The Mask Falling

by Samantha Shannon

  It was only when I passed the door to the attic that I realized what I needed. I stepped into my boots, picked up my coat, and half ran up the stairs.

  By the time I reached the roof, my shoulders were heaving. I shut the hatch behind me, hunched over, muffled a choked sound on my sleeve. When the knot in my throat loosened, I turned to see Arcturus at the edge. I should have sensed his presence.

  “Sorry.” I blotted my face. “I didn’t realize you were up here.”

  He was little more than a silhouette. “Are you well?”

  “I just needed some air.” Slowly, I stood. “Can I join you?”

  There was just enough light for me to see him nod. I sat beside him. Across the river, the Île de la Citadelle glimmered like a bed of fallen stars. A thinly sliced crescent moon hung above it.

  “Is Ivy asleep?”

  “Out like a light,” I said. I could breathe up here. “I can’t stand to think of her near Thuban.”

  “Thuban will not touch her.” He looked at me. “Would you wish to destroy Suhail?”

  The question sat in my stomach. For all I wanted justice, I had never really considered what I would do if I ever saw Suhail again.

  “Will he be there?” was all I said.

  “Possibly. Like Thuban, he is inclined toward violence, above all. Still,” he said, “Nashira may prefer to keep one of her torturers in London.”

  Even if he was there, there was nothing I could really do to him. Not without an arsenal of weapons I didn’t have.

  “You are troubled by what your father left to you,” Arcturus said.

  “A box with no key. I think there’s a letter inside.”

  “You could force the lock.”

  “I’m afraid.” I stared into the middle distance. “Frère said he called me a changeling when they tortured him. A false child, left by the aos sí in place of a human baby.”

  “Aos sí.” He took care with the pronunciation. “You have yet to teach me that phrase.”

  “The people of the mounds. Fairies,” I said. “Why would he have said that, of all things?”

  “Frère may have been lying.”

  “She wouldn’t have known that word.” I propped my chin on my knee. “Whatever is in that letter, it won’t change anything.”

  “You will not know until you look.”

  “No,” I said. “Whatever it is, it will play on my mind. I’m about to be trapped underground for two full days, likely knee-deep in water. I can only think of surviving now.”

  “You will. You always do.”

  “Against the odds.” The lights across the water shimmered. “I can’t apologize for going into the Hôtel Garuche. To me, it was a risk worth taking. But I am sorry for putting you through that pain again.”

  Even though he was silent, I felt his gaze.

  “I think we all have this . . . one small part of us, buried deep, that fears death,” I murmured. “They shot that part of me in Edinburgh.” I looked at him. “I’m less afraid of dying now. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the will to live.”

  “Good.” His eyes burned from the dark. “I would see you there when Scion falls.”

  A breeze unsettled the fine curls at my temples.

  “Oneiromancy is an unusual gift,” Arcturus said. “Clairvoyance, as you know, refers to clarity. Many find that clarity in glimpsing the future. I find mine in the past. Hindsight is both my strength and my burden, for while the past yields wisdom, I am powerless to change it.”

  He was right about his own rarity. I had never met another oneiromancer. Perhaps he was alone in the world, like me.

  “I cannot change the oath,” he said. “But I want you to know that I regret jeopardizing our trust. I regret causing you pain. You have endured more than enough.”

  So we were having this out now. I tucked my hands into my coat to keep them warm.

  “I’m going to admit something I thought I never would,” I finally said. “I don’t wholly blame Terebell.”

  Darkness obscured his features, so the flames of his eyes were all I could see.

  “In the colony, I was angry. Justly so. I’d been torn away from another home, stripped of my name and freedom,” I said. “We both know I was looking for reasons not to trust you. If I’d found out you could become more monstrous than I already thought you were, I wouldn’t have listened to explanations. The rebellion might never have happened.”

  He didn’t contradict me.

  “I know myself. The ways I’ve changed, the ways I haven’t. I’ve died a hundred deaths since then, lived a hundred little seasons,” I murmured. “You’ve changed since we first met, too. Somehow you seem both more and less human.”

  “And yet,” he said, “I am not human at all. This will not be the last time our values and beliefs come into conflict.”

  “I’ve never forgotten what you are,” I said. “I see your true face. I can accept it.”

  Somewhere below, a piano struck up a mélodie. Strains of a sweet voice drifted up to us.

  “The truth about the Emim doesn’t change our aims,” I stated. “We’ll just have to be careful who we tell, and how.” I shot him a look. “And you’d better not get the half-urge near me.”

  “In two centuries, I have never succumbed to it.”

  “Good.”

  We both listened to the music for a while. Even in the dark, he cut a solid figure, deeply etched onto the night. Nothing like his faded husk of a dream-form.

  For the first time, I imagined what the war must have done to him. Long before Nashira had mutilated his body, having to drain those weaker than him to survive would have ripped his dignity to shreds.

  “I know how much the Ranthen mean to you. You fought a war with them, and I would never expect you to always put me above them,” I said quietly. “But you and I started this revolution, and we owe it to everyone risking their necks to lead it properly. If we’re to do that—if we’re to stay friends—there can’t be any more secrets between us.”

  “No.”

  In the hush that followed, all I could hear was the citadel.

  “You told me once that there was something that proved you were always on my side,” I said, breaking it again. “Something that would betray you . . . if anyone but me could see.”

  “Yes.” Even in this cold, his words were smokeless. “Have you worked it out yet, little dreamer?”

  With a reluctant smile, I shook my head. I knew he would never tell. This was his puzzle for me, something I was meant to solve alone. I could allow him that.

  “Perhaps I can prove it in another way.” Arcturus held out a hand. “By your leave.”

  Curious, I accepted his hand. With the other, he cupped the side of my face, his thumb light against my temple.

  “This must be spoken in Gloss,” he told me, “but I will recite it to you first.”

  “If you could.”

  When he gently tipped his forehead onto mine, I grew still. This close, I saw every small detail of his face. The bow of his lips, cut as if with the tip of a knife. The eclipses of his eyes.

  “Let the æther bear witness,” he said. “I will never keep from you what you should know.” I closed my eyes. “I will never conspire against you, nor betray you by word or thought or deed. I will never, by choice, abandon you to your enemies, nor forsake you in adversity.”

  The cord shivered. I could feel the heat of fever in my breath, caught in the space between us.

  “In body and spirit, I am bound to this oath.” He clasped my hand to his chest. “Seo í mo mhóid shollúinte.”

  I looked up in surprise. When he started again in Gloss, all of the nearest spirits gave a faint stir. Then came a chilling tremor, so subtle I could almost have imagined it, and a current between us, as if the æther—or something beyond it—had witnessed and hallowed the oath, sealed in our first languages.

  We stayed in that position for a while. Slowly, I released a long-held breath.

  “You learn fast.”<
br />
  He lowered his hand from my face. “Was it right?”

  “Perfect,” I said. A smile tempted my lips. “All right. As far as apologies go, that was impressive.” I patted his chest. “Forgiven.”

  “Hm.”

  Another silence, not quite the same as the last. Even when he took his forehead from mine, I kept my hand over his heart. After a moment, he covered it again, his palm warm over my chilled fingers.

  “You once asked me why I kissed you in the Guildhall.”

  He was rarely this direct. It disarmed me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Part of me feared, before that night. That I was a fool for wanting to know you. For seeing you in everything, everywhere I turned,” he said. “I thought it was a sentence. A haunting. Until I realized it was a gift to be haunted by you, Paige.”

  “That was when you realized.” I looked into his eyes. “In the Guildhall.”

  “Yes.”

  The first touch of our lips behind the crimson drapes. The touch that should have been impossible. A collision of worlds, born of chaos and breaking, that had somehow been quiet as a moth taking flight.

  “Perhaps I haunted you. But I’m not a ghost just yet,” I said softly. “You can touch me.”

  My hand slid up his chest, until my fingertips brushed his collarbone. All I had to do was tilt my head up, and our lips would meet again.

  I want you.

  Words I had whispered when I was soft with drink. I willed myself to say them again now, with all the strength of a clear mind, but pride stopped me. Instead, I leaned into him.

  Arcturus studied my face as if it were written in a long-extinct language. He traced the warm inside of my wrist, following the tendon—idle and intent, sure and soft. A touch that both explored and remembered. Our auras twined, like branches growing into one another.

  A familiar dreamscape gleamed into range. I pulled away, and at once, Arcturus let go.

  “Ducos,” was all I said, and left him to the keeping of the moon.

  ****

  Ducos arrived in a raincoat, hair tightly bound in a chignon. She smelled of cigarettes and roses. As I led her into the parlor, I willed Ivy not to emerge. To Ducos, she would register as a rogue element—a living reminder of my old life.

  “Flora,” Ducos said. “I understand Cordier carried out a pleural tap. How do you feel?”

  “Sore,” I admitted, “but better than I did. Drink?”

  She paused to consider. “I could use a coffee. But I will make it.”

  In the kitchen, she set about preparing it. I leaned against the counter and waited until she handed me a cup. She took hers black and strong, with a thick cream of foam.

  “Command has delivered your next instructions. First, however, I will keep my word.” She pulled out one of the chairs and sat. “Tell me about your insurgent militia, and I will consider how—if—we might be of use to one another.”

  I gave her a brief rundown of our numbers, our finances, and our main victory against Scion—the destruction of Senshield. I told her about Glym and Eliza, who were ruling in my absence, extolling them as level-headed and decisive leaders who would be willing to liaise with other organizations that stood against Scion. Ducos listened without interrupting.

  “Your numbers are impressive,” she said, once I was finished, “but the Mime Order has not yet attempted to confront Scion. It has only helped clairvoyants to elude it. So it is not, in point of fact, a militia.”

  “We deactivated Senshield.”

  “You did that. With help, perhaps.”

  “Fine. It’s a crime syndicate,” I conceded, “trying to become a militia.” Ducos nodded. “My aim is to convert it into an organization capable of guerrilla warfare with Scion, at the very least. In Ireland, large rebel bands—the laochra scátha—were able to maintain the upper hand in Munster and Connacht for several years after the invasion.”

  Scion had mockingly called them luckscores, belittling their victories. County Tipperary had been one of their main bases of operation.

  “The Mime Order could do that,” I said, “but with the right support, it could be capable of more. Sabotage, for example.”

  Ducos nodded again, slower.

  “Sabotage is one of our projected strategies, should the anchor declare war on any of our benefactors. Damaging railways, lines of communication, ordnance factories, and so on.” She drank. “Coordinating local rebellions, too.”

  “We can do that.” I leaned forward. “I’ll be straight with you: we lost our main source of income in December, and Scion is doubling its efforts to destroy us. Without support, we could fall apart.”

  Ducos finished her coffee.

  “Domino might well be able to work with your organization,” she said. “But I wonder—will you want to return to your old life, or remain an agent?”

  “Do I have a choice?” I asked. “Do they silence anyone who wants to leave the network?”

  “Nothing so dramatic. Usually, if you were to be deemed unsuitable and discharged, you would have to submit to memory erasure by means of white aster. Once your memories are gone, Domino cuts all ties. No more supplies. You would lose this safe house.”

  White aster. Supplies of it were held mostly by Scion, though some of it had trickled into London.

  “If you were a recognized associate of the network, however, they might make an exception,” Ducos said. “I will inquire.”

  I nodded. It was a moment before I spoke again: “Tell me what my next assignment is.”

  Ducos drummed her fingers on the table.

  “In your last report, you spoke of a city, built on the instructions of the English. A prison for clairvoyants on the site of Versailles,” she said. “Domino would like you to infiltrate it.”

  I took a slow drink of coffee. “Interesting.”

  “Yes. Cordier was of the opinion that you should be allowed to convalesce for a month. Command disagreed. Your medicine is the very best at our disposal. My superiors are confident you will be fit for a stealth-based assignment in a few days.”

  “Does Domino have a way to get me to Versailles?”

  “No. Demonstrate your resourcefulness and find your own way there,” she said. “Once you reach the city, you are to take one action, and one only. You are to assassinate the official in charge of it.”

  “The official in charge of it,” I echoed.

  “Yes. You are to eliminate the Scion official known as the Grand Overseer.”

  That title sent a hook into my gut. I schooled my face. Ducos must not see my disquiet.

  “Why?” I finally said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why do they want this particular official dead?”

  “To continue to undermine the relationship between England and France. The Grand Overseer is a representative of England, a close associate of the Suzerain. His death in France—a death under suspicious circumstances—will inflame the wound between Ménard and Weaver.”

  “I see.” I cleared my throat. “Am I to kill him with my gift?”

  “Under no circumstances. What they want,” Ducos said, “is for you to make the assassination look like a scheme by Benoît Ménard.” She took something from her briefcase. “A small gift, since you requested it. One double-action revolver.”

  She held out the weapon. It gleamed in the lamplight. The revolver I had used in London had been a rusted old barking iron, which Danica had restored for me. This one was sleek as quicksilver.

  “It was commissioned by the Grand Commander of France for his forces, and his alone. This one is a prototype. Anyone possessing it would be assumed to be in some degree of contact with French high command,” Ducos said. “Use it to assassinate the Grand Overseer. England will have no choice but to respond to the loss of two of its representatives.”

  I accepted the revolver. Lighter than my old one, it was a Lévesque, designed by the same engineer as the Senshield guns. Ducos went into her coat and handed me a m
etal case.

  “A military-grade stiletto, should you prefer to eliminate him at close quarters. Also of French design.”

  It appeared I had options when it came to killing. “The pistol is on the mantelpiece, if you want it for someone else.”

  She rose to take it, then returned to her seat. Another case emerged from her ever-giving coat.

  “In here you will find a new dissimulator, adrenaline, and a micro-camera.” She handed over one last case. “The adrenaline is from Cordier—to suppress your fatigue, should you need to fight. The micro-camera is very important. It can be attached to your clothing. Photograph the body as evidence that the assignment is complete. If you are at risk of capture, I expect you to dispose of all of this.”

  A camera. That was a rare thing in Scion. Recording devices were strictly regulated.

  “I must leave Paris for a time, but I will be back no later than the fourteenth of February. This assignment should be completed by that date.”

  When I could speak, I did. “And you’ll take word of the Mime Order to Domino?”

  Ducos picked up her briefcase, shooting me a final look. “I will,” she said. “Goodbye, Flora. I trust that you will make a success of this task.”

  The door closed behind her. Not long after, Arcturus found me sitting on the couch, staring at the wall.

  “Jaxon.” My voice sounded miles away. “They want me to kill Jaxon.”

  PART III

  Eurydice

  From the Greek εὐρύς (eurys, “wide”) + δίκη (dikē, “justice”)

  17

  Apollyon

  For the next two days, I should have been training. Instead, I was stuck in bed on a drip, sleeping as much as I could. I was grateful for the fever, which kept my mind soft and loose even when I was conscious. It made it easier to not think of my assignment.

  Arcturus made sure I had nothing to do but rest. He brought me small meals, administered my doses, sat close by and held my hand when the fever disconcerted me. Meanwhile, he and Ivy gave each other space. Now and again, I sensed their paths cross in the kitchen or the parlor, and I would hear brief exchanges, too low for me to quite make out.