From the glare of the plex window, beside some perfectly ordinary white twill curtains, the buried monster turned herself so that she was lit in the light of the undead stars. The curve of her cheek—the thick, black lashes that fringed her golden eyes—the thumbprint divot that lay pressed like a kiss within the bow of her lip—you had not known you were shaking until God himself reached out to still your wrist, so that you mightn’t spill your tea over your knees. He unhelpfully passed you another biscuit.

“Eat up, there’s nothing to you,” he said gently. “Have two, get some fat reserves. Do you like poetry, Harrowhark?”

“I have never been a fan,” you said fervently.

“Poetry is one of the most beautiful shadows a civilisation can cast across time,” he said. “Go on … eat up, they’re good for you. Here, I’m going to pretend to read this one off my tablet, when in fact it’s been with me for over ten thousand years. Here’s my favourite part…”

That night, the Body consented to embrace you. You so nearly felt those long arms wrap around your neck, your middle. You were so close to feeling that press of graceful forehead to yours, the long, lean, dead body chilling yours to the shivering point, as you all but perceived one cool corpse thigh touching yours from hip to knee. You had been nearly eight weeks in the Mithraeum. The sword that you bathed in your own arterial blood was sheathed in bone and heavy on your back. You no longer knew what it was like not to be afraid.

You—with your unfortunate memory for poetry—could still hear Teacher’s verse, in his low, soothing, ordinary voice, chase itself round and round your head:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

THE EMPEROR OF THE NINE HOUSES, THE PRINCE UNDYING (WHILOM??? JOHN???)

Who was A.L.?

21

RAIN STARTED FALLING ON Canaan House early one morning, and it never stopped again. For the first few hours it was the normal, leaden fall of water Harrowhark had become used to in her time at Canaan House. She found it merely unnerving now, not a killer of peace and sleep. Around midday a fog began to boil off the saw-toothed waters at the bottom of the tower. It rose up to the lower levels of Canaan, and kept rising. The fog was bitterly cold, and the rain stank like engine lubricant and blood; it tasted indescribable. Teacher and the other priests unearthed great spiny patchwork compasses of oilcloth and metal struts, which unfolded at the press of a button, and Harrowhark and the others were obliged to walk around with them over their heads even inside the main atrium, where the water leaked through the walls and ceilings.