Revise paste d721d387c0420

You went with him. A squall of rain tossed itself at the window like a bird. Through the smeared glass—the still and static light outside was suddenly overcast—you looked down.

On the terrace stood a figure in haz orange, swathed in crinkling safety material from neck to feet. A breathing apparatus obscured the face. And in one gloved hand, clear even from this distance, you saw it: a huge two-bore gun. The figure stared with empty goggle eyes as the wind lashed, and as the thunder boomed, farther away now.

Sextus was saying, “The hell is—”

You said, and your voice sounded strange to yourself, as though you had heard the word only in dreams and never articulated by waking tongues: “The Sleeper.”

The Sleeper looked at you both. There came another sudden violent burst of obscuring rain, and it was gone. You and the necromancer of the Sixth House moved as one: shouldered both of your bodies against the door to the room until it shut fast, as you slid a crude deadbolt home. You leaned your full weights against it. This was not a very impressive mass. He said, quickly: “Ninth, this place is powered by one single theorem, held together with the fragility of spirit magic. I cannot manipulate it. I cannot change anything about it, not the room, not the cushions, not the astonishingly shitty book. I can’t change a thing about this space—but anyone coming to me could change the parameters, and you’ve brought something with you that’s changing them. Go.”

Harrow the Ninth - Act Four, Chapter Thirty-Three