reminded … knowing that the pathways might reopen if they were knocked about. I had an accomplice … someone who knew how to manipulate the fatty tissue of the brain better than I possibly could. I made my skull a construct, programmed to apply pressure to specific lobes. And it worked, Pent. It worked,” she said. “It was stupid. A brute-force solution. But it worked.”
Abigail was looking at her very carefully, with a different expression than before. Harrow knew she sounded a little irascible when she said, “What?”
“I think we are talking over each other,” said the Fifth adept, rubbing her mittened hands together. “I’m not asking about the preserved soul that made you a Lyctor, Reverend Daughter … though that’s also filled in some of the pieces. Harrowhark, I am referring to the invasive soul.”
“The invasive—?”
“You are being haunted,” said Abigail calmly. “I had assumed you had picked this battlefield deliberately, and raised an army to fight alongside you. I didn’t quite know why you’d chosen us. Now I know, but it seems you did not. You are possessed by an angry spirit, Harrow, and you are losing the war.”
Harrow reflexively tried to pad out her fat reserves; it was really shockingly cold. She was stopped when she realized she could not identify where they sat under the skin of her arms, let alone augment them. The limitation was familiar: it was the limitation she had lived with all her life, when she was Ninth, and not First. Her furnace of power was gone.
She reached for the memory of her other self—no; she underserved herself by separating herself into two halves, Harrow First and Harrow Secundarius, as though she were following bells. They were all one Harrowhark, wearing different clothes. And she was no better now that her vestments were black—in a way she was greatly worse. But the memory was there.
Think of how when you blow air into water, you make bubbles …
It was getting chillier. The wind howled against the darkened window. There was no good weather in her brain. She said, “We are in the River.”
“Yes,” said Abigail. “That was my first realisation.”
“This is my creation.”
“Yes. You set the parameters,” said Abigail. “We realized through process of elimination, as we each recalled ourselves in the end. You didn’t. Ortus was convinced it was your creation from the start—I’m sorry that I disbelieved him.”
That was for later mental delectation. “I made a bubble in the River, just like Sextus did. But unconsciously, shoddily…” Sextus must have thought her such a churl. It would have been an enormous relief to have Palamedes Sextus with her then, if only so that she could, perhaps, offer some paltry thanks. But to have him see her so slow on the uptake would be hideous— “Why Canaan House? Why Ortus Nigenad? To fill the hole in my memory.”
Thankfully, Pent was quicker on the uptake. “You didn’t remove the memories of your cavalier, Harrowhark. I think that would have been beyond even the powers of a Lyctor. You falsified them. You skinned them over with something that looked good.” What a waste of a woman, to have ended her life at the bottom of a ladder.
“But why make so many changes? Why is this narrative so different? This isn’t how it happened at all. I understand that … that Gideon had to be—absent, but why…”
“This isn’t a picture you’re drawing, Harrow,” said Pent. “It’s a play you’re directing. You set up a stage in the River, you pulled in ghosts as your actors, and you enforced certain rules to keep your cast on-script. But now another director is trying to hijack the play, and the struggle for control backstage is leaking over into the action out front. You’re being ousted.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know,” said Abigail candidly. “And there are other discrepancies I’d hoped you could have shed light on. Why did you only pull some of us as ghosts? Why did the others appear as—varyingly ludicrous constructs? Lieutenant Dyas was certain Judith was wrong before she even died, that she was like a confused parody of herself.”
“I never could have called the ghost of Captain Deuteros,” interrupted Harrow. “Deuteros lives.”
Abigail leaned in eagerly. “Tell Dyas that. She’ll want to know. The princesses…?”
“Alive.”
“Their cavalier—”
“Breakfast.” At Abigail’s bewilderment, Harrow qualified: “Ianthe Tridentarius is a Lyctor.”
“Blast. It should have been Coronabeth. Ianthe never was quite the thing. The Sixth—”
“Camilla’s alive. Palamedes … enjoys extenuating circumstances.” At this second round of bewilderment, she qualified: “The Master Warden