Page 35 of The Bone Season

Warden lay on his side, hair snarled over his brow. I held my nerve. The bedding was up to his shoulders, his face tilted into the pillow.

At first, I couldn’t see anything wrong. Perhaps he just wanted to avoid me, which suited me just fine. I had nothing to say to him.

Then I spotted it. A faint glow, leaching through the bedspread.

The æther rang in warning.

He was as still as a corpse. I pushed the curtains farther apart, willing them not to make any sound. Once I was sure he was either asleep or unconscious, I lifted the bedspread. Beneath it, the sheets were soaked in molten light, like the contents of a glow bar, the same greenish yellow as his eyes. I peeled one sheet away, then another.

And there it was. A row of deep punctures on his upper arm, seeping beads of light.

I listened to the old residence, waiting. Surely the night porter had seen him come back in this state. Surely help was on its way. For the first time, I became aware of a clock, ticking on the mantelpiece.

Warden must have used another way into the residence.

The light kept oozing from his arm. It could only be their equivalent of blood. The wounds didn’t look bad enough to kill him, but they could be infected. When the Rephs found him like this, I would be the only witness.

If Arcturus Mesarthim died on this bed, I was the prime suspect.

I drew in a long breath. As far as I could tell, I had three choices. I could see what happened, finish him off, or try to save his life.

The second option was tempting. He might not have hurt me yet, but he would. Scion had sent me here in the full knowledge that I had killed before. I could make them regret that decision.

I reached for a cushion, then paused.

He could wake up and break my neck. Even if I succeeded, I would only be executed myself, or thrown to another Reph.

I had to save him, for my own sake.

Rephs looked similar to humans. I would treat him like one – clean the wounds, stem the bleeding. That would buy him time, at least.

Something told me not to touch that strange light. I went to his chest of drawers and found yet another pair of gloves. They were massive, made for hands that dwarfed mine. This was going to be clumsy.

I took off the white tunic, leaving me in my undershirt. I fetched some cloths from the linen cabinet and soaked them in hot water. By the time I set to work, Warden was starting to look grey.

It took a long time. I mopped blood even as it congealed, coaxed grit from his broken skin. At first, I thought he must have been stabbed, but the open wounds seemed too ragged. While I was near them, I sensed the nearest spirits so keenly it almost hurt.

What are you?

By sunrise, I had made a dent. As the bell rang, I used a towel to pad his arm, securing it with a tie-back. It was crude, but it was the best I could do. I lay back down on the daybed, exhausted.

Now it all rested on him.

As soon as I woke, I knew I was alone. I got straight up and rushed into the bedchamber.

I blinked. The floor had been cleaned while I slept, the linen whisked away. The bedspread was immaculate – in fact, it looked as if it had been ironed.

Warden was nowhere to be seen.

Rain trickled down the windows. The fog had thinned. I soon found the note on the desk. In that same elegant cursive, it simply read:

Tomorrow.

Some fresh clothes had been left for me, including a new undershirt. I changed into them and washed my pills down the sink, then curled up on the couch and stayed for a long while, turning the incident over and over in my head. The gramophone played in the background, its crackles mingling with the sound of the rain.

Part of me wanted to stay by the fire, rather than facing this grim, hostile place. Warden hadn’t given me any specific instructions. I could keep warm and have a good look around Magdalen.

But whatever Liss said, I couldn’t just lie down and accept this. I didn’t care if the Rephs had been here for two hundred years or a thousand – I wasn’t their soldier, and she wasn’t their lunch.

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