out of midair. The Sleeper’s arm moved faster than an arm could move; the bullet more accurate, perhaps, than a bullet could be. As the bone burst into powder, no shapes sprang forth. Harrow felt it become inert at the moment of impact, as though the Saint of Duty had touched it and sucked it dry. A chill settled on her heart.
“Three,” said the Sleeper. “This is easy mode. Do you get it? No magic. No tricks. None of your foul bullshit. I’ve been doing this for years. The moment I want it to be over, it’s all over.”
Harrow could hear Dulcinea swearing weakly. At least she was alive. She pressed up against the icy side of the coffin and called out over it, “What happens? What happens if you take me?”
Ortus said urgently, “Lady, no.”
The Sleeper said, “You’ll die. It doesn’t have to hurt. I’m not here to torture anyone.”
“And?”
“I get your body.”
“And?”
“I finish it.”
“Finish what?”
“This isn’t a conversation. Two.”
Harrow peered over the coffin. Magnus and Protesilaus were both sprawled on the tiles in puddles of blood; both were moving, but neither showed any signs of getting up. Dyas was flat on her back, eyes closed as the pressure from the Sleeper’s booted foot increased—she made a tight, choking noise, and when one hand frantically patted around for her sword, the Sleeper stepped from her neck to her hand with a crunch.
“One,” said the Sleeper.
Next to Harrow, hidden behind the coffin, Ortus cleared his throat.
48
HARROW, IF I’D BEEN thinking straight, I would have finished off the Lyctor; she was totally incapacitated, and she’d tried to kill you once already. Instead I took us out into the steaming corridor—the place was filling up with smoke or steam, and the alarms were going off like crazy, and I couldn’t see any sign of wherever Cytherea had gone. I picked a direction, and I set off down another hallway. The one I went down had a trail of dead bees, their skulls staring upward, green goo sprayed in big webs along the hallways—took out one living bee myself, but it was pulling itself down the corridor with a couple of skewer holes in its abdomen already, so I couldn’t really add it to my count. I came to a big dim open room: high ceilings, a huge table pushed to one side and wrapped up in tarps.
There were dead Heralds everywhere. It was a fuckshow of curled-in toes and creepy human hands. The floor was seething with slime and bones. Completely gross and bad. You would’ve loved it.
Past the huge field of revenant space wasps, in the stinking dark, there was a kitchen area with another few dead bees. A green-stained white robe had been discarded at the threshold, and standing on one of the countertops—
I didn’t recognise her at first. The last time I’d seen her, she had been flat on her ass, screaming after an impromptu divorce between her arm and her shoulder. It looked at first like she was wearing some kind of metal glove from the right shoulder down, but the light from the hallway moved over the long, dark-gold skin of the humerus, joint sliding soundlessly as the twin forearm bones moved, the rapier grasped in bony fingers closing over an ugly wad of fat where the palm should have been. Her hair and skin were colourless; that pallid face brightened to see me.
“Harry,” she said. Harrow, she was genuinely delighted to see you. The smile on that thin white face was real. “Harry, you’re—”
I moved closer and totally fucking ruined her day.
“Alive, bitch,” I said.
That expression hardened like it had been dropped in quick-set concrete. In the gloom, her face was a pale floating blotch with shadowed features: I couldn’t imagine the eyes, but I knew they wouldn’t be hers. She had long since ascended to the rank of double douchebag. Ianthe flicked a lock of goo-stained hair over her shoulder, leaned against the kitchen wall, and said: “Oh—you.”
Nonagesimus, I’m sorry. I was averagely good all my life. At least not criminally bad. I did a bunch of shit I’m not proud of—some of it I regret, some of it I don’t. I absolutely regret not kicking Crux down a flight of stairs and watching him go Oof, ow, my bones down each step, which now that I think about it does not help the case I am making here—I wasn’t absolute garbage. Maybe you’d agree.