Page 34 of The Dawn Chorus

Warden. The disembodied voice did sound like him.

‘What—’ I could hardly breathe through my pinhole-sized throat. ‘What time is it?’

‘It is almost midnight.’

My heart was hammering.

‘No.’ I slid my fingers into my hair and let out a weak sob. ‘No. I’m not here. It’s not you. It’s not real.’

‘If you are not here, and I am not me, and none of this is real,’ was the tranquil reply, ‘then I cannot think how this conversation is taking place. We seem to have entered the realm of metaphysics.’

The darkness tempted me to trust it. It knew my weaknesses. Only Arcturus Mesarthim would have snuck a word likemetaphysics(whatever that meant) into his attempt to calm me down.

‘The lamp.’ There was a rattle in my voice. ‘I left a light on.’

‘The storm has caused a power outage.’

Even as his words sank in, I kept a firm grip on the headboard. This could still be a trick. There were no borders left between illusion and reality. If the light came on and itwasSuhail, I would shatter. I would shriek with laughter until I was hanged.

My nightshirt was drenched in sweat. I heard the hiss of a match being lit, saw the flame appear. What it revealed was Warden. I almost buckled with relief before I noticed his dishevelment. His hair was awry – more so than usual – and the top of his shirt was ripped open, two of the buttons pulled right off.

‘Warden.’ Shock rooted me in place. ‘Warden, I didn’t – I didn’t mean – I didn’t think it was you.’

‘Suhail.’

‘Yes. I’m s—’

‘If you are about to apologise, Paige, I bid you remember our agreement.’

No apologies. On the day we arrived, we had decided.

‘Why the hell did you let me attack you?’ My chest heaved. ‘You could have stopped me.’

‘Because I would have had to restrain you.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I did not think that would be the wisest course of action.’

He was right. If his iron-hard arms had come around me, it would have been akin to being chained. Instead of trying to hold me still, he had lifted me away from him, back into my own space. With a whimper, I tucked myself against the headboard and gave way to the shaking.

Warden knelt beside the bed, so his gaze was about level with mine. I stayed exactly where I was.

‘Paige,’ he said, ‘I want you to come and sit with me. As we used to sit together in Magdalen.’

Hair clung to my wet face. ‘Why?’

‘Because I want you to tell me what happened to you.’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘We spoke of it when we arrived here. You told me about your room. I told you about mine.’

The rooms where we had lost part of ourselves. For him, it was the tower where he had been mutilated. For me, it was the pitch-black basement where I had been meant to die.

‘I was tortured alongside my Ranthen-kith.’ His eyes pierced me. ‘There was cruelty and design in that – I often wished it otherwise, wished that no one I cared for had borne witness to my ruin – but I knew, at least, that there were others who understood what I had suffered. In the end, it became a comfort. You were alone, Paige.’

Tears seeped down my cheeks.

‘A secret, held within, can become a poison.’ He kept hold of my gaze. ‘Even if you cannot tell me the whole story, perhaps you could explain what has changed since that first day.’

He was right. I had been able to talk to him, to touch him, on the day we arrived in Paris. I had held on to his shoulders and let him guide my breaths while I bathed for the first time. He had carried me when I was too weak to stand. Perhaps it was because there had been no time to look back in those hours after the escape – only forward, to survival.