shredded muscles, tied back together that multitude of miniature rips. My first overhead strike shattered the stinger, and the heinous thing reared and then sheared our cheek open before I could duck—but the only thing I cared about was the superheated steam feeling in our arms, and the swing, and the arc of my broadsword as I cleaved a neat arc through that creepy insectoid waist.
The creature toppled into halves. It curled up horribly in a death throe; those humanlike fingers and toes on the bottom of the frame curled in on themselves, and all the meat parts depuffed and shrivelled, and putrid-smelling guts squeezed out of the skull’s mouth hole. In that panting dark heat, the death reek was intense. And your shoulders wouldn’t stop shaking, even when I leaned against the bed.
It was only when I saw us in the mirror by the dresser—saw me, in you—still not saying anything—that it hit home what you had done. Your face was a mess. It was such a weird goddamn melange of us: your pointy-ass chin, your stubborn-featured, dark-browed face, less battered than the last time I’d seen it, but—wearier than I’d ever known it to be. Your eyes had little smudgy lines next to them, and they were there at the corners of your mouth, marks of this huge, exhausted sadness. You could always leave everything else behind, but you never got rid of being so absolutely fucking goddamn sad.
The skull paint dripped down your cheeks from the sweat, and from the blood, and from where I’d wiped it accidentally. Your hair was way too long. It was plastered down your neck, and it was seriously itchy. All of that was the same Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Angular. Ferocious. Terrible. But at the same time, it wasn’t.
Main reason: my eyes stared out of your face. The shape was yours, but the yellow-amber irises were as out of place in your face as my sword was clutched in your thin, straining arms. The expression wasn’t right either—my what the fuck? face was very different from your what the fuck? face. It was like watching a shell of you walk around; like the empty puppets you’d made of Pelleamena and Priamhark. Except that would’ve been easier. This was your shell, but it was all filled up with me. God, the double entendres were hard to resist.
I said hoarsely: “Get back here. Get back here right now, or I’ll make you say the worst shit I can think of. Just mean and gross. Beneath even me, is what I’m saying.”
No response.
“Oooooh, Palamedes. I am measurably less intelligent than you. Put your tongue in my mouth, and I’ll flop my tongue against it.”
Nothing.
“I think bones are mediocre.”
Maybe you were dead.
“Ohhhhhrr, Gideon, I was so dumb to think a tub of ancient freezer meat was my girlfriend. Please show me how to do a press-up. Also, I’m very obviously attracted to y—no, damn it, this is just sad. This is garbage.” My temper was going. Maybe your temper was going. “Come back. I hate this. Eat me, and let’s go full Lyctor. I didn’t fall on a fence for this, Nonagesimus.”
Sound. Motion. Another chittering scamper, close to the door. Then another.
I had forgotten there were going to be more of them. Your memory hadn’t happened to me, and even if I’d had a front-row seat for most of it, it was like watching a play through a blindfold. If I wanted to know something, I had to deliberately go looking through your shit. And I’d forgotten because I was an idiot. It was so hot in that room, and my insides—your insides—felt so cold. I shrugged off that stupid white robe—which looks dumb as hell, by the way, like Silas Octakiseron got into the glitter drawer—and I tried to get you back through sheer force of hope, and sheer force of want.
No dice. I shouldered my sword. Your arms blazed in response.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll keep the home fires burning.”
And the Heralds piled in.
45
AN AMOUNT OF TIME BEFORE THE EMPEROR’S MURDER
THE ROOMS OF CANAAN HOUSE were thick and silent with falling snow: red with new blood, and brown or black with old. Ductile, organic tubes and lymphatic nodes pulsed pinkly everywhere: in the corners, bubbling up along the doorframes and the pillars. Outside the windows, stretched webs of organ had wrapped themselves around the tower like nets of sticky venous spiderweb. They choked the stone. They burst through windows, and every