The Fifth House necromancer sighed in obvious pleasure, a simple delight that some of them had lived where she herself had not. A deep guilt sparked within Harrow’s ribcage. Pent even murmured, “The King over the River is good,” which filled Harrow with another sensation entirely.
That brought with it a reminder so savagely stupid she was astonished that it had not been her first thought. Her hands flew to her midsection. She closed her eyes. She leant back into the soft curve of her spine—she took the reins of the River in her hands, and she walked out into the waters, and she walked, and she walked.
As her—cavalier—might have put it, absolutely butt-fuck nothing happened. She could not access the River. She was not aware of it. There was no awareness of the anchor of her body; just as with the removal of her Lyctoral magic, there was no exit route. She was trapped within the bubble, writhing like a fish. And somewhere back on the Mithraeum …
“Time,” said Harrow urgently. “How does this track with time?”
“Based on my assumptions about spirit magic and the nature of consciousness,” said Abigail, “this—stage—only exists when you have limited or no conscious awareness. While you sleep, or while you have been knocked out, or otherwise disconnected from outside stimuli. I have not experienced any breaks in time—it’s seamless from this side. I imagine the simulation runs within your sleeping mind’s understanding of time, if somewhat contracted and dilated … How much time has passed in the—er—real world?”
“Nine months.”
“Good Lord.” She was genuinely upset. “I would have put us at about eight weeks. Oh—my family’s probably been told … They’ll be wondering where the living hell my spirit is. My poor brother—Magnus’s parents—my fern collection—”
“Lady Pent,” said Harrowhark forcefully, “forget the ferns. In the real world, I have been fatally stabbed. The place that holds my body is about to be overrun by thanergetic monsters created by a galactic revenant. I am, put bluntly, on the verge of death. My soul is under siege, and I overwrote my real memories with a ghost-filled pocket dimension, which has now apparently been co-opted by some kind of poltergeist. From what I can tell I am stuck in here. I cannot get out. And I am about to die—I may even be dead already—which will render this all somewhat moot.”
The window cracked. At first she assumed it was the howling, killing wind; but as she and Abigail watched, a questing pink tentacle, crackling with ice as it shifted and slithered, made a ropy trail down a broken hole in the glass. A long, pulsing tube. As they watched, a sphincter opened in the end, and from that hole emerged a clattering pile of plex scope slides, the type you would preserve a cell sample between. The door to the bedroom had been flung open: the previously dead Magnus Quinn was there, wearing a huge furry coat, cavern-cheeked from the chill, saying, “They’re breaching the walls, dear.”
“Tell Protesilaus and the lieutenant not to touch them.”
“Too late, and I can’t blame them, these things are vile—”
“Leave your body to your body, Reverend Daughter,” said Abigail, rising shakily to stand, her teeth chattering. “If you were dead on the other side, we’d all be gone by now. If you die in here, your soul is gone forever. Right now, in this moment, you are alive—let us ensure that if your body survives, you will remain at the helm.”
Harrow fought to be heard over the screams of the wind. “But I was stabbed through the stomach! What’s happening out there?”
44
THAT SAME NIGHT BEFORE THE EMPEROR’S MURDER
THE BLADE OF THE rapier tangled in your skin. Big hanks of dermis kept wending their way up along the fuller, unsure where to head from there; as organs knitted together inside your abdomen—as interstitial meat threw itself against the invasive blade—the bloodied tip quivered, pushed this way and that by the regrowing tissue. You’d been stabbed from behind, and you’d collapsed backward onto the rapier’s hilt. Its foible pointed upward where it protruded from your torso.
And you’d gone and left me behind.
I arched up on your hands, rested your weight on your feet—the blade stayed stuck—and I pushed up against the corridor wall, and I got you to stand. Your legs were trembling. The only thing I could think of to do was to wad up your hands in the robe, give myself a count of