Page 112 of The Dark Mirror

So I had put the pieces together. I had seen, but too late.

Cade had used his gift on me. For the first time, I had known what it was like to be overcome by a dreamwalker. A taste of the same pain and fear I had inflicted on others.

He must have dragged me into a vehicle. Next I knew, I was stirring in the basement of the Hôtel Garuche, and Kornephoros Sheratan was unlocking my chains.

A blur to another room. Benoît Ménard slammed me to the ground, demanding to know where his spouse was. Now I was stumbling into the freezing cold, running through the streets of Paris, fire raining down. This was the airstrike I had survived. I wished I could forget again as I glimpsed chunks of bone and flesh, bloody confetti on the snow.

This was why I had run, when I heard the siren here, in Venice. I had run because part of me still remembered.

Tell us, Arcturus.Suddenly the memory wasn’t mine. I saw a shaking human, someone whose face I couldn’t see.Tell us, or he suffers. And your dreamwalker will suffer far worse…

Stained glass broke into nameless stars. His memory was wrenched away in a flurry of bloodstained snow and ashes. The next time I had woken, I had been a living corpse, staring at the ruins of the Sainte-Chapelle. Cordier had found me incoherent there, deranged by grief. I had been certain Arcturus was buried under all that stone.

Then Cordier had gripped my head and silenced me with the white flower. And I had breathed in.

I had breathed in, though I could have fought harder.

I had breathed in because I had wanted oblivion, because nothingness had been kinder than truth. The truth that I had sparkeda war I could no longer control. That I had cut a man’s throat and felt nothing.

That Arcturus was gone.

That was the first dose. That moment was where the amnesia started. And on the walls of my dreamscape, the first hairline crack appeared in the pallor. The dust was lifting from the ground, like snow called back into the sky.

The next memory was important. I pulled the cord, and it slowed, the voices refining.

Where is this?

You’re safe, Paige. A soft French accent.We’re just outside of Paris.

Cordier.My eyes flickered open.I thought you’d been captured.

I nearly was. They came for me, but I escaped. I had to lie low. Those red lips pressed together.I tried to protect your safe house, but they took your auxiliary.

It was him. He betrayed me.

I know. I’m sorry.Cordier leaned closer.Paige, I don’t want to scare you, but there was an attack, an explosion. You were badly concussed in the blast – I suspect you have post-traumatic amnesia.I blinked to clear my swimming mind, my welling eyes.What’s the last thing you remember?

The masquerade …

I was starting to shake, both inside and outside the memory.

It’s all right. That’s where it happened, Cordier said.Can you remember a specific time?

Not sure. About half nine, I think.

You’re going to feel confused, with some emotional lability.Sometimes it will seem like time is muddled, or you’re under threat. You’ll feel angry and afraid. You have to stay calm.She had been clever to manipulate the facts that way. All the while, she had looked so genuine, so caring.Scion is on our trail. I’m going to get you to the free world, where I can protect you.

No. I have to go back to Paris, I heard myself say in a faint voice.I can’t leave them now. I can’t.

It’s all right, Paige. We’ll go back as soon as the danger has passed, she said. My coughs filled the darkness in the vehicle.We’ve still got to clear up that pneumonia, haven’t we?

There was how she had convinced me – compassion, and the white flower. I had forgotten the realisation that Cade was a dreamwalker. It didn’t help that I really had been injured from the blast.

In the present, I released the cord. The memories poured again, carrying me with them. I trusted Cordier as we slipped under a weak point in the Fluke, as I left the Republic of Scion for the first time in twelve years. I had trusted her when we reached the relative safety of Switzerland.

Then I had started asking questions.

What’s happening?

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