The Bone Season

  “Please,” he said. “No more—”

  “Jaxon, stop it,” I snapped. “Don’t you think he’s had enough?”

  His eyebrows jumped toward his hairline. “Are you questioning me, Paige?”

  My courage faded. “No.”

  “In the syndicate, you are expected to earn your keep. I am your mime-lord. Your protector. Your employer. The man who keeps you from starving, like the wretched buskers!” He chucked a wad of money into the air, sending Frank Weaver’s face fluttering across the carpet. It stared at us from every note. “Ezekiel has only had ‘enough’ when I say so—when I choose to give him freedom for the day. Do you think Hector would stop? Do you think Jimmy or the Abbess would just stop?”

  “We don’t work for them.” Eliza looked shaken. She motioned to the spirit. “Come on back, JD. I’m safe.”

  The spirit slunk away. Zeke put his head in his shaking hands. “I’m okay,” he managed. “I’m fine. I just—just need a minute.”

  “You are not okay.” Nadine turned back to Jaxon, who was lighting another cigar. “You preyed on us. You knew about the operation and made out like you were going to make it better. You said you’d fix him. You promised you’d fix him!”

  “I said I would try.” Jaxon was unmoved. “That I would experiment.”

  “You’re a liar. You’re just like—”

  “If this place is so terrible then go, dear girl. The door is always open.” His voice dropped a few notes. “The door to the cold, dark streets.” He blew a gray plume in her direction. “I wonder how long it will take for the NVD to . . . smoke you out?”

  Nadine shook with anger. “I’m going to Chat’s.” She snatched her lace jacket. “No one is welcome to join me.”

  She grabbed her headphones and her purse before she stormed out, slamming the door behind her. “Dee,” Zeke started, but she didn’t stop. I heard her kick something on her way down the stairs. Pieter came shooting through the wall, furious at being disturbed, and went to sulk in the corner. “I think it’s home time now, captain,” Eliza said firmly. “We’ve been doing this for hours.”

  “Wait.” Jax pointed a long finger in my direction. “We haven’t tried our secret weapon yet.” When I frowned, he tilted his head. “Oh, come now, Paige. Don’t play the fool. Break into his dreamscape for me.”

  “We’ve discussed this.” I was starting to get a headache. “I don’t do break-ins.”

  “You don’t do them. I see. I didn’t realize you had a job description. Oh! Wait, I remember—I didn’t give you one.” He crushed his cigar against the ashtray. “We are clairvoyants. Unnaturals. Did you think we were going to be like Daddy, sitting in our little Barbican offices from nine to five, sipping tea from our little Styrofoam cups?” All of a sudden he looked disgusted, like he couldn’t abide how amaurotic people could be. “Some of us don’t want Styrofoam, Paige. Some of us want silver and satin and solid streets and spirits.”

  I couldn’t help but stare. He took a huge gulp of wine, his eyes fixed on the window. Eliza shook her head. “Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Maybe we should just—”

  “Who pays you?”

  She sighed. “You do, Jaxon.”

  “Correct. I pay, you obey. Now, be the saint you are and run upstairs and get Danica for me. I want her to see the magic.”

  With lips pursed tight, Eliza left the room. Zeke shot me a look of exhausted desperation. I forced myself to speak again. “Jax, I’m really not up to it right now. I think we all need some rest.”

  “You have a few hours off tomorrow, honeybee.” He sounded absentminded.

  “I can’t break into dreamscapes. You know that.”

  “Humor me. Try.” Jaxon poured himself some more wine. “I’ve been waiting for this for years. A dreamwalker versus an unreadable. The ultimate ethereal encounter. Never could I conceive of a more dangerous and daring happenstance.”

  “Are you still speaking English?”

  “No,” Nick said. Every head turned toward him. “He’s speaking like a madman.”

  After a short silence, Jaxon raised his glass. “An excellent diagnosis, doctor. Cheers.”

  He drank. Nick looked away.

  It was in the strained aftermath of that moment that Eliza returned with a clean syringe of adrenaline. With her was Danica Panić, the final member of our septet. She’d grown up in the Scion Citadel of Belgrade, but transferred to London to work as an engineer. Nick had been the one to headhunt her, having spied her aura at a drinks event for new recruits. She took great pride in the fact that none of us could pronounce her name. Or her surname. She was solid as a brick, with crimped reddish hair, worn in a low bun, and arms pitted with scars and burns. Her only soft spot was for waistcoats.

  “Danica, my dear.” Jaxon beckoned her. “Come and take a look at this, will you?”

  “What am I looking at?” she said.

  “My weapon.”

  I exchanged a glance with Dani. She’d only been with us for a week, but she already knew what Jax was like.

  “Looks like you’re having a séance,” she observed.

  “Not today.” He waved a hand. “Begin.”

  I had to bite my tongue to stop myself telling him where to stick it. He always buttered up the newcomers. Dani had a bright, hyperactive aura that he hadn’t been able to identify—but as usual, he was convinced she would be something valuable.

  I sat down. Nick swabbed my arm and punched in the syringe.

  “Do it,” Jax said. “Read the unreadable.”

  I gave my blood a minute to absorb the mix of drugs, then closed my eyes and felt for the æther. Zeke braced himself. I couldn’t invade him—only caress his dreamscape, feel the faint nuances of its surface—but his mind was so sensitive, even a nudge could hurt him. I’d have to be careful.

  My spirit shifted. I registered all five of their dreamscapes, tinkling and shivering like wind chimes. Zeke’s was different. He chimed on a darker note, a minor chord. I tried to catch a glimpse of him: a memory, a fear—but there was nothing. Where I’d normally see a shimmer of pictures, like a distorted old film, all I saw was black. His memories were sealed.

  I jerked from the æther when a hand grasped my shoulder. Zeke was trembling, his hands over his ears. “Enough.” Nick was behind me, pulling me to my feet. “That’s enough. She’s not doing this. Jaxon, I don’t care what you pay me—you’re paying me in blood diamonds.” He threw the window open. “Come on, Paige. You’re taking a break.”

  I was tired to my bones, but I would never refuse Nick. Jaxon’s eyes sent darts into my back. He’d be fine by tomorrow, once he’d finished all the wine. I swung myself out of the window and onto the drainpipe, my vision blurred.

  As soon as his feet hit the roof, Nick started to run. Today he was running fast, and running hard. Fortunately there was still adrenaline in my veins, or I would never have kept up.

  We’d often do this. Take a dérive through the city. In theory, London was everything I hated: huge and gray and stern, raining nine days out of ten. It roared and pumped and pounded like a human heart. But after two years of training with Nick, learning how to navigate the rooftops, the citadel had become my haven. I could fly through traffic and over the heads of the NVD. I could race like blood through the mesh of streets and alleys. I was full to the brim, bursting with life. Out here, if nowhere else, I was free.

  Nick dropped down to the street. We jogged along the busy road until we reached the corner of Leicester Square. Without stopping for breath, Nick began to climb the nearest building, right next to the Hippodrome Casino. There were plenty of handholds, windowsills and ledges and the like, but I doubted I could keep up. Even adrenaline couldn’t make a dent in my fatigue.

  “What are you doing, Nick?”

  “I need to clear my head.” He sounded weary.

  “In a casino?”

  “Above it.” He held out a hand. “Come on, sötnos. You look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

&nbs
p; “Yeah, well, I didn’t know I was going to give my spirit and my muscles a thrashing today.” I let him haul me up to the first windowsill, earning a look from a girl with a cigarette. “How far are we climbing?”

  “To the top of this building. If you can handle it,” he added.

  “What if I can’t handle it?”

  “Fine. Jump up.” He pulled my arms around his neck. “And what’s the golden rule?”

  “Don’t look down.”

  “Correct,” he said, imitating Jax. I laughed.

  We reached the top without incident or injury. Nick had been climbing buildings since he could toddle; he found footholds where none seemed to exist. Soon we were back on the rooftops, the streets far below us. My feet fell on artificial grass. On my left was a small fountain—no water—and on my right, a bed of shriveled flowers. “What is this place?”

  “Roof garden. I found it a few weeks ago. I’ve never seen it used, so I thought I’d make it my new bolt-hole.” Nick leaned on the railing. “Sorry to snatch you like that, sötnos. Dials can get a little claustrophobic.”

  “Just a bit.”

  We didn’t talk about what had just happened. Nick got too frustrated by Jaxon’s tactics. He tossed me a cereal bar. We looked out at the dusky pink horizon, almost as if we were watching for ships.

  “Paige,” he said, “have you ever been in love?”

  My hand shook. The mouthful seemed very difficult to swallow: my throat had closed up.

  “I think so.” Little cold chills ran up and down my sides. I rested my back on the railing. “I mean—maybe. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I want to ask you what it’s like. To try and work out whether or not I’m in love.”

  I nodded, trying to create the impression that I was calm. In reality, something slow and unsettling was happening to my body: I was seeing tiny black dots, my head was featherlight, my palms were clammy and my heart was beating hard. “Tell me,” I said.

  His eyes stayed on the sunset. “When you fall in love with someone,” he said, “do you feel protective of them?”

  This was strange for two reasons. One, because I was in love with Nick. I had known that for a long time, even if I had never done anything about it. And two, because Nick was twenty-seven and I was eighteen. It was as if our natural roles had been reversed. “Yes.” I looked down. “At least, I think so. I did—I do feel protective of him.”

  “Do you ever want to just . . . touch them?”

  “All the time,” I admitted, a little shyly. “Or—more like . . . I want him to touch me. Even if it’s just to—”

  “––hold you.”

  I nodded, not looking at him.

  “Because I feel as if I understand this person, and I want them to be happy. But I don’t know how to make them happy. In fact, I know that just by loving them, I will make them terribly unhappy.” His brow creased the way book paper does. “I don’t know whether to risk even telling them, because I know how much unhappiness it will cause. Or I think I know. Is that important, Paige? To be happy?”

  “How can you think it’s not important?”

  “Because I don’t know whether honesty is better than happiness. Do we sacrifice honesty in order to be happy?”

  “Sometimes. But it’s better to be honest, I think. Otherwise you’re living a lie.” I weighed the words, steering him toward telling me, trying to ignore the shattering din in my head.

  “Because you have to trust them.”

  “Yes.”

  My eyes were hot. I tried to breathe slowly, but in my head, a terrible reality was dawning. Nick wasn’t talking about me.

  Of course, he’d never actually said anything to suggest he felt the same way as I did. Not a word. But what about all the casual touches, all the hours of attention—all the times we’d run together? What about the last two years of my life, when I’d spent nearly every day and night in his company?

  Nick was staring at the sky.

  “Hey, look,” he said.

  “What?”

  He motioned to a star. “Arcturus. I’ve never seen it that bright.”

  The star had an orange tint, and it was huge and brilliant. I felt small enough to disappear. “So,” I said, trying to sound normal, “who is it? Who do you think you’re in love with?”

  Nick brought his hand to his head.

  “Zeke.”

  At first, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him. “Zeke.” I turned my head to look at him. “Zeke Sáenz?”

  Nick nodded. “Do you think it’s really hopeless?” he asked softly. “That he could love me?”

  My face was losing sensation.

  “You never said anything to me,” I began. My chest was locking up. “I didn’t know—”

  “You couldn’t have known.” He ran a hand over his face. “I can’t help it, Paige. I know I could just find somebody else, but I can’t even begin to look. I wouldn’t know where to start. I think he’s the most beautiful person in the world. I thought it was my imagination at first, but now he’s been with us for a year”—he closed his eyes—“I can’t deny it. I really care about him.”

  Not me. I just sat there in silence, feeling as if somebody was pumping a numbing agent into my arteries. It wasn’t me he loved.

  “I think I could help him.” There was real passion in his voice. “I could help him face the past. I could help him remember things. He used to be a whisperer—I could help him hear the voices again.”

  I wished I could hear voices. I wished I could hear spirits, so I could listen to them, and not to this. I had to focus on not crying. No matter what happened tonight, I could not, would not cry. I’d be damned if I would cry. Nick had every right to love somebody else. Why shouldn’t he? I had never said a word to him about how I felt. I ought to be happy for him. But some small, secret part of me had always hoped that he might feel the same—that he might have been waiting for the right moment to tell me. A moment like this.

  “What do you get from his dreamscape?” Nick was looking at me, waiting for a response. “Anything?”

  “Just darkness.”

  “Maybe I could try. Maybe I could send him a picture.” He smiled thinly. “Or just talk to him, like a normal person.”

  “He’d listen,” I said. “If you told him. How do you know he doesn’t feel the same way?”

  “I think he has enough to deal with. Besides, you know the rules. No commitment. Jaxon would burst a blood vessel if he knew.”

  “Stuff Jaxon. It’s not fair for you to carry this.”

  “I’ve managed a year, sötnos. I can manage longer.”

  My throat was tight. He was right, of course. Jaxon didn’t let us commit. He didn’t like relationships. Even if Nick had loved me, we couldn’t have been together. But now the truth was staring me in the face—now the dream had shattered—I could hardly breathe. This man was not mine. He had never been mine. And no matter how much I loved him, he would never be mine.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I grasped the railing. “I mean—I know it’s none of my business, but—”

  “I didn’t want to worry you. You’ve had problems of your own to deal with. I knew Jax would be interested in you, but he’s put you through hell and back. He still treats you like a shiny new toy. It makes me sorry I ever brought you into this.”

  “No. No, don’t think that.” I turned to him and squeezed his hand, too tight. “You saved me, Nick. Sooner or later I would have lost my mind. I had to know, or I would have always felt like an outsider. You made me feel like I was part of something, part of a lot of things, actually. I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

  Shock registered on his face. “You look like you’re going to cry.”

  “I’m not.” I let go of his hand. “Look, I have to go. I’m meeting someone.”

  I wasn’t.

  “Paige, wait. Don’t go.” He grasped my wrist, pulled me back. “I’ve upset you, haven’t I? What is it?”

  “I’m not ups
et.”

  “You are. Please, just wait a second.”

  “I really have to go, Nick.”

  “You’ve never had to go when I needed you.”

  “I’m sorry.” I pulled my blazer close. “If you want my advice, you should go back to base and tell Zeke how you feel. If he’s got even a single bit of sanity left in there, he’ll say yes.” I looked up at him with a sad smile. “I know I would.”

  And I saw it. First confusion, then disbelief, then dismay.

  He knew.

  “Paige,” he started.

  “It’s late.” I swung myself over the railing, my hands trembling. “I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”

  “No. Paige, wait. Wait.”

  “Nick. Please.”

  He closed his mouth, but his eyes were still wide. I climbed back down the building, leaving him to stand beneath the moon. It was only when I reached the bottom that the first and only tears came. I closed my eyes and breathed the night air.

  I don’t know exactly how I got to I-5. Maybe I took the Underground. Maybe I walked. My father was still at work. He wasn’t expecting me. I stood in the empty apartment, gazing at the skylight. For the first time since childhood, I wished for a mother, or a sister, or even a friend—a friend outside the Seals. As it happened, I didn’t have any of those things. I had no idea what to do, what to feel. What would an amaurotic girl do in my situation? Spend a week in bed, most probably. But I wasn’t an amaurotic girl, and it wasn’t as if I’d broken up with someone. Just with a dream. A childish dream.

  I thought back to my days at school, when I’d been the sole voyant among amaurotics. Suzette, one of my only friends, had broken up with her boyfriend in our final year. I tried to remember what she’d done. She hadn’t spent a week in bed, as I recalled. What had she done? Wait. I remembered. She’d sent me a text, asking me to go with her to a club. Want to dance my cares away, she’d said. I’d made an excuse, as I always did.

  This would be my night. I would dance my cares away. I would forget that it had ever happened. I would get rid of this pain.