Page 38 of The Dawn Chorus

I woke early one morning to birdsong. To Warden, seated at the table, looking out of an open window, where a crisp breeze drifted in. I was on the couch, covered by a couple of blankets.

It took me a moment to remember what I was doing in the parlour. He had started trying to teach me chess the night before, and we had ended up playing deep into the small hours. I must have fallen asleep straight after.

‘Good morning, Paige,’ he said.

I propped myself up on one elbow. ‘Morning.’

On the table in front of me stood a coffee press and a mug. I sat up, pulling the blankets around my shoulders.

‘The dawn chorus,’ Warden said quietly. ‘I seldom heard it in the colony. The Emim drove the birds away.’

I listened. It was faint, but somehow, it was there.

‘I’m surprised we can hear it in the middle of a citadel,’ I said.

‘This is the first time.’

I rubbed sleep from my eyes. ‘In London, it was usually traffic or costermongers that woke me up,’ I said. ‘Or Jaxon, banging on my bedroom door with his cane at some unholy hour.’

‘You must miss your life in Seven Dials.’

The small hollow in my chest – the one that had been there for weeks – seemed to deepen. I poured the coffee.

‘I never thought I would think of London as my home. Never thought I’d come to love it.’ I blew on the mug. ‘I wonder how long we’ll be in Paris. Whether it will be a fleeting visit, or if this will feel like home, too.’

‘We will find out,’ Warden said. ‘When Domino arrives.’

He kept his gaze on the open window. The light of dawn limned his face.

‘You seem entranced.’ I had to smile. ‘Does your love of music extend to birdsong?’

‘Perhaps the dawn chorus speaks to me,’ he said, ‘as a creature of the in-between.’ His hands were clasped on the table. ‘The birds sing in the twilight that bridges night and day. While they sing, we exist on the threshold between two states.’

His words gave me a shiver. I drank and listened to the song.

When I had finished the coffee, I rose to wash, which was no easier than it had been the first time I tried. I managed, though, and when I was dressed, I padded to the kitchen and searched the cupboards for something to eat. Warden was leafing through a copy of theDaily Descendant.

‘Anything of interest?’ I asked as I slotted bread into the toaster.

‘Only promises and platitudes. Frank Weaver vows to destroy the Mime Order.’

‘Of course he does.’

I cracked two eggs into a pan. As they bubbled themselves white, I started to cough again. Each one wrenched my torso, as if a hook was buried right in my middle.

‘Sorry,’ I croaked. Warden looked up. ‘I must be driving you spare with this cough.’

‘No.’

I shot him a sceptical look. ‘I sound like a seagull in the throes of an agonising death, and it isn’t testing your patience?’

‘I confess myself unfamiliar with the sound of seagulls in their death throes.’ His gaze darted over my face. ‘It may or may not resolve itself without proper medical attention, Paige.’

As if to confirm his suspicion, the sharp pain hit me in the chest again. I shallowed my breathing.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s not as if I can just check myself into hospital, is it?’

He looked back at theDescendant. We both knew.