Page 4 of The Dawn Chorus

I wished he would hold me. I wished I could bear it.

My blood was slowing, thickening. Having quelled the small wounds, the scimorphine was grinding the edges off the deeper ones. My body reached for nothingness again.

‘Warden,’ I whispered, ‘do you remember when I picked up that infection in the colony?’

Senseless question – he was an oneiromancer, of course he remembered – but Warden nodded.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘I feared the rebellion might lose you that night.’

‘Mm.’

My breathing softened. The knife prodding my chest was almost blunt.

‘Paige,’ Warden said, just as I began to nod off, ‘you cannot hold out much longer without water. It has already been more than a day.’

Underneath the drug, fear stirred.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Warden, I can’t—’

In a flash, I was in the basement again, shackled to the board. My hands screwed into fists. Suddenly I was shaking too hard to draw breath, let alone get a word out.

‘Paige, I am not going to force you,’ Warden said, bringing me back to the present. My hands uncurled. ‘There is apparatus in here for intravenous hydration. May I use it?’

It took me too long to grasp what he was asking. He would need to insert a cannula while I slept. I had been pierced with so many needles in the Archon, drugged against my will. He was asking for my consent. He wanted me to know I had the power to refuse.

‘Yes,’ I breathed. ‘It’s all right.’

Darkness rubbed out what scant light remained. Stone-limbed, I sank into the pillow. Into sleep.

Into memory.

PENAL COLONY OF SHEOL I

5AUGUST2059

Sunshine trickled between the bars on my window. I lay in a nest of sheets, sore and confused.

For a long while, I couldn’t think where I was. When I remembered that I was still in the Residence of Magdalen – still trapped in Sheol I – I grimaced and turned over.

My father was standing beside my bed.

The first interesting thing about this situation was that my father was somehow not in London. The second was that his eyes were gone. For a long time, he just stood there, as motionless as I was. When he did open his mouth, worms pearled from inside it.

‘Níl an fhírinne ar eolas agat, a Mhathúinín,’ he croaked. His empty sockets oozed rot.

He hadn’t uttered a word in Irish for eleven years. This couldn’t be real.

‘Inis dom, a athair,’ I murmured.

‘Ní an ceathrú glas, ach an ceann deireanach.’ He reached for me with a decayed hand. ‘Tá an milleán go léir ortsa.’

His fingers gripped my throat. I felt nothing. He splintered into a swarm of flies.

I drifted in the grey unknown between sleep and strange things. Jaxon skipped in and chanted a dirge about fire and candles, leaving me in fits of laughter. Eliza screamed in another room.

Warden had warned me about the outbreak in the Rookery. A swarm of rats had got into the shantytown and brought the sickness with them. Among its possible symptoms were stomach cramps, hallucinations and severe vomiting. It could be fatal, especially in those who were already weak from malnutrition. Since my life was too important to risk, Warden had asked me to stay indoors. I had responded by wrapping up the meal he had given me, ransacking his dwindling supplies, and sneaking out while he was gone.

A cacophony of retching had filled the Rookery. More than half of the harlies were stricken. The Rephaim, naturally, had barred themselves into their residences and done a whole lot of nothing to help.