"I will not allow this to be our extinction. Today, we descend. Tomorrow, we rise!"
— Paige Mahoney
The Song Rising (2019) is the third installment in Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season series. Set in a Dystopian, Alternate History England, the story follows a young clairvoyant woman named Paige Mahoney. Since 1859, when the phenomenon of clairvoyance first became public knowledge, England has operated under oppressive and strongly anti-voyant government called Scion. Paige belongs to a class of criminal voyants who use their contact with spirits and the spirit world (called the æther) to make a living while avoiding the authorities. She is a rare kind of voyant known as a dreamwalker, capable of separating her spirit from her physical body and entering the æther in spirit form.
Senshield has been unleashed on the streets of London: a technology that can detect clairvoyants at a distance. It's being installed on every street corner, in hospitals, homeless shelters and cash machines, making essential services inaccessible and threatening to double the daily arrests. For anyone with an aura, going unseen on the streets will be a thing of the past. What little freedom they've held on to in the shadow of the anchor is gone.
As Underqueen, it is now Paige's responsibility to save the voyants of London from catastrophe. In her hunt for the source of Senshield's power, she comes up against a new enemy: Hildred Vance, a high-ranking official in Scion's military and a cunning strategist. If the Mime Order is to survive, Paige will have to match her wits against Vance and her strength against the whole of Scion's empire.
If you're looking for one of the other books in the series, see the links below:
To return to the general page for the Bone Season series, click here.
For character-specific tropes, please go to the character page for this series.
This book contains examples of:
- The Alliance: The Mime Order, a pact between the Ranthen and the London syndicate, whose purpose is to dismantle Scion.
- Arc Words: "Rise from the ashes." First spoken by Warden when Paige is at her lowest ever point, convinced that she has failed for good, and later invoked by Paige herself as she resolves to go through with an insane plan that's her only chance of victory.
- Break Them by Talking: The book opens with Jaxon telling 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 this is a form of psychological warfare meant to destabilize the Mime Order. But it effectively plays on her fear of being controlled and her doubts about what Warden may or may not feel for her. She ends up avoiding him for weeks and lashing out at him when Terebell displays her usual contempt for Paige's authority, which puts extra tension on the syndicate's alliance with the Ranthen.
- Deconstructed by Warden when she finally confronts him with the charges.
"What Jaxon said at the Archon plays upon certain aspects of your past and personality. He knows that you cannot abide anyone trying to make a fool of you — and he knows, most likely, that the first person you loved did not love you. [...] He knows the way you guard your heart. In your mind, I am now someone who might be making a fool of you, who cares nothing for you, and who only means to use your gift for his own gain — another thing you fear." - Bridal Carry: Alsafi finds Paige half-dead after her struggle with the Senshield poltergeist and carries her to safety this way.
- Cabin Fever: The syndicate goes into hiding in an underground crisis facility just as Senshield and Scion-IDE are unleashed on London. We don't see them for weeks after Paige leaves the citadel, but it's implied that things are getting steadily worse with so many desperate people trapped together — especially considering the fact that London voyants are at each other's throats on the best of days.
- Captured on Purpose: 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.
- Cowardice Callout: Paige, in the grip of her Heroic BSoD, tells Warden that she has to abdicate the crown and let someone else lead the Mime Order. To this he says, "I never thought that you, of all people, would prove worthy of your yellow tunic." The reproof hits home.
- Danger — Thin Ice: Paige and her squad end up on the frozen surface of the River Thames while trying to escape a Scion ambush. The ice isn't thick enough to support several people running across it, and she ends up falling through. She would have drowned if not for Warden, who finds her with the golden cord and pulls her out of the current.
- Dramatic Necklace Removal: Paige pulls off the sublimed pendant and throws it to Warden before giving herself up to the Archon. She didn't want a Ranthen heirloom falling into the wrong hands.
- Face Death with Dignity: When Paige announces herself to Scion in Edinburgh, she knows that she'll be either shot dead on the spot by Vance's soldiers or taken to the Archon to suffer a far worse fate. Yet even in surrender — even knowing what kind of death Nashira has in store for her — she stands unflinching and resolute, staring down the barrel of the rifle pointed at her heart.I would not show fear.
- Flaw Exploitation: Hildred Vance's M.O. for dealing with rebels and dissidents: she figures out her target's weak spot and uses it against them.
- Ognena Maria tells the story of Rozaliya, a Bulgarian rebel leader. When Vance found out that Rozaliya had a younger brother who died, she found a little boy who looked like him, threw him into the middle of the street, and had him scream for help. Rozaliya hesitated long enough that she was killed by the explosives the boy had on him.
- Vance plants false information about the location of Senshield's core within the ranks of Scion's engineering division, knowing the Underqueen isn't the kind of person to let her people risk their lives without risking her own. She turns out to be right when Paige follows the false lead straight into an ambush.
- She tries this again in Edinburgh by executing Colin Mahoney and recreating the scene of the Molly Riots, intending to trigger Paige's traumatic childhood memories and make her surrender out of despair. And Paige surrenders, all right ... just not for the reasons Vance intended.
- Go Through Me: Warden spends most of the book advising Paige and letting her take the lead — until she decides on a completely suicidal, last-ditch plan. When she pulls a gun on him and tells him to get out of the way, he tells her in no uncertain terms that if she wants to stop him from stopping her, she'll have to shoot him, and keep shooting until the gun is empty. It's no bluff, seeing as bullets can't kill the Rephaim. He'd absolutely take the hit if it meant saving her from her own recklessness.
- Heroic BSoD: When Paige, on top of losing one of her commanders and failing to destroy Senshield, sees her father get executed, she goes into a state of shock and despair, convinced that she has failed for good and that she can no longer lead the Mime Order.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Knowing that the only way to infiltrate the Archon and destroy Senshield is to be taken there as a prisoner, Paige surrenders herself to Scion, accepting the fact that she'll be tortured and executed even if she succeeds.
- She escapes thanks to Alsafi, who finds her in the shattered wreckage of the glass pyramid. Nashira discovers them as he's carrying her to safety, and he gives away his Ranthen loyalties by stuffing her into a secret passage instead of returning her to her cell as ordered. He then confronts Nashira alone, buying time for Paige to escape at the cost of his own life.
- Humans Are Bastards: Nashira talks about how easy it is to trigger hatred in human beings, citing slavery, the old witch trials and various gruesome human methods of execution. She adds that after Bone Season XVIII, she chose to torture the Ranthen with the spirit of a particularly vicious human in order to "remind them of humanity's true nature."
- Immediate Sequel: The book picks up right where The Mime Order left off, with Paige still in the borrowed body of a Vigile in the Westminster Archon, staring in disbelief at her old mime-lord.
- Insistent Appellation: Warden always calls Paige by her title of "Underqueen" in front of other people, deferring to her authority as a leader of the Mime Order. This steadfast show of respect is, unfortunately, not shared by his fellow Ranthen.
- Irony: Warden, whose motives and emotions are indecipherable to Paige, tells her that she's an enigma to him.
- King of the Homeless: Styx, king of the toshers and amaurotic outcasts, features in this book. Paige makes a deal with him in order to hide the syndicate in the Beneath.
- Last Request: Tom the Rhymer has one for his Underqueen."Paige, I dinna want you to watch me snuff it, but I have a last favour to ask of you. Just a small one. Bring Scion down."
- Lethal Letter Opener: Scarlett Burnish kills a Vigile with one of these in the Inquisitorial Office, allowing her and Paige to narrowly avoid discovery.
- Love Is a Weakness: Paige chooses to break off her relationship with Warden partway through the book because she can no longer risk dividing her focus on the war effort. As Scion redoubles its efforts to root out the syndicate, she realizes that her duties as Underqueen forbid any competing priorities, especially a risky intimate relationship that could destroy the Mime Order if discovered.
- No Sympathy: How the Ranthen — particularly Terebell and Errai — treat Paige as she grapples with their expectations of her and with the deadly new security measures that threaten the lives of every voyant under her care. For instance, when London is placed under curfew and she is forced to stay home rather than meet Terebell's summons, the Ranthen show up on her doorstep and a furious Terebell slams her into the nearest wall, accusing her of being a poor investment.
- Obi-Wan Moment: After banishing the poltergeist, Paige is left semi-conscious on the floor of Victoria Tower, covered in glass and too weak to even move. She knows she's on the brink of leaving her body for good — but with Senshield destroyed, there's no longer any reason for her to hold on to it. After contemplating the scars on her hand, she closes her eyes, at peace and ready to join with the æther.
- Off with His Head!: Two unfortunate characters meet this fate.
- Hildred Vance puts Colin Mahoney on the chopping block in order to psychologically destabilize Paige.
- Nashira beheads Alsafi in their Duel to the Death.
- Out-Gambitted: Instead of trying to catch Black Moth the old-fashioned way, Hildred Vance tries to manipulate her into giving herself up. Paige figures out what Vance is on about and decides to play along for her own purposes. She surrenders to the Archon and undergoes several weeks of torture, making it seem as though she no longer poses a threat, and Vance doesn't suspect a thing until it's almost too late.
- Our Hero Is Dead: Didion Waite writes a poem to this effect after Paige is publicly arrested in Edinburgh.
- Patrick Stewart Speech: Paige responds to Nashira's Humans Are Bastards monologue by arguing that while humans can be violent, they also have the ability to create, to build and to learn from their mistakes.
- Rousing Speech: Paige delivers one to the Unnatural Assembly after they move into the crisis facility, turning them from a Powder Keg Crowd into a crowd of people willing to literally hold hands for the greater good. Her speech provides the page quote for this book."They declared war on us the day they put their first voyant on the gallows. They declared war on us the day they spilled the first blood on the Lychgate! You are the clairvoyants of London, and I will not see you extinguished. We are going to reclaim our streets. We are going to seize our freedom. They made thieves of us — it's time to steal what's ours!"
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: A variation. As Underqueen, Paige isn't technically royalty, but she's the closest thing they have. After uniting the mime-lords and mime-queens against Scion, she works tirelessly to keep the syndicate running and repeatedly risks her own life to save her people. Unlike Haymarket Hector, her predecessor, who was lazy and corrupt and didn't give a damn that Senshield was about to come down on London like a ton of bricks.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Terebell and Paige, respective leaders of the Ranthen and the London syndicate. Terebell's view of humans is scarcely better than that of the Sargas, and she takes absolutely no pains to hide this when interacting with their Underqueen. Paige, meanwhile, doesn't appreciate constantly being treated like a subordinate by someone who's supposed to be her political equal.
- Ten Paces and Turn: Warden is shown training a few members of the Mime Order in spirit combat. He instructs the two volunteers to turn their backs on each other, take three steps, and wait for the countdown before attacking.
- Title Drop: At the very end of the book.And I waited for the sun to rise — as it always did, like a song from the night.
- Villainous Face Hold: Jaxon does this to Paige in the Westminster Archon, tipping her chin up with one finger at the end of their tête-à-tête.
- Water Torture: Paige is waterboarded at Suhail's hands in the Westminster Archon.
- Wham Line: "We need everyone, or everyone loses." Delivered by ballerina Marilena Braşoveanu right before committing suicide in front of an audience of thousands, stunning the Scion officials who'd been celebrating their victory over Black Moth.
- You Can Barely Stand: Paige, after weeks of being tortured in the Archon, escapes her prison cell and struggles up to the tower where Senshield's core is hidden, on the edge of collapse the whole time. She finds Hildred Vance waiting there to confront her.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Jonathan Cassidy tells Paige that her grandparents would have lost their dairy farm when Scion moved in, and that everyone still living in Ireland had been put to brutal manual labour. She's left feeling hollow, knowing that her childhood home is gone forever and that her country is well and truly under Scion's yoke.
- You Monster!: Paige says this to Jaxon when he blithely tells her that as a consequence of his betrayal, the Ranthen were all tortured by the spirit of Jack the Ripper.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Paige is fighting to liberate clairvoyants from Scion, while Hildred Vance has seen to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Yet inside Vance's dreamscape, Paige's dream-form's hands are covered in blood, a metaphor for how Vance perceives her: a violent rebel and a mass murderer.
HOW LONG BEFORE THEY SEE ALL OF US?
WE NEED EVERYONE, OR EVERYONE LOSES.
NO SAFE PLACE. NO SURRENDER.
