‘I cannot advise you. I am nobody’s son. What I will tell you is that you cannot force yourself to mourn. Sometimes, the best way to honour the dead is to simply keep living. In war, it is the only way.’
Silence fell. It was a tense silence, but his words did ease the strain.
I thought of the cards. The Devil, the Lovers. He could be either of them, or both, or neither.
‘You knew what I was feeling,’ I said. ‘Do you always know?’
‘No. On rare occasions, I have some sense of your feelings. A glimpse into your mindset. It soon fades,’ Warden said. ‘Whatever the cord is, it remains an enigma. As do you.’
‘You can talk. I’ve never met someone so wilfully cryptic.’
‘Hm.’
I looked in the direction of the sea, where Vance’s warships floated. Wind rushed through our shelter, chilling my neck. The conversation had distracted me from what I had to do.
‘You are welcome to my coat.’
Even my knees were shaking. ‘Don’t you need it?’
‘Not for warmth. It would invite unwanted attention,’ he said, ‘were I to be without a coat in this weather.’
He showed no sign of being cold, so I nodded. When he handed it over, I draped it over my jacket, trying not to be too aware of the faint scent of him that clung to its lining.
‘Thank you.’ I held it around me. ‘I’d heard Scotland was freezing, but this is something else.’
‘The temperature has been lowered by new cold spots. The veils between our worlds continue to erode.’
The silence closed in again, inevitable as the tide. Tension spread through my back and shoulders.
‘This is it.’ I wet my chapped lips. ‘How long did we last against the anchor? Three months?’
‘This is not the end.’
The wind tossed my hair across my face. I huddled deeper into his coat.
‘Warden, there’s . . . a reason I asked you to come up here with me.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘First, I wanted to say that – I’m sorry.’
His expressions had never been easy to read, but the shadows made it impossible.
‘Sorry for what, Paige?’
I drew a deep breath. ‘The Sarin have made it clear that they’ll only support the Mime Order if it has strong leadership. I wanted to prove that I was the leader you needed – that I could change things. I failed.’
My thumb circled the old scars on my palm. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the fire die in his eyes again.
‘You believed in me. Right from the start, you believed I was the one who could lead the Mime Order, the one who could lead the voyants out of the colony. Even I ended up believing it. But I failed. I failed them, and I failed you. So when we get back—’ I made myself say it: ‘I’m going to give up my crown. And I want you to choose someone else to be your human associate.’
Warden said nothing. I held my head up.
‘I won’t leave you in the lurch. I’m not going to abandon the Mime Order, but I’ve proven that I’m not the person you need to lead it. You need someone who can win the voyants’ support after this, someone who can achieve a strong enough victory against Scion to persuade Adhara of their worth. Maria is probably your best bet. She understands war, and she gets on well with most of the Unnatural Assembly. She’s reckless, though. If not her—’
‘Paige.’
‘—Eliza would do well. She knows London, and she’s stronger than she realises. There’s Glym, too, if he wants to continue. And Nick. He survived for years in Tj?der’s Stockholm. He’d make you proud. Any of them would.’
Warden didn’t move. I chanced a look at him, trying to see something, anything in his expression.
‘Paige Mahoney,’ he said, ‘I never thought that you, of all people, would prove worthy of your yellow tunic.’
I was too drained to be hurt.
‘You’re right,’ I said. The cold made it harder to speak. ‘I am a coward. I – I left them in the shadow . . .’
‘Who?’
‘My family. Did you know about Ireland, Warden? Do you know what the anchor did to Tipperary?’
His face didn’t change. ‘I thought you knew.’
‘No,’ I said, with a weak laugh. ‘No. But it doesn’t matter. I know what I have to do. If the Mime Order’s going to have a chance, I have to abdicate.’
The shadows set his eyes on fire.
‘Fool,’ he said softly. ‘Do you think so little of yourself?’
‘Call me a fool again,’ I said, just as softly.
‘Fool. You have swallowed the same poison that Vance is pouring into her denizens’ wine.’
Warden moved the tin of fire from between us and sat beside me, I looked up at him, taking him in.
‘I did not let you give up your memory of ScionIDE for the séance,’ he said. ‘I want you to find it now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it is time you remembered.’
The golden cord was taut as a violin’s string, quavering with our proximity. He was the bow, and I was the music.
‘Tell me how,’ I said.
‘Only you know.’
His aura intertwined with mine. So did his arms. He reached into my memory.
Golden light filled my vision, and the taste of copper sickened me. The ground fell away. A bitter taste flooded my mouth before a dam ruptured, and I was swan-diving through time and space – my body ripping itself to shreds, fracturing and re-forming again and again and again—
And then—
Kayley Ní Dhornáin on the street in Dublin, auburn hair on fire under the sun. Finn, my cousin, vanishing from sight, roaring incoherent anguish. Kay’s shirt is black, but the blood shines through. She never saw the gun that killed her.
Hands, small hands, shaking her. My hands. Kay. A sob in my ears, a child’s sob. Kay, wake up, wake up.
The flags of Ireland all around her. A man, one of Finn’s friends, raising his hands above his head.
Stop, he pleads. She wasn’t armed.
He, too, is unarmed. They shoot him dead. The man who knows his freedom is a threat.
Panic. At this age, she hardly understands it. It crashes, breaks, and surges into the crowd, a living, monstrous thing. The grown-ups are scared, as scared as the children. An airless crush of bodies, pressing in on her from all sides. Mouths that scream, hands that shove. Mercy. Pushing. Falling over her own feet. Bronze statue that glints under the sun. Climbing, clinging to Molly Malone. Don’t let them see. Crawling underneath her wheelbarrow. One, two, three. Tears soaking her cheeks. We’re coming to get you, Paige.
Beyond, a giant watches. Lanterns in its eyes. It sees her.
Finn, help me, please.
My eyes flickered beneath their lids. Petrified inside my mind. Warden knelt with me in the dirt, in the damp, his hands grasping my arms.
A toy left in the blood, never to be reclaimed. Wandering through streets of death, past the bridge. Faceless soldier. Running. Nothing. When Aunt Sandra found her, she was a doll. Not a girl.
Flowers at the lovers’ funeral, bouquets of wildflowers on the coffins. One stands empty. They wanted to be buried by the tree. Only fair to respect their memories, despite the absence of his body, despite her father’s fury that he took a child into the carnage. That she was brought back dripping red, mute, and drawing monsters in her schoolbooks. Her family singing the song from that day, the song of Molly Malone and her ghost. First time that she’s spoken at the grave.