Jaxon sat opposite him, smiling, like we were having breakfast again. He couldn’t just leave me in peace.
Vigiles were stationed on both ends of the hall, armed with flux guns. I recognised a few of their faces from the penal colony. One of my guards lifted her staff and rapped it on the floor.
‘Blood-sovereign, I present to you the prisoner, XX-59-40,’ she said, ‘by order of the Commandant-at-Arms.’
‘Seat her,’ Nashira said.
I was taken past the other guests and deposited in a high-backed chair between her and Alsafi, with Gomeisa opposite. Another guard reached for his handcuffs. ‘Should we restrain the prisoner, Suzerain?’
‘No need. 40 is aware that poor behaviour here will result in additional time on the waterboard.’
‘Yes, Suzerain.’
The close call stole my breath. If I had been cuffed, they would have seen the note.
I placed my hands in my lap, out of sight of the rest of the table. As the guards bowed and retreated, Nashira took a good look at me, as if she had forgotten what my face was like. Her corrupted aura was a smoking fire, suffocating mine. Her five spirits were all here, including the poltergeist I recognised from the scrimmage – the poltergeist that had tortured Warden.
She had never had just five. The sixth – the most powerful – was elsewhere in this building.
I dropped my gaze to the gold-rimmed plate in front of me. Every muscle was rigid. I dared not even glance at Alsafi, who was close enough to touch.
Once I left this hall, I might never get near Nashira again. Perhaps I should just carry out my original plan, and try my best to push her spirit out – yet I already sensed that I had been mad to think I could. My gift was stronger than it had been the last time I faced her, but that dreamscape was wrapped in the chainmail of centuries. In my weakened state, barely out of my stupor, I would never do it.
‘Well,’ I said finally, when the silence had outlasted my nerves, ‘this is an unexpected reunion.’
‘You will not speak without the consent of the Suzerain, scum,’ Alsafi said.
His voice was so close that I almost flinched. ‘You have had quite a journey since we last met, 40,’ Nashira said. ‘The raid of a well-protected factory in Manchester, an Archon official murdered, and the infiltration of a depot kept secret and secure for decades. You must have thought you had come very close to unlocking the secret of Senshield.’
I tried to keep my face blank. One wrong glance, one uneasy shiver, and she might guess that I was still trying.
From behind my hair, I risked a glance at Warden’s one-time betrothed, the creator of Scion. She wore all black, slashed with gold at the sleeves and stitched with chips of topaz that glistered in the gloom, as if she was wrapped in a bodice of starlight. Her long hair was bound at the side of her neck, each lock like a coil of fine brass wires.
‘I understand why it became your target. Of course . . . it was always a doomed endeavour. The core is indestructible.’ Liar, I thought, remembering Vance’s dreamscape and that flicker of fear.
Across the table, the second blood-sovereign – Liss’s murderer – didn’t say a word.
Gomeisa, Warden of the Sargas, was unquestionably the most disturbing of the Rephaim. None of them looked old – they were ageless creatures – but Gomeisa had a bone structure that lent gravitas to his features, haunting them with cruel insight. Deep hollows lay beneath his prominent cheekbones. His eyes were pressed deep into his head, where they glowed in their sockets.
He had watched the massacre in Dublin. It had been Vance’s strategy, but his desire.
‘You were wise to give yourself up,’ Nashira said. ‘Now, the war and bloodshed the Mime Order wanted to bring to these isles will be avoided.’
Under the table, I moved my hand until it brushed against Alsafi’s thigh. His own hands had been clasped on the table, but now he sat back just slightly.
‘22,’ Nashira said, ‘won’t you perform for us?’
I turned to look behind me. 22, one of the red-jackets from the colony, was in the corner, dressed impeccably in Scion colours. It took me a moment to focus on his face – and to see that his lips were sewn closed.
‘You may remember 22,’ Nashira said to me, expressionless. ‘His duty was to secure the Residence of the Suzerain after your rabble fled. Sadly, he allowed a Ranthen assassin to breach the walls.’
I did remember him. He had been at the feast she had held for the red-jackets. He bowed and sat dutifully at the grand piano.
Out of sight, a gloved hand touched my wrist. I pushed the note from between my fingers, into his grasp.
‘Perhaps,’ Jaxon said, lighting a cigar, ‘we should tell Paige about Sheol II, blood-sovereign.’
My heart quickened. Nashira gave Jaxon the smallest nod; he offered a gracious smile in return.
‘You should know, darling,’ Jaxon said, ‘that despite your rebellion, the Rephaim still mean to protect us, as they promised they would in 1859.’ His cigar glowed. ‘To that end, they are building a new Sheol in France, to deal with the threat of the Emim. So you see, the Suzerain has mended the mess you made in September. And now that you have been removed from the situation, the Mime Order will not interfere.’
Across the room, 22 had been playing a parlour song. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the notes took a different form.
Just two verses, heavily embellished, disguised so you might miss it if you didn’t know it well.
It was ‘Molly Malone’, but not the original version of the song that most people around the table would be familiar with. It was the melody the rebels had used in mourning, which was slower and darker – I would know it anywhere. We had sung it in memory of Finn and Kayley. For a fleeting instant, I was reminded of home, the home Scion had destroyed. And it strengthened me.
‘Enough of this charade,’ Gomeisa said, cutting off the music. ‘It is time to inform 40 of her fate.’
Ice crept into my fingertips.
‘Yes.’ Nashira’s eyes were like uncut emerald in the gloom. ‘The time for . . . persuasion is over.’
My body became too aware of its blood.
‘XX-59-40, we have given you numerous opportunities to save yourself. It is clear to us that you are beyond reform; that you will not recant your support for the ideology of the Ranthen; that you remain wilfully ignorant of the threat posed by the Emim. Keeping you alive would be a mockery of Scion’s laws.’ She beckoned one of the Vigiles, who unravelled a handwritten document and set it down in front of me. ‘In ten days’ time, on the first of January, you will be executed. Here in the Archon.’
The document was a death warrant, signed by the Grand Judge. My gaze skimmed over it, picking out words like condemnation and abomination. Jaxon’s hand tightened on the top of his cane.
‘Your spirit will remain with me,’ Nashira said, ‘as my fallen angel. Perhaps you will learn, then, to obey.’