Page 160 of The Dark Mirror

‘Nashira named all your cities after underworlds. She sees the connection,’ I said. ‘Do you think humans of the past could have learned about the Netherworld from the Mothallath?’

‘Perhaps. We know little of what they did on Earth.’

‘One of the sacred mysteries, is it?’ When he looked at me, I said, ‘Lesath mentioned them.’

‘Hm.’

A deep silence descended on the well. I could talk to Arcturus for hours, but I had always treasured our silences, when the world seemed to grow still, and I could pretend that time had stopped moving; that it could hold me without leaving a trace, the way it did to him.

‘There is a mythical bird called a martlet,’ he said. ‘It has no feet, and never lands. From the moment it comes into existence, it is always on the wing, even when it sleeps. A bird without a roost, only resting when it falls in death. I thought of that bird as I lay in Carcassonne. It reminded me of what you said in Paris – that if I made you my home, I would be destined to wander for ever. It seems we are both martlets, Paige.’

‘Except you’ll never fall.’

‘I have come very close.’

Arcturus reached into his coat. He offered a coin of his own to the pool, shattering the faint vision of us.

His eyes should have terrified me in the dark. They should have reminded me of Suhail, who had fed whenever he pleased as he tortured me, leaving him with a red gaze. But seeing my aura burning in the eyes of Arcturus Mesarthim, I felt something quite different.

He caught me looking.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I never wanted to feed on you.’

‘That’s not why I’m upset. How are you six foot nine and the point is still going over your head?’

Arcturus watched me, waiting.

‘It didn’t hurt,’ I said. ‘I didn’t bleed. I don’t … understand why.’

‘If a voyant is willing, there is no blood or pain.’

‘Why did you never tell me that?’

‘I did not want you to feel obliged.’

‘It would have been safer for both of us. In Paris, you kept having to go out to feed. If you’d just taken mine—’ I released my breath. ‘Look, I know it must be awful to have to use our auras to survive, but you’ve done it for two centuries. Why punish yourself now?’

He tightened his grip on the railing.

‘Suhail made me hate my own nature. I was afraid to tell you what happened in the Archon, but you refused to let me live with any shame,’ I said. ‘You told me that a secret held within can be a poison. If you want to talk, I’m listening.’

Arcturus was silent for some time, gazing down at our reflections in that dark mirror of water.

‘In Oxford, Nashira did not torture us for information. That pain was a punishment, not an interrogation. I can endure pain,’ he said, ‘but in Carcassonne, she wanted the Mime Order. She wanted you.’

The shaft magnified his voice, so the walls echoed it, even though he spoke as softly as he always did.

‘At first, Nashira commanded the poltergeist to excruciate me for my crimes. She knows the myth of the golden cord, and suspects that our spirits are bound, after seeing how swiftly you found me in Paris. Perhaps she thought my suffering would draw you out again,’ he said. ‘When awakening my scars failed to achieve the desired outcome, she instructed Kornephoros Sheratan to use his gift against me.’

Kornephoros, the Reph that Ménard had kept in chains in his basement. He was a kind of osteomancer, capable of causing a sickening amount of pain through his touch, even with gloves. He and Arcturus had been lovers once, which must have made the torture crueller.

‘Once it was clear that no amount of physical agony could sway me to betray my human allies,’ he said, ‘Nashira sent Fitzours to harrow my dreamscape. There was only so much he could inflict on a Rephaite, but he did what he could.’

‘Like … what?’

It took Arcturus a while to reply.

‘You of all people know the sanctity of the dreamscape. The necessity of it,’ he said. ‘It is the stronghold that shelters the spirit. Without its walls, we would be adrift in the æther, exposed and defenceless.’ He never stopped looking at our reflections, as though they were safer than our reality. ‘When you walk in my dreamscape, you are a welcome guest. Fitzours was an intruder. He stripped me of my shelter when I needed it the most. The longer I resisted interrogation, the more violent he became. He tore down the drapes. He attacked my spirit.’

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