“If you’re talking about the sour-faced donkey’s ass with the net,” I said (“Yes, Mercy,” said Ianthe instantly), “she put a sword through Nonagesimus’s back. Last I saw, she was thrashing around in a puddle.”

That white face in the darkness sharpened. I heard her indrawn breath. “You’re certain that Mercy tried to kill Harrow?” she said, after a moment.

“Yeah.”

“But that doesn’t— Why would she—?”

“Do not fucking ask me for information. I could not be more lost right now.”

“Help me down, Ninth,” she demanded. “I cannot walk on these things without succumbing to a strong desire to scream and loose my bladder, and we have to talk, you and I.”

I kicked a path for her—rolling some of the bees clear with your arms, shouldering them out the way until a thin aisle was cleared for Ianthe to walk through, shuddering all the while. When we made it out into the hallway, she took a few moments, leaning against the wall, framed against the unbelievably tacky bone decor—all the skeletons in their little outfits, and the mummified busts in niches, and the fanned-out rings of arms holding jewels or swords or whatever. That place was like a party where everyone was dead. She froze when we heard that infernal buzzing, from down the corridor. It was followed by a shout.

“Stay here,” I said.

“Get fucked,” she said thickly. “I absolutely did not become the eighth saint to serve the King Undying so Gideon Nav could play hero for me.”

“Why did you ascend to be a Lyctor?”

“Ultimate power—and posters of my face.”

Fair.

The end of the corridor opened into a wider hallway, obviously meant to showcase that same King Undying’s every grotty little trophy. The hall was lined with pillars of bone sweating in the heat—runnels of moisture trickled down the pale carvings—and I readied my sword, but I was too late. The bees were already dead. They were strung up neatly from the ceilings in strangling nets of tendon, squeezed to death, thick streams of green slime dripping from their bodies all over the black-and-white tiles. Some of the lamps had been smashed in the chaos, and even now swung dangerously from the ceiling, strobing over these hideous parcels.