Harrow was bewildered by another layer of recognition and realisation as Abigail approached the great heavy-pillared Lyctoral door with its reliefs of horned animals and its crossbar of black stone and carved marble, and rapped a sharp sequence of knocks on it that were, after a moment, answered by a scrabbling from within. This was not simply one of the locked rooms of old; it was a person’s room. And as for whose—

The door yawned open. The rail of electric lights shone down on the old laboratory area: a row of benches with scoured, pitted composite tops; books and ancient ring-binders pushed into a far corner; the inlaid tessellation of bones in the walls; and the flimsy poster of a six-armed construct with a hulking body and a flat-skulled head, the old ruler of the Response chamber. The real Septimus was here, poring over a sheaf of flimsy, flipping through it as though looking for something. Nearby was a pushed-together arrangement of chairs, a leather-covered sofa, and a long table where Lieutenant Dyas was laying out the ancient, rusted collection of guns. And then the little staircase up to the split-level platform with its bookcase, and its armchair, and its two beds; sitting in the armchair was Ortus Nigenad, her first—second?—cavalier.

Septimus’s cavalier had opened the door. Harrowhark was bemused all over again by Protesilaus Ebdoma, whom she had never seen alive; if anyone had seen him alive, they never would have mistaken that shuffling zombie for his real self. Cytherea was a Lyctor and could have easily done better; she simply hadn’t bothered. Harrowhark had thought from the start the woman showed signs of suppurating ego, but she had never convinced Gideon to see past the appealing eyes and softly clinging dresses. Protesilaus bowed cordially to them, and he said in his deep and resonant voice: “Teacher declined to join us.”

“Oh, dear. Still hanging out to die, I suspect.”

“Couldn’t say, Lady Pent.”

The spacious apartment was cleaner and more … lived-in than when she and Gideon had first opened its doors and ransacked its mysteries. At her expression, Pent said: “I needed somewhere to keep the children, at the beginning.”

“The who?”

“You summoned Jeannemary and Isaac along with the rest,” said Abigail calmly. “I worked out how to return them to the River first thing. They didn’t want to go, but I overruled them. I would have done the same with anyone else—if only Silas had asked me; what has happened to his soul worries me horribly.”

This sharpened Harrow’s focus. “You have the means to leave?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Everyone who has stayed,” said Abigail, “has chosen to stay, and risk their lives—or souls, I should say.”

“What is the risk? Can a spirit be harmed?”