Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

He said, “Then that story about Protesilaus and the Seventh House was a lie.” “You’re not listening. I never lied,” said the voice. “I said that it was a hypothetical, and you all agreed.” “Semantics.” “You should have listened more closely. But I never ever lied. I am from the Seventh House … and it was an accident. Anyway, she and I talked. She was a sweet little thing. I really had wanted to do something for her—and afterward, I kept her for the longest time … until someone took out my cavalier. 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.” There was a very long pause. Palamedes’s voice betrayed nothing when he said: “Well, that’s something, at least. I suppose we’re all to follow now?” “Yes, but this wasn’t really about any of you,” said the woman in the room with him. “Not personally. I knew that if I ruined his Lyctor plans—killed the heirs and cavaliers to all the other eight Houses—I’d draw him back to the system, but I had to do it in a subtle enough way that he wouldn’t bring the remaining Hands with him. If I had arrived in full force, he’d have turned up on a war footing, and sent the Lyctors to do all the dirty work like always. This way he’s lulled into a false sense of … semisecurity, I suppose. And he won’t even bother coming within Dominicus’s demesne. He’ll sit out there beyond the system—trying to find ou...

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