“Maybe I should do this alone. You-”
“Have the social skills of a traumatised weasel, I’m aware,” replied Cora. “I’ll keep looking around.” Marie nodded at the unfortunate logic. She didn’t want to go alone, but she had no chance of getting information with Cora there. Once Cora had turned the corner, the shadows closed in. Every man with stray hairs or a tilted hat was, for a moment, faceless. She wanted Cora by her side, no matter how badly it would ruin their chances. 

Her dread mounted with every step she took. The staircase was narrow and dark; if someone waited at the bottom she’d be trapped. The rats in the walls made little pattering sounds that were, to her feverish mind, indistinguishable from human footsteps. Her senses were too finely pared; she could pick up everything but focus on nothing. She felt like prey, programmed to fear every stirring in the trees. She lingered outside the door to the miserable little attic, hand on her pocket knife. 

A fear struck her, making her sick. A fear that she was too late, and who or whatever had killed Lily was following her. Her rational mind could dismiss it as ridiculous, but she couldn’t shake the memory of what she had seen. She pushed open the door, prepared to do…she didn’t know what. To stop the bleeding like she had tried to do with Lily. 

The acolyte was sitting on the bed, squinting at a piece of parchment. All his organs were inside his body. He had a soft, round, freckled face and was pale enough to be almost luminous. Marie thought he had a kind face, but she thought that about most people. His expression was too baffled to quite be horrified.

“Who are you?” He didn’t reach for a weapon. It occurred to Marie that perhaps he didn’t have one. She grinned, slipping into a role as one would a fur coat. 

“I’m your guardian angel.”
“What?” Much more baffled than horrified. Marie dropped most of the act, in favour of a more straightforward approach. 

“You know something.” He had the common sense to keep a blank face. Marie softened her voice. “You’ve noticed, haven’t you? You’ve noticed that something’s wrong. Badly wrong. And no one’s listening to you.” She allowed herself a measured hint of vulnerability. “My friend is…was…someone hurt her. It’s connected, I know it. You know something.” She let the vulnerability evaporate and be replaced by steel. “And you will tell me what it is.” She didn’t do anything as gauche as to brandish a knife; the threat was clear enough. “Because I will do anything to get her justice. I will burn through everyone that stands in my way.”

“I don’t know…everything. Or even much.” Marie surprised herself by laughing. He sounded afraid of disappointing her; it was rather sweet.
“I wasn’t expecting you to know everything, love.” He chewed his lip, looking everywhere but at Marie.
“There’s something…a disturbance. In the Sea. Something’s wrong.” He hesitated for a moment and then the floodgates opened. “They tell me I’m crazy, but I know. The Sea is miles above us. It’s-” He tried to articulate the relative distance between the mortal world and the ether with a pillow. “-It’s beyond, that’s the point. They don’t watch us, anymore than we watch dust particles fight. It doesn’t send us signals, so if you listen, there’s just…noise. Noise no human can comprehend. Except-” Marie listened, making notes to verify with Cora later. They had talked about the Sea before, but she hadn’t listened very hard. “Now there’s- intention. In the noise. Like they’re looking at us. And they shouldn’t be. But I think they are.” It took Marie a moment to process. She had half-dismissed the Sea as the stuff of fireside tales, but it made sense. The wrongness. The power. 

Patrick breathed heavily, relieved that someone had listened. Marie found herself struggling for words. The Sea sounded a hell of a lot harder to fight than the church. “Thank you. For the information.” A beat passed, and fear replaced the relief on his face. He looked so lost that she felt the need to reassure him. “We’ll stop it. Whatever it is. I’m not afraid of a bunch of weird mermaids.” The bravado didn’t even convince her, but it made Patrick smile a little. 

She left the small, cold attic room for a large colder stairway. She was about to run, when something hit against her prey-senses. A shadow that looked wrong. A shadow with eyes, a figure in the corner. Waiting. She pulled her dagger.

She didn’t put her dagger away once she realised she recognised the figure. Tall, bad haircut, seven hundred pockets. She cursed them to the heavens and back; she was delighted to see them. 

“What the hell are you doing sneaking around like that?”
“Didn’t want to leave you alone. Murderers running around, and all that.” Marie winced.
“Too soon?”
“Far too soon. Leave the graveyard humour to me, hmm?” Marie had decided to quit sadness. Time to be a sparkling, theatrical ball of light; mourning black had never suited her. 

They linked arms to walk home. In silence, the city was full of ears. Gargoyles especially were both chatty and malicious. Best to never make public confessions, whether of love or of intent to conspire against the government, in a public space. Cora had never felt threatened by the city. It was indifferent, but it was their home. That had changed. The place had a menace to it. There were more posters than ever, talking about great leaders and white horses and sin.

Cora stoked the fire; the shop was colder than a mausoleum. “What did your acolyte say?”
“You’ll be able to make sense of it. He says there’s something wrong with the Sea.” Marie felt ridiculous, then pushed on. “He kept calling it a ‘disturbance’. Like it’s looking at us.” Cora stiffened, dropping coal over the little flame. The little they knew about the Sea had warned them to stay well clear.
“Oh,” was all they could verbalise. ‘Oh’ encompassed their mounting dread and sense of hopelessness. Mortals could be fought, whoever they were. If the Sea was behind the changes, there was no fighting them. The city would fall, and Lily’s murderer would never be found.