One night by the Stolen River, after the festival is over and winter creeps through the cracks of the city, the Melancholy Curate asks whether it’s true that the sea folk have no souls to weigh them down.
The Drownie laughs, shaking his sodden locks, and says they have treasures instead, as common in Dahut as the brightly-colored mushrooms that spring up through London’s streets; he presses a necklace into the Curate’s open palm, of polished jade beads and red coral roses, and a salt-sharp kiss to the Curate’s open mouth, cold and fierce with the zee’s hunger.
Then he’s gone, diving with scarcely a ripple beneath the River’s surface – but as the Curate makes the long walk homeward, he feels the anchor of that gift beneath his somber suit, above his heart, warm from his body heat and heavy enough to replace the thing he’s lost.
Fallen London, The Melancholy Curate/The Dashing Drownie
The Drownie laughs, shaking his sodden locks, and says they have treasures instead, as common in Dahut as the brightly-colored mushrooms that spring up through London’s streets; he presses a necklace into the Curate’s open palm, of polished jade beads and red coral roses, and a salt-sharp kiss to the Curate’s open mouth, cold and fierce with the zee’s hunger.
Then he’s gone, diving with scarcely a ripple beneath the River’s surface – but as the Curate makes the long walk homeward, he feels the anchor of that gift beneath his somber suit, above his heart, warm from his body heat and heavy enough to replace the thing he’s lost.