Chapter 280: Returning in the Water

The unexpected still happened.

A shadow in the water, heavy with extreme resentment, slipped past Sarah's aim.

It pounced on an old Hunter standing at the outermost edge of the defense line.

The old Hunter was a retiree who had answered the bell. Age had caught up with him, leaving him half a beat too slow.

The shadow wrapped around his ankle and dragged him into the water.

"Old Ray!"

A nearby Hunter lunged to grab his hand.

Too late.

The black water surged up and swallowed the old Hunter whole.

A few bubbles broke the surface. Not even his corpse was left behind.

The Hunter who had lunged to save him froze by the water.

Richard recognized both men.

They had arrived together, bickering the moment they walked into the Branch Office.

One had complained the other had terrible marksmanship; the other had complained his partner talked too much.

The Hunter who hadn't been dragged under knelt by the water, his eyes red enough to drip blood.

He fished a pencil stub from his coat and picked up a blank page scattered from the stack on the ground.

He added his companion's name to the very end of the roster.

He wrote slowly. His hand trembled.

But stroke by stroke, he spelled the name out in full.

"Old Ray," he said toward the accountant.

"Samuel Reynolds, Hunter, forty-eight years old."

He paused for a long time before forcing out the rest.

"...He owes me three shillings. Lost at cards last time and never paid up."

The accountant heard him, and so did the old priest.

The next verse was sung for Samuel Reynolds.

The men who fell on the defense line instantly became new names woven into this requiem.

The water washed over their feet—dirty, black, and foul.

But the river of light flowing upstream grew brighter.

They sang the work chant for who knew how long.

The shadows standing beneath the water thinned out, one by one.

The laboring men followed the river of song, heading home one after another.

The water in the Black Trench faded considerably.

But one had not yet left.

Under Richard's Spirit Vision, the shadow pinned at the deepest part of the water for over a decade remained submerged.

Lizzie. She was the turning point of this entire Anchor Network.

The other shadows were knots on the net; she was the single nail gathering all those knots together.

If she didn't let go, the network wouldn't fully collapse.

Someone had to see her off separately.

"Mr. Hutton," Richard said. "I'll handle Lizzie."

Mr. Hutton gave him a look.

The old man's throat was too hoarse to manage a complete sentence. He only nodded at Richard.

On the embankment side, the old priest stopped the work chant.

He panted for a few breaths and looked back at the crowd.

"Who else?" The old priest's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper scraping over iron.

"The last one," Mrs. MacNeil said, pushing herself to her feet.

She looked at the old priest.

"It's a girl. We have to send her off with 'The Parting Drink'. That's the tune her man loved to hum the most."

Right before the taverns closed for the night, the old patrons would belt out this tune to see each other off.

The old priest started the tune.

He didn't start loud. First he hummed, and then he slowly shaped the lyrics around the melody.

"Fill my cup, friend, for this is my final round.

My debts are tallied behind the door, I'll pay them with my first copper in the next life."

Among the men on the embankment, an old porter joined in first.

Belting at the top of his lungs, he dragged out the line about debts tallied behind the door.

He didn't sound like he was crying; he sounded like he was calling a brother a few streets over to come home for dinner.

A second voice joined in, followed by a third.

These men had stood grasping their hats for most of the night. They had wept to the lullaby and been torn open by the work chant.

They hadn't expected to sing a drinking song tonight.

But they knew this tune well.

Sitting on wooden tavern benches, they had sung this tune for every brother who had gone on ahead of them.

As they sang, they took off their hats and pressed them against their chests.

Richard fished the Copper Penny from his waist.

The copper surface was warm. God knew how many years this penny had been clutched in a hand, clutched until it was coated in the patina of human oil.

Richard had never understood why Old Biggs had left this penny to him.

Now, he understood.

On the embankment side, the second verse began.

"Bridges crossed, ferries ridden, boot soles dusted by many a pier.

Take off your hat and hang it tonight, for only with your head pillowed on the river can you sleep sound."

Richard walked toward the water.

The water had grown shallower.

After the work chant went on for a while, the shadows standing in the Black Trench had thinned out by more than half.

The remaining one was submerged at the very bottom.

Richard squatted in the mud by the floodgate.

The mud by the water gleamed black. Richard placed the penny there.

Copper face up, the Queen's profile facing the sky.

The edge of the penny sank slightly into the mud, and the exposed half still caught the faint night light.

On the embankment side, the third verse followed.

"Brothers who clinked cups with me, I still remember your names one by one.

Outside the tavern the road forks in two, you go south, and I'll head north."

Richard spoke.

"Lizzie."

Old Biggs hadn't left the penny for him.

Old Biggs knew that when this day came, Richard would deliver this penny to where it belonged on his behalf.

"Lizzie, he came here."

The shadow that had rested at the bottom for over a decade twitched.

That shadow at the bottom of the water loosened another fraction.

"He wasn't there to see you off for that final stretch."

"After that, he spent his whole life sending others home, one by one.

He autopsied the poor, recorded their names, and wrote down the things they still worried about before they left."

No ripples stirred the surface.

But the river of light gradually brightened on the water, taking on a hue different from anywhere else.

"He held onto this penny for over a dozen years."

"When he held it, he held it until his palm burned."

"Lizzie."

Richard called her name.

That shadow at the deepest part of the water began to float up.

She floated very slowly, a decade-old nail pulling out of the water inch by inch.

Lizzie's shadow breached the water and stepped ashore.

The Hunters standing on the shore held their guns, but not a single one opened fire.

Lizzie's shadow bent down.

From the mud, she picked up that Copper Penny.

She felt the patina on the copper surface; it was from a man's hands.

A pair of hands she still remembered—hands that had touched her teacup when they were young.

Cradling the penny, she bowed her head slightly toward Richard.

She was thanking him.

Richard's gaze fell on Lizzie's raised left wrist.

The smiley face drawn in charcoal was still there.

Crooked and poorly drawn.

A very faint light spread in all directions from her spot on the water.

It dissolved into the river of light, widening it by another inch.

The song on the embankment side had reached its end.

"Raise them high, my friends.

Raise them high, this last mouthful of drink, no one leaves a drop.

Finish this glass, until we meet again..."

Richard stood by the water.

The penny was no longer in the mud; it had gone back with Lizzie.

The river of light paved by the song, flowing upstream, was now so wide its edges couldn't be seen.

It spread from this spot in the Black Trench across the entire North District.

The dead followed the river of song, walking upstream.

Walking onto the shore, walking toward their doors, walking toward the bridgeheads where their mothers stood.

Two rivers overlapped on the water's surface.

The river of black water, carrying its sludge and shackles, sank downward.

The river of song, carrying memories and the journey home, flowed upward.

Tonight, following the river of song, they were returned from the water one by one.

Amid the singing, Mr. Reeve stood on the other side of the bank.

That kindly face still hung on him, but it looked strained.

Shadows all around began to tremble.

The river of song flowed upstream, having already led many of the dead ashore along its tune.

But that Anchor Network hadn't collapsed yet; the one behind it all was still propping it up from the bottom.

Mr. Reeve raised his hand.

In Richard's [Silent Observation], he saw a thread pull from the center of that palm.

The thread didn't shoot toward anyone specific; it spread out toward the entirety of the North District.

Wherever it spread, a shadow found its feet entangled by that silver thread.

The dead who had made it halfway up the river of song began to sink again from this pull.

"It's locking them," Mrs. MacNeil sat at the center of the array, blood still smeared on her lips.

"Lock one, and it can drag one down."

"This is its last move."

It wanted to drag all the shadows that had "answered" tonight into the black water in one fell swoop to perform a total replacement.

Even if it was only half successful, those people would no longer be themselves.

Their bodies would remain, but their insides would be swapped out with something else.

"It's locking names," Mr. Hutton said, standing half a step behind Richard's flank.

The old man's face was so ashen it held not a trace of color.

"Locking a name relies on the roots of its true body's mysteries."

Richard closed his eyes.

In the museum Storeroom, at the exact moment that cloud of smoke had lunged to reach for his shadow...

Relying on the still water spread by [Silent Observation], he had caught a glimpse of the root of its name.

Shadow, Substitute, Name.

Standing by reflecting a shadow, born in the absence of light.

Swallowing a man's name, stealing a man's shape.

Destined for sleep-return, yet refusing to rest.

Richard opened his eyes.

"You recite it," he said to Mr. Hutton. "I'll call out the load-bearing beams, and you forge them."

Mr. Hutton didn't speak. He just gave a single nod.

The old man closed his eyes.

Keeping his voice low, Richard called out the joints of the load-bearing beams piece by piece.

For every line Mr. Hutton heard, he dismantled it and forged it in his mind.

The draft of the Judgment took shape in Mr. Hutton's mind.

He looked up, casting a glance at both banks of the upended Black Trench.

Old Priest Hawkins was still singing. His voice was hoarse, but he was still singing that parting drink.

"I'm ready," Mr. Hutton said.

"You take the first line."

The old gentleman took a deep breath.

He spoke. This time, the Judgment was still delivered in the plainest Albion Language.

"You are not John Reeve."

The line was soft, yet the living across the entire North District heard it all at once.

"John Reeve was hollowed out during that severe illness twelve years ago."

"Only a face remained."

"You picked it up, and you put it on."

"Wearing a dead man's name, you have woven a net in this city for twelve years."

On the other side of the bank, Mr. Reeve's face twitched.

Mr. Hutton did not stop.

"Only by reflecting the shadows of the living could you raise your shape."

"Only by hiding in places devoid of light could you nurture your abilities."

"Swallow a name, and you thicken by a fraction; peel away a face, and you grow an inch..."

Mr. Hutton failed to draw his next breath.

He choked out a gasp, as if someone had crushed his windpipe.

Immediately after, blood seeped from his nose and the corners of his mouth.

Richard reached out and supported him.

At that moment, he felt it from within his Guide's body.

A section of the old gentleman's ether circuit had burned out. A segment of the trunk of that Tree of Light, from the root of his tongue to the Seat of the Sun, had been scorched.

"Take over..."

Mr. Hutton's lips moved.

Picking up exactly from the broken word, Richard took over the unfinished Judgment.

Not missing a single syllable, he completed the half-sentence his Guide had failed to finish:

"Swallow a name, and you thicken by a fraction; peel away a face, and you grow an inch..."

"...and not a single piece of it belongs to you."

Richard's voice wasn't loud.

But when the line fell, it carried a different kind of weight.

Master and student chanted the same Judgment, with not a single seam between them.

"The name belongs to the dead."

"The face belongs to the dead."

"And that final bit of longing the living still hold for the dead in the night... that belongs to the dead, too."

"What you borrowed, what you stole, what you suppressed beneath this black water and refused to return for over a dozen years..."

"Tonight, we reclaim it all—principal and interest alike."

Richard looked toward the other side of the bank.

"John Reeve's face, returned to John Reeve."

"The name remembered in the hearts of thousands in the North District, returned to the North District."

"Everything on your face, everything on your body—all that was borrowed, all that was stolen..."

"Take it off!"

Mr. Reeve raised his hand.

He tried to pull those silver threads tighter.

But in that moment, across the entirety of the North District, the living who had just finished singing the requiem simultaneously realized something.

That kind man who accepted the dead's wages, who gave the poor their coffins—the Mr. Reeve everyone said was good and never took a dime...

He was not John Reeve.

He was a thing wearing a dead man's face beneath this city.

The art of substitution was built on the business of 'who you think I am.'

Across the entire North District, the 'Mr. Reeve' in thousands of hearts died all at once.

On the other side of the bank, Mr. Reeve could no longer hold his face together.

That kindly face first cracked beneath the corner of the eye.

Mr. Reeve raised his hand, trying to hold that face in place.

He couldn't.

Wherever his hand pressed, that piece shattered.