Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

And then Gideon couldn’t wait anymore. She pushed open the door and she walked in—and found Pelleamena and Priamhark hanging from the rafters, purple and dead.

And she walked in on Harrowhark, holding lengths of unused rope among the chairs her parents had kicked aside, with eyes like coals that had burnt away. Harrow had beheld her. She had beheld Harrow. And nothing had ever gone right after that, never ever.

“Follow me.” Gideon had prepared beforehand a fuck-you salvo so long and so loud that Harrow would have to be taken away to be killed; but then Harrow added, “Please.” This please convinced Gideon to follow her in silence.

“The time has come—” She took a deep breath; and then she undid the catches to her robes, and they fell away from her thin shoulders to puddle around her ankles on the floor. “—to tell you everything,” she said. “Oh, thank God for that,” said Gideon hysterically, profoundly embarrassed at how her heart rate had spiked.

flapping her arms a little before she managed to get her toes touching the bottom.

Me core

Gideon then, along with a couple more litres of salt water. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me when you killed him?” “I didn’t kill him,” said Harrowhark sharply. “Someone else did—blade

Why didn’t you take the moment to say, I don’t know, Let’s not send two children downstairs to get fucked up by a huge bone creature.” Harrow exhaled. “I panicked,” she said. “At the time I thought I was sending you down a blind tunnel, and that the real danger was Sextus and Septimus; that either one might ambush you, and that the sensible solution was to take them both on myself. My plan was to get you clear of a necromantic duel. At the time I even thought it elegant.”

“Harrow,” said Gideon, “if my heart had a dick you would kick it.”

“Harrow,” said Gideon again, more slowly, “if I hadn’t gone to Palamedes—and I nearly didn’t go to Palamedes—I would have waited for you in our rooms, with my sword drawn, and I would have gone for you. I was so convinced you were behind everything. That you’d killed Jeannemary and Isaac. Magnus and Abigail.” “I didn’t—I don’t—I never have,” said Harrow, “and—I know.” “You would have killed me.” “Or vice versa.”

“Why leave me, though?” she demanded. “They murdered the rest of the House, but they left me off the list?” There was a pause. “We didn’t,” said Harrow. “What?” “You were meant to die, Griddle, along with all the others. You inhaled nerve gas for ten full minutes. My great-aunts went blind just from releasing it and you weren’t affected, even though you were just two cots away from the vent. You just didn’t die. My parents were terrified of you for the rest of their lives.”

“And do you think you’re worth it?” she asked bluntly. Next to her, Harrow didn’t flinch. “If I became a Lyctor,”

I had to be a necromancer of their bloodline, Nav … because only a necromancer can open the Locked Tomb.

“What happened to praying that the tomb be shut forever and the rock never be rolled away?” “My parents didn’t understand either, and that’s why they died,” said Harrowhark. “That’s why, when they knew I’d done it—that I’d rolled away the stone and that I’d gone through the monument and that I had seen the place where the body was buried—they thought I’d betrayed God. The Locked Tomb’s meant to house the one true enemy of the King Undying, Nav,

The Eighth never forgot that the Ninth was never meant to be.

“Are you telling me that when you were ten years old—ten years old—you busted the lock on the tomb, broke into an ancient grave, and made your way past hideous old magic to look at a dead thing even though your parents told you it’d start the apocalypse?” “Yes,” said Harrowhark. “Why?”

“I was tired of being two hundred corpses,” she said simply. “I was old enough to know how monstrous I was. I had decided to go and look at the tomb—and if I didn’t think it was worth it—to go up the stairs … all the flights of the Ninth House … open up an air lock, and walk … and walk.”

“My parents killed themselves because they were frightened and ashamed,” said Harrow tightly. “They thought it was the only honourable thing to do.” “I think your parents must’ve been frightened and ashamed for a hell of a long time.” “I’m not saying I didn’t blame you. I did … it was much easier.

My mother and father weren’t angry, Nav. They were very kind to me. They tied their own nooses, and then they helped me tie mine. I watched them help Mortus onto the chair. Mortus didn’t even question it, he never did … “But I couldn’t do it. After all I’d convinced myself I was ready to do. I made myself watch, when my parents—I could not do the slightest thing my House expected of me. Not even then. You’re not the only one who couldn’t die.”

“You apologise to me?” she bellowed. “You apologise to me now? You say that you’re sorry when I have spent my life destroying you?

I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because—I regretted I wasn’t! I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?”

“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.”

In the end her job was surprisingly easy: she wrapped her arms around Harrow Nonagesimus and held her long and hard, like a scream.

when she realised that she was being hugged she thrashed as though her fingernails were being ripped from their beds. Gideon did not let go.

they ended up huddled together in one corner of the shadowy pool, tangled up in each other’s wet shirtsleeves.

She pressed her mouth to the place where Harrow’s nose met the bone of her frontal sinus, and the sound that Harrow made embarrassed them both. “Too many words,” said Gideon confidentially. “How about these: One flesh, one end, bitch.” The Ninth House necromancer flushed nearly black. Gideon tilted her head up and caught her gaze: “Say it, loser.” “One flesh—one end,” Harrow repeated fumblingly, and then could say no more.

RAAAAHHHHH

“The tomb is stone and ice, Nav, ice that never melts and stone that’s even colder, and inside, in the dark, there’s a girl.” “A what?” “A girl, you yellow-eyed moron,” said Harrowhark. Her voice dropped to a whisper, and her head was dead weight in Gideon’s hands. “Inside the Locked Tomb is the corpse of a girl.

Gideon reached over to take Harrow’s hand.

“One last question for you, Reverend Daughter,” said Gideon. Harrow said, a little unsteadily: “Nav?” Gideon leaned in. “Do you really have the hots for some chilly weirdo in a coffin?” One of the skeletons punted her back into the water.

For all the rest of that evening they were furtive and unwilling to let the other one out of their sight for more than a minute, as though distance would compromise everything all over again—talking to each other as though they’d never had the opportunity to talk, but talking about bullshit, about nothing at all, just hearing the rise and fall of the other one’s voice.

“This won’t work,” she said. “I’ve never had to work with something so small before.” “That’s what she said,” murmured Gideon, sotto voce.

Gideon did not know how to handle this new, overprotective Harrowhark, this girl with the hunted expression.

spread-eagle

Number 17

“Split up?” she said. “Hell no,” said Gideon. Harrow said, “Let’s not waste time. Get to Septimus,” and Gideon could have kissed her.

SO DO IT

But now you’re going to die too, and you’ll never know the whole story.”

Griddle, at the first sign of trouble—” “Run like hell,” said Gideon. “I was going to say, Hit it with your sword,” said Harrow.

“The living have to take precedence here, if we want to keep living.” As it turned out, he was wrong.

YOU LIED TO US

“Yes,” said Ianthe. “My cavalier is dead, and I killed him. Please don’t misunderstand, this isn’t a confession.” Naberius Tern lay awkwardly sprawled on the ground.

The bizarre sight of a necromancer holding a sword—a ghost fighting inside the meat suit of his adept—made it real that Naberius was dead, but that he was dead inside Ianthe. It was not that he had taught her how to fight: it was him fighting.

“Brother Asht, listen to the words of the head of your House.” Colum advanced. “Come back,” said Silas, unruffled. “I bid you return. I bid you return. Colum—I bid you return. I bid you return. I bid you return. I bid. I bid, I bid, I bid— Colum—”

—and it was Colum again, face disfigured, neck on the wrong way, sprawled over the pierced shell of his young dead uncle.

Harrow says I’m a weenie over Dulcinea—” (“You are,” said Harrow, “a weenie over Dulcinea,”) “—but

Why the fuck did he not say anything? I didn’t—I mean, I never really—I mean, she and I weren’t—” “He asked her to marry him a year ago,”

Gideon, facedown on the dusty ground, moaned: “I want to die.” She was nudged with a foot, not unkindly. “Get up, Griddle.” “Why was I born so attractive?”

it still seemed ridiculously important that Palamedes Sextus be okay with her:

“Tell me what you have done,” said Palamedes, “with Dulcinea Septimus.” “Oh, she’s still here,” said the person who wasn’t Dulcinea Septimus, dismissively. “She came at the Emperor’s call, cavalier in tow.

Then I had to get rid of her, quickly … the furnace was the only option. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a monster. Septimus was dead before the shuttle landed at Canaan … she hardly suffered.”

I have come back home to kill the Emperor and burn his Houses. And Gideon the Ninth…” She walked toward Gideon, and she raised her sword. She smiled. “This begins with you.”

It was a relief to know she would never have to tell Camilla that her necromancer had died.

Without even thinking about it, her body moved to take her rightful place: in front of her necromancer, sword held ready.