The Mask Falling

by Samantha Shannon

  “Because we’re down to the last crumbs of food. He took pity on all our sad faces and said he’d get some.” Seeing my expression, she said, “I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

  The Rag and Bone Man was still out there. He had caught Arcturus before.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I tried to sit up. Nadine put down her mug of tea to help me.

  “You’ve been out of action for a week,” she told me, and gave me another sip of water. (A week. Ducos would have returned from her assignment.) “We think something down there got into the cut on your leg, and Warden said you were already sick. Even when he got your medicine from the surface, I didn’t think you’d make it. God knows how you did.”

  I managed to shift onto my side, leaning on my elbow. “The æther must not want me yet.”

  “You’re lucky that puncture in your back didn’t get infected, too,” Nadine said. “What is that?”

  “Had to have my lung tapped.” I scraped back my greasy hair. “They waterboarded me. In December.”

  “Jesus. Sorry, Paige.”

  “Thanks.” Now that I was used to the candlelight, I took a proper look at Nadine. She was a little thinner than she had been when I last saw her, her hair a little longer. “How are you?”

  Slowly, Nadine picked her tea up again. “Better than I was in the tunnels. Warden had to carry me up the mine shaft,” she said. “Still, I can’t say it was a great hardship, clinging to such a fine pair of shoulders.” I returned her smile. “Now I’m just . . . tired. So damn tired.”

  She sipped her tea. Her lips gave the faintest quiver.

  “The new Bone Season hadn’t officially started,” she said, more to herself than to me, “so we didn’t have to fight the Emim. And Zeke and I were only there for a few weeks.”

  “Doesn’t matter how long you were there. A day or a year, you learned how it feels to be among indifferent gods.”

  While her face gave nothing away, her collarbones lifted, and her fingers blanched on the mug.

  Her fingers. The tools she used to work her numen. Someone had dressed them, but even after a week, she must be in excruciating pain. Only one Rephaite could have done something like that.

  Nadine caught me looking. “Thuban,” she said. “Le Basilic, we called him. He tried to take Zeke, so . . .”

  “So,” I said.

  With a nod, she took a jar of pills from her pocket and necked one with the last of her tea.

  “That was some rescue, by the way. Sneaking in through ancient quarries and burning down the Château de Versailles. Hardcore.” She glanced at me. “I don’t know why you came for us, Mahoney, but I’m not too proud to thank you. I would have died in there otherwise.”

  “I came because we’re still the Seven Seals.”

  “And look at where it got us. A power-crazed ghoul of a boss and a scrapbook of traumatic memories.”

  “What did you think you were signing up for, Arnett?”

  “Yeah. I guess we both should have known what we were getting into.” Her smile was weary. “We were kids, I suppose. Or maybe just suckers. Kids know a bogeyman when they see one.”

  The talk of Jaxon knotted my insides. He might be a smoking corpse by now.

  “Mind bringing me up to speed on what happened in the tunnels?” I asked. “It’s all a little hazy.”

  Nadine obliged.

  Realizing the passage would soon be underwater, Léandre had run at full speed to warn the others. Against all counsel—and no doubt sensing my terror—Arcturus had tried to go back for me, but the sheer volume of lake water had caused the tunnel to collapse. Up to their waists, rocks crashing down around them, the group had been forced to abandon me to my fate.

  “I was in an air pocket.” Under the pall of fatigue, a memory squirmed. “Did . . . someone find me?”

  “Yeah,” Nadine said. “Once we were out of the ossuary, Le Vieux Orphelin ordered a search of the carrières in case you’d escaped another way. One of the people from the colony found you passed out—the Scottish guy with silver hair. The water was almost on top of you. He carried you out of there just in time.”

  I pressed my temple. There was a reason that silver-haired man was important, but it eluded me.

  “Where is he now?” I asked. “The man who found me.”

  “Renelde dropped him off at Gare du Nord.” She took a rolled-up blanket and wrapped it around herself. “Jax sent us to Paris not long after the scrimmage, if you were wondering. Tricked us into a Scion vehicle. He said we were going to a safe place. That should have been our warning.”

  “Can I join you?” a voice interrupted.

  Someone else had popped their head into the chamber. “Ah, mon frère.” Nadine patted the rug. “Please.”

  A clean-shaven Zeke stepped inside. “Stop showing off with the French.”

  “Right, like you never show off with the Spanish.”

  “It’s not very useful in Scion. Although maybe it will be soon.” He sighed. “Hey, Paige. I’m glad to see you awake.”

  “Glad to see you alive,” I said.

  “Thank you.” He set a wooden board down. “Here. It’s not much, but it’s all we have until Warden comes back.”

  It was enough. Dry-cured sausage and ham, a dish of thick cookies, and slices of orange cheese with a crust, along with a steaming kettle.

  “You’re a lifesaver.” I scraped the grit from my eyes. “Are you doing all right, Zeke?”

  “Yes, I’m okay. Just some bumps and bruises.” He sat down beside his sister and poured clove tea for all three of us. “I am not hurt. But I am very angry that Léandre left the other prisoners behind.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Three,” Nadine muttered.

  “I guess he had his reasons,” Zeke said. “And some of them might have found a way through the forest.” His brow darkened. “But I can’t sleep, thinking of what they might have faced there while we were safe.”

  “Not that safe,” Nadine pointed out. “Paige could have died.”

  We all fell silent. “How long has Warden been gone?” I asked, breaking the leaden pause.

  Zeke checked his new watch. “Half an hour. It’s almost six.”

  “Morning or evening?”

  “Evening.” He gave Nadine a gentle prod. “You know Warden had to carry Dee like she was an eighteenth-century damsel?”

  “Oh, shut up, Ezekiel.” Her answering prod in his ribs made him wince. “Give me an abandoned mine shaft when my brain chemicals are in harmony, and I’ll beat you to the top with my hands tied.” She sandwiched a slice of cheese between two cookies. “Warden does seem like he might not be a vicious sadist,” she added. “Which is comforting.”

  “I can confirm that he’s never shown any interest in torturing either animals or people.” I took a delicate sip of the tea. “Did any of the Rephaim try to protect you in the colony?”

  “Nope. A solid wall of disdain.” She motioned to the platter. “Come on, Zeke. Get involved.”

  There was a lull between us while we demolished the meal. I needed to get my strength back.

  “I promise this isn’t me holding a grudge,” I said, once there were only crumbs on the platter, “but I’ve been curious about why you chose Jaxon at the scrimmage.” I offered a wry smile. “Was I so bad in comparison to a megalomaniac?”

  I was only half serious, but neither of them smiled in return.

  “You must have thought I hated you, Paige,” Nadine said, after a long silence. “When we were in the gang.”

  “Not at the beginning.”

  “No. It was different then,” she said. “But then our plans changed. As mollisher, you had a better salary than any of us. I needed that money. So I decided to do my best to get your job.”

  I had always wondered why our friendship had turned sour. “Why did you need money?”

  “I’d found a way for us to get back across the Atlantic. Scion engages in limited trade with certain free-world cou
ntries, including the States,” she said. “International cargo ships go intermittently from Le Havre. Costs a fortune to stow away on one, but it’s possible.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You want to go back?”

  “I haven’t been able to send one word to my family in four years, Paige.” Her stance was defensive, her eyes hard. “Yes, we want to go back.”

  “I would have helped you, Nadine.”

  “You wanted to start a revolution against Scion. You needed every penny for that. I had no guarantee that you’d hand over enough from your war chest for us to pay our way out of here.”

  She traced the tattoo etched into her wrist. A musical note with an x instead of an oval at its head.

  “There was a reason we left in the first place,” she said. “We weren’t safe in Canada. Or Mexico. But I don’t think it will be a problem now, after so long.”

  I looked at Zeke, who was toying with his shoelaces. “And Nick?” I asked him quietly.

  “It’s over between us,” he murmured. “I chose Dee. He chose you.” His shoulders dropped. “Where is he now?”

  “Sweden.”

  Swallowing, he rubbed the ruler-straight scar on his brow. “I hope he finds his parents there. He often said how much he missed them,” he said. “If you see him again, please—” He breathed out. “Tell him I’m sorry, Paige. I loved him before I knew we were leaving.”

  “Well, it’s probably wise to get the hell out of Scion,” I said. “All-out war is very close.”

  Zeke leaned forward. “No. Paige, you don’t understand. We don’t want to run from Scion. We want to join the revolution.” His face was intent. “You need people to speak out in the free world. To reveal the atrocities, the truth. We wanted to bear witness.”

  “Except this conversation is pointless now,” Nadine said bitterly. “I took any dirty job I could get my hands on so I could scrape enough coin together for the two of us. And Jaxon took it all.”

  The long hours she had spent away from the den, busking her fingertips purple. I had been too wrapped up in my own plots to see Nadine hatching her own.

  “I understand why you’d want to go. Especially now,” I said. “And I’m sorry you lost the money.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” Nadine sighed. “Guess we can always save up more, unless we make some rich friends here.”

  That reminded me of my own plans to get money to the Mime Order. I needed to get out of here and back to the safe house, try to explain things to Ducos. The black smoke that had poured from the palace must have been visible from twenty miles away. Everyone in Paris must have seen and smelled it.

  I threaded my arms into a cardigan, and Zeke helped me rise. “I’d better introduce myself to Le Vieux Orphelin,” I said, pressing his wrist in gratitude. “Could you let me know if Arct— Warden comes back?”

  “Sure,” Nadine said.

  “Thanks. Is there somewhere I can wash?”

  “A hot spring,” Zeke confirmed, with a pleased look. “At the end of the tunnel.”

  “A hot spring in Paris?”

  “I know.” He chuckled. “I guess you get to live in luxury when you spend time with the Underqueen.”

  ****

  The sanctuary was something like the other carrières, but it had a cozy feel, and the limestone walls were reinforced with brickwork. A warren of caverns branched off a central arched tunnel, which was lit by skulls with candles in their mouths. Each skull was identified by a name on a plaque: etteilla, la trianon, la voisin. I touched three fingers to my brow.

  Breathing still ached. My legs wobbled. I kept one hand on the wall as I peered into some of the grottoes. One was hung with paintings that had somehow escaped the Supreme Purge, when the French had burned any object—be it painting or sculpture, numen or relic—that failed to conform to the values of Scion. Some paintings showed angels in the religious sense, the creatures after which voyants had named a class of spirit. Others didn’t strike me as illegal, but they were raw and twisted in a way most Scion denizens would find unsettling. One portrayed a screaming man, an eagle clawing at his liver.

  The next room housed illuminated manuscripts, prayer books, scrolls, and grimoires, most of them displayed on stands. A third held a collection of exquisite numa. This place was a museum not only to all that Scion had taken away, but to our history. The lost history of clairvoyants.

  Among the tomes was a leather-bound book of prophecy, written in several languages. One tercet had been underlined in red. I studied the crabbed and smeared writing.

  The scion will awaken thrice in blood—

  once for life, once for a crown,

  once to bring the tower down.

  There were dreamscapes nearby. I glanced once more at the book before I left.

  In the opposite chamber, I found Renelde playing a silent game of tarocchi with La Tarasque. Both of them looked tired. Nearby, Ivy was zipped into a sleeping bag, dead to the world. Save for a graze on her brow, she looked unhurt. Peaceful.

  “Oh. Underqueen,” Renelde said. Her eyes were raw. “Good to see you awake. How are you feeling?”

  “Could be worse.” I gathered the cardigan around myself. “You?”

  “As well as can be expected.” She put down the cards. “Malperdy . . . was a little brother to all of us.”

  “I’m sorry. He seemed kind.”

  “He was.” With a sigh, she nodded to the woman opposite her. “This is Cam, otherwise known as La Tarasque.”

  “Underqueen,” Cam said in a low-pitched voice. Her flaxen hair trailed in a messy plait to her waist. Though they resembled one another, she had a broader nose and a smaller chin than Léandre. “I want to thank you for helping me in the tunnels. I had just been possessed.”

  “Don’t mention it. Is Ivy all right?”

  “Yes.” Cam turned toward her. “She is welcome to stay with us for as long as she wants.”

  “Léandre wanted to talk to you as soon as you woke,” Renelde told me. “Will you see him?”

  “No.” I would thrash it out with Léandre, but not now. His proud scowl would remind me of all the people we had left behind. “Did you know about his plan to leave most of the prisoners, Renelde?”

  “None of us did. I suspected he was keeping something from us, but believe me, I had no idea,” she said. “When he sent me ahead with Nadine and Le Vieux Orphelin, I was under the impression that everyone else would follow.”

  Cam toyed with her plait, eyes downcast. “All right,” I said.

  “If you want to use the spring, you are welcome,” Renelde said. “There is a small bathroom next to it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Trying not to think of how Malperdy had died, I left them alone. Thuban Sargas would have survived the fire—of course he would—but I hoped Nashira would punish him for the loss of the second colony.

  For a cramped alcove that several gangsters pissed in every day, the bathroom was a civilized affair, with buckets of water for washing and a hole carved into the floor, which led to another bottomless drop. I crouched over it. When I passed the water-spotted fragment of glass that served as a mirror, I decided not to look.

  A cleft in the wall led to the spring. Steam ruffled from its surface. Except for the candles at its edge, the cavern was dark. My heart thumped, but I was too burned-out to give way to fear.

  I stripped down to the camisole and shorts and dipped a cautious foot into the pool. Candlelight rippled across its surface. A shelf of smooth rock at its edge would let me sit in it up to my shoulders. I got in gingerly, trying to ignore the sting in my wounds and the gooseflesh that rushed over my arms and stomach, and found that it was wonderfully hot.

  And I could savor it. It felt good.

  Perhaps my fear had reached its peak. Perhaps fighting it to the death in those caves had finally allowed me to defeat it. I hardly cared if this lasted—for now, I would relish being unafraid. I would let the heat unknot my muscles and steam the chill out of my bones.

 
I had forgotten what a pleasure it was to be wrapped in warm water. Droplets glittered across the ceiling. I breathed in the steam and drifted in a trance-like state, light and relaxed for the first time in months.

  Something caught my eye as I basked there. A bust of a woman in an alcove, sculpted from dark stone, a wreath over her waving hair. I sat up to take a closer look.

  “Her name is Marianne.”

  A start went through both me and the water. A figure had arrived at the mouth of the cavern.

  “Underqueen.” The voice had a muted quality to it. “We often share the spring, but I understand if you would prefer to bathe in private.”

  The solitude had been restful, but I thought I knew who this was. And he might bring something better than peace and quiet.

  “No,” I said. “By all means.”

  “Thank you.”

  The newcomer strode to the other side of the spring. I caught a glimpse of him through the thick billows of steam. He was about my height, perhaps a little taller, with midnight skin and sinewy muscles. Dark, tightly curled hair was trimmed close to his scalp. His hands were long and fine-boned, and his aura was that of an oracle.

  As he entered the pool, I saw that his face was wholly hidden by an elegant gold mask. Floral embellishments surrounded the eyeholes. In this gloom, those openings looked empty.

  “Marianne.” He motioned to the bust. “She is the embodiment of Revolutionary France. A popular representation of liberty and reason. I keep her image in all of my hideouts. Sometimes I talk to her, as I spoke to the statue of the Maid of Orléans beside my throne.”

  A man who conversed with inanimate objects. “Do you chat to your collection of skulls, too?”

  “Hélas, pauvre Yorick,” he recited. I must have looked blank. “You are not familiar with Shakespeare.”

  “Oh, him,” I said. “His plays sometimes washed up at the black market. I skimmed The Tempest.”

  “That one is popular among anormaux here. And yes, I do occasionally consult the skulls of the great voyants who came before us,” he confessed, “but Jeanne and Marianne—opposites, in some ways—are my true councillors. Jeanne reminds me to embrace the visions of the æther. To speak out, no matter the cost. And Marianne reminds me why France strayed to Scion. We are republican to the bone here, suspicious of monarchy and religion. These are pillars the anchor also despises.”