Max

“But you didn’t even get me a six-month birthday present,” she whispered pathetically. “I didn’t get the beach party, or a cake, or any dogs.”
“Honey of course I got you a birthday present,” said Pyrrha instantly. “I bought one the day of the broadcast. I went and got you a new T-shirt—the expensive kind, not the ones that dissolve when you wash them. I hid it under the sink.”
Nona sucked in a breath. “Tell me about it,” she whispered. “Describe it exactly.”
“Uh,” said Pyrrha, and flicked her eyes up at Paul. “Okay, so, I hadn’t cleared this with the powers that be, but it was a picture of a moustache—like the facial hair, but a cartoon?—and then there were words below it. Look, you had to see it, I’m not sure I can describe it in a way that…”
“Pyrrha, I want to know what it said.”
Now Pyrrha avoided Paul’s gaze.
“It advertised cheap moustache rides,” said Pyrrha. “We’re talking low prices.”
Nona started to cry softly, overwhelmed.
Paul said, “Palamedes wouldn’t have let her wear that outside the house.” Then: “Camilla wouldn’t have let her wear it inside, either.”
“Yeah, but what about you?” said Pyrrha.
“Her choice,” said Paul. “I think moustache rides should be free.”
“It would have been my favourite present except for the handkerchief,” said Nona breathlessly. “I’m going to go back and fetch it. I’ll remember. I’ll make myself remember. And I’ll wear it all the time, inside the house and outside the house, and then you’ll know it’s really me. I’m not going to be gone forever…I’m ready. Im ready. Let’s go.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth

“I am sick of roses, and I am horny for revenge.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Harrow the Ninth

“But when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Harrow the Ninth

“I'm not fucking dead," I said, which wasn't even true, and I was choking up; everything I'd ever done, everything I'd ever been through, and I was choking up.
As the Emperor of the Nine Houses, the Necrolord Prime, stood from his chair to look at you-- at me; looked at your face, looked at my eyes in your face. It took, maybe, a million myriads. The static in your ears resolved into wordless screaming his expression was just--gently quizzical; mildly awed.
"Hi, Not Fucking Dead," he said. "I'm Dad.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Harrow the Ninth