“Didn’t—got here after,” said the thing, and it had Crown’s voice too: the same silvery, musical sweetness of Crown’s, but not nice at all. “I simply looked for any signs of God and slithered downward—easy pappy. This place is like a neon sign saying John Gaius Was Here. And now, I am afraid … I am here to scotch all your plans. Don’t move, please—Sextus—Hect—Hectus,” they suggested silkily. Paul had moved to support the horrifying old man; the yellow stuff was creeping up above both of their ankles, holding them fast. “I don’t know what you are yet, but you know what I am, so … stay put, Sext.”
“It’s Paul,” said Paul.
“I respect that, but can’t admire it,” said the new person, taking a long drag.
Paul said, “This is interesting stuff underfoot, Tridentarius. What is it?”
“Adipose fat and mucous membrane,” said the not-Crown modestly. “It’s my own recipe.”
“Oh my God, Ianthe, barf,” said the corpse prince.
The only person not stuck in this mix was Nona, who was being carried; but the field spread out far enough in front of them that Nona, who did not think she could walk anyway, would probably get one step before sticking and falling over. Pyrrha shifted Nona to her other hip—the eyes of that pale mirror face fell on them—and Pyrrha said, “So, what, John sent you?”
The person—Ianthe—the real Ianthe Naberius, after all, not the lovely-chinned corpse with the perfect hair—crossed over to them, lit from behind by the electric light. Up close she had skin like Honesty’s, if Honesty had been put in a cave for maybe a million years, or perhaps like Noodle’s skin when you parted the crimpled, curdly fur at the back of his neck.
“Who are you, really?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious. “You had me fooled that you were the Saint of Duty with bits missing—I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Number Seven got him. I’m his leftover cavalier parts. Pyrrha Dve.”
“Does that happen—normally?”
“No.”
“Phew,” said Ianthe, and then, finally, “No. No, John Gaius didn’t send me.”
She came to stand in front of Kiriona Gaia, and they stared at each other, evenly and coldly, one hand on the handles of the rapiers each carried on their hip: for Ianthe Naberius carried a rapier too, worn on a jewelled belt atop her beautiful leather breeches, with a parchment-coloured shirt all swirled over by the softest-looking white material Nona had ever seen. It was like a rainbow had been put in the fridge, then woven into fabric. It settled over Ianthe Naberius’s shoulders like a mist. It was so beautiful. She stood there, before the corpse prince, looking barely more alive than Kiriona was.
Pyrrha said lowly, “Don’t do anything stupid, kid.”
“Are you ever too late to come into my life and say that,” said Kiriona.
Ianthe, ignoring this interchange, said merely—
“Prince Kiriona Gaia.”
“Prince Ianthe Naberius,” said her opposite. And: “Can you not fucking smoke in here?”
“It’s a filthy habit,” admitted the other prince. “I didn’t think you cared though.”
“I don’t, but there’s like a million fire detectors.”
In a show of obsequious obedience, rolling her eyes, Ianthe took her gold fingerbones and stubbed out the cigarette on her real, thin flesh hand, then tossed the discarded butt over her shoulder, where it smouldered on the stones. Crux started to make a noise like a teakettle filled with soup. Ianthe ignored him; a terrible hunger had sharpened her like a knife.
“Did you bring my sister?”
“Upstairs,” said the corpse prince, and thumbed vaguely somewhere over her shoulder. “You can pick her up whenever. She came on her own—I didn’t have to use my attraction or my charm.”
“You don’t have either. God, it’s like she wants me to catch her,” marvelled Ianthe. “That ill-shampooed slut.”
“Sixth House bigwigs are up there too, don’t know if we want ’em,” said the corpse prince laconically. “The rest of the House is parked outside the Ur system, should be easy enough to sweep them up. Not that we’ve got the people … Anyway, I don’t think Dad even wants them, they’d only depress him.”
It had slowly dawned on Nona—by the look of everyone else caught in the yellow muck, it was dawning on them too—that this conversation was not being carried out in a way anyone had expected. Ianthe reached out—her sleeve fell away from her wrist—and Nona saw a strange fat bracelet ringing her bony wrist: a braided, hyper-coloured cord in shades that were somehow even uglier than the cords she had seen before—in her class—and on the wrist of—