Chapter 57
Spiker came drifting up from a black, pain filled void.
There was singing. A high, gentle voice he didn’t recognise. He returned into the emptiness, but the singing persisted, following him down into the dark like a silver thread tugging gently to bring him back and gradually, as if he were a small fish being played by an expert angler, Spiker rose to the surface and gingerly, fearfully, opened his eyes.
He saw the metallic ceiling of the corridor, the outline of a shoulder, the soft fall of hair. He squinted, unable to make sense of it, and moaned.
Instantly, the singing stopped and Hera’s face, bruised and lined, with one eye black and closed, hovered over his. Bizarrely, her expression was soft and she appeared to be smiling. Her mouth moved, but what she said seemed to l
