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The Pale Dreamer

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Bone Season

The Mime Order

The Song Rising

Title Page

The Pale Dreamer

A Bone Season Prequel

Samantha Shannon

Chapter 1 The Grisly Case of Anne Naylor

The Grisly Case of Anne Naylor

London, 2056

If you were to ask me what I liked most about being an up-and-coming criminal in the year 2056, I’d probably point you to the simple things. Drinking coffee before daybreak in the den, listening to the capital stretch itself awake around me. Sitting beneath the blossom tree in the courtyard and leafing my way through a stack of forbidden novels. Sneaking into Jaxon’s room to listen to blacklisted music.

Strange, I know. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t have done things like that before I was employed by Jaxon Hall. Maybe not the blacklisted music and forbidden novels, but I could have found a tree to read by, or made coffee before daybreak, under other circumstances. They were ordinary moments in my newly extraordinary life – and they, in turn, became extraordinary.

As a dreamwalker, I was meant to be a great clairvoyant; a rare one, at least. Jaxon was certain that I was hiding spectacular powers; that I could leave my body, possess other people, and dance them around like mindless puppets if I so desired. But after three months in his employ, I still couldn’t do it. Not for want of trying, I should add – I just didn’t know how, and nobody agreed on how to teach me.

I first learned of the grisly case of Anne Naylor in October of that year. One Monday afternoon found me in the ‘office’ in our den, where an old oak desk was piled with paperwork. The den was a three-storey maisonette on Monmouth Street in the small district of Seven Dials. It had three permanent residents – me, Jaxon and Eliza. Nick had his own apartment, but he often stayed with us.

Since I had moved in, I had come to love the den. It was cluttered and dusty and the boiler was useless, but that only made it feel snug and lived-in. Jaxon had gifted me my own room and told me to do as I pleased with it, so I had painted it wine-red and filled it with trinkets from the black market, where I hunted for antiques and curios in the evenings. It was nothing like my room in my father’s sterile, ultra-modern apartment, which the government had given him.

Thinking of my father let a butterfly loose in my stomach. After I had left school, I had told him I was living with a friend, looking for a job in the service industry. He was still disappointed that I had decided against applying for a place at the University.

He would be even more disappointed if he knew the truth.