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.”