Page 134 of The Dark Mirror

In the Major Arcana, the Devil was a symmetrical figure. It must always have represented two people, one to chain each of the Lovers – Cordier for me, and Cade for Arcturus.

The way I see it, you must follow the path of the Lovers, Elspeth Lin had said, building on the reading her niece had given me.Stay close to the person you think the card might represent, and make sure you’ve identified that person correctly. If you stray from whoever it is, I suspect you’ll be vulnerable to the Devil.

Now I was living proof that voyants could be just as foolish as amaurotics. Even with all those warnings, I had walked into the jaws of the trap, away from Arcturus. One Devil was dead, but the other remained. I had to find and kill him, to put the card to rest at last.

As for the mysterious Lepidopterist, I might never know who had asked Cordier to abduct me, or why. With her death, my only lead was gone. And all I knew was that he was a Scion defector.

Arcturus opened his door and came to stand beside me at the balustrade. I glanced at him.

‘How are you, Paige?’

‘I’m grand,’ I said.

‘You know that does not work on me.’

Even Nick, my best friend, didn’t know me as well as Arcturus did. I had missed being able to talk to him. I took half a step away, giving him space.

‘Cordier took six months from us both,’ I said. ‘The whole time, we were just a means to an end.’

‘It seems to me that Cordier was a victim of manipulation.’

‘She can join the club.’

Arcturus waited. He had a way of knowing when I was finished, and when I needed more time to unpack a thought.

‘I shot Bohren,’ I said quietly. ‘I didn’t even do it consciously. I just shot him dead on instinct.’

‘He took pleasure in hunting you.’

‘But that’s the reason all this happened, isn’t it?’ I murmured. ‘Because humans kill like it’s going out of fashion. We don’t restrain ourselves.’ I swallowed the sour taste in my throat. ‘I didn’t haveto finish the Rag and Bone Man off like I did, either. Nashira isn’t wrong to judge us.’

‘You are not violent by nature, Paige. You have killed either by accident, in self-defence or for others’ protection,’ Arcturus said. ‘You took care to say the threnody for both Cordier and Bohren, even though they gave you no cause to show them any respect in death.’

‘I could have been working on my gift for those six months, building alliances with other citadels in Scion. Instead, I was a prisoner again, and I’ve no one to blame for it but myself.’ I shook my head. ‘I couldn’t train. I couldn’t strategise. I lost all of that time for nothing.’

I lost you for nothing.

‘What Cordier and Bohren did is indefensible,’ Arcturus said, ‘but it is possible to find a silver lining. Your absence gave the revolution an opportunity to overcome its growing pains. It has proven that you do not need to bear the entire burden of this war alone. You laid a strong foundation; now it is up to all of us, voyant and Ranthen, to build on it.’

I knew he would have touched me then, if things between us were the same as they had been in Paris. He would have taken my hand, or stroked my hair, to reassure me of his sincerity. As it stood, neither of us moved, because nothing was the same as it had been in Paris.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I just wish things had gone differently.’

‘I told you once that all threads in the æther have their purpose.’

‘What purpose was there in you being tortured?’

‘Perhaps to remind me that I am no longer the warrior I was in the Netherworld,’ Arcturus said. ‘Protecting you with my body was the way I saw fit to help you in France, the way I served the Mothallath. Now my body is resisting me, I must reckon with my calling.’

‘Arcturus, you’re not some empty-headed bruiser. And you weren’t always my bodyguard,’ I said. ‘You have so much more to offer the cause than your sword.’

‘I fail to see what else I have to offer, in this state.’

‘Don’t say that.’

His gaze darted to mine.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘if you want to help me with this assignment, I have something you can do from right here.’ I slid the dossier towards him. ‘How about some more reading material?’

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