“Come,” he said. “I have found you a new body.”
He sat on the boulder. I was struck by how he looked under the moon: perfectly outlined, strong-featured, with a radiance to his skin. “What is it?” I said.
“See for yourself.”
His hands were caged, fingertips just touching. I looked down at a fragile insect: a butterfly, or a moth. Hard to tell in the darkness.
“It was quiescent when I found it,” he said. “It is still lethargic. I thought it would make it easier.”
A butterfly, then. It was twitching in his hands.
“Cold spots frighten animals.” His voice was a soft rumble. “They can sense an open conduit to the Netherworld.”
“Why did you open it?”
“You will see.” He raised his gaze to meet mine. “Are you willing to attempt a possession?”
“I’ll try,” I said.
His eyes glowed hotter, like coals.
“You probably already know this,” I said, “but my body’s going to fall when I leave it. I’d appreciate it if you could catch me.”
I had to choke the words out. I hated asking him for a favor, even something so small and obvious.
“Of course,” Warden said.
I broke the eye contact first.
After a deep breath, I dislodged my spirit. At once my senses blurred, and I could see my dreamscape. I could already feel the æther. It grew stronger as I walked toward the edge of the poppy field, where it was dark. The æther was there, waiting for me.
I jumped.
I could see my silver cord, unraveling from my dreamscape, giving me a way to return. Warden’s dreamscape was close. The butterfly was only a dot beside it, a grain of sand beside a marble. I slid into its mind. There was no reactive jerk, no sudden panic from my host.
I found myself in a world of dreams. A world of color, washed in ocher light. The butterfly spent its days feeding on flowers, and their opulent colors made up all its memories. Ambrosial scents wafted from everywhere, lavender and grass and roses. I paced through the dewy dreamscape, heading for the brightest part. Pollen swirled from the flower-laden trees, catching in my hair. I’d never felt so free. There was no resistance; not even the faintest flinch of a defense mechanism. It was so painless, so easy and beautiful, like I’d stepped out of a heavy set of shackles. It felt natural. This was what my spirit longed to do, to wander in strange lands. It couldn’t stand being trapped in one body all the time. It had wanderlust.
When I came to the sunlit zone, I spied it: the lightest pink wisp of a spirit. I pursed my lips and blew, and it skittered away to the darker parts.
Now for the real test. If I’d worked this out correctly—and if Jax had been right when he explained it—stepping into the sunlit zone would allow me to take control of my new body.
As soon as I stepped into the circle, bright light flooded the whole dreamscape: golden light, rolling over me, filling my eyes and my skin and my blood. It blinded me. The world became a shattered diamond, an asterisk of luminous color.
For a while, there was nothing. My body vanished, and I couldn’t feel a thing. And then I woke up.
Panic registered first. Where were my arms, my legs? Why couldn’t I see? Wait, I could see—just—but everything was washed in vivid purple, and the green of the grass was too bright for my eyes. A spasm racked my flimsy limbs. It was like brain plague, but so much worse. I was crushed, suffocated, screaming with no lips or voice. And what were these things stuck on either side of me? I tried to move, and they gave a shudder, as if I was in my death throes.
Before I knew it, I’d thrown myself out of the butterfly and back into my body. I was shaking all over, gasping for air. I slid down off the rock and hit the ground on all fours.
“Paige?”
I retched. A vile, acidic taste filled my mouth, but nothing came out. “N-never doing that again,” I said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. It was—it was so easy, b-but then—” I unzipped my jacket, my chest heaving. “I can’t do it.”
Warden was silent. He watched as I dabbed the sweat from my brow, trying not to hyperventilate. “You did do it,” he said. “Even though it was painful, you did it. Its wings moved.”
“I felt like I was dying when I did that.”
“But you did it.”
I leaned against the rock. “How long did I last?”
“Perhaps half a minute.”
Better than I expected, but still pitiful. Jaxon would have cracked a rib laughing. “Sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “Maybe I’m not as good as other dreamwalkers.”
His face was hard. “Yes,” he said, “you are. But if you do not believe it, you will not achieve your full potential.”
He opened his hand, and the butterfly flew off into the dark. Still alive. I hadn’t killed it.
“You’re angry,” I said.
“No.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
“Like what?” His eyes were cold.
“Nothing,” I said.
He picked up a bundle of dry wood that had been propped against the boulder. I watched as he struck two rocks together, lighting a small fire, using the wood as kindling. I turned away. Let him simmer. I wasn’t there to puppeteer the fauna.
“We will rest here for a few hours.” Warden didn’t look at me. “You need sleep before the next part of your test.”
“Does that mean I passed this half?”
“Of course you passed. You possessed the butterfly. That was all I asked of you.” He watched the flames. “No more.”
He opened a knapsack and spread out a simple black sleeping bag. “Here,” he said. “There is something I must do. You will be safe here for a while.”
“Are you going back to the city?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t have much choice but to comply, though I didn’t like the thought of sleeping out here—not with this many spirits in the air. There were more of them now, and it was getting colder. I stripped off my wet boots and socks, put them out to dry beside the flames, and zipped myself into the sleeping bag. It wasn’t warm, even with my jacket and gilet, but it was better than nothing.
Warden tapped his fingers on his knee, staring into the darkness. His eyes were two live coals, alert for danger. I turned over and looked up at the moon. How dark the world looked. How dark, and how cold.
17
The Will
“Hurry up, Pip. Come on.”
My cousin Finn pulled harder on my arm. I was six years old and we were in the congested heart of Dublin, surrounded by shouting people. “Finn, I can’t keep up,” I said, but he ignored me. It was the first time ever that my cousin hadn’t listened to me.
We were supposed to be at the cinema that day: a crisp February morning in 2046, when the winter sun spilled white gold on the Liffey. I was staying with Aunt Sandra for the midterm break. She’d told Finn to look after me while she was at work, seeing as he had no classes. I’d wanted to see a film and have lunch in Temple Bar, but Finn said we had to do something else: see the Molly Malone statue. It was important, he said. Too important to miss. A very special day. “We’re going to make history, Pip,” he’d said, squeezing my small, mitten-bound hand.
I’d wrinkled my nose a bit when he told me. History was for school. I loved Finn—he was tall and funny and clever, and he bought me sweets when he had spare change—but I’d seen Molly hundreds of times. I knew all the words of her song by heart, too.
Everyone was singing it as we approached the statue. I looked up at all the red-faced people, half-scared and half-excited. Finn was shouting the song with them and I joined in, even though I didn’t understand why we were all singing. Maybe it was a street party.
I held Finn’s hand as he talked to his friends from Trinity College. They all wore green and waved big signs. I could read enough to work out most of the words, but there was one I didn’t know: SCION. It was all over the signs. They flashe
d past me, high in the air, Irish and English mixed together. DOWN WITH MAYFIELD! ÉIRE GO BRÁCH! DUBLIN SAYS NO! I tugged Finn’s sleeve.
“Finn, what’s happening?”
“Nothing, Paige, be quiet for a minute—SCION OUT! SCION DOWN! SCION OUT OF DUBLIN TOWN!”
We were near the statue now, jostled by the crowd. I’d always liked Molly. I thought she had a kind face. But she looked different today. Someone had pulled a bag over her head and a rope around her neck. Tears jerked into my eyes.
“Finn, I don’t like it.”
“SCION OUT! SCION DOWN! SCION OUT OF DUBLIN TOWN!”
“I want to go home.”
Finn’s girlfriend frowned down at me. Kay. I’d always liked her. She had beautiful hair, a dark auburn that shone like copper and curled like springs, and her arms were pale and freckled. Finn had given her a claddagh ring, which she wore with the heart pointing toward her body. She was dressed all in black, and her cheeks were painted green and white and orange.
“Finn, this could get violent,” she said. “Shouldn’t you take her home?” When he didn’t reply, she hit him. “Finn!”
“What?”
“Take Paige back to the house! Cleary has pipe bombs in his car, for Christ’s sake—”
“No way. I’m not missing this for the world. If these bastards get in, we’ll never get them out.”
“She’s six years old. She shouldn’t see this.” Kay grabbed my hand. “I’ll take her home if you won’t. Your ma would be ashamed of you.”
“No. I want her to see it.”
He knelt down in front of me and pulled off his cap. His hair was tousled. Finn looked like my father, but his face was warm and open, and his eyes were blue as the summer sky. He put his hands on my shoulders.
“Paige Eva,” he said, in a very serious voice, “do you know what’s happening?”
I shook my head.
“Bad people are coming from over the sea. They’re going to lock us up in our city and never let us leave, and turn this place into a prison city like theirs. We won’t be allowed to sing our songs anymore, or visit people outside Ireland. And people like you, Pip—they don’t like you.”
I looked into Finn’s eyes, and I understood what he meant. Finn had always known that I could see things. I knew where all the ghosts of Dublin lived. Did that make me bad? “But why does Molly have a bag over her head, Finn?” I said.
“Because the bad people do that when they don’t like other people. They put bags over their heads and ropes around their necks.”
“Why?”
“To kill them. Even little girls, like you.”
Now I was shaking. My eyes hurt. A bubble filled my throat, but I didn’t cry. I was brave. I was brave, like Finn.
“Finn,” Kay said, “I see them!”
“SCION OUT! SCION DOWN!”
My heart was too fast. Finn wiped my tears and put his cap on my head.
“SCION OUT OF DUBLIN TOWN!”
“They’re coming, Paige, and we have to stop them.” He grasped my shoulders. “Are you going to help me stop them?”
I nodded.
“Finn, oh God, Finn, they’ve got tanks!”
And then my world exploded. The bad people had raised their guns and aimed their darts of fire into the crowd.
I woke with the sound of guns in my ears.
My skin was slick and cold, but inside I was scalding. The memory had burned through my whole body. I could still see Finn, his face tight with hatred—Finn, who used to call me Pip.
I kicked off the sleeping bag. I could still hear the gunshots, thirteen years later. I could still see Kay, her eyes open, gripped wide in the shock of death. The blood on her shirt. One shot to the heart. That was what made Finn run toward the soldiers, leaving me behind, crouched under Molly’s wheelbarrow. I screamed and screamed for him, but he never came back.
I never saw him again.
I didn’t remember much after that. I know someone got me home. I know I sobbed for Finn until my throat hurt. And I know my father never let Aunt Sandra see me again, not until the memorial service. After that I didn’t cry. Tears couldn’t bring people back. I wiped the sweat from my face with my shirt. I must still be in the grounds of Magdalen. I turned on my side, so cold I couldn’t feel my feet, and curled into a ball.
The fire must have gone out. It was raining, but I wasn’t wet. I reached up. My fingers brushed some kind of canvas sheeting, a temporary shelter from the elements. I pulled up the hood of my jacket and inched out from under it.
“Warden?”
There was no sign of him. Or the deer. Or the fire.
I’d been shivering from cold, but now my shivers worsened. Where had he gone? Surely he couldn’t still be in Sheol I. We hadn’t even left Sheol I. Magdalen and its grounds were part of the residence system. We’d only strayed about a mile from the cold spot, if that.
The wind was rising. I huddled under my shelter. There was no reason for him to have left me alone, no reason whatsoever. Maybe I just hadn’t been asleep for very long. I pulled on my socks and boots and double-checked the sleeping bag. To my surprise, I found a few supplies: a pair of gloves, a hypodermic needle of adrenaline, and a slim silver torch tucked into the lining, along with a manila envelope. My name was written on the front. I recognized his handwriting and tore it open.
Welcome to No Man’s Land. Your test is simple, return to Sheol I in as little time as possible. You have no food, no water, and no map. Use your gift. Trust your instincts.
And do me this honor: survive the night. I’m sure you would rather not be rescued.
Good luck.
I held the note for a moment, then I tore it into strips.
I’d show him. I’d show him right now. He was trying to scare me, and I wouldn’t have it. “Survive the night”? What was that supposed to mean? He must think I was pretty feeble if I couldn’t cope with a bit of wind and rain. If I could deal with the sordid streets of SciLo, I could deal with a dark forest. As for food supplies, why would I need them? It wasn’t like he’d dumped me in the middle of nowhere. Was it?
When I looked outside the tent, I found a case marked with the symbol of ScionIde, the military arm of the government: two lines at a right angle, like gallows, with three shorter lines scored across the vertical mark. Inside the case was another note.
Be careful with the darts. If they break, the acid inside will send you into cardiac arrest. Use the flare in an emergency. It will summon a squad of red-jackets.
Do not go south.
I shone my torch at the contents of the case: a pistol with a long barrel, a flare gun, an old Zippo lighter, a hunting knife, and three pressurized silver darts. The symbols for toxicity and corrosivity were printed across the side, along with the words HYDROFLUORIC ACID (HF).
A tranquilizer gun and a handful of acid darts. Why couldn’t he have just given me my pistol? Well, I had to start somewhere, unless I wanted to stay in this clearing all night. I rolled up the sleeping bag, compacting it into a small sack, but left the shelter where it was. I could use it as a marker to make sure I wasn’t running in circles.
There was something surrounding the camp. A ring of tiny white crystals. I knelt and dipped my fingers in them, then flicked out the tip of my tongue to taste them.
Salt.
The camp had been made in a circle of salt.
I held very still. There were rumors among voyants that salt could repel spirits—they called it halomancy—but it wasn’t true. It certainly didn’t stop poltergeists. Was he just trying to scare me, leaving it all over the place?
With my hood pulled up and my jacket zipped to the chin, I packed my limited supplies. I put the darts and pistol in the sack, padding them with the sleeping bag, and tucked the flare gun into my waistband. The knife went into my boot, the syringe into my jacket. I pulled on the gloves.
I couldn’t wait to get back and face him, the scurf. I could picture him now, watching the clock, counting the minute
s until I got back. Sitting by his nice warm fire.
I’d show him. I would not be overlooked. I was the Pale Dreamer, and he was going to see why. He was going to see why Jax had chosen me: because against all odds, I had survived.
I closed my eyes, trying to pick up on ethereal activity, but there was nothing. No dreamscapes. I was alone. When I opened my eyes, the sky caught my attention. It was luck I’d woken when I did: the stars were about to be swallowed up by clouds, and with the sun gone, I had no other means of navigation. With no sign of Sirius, I searched for Orion’s Belt. I knew from Nick’s passionate speeches on astronomy that wherever the Belt was, north was roughly in the other direction. I also knew where it was in relation to Sheol I. I located the three stars and turned slowly to face my path. What lay in front of me was a dense stretch of woodland, as dark as it was thick and overgrown.
My heart pounded. I’d never been scared of the dark, but it would force me to rely on my sixth sense to detect any unrest. Which was probably the point. To test me.
I looked over my shoulder. The woodland was just as dark on the other side of the clearing. That path would lead me south, away from the colony.
Do not go south.
I knew his game. He was relying on me to obey, like a good human. Why should I go north, when north would lead me back to slavery—back to Warden, who had put me here in the first place? I didn’t need to prove myself to him. I turned to face the Belt. I was going south. I was leaving this hellhole.
Wind rushed through the leaves, chilling my wet skin. It was now or never. By the time I’d finished thinking about what might or might not be lurking in there, I wouldn’t have the courage to move. I clenched my jaw and headed into the woods.
It was black. Blind. The rain had softened the earth, leaving it spongy and damp. My feet made no sound as I trekked through the oak trees, walking quickly, sometimes breaking into a jog, using my hands to feel my way past branches. In the thin beam of my torch, I could make out a hazy mist that wreathed the tree trunks and hung in a thin blanket over the ground, obscuring my boots. There was no natural light. I prayed my torch wouldn’t expire. It was scored with the Scion symbol, probably a borrowed piece of NVD equipment. It was a small relief: Scion-made items didn’t often stop working.