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Paige Eva Mahoney, born Paige Aoife Mahoney (pronounced: Page EE-fuh MAH-huh-nee), and also known as Pale Dreamer and later as Black Moth, is an Irish-born dreamwalker, a rare type of clairvoyant. Since the age of sixteen, she has worked for the infamous Jaxon Hall, mime-lord of I-4, as his mollisher.
Biography[]
History[]
Paige was born in Clonmel, the county seat of South Tipperary, Ireland to Cóilín Ó Mathúna and Cora Spencer. Her mother was English and had run away from Scion. Her mother died of placental abruption. She lived with her grandparents in the Golden Vale's southern dairy-farming district for most of her childhood on their dairy farm called Feirm na mBeach Meala. On occasion she would visit her aunt Sandra McCarthy and her cousin Finn McCarthy in Dublin, where her father worked. It was in Dublin that six-year-old Paige witnessed the Dublin Incursion and the beginning of the Molly Riots in 2046. She was in Dublin with Finn and his fiancée Kay Ní Dhornáin. Kay wanted to take Paige home because it was clear things might get violent, but Finn wanted Paige to stay to see history in the making. He tells her that bad people are coming from over the sea who want to lock them up and not ever let them leave. As tanks begin rolling onto the streets, Kay is shot in the heart, which compels Finn to go rushing toward the soldiers. Finn was arrested and presumably hanged at Carrickfergus, while Paige hid from the violence under the Molly Malone statue. Understandably, this event has had a significant impact on Paige's life and her outlook.
When Grand Inquisitor Abel Mayfield ordered the invasion of the south of Ireland, the eight-year-old Paige and her father were forced to move away, leaving her grandparents to face Scion's occupation. The pair moved to the Scion Citadel of London in 2048 under "special circumstances" when Colin was conscripted by SciSORS. Paige attended the III-5 School for Girls of Quality, where she excelled in Scion History, French, and Physical Enrichment. She was unpopular at school due to the pervasive hibernophobia in Scion. She was frequently called a brogue, a slur against the Irish.
When Paige was nine years old, she began to notice that she was different, but her clairvoyance was still buried deep within her. That year, her father took her to a tiny village called Arthyen, near the southern coast. She was homesick for Ireland, but being in Arthyen was better than school, where she was constantly bullied. In a field of poppies at the edge of Arthyen, Paige came face-to-face with a poltergeist. It sliced the skin of her left arm to ribbons and then threw her away to bleed to death. Dr. Nicklas Nygård found Paige and recognized her wounds as spirit-made. He treated her himself and his kindness left a lasting impression. After the incident, she repeatedly had the same dream of a field of red poppies. Not knowing that it was her dreamscape, Paige ran farther each night until she reached the edge. On one occasion, she jumped off the edge and unwittingly into the æther. She awoke in an ambulance and her father claimed that she had wandered into the living room and stopped breathing. Doctors claimed that she had simply fallen into a coma.
Paige sees Nick for the second time in the year 2056 when she is sixteen and he is a guest speaker at her school. Dr. Nygård talks about his career and has a question-and-answer session. After the lecture, Paige catches up with him. Nick remembers her from when they met when she was younger. As they are walking by the school mistress, the woman suddenly gets a nosebleed. After the mistress leaves, Nick asks Paige if people often have nosebleeds around her. Paige tells him they do and asks if he knows why. Nick replies that he might know and that he will be in touch with her again in a few days. Before leaving, he tells Paige not sign up for university. Later, Nick introduces Paige to Jaxon Hall who takes an immediate interest in her. He hires her to be one of his Seven Seals.
The Pale Dreamer[]
Paige has been part of the Seven Seals for three months. She has been trying to master her abilities, but has not had much success. Nick has been teaching her how to use a knife and how to spool spirits. Her life becomes based at Seven Dials. Paige has claimed that her gift is instinctive and this is supported by the fear and anger triggers she uses when fighting with her spirit. After the events surrounding Anne Naylor and Sarah Metyard, Jaxon gives Paige her syndicate alias, the Pale Dreamer.
The Bone Season[]
On the seventh of March, 2059, Paige was dreamwalking in her room in the White Binder's Den in Seven Dials, also known as I-4, supervised by fellow voyant Danica Panić. She was shocked to discover that Danica had allowed her to stay for a full hour in the æther. That night, on her way to I-5 to visit her father, Paige was subjected to a spot check on the London Underground. Fearing arrest, she accidentally killed an Underguard by forcing his spirit out of his body. She left the other Underguard insane, because she was unable to carry out a mercy kill. When she reached her father's apartment, she lied to him about where she was living and claimed to be staying with a school friend, revealing that he has no idea about her life in Seven Dials. Once in her room, she called Jaxon to inform him of what had happened on the train. Though pleased with Paige's new ability, Jaxon told her to stay at the apartment and wait for Nick to collect her in the morning. After falling asleep, Paige was woken by the presence of voyants and fled from the apartment. She was pursued by Scion's security forces and almost escaped, but she was knocked unconscious and almost killed with Fluxion 14.
Paige woke up in the Detainment Facility with no idea where she was and still suffering after-effects of flux. She encountered her first Rephaite, Pleione Sualocin, who hit her when she refused to take the pills she was handed. Once she was in her uniform, Pleione took her to another room, where she met several more voyants, including Carl Dempsey-Brown, Julian Amesbury, Tilda, and Ivy Jacob, along with Sebastian Pearce, an amaurotic. The group was taken to the library in the Residence of the Suzerain, where they were addressed by Nashira Sargas, who informed them of their new positions as slaves to the Rephaim. Each human was then selected by a Rephaite keeper. Paige was chosen by Arcturus Mesarthim, Nashira's blood-consort, who had never shown interest in a human before. She then went with him to the Founder's Tower at the Residence of Magdalen. After he tells her to, she takes a bitter-tasting green pill, that unbeknownst to her, contained Warden's numen, called salvia, which allowed him to go through her memories when she slept. The next day, Paige meets Liss Rymore in the Rookery.
Warden brings Paige to Nashira for her first test. To earn her pink-jacket, Paige must kill an amaurotic. Nashira has Seb brought in and commands Paige to kill him. She refuses. One of the Reph guards, Alsafi Sualocin, tries to threaten her into following the order. She refuses and manages to grab his knife and stab him with it. Nashira tells Aludra Chertan and Warden to physically disarm her. Still holding the knife, Paige recalls how Warden's blood had made her feel closer to the æther, so she inhales the scent of ectoplasm on the knife. It knocks her senses into overdrive. The æther wraps around her and submerges her. Paige and Aludra begin fighting. Paige just barely manages to fight to her off until Warden intervenes. It is revealed that Paige is a dreamwalker. Having gotten what she wanted, Nashira snaps Seb's neck. Alsafi brands Paige's shoulder with her slave identification number. Then Suhail Chertan injects Paige with flux in the cruelest way possible so that the injection site becomes severely infected. Paige ends up bedridden with blood poisoning after her first test. Still, she rejects both the antidote and the food that Warden brings her. They remain at a stalemate, until Warden convinces Paige that unless she drinks the antidote, she will lose her leg. Paige gives in and drinks it.
Liss shares with Paige her feelings of foreboding that she's been having and asks if she read Paige's cards. Paige has never let someone read her cards before, but if it will help Liss feel better she agrees. Liss does an ellipse reading. Paige's first card, which represents her past, is the Five of Cups. Her second card, representing her present, is the King of Wands inverted. Her third card, representing her future, is the Devil. Her fourth card, representing what to do when the time comes, is the Lovers. Her fifth card, representing external influences, is Death inverted. Her sixth card, representing hopes and fears, is the Eight of Swords. When Liss goes to show Paige her seventh card, representing her final outcome, they are interrupted before Liss can see it by three red-jackets. There is a big fight and one of the red-jackets, Kathryn, destroys Liss's numa by setting her tarot cards on fire which sends Liss into spirit shock. Suhail arrives after hearing the commotion and threatens Paige. He then drags her back to Magdalen while feeding on her aura. After he leaves, Warden insists that she sit down and eat something, but Paige lies and says that she isn’t hungry, despite having lived on skilly and toke for a week. Eventually she gives in and finishes off the prepared meal.
The first thing Warden trains Paige to do is how to take possession of a moth. Then he begins her second test. She falls asleep, and when she wakes up she is in No Man's Land. Warden has left her a note saying she must return to Sheol I in as little time as possible. She also needs to survive the night. Paige comes across an Emite and manages to stab it and get back to Sheol I.
After sleeping deeply, allowing her brain to recover from the terror, she wakes up to find she has been clamped to Warden’s bed, with the drapes pulled closed around the bed. Paige peeks out when she hears voices. It is Warden and Terebell Sheratan speaking in a strange language while looking closely at some object. Paige sees that it is her phone. She worries that if they have found her phone, they must have also found the pamphlet with Jaxon’s number, which would allow them to trace it back to Seven Dials. She decides she must get her phone back from them as soon as possible. After Terebell leaves, Warden pulls the drapes back. Paige demands her phone back. He tells her it is safe with Terebell, that she will keep it from Nashira.
Warden is surprised to learn that Nashira is sending Paige back to the same place she got her from, Seven Dials. Paige explains that Nashira wants her to lure out members of the Seven Seals, still not knowing that Paige is a member. Nashira believes that the gang has a dreamwalker and doesn’t know that Paige is that dreamwalker. Paige also tells Warden that three red-jackets, David Fitton, Carl, and Amelia, and one Rephaite, Situla Mesarthim, would be going with her and Warden.
After the disaster in Trafalgar Square, Paige wakes up in Warden’s bed, with her wounds treated. Warden assures her that he didn’t hurt Nick. She asks him why he didn’t just let Paige go home, and he says that he has his reasons. Warden informs her that Nashira has rescinded her red-jacket for trying to escape, and she is now a yellow-jacket. David and Carl were unharmed and returned safely, and Situla was made latent but has recovered. However, Amelia died from drowning. Antoinette Carter and Jaxon have escaped. Waking up after dreamwalking in Warden’s dreamscape, still furious with him about the salvia, Michael Wren greets her with a spread of food. She tells him she’s not hungry and that she doesn’t want Warden’s "guilt breakfast," but since she doesn’t have against Michael personally, it doesn’t take much coaxing to make her eat.
Paige is brought to the Bicentenary Celebration by David. On the way there, David tells her that the Westminster Archon has everything to do with ending Scion and the Rephaim. When Paige expresses her confusion, David simply walks away. Paige and Warden finally give in to their feelings towards each other with a kiss moments before she is marched up to the stage for public execution. Nashira comes upon Paige and Warden kissing, and she is furious. She strips Warden of his position as blood-consort. She instructs Thuban Sargas and Situla to take Warden away for her to punish later. Then she commands Alsafi to bring Paige to the stage for her execution. Before Nashira can kill her, Paige attacks her dreamscape. Terebell, Alsafi, and Pleione attack Nashira with spools long enough for Warden to help Paige escape. Pleione gives Warden a vial of amaranth that's almost empty. There's just enough to help save Paige after Nashira's attacks. Warden tell Paige that the Seals have arrived to help get her out. On the way to Port Meadow, Paige and Nick come across Liss's body. Gomeisa Sargas is there and by the color of his eyes Paige knows he killed her. With the help of the Ranthen, Paige and the other humans are able to make it to the train. Near Port Meadow, Paige comes across a dying low-level employee of Grand Inquisitor Frank Weaver. With his last breath, he tells Paige to find Rackham. She doesn't know who he is talking about. Warden says farewell to Paige on the train station's platform, and tells her that if she ever sees him again, it will mean that there's danger.
The Mime Order[]
After escaping from Sheol I, Paige, the Seals, and the surviving voyants escape from the Tower of London. Paige then spends the next few days laying low in a safe house in I-4, tucked away in a warren of Soho backstreets. She is taking Nightcaps to help her dreamscape recover from fighting with Nashira. When she is finally able to enter her own dreamscape again, great patches of the poppy field have been uprooted. That's the fabric of her mind, torn and scarred. When she touches the seeds of the poppies, they change to a different kind of poppy, poppy anemones, the only thing that can do harm to the Rephaim. Besides her mental trauma, her body is physically damaged as well. Everything is weak, worn thin, and whittled down. Her fingernails are flimsy, her skin is sallow, her hair is brittle and dull, and her ribs and hipbones bulge. Paige realizes that her only option for safety and money is to return to Jaxon. She reluctantly does so. He has her dye her hair black to help her disguise herself from Scion. She also cuts her hair so it is level with her chin and wears hazel contact lenses.
Paige is sent to the Devil's Acre, Haymarket Hector's territory, to get Eliza Renton's painting back from him. Upon arriving at Hector's townhouse, she discovers his body and the bodies of his gang, minus Cutmouth. As she is trying to get the painting, a poltergeist attacks her. Using the necklace from Warden, she is eventually able to force it out of her dreamscape. However she has been really injured. She makes it out of I-1, and ends up passing out in Birdcage Park from the mental, spiritual, and physical pains. Nick gets an image of her from the æther and tells Jaxon where she is. He rescues her and brings her back to the den. They discover that the poltergeist was the London Monster. He used a phantom blade on her arm to make a collection of slices in a rough 'M' shape surrounded by splaying, blackened veins, with a glistening inkwell where the two middle lines met on her arm. When Jaxon touches it, it feels like liquid nitrogen has been poured on it. Her wound is essentially an invisible knife in her arm.
Paige is accosted by Terebell and Errai Sarin. They inform her that Arcturus had come to London to find her, but they haven't heard from him. They want Paige to use the golden cord to find Arcturus. Paige discovers that Warden has left two tiny vials in her backpack. They're connected by a scroll that reads "Until next time, Paige Mahoney." One of the vials is full of his ectoplasm, the other vial contains amaranth. She drinks his ectoplasm, and is then able to track him using the golden cord. She finds him in Camden, the territory of the Rag and Bone Man. Paige is able to successfully rescue Warden with the help of Jos Biwott and Nick. Paige rents a room in a doss-house for Warden so that he can recover. She visits him whenever she can get away from Jaxon.
Paige gets a reading from an astragalomancer in the Minister's Cat gambling house while picking up the penny dreadful draft that Nell left with Babs. Paige gets to ask five questions and receive five answers, each of varying degrees of vagueness. The 'straga sees a vision of scales, which usually point toward truth. There are two people who are on the right side of truth and two who aren't. The other vision she sees is a skeleton hand holding red silk and snatching white feathers. Lastly, the 'straga doesn't see a vision, but the number rolled by the dice, a seven divided into two and five. Leaving the Minister's Cat, Paige is on her way to pay the rent for Warden's doss-house room when she is attacked by two Rag Dolls, the Rag and Bone Man's gang. Paige kills the female attacker and gives the boy a beating. He tells Paige she might as well kill him because the Rag and Bone Man will when he returns having failed to kill Paige. Paige refuses. Inside the female Rag Doll's coat pocket is a red silk handkerchief stained with Hector's blood.
During the scrimmage, Paige and Jaxon fight as a team in the Rose Ring and defeat all of their opponents. As Jaxon is about to be named Underlord, Paige challenges him for the crown. He comes extremely close to defeating her, but she is able to beat him at the last minute by possessing him and forcing him to issue a surrender. Jaxon leaves, warning Paige that he will find other allies. In her address to the Unnatural Assembly after being crowned Underqueen, Paige exposes the Rag and Bone Man's conspiracy and the gray market. The other members of the conspiracy are revealed as well. Just as she is about to drop the bombshell that Scion is nothing more than a façade for Rephaite control, Warden and his allies show up out of nowhere, nearly throwing the crowd into pandemonium. Paige introduces the Ranthen to the syndicate and declares war on Scion.
The Song Rising[]
Jaxon reveals to Paige that he has returned to his former ally, Nashira, and that he was the traitor in the Bone Season XVIII uprising, the human slave XVIII-39-7. He tells Paige that she has fallen for Warden's "seduction" hook, line, and sinker, and that everyone can see she’s being emotionally manipulated into working with the Ranthen. Paige is fully aware of Jaxon’s own abilities as a manipulator, and logically she knows that Jaxon is using psychological warfare to destabilize the Mime Order. However, it still effectively plays on her fear of being controlled and her doubts about what Warden may or may not feel for her.
Warden tells Paige and her high commanders of the Mime Order that the core of Senshield is likely a form of ethereal technology, which harnesses the energy created by spirits. He also tells them his hypothesis that Senshield learned to detect aura through exposure. Thus, any of the higher orders of voyants could be used to improve its ability to detect aura. The Mime Order holds Ivy Jacob's trial for her participation in the gray market. Paige is forced to find her guilty, but only sentences her to three months of house arrest.
When the sudden curfew in the citadel keeps Paige from meeting her, Terebell and the Ranthen come to Paige's safe house. Terebell attacks Paige and tells her that she is a poor investment. She claims the curfew doesn't supersede Paige's duty to meet her. Warden arrives and defuses things. Terebell informs Paige that the Ranthen are leaving. They have found pockets of Rephaim who are willing to confront the Sargas with them, both on Earth and in the Netherworld. She gives Paige her “approval” to destroy Senshield but expects her to get authorization before taking any action. She tells Paige that she can contact her through Lucida who will be staying behind while the rest of the Ranthen join her in the Netherworld to find allies. They will be starting with Adhara Sarin who is rumored to have Ranthen sympathies. Before leaving, Terebell informs Paige that she is ending Warden's training of the syndicate and that if Paige needs help training to ask Lucida.
A few days later, Warden rescues Paige from Hildred Vance's trap. Wanting to be back on good terms with him before he leaves, Paige tells Warden about Jaxon's manipulation of her feelings towards him. Warden tells Paige that hiding what he feels for her and being forced to do nothing to support her in public is the price he is willing to pay for change. They give in to their feelings and spend the night together, but don't go beyond kissing.
Paige makes a deal with Styx, the king of the toshers, to hide the syndicate in the Beneath. The Mime Order goes into hiding in an underground crisis facility as Senshield and ScionIDE are unleashed on London. The night before leaving for Manchester, Paige tells Warden that she can't continue the romantic aspect of their relationship. She tells him that he is what change will cost her. She swore that she would sacrifice everything if it meant taking down Scion and freedom for clairvoyants. Warden understands that she doesn’t want to do this and accepts her decision. Paige is heartbroken.
Upon meeting Elspeth Lin in the Scion Citadel of Edinburgh, Paige discusses the ellipse reading Liss did for her in Sheol I. The cards were the Five of Cups, King of Wands inverted, the Devil, the Lovers, Death inverted, and Eight of Swords. The Five of Cups is the past and represents Paige's father in mourning, presumably for his wife. The King of Wands inverted is the present and represents Jaxon and the hold he once had over her life. The Devil is the future and represents hopelessness and fear, but according to Liss, Paige had chosen that path willingly and it is something she can escape. It symbolizes someone who controls and manipulates others. Elspeth explains that the Lovers card will show Paige what to do. She tells her, "There's tension between spirit and flesh, too much tension."[1] Paige think the Lovers card could represent Warden, but she worries he could also be the Devil card. Elspeth finishes by telling Paige that she must follow the path of the Lovers card. She should stay close to the person she thinks the card might represent, and make sure she's identified that person correctly. If she strays from whoever it is, Elspeth believes Paige will make herself vulnerable to the person represented by the Devil card.
Vance uses Paige’s weak spots against her in Edinburgh by executing her father by recreating the scene of the Molly Riots, intending to trigger Paige’s traumatic childhood memories and make her surrender out of despair. Paige does surrender, just not for the reasons Vance intended. When Paige realizes that Senshield’s core is hidden inside the Westminster Archon, she surrenders to Scion on the spot, hoping that as a prisoner she’ll have a better chance of destroying it.
While imprisoned in the Archon, she learns from Jaxon that Hector was the one that ordered her sold to Scion. He also informs her that the Rag and Bone Man killed Hector on Jaxon's orders. During time in the Archon, Paige is routinely beaten, waterboarded, drugged, starved, and mentally tortured by Suhail. On New Year's Eve, Paige battles the poltergeist powering Senshield's core in the glass tower of the Archon. In the fight, the glass shatters and Vance and Paige are seriously injured. She is rescued by Scarlett Burnish and Alsafi. Before he can follow her to safety, they are met by Nashira. Alsafi sacrifices himself so that Paige can escape. Before leaving her, Scarlett tells her that she is an agent of the Domino Programme, and now Paige is one too.
The Dawn Chorus[]
It is January 1, 2060, and Paige and Warden are in the Scion Citadel of Paris, staying in a safe house so that Paige can try to recover physically and mentally from her torture in the Westminster Archon. She has learned that she was imprisoned in the Archon for twenty-three days. She knows she spent an entire week lashed to the waterboard and tortured by Suhail. She had only been able to wash once in the twenty-three days, just before her meeting with Jaxon. Paige is struggling to deal with the words Suhail told her, "That even Warden's standards aren't that low, and that he sees her for what she is, the damp rot of mortality."[2] Because of Suhail's mental torture, Warden's very presence fills her with self-loathing, and she can't bear for him to touch her even though his touch brings her comfort. Warden is giving her Scimorphine for the pain, and since she can't handle being near water, even to drink it, Warden offers to set up an IV instead, which Paige agrees to.
Paige survived her time in the Archon by dividing her imprisonment into steps. She wonders if she can do the same with her healing. She asks Warden if he ever gave up on her, and he says that he didn't. He was willing to propose a hostage exchange, his life for Paige’s. Terebell and Ognena Maria forbade it. He might have done it anyway, but an alternative plan arose, the rescue conducted by Scarlett Burnish and the Domino Programme.
She is going through withdrawal from the drugs constantly injected into her. A specter has appeared in her dreamscape as well, a smoky, Rephaite-shaped reminder of her ordeal, staring out from the darkest circle of her mind. While battling with her body and mind, still unable to bear Warden's touch despite how badly she wants it, she realizes what Suhail has done through his mental torture. Nashira must have ordered him to keep invoking Warden, to chisel away Paige's ability to take solace in him, so that even if she escape, it would always hurt to be in his presence. Paige is determined to not let Nashira take Warden from her. Throughout the whole recovery process, Warden remains calm, supportive, and understanding.
Paige thinks about the last card in Liss' reading for her, the Eight of Swords. It represents her hopes and fears. She thinks perhaps her torture is represented by this card. While Paige is now considered an agent of the Domino Program, Warden is not. He is Paige's auxiliary, or supporting role.
The Mask Falling[]
Paige and Warden are living in the Domino Program's safe house. With Warden's support, Paige is working through her PTSD and her convalescence. Domino has given her a month to heal. Their safe house is on the Rue Gît-le-Cœur. Paige and Warden also work on the new dynamic of their relationship. For the first time, neither is in a position of power over the other. They celebrate Paige's twentieth birthday. He tells her that she should call him Arcturus going forward instead of Warden. She dyes her hair a rich copper to try and disguise her identity. Paige convinces Warden to help her locate the Paris syndicate, which is called Le Nouveau Régime. They meet the equivalent of the Underlord and Underqueen, called the grand ducs.
Paige meets Isaure Ducos, an amaurotic agent of the Domino Program. Ducos tells Paige about Domino and informs her of her new role in it. Paige will be part of Ducos's sub-network called Mannequin, along with four other agents. Paige's mission is to infiltrate L’Hôtel Garuche and extract the information regarding why Georges Benoît Ménard has been avoiding contact with the government in England. Domino wants to know why Ménard is not accepting Weaver’s overtures and why he is avoiding a fellow Scion leader. To accomplish this mission, Paige will use her dreamwalker abilities to possess Luce Ménard Frère, the wife and advisor of Georges Benoît Ménard. Paige will use Frère’s influence to find out what England has done to rankle her husband. While carrying out her assignment, Paige meets the two other members of her sub-network, Stéphane Paquet and Eléonore Cordier. Paquet is a courier while Cordier is a medical officer.
After learning the location of Sheol II, Versailles, Domino's Command gives her another assignment. This time, they tell her to infiltrate Sheol II and assassinate the Grand Overseer, Jaxon, and make it look like it was done on Ménard's orders. Upon finding Jaxon in Sheol II, Paige is ultimately unable to kill Jaxon. She offers Arcturus the opportunity, but he doesn't want it. While escaping Versailles, Arcturus engages in a fight with other Rephaim, which weakens him. He is unable to stand, but Paige begs him to come along, confessing she still has feelings for him. After returning to the safehouse in Paris, Arcturus and Paige spend intimate moments together and reveal their feelings to each other. Since Arcturus' stock of amaranth has run dry, his scars begin to hinder him. While he is asleep, Paige leaves the safehouse and during her brief absence, the hideout is raided by Scion Vigiles. Arcturus is captured and taken to Île de la Citadelle, where La Forteresse de Justice is located. Paige makes an attempt to rescue Warden, but when she gets to him, he disregards her and reveals that he has been a double spy all along, and that in reality he intends to reveal every piece of information he extracted from Paige to Nashira. Nashira arrives with Situla and Graffias Sheratan. Nashira taunts Paige with Warden's betrayal. She tells Paige that Arcturus has been reinstated as blood-consort. Situla and Graffias attempt to take Paige into custody, but she is somehow able to channel her overwhelming emotions into her dreamscape and attack the Rephaim. She escape with the help of Le Prince Creux.
Paige is utterly heartbroken and devastated by Arcturus's betrayal. She begins thinking he is the Devil from Liss's reading, not the Lovers like she thought. She immediately sends Nadine Arnett, Zeke Sáenz, and Ivy back to London to warn the Mime Order, let the Edinburgh and Manchester syndicates know what's happened, and move the London voyants to the shadow houses. Paige gives Nadine and Zeke the money from the Ranthen to use to smuggle themselves out of Scion. Finally, Paige tells them that Eliza and the Glym Lord need to make it their priority to destroy the Senshield scanners. When Zeke asks if they should tell the the Ranthen about Warden's betrayal, Paige says yes. Ivy says she doesn’t want to go back to the Mime Order, instead she wants to become a perdue. Paige understands. Once Ivy is done getting Nadine and Zeke to Eliza and Glym, she will come back to Paris, but asks Ivy to bring someone with her. Nadine and Zeke say goodbye to Paige, and they part as friends, with Nadine and Zeke part of the Mime Order and planning on getting to the free-world to tell the truth about Scion.
Ducos visits Paige in another Domino safe house. Ducos tells Paige that she has been kicked out of Domino. However, Command agrees with Ducos that the Mime Order has great potential. Paige will be an associate of an intelligence network going forward. This means she will not have to have her memories erased. If Paige can provide proof the Mime Order is ready to fight, Domino will give them financial support. Paige invites Ducos to attend the trial of Le Latronpuche and meet Le Vieux Orphelin who is allying with Le Nouveau Régime with the Mime Order. Ducos attends and is impressed. She gives Paige a burner phone with her contact information in it and tells her they will be in touch. Ducos tells Paige that Mannequin has been disbanded, since Warden's capture and Albéric's presumed death make it clear the group has a mole, but Ducos will stay and rebuild.
Paige and Le Vieux Orphelin announce the official alliance between the Mime Order and Le Nouveau Régime. She also forms a temporary truce with Ménard. In exchange for focusing the attention of the newly aligned London and Paris syndicates on England and bringing down Weaver, Ménard will suspend all capital punishment of clairvoyants. Ménard accepts her truce but tells her that he only gives her two years of clemency.
After her final meeting with Cade Fitzours she recalls that Warden once told her there was "something that proved that he was always on her side. Something that would betray him if anyone but her could see." She realizes he meant the red drapes in his dreamscape that only a dreamwalker could see. Warden feels safest in the place he had first held Paige in his arms. A moment so powerful it had transfigured his dreamscape. This makes Paige realize that Arcturus had not betrayed her. He is possessed by another dreamwalker. She thinks that person is Cade. Paige tries to get back to la Forteresse de Justice, but she is stopped when bombs begin falling on Paris in retaliation for Scion's Operation Madrigal. La Forteresse de Justice is one of the first places to be bombed and Paige is left not knowing if Arcturus is alive or dead, she fears not even a Rephaite could survive such injuries. Cordier somehow finds Paige outside the Forteresse de Justice. She uses a drug to knock Paige unconscious and the last thing Paige hears is Cordier saying this is for her own good.
Physical Description[]
Paige is 5"9' and has gray eyes and a serious look to her face. Her identification card describes her as having "no distinctive features but dark lips, probably caused by smoking."[3] She has never smoked in her life. Her hair is white-blonde and curly. She is not someone who would usually be described as fashionable. Paige is light, with a slim and narrow build. She has a cluster of scars in the middle of her left hand from the poltergeist attack she survived when she was nine. After being imprisoned in Sheol I, Paige has her slave name and identification number, XX-59-40, branded on her shoulder. After Paige banishes the spirit that powered Senshield, she has another scar on her palm with her childhood poltergeist scar. The scars now form the word kin. Her hands are callused from climbing and handling weapons. As Jaxon's mollisher, he makes her wear a red cravat over her lips and nose when she carries out her duties. When she and Warden are physically close, their auras intertwine.
Personality[]
Paige is fiercely independent, driven, loyal, and possibly the most defining aspect of her character is her sense of doing the right thing. Paige believes that all clairvoyants have the right to freedom. She is driven to destroy Scion's doctrine of tyranny or die trying. While she says that "head down, eyes open" is her motto for staying alive, she has a borderline suicidal habit of provoking her enemies and entering into dangerous situations. Both in Sheol I and in the syndicate, Paige is told to follow strict rules or risk death, but she never listens. She would rather risk her life fighting for what she and her fellow voyants deserve than keep her head down and be grateful for what she's got.
Not only is Paige physically tough, but she is also mentally tough. No matter how injured, exhausted, or in pain she is in, she always gets back up and keeps going. When she's made a slave in Sheol I, she refuses to lie down and take it. Instead, she plots a mass jailbreak with the other prisoners, and they stage their revolt on the very day that the Sargas were supposed to celebrate the consolidation of their power. After having been mentally and physically tortured for weeks in the Archon, Paige manages to escape her cell, sneak into Victoria Tower, and face down both Hildred Vance and the Senshield poltergeist. The experience nearly kills her.
Paige tends to doubt herself on many levels, especially once she becomes Underqueen and has to deal with the pressures and responsibilities that come with the position. She cannot abide anyone trying to make a fool of her. She fears others using her gift for their own gain. Like Warden, she is proud, emotionally guarded, and deeply loyal. They both have a strong sense of responsibility to the people who depend on them. When Warden and Paige touch foreheads, it makes flames dance in her dreamscape.
When Paige chooses the Black Moth as her new alias, it is an echo of the speech Gomeisa Sargas gives Paige about how humans are like moths. At the time, Gomeisa was pointing out the weak, pitiful, self-destructive nature of humanity, but Paige appropriates it for the allusion to a short-lived life that ends in fire, matching her determination to bring down Scion even if it means sacrificing herself.[4]
Etymology[]
Paige is a name for both males and females. The name is of English origin that means "young helper" or "young child." In medieval times, a page was usually a young boy whose service was the first step in his training as a knight. Eva is the Latin form of the name Eve, derived from the Hebrew name meaning "life" or "living one." It is the standard biblical form of Eve in many European languages. Mahoney is the Anglicised form of the Old Gaelic O'Mathghamhana, which means "descendant of Mathghamhain," and an Irish surname.
Trivia[]
- Nick calls Paige sötnos, which means "sweetheart" in Swedish.
- Colin's childhood nickname for Paige is seillean.
- Paige's favorite flower is the wild oat blossom. In the language of flowers it means "the witching soul of music."
- Paige is demisexual, meaning she only experiences sexual attraction to people with whom she has an emotional bond.[5]
- Her favorite food is sugar-roasted chestnuts.
- She speaks three languages: English, French, and Gaeilge.
- Eliza taught Paige how to pick locks when she first joined the Seals.
Appearances[]
Gallery[]
