Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

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

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

“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.

With Harrow there, suddenly it was easy, and her horror of the monster turned to the ferocious joy of vengeance.

They had never fought together before, but they had always fought, and they could work in and around each other without a second’s thought.

“I need to be inside you,” Harrow bellowed over the din. “Okay, you’re not even trying,” said Gideon.

“You’re very brave—a bit like another Gideon I used to know. But you’re prettier in the eyes.”

“Cry mercy,” said Cytherea. The dimple was still there. “Please. You don’t even know what you are to me … You’re not going to die here, Gideon. And if you ask me to let you live you might not have to die at all. I’ve spared you before.”

“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.”

“There’s my sword,” Gideon said. “Pick it up—pick it up and stop looking at me, dick. Don’t. Don’t you dare look at me.”

Harrow looked back at Gideon, and Gideon’s eyes, as they always did, startled her: their deep, chromatic amber, the startling hot gold of freshly-brewed tea. She winked.

Harrow said, with some difficulty: “I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it.” “Yes you can, it’s just less great and less hot,” said Gideon.

“The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee,” said Gideon. “See you on the flip side, sugarlips.”

And God said, “And I am not enough.”

One flesh, one end.

If the cavalier and the necromancer do not take “one flesh, one end” as a maxim for their passion for each other, their bond is nonexistent.