The Dawn Chorus

by Samantha Shannon

  Warden looked over his shoulder at me. He was close enough for me to see every strand of light in his eyes.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘do you believe the syndicate could ever be cleansed of such cruelty?’

  ‘Could the Rephaim?’

  ‘Perhaps with different leaders.’

  ‘Likewise, but a dethroning would cause untold chaos in itself. It could set off a war. Loyalists and reformers,’ I said. ‘Violence like that might not end for months. Years.’

  Warden returned his attention to the flames.

  ‘Many years,’ he said.

  The fire snapped and roared. I let myself get lost in the close work. Patience had never been my strong point, and the heat of the fire could have sent me to sleep, but the intricacy of this task – trying to sew him up without touching him, without being too rough – kept my focus as sharp as the needle. I was careful with the placement of my fingers, only ever letting them touch his shirt. By dint of care and concentration, I managed not to brush his skin.

  All the while, he said nothing. Just sat there, through stitch after stitch, never flinching.

  ‘I am not well-versed in human expressions,’ he said at last, ‘but you seemed … exasperated when you saw me like this.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if you get your throat ripped out, I’m leading this rebellion with no help from you. And I don’t think that’s fair.’ I tugged the last stitch tight. ‘Could you resist the urge to be a hero for just a few more days?’

  ‘I am sure I can manage that.’

  ‘Good.’ I snipped the thread. ‘All done.’

  I returned the instruments to the box. Warden reached over his shoulder to the stitches while I massaged my aching fingers.

  ‘They may not be tidy,’ he said, ‘but they serve. Thank you.’ He gave his shoulder a roll. ‘How is your wrist, Paige?’

  ‘A little sore. I’ll live.’

  ‘May I?’

  Warden held out a hand. Wary, I went back to him and placed my arm in his grasp. Even with the gloves, he was gentle as he rolled up my sleeve, exposing my swollen wrist.

  ‘Extend your fingers as far as you can, if you would,’ he said. I did, and he touched the teardrop-shaped hollow that appeared at the base of my thumb. When he applied a little pressure there, it twinged, and I stiffened. ‘The healing seems very slow. You should wear the brace I gave you, or the bone may not settle in the correct position.’

  I wished, yet again, that I understood him. He needed me alive and strong until the Bicentenary. Beyond that, he had no reason to care whether or not my broken wrist healed.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and he released my hand. I stepped back as he rose to his full and daunting height. ‘Are we going to train now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little rain.’

  Warden opened a drawer, moving a little slower than usual. ‘Your training is over, Paige.’ He removed a taper from inside. ‘You may do as you please.’

  ‘Over,’ I echoed. He walked to the hearth. ‘Warden, we have more than a week until the Bicentenary. I could still get better in that time.’ I paused, realising. ‘You’re giving up on me. You don’t think I stand a chance against her. That’s why, isn’t it?’

  ‘Quite the opposite.’

  Those words caught me off-guard. I waited for him to explain.

  ‘Nashira knows you are capable of possession. She will expect you to try to use that ability against her. She will also expect you to fail.’ He dipped the taper into the fire and used it to start lighting the candles on the mantelpiece. ‘Fortunately, you will have the element of surprise on your side. To my knowledge, she has never been possessed. If our luck holds, the sensation will stun her, even if you cannot seize full control of her body.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t stun her?’

  ‘It will. You have stunned me before.’ One by one, the candles flared to life. ‘There is no more we can do in the time we have. Pushing you any further may do more harm than good. It is time for you to gather your strength, Paige. To rest, and to make ready.’

  ‘But it still hurts when I do it. It still feels like tearing myself in two. I want—’ I turned away in frustration, eyes hot. ‘Fuck it. I’m not ready.’

  Warden said nothing as I walked across the room and gripped the windowsill. The next swell of thunder vibrated right the way down my spine, through my breastbone and my ribs.

  ‘Scion calls us unnatural,’ I murmured, ‘and sometimes, when it hurts to use the part of me that makes me different … I wonder. If it was always a curse. Never a gift.’

  A creak from the floorboards, and then he was beside me.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘To the storm. It has the potential to destroy. It is neither quiet, nor gentle, nor soft. That does not make it unnatural.’ Lightning illuminated his features, the blue making his eyes stand out. ‘Let the storm into you, Paige. Hold it inside. See yourself as a force of nature, vast enough to defeat a god, and carry that image for all of your days.’

  He needed to comfort me, to keep me on side. That was what I told myself. And yet there was passion in his voice – quiet, restrained, but present. If he had been human, I would have thought he meant it.

  ‘In short,’ I said, ‘if I tell myself I can beat her, I will?’ I shook my head. ‘You don’t believe that.’

  ‘I believe it would be a start,’ he said. ‘Your spirit responds to fear, to anger, and to danger, both to you and to those you love. You will never be in more danger than when you stand before Nashira on the night of the Bicentenary.’ His gaze burned into mine. ‘Perhaps we should both trust that you can save yourself, Paige Mahoney.’

  As we stood together at the window and watched the storm move on, I realised he was right. Dreamwalking in his presence would never be the same as it would be with Nashira.

  With him, I was no longer afraid.

  Chapter 4

  The Witching Soul of Music

  PENAL COLONY OF SHEOL I

  31 AUGUST 2059

  After that, time moved quickly in the colony. All at once, it was the last night, and the stars were bright and clear above the Residence of Magdalen. I looked at them through the bars on the window.

  The day after tomorrow, for better or for worse, there would be no bars around me.

  Warden had let me sleep on the daybed of late, so I could keep warm by the fire. I was only up here, at the top of the tower, to retrieve my backpack. I left my cell for the final time and closed the door behind me.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I found the chamber empty. A meal waited for me on a silver tray.

  Warden had said very little for the last week. Since he had ended our training, he had been distant, though he had responded if I requested help with anything to do with the rebellion. Some nights I would find him in the chapel, though I never disturbed him. Just soaked up the music. Other nights he disappeared, and I assumed he was with the scarred ones.

  His allies remained in the shadows. Terebell Sheratan was one of them – that much I knew – but I had no idea how many Rephaim, if any, would come to our aid.

  I had visited the Rookery one last time, to see Liss and Julian. We would have no time to speak at the Bicentenary. Liss would be on the silks, ready to run to the meadow with a flare gun straight after her performance, and now Julian had scavenged enough fuel, he would lead the arsonists.

  Liss had embraced me when we parted. I could still feel the strength in her thin arms, smell the lavender she often tucked under her pillow. She had held me as if for the last time.

  She would be fine. We all would. I had to believe it, or I would never sleep. This rebellion was happening in no small part because of me and Julian. I had seen the same understanding in his eyes when we said goodbye. He would get no rest tonight, either.

  I set the backpack down by the daybed. Warden must have gone to some effort to cobble a meal together, and I needed to eat, but
even the smell of it made me nauseous. For want of a distraction, I lit a few candles in the next room and filled the bathtub. I was chilled to the marrow of my bones.

  Soon I would face Nashira Sargas and, in all likelihood, she would succeed in binding my spirit. Warden, Liss, Julian – they knew as well as I did that my chances were low. If I had been able to use my gift for longer than six months – if my father had acknowledged it when I was a child, or if Jaxon had found me earlier – then perhaps I could have defeated her.

  As things stood, I was fucked. My best hope was to do as much damage as I could before the end, then pray that someone would be kind enough to free my spirit one day.

  Death would be the easy part. My silver cord would snap – that might hurt – but otherwise, I was familiar with the sensation of leaving my body. What I had yet to learn was how it would feel to be a fallen angel. Warden had said that the boundlings despised Nashira, so they must retain some degree of their former selves, but that unnerved me more than the thought of mindless servitude. I would have to obey her, to yield my gift to her, while remembering how I reviled her. While seeing all the suffering she would inflict as a dreamwalker. I would know that I was fuelling her reign.

  Rephaim could live for ever. How long would I have to bear witness to her tyranny?

  I sat in the bath for a long while, shivering even as the water gave my skin a rosy tinge. At last, I got out, dressed in a clean yellow tunic, then sat on the rug beside the fire with my knees pulled to my chest. The gramophone played violin music as I untangled my curls.

  As a dreamwalker, Nashira could do as she pleased. Make puppets out of politicians. Force her enemies to fling themselves from buildings. She could install herself in the very heart of the Unnatural Assembly. No one, and no place, would be safe.

  All I was now was a weapon. I had to turn myself against her, and then, if I could, stop her from using me.

  ‘Paige.’

  A deep and familiar voice brought me back in the present. Warden stood on the threshold.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘I did not expect to find you here.’

  ‘Technically, I live here.’

  ‘Hm. Not for much longer.’ He closed the door and locked it. ‘I assumed you would prefer to spend your last night with your friends in the Rookery.’

  I shook my head. ‘Everything is in place. We agreed to just try to get some rest. And Liss pointed out that knowing my luck, I’d wind up getting into a scrap if I stayed there.’ I looked back at the fire. ‘I can’t afford to get hurt.’

  ‘Liss is sagacious.’

  She had all but thrown me out at sunset. Suhail will soon be on the prowl, was her warning. If he finds you in here, he’ll beat the ten bells out of you, and then you’ll not have a chance against Nashira. Her face had softened. You get some sleep now, Paige. Even if you win tomorrow, the battle to unearth the anchor has only just begun.

  Something about her tone had unsettled me.

  Liss could glimpse the future. I could only allow myself to think of the next few steps. At noon tomorrow, Michael would drug the red-jackets at their feast, using the concoction he had coerced Duckett into making. That was the final and most crucial stage before I attacked Nashira. Perhaps I should have felt guilty for planning to leave them all here to rot, but they had chosen their side.

  Warden approached his desk. I teased my curls apart to help them dry, willing the small task to absorb me. My gaze soon followed him.

  After six months of living with Arcturus Mesarthim, this might be the last evening I ever spent in his company. The thought should have delighted me. Not so long ago, I had resented his mere existence, plotted to kill him, thought of him as an enemy.

  Now, months later, his presence was something of a comfort. He was a fellow prisoner, if not a friend. And I didn’t want to spend what could be my final night on earth alone.

  Warden served himself some red wine. ‘Mind sharing?’ I asked.

  He glanced at me before taking another goblet from the cabinet and filling it. I accepted it and drank. The wine was sweet and rich and soft, and it warmed me in a way nothing else had.

  ‘So,’ I said, a little hoarsely, ‘how does the blood-sovereign execute her victims?’

  He sat in his wing chair. ‘That knowledge will not ease you.’

  ‘Horrifically, then. Let’s see, now,’ I mused. ‘Cut throat? Decapitation? Maybe a good old-fashioned noose. I’ll wager they’re building a scaffold in the Guildhall as we speak.’

  No reply.

  The music kept playing. I wanted to ask what it was, but my mouth was suddenly like paper, my palms sweating.

  ‘I owe you an apology.’ Warden broke the silence. ‘If the first rebellion had succeeded, it would not have come to this.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. You tried.’

  ‘Not enough.’

  He looked into the flames. I watched the play of light in his eyes, wishing I could decipher it.

  ‘I could have fled the colony after it happened. Refused to take any further part in the cruelty. Lived a life in exile,’ he said. ‘I stayed because I thought it craven to run. And a part of me – small, but tireless – clung to the belief that one day, I would have a second chance to change this place. I was right to keep the faith. When I saw you flee across the rooftops on the night you were arrested – when I watched you leap over a precipice – I hoped it was you.’

  I held his gaze.

  ‘You were faced with a stark choice on that night, Paige. Surrender to certain arrest,’ he went on, ‘or risk death for a chance to keep your liberty. You chose the latter.’

  ‘All that should have shown you is that I’ll do anything to save my own skin. I abandoned my father that night.’

  ‘It was too late for him. I imagine you knew that,’ Warden said. I looked away. ‘It was no great stretch to imagine that a determined voyant, sure enough of her own self-worth to fight to the death for her freedom, would also be sure of others’ worth. Enough to fight for theirs as well.’

  I was still lost in thoughts of my father. His arrest had bought me enough time to run.

  Warden moved from his chair. Next thing I knew, he was at my side, holding out a bundle of dark fabric.

  ‘You should not wear yellow tonight.’ His voice thrummed low in his throat. ‘You are no coward.’

  Slowly, I took the bundle from him. He turned away as I shed the yellow, leaving me in a sleeveless undershirt, and slid my arms into a black sweater. I freed my hair from it before I gathered up the yellow tunic and threw it into the fireplace.

  ‘I keep asking myself what I’m going to do if I survive this.’ I watched it catch fire. ‘I can’t just go back to being the Pale Dreamer. Not now I know what created Scion, and why voyants are hunted. I’ll … try to rally the syndicate. Get the Underlord to listen to the survivors. Whatever happens, I won’t be silent about what I’ve seen.’ The fire crackled. ‘What will you do, Warden?’

  ‘Reunite old allies. Sow resentment of the Sargas. Weaken them wherever they stand.’ Warden filled his goblet again. ‘Perhaps we will meet again one day, Paige. In London.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like who I am in London. I’ve tried my best to shield people here, to be decent, but there … I’m a mollisher,’ I said. ‘The Pale Dreamer is a name people fear.’

  ‘Because she is the heir of the White Binder. You have done what you needed to do to survive.’

  ‘We both have.’

  ‘Yes. Besides,’ he said, ‘as we have long established, you do not like me. You should not care if I like whoever it is you are in London.’

  I managed a faint smile.

  ‘Maybe I could have liked you. Maybe we could have been friends.’ It flowed out of me as if I had already dreamed it. ‘Maybe, if I was just me and dreamwalkers had never been hunted, I could have overheard you playing this old music and realised it was the same music I loved … and maybe we could have got talking about it over coffee. If we’d
met in another world.’

  ‘A world where I was not a Rephaite.’ Warden studied my face. ‘Or you were not human.’

  ‘Not even that. Just a world where we had nothing to fear. From each other,’ I said, ‘or anyone else.’

  Warden never broke my gaze. The wine had loosened my tongue.

  ‘Would that such a world existed,’ he said.

  We sat there in the firelight for a very long time. The tunic burned. When the gramophone stopped playing, Warden made no attempt to wind it again. The silence was forgiving. The world I had painted might never exist, yet here – for a night, at least – it could.

  He would linger in my thoughts when I left this place. I would always wonder. I would think of him as I would a story with no end, forever writing my own tales of what he had become.

  ‘I have a confession,’ I said. ‘Think they used to do those in churches. Since I might die tomorrow, I’d better absolve myself.’

  Warden tilted his head. I took a small object from my backpack and tossed it to him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t read it.’

  Warden held up the small key to his journal. ‘You must enlighten me as to how you took this.’

  ‘I’m just a very impressive, competent person.’

  With a tiny shake of his head, he placed it on the table. ‘So you are.’

  The mantel clock gave a chime. We both looked at it, then at each other. I needed to start trying to sleep, but I might not have a chance to take my leave of him tomorrow.

  ‘Warden,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Paige?’

  ‘I’m not going to say I’ll miss you, but meeting you was … an experience.’

  ‘As was making your acquaintance, Paige Mahoney.’

  He snuffed the lamps so I could rest. I shifted a cushion under my head and closed my eyes.

  By two in the morning, I was no closer to drifting off. Cold sweats soaked me. My heart thumped and my thoughts raced. In the rare moments my mind quietened, Nashira would burst into it and jolt me from the verge of a doze. Knife across the throat – possibly. Disembowelled – no, that would be too far, too disturbing for the emissaries to witness. Blood drained from my body – too messy. Head struck off my shoulders. Hanged.