Page 113 of The Dark Mirror

You’re safe, Paige. It’s all right.Cordier was stroking my hair, like a mother.What’s the last thing you remember?

The masquerade …

Good.She released a long breath.Paige, I don’t want to scare you, but there was an attack, an explosion. I suspect you have post-traumatic amnesia.

And on it went. She had trapped me in a time loop, giving me white aster each time I grew suspicious, so I never realised how many days had slipped through my fingers.

It had been easy, because she had the knowledge to work out my doses and marry them to sedatives, disguised as drinks or treatment for the lingering pneumonia – and because my subconscious had wanted to forget. Arcturus was gone, and the more aster Cordier gave me, the deeper that knowledge lay buried. So I welcomed oblivion, over and over.

A sudden change.The next time you refuse to answer a question, your pet dies. Thuban Sargas, his one remaining eye ablaze.You have one more night to decide. Tell us where Eliza Renton and Laurence Adomako are hiding. Tell us where Terebell has gathered the remaining Ranthen. Tell us where Paige Mahoney fled. Do you miss her, concubine?

I should not be seeing this. It was private. I knew it in the present, but I couldn’t stop his memories flowing into me. This had happened in Edinburgh, too. I tried to close my eyes to it, and it must have helped him stem the bleed, because now I was rushing forward again.

You need to take her off my hands.

Arcturus hit the brakes on the memory. A hotel room, the curtains shut. Cordier was on the phone on a balcony, while I feigned sleep, listening.

You’re not the only one who wants her, she was saying. I could just hear her through the door.I can’t keep them off my back for much longer.

I slid up the hem of my oversized shirt. On my upper thigh, in faded marker, was a smudged message.

WHITE ASTER

DON’T EAT DON’T DRINK

DON’T TRUST CORDIER

I had seen it in the bathroom earlier that day. A desperate warning, left by my past self, in the precious moments before she had succumbed to the amnesia. It might be my only chance to escape.

You say you care about her. Show it.Her voice was calm and cold.The package and the money, or I’ll let my employer take her, and once she’s gone, there’s no going back.

When she hung up and came back inside, I waited until she was in bed, then threw out my spirit, making her shout in pain. I was too drained and weak to keep hold of her dreamscape. Instead, I dived on her and pinned her to the bed, my arm pressed across her throat.

You’ve been lying, I hissed.Who are you, and who the hell were you talking to?

Paige, I told you that you’d feel unsafe.Her nose was bleeding.Listen to me. It’s your brain injury—

Only one of us is going to have a brain injury in a minute, and it’s not me. I have had it up to here with people telling me I’m safe.I spoke between set teeth.I am going back to Paris. Stop me and we’ll have a problem, Eléonore.

Fine. Go on, she forced out.See how far you get.

Except I had no idea where I was. I slammed out of the room, running through corridors and past endless identical doors, taking the elevator to the ground floor, like I had in Wroclaw. Two streets away from the hotel, a pair of muscular arms locked around me.

Stop right there,a voyant said against my ear. I kicked and clawed, but my strength was gone. Somehow it had vanished overnight.You have nowhere to go, Paige. We can find you anywhere.I tried to possess him, and realised, with dread, that he was unreadable. He could resist the only weapon I had left.Now,take a nice deep breath of this. I’ll make it all go away.

Get your hands off me.He clamped the cloth over my face, smothering my scream.No—

I gasped awake, soaked in cold sweat, thrashing against the stranger. The cloth was plastered over my nose and mouth, and I could smell the cloying sweetness of the white aster inside. For a horrific moment, I was blind and screaming on the waterboard again.

‘Paige.’

The voice brought me back to the present. When I remembered where I was, I sat up, hair tumbling around my face. Arcturus had moved away, almost to the other side of the room.

‘That wasn’t the end,’ I said. ‘Why did you stop?’

His palm was braced against the wall. It was so unlike him to look this weary. Before I could think better of it, I stood up shakily and stepped towards him.

‘Stay back, Paige.’

---