who had introduced me to Jaxon.

Nick, who had once saved my life.

The year after we came to England, my father and I had been granted permission to leave the citadel for a few weeks. We had gone by train to the village of Arthyen, in the region formerly known as Cornwall, to visit a woman named Giselle, who my father said was an old friend. I never cared to ask him why he had old friends in England.

Giselle lived on a cobbled hill in a house with a roof that hung over the windows. The surrounding land had reminded me of Ireland – wild beauty, untamed nature, everything Scion had taken from me.

I had not adjusted well to London, or to my new school, where the other children took pleasure in tormenting me. I had learned words likekernandboglander, which were hissed at me in corridors, scrawled and shoved into my satchel. Not once had the teachers stepped in to defend me, even when I was sure they had seen. They ignored me in class, leaving me confused by half my lessons.

Scion welcomed countries that joined the fold by choice. But if one of its targets dared to fight back, its people were for ever stained. At nine years old, I was being punished for the Molly Riots.

The trip to the countryside was a reprieve. A summer holiday before I was thrown back to the wolves. At night, I would gaze at the stars, and I would miss my grandparents so terribly it hurt. My father had never explained why he left them in Ireland.

He had promised me we could visit the coast. I longed for open water – to breathe in the salt air of the sea, the glittering road that stretched to the free lands. Ireland lay over it, calling me home.

In the end, he was too busy with Giselle. They talked deep into the night. I would often hear their murmurs, but I never tried to eavesdrop. All I had wanted, in those weeks, was to be left alone.

London was dangerous for voyants, but the countryside was no idyll, either. Far from the Westminster Archon, amaurotics grew nervous, suspicious. They made a habit of watching one another, eyes peeled for a crystal ball or shew stone, waiting to call the nearest outpost – or take justice into their own hands. Even if you avoided being caught, there was no work. The land needed tending, but not by many hands. They had machines to farm the fields. No wonder voyants were drawn to the citadels.

At first, I hadn’t liked to leave the house. The people of Arthyen talked too much, looked too much, reminding me of school. Giselle was almost as unnerving. She was a stern and bony woman, with beady eyes and a ring on every finger.

But then, from her rooftop, I spotted a haven – a poppy field, a pool of red beneath the iron sky. Every day, when my father thought I was playing upstairs, I would walk to that field and explore for hours, watching the poppies nod their heads around me.

It was there that I had my first real brush with the æther. At the time, I had no idea I was voyant; only that I was different. Unnaturalness was still a story to a child of nine, a bogeyman with no clear features. I wasn’t yet a dreamwalker. I had sensed the æther since I was young, not knowing what it was, but no specific gift had manifested.

That day, everything changed.

Once more, I had gone to the poppy field – but for the first time, I wasn’t alone. There was a woman there. I didn’t see her, but I felt her watching me. I sensed her in the poppies, in the wind; I sensed her in the earth and in the air. I sensed her like I would a splinter trapped under my skin – out of sight, but sharply present.

I stretched my hand out, hoping to greet her. For a moment, I was colder than I had ever been, as if I had fallen through ice.

And then I was suddenly on the ground, bleeding. The woman had been a poltergeist – an enraged spirit, one that could touch the corporeal world.

I could see it again. A young man walking from the poppies, as if he had been waiting there – tall and pale, with a kind face. Seeing my injuries, he wrapped me in his overcoat and carried me to his car.

My name is Nick.You’re safe now, Paige.

In the dark, I dreamed. I dreamed of poppies struggling from dust. I had rarely seen colours when I slept before, but now flowers bloomed in my mind, red as blood. They sheltered me, shedding their petals, blanketing my fevered body.

When I woke, I was propped in a bed with starched sheets, my hand bandaged, the pain gone. The blond man was there, smiling at me.

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