Someone close by said softly, “So it’s real,” just as someone else said, “What is he doing?” It was Harrow who said, without rancour but also without joy: “Silas Octakiseron is a soul siphoner.” By this point Colum the Eighth looked greyscale. He was still standing, but he was breathing more shallowly. By contrast the adept of the Eighth was putting on a light show, but not much else happened. The furrow deepened in the ghostly boy’s brow; he wrung his hands together, and his lips soundlessly began to move.
