“You are curious about other differences.” Arcturus closed his book. “There are none. Externally, at least.”
“But Rephaim don’t reproduce,” I said, thinking aloud. “So you probably don’t have a—”
I stopped dead, willing the floor to disappear, the ceiling to collapse and bury me. Arcturus looked at me, expressionless.
“I presume you did not come to discuss the particulars of my anatomy, Paige,” he said.
“I did not.” I picked up the shreds of my composure and started again: “I came to apologize for earlier. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you like that, or called you what I did. I’m sorry.”
He closed the book and turned over, so his back was against the pillows. “You spoke true,” he said. “By asking you to lead the rebellion, I did bring all of this on you.”
“I didn’t mean any of that. It’s not your fault I was tortured. Or that Vance killed my father,” I said. “I ate the head off you because I was overtired. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
When I came to sit on the bed, he returned his book to the stack on the bedside table, and I wrapped myself a little more tightly in my cardigan. His room was colder than mine.
“You were right. I was trying to prove something to myself by going down there,” I said, “but I pulled you into danger with me, knowing you wouldn’t leave me alone. That wasn’t fair.” I looked him in the eye. “I didn’t lie to you about what I aimed to do today. Having said that, I know I’m a chancer. I shouldn’t have made a promise I knew I might not keep.”
His answer was hushed: “I did not intend to imply that you deceived me out of malice.”
“I know what you meant.”
He studied my face. I raked my fingers through my frizz-addled curls.
“I know I’m quick to snap at you sometimes. If it helps, I’ve done it to most of my friends,” I said. “Eliza always said my name was perfect for me. A page looks soft, but it has sharp edges.”
“Hm. And paper cuts never sting for long.”
“Why are you excusing it?” I asked quietly. “I’m not Nashira. You don’t have to absorb whatever I throw at you.”
“Because I have felt the same anger you aimed at me,” he said. “When you were tortured, every facet of who you are came under assault. For a long time, you may feel even the smallest criticism as an extension of that attack. Instinct will tell you to defend yourself.”
His words rang with truth. The moment he had tried to express a concern, something inside me had bared its teeth. A shadow of the thing I had become when I was tortured.
“And because I confess to a fear of losing you. Stronger now than it was before,” he continued, softer. “I cannot be certain that it did not spur my desire for you to turn back today.”
He had tried to stop me giving myself up to Scion. In answer, I had pointed a gun at him.
“That fear—my fear—is not your cage,” he said. “I will never ask you to mold yourself to it.”
I held his gaze. “I don’t want us to argue,” I said. “Do you forgive me?”
“If you will forgive me. For my fear.”
“I do.”
Quiet fell between us. I knew I should leave now. Toss and turn in my own bed until I wore myself out.
“I can’t sleep.” It was out before I could stop it. “Would you mind if I stayed here tonight?” I cleared my throat. “I keep thinking I’m still chained up in that basement. Alone.”
His eyes were embers. After a long moment, he shifted to the left side of the bed.
“By all means,” he said.
“Sure?”
“Quite sure.”
Before I could second-guess myself, I went to the other side. Arcturus retrieved his book. Once I had found a position that let me breathe, he reached for the light.
“Oh, don’t turn it off on my account,” I said.
“I have my own reading lamps.” He indicated his face. “Unless you would sooner not be in darkness.”
“It’s fine. I should try to get used to it again.”
With a click, the room turned black. My throat pulled tight. “What are you reading?” I asked, to distract myself.
“Poetry.” Arcturus turned a page. “Do you like to read, Paige?”
“I’ve flicked through my share of penny dreadfuls, and my grandparents both used to tell me stories,” I said, “but I’ve never had the patience to sit and read for hours. I’d like to.”
“I am of the considered opinion that for every person, there exists a book that will sing to them. I trust that you will find yours.”
I smiled. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
In the past, I had found him unnerving in the dark. Seeing him now did give me a chill, but not an unpleasant one.
For a while, the only sound was turning pages. It reminded me that I was no longer alone. Just as I was on the cusp of sleep, Arcturus said, “In the colony, I told you that the golden cord may have formed because we had saved each other’s lives several times.”
“I remember.” His words took a while to take root in my sleep-thickened thoughts. “You weren’t sure, though.”
“No. It was simply all I knew of the cord. An obscure myth of a bond between two spirits, forged by mutual loyalty. I have never found another Rephaite who confessed to having one.”
“Mm. It’s strange,” I murmured into the pillow. “Just us.”
“Yes.” A long stillness. “Paige, there is something I have concealed from you.”
My eyes fluttered open again. “Okay.” When he was silent, I said, “I’m listening.”
“Forgive me. I took an oath of silence.”
“Arcturus, as your friend, I think it’s my duty to inform you that you’re not a twelfth-century monk.”
“It is not only monks who honor such oaths.”
“If you say so.” I was so deeply burrowed into the duvet in that I had to squirm a bit to face him. My blood ran like honey. “If you can’t tell me the secret, why tell me it exists?”
“You will work it out yourself. You are perceptive, and you have all the pieces. Sooner or later, you will fit them together,” Arcturus said. “When you do, I want you to know that I did not wish to keep it. That it is the last truth I will hide from you.”
At length, I said, “All right.”
There was nothing else to be done. Still, it was rare for him to be in a confessional mood. I folded the pillow in half and returned my head to it, so I was propped up a little. Sleep could wait.
“You didn’t trust me with your secrets in the colony for a long time,” I said. “When did that change?”
“The night you saw Nashira strike me in the tower. Later, you followed me to the chapel. It showed that you cared for me in some measure. If you cared, you could not mean to betray me.”
He had been forced to greet her on his knees. It had taken me too long to see that he was also her prisoner.
“Did she often hurt you?” I asked softly.
“When she judged me in need of instruction.” He was impassive. “Our betrothal was a private war. Nashira believed that, sooner or later, she would cleanse me of my traitorous ideals. That I would come to see what her loyalists saw, and desire her. For two centuries, she sought to break my resolve. Perhaps it is the nature of a binder to believe all spirits can be claimed.”
Likely. Jaxon certainly thought he could own anyone, living or dead.
Had I been more awake, I might not have asked what I did next. Drowsiness had softened my inhibitions.
“Terebell used to be your mate,” I said. “She isn’t now.” The cord tensed. “Sorry. I’m prying.”
“I sifted through your memories more than once. You have a right to ask for mine.”
I sat up a little more. My body gathered the black threads of sleep, like a bird collecting pieces for its nest, but I wanted to hear this.
“I have taken several mates,” Arcturus said, “but I had no great desire for a long-term companion until I m
et Terebell.”
I had glimpsed his memory of their first meeting. Terebell, dressed in sleek garments, dark hair pouring down her back.
“We were still together when the Waning of the Veils began,” he continued. The civil war. “Throughout the chaos, Terebell was always at my side. We fought hard for the Mothallath. When they were defeated, Nashira chose me as blood-consort.”
“Did you know Nashira before that?”
“Yes. Her opinions were very different from mine, but I respected her for expressing them.” His voice darkened. “Sundering a Rephaite from their mate would have been unthinkable under the Mothallath. Nashira made it clear she had no interest in old customs.”
“But why you?”
“She knew the public surrender of the Mesarthim, who had been most faithful to the Mothallath, would cement her new position. So she took their leader as her war trophy,” he said. “She promised to eradicate my family, as she had the Mothallath, if I refused. When she sent me the head of one of my cousins, I knew what I would have to do.”
“But Terebell is nothing if not proud. When Nashira summoned me to plight my troth to her in public, Terebell challenged her to single combat.” A brief silence. “Nashira had honed formidable skills during the war. She came very close to destroying Terebell.”
Terebell carried herself as if she expected a fight. Her body was a battle cry.
“I stepped in. I swore to Nashira that I would bind myself to her without question or contest, that I would be her servant in all things, and that I would pledge the Mesarthim to her cause in perpetuity, if she spared Terebell,” Arcturus said. “She agreed to these terms.”
As he spoke, his attention drifted to his hands. When I searched his face, he gave me a small nod, granting permission.
It was hard to see by the light of his eyes alone, but I could feel. Carefully, I turned his hand over, brushing my thumb across the heart line of his palm, his broad knuckles. The scars coursed just below them and snaked round to the undersides of his fingers.
“How did you get these?” I asked.
“I stopped her blade. Our weapons are made of a Netherworld element named opaline. It is the only substance that can hew through Rephaite bone.”
Her sword had almost severed his fingers. I wondered if it was the same one she had used to behead Alsafi.
“Terebell has never forgiven me,” Arcturus said. “She believed we should both have given our lives in defiance.”
I realized I was still holding his hand and let go. He gave me an indecipherable look before he clasped them on his chest again.
“You told me once that the flame never goes out,” I said.
“Even the strongest flame can be starved. I will always care for Terebell, and she for me. She has my affection and my allegiance,” he said. “But I will never again be her mate.”
A feeling thickened in my stomach. Not jealousy, but a touch of yearning—for the intimacy they shared, or had once shared. Terebell must know everything there was to know about him.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Hm.”
There was a hush between us. I had no idea how to comfort a Rephaite, or if he even wanted it.
“I want you to train me again,” I said. “In possession. I’ll need practice if I’m to possess Frère.”
“Of course.” He turned onto his side, so we faced each other. “Goodnight, Paige.”
“Night.”
I settled into the pillow. At first I was too aware of each tiny movement, worried I might disturb him if I fidgeted too much. Before long, exhaustion towed me down.
Sleep closed me in a tighter vise than it had in a long time. When I stirred in the night, roused by a dog barking in the street, I found that I had moved close enough for my hair to brush his elbow. The glow of a streetlamp had stolen into the room, revealing him to me.
The night we met, I had thought he was the most beautiful and terrible thing I had ever laid eyes on. There was nothing terrible before me now. Sleep had stripped him of his Rephaite armor. He was in the same position, features soft and unburdened, one hand on the sheets between us.
In silence, I turned my hand so it lay palm up, and the shadows of my fingers fell across his knuckles. Then I drifted back to sleep.
6
March of a Marionette
I woke in a cocoon of covers. When I opened my eyes to the faint light of morning, it took me a moment to remember why the windows were in the wrong place.
The other side of the bed was cold. I started to sit up, then stopped. Under the languor and the general aches, I was distinctly tender. After almost a year of absence, my period was back.
A sigh escaped me. Now I understood the headache. Roused by the thought of coffee, I checked the sheets, rubbed my eyes, and edged off the bed. A glance at the mirror confirmed that my hair was in rag order—in fact, I looked and felt as if I had rolled backward down a hill.
Once I was done in the bathroom, I crossed the sun-drenched parlor to the kitchen, where Arcturus was steeping coffee. He had cracked open a window, letting in the sounds of rush hour.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Hi.” My voice came out hoarse. “I didn’t keep you up all night with my cough, did I?”
“I am not lightly woken.” Steam rose from the coffee press. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did. I hope you didn’t mind me sharing.”
“Not at all.”
A stillness followed. When I reached past him for the jar of painkillers, his aura raised gooseflesh.
“So,” I said, “still up for training?”
“If you feel strong enough.” He prepared the coffee as if he had all the time in the world. I supposed he did. “We will start gently, with dislocation.”
“Gently.” As I sat at the table, a cramp tightened my stomach. “That would be nice.”
“Are you unwell, Paige?”
“Fine. My uterus is just confirming that it will not be growing a baby this month. With good reason,” I said, “since a tiny, defenseless human is not really what I need while I’m on the run from the agents of tyranny.”
“You are menstruating.”
“I am menstruating,” I confirmed gravely.
“I see.” His eyes darkened. “Is it very painful?”
I considered.
“I’ve never had to describe it before,” I said, musing. “I suppose it’s like having all my lower organs crammed right down to my pelvis, then soaked in boiling water, so they’re sore and swollen. It’s a heavy, aching . . . downward-ness. But then it also feels like I’ve been kicked in the back. And the stomach. And the legs. Oh, and I’ve got a splitting headache.”
Arcturus had stopped plunging the coffee.
“And you feel able to train,” he said, after a long pause. “While experiencing those sensations.”
I rubbed the corner of my eye. “I’m grand.”
He watched me for several moments, then returned to the coffee. I was sure he was being gentler with it.
“Once we have practiced dislocation for a day or two,” he said, while he poured, “you can attempt to possess me.”
A daunting prospect. I had walked in his dreamscape, but never controlled him. The one time I had possessed a Rephaite—Nashira—it had been for a matter of seconds, and it had ripped the stuffing out of me.
“Possessing Rephaim is difficult.” I kneaded the small of my back. “From what I remember.”
“That is why that skill will prove useful. If you master it, you should find possessing humans easy in comparison.”
He presented me with the coffee. I resisted the urge to rest the warm mug on my abdomen.
We sat in companionable silence. Arcturus folded the shutters back. The sky was tender pink, and the sun cast a hazy, dreaming light over the citadel.
“Paris is more volatile than London,” he remarked. “These streets have already coursed with the blood of revolution. Something will happen here soon. Something th
at will push us over the brink.”
“You sound like Ducos.” I blew on the coffee. “She said Europe was on the verge of war.”
“Which is why you must be careful when you possess Frère.”
I glanced at him. “I really don’t know what you’re afraid I’ll do in there.”
“You might be in a position to kill the Grand Inquisitor of France. As we have established,” Arcturus said, “you seldom ignore an opportunity.” I sipped my coffee without comment. “There will be many temptations, but I advise you to maintain your focus. We agreed to follow orders from Domino.”
“I was a mollisher for years. I can follow orders. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to further our ends,” I pointed out. “There could be hundreds of official secrets in that place.”
“If you seek them out at the cost of your mission, you risk jeopardizing our relationship with Domino. An alliance with them could be invaluable to the Mime Order.”
“As if they’d ever work with us. They’re the real deal,” I said. “A state-funded intelligence network. You really think they’d stoop to rubbing shoulders with undisciplined criminals?”
“The Mime Order could be far more than that. It has the potential to wage guerrilla warfare against Scion. If you can forge a strong relationship with Ducos and prove your reliability, she may be able to persuade her employers to funnel some of their funds toward your army.”
I tried to picture it. Our motley legion, supported by countries with vast resources. No longer terrorists or thugs, but a credible threat to Scion.
“Maybe,” I said.
“I understand your instinct to exploit every opportunity you see. Such an instinct is well-placed in war,” Arcturus said. “I only ask you once more, as your friend, to exercise caution.”
I watched him as I drank my coffee.
The truth was that there was something I wanted from inside the Hôtel Garuche. Something I needed.
I could tell Arcturus now. Except it would only trouble him, and I had put him through more than enough worry of late. Besides, I was certain I could get what I wanted without anyone having to know.
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