The Mask Falling
Page 53
Opaline: [noun] A Netherworld material, thought to be the only substance that can sever Rephaite bone. As its name suggests, it resembles opal.
Patrones: [noun] Local commanders of Le Nouveau Régime. They are roughly equivalent to the mime-lords and mime-queens of London.
Penny dreadful: [noun] Cheap, illegal fiction produced in Grub Street, London, the centre of the voyant literary scene. Serialized horror stories. Distributed among clairvoyants to make up for the lack of fantastical literature produced by Scion. Penny dreadfuls cover a wide range of supernatural subjects. Paige paid for the distribution of one titled The Rephaite Revelation to warn the London syndicate about the hidden threat of the Rephaim, but it was edited without her knowledge to glorify the Sargas.
Perdues: [noun] Members of Le Vieux Orphelin’s gang. They are loyal to him above their loyalty to Le Latronpuche and La Reine des Thunes.
Poppy anemone: [noun] A red flower that severely weakens and injures Rephaim. Direct contact with the poppy anemone or its pollen will cause their sarx to become disfigured. Rephaim will occasionally call this disfigurement the half-urge, as it resembles the early stages of a far more serious condition of that name.
Psychopomp: [noun] Once charged with guiding spirits to the Netherworld, they now carry messages between Rephaim. They are wary of humans. In the Netherworld, they take the form of chol-birds—winged creatures with a haunting song.
Ranthen, the: [noun] [a] Rephaim who fought on the side of the Mothallath family during the Waning of the Veils. [b] An alliance of Rephaim who oppose the rule of the Sargas family and believe in the eventual restoration of the Netherworld. Also known as the scarred ones. Most of the present-day Ranthen were also Ranthen during the civil war.
Red-jacket: [noun] The highest rank for humans in Sheol I. Red-jackets were responsible for protecting the penal colony from the Emim. In return for their service, they were given special privileges.
Regal: [noun] A street name for purple aster, an ethereal drug, used by clairvoyants for recreational purposes.
Rephaite: [noun] [plural Rephaim] Also Réphaïte (French). See here.
Rottie: [noun] See amaurotic.
Saloop: [noun] A hot, starchy drink made from orchid root, seasoned with rosewater or orange blossom.
Sarx: [noun] Rephaite skin. It has a slightly metallic sheen and does not age.
ScionIDE: [noun] Scion: International Defense Executive, the armed forces of the Republic of Scion. The First Inquisitorial Division is responsible for national security; the Second Inquisitorial Division is used for invasions; the Third Inquisitorial Division—the largest—is used to defend and keep control of Scion’s existing territories.
Scrimmage: [noun] A battle for the position of Underlord or Underqueen, usually triggered by the death of the Underlord or Underqueen in the absence of a mollisher supreme to take over. Paige was the victor in the last scrimmage—the fourth in London’s history—after the murders of her predecessor, Haymarket Hector, and his mollisher, Cutmouth.
Senshield: [noun] A form of ethereal technology used by Scion, capable of detecting certain kinds of clairvoyant, currently deactivated. Its rapid development throughout 2059 caused a crisis within the clairvoyant community of London, which was forced into hiding to avoid detection by the Senshield scanners installed across the citadel. Paige spearheaded a mission to disable them and succeeded when she banished the spirit that powered Senshield’s core in the Westminster Archon.
Sequestration: [noun] The decapitation of a Rephaite with an opaline blade. The word the Sargas family has chosen for this process seems to indicate that they view it as an act of isolation or confiscation rather than outright destruction. Sequestration stops the half-urge taking hold.
Seven Orders of Clairvoyance: [noun] A system for categorizing clairvoyants, first proposed by Jaxon Hall in his pamphlet On the Merits of Unnaturalness. The seven orders are the soothsayers, the augurs, the mediums, the sensors, the guardians, the furies, and the jumpers. The system was controversial due to its assertion that the “higher” orders were superior to the “lower,” but was nonetheless adopted as the official form of categorisation in the London underworld. It also had significant influence in Paris.
Seven Seals, the: [noun] The former dominant gang of I-4 in London, co-founded by Jaxon Hall, its mime-lord, and Nick Nygård. The other members were Paige Mahoney, Nadine Arnett, Danica Panić, Eliza Renton, and Zeke Sáenz. The gang was based in the district of Seven Dials. Paige was its mollisher.
Silver cord: [noun] A permanent link between the body and the spirit. It allows for a person to dwell for many years in one physical form. Particularly important to dreamwalkers, who use the cord to leave their bodies temporarily. The silver cord wears down over the years, and once broken cannot be repaired.
Spirit shock: [noun] A dangerous and potentially fatal condition arising from an inability to connect with the æther. Clairvoyants who go into spirit shock will usually die or succumb to amaurosis, often resulting in long-term weakness and anguish. Rephaim can also experience a similar condition if they fail to connect to the æther through clairvoyants’ auras.
Spool: [noun] [a] A group of spirits. [b] [verb] To gather several spirits into a group. Spools are used in spirit combat.
Syndicate: [noun] A criminal organization of clairvoyants. There are large syndicates in the Scion Citadels of London and Paris. Members specialize in mime-crime for financial profit. They are known as syndies in London.
Threnody: [noun] A series of words used to banish spirits to the outer darkness, a part of the æther that lies beyond the reach of clairvoyants.
Toshers: [noun] See Mudlarks and toshers.
Underlord or Underqueen: [noun] Head of the Unnatural Assembly and mob boss of the clairvoyant syndicate. Paige Mahoney became Underqueen after she won the fourth scrimmage in November 2059.
Unreadable: [noun] A voyant whose dreamscape has collapsed due to trauma and grown back with impenetrable armor, losing their original gift in the process. Michael Wren and Zeke Sáenz are both unreadables.
Vigiles: [noun] The Republic of Scion’s police force, split into two main divisions: the clairvoyant Night Vigilance Division (NVD) and the amaurotic Sunlight Vigilance Division (SVD). NVD officers are granted thirty years of immunity from justice before being executed for their unnaturalness.
Voyant: [noun] Common shorthand for a clairvoyant.
Waitron: [noun] Gender-neutral term for anyone in Scion’s service industry.
Waning of the Veils: [noun] Used to describe both the catastrophic event that triggered the decay of the Netherworld and the ensuing Rephaite civil war, fought primarily between the Mothallath and Sargas families. After the Sargas usurped the Mothallath, the Rephaim abandoned the all but uninhabitable Netherworld and made the crossing to Earth, where they established their puppet empire, the Republic of Scion.
Westminster Archon: [noun] The highest seat of power in the Republic of Scion, in London. It is the workplace of most of the Scion Republic of England’s key officials, including its Grand Inquisitor, and sometimes houses members of the Sargas family and their allies. Paige was tortured in its basement.
White aster: [noun] A powerful amnesiac; blue aster is said to undo its effects.
Acknowledgements
Writing The Mask Falling has been an extraordinary journey. It’s surreal to think that I’ve been chipping away at this installment of the Bone Season series since 2012, when I fell head-over-heels for Paris. As The Mime Order was my tribute to London, so this book is my love song to the City of Lights.
Thank you for waiting so patiently for it. I know it’s been an unusually long gap between installments of the Bone Season, and even if I’ve left you on a brutal cliff-hanger, I hope you loved this one as much as I’ve loved working on it for the past eight years. I really can’t believe we’re halfway through the series.
Just as Paige would be nowhere without her army, I would be nowhere without mine. Thank you to my
ever-phenomenal agent, David Godwin, and everyone else at DGA: Heather Godwin, Kirsty McLachlan, Mary Scott, Philippa Sitters and Sebastian Godwin, and Lisette Verhagen at PFD.
To my editors, Alexa von Hirschberg and Genevieve Herr, who made The Mask Falling the best it could be. Alexa, thank you for eight years of wise, witty and compassionate editing—I wish you all the best in your next adventure.
To David Mann for another humdinger of a cover, and Emily Faccini for her beautiful illustrations. I’m so lucky to have both of you working on my books.
To the extraordinary global team at Bloomsbury Publishing, including Alexandra Pringle, Allegra Le Fanu, Amanda Shipp, Amy Wong, Ben Turner, Callum Kenny, Carrie Hsieh, Cindy Loh, Emily Fisher, Genevieve Nelsson, Hermione Davis, Imogen Denny, Jack Birch, Janet Aspey, Jasmine Horsey, Josh Moorby, Kathleen Farrar, Laura Keefe, Laura Phillips, Lauren Molyneux, Marie Coolman, Meenakshi Singh, Nancy Miller, Rachel Wilkie, Rosie Mahorter, Sara Helen Binney, Sarah Knight, Sara Mercurio, Phil Beresford, Nicole Jarvis, Philippa Cotton, and Trâm-Anh Doan.
To Lin Vasey for copyediting, Ciarán Collins for the Irish translations, and Chloe Sizer and Will Tennant for their early feedback on The Mask Falling. It was a privilege to work with all of you.
To the brilliant Bone Season advocates—thank you for continuing to show so much support and passion for this series.
To everyone at my French publishing house, De Saxus, especially Sam Souibgui and Volodymyr Feshchuk—thank you for sending me on a wonderful, inspiring French tour that ended up shaping this book in ways I never expected, and for giving the Bone Season series a new life in France.
The Bone Season translators all over the world, including Benjamin Kuntzer, Lenka Kapsová and Regina Kołek. Thank you for bringing this story to readers I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to reach.
To everyone in the book community: authors, bloggers, booksellers, librarians, reviewers—I am so proud to be here.
To all the people who have inspired, cheered, helped and supported me in various ways throughout this journey, including Alwyn Hamilton, Claire Donnelly, Evie Tsang, Harriet Hammond, Holly Bourne, Ilana Fernandes-Lassman, Jay Kristoff, John Moore, Katherine Webber, Kevin Tsang, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Krystal Sutherland, Laura Lam, Laure Eve, Leiana Leatutufu, Lisa Lueddecke, London Shah, Melinda Salisbury, Nina Douglas, Peta Freestone, Richard Smith, Vickie Morrish and Victoria Aveyard. And of course, to my incredible family, who are always there when I need them.
To all NHS employees, because they deserved to be thanked at every available opportunity.
This book is dedicated to my grandmother, Ann Preedy, who passed away in November 2019. She loved me unconditionally, and that love extended to anything and everything I wrote—above all, the Bone Season series. Throughout the months and years I worked on The Mask Falling, Grandma was forever asking me when she could read it, and whether or not Paige was going to have a happy ending for once. The fact that I couldn’t finish the series before her death will always be tremendously painful, but I will strive to stitch some of her generosity and kindness into every book I write.
I miss you, Grandma. Thank you for everything. I know that if the æther was real, you’d have already come back as my guardian angel.
A Note on the Author
Samantha Shannon was born in west London in 1991. In 2013 she published The Bone Season, the first in a seven book series. The Mime Order followed in 2015 and The Song Rising in 2017. The series is internationally bestselling and her books have been translated into twenty-six languages. Film and TV rights have been optioned by Lunar Park. Her fourth novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree, was published in 2019.
samanthashannon.co.uk
@say_shannon
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First published in Great Britain 2021
First published in the United States 2021
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Copyright © Samantha Shannon-Jones, 2021
Illustrations © Emily Faccini, 2021
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: HB: 978-1-63557-032-8; Indie signed HB: 978-1-63557-772-3; eBook: 978-1-63557-031-1
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data has been applied for
Names: Shannon, Samantha, 1991- author.
Title: The mask falling / Samantha Shannon.
Description: London; New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. | Series: The bone season
Identifiers: LCCN 2020016554 (print) | LCCN 2020016555 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635570328 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781635570335 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781635570311 (ebook) Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6119.H365 M37 2021 (print) |
LCC PR6119.H365 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016554
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016555
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