A plaque on a heavy door read RIVER ROOM. One of the Vigiles knocked and pushed it open. Inside, honeyed light poured through windows overlooking the Thames, slicing between blood-red damask curtains. It gleamed on marble busts and a glass vase of nasturtium.
I stopped in my tracks. He wore a waistcoat the same red as those curtains, sewn with complex foliate patterns. He didn’t look up from his book when he spoke.
‘Hello, darling.’
My legs wouldn’t move. The Vigiles took hold of my arms and bundled me into the opposite seat.
‘Would you like her restrained, Grand Overseer?’
‘Oh, no need for that sort of tomfoolery. My erstwhile mollisher would never be so foolish as to run.’ Jaxon still didn’t look up. ‘If you wished to be even modestly useful, however, you can remind your underlings to bring the breakfast I ordered twenty-six minutes ago.’
The Vigiles’ visors concealed most of their faces, but I heard one of them mutter something about ‘bloody unnaturals’ as they exited the room.
An unruly stack of paper sat on the table to my left. Between us was a silver teapot on a lace tablecloth. A surveillance camera was reflected in its side.
Jaxon finally laid his book aside. Prometheus and Pandora was printed down the spine.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Here we are, Paige. How things have changed since our last meeting. How far you have wandered.’
I took a good look at him. His face was ashen and slightly pinched, and a hint of grey had crept into the roots of his hair. He had lost at least a stone since I had last seen him.
‘So,’ I said, ‘am I here so you can twist the knife? One last laugh before the end?’
‘I would never be so crass.’
‘Yes, you would.’
Even his smirk was somewhat diminished. Whatever his title, he was a human among Rephaim. Even if he was their ally, he would never be their equal. And if there was one thing Jaxon despised, one thing that would eat away at him, it was being anyone’s inferior. This must be slowly killing him.
‘Before we have our heart-to-heart,’ he said, ‘I want to ask you something. Where did you move my syndicate?’
Well, at least he had got straight to the point.
‘ScionIDE has noticed a conspicuous absence of voyants on the street. This give rise to the assumption that they have been relocated – but where?’ He reclined in his chair. ‘I confess to frustration. London is my obsession, a place I believed I knew in exhaustive detail – yet somehow, you have found them a way to elude the anchor. Enlighten me, Underqueen.’
‘You don’t really think I’d tell you.’
I sounded calm, but tremors were shooting through my body. His gaze dipped back to me, taking in my wretched appearance.
‘Very well. If you mean to play coy,’ he said, ‘we will have to find another topic of conversation. Your turn.’ When I didn’t speak, he smiled in a way that jolted me back to Seven Dials. ‘Come, now, Paige. You were always insatiably curious. You must have questions . . . questions that are burning up your mind as you lie there in confinement.’
‘I don’t know where to begin.’ I paused. ‘Where are Nadine and Zeke?’
It wasn’t my most burning question, but it was important.
‘Safe. They came to find me after you cast them out on to the streets.’
‘If they’re in Sheol II—’
‘Sheol II does not quite exist yet.’ He scratched his forearm idly. ‘You did sink your claws into the others, though, didn’t you? Danica, usually so pragmatic – although I hear she’s fled the citadel. Clever woman. Nick and Eliza – they proved themselves to be great admirers of yours.’
I lifted an eyebrow. ‘Jealous?’
‘Not particularly. If the footage I saw from Edinburgh is anything to go by, they have received their just deserts.’
They had to be alive. They had to be.
Jaxon leaned towards me and touched the coil of black at the front of my hair. It was all I had left of the dye he had given me to disguise myself when I had returned from the colony.
‘A memento, darling?’
‘A reminder.’ I pulled my head back. ‘That I once let you control me.’
He chuckled. ‘Oh, you flatter me.’
A soft knock came, and a line of personnel entered, carrying in the Grand Overseer’s breakfast. Ever the epicure. French toast with berry compote; teacakes and whipped butter; then a silver tureen of cream, a pot of coffee, a dish of curried hard-boiled eggs and fresh, thick-cut bread. Jaxon waved the personnel away.
‘Every revolution begins with breakfast,’ I quoted as they left. ‘Is this your revolution, Jaxon?’
‘I was under the impression it was yours. A failed revolution,’ he said, ‘but you tried.’
‘I expected to see more of you. You were full of fighting talk when I saw you in the Archon.’
‘I came to the conclusion that there was little point in starting a war-game with you. I knew the syndicate would tear you to pieces of its own accord, if Vance didn’t destroy you first.’ He assessed me with those pale-blue eyes. ‘Did you really think you could oust Scion with nothing more than a band of criminals, in their own heartland? This is real life, darling, not a pipe-dream.’ He poured cream into a cup. ‘Eat. Let me tell you a story.’
‘About what?’
‘Me.’
‘Jax, I don’t have long left on this earth. I really don’t want to spend my last days hearing about you.’
‘Would you rather lie about in a cell, lamenting your doomed love for Arcturus Mesarthim?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Paige, Paige. I know you. Nashira told me all about your embrace,’ he said. Heat crept up my nape. ‘You may not care to admit it, but your heart is as soft as your fa?ade is ruthless.’
‘Let’s not make rash judgements, Jaxon. You of all people know how hard my heart is.’
‘True. I imagine he’s been useful to you. I would probably choose a cold-blooded Rephaite myself, had I the time or inclination to pursue a star-crossed love affair.’ He added coffee to the cream. ‘Now, let us begin. The tale of a humble young man, stolen from the streets, who you no doubt heard many whispers of when you were in the colony.’
I didn’t argue any more.
‘When I was not much younger than you, I began writing the pamphlet that would one day change my life. On the Merits of Unnaturalness, the first document to carefully divide the orders of clairvoyance and rank their superiority. I hope you haven’t been insulting me by thinking that the Rephaim dictated it,’ he added. ‘The work, the research, the hours of pondering and agonising, the genius, are mine. It was how they discovered me.’
The record player switched to a soprano rendition of ‘Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes’.
‘It soon attracted the attention of the Rephaim, most likely because so much of it was correct. I was arrested for the creation and distribution of seditious literature. After a brief detainment in the Tower, I was transported to Sheol I, where I became a pink-jacket almost immediately. My number was 7. I suppose the Ranthen still call me by it.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They call you the arch-traitor.’
He clicked his tongue. ‘I never thought Rephaim were capable of such histrionics.’
I thought of the scars I had felt on Warden, the ones that still burned him, and I loathed the man before me all the more.