Page 3 of The Dawn Chorus

There was a slight throb before numbness blossomed from the needle. ‘Not the sedative,’ I said. ‘They used flux, though, I think. To make me … amenable to interrogation.’

If I had any pride left, it was in the fact that they hadn’t wrung a single piece of information from me. In the end, none of their violence – against my body or my mind – had got them what they wanted.

‘Tell me something.’ If I kept my voice to the barest whisper, I could stand to talk. ‘You were waiting for me. When I escaped. How did you all get back from Edinburgh?’

Warden set the syringe aside.

‘When you fell,’ he said, ‘there was chaos. Your supporters in the crowd attacked the soldiers, and they retaliated with lethal force.’ He pressed a gauze to the drop of blood on my wrist. ‘You were taken to a helicopter before any of us could reach you.’

I had no memory of that. Nothing after the gunshot, not until I woke up on the waterboard.

‘Since Scion had cancelled all train departures from Edinburgh, we returned to the safe house,’ he went on. ‘At dawn, a human arrived, claiming to work for a friend of Alsafi. He drove us back to London.’

Scimorphine was a swift-acting drug. The wound at the top of my arm was already cooling down.

‘Before he got me to safety,’ I said, ‘Alsafi asked me to tell you that he hoped it … redeemed him.’

Warden looked up at that.

‘I see,’ he said.

Silence reigned as I tried to work out what to say. Alsafi had sacrificed himself to get me away from Nashira. I had no idea how close he and Warden had been, or how Rephaim mourned.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘That he’s gone.’

A small nod was his only response.

‘We reported all that had happened to the Glym Lord,’ he continued. ‘Maria dissuaded him – dissuaded all of us, in fact – from attempting to rescue you. She guessed that you had intended to be captured, and believed we should let you complete your task.’

Glym was a good man. A good leader. If Scion had given me the noose, he would have sent people to cut my corpse down. I was glad Maria had talked him out of a rescue. None of them would have made it back.

‘Did you agree?’ I asked.

He busied himself with re-packing the scimorphine kit.

‘I have great faith in you. In your resilience, your resourcefulness,’ he said, ‘but I did not believe you would be able to damage the core of Senshield, nor even to get close to it. I knew you would be physically incapacitated, even if you did survive the torture. So I proposed a hostage exchange. My life for yours. Terebell concurred with Maria and forbade it. I might have defied her, had an alternative not arisen.’

‘You’re a fool. Nashira would have just’ – I paused for a shallow breath – ‘killed us both.’

‘Perhaps folly is catching, Paige Mahoney.’

More than anything, then, I wanted to touch him. Just to take his hand.

‘For days, we waited underground,’ he said. ‘At last, news arrived that all Senshield scanners had failed. And we knew that you had kept your promise to deactivate it.’

The scimorphine was pouring through me now. One by one, each flame in my skin was quenched.

‘The stranger from Edinburgh then revealed his true purpose,’ Warden said. ‘He said that a plan was in motion to retrieve you, but your life depended on our compliance with his orders. This, I presume, was the plan for Scarlett Burnish to remove you from Inquisitorial custody.’

‘He was bluffing. Burnish had already been told to save me.’

‘We could not risk it.’

He said it as if it were the simplest thing in the world. They had been willing to trade their freedom and power for my life.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For not giving up on me.’

‘Never.’