Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

The Lady of the Ninth House stood before the drillshaft, wearing black and sneering. Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus had pretty much cornered the market on wearing black and sneering. It comprised 100 percent of her personality. Gideon marvelled that someone could live in the universe only seventeen years and yet wear black and sneer with such ancient self-assurance.

rattling both their prayer beads and their unlubricated knee joints,

The man who’d put the sword to her neck was uncomfortably buff. He had upsetting biceps. He didn’t look healthy; he looked like a collection of lemons in a sack.

The House of the First had been abandoned, and breathlessly waited to be used by someone other than time.

The gangling silence focused on a robed skeleton who carried over a small chest made entirely of wood.

There were doors—a multiplicity of doors—a veritable warehouse of doors:

decayed to a waterfall of spiderous threads.

until Dominicus limned her with bloody light, completing its sprint around the watery planet.

she looked at Gideon with an expression like an artillery shell midflight.

for a second that emasculated minutes,

“I do enjoy all this bustle,” Teacher said. (Only he and Gideon were in the room.)

half-tame monster on a dubious leash.

He had the eyes of a very beautiful person, trapped in resting bitch face.

This place ate sound.

the sweat had cooled to both an itch and a shiver inside her robes.

“This calls for rigor, Nav.” “Maybe rigor … mortis,” said Gideon, who assumed that puns were funny automatically.

“Surprise, my tenebrous overlord!” said Gideon. “Ghosts and you might die is my middle name.”

“The arms kind of looked like swords. I want to fight it.” “You want to fight it.” “Yep.” “Because it looked … a little like swords.” “Yop.”

as if her intrusion might well tempt time back to claim its grave goods.

folderol

Harrowhark said, in the exact sepulchral tones of Marshal Crux: “Death first to vultures and scavengers.”

Save your gaucherie for someone else,

“I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”

“We do bones, motherfucker,” she said.

“Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House,” she said hoarsely, “you are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of all of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer.”