We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Dark Mirror, the fifth installment in Samantha Shannon’s fantasy series The Bone Season—available now from Bloomsbury.
Paige Mahoney is outside the Republic of Scion for the first time in more than a decade-but she has no idea how she got to the free world. Half a year has been wiped from her memory.
Her journey back to the revolution soon takes her to Venice, where the Domino Programme has uncovered evidence of a secret Scion plan. Before Paige can return to London, she must help the network unravel the sinister Operation Ventriloquist, which threatens to bring Europe to its knees in weeks.
And it soon becomes clear that the one person who could recover her memories-Arcturus Mesarthim-might also hold the key to thwarting Scion, allowing the revolution to strike an unprecedented blow…
My dreamscape had changed. Gone was the field of flowers that had grown there since I was a child.
Now my safe place was a room in Paris, rendered skeletal.
There was the bed, the sheets turned down, lamps on either side. Some way from it, I lay in shadow. White flowers reached between the floorboards – my poppy anemones, still trying to grow, their petals bleached and translucent. Snow gathered around me, like dust on something left forgotten.
Beyond the distant windows, all I could make out was darkness. Night cupped the safe house in its hands. That was normal for a dreamscape; the pallor on its walls was not. Time and again I tried to rise, but an unseen weight pinned me in place, keeping me on the floor.
It might be for the best. Part of me wanted to get to the bed – surely it was soft and warm – but I sensed it would carry me farther away than I could stand to go. It would throw me to a world of teeth that wanted to rip me to shreds. As I slipped back into oblivion, I saw the blood that stained my spirit. Reph blood, human blood, all over my hands.
I slept for hours or weeks or years. Between my periods of absence, I thought I strayed towards the bed – thought I felt the sun, heard a voice – but I always ended up back on the floor, as if I had never moved. The flowers wove around my limbs, as if to hold and comfort me.
And then I stopped falling asleep. Now I was aware and cold, and I realised I had to get to the bed. My silver cord pulled me that way – a weak tug I had rarely felt when I was in my own dreamscape.
When I moved, the white flowers loosened their hold. I turned on to my front and crawled.
Another light trailed in my wake, faint and unresisting.
It was as if my limbs were stone. Each inch I gained left me exhausted, and the closer to the bed I moved, the worse my creeping fear that this was the wrong choice. The lamps had seemed dim and comforting from my place in the deep shadows, but now, as I approached, they shone too bright. No one could fall asleep with those lights flanking their bed. I feared what they might yet reveal, because something was different out there. I could sense it.
I grasped the sheets and hauled myself up. My arms gave way, and I crumpled back to the floor, almost surrendering. You have risen from the ashes before, the flowers said in a voice I remembered, a voice I both cherished and feared. And then I climbed, and I was there, curling up tight. The only way to survive is to believe you always will.
When I woke, I was on another bed. My head rested on a pillow, my hand on my ribs. I lay heavy and woollen for what felt like hours, my breathing slow.
This was not a dreamscape. No shadow pooled at its edges. Red sunlight passed through sheer curtains and glinted off a television on the wall. I sat up, rubbing coarse sleep from my eyes.
The room where I found myself was pristine, except for the unmade sheets on its twin beds. Beside a table, a chair was upholstered in beige leather, a coat thrown over its back. I braced myself with my good hand, listening to the quiet. A door slammed in the distance.
‘Arcturus,’ I said, unnerved.
No answer. I reached for the golden cord, but felt nothing. Not even a flicker of emotion in return.
Are you there?
Something was off about the room. The smoothness of the wooden floor, the straight clean lines of the furniture, the starched bedsheets – all of it spoke of regulation. This was a hotel – and no cheap dosshouse, at that – but it wasn’t Anchotel, the only chain in Scion. Those rooms had scarlet runners and anchors stitched in gold on the pillows.
The last thing I recalled was the masquerade in Paris. Léandre in his lion mask, Le Vieux Orphelin at his side. My private conversation with Inquisitor Ménard. After that meeting, there was only fog, and now I was in a hotel with a headache. Even for me, this was bizarre.
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‘Arcturus,’ I said again.
And then, with a sickening jolt, it came back to me.
Arcturus had returned to Nashira. He had been using me for information, all that time.
He was nowhere to be seen or sensed, which seemed to confirm the things I remembered. I forced myself to go over our confrontation in Paris. He intended to betray the clairvoyant syndicates to Scion. I had acted quickly to protect the Mime Order, but for all I knew, he might have beaten me to my allies. I might be the only survivor of a failed revolution.
Was that why I was here, alone?
With considerable effort, I roused my gift and focused on the ather, pain lancing my temples. There were thousands of dreamscapes in the vicinity, but none that I recognised. My legs shook as I rose, grasping the bedpost for support. Instead of my usual nightshirt, I was dressed in drawstring shorts and a white shirt with cap sleeves. My arms looked slimmer than before, the muscle less defined. How long had I been here?
Now my heart was pounding, my skin clammy. I walked to the window, my head swimming. The room overlooked a long street, where streetlamps were coming alive – and one glimpse of those streetlamps rocked the foundations of my world.
Their glow was amber.
Not blue.
All Scion citadels had blue streetlamps, supposedly to calm the population. Unless this was a city in Spain or Portugal, which had only recently fallen to the anchor, then this was not Scion. Somehow, I was in the free world.
The realisation broke me from my stupor. I stumbled to another door, which led to a bathroom, and tapped a pad to turn the lights on, revealing my startled reflection in the mirror.
I had dyed my hair for the masquerade. It was still brown, though a touch darker than I remembered. A fresh bruise stained my left cheekbone. I tasted a powdery bitterness, as if I had eaten flour. My left wrist, always troublesome, was throbbing. When I looked at it, I saw pink stripes – marks that could only have been left by fingers.
I rushed to the door, turned the deadbolt, and jammed one of the chairs under the handle.
Impaired recollection, nausea, unusual taste. Someone had been giving me white aster – an ethereal drug that caused amnesia – to meddle with my sense of time. There was no other logical explanation for why I hadn’t a bull’s notion of where I was or how I had got here.
This had to be something to do with the Domino Programme, the espionage network I had been working for in Paris. They used white aster on agents who wanted to leave, to erase their memory of its existence – but Ducos had told me I was classified as an associate, that I could keep my memories. I trusted her enough to think she would have kept her word.
It had been twelve years since I was last in the free world. I scoured the room for clues, finding no hint as to my location. When I saw a white mug on the table, I picked it up and turned it, revealing a smeared crescent of lipstick on its rim, a rich cherry I recognised.
Eléonore Cordier wore it.
Cordier had been the medical officer for my sub-network, Mannequin. Last I had seen her, she had drained the excess fluid off my lung, to give me some relief from the pneumonia that had plagued me for weeks. After that, she had vanished, apparently detained by Scion.
I soon found other traces of her. A dress I had seen her wearing in Paris. A comb with black hair in its teeth. A bottle of perfume – a blend of cypress and wild geranium, the label written in French.
Why I was sharing a room with her, I wasn’t sure. But this might be my only chance to get away. I would have to go with my gut, and my gut was telling me to run.
In the bathroom, I forced myself to run the tap and splash my face with icy water. It shocked away the listless haze, even if it also left me shuddering. Next, I pulled open the wardrobe, finding three coats with a safe behind them. No luck with the master code that had sometimes worked in London, and trying to bounce it might draw attention.
There was a suitcase under the bed. I took out a cream jersey with a roll neck and yanked it over the shirt. A pair of dark twilled trousers were a perfect fit. So were the hiking boots in the wardrobe, and the woollen hat I placed over my hair. Finally, I swung on a fleece-lined jacket.
The fact that I had my own clothes was jarring. I seemed clean and fed, even if I had shed a little weight, but the bruises told a different story.
Supplies were my next concern. I took a canvas bag from the wardrobe, stuffed it with snacks and drinks from the minibar, and tightened the straps around my shoulders. No sign of a phone. Not that I would have been able to call anyone – all of my human allies used burners, and the Ranthen had never warmed to human technology. I searched the coats in the wardrobe and found a single banknote and a lighter, both of which I pocketed.
There were no weapons. I would have to rely on my wits. They had saved me before.
Acting the part is half the trick, darling, Jaxon had advised me once. Behave as if you belong, and see who dares to question you.
Jaxon might be a soulless bastard, but I could still use his lessons. I slipped out of the room, into a dark corridor, and walked until I saw an elevator. As I strode towards it, a display above the doors lit up. No sooner had I swerved into another corridor than the elevator pinged open and three people – two amaurotics, one voyant – had marched from inside.
‘—room number did she say it was?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Good. We do this carefully.’ The voices sounded American. I flattened myself into a doorway. ‘Scott, you get the personal effects. Torres, are you certain you don’t need backup?’
‘Not if she’s sedated.’
‘What if she isn’t?’
‘Guess we’ll find out.’
Their footsteps were quiet. As soon as they were out of earshot, I ran to the elevator. Steeling my nerves, I hit the key for the ground floor and waited, sweat prickling under my shirt.
The elevator glided down. As soon as the doors opened, I knew I had made my first mistake of the evening.
A woman stood behind an illuminated desk. Twelve other people were stationed in the foyer, mostly built like houses. As I froze, the nearest saw me, his expression stiffening. I pounded the key for the highest floor.
‘Ms Mahoney,’ the stranger barked, running at me. ‘Wait a moment—’ The doors closed just in time, muffling the next command: ‘Take the stairs! Do not let her leave!’
What in the Scion Republic of Fuck is happening?
I was not going anywhere with a group of armed strangers.When the elevator stopped, I rushed past an elderly woman andwent for the nearest window, only for it to stick on a safety latch.Gritting my teeth, I detached a fire extinguisher from its bracketand punched it through the glass.
By the time my pursuers caught up, I was inching along a ledge, clinging to whatever fingerholds I could find. My hands were already starting to hurt, but if I could just get to the roof …
A click stopped me dead. I locked eyes with the man from the foyer, now aiming a pistol at me from the window. He had olive skin and black hair, slicked back from his well-boned face.
‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Stay where you are.’ He reached into his jacket. ‘Are you Paige Eva Mahoney?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Steve Mun. Atlantic Intelligence Bureau.’ He showed me a badge that probably meant something to someone, somewhere. ‘I have orders to get you to safety, out of reach of Inquisitor Weaver.’
‘I’m out of his reach now. And it might help me feel a touch safer if you lowered your gun, Steve.’
People on the street were staring up at us, keeping away from the broken glass. A woman held a silver phone up. Mun glanced at the crowd, his jaw clenching.
‘All right.’ He holstered the pistol. ‘Take my hand, and we can talk.’
He held it out, showing a starched white cuff.
I did not believe for one moment that Steve Mun wanted a polite conversation. Craning my neck, I looked down the street, searching for a way out. I couldn’t use my gift on him without losing control of my body, and the fall would break a few bones from this height.
The rumble of an engine drew my eye. I allowed myself a grim smile.
‘If you think there’s a safe place for me,’ I said to Mun, ‘you really don’t know who I am.’
The amnesia had not stolen my training. As Mun made a grab for me, I launched myself back and landed on the lorry, the impact shuddering up through my knees to rattle my hips. The driver braked, but by the time he got out, I was on the ground and sprinting in the other direction, away from the three black cars outside the hotel.
I ran through the bustling streets of a city I had never seen, taunted by its amber streetlamps. Still no obvious clue where I was. I cleared some tramlines and skirted the edge of a shopping centre. Entering it might help me lose my pursuers, but there might be security cameras or guards. I kept going.
On the other side of the building, I found a row of bus stops, where people were stepping on to a coach. This was my chance. Holding my nerve, I slowed down and joined the back of the group.
‘Hello,’ I said to the driver, a grizzled amaurotic. ‘Are there any seats available?’
He eyed me. ‘You have a ticket?’
‘No. Could I buy one?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ll … ride the whole way, if I could.’ I offered the creased banknote. ‘Is this enough?’
‘No change.’
I nodded, and he took the only money I had. As the doors hissed shut and the coach pulled away from the curb, I sat at the back and glanced through the rear window, seeing one of the black cars speed past, none the wiser that their target had just slipped the net.
Excerpted from The Dark Mirror, copyright © 2025 by Samantha Shannon.
