‘We’ll need to be very careful.’
‘You don’t need to remind me.’ I drew my coat closer. ‘They . . . confirmed the report.’
‘Tom said.’ He laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘Are you going to tell them the whole truth?’
‘I don’t know yet.’ I glanced behind me and lowered my voice. ‘I’m announcing the news tomorrow. I want to do it tonight, but—’
‘Don’t, Paige. If you’re doing this, you need to know what you’re going to say. It needs planning. And you should get some sleep,’ he added gently. ‘You don’t look well.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not a machine. Just give yourself a few hours to think and rest up.’
I wanted to argue with him, but he was right. My muscles ached from the lingering shock of my fall into the river. I hadn’t washed or eaten properly in days. My wounds were hurting where I had forgotten to put on salve.
And there was someone I had to see.
Something I needed to repair. Not just for my own sake.
‘Tomorrow it is.’ I reached into my jacket. ‘Zeke gave this to Jack Hickathrift to pass on to you. I haven’t read it.’ I held out the scroll. ‘They’ve left Seven Dials. I’m sorry.’
He took it carefully. ‘Thank you, sötnos.’ It went into his coat, close to his heart, as he squinted at the snow. ‘Let’s hope they don’t run into any scanners. And that they’ve found somewhere warm.’
I didn’t tell him that they might have gone to Jaxon. He already looked so exhausted.
‘They’ll know all about it tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘Wherever they are.’
He sighed. ‘I said I would help Wynn polish her medical skills tonight. You just rest, Paige. Doctor’s orders.’
‘Sure.’
He walked into the shadows of the Mill. I eased up my hood and headed out into the snow.
6
Hourglass
It was nine by the time I entered the Lambeth hideout, drenched and shivering, my face raw from the cold. I took off my coat and boots and reached for the golden cord.
There was no reply.
I needed to see him. Now, before he left for the Netherworld. It could be weeks before he returned. To distract myself, I lit a fire and made as much of a meal as I could with our limited stores of food, then boiled some water and filled the tin bath. I sat in it until my fingertips creased.
Had Danica gone to Jaxon with our secrets? Had she been a spy all along – had we walked into the trap because of her? I was doubting everything I had once believed about the people closest to me.
On the other hand, she might have just lost her nerve – and I couldn’t blame her for running from Vance. She had been a small child when Scion had invaded her country, as I had been. She must have a healthy fear of anything related to the army.
I brushed my teeth and tended to my wounds. I could see why Nick had said I looked ill. My face was almost grey. Still, he had been right: being full and clean made me feel more alert than I had in a few days. Now all I needed was more than two hours’ sleep.
I tried the cord again. Nothing. Warden wasn’t coming.
In the parlour, I crawled on to the couch with a blanket, too bone-tired to face the stairs. Beneath the pall of fatigue, I had the same feeling I experienced whenever I thought of Jaxon or saw a Vigile, and it wouldn’t go away. That fight-or-flight sensation.
When the front door opened, I sat up. I heard him step into the hallway, felt his familiar dreamscape. He crossed the parlour and lowered himself into the armchair.
Neither of us looked at the other for some time. Finally, I said, ‘Was Terebell happy for you to come here?’
‘I did not ask her for permission.’ Snow was melting in his hair. ‘What is it you need of me, Paige?’
Even now, I loved hearing him say my name. Loved the way it sounded on his tongue. He imbued it with singularity, as if I were the only person in the world who could ever possess it.
‘The report was accurate,’ I said. ‘The scanners have been adjusted to identify the fourth order. The majority of our recruits are detectable now.’ I swallowed. ‘I’ll be announcing it to the Unnatural Assembly tomorrow.’
He was silent for some time. ‘Until Senshield is fully portable, and fully functional in terms of the orders it can detect, the Mime Order can survive,’ he said. ‘You must focus on gathering and training recruits, preferably by draining them from the Vigiles’ ranks. Then we begin to move against the anchor. With you as its leader, the movement will thrive.’
‘You really believe that.’
‘I always have.’
There was a half-empty bottle of wine on the table – Nick, again, it must be – and I reached for it.
He was right. Vance had dealt us a terrible blow, but we still had time: it would be a few weeks before there were enough scanners to end free movement.
‘Let’s just hope the syndicate doesn’t find out that Vance used me,’ I said.
‘You have decided not to tell the whole truth, then.’
‘It will only cause discord.’
He made no comment. I rose and took a wine glass from the cabinet before returning to the couch.
‘Warden, I owe you an explanation,’ I said, ‘and I wanted you to hear it before you leave.’
‘You owe me nothing.’
‘I do.’
I filled the glass for him and handed it over. His eyes were almost human in their darkness.
It took me a few tries before I began. I wet my lips, looked away, looked back at him.
‘When I saw him last,’ I finally said, ‘Jaxon claimed that you were . . . bait for me. That you chose me in the colony on Terebell’s orders, not of your own volition. And that made me think that everything was a lie, that the Guildhall was—’ My cheeks warmed. ‘That it was just a way to cement my trust in you. That you didn’t really mean it.’
‘Bait,’ he repeated.
‘He’s saying that you were ordered to seduce me. For her purposes.’
That brought a flare into his irises.
‘And you believed it,’ he said.
‘I thought – I started to believe it was all a ruse. To make me think you cared about me so much that you would go behind her back to be with me. So I would do anything for you in return.’
The admission hung between us for some time. Warden swirled the dark wine in its glass.
‘And are you seduced?’
The heat of the fire was drying his hair. The light brought out notes of darker, chestnut brown I had never noticed before.
‘I haven’t decided,’ I said.
We studied each other for some time.
‘Look, I’m more than aware of how paranoid it sounds, but I lived with Jaxon for three years without knowing the truth about whose side he was on. He must have been laughing at me, when I told him about the Rephaim. When I tried to get him to help me.’ I returned the bottle to its place. ‘Now I just – I don’t know who else I’ve been playing the fool for.’
His next words were soft. ‘You have heard other Rephaim name me flesh-traitor. It is understandable for you to wonder why I would have chosen this path, if not for some ulterior purpose. It is also understandable for you to doubt those closest to you now Jaxon has shown his true colours.’
‘Why, then?’
‘Why did I choose you in the colony,’ he asked, ‘or why did I kiss you on the night of the Bicentenary?’
I held his gaze. ‘Both.’
‘You will not like the answer to the first.’
Rephaim didn’t make a habit of disclosing their emotions. Warden had made oblique statements about his feelings towards me, but this was the first time he had volunteered any information.
‘At the oration, twenty years ago,’ he said, ‘there was a young man with auburn hair and black eyes, full of contempt. While the other humans kept their heads down, he alone stared back.’
‘Jaxon,’ I murmured.
‘He became N
ashira’s tenant that year. Her only one.’
‘Nashira was his keeper?’ It didn’t surprise me.
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘You looked at me in the same way, twenty years later. You looked me in the eye, asserting yourself as my equal.’
I remembered that night all too well.
‘I suspected, in the years to come, that Nashira’s favourite was the traitor. It tested my faith in all of humanity. Yet when I saw that glimpse of him in you, I sensed that you might have the courage to rebel; that only I could be your keeper. Terebell had taken an interest in you, but she did not order me to take you in. Quite the opposite. She thought I was a fool for bringing you into such close quarters.’ His fingers tapped the arm of the chair. ‘Of my own accord, I elected to take you into Magdalen and hide your progress from Nashira. She could see your red aura. I knew that she would try to steal your gift.’
‘So you did it to protect me.’
‘It was not a wholly altruistic act. If Nashira had mastered dreamwalking, she would have become far more powerful, making it difficult for us to revive the Ranthen.’
It was disturbing to hear him talk about Nashira. ‘But you first chose me because . . . I reminded you of Jaxon.’
He didn’t answer. I tried not to show how deep the words cut me.
‘How close were you to him?’ he asked.
I considered. ‘Mollishers are usually closer to their mime-lords than I was to him. They’re lovers, sometimes, but Jaxon doesn’t have any interest in sex. I was his protégée. His project.’
Warden rarely interjected, like a human might to show continued interest, but neither did he look away from my face.
‘Tell me, Paige,’ he said, ‘does Jaxon know that you were once in love with Nick?’
‘I never told him,’ I said, ‘but he might have guessed. Why?’
‘What Jaxon said at the Archon plays upon certain aspects of your past and personality. He knows that you cannot abide anyone trying to make a fool of you – and he knows, most likely, that the first person you loved did not love you,’ he said. ‘Jaxon has carefully poisoned your impression of me. He knows the way you guard your heart. In your mind, I am now someone who might be making a fool of you, who cares nothing for you, and who only means to use your gift for his own gain – another thing you fear.’
He understood so much about me, and I still knew so little about him.
‘What he has done is insidious. Nashira must be delighted to have him back at her side.’ Warden’s eyes scorched. ‘There is no way for me to prove to you that I am not what he claims. Not unless I publicly turn against Terebell, which would cause tension within the Ranthen. Perhaps that is what Jaxon expects me to do. To win back your confidence at the expense of our ability to work together.’ He looked back at the fire. ‘With one falsehood, designed to target what he sees as your emotional vulnerabilities, he has demolished the foundation that you and I have laid. Nine months, and your trust in me is fading.’
If true, it meant that Jaxon had thought of everything. This was mental warfare. The only way to fight was to refuse to do what he expected. To trust that Warden was my ally.
‘I make no apology for refusing your request in front of the Ranthen. Only for the hurt it caused you,’ Warden said. ‘I would choose Terebell’s orders over yours again – if it meant that we would not be sundered, and if it held the Mime Order together. Hiding what I feel for you, being forced to do nothing to support you in public – this is the price I will pay for change. And we all must pay a price.’ He settled back into his chair. ‘Jaxon’s foul scheming may have left scars on my body, but I will not allow it to scar the alliance we have built together.’
I seemed fated to flee from one set of strings to another, endlessly caught in a web of deceit.
Yet trusting Warden felt . . . right, somehow. It was a feeling I couldn’t deny, a certainty I could never explain.
‘I should have told you sooner,’ I said finally. ‘I’ve let it eat away at me for weeks, but . . . I did tell you, in the end. And I still don’t know if this can work – but it will take more than one lie from Jaxon to break my trust in you.’
Warden lifted his head. ‘Do we have a truce, then?’
‘Truce.’
Weeks of dancing around the truth, and just like that, it was over.
A cool tingling started beneath my ribs. Warden laid down his glass and looked at me, and his look pierced me through. It would only take a step to bring us close enough to touch.
Instinct made me glance towards the door. I had heard him turn the key and draw the chain across when he arrived, as we all did when we came in for the night.
The fire crackled as we moved towards each other, as he gathered me into his arms. As I searched the deep, endless pupils of his eyes, I let him learn my face with his hands. He must have known every inch of it, but he traced my features as if he wanted to decipher them.
‘We shouldn’t start this again.’ I rested my head against his chest. ‘Maybe it’s best if we just . . . let it go.’
Warden said nothing to contradict me. No words of comfort. No white lie to make things easier. After all, it would be best.
‘You must think about the risk. The Mime Order would collapse if the Ranthen knew. Everything we’ve worked for—’
He waited for me to continue, but I couldn’t.
‘I consider your company worth the risk,’ he said into my hair, ‘but the choice is always yours.’
I drew back and considered his face for a last time. I couldn’t ask any more questions tonight; couldn’t keep second-guessing myself. Jaxon was the liar, the snake in the grass. Warden had earned my trust. I had to let myself believe that he was worthy of it – for now, at least.
I sought his lips first. The choice was mine.
We held each other in the firelight. It was some time before I led his hands into my blouse. The kiss broke as he met my gaze, as he parted the silk from waist to throat. A chill spread over my stomach and breasts.
There was a low fire in his eyes as he took me in. I was perfectly still, trying to tell what he was thinking. After a few moments, his gaze flicked to mine again. When I nodded my assent, he brushed the backs of his knuckles over my collarbone, then my shoulder and throat. I linked my arms around his neck. I was cocooned by his aura. His other hand glided over the seam in my side, where the skin was knitting back together.
A truce couldn’t last when we were at war. For the time I had him to myself, I wanted as much of him as he would give.
Vance’s trap had made me remember my mortality. I was tired of holding back from Warden. Tired of yearning to be close to him. Tired of denying myself. I cupped his face with my hands and kissed him deeply, as I never had before. As if he sensed the need in me, he took me fully into his arms. A soft ache bloomed between my legs. I felt my lips quake, heard the blood throbbing through my veins, as he lowered his head to where the wound tapered off, just shy of my breast, and kissed the delicate new skin. I lifted myself into his hands.
Once he had seen to my side, he worked his way down my body. His lips lingered on my stomach, making me shiver, but he went no farther. Not yet. That was for another night. He laid his head on my chest, and I combed my fingers through his hair.
It might be naïve, but I wanted to believe in this.
‘Warden.’
‘Hm?’
‘You never told me why you kissed me, at the Bicentenary,’ I murmured. ‘You only answered my first question.’
He lay still.
‘So I did,’ was all he said.
I let it go. It was enough that he was here. It was enough to be beside him, to know that he was with me.
The next kiss was softer. We shifted our positions, so my back was against his chest, and stayed like that in the light of the fire. We looked at each other for a long time, not speaking.
The room was an hourglass that hadn’t yet turned. My breathing and my heartbeat grew slower, falling into line with his.
When I was close to drifting off, Warden drew me deeper into his arms and lowered his head a little, so his cheek lay alongside mine. My skin prickled as he touched his lips to my jaw, where the welt was. I threaded my fingers between his knuckles.
‘There is one way that you might see proof that I am on your side. Something that would betray me,’ he said, his voice a rumble in his throat, ‘if anyone but you could see.’
I was so fire-warmed and drowsy, I couldn’t think of what he might be talking about.
‘What can I see?’
He only held me closer. I tucked my head beneath his chin and tried to keep my eyes open, so I could savour these fragile hours. In the softened state that comes before oblivion, I imagined that this moment could be safe from time, like he was. I imagined that the dawn would never come.
‘Denizens of the citadel, this is . . .’
My eyes opened, furred with sleep. The fire had gone out, leaving a chill on my skin. I couldn’t work out what had woken me.
Warden’s arm was around my waist, his hand on my back. Sleep had made his body heavy beside mine. I nosed closer to his chest, where it was warmest, and lifted the blanket over my shoulder.
‘. . . internal security has been compromised . . .’
I snapped upright, muscles tensed. There was no key in the lock; no footstep in the hall. No dreamscapes here but Warden’s and mine.
It took me a moment to work out that the disembodied voice was coming from Nick’s data pad, muffled by the cushion that had fallen on to it. With slack vision, I lifted it from the floor. Warden stirred beside me.
‘We must not be tempted by change, when change, by its very nature, is an act of destruction,’ Frank Weaver was saying. ‘Mahoney’s group, “The Mime Order”, is now classified as a terrorist organisation under Scion law. It has shed the blood of Scion’s denizens and threatened the Inquisitor’s peace.’
I waited, not breathing.
The Song Rising Page 10
