Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture, #1)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Idris Telemmier reached out into the solitary infinite, like a man feeling for some precious dropped object in a dark room. And somewhere in that sightless expanse, he felt something was reaching back to seize his hand and pull.

‘The Unspeakable Aklu, the Razor and the Hook,’ she recited in full, with a hard look at him. ‘My master is not casual about his honours.’

The silence he felt was the silence of something standing close, making no sound – not simply an absence of sound.