Page 8 of The Dark Mirror

We drove for hours before the driver stopped the car and got out. I did the same, huddling into my jacket. He opened an iron gate and led me through a graveyard, which wrapped around a smallchurch with dark roofs and spires. A few timid spirits brushed my aura, then darted away. When we reached a pair of doors, the driver tested one, and it creaked open.

‘Go inside,’ he told me, ‘and you will find the Sestra.’

‘Who is she?’

He returned to the car without answering. I faced the doors, steeling myself.

Inside the church, I glimpsed candlelight and followed it to a set of steps. I tried checking the æther, but my sixth sense felt as dull as the others, worn down by my fatigue.

As I descended, I kept my spirit ready, wishing I had other weapons. This seemed like the perfect spot for an ambush. Scion had outposts in the free world. For all I knew, the driver had delivered me to one.

At the bottom, I stopped, my breath coming in small white puffs.

At first, I thought it was carved marble that adorned the chamber ahead of me. It was only when I reached the showpiece – a chandelier – that I realised it was bone. There were bones tucked into recesses in the walls, stacked into grim pillars, strung like garlands across the ceiling. Even the chandelier was made out of dismantled skeletons, skulls blooming from petals of hipbone, bleached white. Appropriately, I sensed revenants: spirits that lingered with their remains, sometimes until their deaths were avenged, or their murders solved.

I stood beneath the chandelier and took in the macabre chamber, remembering the catacombs and quarries beneath Paris. We voyants did prefer to meet where death settled like silt.

A flame blazed to life on my left. A revenant, wreathed in fire. I took a step away, ready to attack the voyant I had failed to sense among the spirits. My sixth sense really was rusty.

‘Who dares impersonate the Underqueen?’ a voice said. ‘Think before you answer. I find that I am in the mood to add your ribs to the décor.’

The voice was cold and wary, with a Bulgarian accent. When a tall woman came into the light, it took me a moment to recognise her with brown hair, which now skimmed her shoulders.

‘Maria?’

The fire sputtered out.

‘Paige.’ A pair of stunned eyes reflected the candlelight. ‘It’s really you?’

There was a deep silence before the spirit backed off. Ognena Maria grinned and strode towards me, holding out her arms. I ran into them, and she bundled me into a tight hug.

‘Damn you, Paige Mahoney, you bloody fool,’ she exclaimed. ‘We thought you’d been blown up.’

I could hardly speak for relief. ‘You’re the Sestra?’

‘Sometimes, in these parts. Sorry for the smoke and mirrors,’ Maria said. ‘I was sure I was meeting an imposter.’ She laughed when I buried my face in her shoulder. ‘I really don’t believe it. How the fuck did you get to Poland?’

‘I couldn’t tell you if you paid me.’ I gripped her leather jacket. ‘I’m just so glad I found you.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right. We’re not letting you disappear again.’ Maria drew back and regarded me with concern. ‘Oh, Paige, you look exhausted. Let’s get you back to the living. I have a truck.’

‘This isn’t where you’re based?’

‘No,thisis where I lure my enemies. Beautiful, don’t you think?’ she said, looking around. ‘It’s called the Sedlec Ossuary. Its caretakers are osteomancers – I persuaded them to cut me a key. Luckily for them, it’s one of the very few buildings I could not bear to send up in flames.’ She wrapped an arm around me and walked me back to the stairs. ‘Domino has provided me with a lovely apartment in Prague. You can stay for as long as you need.’

‘Prague?’

‘Yes, sweet. You’re in Czechia now.’

‘But the car didn’t stop. Wasn’t there a border?’

‘One can travel freely between some countries in Europe. Which is fortunate, for the likes of us.’

I nodded slowly. Over a decade trapped in Scion, and now I could apparently flit between countries without even showing a travel permit. The whole thing was too surreal to fathom.

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