Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)

by Tamsyn Muir

There had been another girl who grew up alongside Harrow—but she had died before Harrow was born.

The Ninth House character, she was forced to admit, had always been low on wild and confident fucks.

“Harry,” she said, and she said it tenderly, “have you never read a trashy novel in which the hero gets a life-affirming change of clothes and some makeup, and then goes to the party and everyone says things like, ‘By the Emperor’s bones! But you’re beautiful,’ or, ‘This is the first time I have ever truly seen you,’ and if the hero’s a necromancer it’ll be described like, ‘His frailty made his unearthly handsomeness all the more ephemeral,’ et cetera, et cetera, the word mewled fifteen pages later, the word nipple one page after that?” You said emphatically: “No.”

And you were angry. You were always such a little bitch when you were angry.

Beneath you a bunch of blood was smeared playfully on the floor and lower walls, as though someone had rolled around in it, which I guess you had. But there wasn’t that much of it. It hadn’t been a fight. Whoever stuck you with your own rapier hadn’t let you get a shot off. You weren’t around to be furious, but if you had been, I would’ve told you not to bother; I planned on making them sorrier than they had ever been in all their fucking life.

Actually, scratch that, the main thing I should have said was, SQUATS ARE A START, OR A COUPLE OF STAR JUMPS, THEY’RE NOT DIFFICULT.

You didn’t have your original thumb and I’d touched your intestines, which is usually what, fourth date, but you were fine.

“I’m going,” she repeated. And she shrugged. “Cohort rules.” “What Cohort rule, Marta?” Abigail asked, bewildered. “‘Chickenshits don’t get beer,’” Dyas said. And, after a pause: “Might not be the official wording, but that’s how I’ve always heard it.”