There was nothing to see in the River yet; no brain, no hint of Beast, no far-off haze that indicated anything amiss. When you came around, you found that you were the only one sitting in a circle of standing Lyctors, their faces like blank flimsy, their rapiers in their hands, their offhands at the ready. The Saint of Duty with his spear. The Saint of Patience with his smallsword. The Saint of Joy with her net. Ianthe, with her trifold knife. You stared numbly at these faces, wondering which one would betray God at the last.

At the beginning of that last week, you still believed you might live, despite the briefing’s assumption that you would not. In the middle of that last week the Emperor of the Nine Houses, the Necrolord Prime, invited you to his rooms after supper, to talk; when you sat in that now-familiar armchair before that now-familiar coffee table—the great window now a flat darkness, the ship a belly you were all nestling within—he surprised you by only offering you water and a very plain cracker. You found yourself able to nibble its edges, and tasted only flour and salt.

“I know you said no, the last time,” said Teacher. “I respected it. I won’t offer again, except to say—if at any point, before the final shutters come down—if at any point before Mercymorn locks me in—you come to me and ask to get locked in with me, it will be done. You have ten thousand years before you, Harrowhark.”

You did not address this. Instead, you said: “Lord?”

“Teacher.”

You said, “You are the Prince Undying. You are the Necrolord Highest. Why do we lock you inside an airless room?”

He rested back in his chair and locked his fingers together over his belly. “You’ve hit upon a sore spot, Harrowhark,” he said affably, brown brows crinkling together. “I am your salvation and your light. Who should I fear?”

“I never meant to,” you said, leaning forward. “I just want to understand. Please.”

“What happens to your body when you go under, Harrow? When you go into the River?”

You had long passed the point where you needed to think about it. “The body enters a senseless state. The Lyctor doesn’t perceive anything around them in any sense; even their necromancy fails. Instead, the secondary soul comes to the fore—the protection mechanism—that can wield a sword even if their mind is gone … without conscious thought or awareness of its own, but with a perfect sword-hand.” If they were functional.