Page 40 of The Bone Season

Bruises were forming under his eyes. As I sat cross-legged beside him, another performer brought us a cloth and a bowl of water.

‘Thank you,’ I said, surprised.

She nodded once and walked away. Julian used the cloth to clean up the blood, then moulded it into a cold compress for his nose.

‘So,’ he said, a little thickly, ‘what do we know about the Emim?’

‘Nothing on my end. I’m more curious about the tests, to be honest.’

‘I’ve heard what happens in the first one. You have to verify your gift, prove you have control of it,’ Julian said. ‘Soothsayers and augurs usually have to make a prediction. Mediums have to provoke and survive a possession. You get the picture.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘The night porter at Trinity. He claimed his prediction in his first test got somebody else brought here. I think he was proud of it.’ He drank a little more. ‘My guess is they want us to prove our commitment to this place, even if it puts other humans in danger.’

I refused to give up my humanity, Liss had told me.If you ever mean to earn their trust, you’ll have to cut away your kindness.

‘Great.’ I breathed out. ‘So much for keeping our gifts to ourselves.’

‘I want to stay under the radar, too.’ Pause. ‘We could fail.’

‘That’s always an option.’ I glanced at him. ‘What about the second test?’

‘The night porter wouldn’t talk about that.’ His gaze roamed across the slum. ‘He wears a pink tunic, so he can’t have passed it. The Rephs must need a few of us in administrative roles.’

‘Sounds like a cushy job.’

‘And inconspicuous.’ His face changed. ‘Paige, look. Her fingers.’

I followed his line of sight. Opposite us, a woman in her forties was sitting on a bench, talking to a man of around the same age, both of them eating skilly. Three of her fingers were missing or cropped.

When I looked away from her, I soon noticed other signs of violence: an absent hand, claw marks, scars on arms and legs. These people had been gnawed and thrown out like chicken bones.

‘The Emim.’ I kept my voice down. ‘They must have breached the city.’

‘Or those performers used to be red-jackets,’ Julian said. ‘Maybe they lost their nerve.’

‘Wouldn’t they be wearing yellow tunics if they bottled it?’

‘Aludra explained this to us. You get the yellow tunic if you show cowardice or disobey orders, but only for a month. Once you’ve been humiliated, you revert to your previous tunic.’

‘But three strikes, and you’re out here in the cold for good.’

‘Exactly.’ Julian narrowed his eyes. ‘No one looks much older than fifty, do they?’

‘Not that I’ve seen. What are you thinking?’

‘If there’s been a Bone Season every decade since the Rephs came, we should be seeing people in their nineties, theoretically. Why is everyone so young?’

I gave him an incredulous look. ‘You think the Rephs want to look after us when we’re old?’

‘Honestly, no. I just wanted you to say something reassuring.’

‘Sorry.’ A gust of wind blew my hair into my eyes. ‘No, it is a little strange. You’d think some of the porters or amaurotics would be older. Then again, we might just not have seen them yet.’

‘Thanks. That was reassuring.’ He offered his bread. ‘You want this?’

‘I’m grand.’

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