The Mime Order (31 page)

“Nick?”

Sweat coated his brow. He was still in his Scion uniform, shaking all over, so pale he looked ill.

“
Jag kunde inte stanna
,” he said faintly. “
Jag kan inte göra det här
. . .” “What’s wrong?” I guided him towards the couch. “What’s happened?” “SciSORS.” Shallow breaths passed his lips. “I can’t work for them for another day, Paige. I can’t.”

A gradual stillness came over him. I sat on the arm of the couch, keeping a gentle grip on his shoulder.

“They got one of the Bone Season prisoners. Ella Parsons. They called my entire department to watch when they brought her in.”

My skin prickled. “Watch what? Nick,
what
?”

“Watch them test Fluxion 18.”

“I thought they were still trying to work out the formula.” It was one of the last snippets of information I’d gleaned from my father about the project.

“They must have sped it up to arm the Vigiles for Novembertide.” His fingers pressed against his temples. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She was vomiting blood, clawing at her hair, biting her fingers. The two senior developers started asking her questions. About you. About the colony.”

A circle of doctors around the gurney. An operating theatre, the spectators in white coats. The anger I felt wasn’t the red, unstable sort, but cold as broken glass.

“Nick,” I said, “did Ella recognize you?”

He hung his head. “She reached out to me before she passed out. They asked if I knew her. I said I’d never seen her before. We were sent back to our labs, but I left early.” Sweat seeped from his
hairline.
“They must have guessed. I’ll be arrested next time I set foot in that place.”

His shoulders were shaking now. I wrapped an arm around him. Scion were stepping up their game.

“Did you know her?” His voice was thick. “Did you, Paige?”

“Not well. She never got past her white tunic. We need to make a plan to get you out of there.”

“But all those years—all that work—”

“How much use are you going to be to anyone when you’re the one on the waterboard? On the gallows?” My breath caught. “That—that wasn’t what your vision was about, was it? With the cuckoo clock?”

“No. I’d have sensed it coming by now.” His hand clinched mine. “I have to get a sample of that drug. I have to know what they put in it. Figure out an antidote.” He took a breath. “There’s more. They’re not just going to target public transport when they introduce Senshield. They’re going for essential services, too. Doctors’ offices, hospitals, homeless shelters, banks. All of them will be equipped with the scanners.”

The news turned my stomach and boiled my blood. Using homeless shelters had always been risky for voyants, but the sheer scale of this attack was appalling. Come the New Year, the vast majority of voyants wouldn’t be able to access basic medical services. With the banks no longer an option, most would have to give up their double lives. The streets would be overrun with gutterlings. I closed my eyes.

“How do you know this?”

“Oh, they told us.” He let out a hollow laugh. “They told us, and you know what we all did, Paige? We gave them a round of applause.”

Hatred bubbled in my gut. They had no right to do this. No right to steal away
our
rights.

Nick’s head came up when an aura registered on his radar. Standing in the bathroom doorway was Warden. Even weak and
tired,
he appeared redoubtable. Nick rose to his feet, his face tight, and drew me closer to him.

“I don’t think I ever introduced you two,” I said.

Nick’s grip tightened. “You didn’t.”

“Right.” I cleared my throat. They’d met once before in the colony, but not for long. “Nick, this is Arcturus Mesarthim, or Warden. Warden, this is Nick Nygård.”

“Dr. Nygård.” Warden inclined his head. “I am sorry not to meet you in a better state. I have heard a great deal about you.”

Nick nodded stiffly. His eyes were rimmed with red, but hard. “All good, I hope.”

“Very.”

There was a pregnant silence. I had a feeling Nick wouldn’t be too happy if he learned how much Warden knew about him—how many of my memories he’d stolen. I had shown him the last one of my own free will, the one that had bared Nick’s soul as well as my own.

“Give me a minute,” I said. “I need my contacts.”

Nick nodded, but he didn’t take his eyes off Warden. I went into the tiny bathroom and pulled on the light cord, leaving the door ajar so I could eavesdrop. The contact lenses sat in liquid on a shelf above the sink. The silence continued for a while before Nick spoke.

“I’ll just come out and say it, Warden. I know you let Paige out of the colony in the end, but that doesn’t mean I have to like or trust you. You could have let her go in Trafalgar Square. I had her in my arms and you took her.”

At least he cut to the chase. I found myself listening for Warden’s response, waiting to see how he would answer the charges.

“Her presence in the old city was necessary,” was the quiet reply. “Paige was my only chance of creating turmoil.”

“So you were using her?”

“Yes. The human insurgents would not have responded to a
Rephaite
leader, with good reason. Paige has a fire of rebellion in her gut. I would have been a fool to overlook it.”

“Or you could have let her go. For her sake. If you cared about her, you would have.”

“Then I would have been forced to use another human for a cat’s paw. Would that have been any more ethical?”

Nick huffed out a laugh. “No. But I don’t think you people are too good with ethics.”

“All ethics come in gray, Dr. Nygård. In your profession, you should know.”

“Meaning?”

This wasn’t going well, and I wasn’t sure I liked being talked about. I went back into the room before Warden could answer, silencing them both.

“Do you want to stay for a while?” I said to Nick.

“No. I should get back to Dials.” He glanced at Warden. “How long have you been away from the den?”

“About an hour.”

“Come with me, then.”

I looked at Warden, and he looked at me. “I don’t know,” I said.

“We’ll make an excuse for you to come back. Just keep Jaxon happy for a while, or he’ll give us a curfew.” He buttoned up his coat. “I’ll wait outside.”

I clenched my jaw as he left.

“Go,” Warden said, very softly. “I left you often enough in the penal colony, with no words of explanation. Manipulate your mime-lord, Paige, as he has spent his life manipulating others. Use him to your advantage.”

“I can’t out-Jaxon him. He’s the master of manipulation.” I stood and swung my jacket on. “Nick’s right about the curfew. I’ll come back when I can.”

“I look forward to it. In the meantime,” he said, “I am sure I will find some way to entertain myself.”

“
You could do that séance.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps I will take a few more hours of peace before the war begins one more.”

There was a light in his eyes that I might have thought playful if he hadn’t been a Rephaite. I couldn’t help but smile as I left him to his own devices.

15

The Minister’s Cat

The minute I walked away from the doss-house again, I wanted to go back. I didn’t want to leave him there alone. Most of all, I didn’t want to scarper back to the den just to keep Jaxon from cutting my pay. My freedom—the freedom I’d fought for, that people had died for—seemed like just as much of a charade in the Seven Seals as in Scion. I was nothing but a dog on Jaxon Hall’s leash.

I couldn’t keep this up for two more years. I wasn’t a good enough actor to keep spinning along in his
danse macabre
. The scrimmage was my only chance to break free of his hold.

We worked our way through Soho. This lattice of backstreets formed the real underbelly of I-4, where the poorest of Jaxon’s people eked out a living or died trying. I kept my head down and my eyes peeled for any sign of unfamiliar couriers.

“Paige,” Nick said, speaking in a low voice, “I don’t trust him.”

“I could tell.”

“I can’t forget that night on the bridge. You pushed him away. You wanted to go home.” He caught my arm, and I stopped dead. “Maybe he had his reasons. Maybe he does want to help you
overthrow
his own kind. But he kept you prisoner for half a year, to use you as his puppet. He threw you into the woods with one of those monsters. He watched them
brand
you—”

“I know. I remember.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, Nick.”

“But you don’t hate him.”

Those pale green eyes could slice down every shield I’d ever raised. “I’ll never forget those things,” I said, “but I want to trust him. If he isn’t on their side, he must be on ours.”

“What’s he going to eat? Aura à gogo? Dreamwalker au gratin? Shall I get him the menu and serve him a busker?”

“Funny.”

“It’s not funny, Paige. That one in the city gave me my first experience of being fast food.”

“He’s not going to feed on us. And there’s no reason under the sun why he’d tell Scion where we are. They’d kill him just as fast as they’d kill me.”

“You do what you like,
sötnos
, but I’m not helping you see him. If anything happened, I’d never forgive myself.”

I didn’t say anything. He couldn’t seem to look at me.

Guilt was written all over him. What they’d done to Ella hadn’t been his fault, but I knew that he would always wonder, in the dark hours, if there was anything he could have done to stop her suffering. And whether he helped me or not, he would think the same if I came to any harm in Warden’s company.

As I thought of it, Liss Rymore and Seb Pearce rose to the front of my mind for the first time in days, and the agony of their deaths erupted afresh. I’d never had a chance to mourn the fallen of that season. Voyants didn’t hold funeral services—it wasn’t in our culture to grieve over an empty corpse—but it might have helped. Given me a chance to say
sorry
and
goodbye
.

I
schooled my expression so it didn’t show. Nick didn’t need my grief on top of his.

As we passed the sundial pillar, with its sad, painted faces, a medium in a long coat whistled from behind a phone booth.

“Pale Dreamer.”

I stopped. It was one of Jaxon’s couriers, someone I recognized. “What is it, Hearts?”

“Got a message for you,” he said, stepping towards us. “From somebody called 9. She says the project’s finished and it’s waiting for you at the location you agreed on.”

Nell’s number. It must be the penny dreadful. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

A mouthful of broken teeth grinned at me. I turned out my empty pockets. With pursed lips, Nick passed him a few coins from his wallet. “When did you get the message?” I said.

“Only ten minutes ago, but the courier who spoke to me said it had taken her two days to deliver the package. The Rag Dolls are checking the pockets of every courier who leaves II-4,” he said. “Took some time to smuggle the envelope out of the section without them noticing, apparently.”

Hearts doffed his hat and stowed the money in his coat before he slunk into an alley. Nick and I waited until his dreamscape was a good distance away before we continued.

“It’s you they’re looking for,” Nick murmured. “Have you ever heard of couriers being searched?”

“No, but we just smuggled a Reph out of their section. They might be feeling paranoid.”

“Exactly. You can’t go back.”

As soon as we were through the red door of the den, Jaxon summoned us to his office. He was sitting in his bergère with his fingers steepled, wearing his favorite brocade lounging robe and a stiff expression. I stood beside Nick and raised my eyebrows.

“
Another stroll, darling?” he said curtly.

“I sent her out to find a busker for me,” Nick said. “He owed us money.”

“I do not want my dreamwalker leaving the den without my express permission, Dr. Nygård. In future, you will send one of the others.” He paused. “Why are you in that ghastly uniform?”

“I came straight from work.” He cleared his throat. “Jax, I think my position in Scion has been compromised.”

Jaxon turned on his chair. “I am listening.”

As Nick explained what had happened, Jaxon picked up a fountain pen and twirled it between the fingers of one hand.

“Much as I despise your moonlighting with Scion, we do need your income, Dr. Nygård,” he concluded. “You had better return to your work next week and continue to feign ignorance. It would only incriminate you further if you were to abandon them now.”

We couldn’t need money that much. Even after what had happened at the black market, I-4 had been running normally. “Jax, he’s in danger,” I said. “What if they arrest him?”

“They won’t, honeybee.”

“You’re raking in a fortune from the buskers’ rent alone. You can’t possibly—”

“You may be my heir, Paige, but unless I’m mistaken, I am currently mime-lord here.” He didn’t deign to look at me. “One glance from a voyant girl is not enough to implicate our oracle in anything.”

“So you’re happy to risk that oracle’s neck for a few more pennies in your coffers?” I said hotly.