Page 24 of The Dark Mirror

‘We stayed at the Mill while you were imprisoned,’ she said. ‘One night, I went up to the roof for a smoke and found Warden standing by the parapet, looking towards the Archon. The next day,he said he wanted to offer himself to Nashira in exchange for you. I discouraged him, since I knew you must have gone in for a reason. Warden saw the sense in that, but I don’t think he slept at all while you were captive.’

Arcturus must have felt echoes of my fear through the cord. He had known what they were doing to me.

‘We should consider the possibility that there is something else going on. Maybe something you’ve forgotten. Maybe something you haven’t learned yet,’ Maria said. ‘Either way, Command may know something. Warden was classified as a Domino agent, wasn’t he?’

‘He was my auxiliary.’ I was tired again. ‘You can’t tell anyone about this. Not even Verca.’

‘I swear it on the æther. Does anyone else know?’

‘Nick.’

‘All right. It goes no further,’ Maria said. ‘Do you definitely want to come to Italy?’

‘I’ve no choice. I need Domino.’

‘You do have a choice. You’re out of Scion. If you want to leave it all behind – the Mime Order, all of this – then fuck Domino and their contract, and fuck the meeting with Command. I’ll help you disappear.’

‘All our friends are still in there. You wouldn’t think I was a coward?’

‘Never. You destroyed Senshield,’ she said. ‘You’ve already given more than enough.’

I could see in her face that she really meant it.

‘Give it some thought.’ She rose. ‘You have a few days to decide.’

She took my empty mug and made to leave the balcony.

‘Maria,’ I said, ‘how did you get Verca out of Sofia?’

Maria stopped.

‘You were fifteen,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t have had much to barter.’ She glanced at her right hand, which had rings on the thumb and all but one finger. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’

‘No. You shared something with me.’ She rested her other hand on the door. ‘When my mother found out she was dying, she gave me an antique gold ring – an heirloom she had concealed from myfather, passed down from our clairvoyant ancestor. She told me to sell it, so I could escape him.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Ekaterina.’ Her voice was soft. ‘I took the ring when I left home. It was all I had, apart from the gun they put in my hands. It was worth enough to give me a foothold, so I could begin to live as myself, as Yoana. But I found I wanted to keep it, because it was from her.

‘Verca told you how we met. They needed the last train out of Sofia. By the time we got Debora to the station, it was about to leave. I gave the ring to one of the guards in exchange for letting them on to the train: Verca, Debora, Tanveer and Evženie.’

‘You could have gone with them.’

‘I won’t pretend I didn’t sometimes wish I had.’ Her smile was bleak. ‘I cried over that ring in my cell. But in the end, Mama gave me the means to save four lives, including that of the woman I was going to love. That was her gift to me. So I don’t mourn the ring any more.’

It was probably the exhaustion (and the wine), but I welled up, feeling a surge of tenderness towards her.

‘You’re brilliant,’ I said. ‘And I’m proud to be your friend.’

‘Please. We’re supposed to be soulless criminals.’ Maria slid the door open. ‘Go on, get some sleep. I’ll still be here and brilliant in the morning.’

I changed into a clean slip and brushed my teeth. By the time I padded back to the living room, Maria was sound asleep on the couch, a phone tucked under her hand. Careful not to wake her, I left the wolfish casting by the kettle, where she would find it in the morning.

Maria had stood by me when the syndicate had railed against my rule. She had come with me to find Senshield. I was sure she would keep my secret. For too long, I had doubted the wrong people. Arcturus might have suffered for that.

My memories of Paris rushed back. I remembered his eyes in the Sainte-Chapelle – flat and empty, just like they had always becomewhen I possessed him. But that made no sense. Arcturus was no medium; he couldn’t have been controlled by a spirit. Only by a dreamwalker.

I was too drunk and drowsy to unravel it. Heavy with forgotten time, I got into bed and curled around a pillow.

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