Page 13 of The Bone Season

It lasted a lifetime. I didn’t know when it had started, didn’t see when it would end.

I remembered movement, a throaty roar, and being strapped to a hard surface. Then a needle was pushed into my arm, and pain took over.

Reality unravelled at the seams. A candle burned nearby, and its flame kept erupting into an inferno. Sweat dripped from my pores like wax – and then I was freezing, desperate for warmth, feeling as if I would die from the cold. There was no middle ground. Just limitless pain.

Fluxion 14 was a deliriant. Made with purple aster, it attacked both the body and the dreamscape, causing phantasmagoria – a vivid series of hallucinations, worsened by fever and chills. I fought my way through endless visions, crying when the pain was too intense to bear in silence.

My hair stuck to my tears as I retched, trying in vain to force the poison from my body. Whether it was sleep, unconsciousness or death, something had to take me from this nightmare.

‘I know it hurts, treasure,’ a voice murmured. ‘But you have to learn, don’t you?’

The room spun like a carousel, twisting until I could barely hold on. I bit a pillow to stifle my screams. I tasted blood and knew I must have bitten something else – my lip, my cheek, my tongue.

Flux never wore off. Even if you vomited, it worked itself into the organs, spread like poison in the blood. The pain washed over me in wave after wave.

‘That is enough. We need her alive,’ a new voice said. ‘Get the antidote at once.’

The antidote. I might yet live. I tried to blink away the rippled haze, the visions and distorted things, but all I could see was the candle.

‘Let me out,’ I said faintly.

‘Bring water.’

The lip of a glass clashed on my teeth. I took deep, thirsty gulps.

‘Please.’

Two burning eyes looked into mine, and suddenly, the nightmare stopped. I plunged into a sweet black sleep.

When I woke, I lay on my stomach, my throat roasted. It was such a severe pain that I was forced to come to my senses, if only to seek water. I realised with a start that I was naked.

I managed to roll on to my side, tasting dry vomit in the corners of my mouth. Shivering uncontrollably, I reached for the æther.

There were other dreamscapes here.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust. I was sprawled on a single bed. To my right was a barred window with no glass. The floor and walls were made of stone.

A bitter draught sent goosebumps racing all over me. My breath came out in tiny clouds. I drew the sheets around my shoulders, swallowing.

A door was ajar in the corner. I could see light. Testing my strength, I went to it, my ankle protesting.

Beyond was a simple bathroom. The light stemmed from a single lamp, revealing a rusted tap on the wall. It was perishing to the touch. When I turned the valve beneath, a deluge of icy water drenched me. I knocked it the other way, but the water refused to heat up.

Despite my situation, I was desperate to wash, if only to clear my head. My hair felt greasy, my body slow and fragile. Bracing myself, I tried again, dipping each limb under the crude excuse for a shower. My joints ached. My skin hurt. A sharp pain lingered where the dart had gone in, and somehow I had strained my neck.

There were no towels, so I used the bedsheets to dry off, then wrapped myself in one. When I tried the main door, I found it locked. I blew on my numb fingers, wishing for a heat pad.

My shivers weren’t just from the cold. I was naked and alone in a dark cell, barely strong enough to stand, and these might be my last hours. Nobody knew what happened to voyant prisoners – none had escaped to tell the tale – but there were rumours of water torture.

I had to be in the Tower of London. The æther was oddly quiet, if so, but my sixth sense was still as weak as the rest of me. All I knew for sure was that my father was not in this building.

Harbouring a voyant was misprision of treason. Was he already dead?

They had needed him enough to pluck him from a war zone. Surely they would spare his life.

Against my will, I slipped into a fitful doze, curled against the back of the bed. When the door crashed open, I snapped awake.

‘Get up.’

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