The Mime Order (51 page)

Cold against my fingers. Vibrations through my dream-form. His vision of me, in direct contact with his vision of himself. I had to remember that they weren’t my fingers, though they looked exactly like the ones I knew. These were my hands only as Warden perceived them. I let them rest against his face for a long while, tracing the firm lips and carved jaw.

“Take heed, dreamwalker.” He lifted a hand to cover mine. “Self-portraits are as fragile as mirrors.”

His
resonant voice shook me to the core, snapping me out of it. When I returned to my body, I swung my legs over the edge of the couch, my chest heaving. Doing this without the mask was still diffi- cult, teaching my body how to hold out without its most basic functions. Warden watched me from a distance until I got a handle on it.

“You—” I caught my breath, one hand against my chest. “Why do you see yourself like that?”

“I cannot see my own dream-form. I confess myself intrigued.”

“It’s like a statue, but scarred, like someone’s taken a chisel to it. To you.” A frown creased my brow. “Is that how you see yourself?”

“In a sense. Years as a blood-consort to Nashira Sargas certainly eroded my sanity, if nothing else.” He touched his thumb to my cheekbone. “You will not need to break from your body entirely during the scrimmage. Remember what I taught you. Leave enough of yourself behind to keep your life functions working.”

I didn’t miss his avoidance, but I’d already invaded his privacy. “I don’t understand how.” I rested my head against his shoulder. “I can’t split my spirit between two bodies.”

“You did it in the music hall. Do not think of it as splitting yourself,” he said, “but leaving a shadow behind.”

In the moonlight, we watched one another for a while. One of us should have gone, but neither of us did. His fingers grazed a line from my temple to my neck, stroking downward to where the collar of my shirt fell open above my breasts. Emotion pulsed through the cord, too complex to pull apart.

“You look exhausted.” The words rumbled through his chest.

“It’s been a long day.” I held his gaze. “Warden, I need you to promise me something.”

He only looked at me. I’d asked him for a favor once before, facing death at the hands of his fiancée.

If she kills me, you have to let the others know. You have to lead them.

I
will not need to lead them.

“If I lose the scrimmage,” I said, “make sure the gray market ends. Whatever it is.”

It was a while before he answered. “I will do what I can, Paige. I will always do what I can.”

That was all could ask. His touch strayed to the brand on my shoulder, the six digits that had been my name.

“You were a slave once,” he said. “Do not be a slave to fear, Paige Mahoney. Make the gift your own.”

****

That night was a first. I’d never slept at someone’s side, with their aura wrapped around mine like a second skin. It took a while for my sixth sense to adjust to his proximity. My defenses kept rising, set on edge by his dreamscape. I imagined that this was what it would be like to sleep on a ship, adrift on a surface that never quite stopped shifting. More than once I woke disoriented, hearing another heartbeat near my ear, warmer than I would have been alone.

The first time I panicked, and his eyes gave me such a fierce reminder of Sheol I that I rolled off the couch and made a grab for my knife. Warden watched in silence, waiting for me to remember. Afterward, he let me lie with my back against his chest, making no attempt to hold me there.

When I woke for good, it was just past four in the morning. Warden was still asleep, his arm around my middle. The smell of hot metal lingered on his skin.

A chill worked its way down my sides. The others would wonder where I’d been all night.

This time he didn’t wake with me. I’d never seen him look as human as he did now. Softer, as if all the heavy memories had slipped out of his dreamscape.

I
unlocked the door and crept out of the attic. On the landing, I leaned against the banister and crossed my arms tightly. Trusting Warden was one thing, but by touching his dream-form, I’d turned this into something else. Something far more dangerous.

I knew that I could never spend a single night with him, as Jaxon’s rules permitted. There was too much of him I wanted to learn.

I also knew that it couldn’t last. Whatever this was, it was too much of a risk. Why was I doing it? Like it or not, I would need the Ranthens’ support in the days to come. And if they even suspected . . .

I gripped the banister with both hands, listening to the footsteps downstairs. I’d stayed under Scion’s radar since I’d joined Jaxon’s fold. For ten years I’d concealed a vast part of my life from my father. Warden was a master at veiling his intentions—he had orchestrated two rebellions behind his own fiancée’s back.

I wanted this. To stop running, just once. For all the darkness and the cold in him, there was warmth that made me feel alive and strong. It was so different from how it had been with Nick—and this couldn’t be like it had been with Nick. With him, it had been like dying. A long yielding of myself to the idea that he could want to be with me. I’d depended on that idea for too long. With Warden, it was like having two heartbeats rather than half of one.

I padded down the stairs, barefoot, and opened the kitchen door. Nick was already at the table, reading the
Daily Descendant
and picking at a basket of hot bread from the cookshop.

“Morning.”

“Not quite yet.” I sat down. “Was that you on the piano last night?”

“It was. Only piece I ever learned,” he said. “I thought it might help Zeke sleep. He was a whisperer before he became unreadable.”

“How is he?”

He laid down his newspaper and rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I’m going to let him rest for a while longer, but we’ll have to clear out in a few hours. Leon will be home soon.”

“
You should ask them to keep him here for a while.” I pulled the paper toward me. “Jax will only ask questions.”

“He’ll ask questions anyway.

There was a piercing clarity to his gaze that hadn’t been there yesterday. Ignoring it, I scanned the paper. Scion was encouraging denizens to increase their vigilance in the hunt for Paige Mahoney and her allies, stressing that the fugitives were likely to have altered their appearances to avoid detection. They were to look out for other clues, such as accents, dyed hair, masks, or the scars of recent backstreet surgery. Examples of the latter were shown: seams of purpled stitching through raw skin, often located on the cheeks, near the hairline or behind the ears.

“I need to tell the others what I’m planning for the scrimmage.” I poured us both a coffee. “And find out who they’d side with if I won.”

“Are you going to tell them about Warden?”

A pendulum clock ticked above the sink. I put down my coffee cup. “What?”

“Paige, I’ve known you for ten years. I know when something’s different.”

“Nothing’s different.” When I saw his face, I framed my temples with my fingers. “Everything’s different.”

“I know it’s none of my business.”

I stirred my coffee.

“I’m not going to lecture or patronize you,” he murmured, “but I want you to remember what he did. Even if he’s changed, even if he never meant to hurt you by keeping you there, and even if he wasn’t the one who captured you in the first place, you have to remember that he used you. Promise me,
sötnos
.”

“Nick, I don’t
want
to forget what he did. He could have let me go the first day he took me in. I know that. That doesn’t mean I can stop feeling like this. And I know you think I’ve started to
sympathize
with him,” I said, holding his gaze. “I haven’t. I don’t sympathize with what he did to me—I have no compassion for it—but I understand why he did it. Does that make sense?”

He didn’t reply for a short while. “Yes,” he finally said. “It makes sense. But he’s so cold, Paige. Does he make you happy?”

“I don’t know yet.” I took a deep sip of coffee, and it warmed me. “I just know that he sees me.”

He sighed.

“What?” I said, more gently.

“I don’t want you to be Underqueen. Look at what happened to Hector and Cutmouth.”

“That won’t happen,” I said, but the thought still made me cold. Even if Jaxon had remembered to report those hitmen to the Abbess, I knew now that she would have ignored it. “Seen any more visions?”

“Yes.” He rubbed his temples. “They come every few days now. There’s so much packed into them, I can’t explain it . . .”

“Don’t think about them.” I squeezed his hand, then eased mine out of his grip. “I have to do it, Nick. Someone has to try.”

“It doesn’t have to be
you
. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“We’re clairvoyant. We’re supposed to have bad feelings about things.”

He gave me a flat look. The kitchen door swung open then, and Eliza sat down opposite us.

“Hi,” she said.

Nick frowned. “I thought you were at the den?”

“Jaxon sent me back to find you. He wants us all at Dials in an hour.” She poured herself a coffee. “We should have gone straight back last night.”

“I don’t think any of us were expecting a monster on the hill,” Nick said. “But why are we at Leon Wax’s chandlery?”

“Because he’s like family to me.”

It
was rare for any of us to mention the word
family
. Jaxon liked to forget the concept existed, as if we’d all hatched from miraculous Fabergé eggs. Nick laid his newspaper to one side. “Like family?”

“When I was a baby I was dumped on a doorstep and raised by a bunch of traders. They hated me. Made me fetch packages from Soho and carry them two miles back to Cheapside on my own, past Vigiles and gangsters. Four miles a day from the minute I could walk. When I was seventeen, I finally got my own job at the penny gaff. That was where I met Bea Cissé. She was brilliant, the best actress in the Cut. She was the first voyant I’d ever met who didn’t spit on me.”

Nick and I listened in silence. The corners of her mouth tightened.

“Bea’s a physical medium. She used to let all sorts of spirits possess her for performances. Escape artists, contortionists, dancers. It wore her dreamscape down after twenty years of it.” Her voice shook. “Bea and Leon are my closest friends outside the gang. Half the reason I applied for the job with Jax was so I could help pay for her medicine.”

I couldn’t quite believe it. Eliza’s loyalty and commitment to Jaxon had always seemed impeccable.

“What’s are you treating her with?” Nick said quietly.

“Purple aster. He’s taken her away to the country for a few days to try and find new herbs.”

“That’s where you kept going,” I said. “On market night.”

“She was bad that day. I thought we’d lose her.” She dabbed her raw eyes with her sleeve. “They use this place as a shelter for beggars when they’re here, just to get them fed and on their feet. Now they’re struggling to keep it going.” Her shoulders slumped. “Sorry. It’s just been a stressful few months.”

“You should have told us,” Nick murmured.

“I couldn’t. You might have told Jax.”

“
You’re kidding.” He wrapped an arm around her, and she let out a weak hiccough of laughter. “You used to tell me everything when we were the first two Seals. We’re always here for you.”

We were all silent for a long time, picking at bread and honey. On the floor above, Warden’s dreamscape stirred as he woke.

“I was going to tell you yesterday,” I said to her. “I’ve decided to go against Jaxon in the scrimmage.”

Eliza’s eyes widened. She turned to Nick, as if he could snap me out of this moment of madness, but all he did was sigh.

“No.” When I didn’t laugh, she shook her head. “Paige, don’t. You can’t. Jaxon will—”

“—kill me.” I finished my coffee. “He’s welcome to try.”

“Jaxon is twice your age and the citadel’s resident expert on clairvoyance. And if you go against him, it’s over. The gang is over.”

There was no denying it. Like it or not, he was the linchpin that had drawn us all together. “And if I don’t go against him,” I said, “everything else is over. You know what we’re up against. If the Abbess
is
the one behind all this, then we can’t trust the syndicate to do anything about it. We have to take charge of it ourselves, before it crumbles.”

She didn’t speak again.

“You mustn’t tell Nadine. You know she’d go straight to Jax. Dani might join me, but we can’t tell Zeke. We don’t know who he’ll side with.” I looked at Nick, who clasped his hands. “Do we?”

It took him a while to answer. “No,” he finally said. “He wants to fight the Rephaim, and he knows I’ll always side with you, but he loves his sister. I don’t know who he’d choose.”

Still Eliza sat in silence, her mouth a narrow line of worry.

“Paige,” she said, “did . . . Jaxon really say he wouldn’t do anything about the Rephaim?”

“All he cares about is the syndicate,” I said.

“Now I’ve seen them, I don’t understand it.” She pinched the skin between her eyebrows. “I know what you’re doing is right. I
know
we have to get rid of those things. But Jax took me in when I had nothing, even though I was a lower order. I know he’s . . . diffi- cult, but I’ve been with him for such a long time. And I have the same problem as Nadine. I need money.”

“You’ll have it. I promise you, Eliza, you’ll have it.” I spoke gently. “It’s your choice. But if I win, I’d like you to be on my side.”

Eliza looked up at me. “Really?”

“Really.”

As I spoke, the golden cord gave a shiver. His dreamscape was outside the door. I put down the newspaper.

“One minute,” I said. Nick watched me go.

In the hallway, Warden was taking his coat from the stand by the door. When he caught sight of me, his eyes burned.

“Good morning, Paige.”

“Hi.” I cleared my throat. “You’re welcome to stay for breakfast, but you might need a cleaver to cut through the tension.”

I sounded too brisk. How were you supposed to talk to someone you’d just spent the night with? I didn’t have a wealth of personal experience in the subject.