The Bone Season

by Samantha Shannon

  It occurred to me that I must be outside the normal boundaries of Sheol I. This place was called No Man’s Land for a reason: it belonged to no one. Maybe Scion owned it; maybe not. I had no idea where this route would lead me, but I did know that Oxford was north of London. I was heading in the right direction. My jacket and trousers were dark enough to hide me from watchful eyes, and my sixth sense was as finely tuned as ever. I could make it past any Reph guards. I could scale a fence just as easily as I could slip under it. And if anyone attacked me, I could use my gift. I’d sense them in advance.

  But then I remembered what Liss had said about this place when I’d first arrived: “Deserted countryside. We call it No Man’s Land.” That might have encouraged me if not for what she’d said afterward, when I’d asked if anyone had ever tried to escape via the southern route. “Yes,” was all she’d said. Just yes. Barefaced confirmation that there was danger on this path. Other voyants had come this way and died. Maybe they’d been tested like this, too. Was the test simply to resist the temptation to escape? I broke a sweat at the thought. Land mines, booby traps—they had them in here. I imagined cameras in the trees, watching my every move, waiting for me to step on a mine. The thought made me slow down.

  No, no. I had to carry on. I could get out of here. They were relying on me to think like that, to think on the safe side. I almost turned north, but determination drove me on. Against my will, I pictured Warden, David, and the Overseer by the fire, clinking their glasses as they watched me run into a mine. “Well, gentlemen, here’s to the dreamwalker,” the Overseer would say. “The biggest idiot we ever brought to Sheol I.” And what would they put on my gravestone? Would they carve in PAIGE MAHONEY, or would it just be XX-59-40? Assuming there was enough of me left to scrape into a grave, of course.

  I stopped and leaned against a tree. This was insane. Why was I imagining these things? Warden couldn’t stand the Overseer. I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured another group: Jaxon, Nick, and Eliza. They were in the citadel, waiting for me, searching for me. If I could just get out of these woods, I could work my way back to them.

  After a moment, I opened my eyes. And stared at what was crumpled on the ground.

  Bones. Human bones. A skeleton in a ragged white tunic, legs missing from the knee. I backed away, almost falling over my own feet. Something crunched underfoot. A skull.

  There was a bag next to the carcass. Its hand still gripped the strap. With a crunch of dry bone, I prized it free. Flies crawled on the remaining flesh; giant, black-haired flies, swollen with dead flesh. They flew up when I snatched the bag from its dead owner. My torch gleamed on the contents, a hunk of rotten bread and a dry bottle.

  My skin turned cold and damp. I turned the torch to my right. A few feet away, a crater yawned among the leaves, half-flooded by the rain. Shards of bone and mine casing scattered the ground.

  There really was a minefield.

  I pressed my back against the trunk of an oak. I couldn’t navigate a minefield in the dark. I edged away from the tree, stepping over the skeleton. You’re fine, Paige. Legs shaking, I turned north and picked my way back along the path. I hadn’t gone far from the clearing. I could make it. After moving several feet from the bones, I tripped over a root and hit the ground. I tensed rigid, my heart lurching, but no explosion followed.

  Resting my weight on my elbows, I dug into my jacket, took out the Zippo, and flicked it open with my thumb. A clean flame rose. A route to the æther. I wasn’t an augur—fire was no friend to me—but I could use it to perform a miniature séance. “I need a guide,” I whispered. “If anyone is out there, come to the flame.”

  For a long time, there was nothing. The flame flinched and guttered. Then my sixth sense jolted to life, and a young spirit emerged from the trees. I pulled myself to my feet. “I need to reach my camp.” I held the lighter out to it. “Will you guide me?”

  I couldn’t hear it speak, but it started to move back the way I’d come. I sensed it was the spirit of the dead white-jacket and I broke into a run. It had no reason to mislead me.

  The circle of salt soon came into sight. The rain blew out the lighter, but the spirit stayed close to me. I took a few minutes to compose myself. It was bitter to concede, but I had no choice but to go north. I checked my belongings were still there, then set off into the trees again, the torch in one hand and the Zippo in the other, the spirit close behind me.

  After about half an hour of walking, the spirit trailing around my shoulders like a rope, I stopped to check that Orion’s Belt was behind me. I adjusted my course a little before I delved into the darkness again. My ears and nose were smarting, and my sixth sense sent tremors through my skin. I could barely feel my toes. I stopped and gripped my knees, taking deep breaths to steady my nerves. As soon as I inhaled, I smelled something. I recognized that smell: death.

  My torch beam was unsteady. The stench of putrid flesh was getting stronger. I walked for another minute before I found the source. Another body.

  It must once have been a fox. Tufts of auburn fur, matted with dry blood, eye sockets brimful of maggots. I buried my nose and mouth in my sleeve. The smell was atrocious.

  Whatever had done this was out here in the woods with me.

  Move, Paige. Move. The torch sputtered. I’d just started to leave when a twig snapped.

  Had I imagined that? No, of course I hadn’t. My hearing worked fine. I could hear the blood beating at my ears. I pressed my back against a tree, trying not to breathe too loudly.

  A guard. A red-jacket on night patrol. But then I heard heavy footsteps, too heavy for a human. I turned off the torch, slid it into my pocket. There was no point having it in my hands: turning it on would give away my position.

  The silence pressed against my ears. I couldn’t see a thing, but I could hear another footstep, closer. Then the sounds of teeth working away at a carcass. Something had found the fox.

  Or come back for it.

  I cupped a hand around the lighter. My heart was doing strange things. I wasn’t sure if it had sped up to a single hum, or if it just wasn’t beating anymore. Behind me, the spirit shivered.

  The minutes ticked away. I waited. I had to move at some point, but I knew, I knew there was something in the vicinity.

  Three guttural clicks.

  Every muscle in my body tensed. I breathed through my nose, keeping my lips clamped together. I didn’t know what that sound was, but there was no way a human had made it. I’d heard the Rephs make some strange noises, but never such an ugly, visceral sound.

  A sudden wind blew the lighter out. My spirit guide fled.

  For a minute, cold fear stilled my fingers. Then I remembered the pistol, tucked into my pack. It would be a fool’s game to shoot my stalker, but I could distract it. Give myself some time to move. I thought about climbing a tree, then dismissed the idea. Trees were not my forte. I’d be better off finding a new place to hide. Still, finding higher ground seemed like a sensible idea. If I got to a safe place, I could shine my light on this creature and see what it was. I tucked the lighter away and dug into my pack.

  Once the pistol was in my hand, I set about extracting a dart. Every move I made seemed noisy: every exhalation, every rustle of my jacket. Finally I could feel the cold, smooth cylinder of a dart against my fingers. I knew how to load an ordinary gun, but it took me a few minutes to equip the unfamiliar weapon in the dark, with clammy hands, trying my utmost not to make a sound. Once it was ready, I lifted my arms, aimed, fired.

  When the dart hit home, it sizzled like hot fat in a pan. The creature ran toward the source of the sound. It carried a sound of its own. A buzzing. Flies.

  This wasn’t an animal.

  Nausea surged through me. I’d heard so much about the Emim, but I’d never really pictured facing one of their number. Even after what I’d heard at the oration, even after the red-jacket had lost his hand, I’d almost started to believe they didn’t exist. Until now.

  It was all I could do to ke
ep myself standing. My hands shook and my lips trembled. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Could it hear my pulse? Could it smell my fear? Was it slavering over my flesh yet, or did I have to get closer before it could detect me?

  I loaded another dart into the gun. The Buzzer sniffed at the place I’d shot. I closed my eyes and reached for the æther.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong. All the local spirits had fled, like they were afraid, but why would spirits fear any creature of the physical world? It wasn’t as if they could die again. Whatever the case, there was nothing to spool.

  I became aware that I couldn’t hear the Buzzer anymore. My hands were sweat-slick. I could hardly grip the gun. I could be dead at any moment. Dead meat.

  The whole thing must have been a setup. Nashira had never wanted me to earn my colors. She just wanted me to die.

  Not today, I thought. Not today, Nashira.

  I ran out from behind the tree. My boots pounded, my heart thrashed at my chest. Where was it? Had it seen me yet?

  Something struck me between the shoulder blades. I was weightless for a moment, suspended in darkness. Then I hit the ground. My wrist bent back and snapped. I bit back a scream half a second too late.

  The gun was gone. There was no chance of finding it now. I could hear the thing—it was near me, it was on me. With my uninjured hand, I reached into my boot and found the hunting knife.

  I forgot about my spirit. I stabbed into soft mush. Wet ran down my wrist. Buzz. Another stab, two stabs. Buzz. Buzz. Things kept hitting my face: small, round things. I blinked them from my eyes, coughed them from my mouth. Fingers clawed at my neck, and hot breath stank against my cheek. Stab, stab. Buzz. Teeth clashed near my ear. I stabbed up, back into the flesh, and pulled down. The blade tore through muscle and gristle.

  Then it was gone. I was free. My hands were coated to the wrist in a syrupy, foul-smelling liquid. Bile surged into my throat, burning my mouth and nose.

  The torch lay about ten feet away. I crawled toward it, my broken wrist cradled to my chest. I’d broken it before: it was throbbing like a bitch. I dragged myself along on one arm, holding the knife between my teeth, drenched in sour sweat. The smell of corpse wrenched at my stomach, sending painful spasms up my throat.

  I grabbed the torch and swung it behind me. I could see dark shapes between the trees. More footsteps. More Buzzers. No.

  My head was pounding. My vision blurred. I don’t want to die. Possessing the butterfly had weakened me much more than I’d anticipated. Run. I dug into my jacket, pulled out the syringe. My last resort. The flare gun was not a resort. I wouldn’t fire. I would not lose this game.

  ScionAid Auto-Inject Adrenaline. Much stronger than the diluted cocktail of drugs Jax used to keep me awake. I punched the needle through my trousers, straight into my thigh.

  Sharp pain. I cursed, but kept the needle in. A spring-loaded jolt of adrenaline shot into the muscle. Scion adrenaline was designed to wake up your whole body; not just to help it function, but to wipe out pain and make you stronger. Gillies were wired on the stuff constantly. My muscles became supple. My legs grew stronger. I launched myself off the ground and broke into a sprint. The adrenaline had no effect on my sixth sense, but it made it easier to concentrate on the æther.

  The Buzzer had a dark, cavernous dreamscape, a black hole in the æther. I wouldn’t get far if I tried to break into it. I still tried, not quite leaving my body.

  A black cloud engulfed me. My dreamscape darkened, and the edges of my vision clustered together. I needed to repel it. A quick-fire jump should drive it away. My spirit flew from my body, fracturing the edge of its dreamscape. The creature let out an awful scream. Its footsteps stopped. At the same time, a blinding pain shocked me back into my dreamscape. My palms hit the ground. I scrambled back up, heaving.

  The woods gave way to open grassland. I could see the spires of the House. The city. The city.

  The adrenaline surged through my veins, racing through my muscles, pushing me faster. My wrist dangled at my side as I ran like a penitent sinner toward my prison. Better a jailbird than a stiff.

  The Buzzer screamed. Its cry echoed through every cell in my body. I vaulted over a chain-link fence and hit the ground running.

  There was a watchtower at the top of the House. There would be a red-jacket with a gun. They could subdue the Buzzer, kill it. Sweat drenched my clothes. Not for now. I couldn’t feel the pain yet, but I knew I’d torn a muscle. I passed a rusted sign reading USE OF DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED. Good. I’d never needed deadly force more. I could see the watchtower now. I was about to scream for help, to pull out the flare gun, when I found myself immobilized.

  A net. It was all over me: a thick wire net. I shrieked, “No, no, kill it” at the top of my lungs. I struggled like bait on a line. Why had they caught me? I wasn’t the enemy! Of course you are, said a voice in my head, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I had to get out of this net. The Buzzer was coming. It would rip me up, just like it ripped up the fox.

  A tearing sound. A voice saying my name: “Paige, calm down, it’s all right, you’re safe now”—but I didn’t trust that voice. That was the voice I feared. I clawed my way out of the net and tried to run again. That was when someone grabbed me, threw me backward. “Paige, concentrate! Use your fear, use it!” I couldn’t focus. I was feral with fear. My heart was too fast, I couldn’t keep up. My vision blinked in and out. My mouth was dry. Was I still standing?

  “Paige, to your right! Attack it!”

  I looked to my right. I couldn’t see what it was, but it wasn’t human. My fear reached its absolute peak. I flew into the æther. Into nothing. And then into something.

  The last thing I saw was my body crumpling to the ground. But not through my eyes. Through the eyes of a deer.

  18

  The Good Morrow

  There are certain things in life that you never forget. Things that dig deep, things that nest in the hadal zone. I slept like a top, waiting for my brain to block the terror of the woods.

  Real sleep was my salvation, the quiet interval between waking and walking. Jax and the others had never understood it, why I loved to sleep so much. When I wanted to rest after hours in the æther, Nadine would always laugh. “You’re crazy, Mahoney,” she would say. “You’ve been snoring away for hours, and now you want more sleep? Not a dog’s chance in the Island. Not for the money you’re on.”

  Nadine Arnett, the essence of sympathy. She was the only member of the gang I didn’t miss.

  When I came around, it was night. My wrist was clamped with a spiderlike metal frame. Above me was a velvet canopy.

  I was in Warden’s bed. Why was I in his bed?

  The thoughts dragged. I couldn’t quite remember what had happened before this. I felt just like I had when Jaxon had let me try real wine. I glanced down at my hand. The frame prevented me from moving my wrist. I wanted to get up—to get out of this bed—but I was too warm and heavy to move. Sedative, I thought. And that was fine. It was all fine.

  When my eyes opened again, I was more alert. I could hear a familiar voice. Warden had returned—and he had company. I crept toward the drapes and parted them.

  A fire roared in the hearth. Warden stood with his back to me, speaking in an unfamiliar language. The words were a low-pitched glissade, resonant as music in a hall. Standing in front of him was Terebell Sheratan. She held a chalice in one hand. She kept motioning toward the bed—toward me. Warden shook his head. I listened.

  What was that language?

  I tuned into the nearest spirits: ghosts that had once lived here. They were almost dancing to the beat of Warden and Terebell’s conversation. It was exactly what happened when Nadine played the piano, or when a julker sang a lay on the streets. Julkers—polyglots, to use the proper word—could speak and understand a language known only to spirits, but Warden and Terebell weren’t julkers. Neither of them had a polyglot aura.

  They put their heads together, examining something. When
I looked closer, I froze.

  My phone.

  Terebell turned it over in her hand, ran her thumb over the keys. The battery was long since dead.

  If they had my phone and the backpack, they must have the pamphlet. Were they trying to see whose numbers I had? They must suspect I knew the pamphlet’s author. If they found Jaxon’s number, they could track him back to Seven Dials—and suddenly, Carl’s vision would make sense.

  I had to get that phone.

  Terebell stowed it in her shirt. Warden said something to her. She touched her forehead to his before she exited the room, locking the heavy door behind her. Warden remained where he was for a moment, looking at the window, before then his attention shifted to the bed. To me.

  He pulled back the drapes and sat on the edge of the covers. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  His eyes burned. “Better, I take it.”

  “Why does Terebell have my phone?”

  “So that Nashira does not find it. Her red-jackets would be able to extract contact information for your friends in the syndicate.”

  “I don’t have friends in the syndicate.”

  “Try not to lie to me, Paige.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Another lie.”

  “Because you’re always so truthful.” I stared him out. “You left me with that thing. You left me alone, in the dark, with a Buzzer.”

  “You knew it would be coming. You knew you would have to face an Emite. In any case, I did warn you.”

  “How the hell did you warn me?”

  “Cold spots, Paige. That is how they travel.”

  “So you let one out?”

  “You were in no danger. I know you were frightened, but I needed you to possess that deer.”

  He fixed his eyes on mine. My mouth turned dry.

  “You did all that just so I’d be able to possess Nuala.” I wet my lips. “You set the whole thing up when you opened the cold spot.” He nodded. “You released the Buzzer.” He nodded again. “And you made me so scared I—”