A Great Emptiness

A GREAT EMPTINESS

For a long while, Warden and I maintained a chilly silence. He never ordered me to train. Every night, I would leave Magdalen as soon as the bell rang, ignoring him. He didn’t stop me. I almost wished he would try – frankly, I was in the mood for a fight.

Pleione had served that unreadable up like a nice cup of mecks, to be drained at his pleasure. Warden might pretend to take an interest in my life, but humans were just things to him. I had been a fool to save him once, let alone twice.

Warden was stealing out to fight Buzzers. I didn’t know why it mattered, but it must.

Unfortunately, I had no proof. I had searched in vain for even a speck. The floor had been scrupulously cleaned, the bedding changed. Warden could safely call my bluff.

My first attempt to outflank my keeper had officially gone down in flames. I would take it on the chin and win the upper hand another way.

As the days passed, my resentment of him kept simmering. Each time I glimpsed him, I was tempted to sell him out, with or without evidence. All that stopped me was a greater hatred of Nashira.

The attic was getting colder. I refused to ask Warden for help, so I handled it as best I could, wrapping myself up tight in the bedding.

By day, I dreamed of the past, memories dripping into my sleep. The flux must have sprung a leak in my dreamscape. Jaxon had never said that was possible, but nothing else made sense. When I woke from hazy dreams of Seven Dials, I would hug my knees to my chest and wait for my heart to slow down, tasting salt.

I had given up hope that the others were coming. It had been too long. Jaxon would go to great lengths to protect me, but it would never cross his mind that I could be in the lost city, of all places.

No, he would assume I had been executed. The Pale Dreamer was dead.

Three weeks into giving Warden the silent treatment, I woke suddenly, not knowing why. For once, my sleep had been dreamless.

I listened. It was raining hard; the clattering on the roof must have roused me. Still groggy, I covered my head with the pillow.

A drop of water landed on my arm. Groping for the lamp, I turned the flame up and squinted at the ceiling. Another drop splashed on to my nose, making me blink.

Of course. First a leaky dreamscape, and now a real leak in the roof. As I moved my bed out of the way, I imagined the water rotting the rafters, collapsing the whole tower on top of Arcturus Mesarthim.

Spring came late in this prison. It brought a watery sun, but no warmth. A few April showers blew in and froze, leaving the cobbles slippery with ice. Tilda took a fall and sprained her ankle.

The ice silvered the lost city. More than once, I got up before dusk to wander on the lawns of Magdalen – to see the copper sunlight on the frost, hear the ground crunch and crack underfoot.

Once I glimpsed Warden from a distance, on a solitary walk of his own. When our eyes met, I headed in the other direction.

One clear evening, Liss made a rare excursion to the outskirts, armed with a basket and a lantern, taking me and Julian with her. We met in the Rookery and walked north on Walton Street.

‘Terebell lets me forage,’ Liss explained, ‘but she isn’t on duty too often. Tilda said she’s there tonight.’

‘Tell me her nickname is Terrible,’ Julian said.

Liss smiled. ‘No, she’s actually quite decent, for a Reph – I’ve never seen her raise a hand to a human. She mostly keeps to Oriel.’

In Port Meadow, Terebell Sheratan stood alone, guarding the sally port. When she gave us a curt nod, we followed the outer perimeter of the ethereal fence, our boots sinking into thick mud.

After a while, we slowed to watch a group of red-jackets running laps in the central arena. Another Reph sent a spool to chase them. The way she was dressed struck me as particularly martial.

‘Merope Sualocin,’ Liss said. ‘Balliol.’

Julian blew into his hands. ‘Dare I ask what they’re all doing?’

‘Group exercise. It’s not just spirit combat they need in Gallows Wood.’

‘Trinity has a gym and grounds. I see people exercising all the time.’

‘Merope does regular drills and assessments to make sure no one is slacking off. You’ll start them with her soon, so she can bring you up to snuff. After that, it’s your responsibility to stay there.’

‘Speaking of which,’ I said, ‘any word on your first test, Jules?’

Julian shook his head. ‘Layla refused to take hers a few days ago. She’s still at Trinity, but Aludra gave her a yellow tunic.’

‘Good for her. In the Rookery, we see it as a sign of courage, not cowardice.’ Liss glanced at me. ‘Still no training, Paige?’

‘Just the once,’ I said.

‘I find that very odd. It’s been weeks.’

‘If they have all the time in the world, why rush?’

Everyone agreed the Rephs were immortal – or more durable than humans, at least. Duckett swore that none of them had aged a day in forty years.

‘Well,’ Liss said, ‘unless they want to retrain us harlies, they need more red-jackets.’

‘Their life expectancy must be short,’ Julian said.

‘The Rephs do try to keep them alive, but you’ve seen what the Buzzers can do. Trinity and Queens definitely need more soldiers.’

‘Can I ask how many people were in your Bone Season?’

‘That’s a layered question. It was chaotic, to put it mildly.’ Liss kept walking, and we followed. ‘After the Novembertide rebellion, the Rephs had no human tributes. From what I’ve heard, Scion rounded up some voyants and Vigiles and sent them to hold the fort, then bulked up the garrison over several years.’

‘That must have unnerved Scion,’ I said. ‘Nashira broke the terms of their arrangement.’

‘I doubt anyone cared. By 2049, it was business as usual. They sent the standard tribute of voyants and amaurotics – a long hundred, including me. That year was the official start of the Bone Season.’

Julian nodded. ‘So that’s how some people have been here longer than ten years.’

‘Aye, even if their numbers say otherwise.’

Liss paused to cough from her chest. Julian and I gave her worried looks.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘There’s yet another cold in the Rookery.’

‘Here.’ I offered my canteen. ‘I got it from Duckett.’

‘Oh, thank you.’

Julian held the lantern for her. ‘If you were a late arrival, how are you number 1?’

‘The original 1 was dead by the time I arrived. Gomeisa gave me her number.’ Liss drank. ‘Since things were back under control, the support Vigiles were transferred to a new outpost, Winterbrook.’

‘Nashira must have been rattled, to shake things up that badly.’ I pocketed my hands. ‘Liss, did you ever hear about any Rephs being involved in that rebellion?’

She frowned. ‘What makes you ask that?’

‘David heard a rumour. It might explain why she came down so hard on the rebellion.’

‘I’ve not heard that myself. Why would they revolt against their own?’

I had wondered the same.

‘I think she just wanted to wipe the slate clean,’ Liss said. ‘I don’t know how future Bone Seasons will look, but yours was smaller than we expected.’

I exchanged a glance with Julian.

From what I could sense, about three hundred of us were imprisoned here. In contrast, there were between thirty and sixty Rephs at any given time. Some only visited for a few days before leaving.

I wasn’t fool enough to think our numbers would even the odds, but our Bone Season had been small, considering how many people must have been killed on Novembertide. Even with Gallows Wood shrinking it, Oxford was too big for this skeleton army.

The Rephs were holding on to the bare minimum of humans. Just enough of us to keep the city running. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it was interesting.

Gallows Wood was made up of thick Scots pines and knotted oaks, interspersed with birch and horse chestnut. Liss lit two oil lamps for me and Julian, then pulled on a pair of mittens and unhooked a pair of blunt clippers from her belt.

While she tackled a jumble of nettles, I went up to the trees and plucked moss from a trunk. This was the closest I had ever been to the forest that surrounded our prison. It looked unremarkable, but I could have sworn the night was colder at its edge.

There had been a few sirens over the last few weeks. Each time, by a stroke of luck, I had already been in Magdalen.

‘I need chickweed, if you see any,’ Liss called. ‘Do you know it?’ I nodded. ‘I wish I could get willow bark. It’s so good for headaches.’

Julian picked a few dandelion leaves. ‘Why can’t you now?’

‘A cold spot formed near the old willow. I can’t risk it.’ Seeing our confusion, she said, ‘I’d better let Warden and Aludra tell you about that.’

I brought her the moss. ‘If Warden ever deigns to speak to me again.’

Liss took it. ‘Did something happen?’

I almost told her. It would feel good to betray him, but a secret like this could be dangerous. Better not to involve Liss and Julian, for now.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s just a dryshite.’

Julian grinned, while Liss laughed herself into a coughing fit. It was so unexpected that I smiled, too. I had rarely seen her cut loose before then.

We stayed there for a while, looking for hedge garlic and bittercress. I sniffed every leaf, hoping to find the herb in the green pill.

A terrible sound rose from deep in the woods. Julian and I both held still as it screamed on and on, splintering the air, then dwindled, leaving a faint echo. My whole body prickled with chills.

‘Time to go.’ Liss rose with her basket. ‘Come on. I’ll make us dandelion soup.’

As Julian trained harder with Aludra, he had less and less time to visit the Rookery. Liss was often on the stage. In their absence, I spoke to some of the performers from the previous Bone Season.

None of them knew a way out of the city, of course. According to Cyril, a cartomancer had once broken into a sewer in a desperate attempt to leave.

‘The Overseer made her use her own cards in performances,’ he said in a hushed tone. ‘She did flourishes with them, that sort of thing.’

‘I remember her,’ Guy said gruffly. Other than Duckett, he was the oldest human in the city, a tailor from Leeds. ‘Beltrame would let other voyants bend and scratch her cards. That was her last straw.’

‘He’s vile,’ I said. ‘Does that sort of thing happen often?’

‘No, but she was at Corpus. Thuban always finds ways to torture his tenants, even if he evicts them.’

‘As soon as they realised where she’d gone, the Rephs sealed her in,’ Cyril said. ‘Her bones must still be down there now.’

‘Likely.’ Guy gave me a stern look. ‘Learn from this, Paige. Trying to escape leads to nothing but trouble.’

Guy was a dactylomancer, a voyant who used rings to reach the æther. In exchange for a whole pouch of them, he bulked up my gilet with bird feathers.

Most of the performers were resigned to their fates. This prison had stood for two centuries. In that time, to their knowledge, not one person had escaped.

Still, three years as a criminal had taught me to think I could get out of anything. Thanks to Jaxon, I also had a strong belief that I was exceptional.

So I started my own long search of the city. I climbed to several rooftops to consider it from above. I explored as many buildings as I could break and enter, finding most of them unfurnished or burned out. The amaurotics cleaned a few of the locked buildings, presumably so they would be ready for visiting Rephs.

It worried me that they were out in the world, doing who knew what.

I also ventured beyond the lamplight, eluding the guards. Gallows Wood shaped and surrounded the city; I wanted to see how.

To the south, the trees came up to a flood meadow behind the House. To the north, I could walk no farther than a marshy path called Trap Lane. To the west and east respectively, Scion had grown the forest up to the banks of two rivers, the Acheron and the narrow Cherwell. The Cherwell ran past Magdalen and coursed up to Divinity Gardens, a walled park reserved for the Rephs.

Most of Gallows Wood had high fencing around it, but there were gaping holes and weaknesses. I spotted two more sirens.

During those solitary excursions, I never set foot in the forest. Once I understood its boundaries, I stopped going to the outskirts and turned my attention back to the lamplight.

The Old Library was my greatest temptation. Fronted by the Townsend, it was a grim and ponderous building, waiting for an age of free thought to return. One entrance had no boards, but it was locked.

I did like a challenge.

Duckett had no screwdriver in his shop, so I traded my pills for a few lengths of scrap wire. Liss lent me a pair of tongs when I asked. With these makeshift tools, I returned to my room and began to make lockpicks.

I worked on those picks every day for a week. Once my set was ready, I waited.

My chance came on a night of heavy rain. I went alone to the Old Library. With the wind gusting around me, I broke the padlock with a brick. Next, I used my picks, working until my fingers hurt and I was drenched from head to toe. The lock was old enough that I soon got inside.

The Old Library had been stripped. In the early days of Scion, there had been thousands of biblioclasms, scouring all traces of unnaturalness or dissent from literature. Now these grand bookshelves stood empty. The dust in here was so thick it scratched at the back of my throat.

I carried a handheld lamp, one of my acquisitions from Duckett. A short way into the library, I put it down and dried my hands over its flame. This was the last item he had given me in exchange for the green pills. Apparently he was satisfied with his stockpile.

I refused to run pointless errands for anyone. If I needed any more of his items, I would find a way to steal them.

While the storm raged, I explored. Only a few books remained, packed tight on a shelf. I picked one up and traced its title: The Turn of the Screw. With care, I leafed to a random page, reading its small print.

The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness.

I closed the book. All that risk and finicking, all for a great emptiness. Still, I was clearly the first person to have set foot in the Old Library in a while. A place to hide, or store things, could be valuable.

As a last resort, I opened each book and skimmed the foxed pages, searching for notes. When I came up empty-handed, I went flat on my stomach and slid a hand into the space under the shelf.

My first reward was a small glass jar. I opened it to find black ink, which smelled of marzipan. Next came the dip pen. Now scenting a reward, I reached as far as I could.

And there it was.

A leather-bound diary, splayed on the floor. I brought it out and blew dust off it.

My hopes had been too high. Someone had torn the pages out, sparing only the flyleaf. In the corner was a blurred sketch – something that could once have been a face, now smeared and disfigured. A tiny message was scrawled beside it. I held it to the light of my lamp.

How long will they haunt me for what I have done?

The crabbed writing gave me a shiver. The traitor could have written this. I wished there was a bibliomancer in the city, so they could try using this book as a numen.

Sitting with my lamp, I took a bit of stale toke from my pocket and gnawed it. It had been a while since I was last on my own. To my irritation, Warden had stopped disappearing. He was always reading or writing in the parlour, which meant I could never sit by the fire.

His injuries were still a mystery to me. Clearly he was fighting the Buzzers – but why keep that a secret when they were the enemy?

Why hide it from his own consort?

Pleione had brought him the unreadable. She must have known he would get hurt. Whatever he was doing, he was doing it in her confidence.

Warden had a secret, but I had one as well. I was hiding my link to the voyant underworld – a nest of traitors Nashira would want to burn away. I would live with his silence so he would fail to notice mine.

Somehow I drifted off on the floor, my head on a stack of books. Even in London, I had never slept enough – Jaxon had always overworked us.

A rough shake brought me back to reality.

‘Paige!’

Liss was in front of me, eyes wide. I rubbed mine, confused by the brightness.

‘What?’

‘You overslept,’ she hissed. ‘It’s nearly ten in the morning. Warden sent the red-jackets to look for you.’

Now I was wide awake.

‘You’re lucky they didn’t find you before I did,’ Liss said, taking my arm to drag me up. ‘You’re not supposed to be in the Old Library.’

‘I picked the lock.’ I scraped my hair back. ‘Liss, it’s fine. Warden ignores me.’

‘He’s ignored you because you’ve kept your head down. Now you need to beg forgiveness. Even then, he might punish you.’

‘I won’t beg him for anything.’

‘You’re going to have to swallow that muckle great ego of yours.’ Liss glared at me. ‘Grit your teeth and beg. You need to live.’ She grabbed my hands, staring. ‘If he sees ink on you, he’ll know where you’ve been. Come to my place first. We’ll get this off.’

‘Liss, no. You’ll get in—’

‘Better they find you with me than realise where you really were,’ Liss said firmly. ‘We’ll get you out quick. There’s a secret way you can use.’

I kicked the diary back under the bookshelf, hiding the evidence. We ran down the steps, back into the open.

In the Townsend, Liss held me back. Once the coast was clear, we ran towards the edge of the Rookery. Liss forced two plywood boards apart, and we squeezed into a crawl space, thick with dust and rat droppings, emerging in the passage by her shack.

Julian waited inside, a bowl of skilly on his knee. He looked up when we ducked inside.

He was wearing a pink tunic.

‘Jules,’ Liss said, despairing. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Aludra sent me to help find Paige,’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Apparently the reds were having trouble by themselves.’

‘Glad to give them something to do.’ I sat beside him. ‘Happy to see me?’

‘If only to remind me to get myself an alarm clock from Duckett,’ he said drily.

‘They’ll check the Rookery again soon,’ Liss warned. ‘Jules, you should go.’

Julian stayed where he was, toying with the stiff button at his throat. I gave him a nudge.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Aludra took me to Nashira a few days ago.’ He glanced at me with tired eyes. ‘She asked me what I was. I don’t know for sure, and I told her so. They brought an amaurotic into the testing chamber and told me if I tried to hide my gift, this woman—’

I nodded.

‘I panicked,’ Julian said, looking grim. ‘I guessed making up a vision was my best way to get us both out alive, so I said I was a hydromancer.’ (Whatever Julian was, he was not that.) ‘I’m not sure if Nashira believed me, but she played along. She filled a basin and told me to look for somebody called Antoinette Carter.’

I frowned. ‘Toni Carter?’

Julian frowned back. ‘You know her?’

‘Not personally.’

‘Should I know who she is?’

‘She was a celebrity in Ireland before the Dublin Incursion.’ I kept my tone steady, casual. ‘My aunt used to watch her chat show.’

‘The mighty Suzerain,’ Julian said, sceptical, ‘is trying to find a chat-show host?’

‘That’s what I’m telling you.’

‘For … a chat?’

‘Carter used to tell her guests’ fortunes. She would predict the outcomes of elections, break the news before anyone else. Either she was a gifted fraud, or she was voyant. She was also outspoken against Scion.’

‘She’s a fugitive now, then?’

‘Unless she’s dead, yes.’

Jaxon had told me most of this. I barely remembered, being so young when I left.

After the Molly Riots, Carter had gone into hiding. She had been linked to a pamphlet called Stingy Jack in Dublin, which had condemned our conquerors. Jaxon had got wind of it and taken an interest.

All this could still be connected to him. Last spring, he had paid our local jarker to establish contact with Carter. I had never heard the outcome. Leon was good at his job – he must have associates in Ireland – but it could take weeks or months to get a message across Scion.

Jaxon had never explained why he wanted to meet Carter, but I could guess. Her gift had intrigued him, even from afar. He could never resist his instinct to sort every voyant into a neat box.

‘So she told you to find Carter,’ I prompted Julian. ‘What did you tell her?’

‘I repeated what Carl said. I’d run into him,’ he explained. ‘He couldn’t help but brag about the pillar he saw. I gave Nashira the same description, with a few tweaks so it wouldn’t sound identical.’

‘Carl was scrying for a mime-lord, not Antoinette Carter.’

‘Well, it still worked. I passed.’ When he saw my face, he frowned again. ‘What is it?’

Liss came back with a tin bucket of rainwater, saving me from having to answer.

‘Let’s get that ink off,’ she said. ‘Julian, can you stop them coming this way?’

‘I can try.’

He gave me a quick look, then got up and left. Liss offered me a bar of soap.

‘It’s paraffin wax,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope it works.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

I scrubbed at the ink, rinsing the grey suds away in the water. It was stubborn. Seeing my predicament, Liss handed me a brush with hard bristles. I tried to thank her, but suddenly my throat felt tight.

Liss had been abandoned by the syndicate, her family left to starve on the streets. If she ever learned who I was, she would never speak to me again.

Because I wasn’t just any mollisher. I served the White Binder, the man whose pamphlet had sown resentment and pain among voyants. The creator of a hierarchy that dumped her on the lowest rung.

‘Paige,’ Liss said, watching me, ‘you need to be more careful.’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘No, you listen to me.’ She moved to kneel in front of me and grasped my elbows tight. ‘I’ve been training for the Bicentenary. If Nashira is going to kill you, she’ll want to make a spectacle of it, to keep us browbeaten for another decade. Why not then?’

It made sense.

‘If I’m right about her intentions,’ Liss said, ‘you only have a few months to build your strength, to give yourself a chance that night.’ Her dark gaze drilled into mine. ‘Just do your training and stop antagonising Rephs. Will you promise you’ll do that for me?’

I glanced away, clenching my jaw.

‘I don’t know how you’ve done it for so long,’ I said. ‘Ten years, Liss.’

‘Probably the same way you survived London.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me an Irish lass never learned to bite her tongue.’

‘Maybe that’s why I can’t do it again here.’

‘I’m not saying it isn’t hard.’ Liss moved one hand to grasp my shoulder. ‘You and Julian are my first new friends in years. I don’t want to lose you. Promise me that you’ll do everything you can to live.’

From the catch in her voice, she meant it. I felt worse than ever for keeping my secret.

‘I promise,’ I said. ‘I’ve no intention of dying here.’

‘Good. If your hope is alive, so are you.’ She handed me a cloth. ‘You’ll need to take that passage out of here. Go straight back to Magdalen. Grab that shawl in the corner and use it to cover your tunic.’

She went to get rid of the soapy water. I headed the other way.

The passage took me back outside. I hid from the people gathered on the Broad, all blinking in the daylight, and sprinted down Turl Street, past Exeter, hoping nobody would look out of its windows.

Another derelict building loomed to my left. With my back pressed to it, I glanced on to Magdalen Walk. It was deserted. Not a good sign – I would stick out.

There were dreamscapes on all sides. The red-jackets must have fanned out to search for me. I drew the shawl over my hair and covered my tunic. Holding my nerve, I strode towards Magdalen.

Warden was there. I sensed him. I quickened my step, steeling myself for pain. He must know that I had no leverage and no protection. If he wanted to punish me, I had no way to stop him.

‘What have we here?’

I stopped. A Reph had stalked out from the Porters’ Lodge.

‘Suhail,’ I said, stunned.

The æther had failed me. He was right there, yet there was no trace of his dreamscape.

Just one more impossibility.

‘You look better than when I saw you last, 40,’ Suhail said. I took off my threadbare disguise. ‘I understand I almost deprived you of a leg. Even with both intact, it appears you cannot find your way back to your residence. Where were you?’

‘I’ll tell Warden,’ I said. ‘He’s my keeper.’

‘Arcturus has waited since sunrise. I am confident he can wait longer.’

He stepped towards me. I stepped back.

‘Aludra is my cousin. You dared to walk in her dreamscape,’ Suhail said. ‘I intend to answer this insult to my family.’

‘You already punished me for that. As you’ve pointed out, I almost lost my leg.’

‘That was for your insolence to the blood-sovereign.’

‘Yes, and I hear she was pissed off about it.’ I kept backing away. ‘I was taking a test, Suhail. Warden didn’t punish me.’

‘Perhaps Arcturus has grown tired of you. He has not trained you in weeks, to my knowledge. I suspect he intends to evict you from Magdalen,’ Suhail said. ‘I would be happy to relieve him of you. Clearly you require a stronger master.’

Just then, a group of red-jackets came sprinting down Magdalen Walk. They must have seen me from Exeter. Julian followed with Guy and a sober Tilda, who wore a yellow tunic.

‘Paige,’ Julian called. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Don’t interfere.’ A red-jacket lifted her baton in warning. ‘No names.’

Suhail considered the small crowd before fixing his gaze on me again. I willed him to let it go.

‘Perhaps it is well that we have witnesses.’ Suhail raised his voice to the others: ‘Hours since the day bell, and none of you could locate 40. Exeter Company, how do you explain yourselves?’

‘We came as soon as we saw her,’ one of the red-jackets said. ‘Forgive us, my lord.’

‘Not yet. Observe as I deal her punishment now,’ Suhail said. ‘You will meet the same fate soon, when I inform your keepers of your failure.’

He turned to strike me. Like a blade on a spring, I snapped out to meet him.

Suhail had not expected me to attack him in broad daylight. Aludra must have described her experience to him, but knowing something – that was different from feeling my spirit coming towards him, colliding with his dreamscape. I had the element of surprise.

It had been too long since I had dreamwalked on Port Meadow. I couldn’t hold out. Jolting back to myself, I found my back cushioned by a chest, strong arms steadying me. Julian had managed to break through the line of red-jackets and catch my body.

I blinked away a storm of flashing lights, grasping my chest. My heart kicked at my palm. When my vision cleared, I stared.

Suhail Chertan had fallen to the ground.

The other humans stood in silence, frozen in shock. As we all gaped at him, Suhail rose and towered over us, his eyes flickering like fire.

‘Now you’ve really done it,’ Julian croaked.

I nodded, swallowing.

The red-jackets leapt back to life. They wrestled Julian away from me, abandoning me to my fate. Tilda and Guy both shouted in protest as Suhail bore down on me and gripped me hard by the nape.

‘You,’ he said, his eyes turning red, ‘have just made your last mistake, 40.’

He wrenched me into Magdalen.