“Shush-a-shush, my darling. Shush. Shhh. Here we are. We’re fine. I’ve got you, love.”
“Oh my God, you’re so cold. He’s so cold.”
“He’s dead, sweetheart. It’s me in here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“How could you? How could you?”
“Please touch me. I’ll die.”
“I love you … I love you, I love you, I’ve missed you so much. Please be real.”
“I’m real—we’re real…”
“Oh, God, Ianthe,” said Crown, and her voice changed a little. “This is sick. Look at him. I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You always say that. Don’t cry, honey … you can’t cry if I can’t cry with you. It’s not fair. I can’t cry at the moment unless I do the tear ducts manually. Look at you … more beautiful than ever, even with crappy jewellery and a million split ends. Studs, darling? Earrings on a diet?”
Crown was hiccupping, sobbing, laughing all at once: “Don’t do that. Don’t say what Babs would say.”
“You know I always said what Babs would say, except when Babs said what I would. We kept you honest. Come here, my heart’s love,” said the voice, and Crown’s sobs were suddenly muffled, then quieted, then silenced altogether.
After a while, Crown said— “How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t,” said the other voice. “I’ve got people combing three other planets right now trying to find you. I never thought you’d be here. God, what a fuckup! He’s going to assume I did this on purpose. None of this has been my fault. How did you end up on this miserable rock, darling?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time. Come on. Let’s talk inside … no, leave the vehicle, just get inside. I’m not at full bore at the moment, so it’s dangerous out here. Come on, hurry up.”
The hiccupping was sniffled away, and Crown said urgently: “No. No, I need the car. Ianthe … Ianthe, I need your help.”
“Anything, but come inside.”
“No, wait—”
Another clang. Footsteps. The noise of a car door opening. The other voice that had been so tender did not bother to hide its revulsion as it said: “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“She needs your help,” said Crown.
Camilla’s head lifted.
“I thought she had exited this ghastly vale of tears,” said the other voice, not at all pleased.
“Didn’t Harrowhark tell you?”
The voice cooled and hardened like an ice cube.
“Didn’t Harrow—what? When did you talk to Harrow?”
“Just help me get Judith inside. You have to help her. The sedative’s going to wear off soon. Ianthe, you’re the only one … Ianthe, do not look at me like that. If you look at me like that I am walking away. If you want me, you take her too, okay?”
The other voice rose in drawling, disgusted plaintiveness. “Judith Deuteros? Judith calendar-for-every-birthday Deuteros? Really?”
“It’s the blue madness, Ianthe, she can’t—”
“Judith Deuteros, who, when we played Marry, Kill, Reanimate, you used to say reanimate because nobody would be able to tell the difference? That Judith Deuteros?”
We Suffer tapped the flip-top and pressed a button and said tersely: “Check the basement, now. Where is the guard? Who has eyes down there, what is happening?”
On the speakers, Crown was saying, “I can’t … I can’t be the one to let her die. Not when I’ve let everyone else…”
“Oh, God, honey, nip that in the bud. Nobody cares about Judith Deuteros … Seriously, my plans cannot afford Judith Deuteros. She’s going to be absolutely crazy in the coconut until Number Seven leaves, Corona. It’s really nicer to kill her. Two-thirds of the barracks necromancers are dead already. There’s only a handful left, and I had to put down three of them yesterday who absolutely weren’t going to make it, and they looked significantly livelier than Deuteros. Stop looking at me like that. Do you like the outfit?”
“No.” Crown’s voice was chilly. “White makes Babs look peaky.”
“Wait till you see me in it.”
“I bet.”
“I said, stop looking at me like that,” said the voice languidly. “Come on, Corona, you’re pouting, and I’m immune. I am a Lyctor now … I have seen, as the poets would put it, some shit. I really, really think you ought to let me put her down. I know what you’re thinking. You think you can’t come home again except as the conquering hero. Well, you’re wrong. One, absolutely nobody gave a hot toot about Judith, and two, they made our birthday a memorial holiday. Not a ‘congratulations on the Lyctorhood, our daughter of the Third’ day, a ‘Coronabeth Tridentarius, our darling gone too soon’ day. Talk about vom. When I heard, I nearly died laughing … Have I hurt your feelings already, love? I don’t mean to.”