The Locked Tomb (Haphazardly) Annotated

THIS DOC HAS BEEN SPLIT INTO TWO DOCS!

It’s just too long to deal with! So I’m making a new doc where I will put all of the quick-ish reference sections. That doc is here: The Locked Tomb Quick References and Small Guesses

Sections that have moved from here into the second doc:

House affiliations
Chapter and header image guides
The Houses mapped to our solar system
Pre-Resurrection Earth references
Memes and references I caught / suspect
Steps of Lyctorhood and attributions
OG Lyctors’ other names (BOE codenames and pre-Res names)
The Noniad
Blood of Eden name references
Character descriptions
Parallels in the text

Some starting notes:

The bulk of this doc was put together on my third reading (including one listen) of Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, which I initially binged one right after the other. The first draft was completed 9/7/22, right before the release of Nona the Ninth. It’s organized thematically, though within sections things mostly proceed in the order they appear in the books because I was annotating as I read. I plan to add Nona and Alecto notes going forward and I’m still frequently listening to GtN and HtN, so this is a continually growing document. To help me keep things organized (if you can call it that), any notes added from close reading of Nona the Ninth will be in purple.

UPDATE 10/3/22: I have started adding notes here and there post-NtN, and will soon begin annotating more assiduously! Anything new I add will be in purple as I said above, even if it’s not directly related to NtN, so that folks (including me) who have already been looking at this document can visually determine what’s new. This is now no longer a NtN-spoiler-free document.
Tiny update 10/21/22: I’m still working my way through notes I jotted down in a separate doc before I was putting NtN spoilers here, there are several pages of vague half-asleep bullet points there that I’m transferring into actual comprehensible notes and parallels in this doc. Actual NtN chapter by chapter reread and annotation will be coming soon! In the meantime I’ve added a lot of new stuff in the Parallels section, because that’s what I’m most likely to notice when I’m casually listening to the audiobooks as I fall asleep.
Another tiny update 10/26/22: I’ve started annotating NtN in earnest! So chapter header theories and lots of other notes will start appearing in earnest.
A lil update 12/5/22: I have a ton of pre-holiday prep to do, so I’m taking a little break from annotating Nona! I’ll be back at it in the new year!
Tiny update 1/16/23: Happy New Year! I’m back at it, I will be catching up with notes I’ve emailed myself to add to this doc over the last few weeks and then will be going back to where I left off in Nona.
Tiny update 3/19/23: I was prepping for a vacation and then on a vacation for a few weeks, but I’m still making my way through annotating Nona!
Update 4/6/23: WHEW, I made it through Nona!!! Now I will be going back through all three books to fill in the character descriptions section, and finishing my reread of The Last Unicorn to pull out the various parallels for the Nona and the Last Unicorn section! After which I might start gathering some of the rambles in here into digestible and hopefully coherent Tumblr posts, to keep me busy until the Nona paperback comes out with whatever extras are in it for me to annotate. :D
Update 4/11/23: I am splitting this doc in two so that it’s more manageable! See above, which you have probably already seen.
UPDATE 8/28/23: I have read “The Unwanted Guest” ahead of the release date and the arrival of my paperback, but I won’t be putting any notes about it in here until after the release date, to give folks a little time to read it! As of now, this is still an Unwanted Guest spoiler-free zone!
UPDATE 10/31/23: Happy Halloween!! I’ve finished the physical descriptions reference I was compiling in the other doc, and the cavalier’s weapons reference in the other doc, and now I’m going to start dropping “The Unwanted Guest” thoughts and questions and observations in the places where they make sense. So, THIS IS NO LONGER SPOILER FREE FOR THE UNWANTED GUEST.
UPDATE 8/25/26: I have been seeing some folks liking my post about this doc on tumblr lately, which possibly means there is some renewed traffic here, so I wanted to make clear that this is still very much a living document! Even though I have not added significantly in quite a while and haven’t really finished all the things I wanted to hit about TUG and some lingering thoughts about NtN. My intense fixation has been at a simmer during Alectopause, but it’s ready to roar back at any moment that we hear solid news, at which point I will probably lose my mind and come back to this with fresh energy. In the meantime, if you’re visiting, please drop thoughts and comments wherever! I love knowing that folks are poking around in here.

I’ve also been diving into TLT podcasts, meta and commentary on Tumblr, fanfiction, etc. so a lot of what I’m pulling out here is influenced by those sources, or what is missing from those sources. There is lots of cool analysis out there and some of it is so complete and good and lovely! I try to link to sources whenever I remember what they are, but I’m forgetful (thanks ADHD) so if you spot something I ripped blatantly from a Tumblr post and didn’t link back, please let me know.
This document is not meant to be exhaustive or definitive! AT ALL! That would be longer than the books are, and this is already too fucking long. Everything in this document is just something I think is neat or something that I want to pull out for my own reference and future analysis. Also, this should be obvious, but everything here is just my opinion/interpretation. Everybody reads a text differently and comes to it with different knowledge! If I’ve gotten something factually wrong, please feel free to politely correct. If you read and interpreted something in a totally different way, I’d be delighted to hear about it.
Page numbers refer to the U.S. paperback editions for GtN and HtN; when I start adding NtN notes, those page numbers will refer to the U.S. hardcover. AYU = “As Yet Unsent,” SEX = “The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex,” TUG = “The Unwanted Guest.” Bible quotations come from the Douay-Rheims Bible online, which is a Catholic bible from the late 1500s-early 1600s created in response to the Protestant Reformation, and is a translation that Muir seems to quote directly from a few times. (This is not knowledge I had in my brain already—I got this info from One Flesh One End podcast, who got it from here) and this translation is online and searchable and the specificity of it tickles me, so it’s what I’ve been using for everything even though it is not at all the most common translation of the Bible.
This doc is so long as to be almost non-navigable and it’s only going to get worse. The outline is a lifesaver, as is the search function! This is mostly a reminder for myself, when I get confused and start scrolling around aimlessly hoping I will magically hit on the thing I’m looking for.
Comments are on! Don’t feel like you need to have a smart thought or know me personally to leave one! I’m planning to share this on my Tumblr and maybe AO3, just for the fun of gathering ideas and suggestions and knowledge from the fandom. So if you’re reading this, please feel empowered to leave comments, suggestions, corrections, questions, arguments (polite ones), whatever! A LITTLE UPDATE: I’m LIVING for all the folks discussing in the comments, I’m going to leave them all open so everyone can see the various takes and theories and whatnot.
Some other cool resources: Muir’s post about what the characters in GtN look like; .Harrow the Ninth, Glossed; The Making of a Cavalier: Meet the Actual Rude Lesbian Swordfighter Behind Gideon the Ninth (and there are other excellent TLT articles on Tor.com also); One Flesh, One End Podcast; The Locked Tomb Podcast; this timeline post (does not so far include Nona stuff); this compilation of character descriptions in GtN; this Tumblr user’s metas, most of which I have not read yet, but I liked their discussion of the Pauline nature of the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers; this doc full of Word of God info (stuff Tamsyn has said) with many links!

Guest book / random comments parking lot

Highlight some asterisks and leave a comment to say hi! Or if you have a comment or question or suggestion that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere in particular^[a]^[b]^[c]!

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Notes about the world of TLT

“It was my shuck we were sitting in when it started. That’s all. I remember we were already getting too big for it, and he couldn’t sit up straight on the bed because his head kept grazing the ceiling of the shuck above. It was one meter by two meters and eighty centimeters high, one and a half bodies by Imperial mez, and he was already one meter sixty.” (SEX)

Lunacy that I’m starting a section about the worldbuilding of these books with Doctor Sex, which I am annotating after GtN and HtN, but this is the first time that I am struck by a small detail as compared to something more familiar. I did notice that both Gideon and Harrow frequently narrate measurements in “bodies,” which is a fun and grim way for a necromancy-obsessed society to measure things. That Cam is here measuring in the metric system suggests several possibilities. Either the metric system is still legible across the Nine Houses but just fell out of favor over a myriad and Cam is a pill, or it’s something the Sixth dug up or kept alive in their extensive record-keeping but they’re the only ones using it, or the metric system is still the measurement system of BOE and whatever humanity there may be outside the Nine Houses, and Cam is relating this story while she’s in BOE hands. These are not all mutually exclusive. Also I think it’s extremely sweet and very Cam that she knows exactly how tall Pal was at age “thirteen and six [months].”

Bloodlines! “The Sixth House flowchart for swordsmen entering the Cohort is the one thing that never changes by committee, with no requirement for bloodline or promotion. Bloodline requirement in the Sixth would be a waste of time. Consanguinity tables get narrower year by year. I was born with four kids in my generation eligible to produce children with me. Palamedes had two.” (SEX)

Again, not at all the first time bloodlines have come up, but the first time I’ve stopped to think much about it. I recall from some of the GtN back matter, I think from the files Judith put together on the heirs before going to Canaan House, that a number of the heirs and cavaliers primary came from “Resurrection purity” lines (Isaac and Jeannemary, iirc, and maybe others), which I take to mean a line that can be traced back to original Resurrection-time families on both sides. I also recall Harrow noting that what’s important on the Ninth is the necromantic heritage of the Tombkeeper line, not necessarily anything else. Bloodlines must be quite important on the Seventh as well, if Dulcie looks enough like Cytherea that nobody would notice the difference. It’s interesting to me that different Houses have different systems of bloodlines and inheritance; the Sixth seems to have somehow worked itself into a state where almost everyone is distantly related, and if they were ever choosy about these things, they can’t be anymore. It kind of fascinates me overall that the Houses all have monarchy-like governmental structures, inheritance-based. It says something about John, and what kind of world he decided to build after resurrecting the system. A world with him at the center, first and foremost, and then a world where having one person at the center of power continues to seem like the proper way to do things at every level of power.

“When I was a child all swordfighters got three unit categorisations, though if you’re not Sixth you wouldn’t be aware of them. Attractive and competent? You got put in the Alexandrites. They got Cohort recommendations for out-of-system deployment. Competent? Epeids, and general referral. Just attractive? The Nireids, who always got offworld reserves. There’s a lot of waiting around in the reserves. Lots of sulky necromancers with nothing to do. Lots of soldiers who didn’t make the cut, doing a single tour for their family or because they thought it would be fun. Add Sixth House soldiers at the peak of physical performance whose last exam was to memorise erotic poetry. They say it’s a massacre. Don’t think that it’s not a big thing to get in the Nireids. It’s a Sixth House honour. We don’t care about swordplay, but we always care about diversifying the gene pool. The Warden used to joke about losing me to the Alexandrites. This was him flattering himself. If I hadn’t been his cavalier, I would have worked in data.” (SEX) Okay, I guess I’m just going to fill this section with lots of quotes from this story, thanks Camilla. But this is so, so funny to me. I want to meet a Sixth swordswoman in the Nireids whose last exam was erotic poetry. Also, don’t be silly Cam, you’re the most attractive and competent woman in the Nine Houses.
“Anyway, do give your dad my regards. Camilla, I see yours all the time, so I won’t ask after them and act like I’m surprised…” (SEX) Ok, can I just talk about reproduction in the Nine Houses for a second? We all know how delightful it is that these books are so queer. They’re so homonormative that it’s come around to a place where there just isn’t any differentiation, anyone of any gender might be attracted to anyone else of any gender, on a social scale, and nobody’s individual tastes and attractions are a point of contention or a difference that needs to be noted as something other than normal. But those delights leave me with some questions about bloodlines and kids. Has Nine Houses science cracked reproduction from same sex genetic material? Are Cam’s dads both her biological parents, or are they a pair (or more) who partnered for love and Cam is the product of one dad and a donor? How does this affect the genetic concerns of the Sixth in general? Also, we get the impression from Juno that she and Pal’s dad are not a couple, just a genetic match who now enjoy (or have been offered) some academic perks in exchange for procreating. Not that every parent on the Sixth has to be one way or the other, I’m just wondering and dreaming about the science involved. We know also that Abigail mentions her mothers, and that Isaac and I think Jeanne were vat womb babies (which I take to mean grown in an artificial womb and not in a person), in Isaac’s case born after his father was already dead. I guess what I’m saying is, could anybody have a cute baby with anybody else in this universe? Because I have to be extremely honest, I already have a name picked out for Harrow and Gideon’s future baby in a fic that is too twee and out of character to ever contemplate writing.^[s]^[t]^[u]^[v]^[w]^[x]

“It turned out that Palamedes and Camilla could only speak one language, and Pyrrha could speak all of that one and some of another two and a little bit of about five more.” (NtN 38-39) I feel like this really expresses how isolated the Nine Houses are, societally, and how stagnant, and how imperialist! Every House speaks the same language, and it’s the only language; over 10,000 years it has surely changed a bit, but based on the Lyctors’ notes and things that we see in GtN and HtN, it hasn’t changed so much that it’s unreadable by modern House folks. Even Palamedes and Camilla, two of the book-smartest people in the series, extremely learned and prepared for anything, only speak House. They live in a giant library that has materials from a myriad ago, and yet they don’t speak even a little of any language currently or ever in use outside the system. Humanity needs to reinvent Duolingo.
“The space elevator had gotten breached about an hour ago because too many loyalist soldiers had been rerouted to the barracks siege, and the old workers had busted through with a key card trying to hijack a shuttle off-world. Most of them had been shot, and there were no shuttles there anyway.” (NtN 118) I just think this is a cool detail! We see several times in the Houses that shuttles land on some kind of landing platform or field that’s right up against living space, but on New Rho they have a space elevator up to what I imagine is some kind of shuttle port above the atmosphere. That’s a neat difference, and I have no idea what it means or if it means anything! Also, in this context I assume a “loyalist” soldier is one who’s fighting against House interference, because they’re attacking the barracks? Or are they loyal to the Houses and they were protecting the barracks? I find the differences in language that different sides of this conflict use really interesting.
“We couldn’t even imagine how much FTL engines cost, but we could guess. We knew how much each ship could carry. In the cryo cans, we could cram in billions, that was cryo’s saving grace. Whereas they were staffing ships with a living crew, no sleepers, big-ass ships with thousands of live staff.” (NtN 222) I know I and many others use “the trillionaires” as a shorthand for everyone on the ships who escaped John’s destruction, but I want to put this here as a reminder that it was probably mostly regular people, staff there to make everything run smoothly and to cater to the trillionaires. Also I would bet that those trillionaires, and maybe their staff, brought along their pets—which is how we get dogs and other animals proliferating outside the Houses 10,000 years later. All of those non-House people, including BoE but also all the civilians the Cohort keep kicking off their planets, are descended from a few trillionaires and a LOT of regular old service staff, probably including a lot of PoC.
Arithmonyms

I’ve been thinking about my beloved Camilla Hect. Why does she have a name that is so close to being six-related, but isn’t? “Hect” as a prefix means 100^[y]^[z]^[aa]^[ab]^[ac]. From a Doylist perspective, I feel like Tamsyn is hiding something important in plain sight here, as she so often does, and I have no idea what it might mean for Paul in the future. From a Watsonian perspective, I wonder if this arithmonym, which not only isn’t Sixth but doesn’t mark her as coming from any of the other Houses either, is somehow a marker of non-House lineage. We know one of Cam’s dads is Juno Zeta’s cousin, which is how she’s related to Palamedes. We don’t know anything about her other dad, or her other biological parent, if her other dad is not her other biological parent. We also know that the Sixth categorize their soldiers based on both competency and attractiveness, in an effort to boost the population of the Sixth by mixing with others out on the front or in far-flung and more boring posts. There absolutely must be some folks on the Sixth, then, who were born of either known or illicit relationships with non-House people on planets being flipped. We also know from Doctor Sex that for a Sixth swordswoman, bloodline doesn’t matter in the slightest—it’s not like any of the other hereditary concerns we hear about on other Houses. And then we get Silas Octakiseron, who makes it his business to know everybody’s “sins,” telling everyone that Cam is “‘a mad dog, and I doubt her legal claim to the title of cavalier primary.’” (GtN 269) Then there’s Judith’s files, which say “She is registered as his second cousin; the genetic data is still readily available and reliable as the Sixth’s leading concern.” (GtN 463) The only genetics of import here, I think it’s implied, are the genetics that relate her to Palamedes. All this is to say, I think that on Cam’s other side she may be from some non-House lineage, which makes me have even more feelings than I already had about her friendship with Gideon, and her rivalry thing with Pash. I wonder how far back in her ancestry you have to go to find someone who was from outside Dominicus? She says in Doctor Sex that there are only a few people on the Sixth she could have kids with, and that Pal has even fewer, so maybe it’s not a very recent part of her ancestry? But who knows.

Saw this post by tumblr^[ad]^[ae]^[af] user near-dareis-mai today and I am into this connection between Cam and Hector!! I have not read the Iliad (or The Song of Achilles, which the post references), I like mythology but somehow that never extended to Classics, but this post had me poking around on Wikipedia. Two things came up that I found really interesting:
“In Greek, Héktōr is a derivative of the verb ἔχειν ékhein, archaic form *ἕχειν, hékhein ('to have' or 'to hold'), from Proto-Indo-European *seɡ́ʰ- ('to hold').” (Wikipedia) I LOVE THIS, in light of Cam’s own self-assessment: “‘I don’t let go,’ said Camilla. ‘It’s my one thing.’” (NtN 125) She holds on tight, our Cam.
Reading a bit more about Hector’s role in the Iliad, I feel like there’s an interesting mirroring there between Hector killing Patroclus and then Achilles killing Hector (very Shakespeare too, I’m not a scholar in that realm either so maybe it’s extremely obvious and widely known that all the back and forth killing in Romeo and Juliet was inspired by the Iliad). For me the resonance is with Cam and Pal vs Prince Ianthe Naberius!

In the Iliad we have Patroclus, beloved of Achilles, infiltrating in disguise and fighting Hector and being killed, which spurs Achilles back into battle. In NtN we have Corona, beloved of Ianthe, infiltrating against Ianthe instead, and the bond with Cam she formed while held by BoE is so strong that she’s willing to bargain with her own life to force Ianthe to fight Cam. The result is the same: a one-on-one battle that almost feels fated, or at least very planned, but we got there by matching but mirrored story beats.
Then we have this actual important fight, Hector vs Achilles and Cam vs Ianthe. Hector flees at first, and is chased three times around Troy; this manifests, I think, in Cam’s dueling style, just defending against Ianthe at first, circling, blocking her sword but not attacking. Then Hector actually starts to fight (and this is where I had some trouble following the story as told in Wikipedia, so I hope I have it right). He thinks his brother is there with him, but it’s Athena in disguise; he throws his spear, and when he turns to his brother to get another one, his brother is gone and he’s left with just a sword. He attacks, but Achilles has his own spear (that Athena gave back to him after he threw it?) and finds the one place in Hector’s armor, which was Achilles’ armor stolen off Patroclus’ body, where he’s uncovered, at the collarbone. So the elements we’ve got here are two people fighting, a stolen outer covering, and supernatural assistance. These elements also appear in Cam’s duel with Ianthe—Ianthe is fighting inside Babs’ corpse, using him as armor against Varun’s effects, and we have Pal secretly helping Camilla. Cam is stabbed, just as Hector is, but the supernatural assistance is on her side, getting through Ianthe’s stolen armor to take her down. Again, not at all a one-to-one comparison; as Muir does with a lot of the biblical references she makes, the elements carry through but they’re arranged differently to get a different outcome. It’s delightful.
Then, I guess because he’s pissed as hell, Achilles drags Hector’s dead body around in a big show of disrespect, but the body doesn’t sustain any further injury (because the gods intervene). I think we’ve got the mirror of this in Palamedes! Cam takes a hit in order to get close enough to let Pal hop on into Naberius’ corpse, and when Pal wins that internal fight, he gets to parade this body around. It’s not about disrespect—in fact, Pal’s respect for Ianthe is higher now, as he’s holding her back internally, than it was before.
Then later, after Paul is born and Ianthe slips back into poor Babs’ passed-around body, Paul suggests that there’s still a chance for her, and for him, to get out of this terrible version of Lyctorhood they’re in. Paul offers help, a truce; in the Iliad, when Achilles is finally done fucking around with Hector’s body and agrees to return it to Hector’s father Priam (another TLT name, I’m so sad that I maybe have to actually read the Iliad), he feels bad and offers a truce long enough for Hector’s funeral rites.

Anyway, as I said, I haven’t read the Iliad, so I would love to hear better and more educated analysis on Cam as Hector or any Iliad connections!

New Rho / Ur

“The Captain coughed again, but less awfully. She said throatily, ‘Where am I?’ ‘You’re in the Ur facility, Deuteros,’ said Crown. ‘Blood of Eden rescued us from Canaan House, remember? They saved your life, and mine and Camilla’s.’” (NtN 167) I think this is implying that Ur is the previous (indigenous, I guess?) name of this planet, and that New Rho is just what the Houses call it. There’s a line in As Yet Unsent where Judith says that “The princess says they all fought at Lemuria and have set opinions. (It won’t help at this stage, but Lemuria is their term for New Rho.)” but I think this must have changed during the process of writing NtN, because the Angel later says that the planet they grew up on was Lemuria and it wasn’t being used for anything anymore. This does still imply that New Rho is the House name for this planet though, and that it probably had another name before.
About Ur: Ur was an ancient Sumerian city-state, located in what is now Iraq. (Wikipedia) The historical city may (or may not) be the same as the Biblical Ur, the birthplace of Abraham. (Wikipedia again) Abraham later left that birthplace and settled in Canaan, so there’s a fun connection to be made there! I wonder if there’s going to be a point where John, whose allegorical roles are multitudinous, will be in the place of Abraham, whose sons Isaac and Ishmael were (to simplify things to an extreme) the progenitors of Judaism and Islam respectively. Ishmael was Abraham’s older son with Hagar, his wife Sarah’s handmaiden. (This was Sarah’s idea—she couldn’t get pregnant.) Later, Sarah DID get pregnant, and had Isaac, and Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away. (Still Wikipedia.) Anyway, this all resonates for me when we spend the bulk of NtN on this planet seeing how the other side lives.

Also, meme-relevant, Ur is where legendary bad businessman Ea-nāṣir lived. I feel like the Ea-nasir of this story is Honesty, LMAO.

“Hot Sauce said, ‘Yes. One of his fathers is active.’ ‘Blood of Ed—?’ But Hot Sauce pressed her finger right on Nona’s mouth. Nona, seeing the flinch of alarm in her face, obediently tried to clamp her mouth shut before Hot Sauce had to shut her up, which had the effect that she nearly bit Hot Sauce. But Hot Sauce said fervently, ‘No. Never.’ ‘Why—’ ‘Traitors,’ said Hot Sauce vehemently. ‘Fat cats. Zombie lovers.’ … Hot Sauce said, ‘Are you…?’ ‘No,’ said Nona swiftly. ‘They sometimes…talk to us, my family,’ she added. Hot Sauce only said, ‘Yeah, well. They sell us guns.’” (NtN 185) I’m delighted by the depth of this world, and also fascinated that there’s a faction on Ur who make BoE look like collaborators! I guess BoE ARE collaborators, but still. Interesting that BoE sells guns to even more anti-necromancy factions on this planet, and also what a Chekov’s gun sale here, when Hot Sauce is going to pull a gun out of her pants later on.
“‘I will inform you, again, that the Emperor cares deeply for New Rho—that he has no desire to see the end of that, I can assure you firsthand, has come for the rebels of Ur. He wants to see resettlement and supply being afresh…” (NtN 208) Are the “rebels of Ur” who Hot Sauce affiliates with? That would make her dislike of BoE make more sense to me, if Hot Sauce is hanging with some kind of resistance group that is indigenous to this planet; BoE are against the Houses, but they’re not from Ur either, necessarily.

“Someone in the crowd was yelling. They were being pulled away by two other people. Nona saw their face as the crowd pressed and the crowd parted. They were saying, ‘Liars! Liars! Ur is fighting! They’re losing! Liars!’” (NtN 211) Ur is fighting!

What a fantastic resource, Tumblr user frontlinebicepsoftheninth made a list of every title John is called, SUPER USEFUL THANK U FRONTLINEBICEPS! What a society he’s created, that sees him in all of these ways…
“‘Captain, perhaps you’ll understand me if I tell you this is a matter of the Emperor’s Intelligence.’ But this just made Aiglamene laugh again, and not with a bit of humour in it. ‘Hah! Don’t come over all intelligence agent with me, you young fool. The Bureau’s not welcome in the House of the Ninth. Last one we had—thirty years back—we dropped off eleven hours from the prison with ten hours’ worth of air and told ‘em to hurry up.’” (NtN 457-458) This makes me laugh, and also just wanted to note the existence of a Cohort Intelligence branch. I’m sure we’ve seen this before, I think Pyrrha was perhaps in charge of it, but seemed worth having in this section.
“The front coffin is distinguished from its fellows by its gorgeous arrangement of flowers and wreaths. The flowers are all in hues of gold or violet, and are fake. The coffin is hinged open at the front, with its contents hidden from view by flowers. A tray of meat is rested on the closed bottom half of the coffin. A queue of gaudily masked mourners process past the coffin, slowly, each one taking a strip of meat, then stopping by the head to lean within—kissing or feeding; we can’t be sure. … A hand grabs his arm and the corpse sits upright. It’s IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS. Her face is covered in bloody kisses.” (TUG) This might be just Ianthe’s fun imagination, but I really want this to be an accurate representation of a Third House wake. It’s so good. The profusion of flowers, all fake—just there for the look, and doing nothing to disguise the smell of a corpse, even a prepared corpse. The masks on the mourners, which is maybe the least likely to be real detail because of the masked attendants later in this story, but I love the idea that mourners might wear masks to cover whatever emotions they’re having or not having. The plate of unidentified meat, god I really want this to be the flesh of the person who died, that everyone is meant to consume as they mourn, even though obviously in this case it’s not Ianthe’s flesh. (But, Ianthe is in some ways standing in for Babs here, and they’re fighting to puppet his flesh…) The bloody kisses, like it’s a goal to get this messy raw meat on your mouth and then leave your performative mark on the corpse! All of it is so good and Third to me, what a show, what a spectacle, what a horror. It makes me think of when Ianthe says Corona loves military funerals, like if those are especially good then they must have even more pomp than this??
“IANTHE: Yes, yes, I remember your question. (To the assembled figures) Let it be known: there is nothing, positively nothing, that the Sixth House will not try to hijack into a goddamned seminar. One shudders to imagine their pillow talk. PALAMEDES: It might interest you to know that on the Sixth, pillow talk is a science.” (TUG) This delights me. I would kill for a short story about the Alexandrites’ training. The science of pillow talk, erotic poetry memorization, what else do they learn???
The Necromancer / Cavalier Vow

We’re told in “A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers” that “One flesh, one end” is the full text of the actual vow, the same across all the Houses. (GtN 450) We can maybe assume at least this much is true, though a lot of the Sermon is a Second House skewed interpretation of a tradition whose origins are not actually known to anyone but the Lyctors. But presumably different Houses have different customs surrounding the vow, and maybe it’s useful to note them!
Second House:

“I told her that I had served a long time with Lieutenant Dyas. She asked, How long? I said, Eight years, with formal cavaliership for seven. I said, I knew her before that but it took me a while to catch her eye. Hect seemed interested in that and asked, so I felt it might be the rare time to elaborate. I told her that the lieutenant, five years my senior, had always been an object of interest to the trainees but kept herself to herself. Obviously this engendered near-hero worship among us. I told her the truth: that Dyas never sought me out nor gave me any deferential attention as the Fleet Admiral’s child. A consummate professional, always. We first partnered on the Dominion for a training exercise after her original partner went out early on an injury. … But I told Hect about how Dyas and I started our friendship. How when my father visited me a few months from then and gave me the list of probable cavalier nominees to look over, I had the guts to suggest Marta Dyas. He was surprised—he’d heard of her, but my father hears about everyone. I told Hect that he’d shot me down. Said that a promising soldier like Dyas wouldn’t want to interrupt an extramural career for something that would keep her intramural; would see it as a millstone, not an honour. Said he’d investigate but that I was wrong to hope. I told Hect about how Lieutenant Dyas had agreed to a year’s trial to see if I suited her. … I was fifteen at the end of it.” (AYU / HtN 540)
It’s interesting to me here that as the Fleet Admiral’s daughter, Judith doesn’t have her pick of whoever she wants, and it’s up to Marta to take notice of her, or decide if Judith suits her. The Second is perhaps more respectful of the wishes of an exemplary soldier than anyone else’s, even Judith Deuteros. Also interesting to note that Judith’s father clearly only started compiling lists of possible cavaliers when she was fourteen, as compared to some other Houses that tie people together from birth because of bloodlines.

Third House:

“Naberius Tern, born on Ida, home Ida of the Third House. Only child of the previous cavalier primary. Resurrection-purity family, line has been serving Ida and providing cavaliers historically. … Formal recognition of cavaliership when he was fourteen, but somewhat irregularly registered with both of them.” (GtN 458-459)
“PALAMEDES: From what I know of cavalier vows on the Third, he must have been assigned to you at a very early age. IANTHE: Naturally. At birth. PALAMEDES: At birth? IANTHE: He was a prince in his own right, you know. From a branch family. They’d have put the blood on his lips as soon as he was in his cradle.” (TUG)
From-birth cavaliership, bloodline based. But when Ianthe says “They’d have put the blood on his lips as soon as he was in his cradle,” whose blood? I think Ianthe’s, or Ianthe’s and Corona’s, is implied. But Judith’s files in the back of GtN indicate that Babs is two years older than the twins! Maybe this is a retcon, or a mistake? Or maybe it’s the twins’ parents’ blood, since as we know from Gideon, sometimes direct relatives’ blood is sometimes good enough for necromancy? But whoever’s blood it is, this seems to be indicating that part of the cavalier’s vow is consuming the necromancer’s blood/bloodline. Is this in every House, or only the Third? Either way, it’s fascinating! Does the necromancer also consume the cavalier’s blood during their vow, since they’re vowing to each other? Is it just the cav consuming blood, which is a fun reversal of Lyctorhood, when the cav will be consumed?

Fourth House:

“She was shivering so hard that she was vibrating. ‘Isaac’s cautious. Not reckless. He’s not—he didn’t— He was always so careful, he shouldn’t have— I hated him when we were little, he wasn’t at all what I wanted—“ (GtN 285)
“Jeannemary Chatur, born on Ops. Resurrection-purity family, second of six. Being the first non-necromancer of the line, she is her generation’s Chatur. … Intended to be Isaac Tettares’ cavalier from birth, swore the oath with him and gained the title at age nine. Cavalier primary only subsequent to last year’s bombing.” (GtN 460)
So like the Third, the Fourth assigns cavaliers from birth—and obviously assigns multiple cavaliers from birth, since Jeanne was assigned a cavalier to Isaac at birth but was not cav primary until the cav primary before her died.

Fifth House:

“Abigail Pent, born at Koniortos Court. First of two. The famous historian, she received head of House five years ago, at which point her husband became her cavalier.” (GtN 461)
“Quinn is cavalier primary simply by unhappy coincidence. The Fifth House is undoubtedly chagrined at the timing. … Marriage with Pent and the subsequent cavaliership seems to be entirely due to Pent’s informal abdication of the future role.” (GtN 462)
This is interesting. Abigail had to have a cavalier primary to go along with her title as head of House, which I think in this instance actually means heir? Because it says she’s planning to abdicate her future role. Anyway, new title necessitated a cavalier, late in the game compared to the other Houses, at age 32. Was Magnus her specific choice? Or was he just the highest-ranking possibility, since he was her husband? I’m inclined to think he was her choice specifically, because otherwise any heir who married before getting this title and a cavalier would end up with their spouse as their cav. Or maybe she was already planning to abdicate before marrying Magnus, and that plan allowed her to marry him to begin with? I had assumed she was going to abdicate because they can’t have children, but maybe it’s more about just wanting to do research and not run the House.

Sixth House:

“‘I applied to be the Warden’s cavalier primary when I was twelve,’ she said. ‘Got accepted.’” (GtN 305)
Unsurprisingly, on the Sixth there’s an application process, and probably testing involved. Also, like the Second, it’s not about bloodlines, and there’s no arranged cavaliership from birth or anything like that.

Seventh House:

“Protesilaus Ebdoma, born on Cypris. A well-regarded cavalier, he served Septimus’ father as cavalier secondary before being given to Septimus, albeit this may well have been because Septimus was not expected to live and it would have been a waste to give her a cavalier close to her in age.” (GtN 464)
It’s not clear if Pro’s position as Dulcie’s father’s cav secondary was bloodline-based or rank-based or what, but it seems like given how common “Heptanary blood cancer” is on the Seventh, it seems like they would have to be a little more practical and flexible in the assigning of cavaliers than strict bloodline assignments.

Eighth House:

“He would also have been bonded with his cavalier in the extremes of youth. His age indicates that the Eighth House is sending a Templar confident in the genetic bonds to his cavalier, which means the cavalier will be closely related.” (GtN 465)
“There are three brothers currently registered as Asht, which would be the next in line to serve Octakiseron. In relationship, all three are genetically his nephew, albeit all of them are also significantly older.” (GtN 466)
So another bloodline thing, because Asht somehow indicates the cavalier bloodline the same as Chatur does. And we know Colum and his brothers were all groomed, perhaps genetically over the courses of their lives, to be good options for Silas depending on Silas’s own genetics. I’m interested in “would also have been bonded with his cavalier in the extremes of youth,” which might just mean a ceremony, but I feel like might have some more necromantic element to it like the Third’s blood consumption thing, maybe to make siphoning easier.

Ninth House:

I’m not going looking for quotes for this one, we know a bit of what’s what on the Ninth! Bloodlines again, Ortus was Harrow’s cavalier from her birth because he was Mortus’s only child. We don’t know anything about what actual ceremony they had though, which I would be very interested to know.

Questions that aren’t fully answered yet but might be later:

What really happened to Anastasia and Samael?

“‘You say you misapprehended the process,’ said your Teacher, leaning forward and crossing his shabby-sleeved arms over his knees. ‘I don’t believe you did, Harrowhark. I really don’t believe you did. I’ve only seen one person get it…fundamentally wrong…and I hope I never see what happened to Anastasia and Samael again.’” (HtN 194) LIAR! But he’s right about Harrow, and I wonder how he can tell?
“He said, ‘Out of all of us, only Anastasia got it wrong. She’d researched it too much. Typical Anastasia. She’d seen some pathways in it that simply didn’t exist. She spoke the Eightfold Word, and it didn’t…work. After we—cleaned up—she asked me if I might end her life. Of course I said no. She had so much more to give. Later I would ask of her a greater and more terrible thing. I had a body and I needed a tomb…’” (HtN 195) I love and hate the way he talks around straight up murdering Samael. Also researching things too much is an attractive quality, I hope we get to meet Anastasia in the books at some point.
“God stared at him. ‘Yes,’ he said, though it sounded far-off and confused, like he was hungover. ‘I was the only one she allowed to watch her attempt.^[ag]^[ah] She’d learned the trick was to do the Eightfold slower—more methodically—and it was still more of an accident than design. But it’s not as simple as her getting it right, and me stopping her. She panicked midway through. She hadn’t got his soul inside her all the way—if she had, Samael dying would have killed her too…they were both in danger. I killed him for her benefit, and she knew that at the time.’ ‘Is that the truth, or the truth you tell yourself?’ asked Augustine.” (HtN 482-483) I feel like this still isn’t the full story. I’d love to hear how Anastasia would tell it. Did John know what she was attempting, before she started? Did he interfere when he realized they might succeed in perfect Lyctorhood?
“But Pyrrha said, ‘God, you think she’s ever gotten presents? I visited her hometown back before Anastasia got settled, and it was grim as fuck then.’” (NtN 85-86)
“‘I helped at a birth once. There’s a lot of noise and run-up before the real thing happens.’” (NtN 121) - Ok, I know this is very vague and not actually directly related to Anastasia, but paired with the nursery Pyrrha painted on the Ninth, I am guessing that this birth is Anastasia’s kid, second in the Tombkeeper line.
“‘I was here before it was the Anastasian,’ said Pyrrha absently. ‘Painted a nursery. Mint green.’” (NtN 453)
“She looked back beyond, and she saw Anastasia, tucked where nobody would find her: Anastasia, all bones. Not really Anastasia. But Anastasia’s body without the meat on it, snuggled right into the curve of the rock, ready to close the door whenever it was opened. She remembered Anastasia.” (NtN 474) So at some point, I presume after having a child, Anastasia sealed herself in here with Alecto and, at least in the most basic way, died. The location of her soul is, I think, a question still in play!
“Alecto said, The line of Anastasia is unbroken yet. The child answered, Through sin and iniquity, yes. Alecto said, I am very sorry about Samael. The child made no answer. Alecto said, I remember my vows. As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service until you bid me the favour, and whatsoever you appoint I shall perform, and consider the vow rendered. That is what I promised, until such a time as you deal with me as you see fit.” (NtN 477) Is “the favor” the favor of the Chain? That has come up before, in Harrow’s deal with Ianthe in HtN, I am pasting in from a lower down section: (HtN 60) What is the favor of the chain? The chain could be a reference to Samael’s chain, a holy relic, or the chains that hold Alecto, though I think Samael’s chain is more likely as Harrow is the only one who knows that Alecto is chained. So, the favor of an ancient cavalier, maybe protection? Interesting then that this comes up again relating to both Alecto, who was chained, and Anastasia and Samael! Also I just love the sound of “the favor of the chain,” it’s so good.

Read a beautiful post on Tumblr today wondering about the relationship between Anastasia and Alecto and proposing that Anastasia looked after her, paralleling the way Cam looks after Nona. I thought it was gorgeous and I had feelings about it so I’m linking it here! I think it’s very very possible that Anastasia was a caretaker to Alecto, and I wonder how this squares with John telling Harrow that Anastasia helped him build the Tomb. I have doubts about the truthfulness of anything John says really, but especially anything he says about Anastasia.

Thinking a little more about what Anastasia was trying to do, and whether she and Samael had worked out perfect Lyctorhood or stumbled upon it by accident. Pyrrha says in NtN that “‘The body needs thalergy and a soul to keep the lights on. Anastasia’s tripod principle. Body plus thalergy, but no soul, is basically a very weird vegetable…’” (NtN 362). This is what the consuming of the cavalier in the imperfect version of Lyctorhood circumvents—enough of a fragment of the cav’s soul is left behind in the Lyctor’s body that they can go voyaging in the River without their bodies becoming vegetables, or vessels for possession. We also get the first step of imperfect Lyctorhood, as described by Ianthe: “‘Step one,’ she said, singsong, ‘preserve the soul, with intellect and memory intact.’” (GtN 383) I think it’s likely that this step was Anastasia’s contribution to the process, and I wonder if she did really figure out how to preserve the cav’s soul in its entirety.

HOW did John Gaius resurrect the solar system and all the people on it? In what circumstances? Why?^[ai]^[aj]^[ak]^[al]^[am]

“You were on a steel-frame balcony overlooking a field of hundreds and hundreds of oblong boxes. Each was a body long and half a body tall, and all were constructed of bone—their lines and ranks so dizzyingly even that it took you a while to comprehend them, as your eyes kept wavering and crossing. … The bone of the boxes gleamed less purely white than the amalgam metal and plasticised panels that made up the sides of the hold, and the bone was topped with a soft transparent skin so taut and fine you could see through it, and through it was— ‘My promised gift. Your renewed House,’ said the Emperor. When he looked at your face, he cautioned you gently: ‘It’s a little under five hundred, and only a third will display necromantic aptitude, and the same for their next generation.’ … ‘The ancient dead. You’ve committed resurrection.’ He said, ‘No. I haven’t truly resurrected anyone in ten thousand years. But at that time…I set many aside, for safety…and I’ve often felt bad about just keeping them as insurance. They’ve been asleep all this myriad, Harrow, and it’s frankly a relief to my mind to wake them up.’” (HtN 35-36) Are they cryogenically frozen? Were they resurrected and then frozen, or will they wake up remembering a pre-Resurrection Earth?? Why did he set some people aside, and when, and how, and who were they? Are any of these people his family? His friends?^[an]^[ao]

Okay post NtN I wonder if these five hundred are the ones from John’s original cryo project who remained incorruptible, “all the ones I touched, all the ones I loved” (NtN 76). Is that what sets these folks apart? That he “set aside for safety”?

We know so much more about this post-NtN! I think John’s chapters and his narration are not entirely reliable, but we have the gist now: environmental collapse was imminent, and in his efforts to save the Earth and save the people on it, he invented necromancy / was gifted this power by the Earth and fucked it up royally, causing nuclear apocalypse and killing everyone except a few ships of escaping trillionaires and their crew. I think this gives a sense of where humans in the present time of the story come from, as well; everyone in the Houses comes from the humans he killed via nuclear war and then resurrected, and I think it’s implied that the escaped ships, the people he never killed or touched, are the ancestors of all the non-House humans in the story. It’s interesting to me and telling about John I think that outside of the Houses, those ships full of people over 10,000 years became a widespread race, with different languages and different cultural practices evolving over time, and clearly retaining a lot of knowledge of Earth technology but also maybe having to reinvent the wheel a bit without access to Earth’s resources. In the Houses, culture and language and even genetics have stagnated over the last myriad, because it was John and only John guiding all the resurrected in how to live. Nobody but he (and if some of my theories are right, Pyrrha) had any memory of what the world was like before—he got to shape everything.
“‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Through her, I’ve seen it. You resurrect some of them. You wake up fewer still. You start out with a few thousand, then, later, some hundred thousand, then millions, but never more than millions. You teach them how to live all over again. You teach yourself. You work out how to repopulate the installations on each planet—or to finish the work begun before the bombs, or to improve on it. It’s easy. You’re God. Your energy is limitless and you can sustain your theorems without a thought—forget about them—because she is so enormous, and you and she are one.’” (NtN 434)
“She said— ‘I want to understand why she was angry—I want to understand the mathematics, now that I have seen them for myself. I want to know how many of the Resurrection are left, and how many you began with, and what the discrepancies are. I want to know where you put them. They didn’t go into the River. I want to know why she was angry…and why you were terrified.’” (NtN 435) I want to know these things too, Harrow!!! We know John killed billions and brought back millions. So yeah, where did the rest go?^[ap]^[aq] Are they what lies through the stoma? In the Tower? Are they the devils? Does John just have a stash of Resurrected people who are frozen/preserved somewhere, who he never bothered to wake up?

“The Mark-R cryo cans had room for eleven billion people, easy.” (NtN 13) Eleven billion, the population of the Earth at that time?^[ar]^[as]^[at]

What happened between Gideon the First and Matthias Nonius? When did they meet and why?

“‘The reputation of the Ninth cavalier primary has not been what it was since the day of Matthias Nonius,’ said Aiglamene. ‘And that was a thousand years ago.’” (GtN 53)
“‘My bones fell far from home,’ said the cavalier, with a faint smile. ‘Never, I think, will a wanderer happen upon where they now lie, far though he travel.’” (HtN 452) I wonder where he died!
“Nonius said instantly: ‘If I have discharged my duty to you and my House, I am bound by another; a debt from of old that I would repay, if I can. May I leave these halls with your blessing, my lady?’ Ortus said intently: ‘A debt?’ ‘A dread beast haunts this course of the River, a king among monsters,’ he said. ‘A rival and ally is fighting against it, alone, and I grudge him the glory of such an impossible combat. Free me to aid him.’ A terrible conviction seized Harrowhark’s heart. … A king among monsters in the River. And, perhaps worse, the realisation that she had lost a cherished and decade-long fight. ‘You mean a Lyctor,’ said Harrow. ‘You actually fought a Lyctor.’ ‘The third of the saints who serve as the Hands of the Emperor Undying,’ he confirmed. And then, in case she’d missed the point, ‘The saint who is titled for duty.’^[au]^[av]” (HtN 455-456)
Thinking today about “‘that mad sweetheart Matthias’” (HtN 494) and Pyrrha’s hard on for landmine people and how when Nonius is fighting the Sleeper and she knocks his rapier away, he drops the poetry and becomes super intense, “he looked like an ending given human form.” (HtN 450) Pyrrha definitely wanted to sleep with this landmine man too right?

Why is Teacher so obsessed with the Ninth^[aw]^[ax], and Harrow ^[ay]^[az]and Gideon?

“‘Hail to the Lady of the Ninth House,’ warbled a voice delightedly, bringing the count of people who had ever been happy to see Harrow up to three. ‘Hail to her cavalier. Oh, hail, hail! Hail to the child of the far-off and shadowed jewel of our Empire! What a very—happy—day.’” (GtN 71)
“This made just three priests total, which made Gideon wonder why the Ninth always scored so much geriatric attention.” (GtN 73)
“Teacher, perennially pleased to see them for no reason Gideon ever knew, cornered them immediately. He and the other priests were there already and each had a birthday expression of glee.” (GtN 170)

What is the whole deal with the River?

“Let those across the river pledge beyond the tomb to the adept divine, the first necromancers.” (GtN 81)
“The water came bubbling up through the bolted seams in the floor panels, a filthy, rusty red, with a bloom like sewage upon it.” (HtN 101) Like a fucking septic tank backup at a murder factory. Horrifying.
“‘It is the mouth to Hell,’ said God. He stood in the liminal space between dining room and kitchen, the biscuit tin clutched in his hands. … ‘ A genuinely chaotic space—chaos in the meaning of the abyss as well as unfathomable…located at the bottom of the River. The Riverbed is studded with mouths that open at the proximity of Resurrection Beasts, and no ghosts venture deeper than the bathyrhoic layer. Anyone who has entered a stoma has never returned. It is a portal to the place I cannot touch—somewhere I don’t fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless. You’ll find very few ghosts sink as far as the barathron. If I believed in sin, I would say that they died weighted down with sin, placing them nearer the trash space. That’s what we’ve been using it for, in any case.’” (HtN 340-341)
“‘The River is full of the insane, who attempt to cross—’ Magnus coughed in a genteel Fifth House way, and said, ‘Who wait for our Lord’s touch on the day of a second Resurrection.’ ‘Who attempt to cross, my love,’ said his wife patiently, ‘to get to what lies beyond; who throng in their great and endless multitude, mad, directionless; or worse, have been trapped at the bottom, about which I know very little but fear all I know. Jeannemary and Isaac, who already endured so much, and never did anything wrong, other than the time they tried to pierce each other’s tongues, should have travelled lightly through those waters. Harrowhark never should have been able to stop their progress—’” (HtN 396-397)

“‘It has been thousands of years since anybody bothered to believe in the River beyond.’ ‘Yet I believe more than ever, now that I am dead,’ said Abigail, smiling. ‘But God—’ ‘I firmly believe that the Kindly Emperor knows nothing of that undiscovered country^[ba]^[bb]. He never claimed omnipotence. I longed my whole life to give him my findings. … Something has gone terribly wrong in the River, Harrow, and I wish you’d find out what.’” (HtN 397)

A Shakespeare reference! “Who would fardels bear, / To grunt and sweat under a weary life, / But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns, puzzles the will, / And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of?” (Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1) (And I can’t resist also point out the resonance with Star Trek.) So is something clogging the River? Blocking it? Preventing people from crossing? What delightful Aslan’s Country or Undying Lands awaits? I very much want to know, given how many great characters in these books are dead. Also, and I know this small note is already stuffed with references, but the afterlife-after-the-afterlife thing reminds me of The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren (most well known where I am for writing Pippi Longstocking). It’s a quite sad book about very devoted brothers, one who’s ill and one who dies in an accident before the ill one, who reunite in a sort of afterlife and fight some battles there—and then when their roles are reversed and they are again about to be parted by death, they throw themselves off a cliff into ANOTHER afterlife which is supposedly the actual blissful and peaceful afterlife. Anyway, there are a million examples of multiple afterlives in fiction, that one just comes to my mind here.

“A hole had opened. It was big enough to swallow up the whole of Drearburh and have room to spare. It was a huge, hideous, dark expanse, and it had seething, weird edges; it took the lights pattering over them for me to see that the edges of the hole were enormous human teeth. Each one must’ve been six bodies high and two bodies wide, with the dainty scalloped edges of incisors. … A blast from the hole. The water boiled upward in huge, bloody-looking bubbles. Streamerlike lingual tentacles emerged—the unassuming pink you got on normal, non-Hell-bound tongues—easily a thousand of them, jostling, questing, blindly thrusting up out of that mouth.” (HtN 495-496)

“The thing opened its mouth and opened its eyes, right up in her face. It’s eyeballs were gone—Colum’s eyeballs were gone—and now the sockets were mouths ringed with teeth, with little tongues slithering out of them.” (GtN 393) Did the thing that possessed Colum come from the other side of the stoma?

“...and she stood ankle-deep in the River, disbelieving. Before her, the waters parted, speared-through and mute, for the enormous lance of a tower—a tower that had never been there before; a tower that soared, impossible and deadly grey, out of the waters—a tower of grey bricks, lurching out of the River as though gasping for air. An impossible, cone-capped tower—a belled tower; she could see the steeple, but the bell cot was too far from shore to see the bell. ‘I’ll start there,’ she said.” (NtN 436) The mysterious tower!!! I’m so intrigued! Is it related to the stoma, and the devils? Is it related to all the souls killed when the Earth was destroyed who were never resurrected? Is it something else entirely? I’m charmed by the idea that it has a bell also, that feels important and I have no clue why.
I have not read The Iliad so thank you Tumblr user jaywalkers for this great post about Achilles and the River Scamander!
A fantastic post about the River as a permeable barrier and liminal osmosis and other good stuff by tumblr user ossifer-bones, this analysis is delightful to me, I love the idea that Tamsyn, in her typical style, might be taking the allegorical Heaven and Hell that are across the River and through the stoma and saying nope, actually heaven and hell are the same place, it’s just a place John can’t touch!

What is the whole deal with Canaan House?

“Her nose led her to a hot, glass-topped hall, modern conveniences haphazardly pasted atop ancient riches, out of place among the tapestries and gone-black filigree.” (GtN 92) Was the building pre-Resurrection and repurposed? Was it built to look old? Was all of it built at the same time?
“‘Six readings,’ the second voice continued. ‘Oldest is nine thou. Youngest is, well, fiftyish. Emphasis ish. But the old stuff here is really very old.’” (GtN 131) Based on Pal’s readings, the whole building is varying levels of post-Res age, but why are different parts different ages? Why is the hatch a different age from the building around it? Is the facility addition newer? Or preserved differently?
“‘There are two lock-points here, at X-22 and X-155. X-155 is the hatch, X-22 is another door. I went to Teacher and asked permission to enter both. He agreed to let me through the hatch if I could provide a safe place for the key, but said that X-22 didn’t belong to him and that he couldn’t in good conscience give permission. All the while he was winking at me so hard that I thought he had suffered a stroke.’” (GtN 147) Does X-22 every come back? Is it one of the Lyctor rooms? John’s room?
“‘Down there resides the sum of all necromantic transgression,’ she said, in the singsong way of a child repeating a poem. ‘The unperceivable howl of ten thousand million^[bc]^[bd] unfed ghosts who will hear each echoed footstep as defilement. They would not even be satisfied if they tore you apart. The space beyond that door is profoundly haunted in ways I cannot say, and by means you won’t understand; and you may die by violence, or you may simply lose your soul.’” (GtN 152)^[be]^[bf] GOTTA KNOW what’s going on in the facility. Is it the ghosts of the people who make up Teacher and the priests and the bone servants? Or are these ghosts of the Resurrection? Does it relate to Alecto?
“Gideon slung Dulcinea’s arm over her shoulder and pulled her limp body upright, teeth chattering so hard she was worried about biting the insides of her cheeks. Protesilaus stalked forward, and he did not even bother to draw his sword: he simply punched Silas in the face.” (GtN 191) This is fun because it’s all Cyth putting on a show to cover her tracks, and Silas was the one who seemed to be succeeding in bringing Abigail’s ghost back. But Is Cyth also worried about whatever is lurking down here? That Colum will be possessed, as he is in the end?
“It was Teacher. He had descended the first few staples of the ladder, but this was all he could apparently bear. For the first time since Gideon had met him, he seemed real and old and frail: the serene and frankly impenetrable good cheer had been replaced by wild terror. His eyes were bulging, and he was huddled against the top of the ladder like it was a life raft. ‘You mustn’t!’ he said. ‘He cannot empty anybody here, lest they become a nest for something else!’” (GtN 191)
“‘I told all of you that you were walking into the most dangerous place in the system of Dominicus, and I meant it. There are monsters here.’” (GtN 195)
“Isaac said, ‘Bodies were brought into here—a long time ago. A lot of bone matter. The First feels like a graveyard all over, but this is worse. I’m not faking.’ ‘I believe you,’ said Gideon.” (GtN 280)
“‘But all this is more than unsustainable, Sextus. The things they’ve shown us would be powerful—would bespeak impossible depth of necromantic ability—if they were replicable. These experiments all demand a continuous flow of thanergy. They’ve hidden that source somewhere in the facility, and that’s the true prize.’ ‘Ah. Your secret door theory. Very Ninth.’ She bristled. ‘It’s a simple understanding of area and space. Including the facility, we’ve got access to maybe thirty percent of this tower. That’s what’s called hard evidence, Warden.’” (GtN 303) I think they’re both right—Pal’s megatheorem is the Eightfold word, but I think Harrow’s power source idea will also prove to be true later. What is actually powering all the labs? What else is happening in this building? I’m dying to know.
“She was staring, disbelieving, at Colum the Eighth. ‘Well, now you’re fucked,’ she announced. Colum the Eighth’s eyes were as liquid black as, before, Ianthe’s had been liquid white. He had stopped moving as a human being did. … He now moved like there were six people inside him, and none of those six people had ever been inside a human being before. He sniffed. He craned his head around—and kept craning. With an awful crack, his head turned one hundred and eighty degrees to look impassively at the room behind him. One of the lightbulbs screamed, exploded, died in a shower of sparks. The air was very cold.” (GtN 392) So for real, WTF kinda ghosts are in this place that either have never been or can’t remember being in a human body before? Also I love this very typical haunting stuff, the cold spot, the electricity going wonky. But like, what has jumped into him????
“‘The base of Canaan House dates back to before the Resurrection. We first built upward, to get away from the sea^[bg]^[bh]^[bi]; then we built outward, to strive toward beauty… This was meant to be the palace of the Kindly Master, where he might work and hold court and live for always, and oversee all the rebuilding that had to be done.’” (HtN 110) So some of it is pre- and some of it is post-Resurrection.
“The steel-panelled, split-floor library of Canaan House was perhaps one of the strangest rooms within it: it was the only room above the facility that evoked the same blunt sense of utilitarian workspace. It was like entering a modern chamber only to find an ancient artefact in the centre.” (HtN 127) I take this to mean that the library was one of the first things built as the building started expanding upward.
“‘I think we’ve got a similar chance of Magnus tripping over the secret entrance to the lost chambers of the Emperor Undying. Actually, that’s significantly less unlikely, as I’ve come to believe they run sidelong to the facility rather than—never mind.’” (HtN 323) When are we gonna get to see his secret rooms in Canaan House??
Welp, now from NtN we know (or at least I think we can assume) that John’s “facility outside Greytown,” which they “mocked up to look like a freezing works,” is the facility inside Canaan House. I think this helps to explain some of Pal’s confusion at the different ages of things in the house; the facility is much older, pre-Resurrection, where John’s chapters in NtN took place, and the rest of Canaan House was built on top of and around it over a period of hundreds of years, maybe longer, while the OG Lyctors were there researching and rebuilding the world. I know there’s a line somewhere about building up and away from the water, when I figure out where that is I’ll stick it in here.

Is Gideon’s appetite just a fun personality quirk or is it part of her being John’s kid?^[bj]^[bk]^[bl]^[bm]

“She stole a crate of the nutrient paste they put in the gruels and soups fed to the Ninth faithful and squirted them in her mouth when she got hungry…” (GtN 46) A whole crate of nutrient paste, for one week’s time, when she’s depressed and her appetite is probably low?
“Gideon, still unused to the concept of midday meal or honestly midday, appeared a good hour earlier than anyone else would have. Either everyone had an appropriate circadian pattern of hunger or they were being too Housely and well bred not to follow one.” (GtN 101)
“‘I’m just hungry. Do I or do I not seem totally fine to you?’ ‘You do,’ said Camilla, who had pulled a frankly upsetting bulbous glass object out of her bag. ‘That’s what I’m worried about. Warden said you’d be in a coma. Put this in.’” (GtN 234)
“She ignored the knife and fork that the skeleton carefully laid at either side of the plate, as nicely as anyone with a soul would have, and started cramming food into her mouth with her hands.” (GtN 239)
John, the Hungry Caterpillar: “‘Something will satisfy them eventually, but nothing satisfies me. Nothing.’” (NtN 435)

What is the nature of the hatred between the 8th and 9th Houses? Does it go all the way back to Mercymorn and Anastasia somehow? Is it a religious practice thing, and they each think the other is horribly blasphemous? ^[bn]^[bo]^[bp]

“My uncle can’t eat with your kind around.” (GtN 103)
“‘Yes,’ said the boy, ‘because you grew up servant to a murderer, in a tribe of murderers. You are, more than anything, a victim of the Ninth House.’” (GtN 298) Is he trying to convert her?? As well as get her keys, but..?

Can Gideon see the thanergetic signatures because she’s seeing what Harrow sees? Or because she’s Gideon^[bq]^[br]^[bs]^[bt]?

“It was like a gel overlay across real life. It balled around various bits of the construct as though attracted to it, like iron filings to a magnet. She blinked hard.” (GtN 162)

What is Silas Octakiseron’s connection to Wake?

“‘I wonder where you come from,’ he remarked. ‘Your mother had the same hair phenotype. Unusual…perhaps she was Third.^[bu]^[bv]’ … ‘This isn’t an interrogation. I was more interested in the story of your mother than I was in you, when we questioned Glaurica. You were an accidental inclusion. Glaurica confused the erroneous with the useful.’” (GtN 317-318) What is “the erroneous” in this context? How did Silas even know to ask about Wake? What did Glaurica actually tell him? Is the Eighth House somehow actually secretly against God, like Mercymorn is? Or is Silas trying to find Mercymorn, as the Lyctor from his House?

What was Teacher a prototype for? For someone like Harrow? For Harrow, explicitly?

This lends some credence to my theory that Aiglamene is Anastasia^[bw]^[bx], or at the very least that Anastasia’s work on the 500 into 50 project was part of the impetus behind what the Reverend Parents did. Post Nona update: I’ve mostly given up on the Aiglamene-is-Anastasia theory in favor of a different theory about Anastasia, but I still wonder if the Reverend Parents really figured out how to do what they did on their own, or if they had some kind of Lyctoral help.
“‘This man was a shell filled with a hundred souls,’ said Harrowhark. … ‘He was a thing of ridiculous power—but he was a prototype.’” (GtN 373)
“‘Teacher turned against the Second. Why are you so sure that Teacher didn’t kill the others?’ ‘Because Teacher was afraid of Canaan House and the facility most of all,’ said Harrow. ‘I need to go back and check, but I suspect he was incapable of going down that ladder at all. He was a construct himself. But what was Teacher the mould for?’” (GtN 376)

What actually happened in between chapter 37 and the Epilogue of GtN?

“‘The Sixth House cavalier was only injured when I left her,’ said Harrowhark. ‘Where is she?’ ‘We haven’t recovered any trace of her, or her body,’ said the Emperor. ‘Nor that of Captain Deuteros of Trentham, nor of the Crown Princess of Ida.’ ‘What?’ … ‘I’m sorry, Harrow, we couldn’t recover your cavalier either.’ Her brain listed sharply. ‘Gideon’s gone?’” (GtN 442-443) We know by implication that Cam, Corona, Judith, and Gideon’s body were all picked up by BOE. Did Mercymorn facilitate that? Or does BOE have some other way of intercepting messages to the Emperor? (Perhaps Admiral Sarpedon, who commands the ship John and Harrow are on right now?) Here, it seems like Harrow doesn’t know what happened in that intervening time, which is plausible if she was in shock or passed out.
“GUIDELINE #3: THE SWORD WILL REMAIN ON YOU AT ALL TIMES. Wipe it down with your arterial blood nightly. Coat the blade in the ash which regrows. Do not cut flesh with the naked blade. Do not cut bone with the naked blade. Even this may not prove enough. Treat the sword as your promised death, and act according to the first guideline.” (HtN 59-60)

This makes it sound as though pre-lobotomy Harrow knows SOMETHING is up with the sword, but what? Are these things you do to preserve or protect against a revenant? She needs to keep the sword, but also keep the revenant inside it from jumping hiding places (and fails, as she allows the naked blade to cut Cytherea’s body later). But who told her to do this?^[by]^[bz]^[ca]^[cb] BOE, somehow, when they were at Canaan House picking up the others? But why doesn’t Harrow seem to remember this when John tells her that Gideon’s body and other folks at Canaan? Or did she just figure out that there’s a revenant in there? Why doesn’t she seem aware of that in the River, when Abigail asks her if she knows Wake or if any of the Sleeper’s signifiers mean anything to her? I really don’t have a prevailing theory for this conundrum, just lots of questions and the sensation that this will eventually become clear.

“You took the weighty sword from your back and placed it beneath your feet, and then you took the partial skull from your lap, and you walked into the River.” (HtN 307) This detail when Harrow is going into Pal’s River bubble makes me wonder if being in contact with the sword is what allows Wake to follow her into both his bubble and her bubble? And if that was planned, and that’s one reason she needs to keep it close, or if it’s a convergence of Wake’s agenda and Harrow’s agenda that Harrow hasn’t at any point been aware of?
Tumblr user for-the-breath-of-the-ninth posted a great theory about this that I love!! Maybe Harrow gives herself this instruction as a way to create a home for Gideon’s soul, should she be able to get through this lobotomy process and, maybe, pass on one of her letters to someone with the capacity to get Gideon out of her and into a temporary vessel.

“‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘that constitutes some improvement over your sewing my lips shut, like you did the…no, pardon me, I agreed not to mention incidental detail.’” (HtN 63) Who else’s tongue did Harrow sew??^[cc]^[cd]
“His brows were crisscrossing like swords. ‘How did you and Cam get separated in the first place?’ ‘I was not aware I owed a debt of care to—’ ‘I mean she wouldn’t have left your side, if you’d given her half a chance—’” (HtN 312) Were they separated by force, or on purpose, as part of some plan hatched in this missing time?
Re: Harrow’s letter to herself for if she met Coronabeth on HtN 319-320 - I’m not going to reproduce the whole thing here because my comment about it is not really about the text itself. In this letter, there is “different handwriting” that is not identified in the text, but on first read seems like it’s Ianthe’s. This other handwriting is adding addendums and making arguments about Harrow’s promise to protect Coronabeth, insisting that Harrow must not cause her any pain. This could be Ianthe, for sure—she cares about Corona more than anyone else, and she likes to piss Harrow off and push her buttons, and on subsequent readings of the book it’s easy to imagine that this letter was written by the two of them on the Erebos, before the lobotomy. But I’ve listened to the audiobook many times now, the voice Moira Quirk does for Ianthe is very distinctive. These postscripts are not read in Ianthe’s voice—they’re read in Corona’s voice, also very distinctive. Now, of course, this could be a mistake/misinterpretation. The audiobooks are not without mistakes, or the wrong voice being used on a line when it’s less clear who’s speaking. But looking at the physical book again—go look at it, if you have it—the font for the postscripts is very upright and round and has a lot of little flourishes, and feels more Corona than Ianthe in style; it also feels a little more Corona than Ianthe to me to push the written banter all the way to a “P.P.P.P.PS. xoxoxoxo.” Tl;dr, I have a little pet theory that this letter (#5) and perhaps the ones before it were written at Canaan House, with Corona present to make these addendums^[ce]^[cf], and Harrow was even in those first hours of Lyctorhood planning a way to preserve Gideon’s soul.

A little update on this theory! I was relistening to HtN and it reminded me of the moment when Ianthe tells Harrow that she wrote this letter in front of Ianthe (HtN 64)—implying pretty clearly that the addendums are Ianthe’s contributions. This doesn’t completely preclude Harrow making these plans, or making some plan, on the First House in that missing chunk of time, but it does make the voice acting choice seem like it’s not a huge clue or anything.

“I peeled open the envelope—you’d sealed it up tight, though I was pretty sure that Tridentarius had busted it open in between, she was just that type—and found a little piece of flimsy with the edges still ragged from where you’d torn it. The letter was wrapped around a black, folded-up bunch of angles: smoked glass, thin black frames, mirrored lenses. A little bend in one arm, but otherwise—you’d kept my sunglasses.” (HtN 433) As with the above point I wonder, did Harrow take Gideon’s sunglasses off her body and bring them with her to the Erebos, and then write this letter, or did she make her initial plans and start writing the letters at Canaan House?
“She stopped me before the plex table where they had set the corpse in the bag of thick canvas, its zip unzipped, having been carried in from the forest where they’d left it. I wonder if they will stop the experiments now. The corpse of the Ninth House cavalier is as pristine as when Camilla Hect convinced them to take it on board. She never explained herself fully to me. Some business about a note. When questioned, I confirmed there was nothing on the body to preserve it, no secret process I knew of, no deep flesh magic I could detect—not that I had much ability to detect. Whatever the case, she’s now some object of weird superstition among them. Hect says she was no older than eighteen.” (HtN 550 - AYU) I’m intrigued by this note! What note? The scrap Gideon found that she gave to Pal, with G1deon’s name on it? Did Pal share that with her even though Gideon asked him not to, and did they formulate some idea about Gideon just from that?? Or is it a note from Harrow? But why would Harrow give Cam a note with instructions when they were at some point still together at Canaan House?
I’ve been having some thoughts on this question, and trying to put together a theoretical timeline, and what I’ve ended up with seems bananas and is probably wrong but I enjoy it anyway. In AYU, Judith makes a casual mention that it was Camilla who convinced BOE to take Gideon’s body along when they picked up Cam and Corona and Judith, and her explanation for why was “something about a note.” (AYU). I wonder if this note could have been the scrap from the Second House Lyctoral room with G1deon’s name on it, that Gideon Nav gave to Palamedes. She asked him not to tell Cam, but I think either he absolutely told Cam anyway, or she found the note when she was collecting bits of his skull after his death. Whether he actually talked to her about it or not, I think Cam’s smart enough to understand that this has some kind of weird implication. What if, in the period of time after the battle with Cytherea and before any rescue arrived on the First, Cam showed this note to Harrow? What if Harrow started to put together, even subconsciously, that something was unusual about Gideon? What if Harrow made a plan with Cam that involved sticking together if they could, hanging on to Gideon’s body, and Harrow doing her brain thing to preserve Gideon’s soul until such time as she or Palamedes could figure out how to put that soul back where it belongs? What if Harrow prepped her letters on the First, and Cam gathered her bits of Pal planning to put them back together with Harrow’s help, and the unexpected arrival of BOE messed up their plans? It’s possible Harrow was asleep, or unconscious, or taken out of commission somehow, when BOE arrived, and that’s why she’s surprised that John didn’t find any survivors other than herself and Ianthe. It’s also possible that in the moment, Cam made a flash decision to convince BOE to keep Gideon’s body, thinking she could keep an eye on it and knowing Harrow was planning to forget that Gideon existed. It’s possible that Cam and Harrow had theories about Gideon’s origins, based on that note, and maybe based on somehow finally understanding that Gideon’s sword had a revenant attached (or maybe Harrow’s plan was to try to attach Gideon’s preserved soul to the sword, eventually, and that’s what her instructions to herself about its care and keeping were meant to ready it for). This could be how Harrow’s unconscious was so easily able to fit Gideon into the role of the Emperor’s daughter in her River bubble AU, if she already had suspicions of some kind about either side of Gideon’s parentage. I’m sure I’m missing something, but this explains for me all the pieces I’ve been knocking around in my head trying to sort out.

Still thinking about this period of time, and about Harrow and Cam making some kind of plan before either BOE or John arrived. I wonder if Palamedes would have talked through making a bubble on the bank of the River with Cam, and if Cam would have explained that to Harrow. I wonder if that is, unconsciously or consciously, how Harrow got the idea to make her own River bubble.

How do wards work? How do Harrow’s wards work?

In GtN during the avulsion trial we see Cytherea take a little of Harrow’s and Gideon’s blood to let them through her wards, which Harrow doesn’t seem put off by, so maybe that’s all that’s needed to get a ward to let someone by? If the person who drew the ward adds another person’s blood to it?
“But the intruder did not set off the traps of teeth you’d embedded in its frame, nor the gobbets of regenerating bone you had gummed onto the threshold.” (HtN 14) Does this just imply that Ianthe is allowed entry, and the wards are already programmed to let her in?
While I’m thinking about wards, how is Cytherea able to do what she does in GtN? The huge skeleton monster doesn’t trip any of Isaac’s wards in the facility. And how does she control the lights? How does she paint messages on the wall so quickly? Is it her power somehow that puts Gideon to sleep when Jeannemary is killed? Is all this related to Cyth’s specialties in some way^[cg]^[ch], and does that then carry over to Wake in Cyth’s body never tripping wards on the Mithraeum?
“Your narrow foyer was a necromancer’s dream: easy to ward, and to ward thoroughly. You had washed the whole little vestibule with a gossamer-thin layer of regrowing ash, and pressed bone of each type into whorls in the walls. On breach, anyone passing through would have their arms ripped from their sockets and their legs whirlpool down into deep bogs of boiling-hot bone that crept up their bodies like incendiary gel. To follow up, they would be run through with 4,987 sharpened, flexible needles of your own temporal bone: unbreakable, reactive, instant.” (HtN 221) So, this says anyone breaching, not just anyone who’s a necromancer. Once again, dying to know why Wake-in-Cytherea can bypass them.^[ci]^[cj]^[ck]^[cl]
“‘A ward for what? I’ve never seen a ward like that.’ ‘How you managed to fool anyone you were a necromancer I do not know,’ said the voice, ‘except that I do…it was because of me. Think back to class, Corona. I’m only going to dab here, and here and here…’ ‘Use her spit,’ said Crown, still firm as steel. ‘Forgive me. She did pay attention in class. … There we go, it’s with her material so it can’t be deleterious to her body…’” (NtN 314-315) I think we kind of knew this already, that wards have to do with bodily fluids and that you can make wards that allow certain people in and things like that by adding their blood or spit. Interesting to know that a ward put on a person using fluids that aren’t theirs could be harmful, especially since we see this happen a little later when Pal puts a ward on Gideon’s body using Cam’s blood.
“The hallway corridors were made of good white interior bricks braced with concrete and metal struts—lots of buildings were; the whit stone kept out the heat—but one short section of this particular corridor had been decorated in delicate blood filigree and squiggles: not only the walls, but the floor and even the ceiling. The squiggles were thickest in a square on one wall, like someone had wanted to mark off a door. Pyrrha glanced at the wall, and then she barked out a laugh. ‘Is that writing?’ said Nona. ‘Sort of. It’s a ward—a mark meant to keep us out. Necronancy. That bit’s writing though, House.’ ‘What’s it say?’ Pyrrha pointed. ‘Don’t go through here.’ And pointed again. ‘I mean it, idiot. You will disintegrate.’” (NtN 355-356) This description makes it seem like the full length of wall that the field is operating in is all scribbled with blood, which is interesting! Do the dimensions of the marks create the shape and depth of the ward? Also, who did Ianthe intend this note for? Kiriona, to keep her in her room until Ianthe needs her for something? Corona? The Saint of Duty? I lean toward Kiriona, even though I’m not sure she actually would disintegrate, now that her skin is impenetrable.

“She jogged to the next one, a heavier door, with a key still in the lock.” (NtN 359) Ianthe kept Kiriona’s room locked from the outside, even when she hadn’t “turned her off.” I can’t decide if this is a point in favor of the ward and the note being there to keep Kiriona in, or to keep other people (Duty, Corona) from finding her.

“‘Blood wards age, and they burn out if you make them work too hard…’” (NtN 356) Just a tiny tidbit from Pyrrha, though it doesn’t help me explain anything else I was wondering about wards really.

Are the second person sections of HtN actually being told to Harrow, by Gideon, in some future time we haven’t yet seen??

“Nothing ever happened; you felt nothing except the sword’s enormous, empty hate of you, which you knew to be real, even then.” (HtN 28) Why “even then”? Implying this narration is coming from a time after Harrow and Gideon both know that Wake was in the sword?

WHY are necromancers physically different from non-necromancers?^[cm]^[cn]

“You knew without checking that three hundred and four of those straining hearts belonged to necromancers; a necromancer’s heart myocardium flexed differently to your ears, worked worse, squeezed more feebly.” (HtN 29)
“I never experienced the physical vitiation that some necromancers suffer. The Second House’s signature thalergy transferral does not burn the necromancer’s tissue so viciously, especially in necromancers who enjoy more competency than genius. I could run a kilometre in ten minutes,^[co] which was among the fastest for my adept group in the junior reserve. Marta could run it in five.” (AYU)

Are Resurrection Beasts really attracted to anyone who has become a Lyctor? Why?

I feel like maybe they are only attracted to John, the one who killed them, and he has made up the rest in order to keep his Lyctors from leaving him and going back home.
Is Varun attracted to New Rho because of Nona, or because Harrow was a Lyctor, or both? I kind of suspect it’s largely Nona or entirely Nona, because it seems like at the very end of NtN, Harrow may not actually be a Lyctor anymore.^[cp]^[cq]

Who ^[cr]^[cs]tried to smother Harrow aboard the Erebos, and then covered it up to gaslight her?

John? Some random person aboard, at John’s request? Already trying to trigger her into fully consuming Gideon’s soul?
Been wondering today if it’s possible G1deon was on the Erebos, secretly? Or rather, known only to John? And this is the start of his campaign to kill-or-fix Harrow? Later on in chapter 19, we’re told his first attack on her was on the Mithraeum in the kitchen, but that it was 10 months before the Emperor’s murder, at which point Harrow would have been still on the Erebos. I wonder if he tried to kill her once before the lobotomy and the memory got wiped, or distorted, because of what she did to her brain—he is a Gideon, if she learned that beforehand, maybe it was either purposefully or accidentally altered. I’m suddenly also wondering if it’s possible she spoke to G1deon, or Pyrrha, or both—and if that’s how she knew what to do with the sword, to keep Wake’s revenant at bay. Thinkin about Pyrrha saying in NtN that she used to crack G1’s skull open while they were testing their trial, could Pyrrha have advised her and then G1 tried to kill her to force lyctoral fusion? The two of them at odds, as they seem to still be later? I’m gonna turn this around in my mind palace for a while.

What’s up with salt water^[ct]^[cu]?

The Pool and Pelleamena’s rule about only spilling Ninth House secrets while submerged - does it somehow protect from God overhearing? Or factor into compelling truth in some way?
The water around Alecto’s casket is salt water; the Earth was mostly salt water, and the First House is still mostly salt water.
“‘I swear by my mother; by the salt water; by that which lies dead and unbreathing in the Tomb; by the ripped and remade soul of Ortus Nigenad.’” (HtN 62) This feels related to the Sewn Tongue, the Ninth House is all about magically keeping secrets.
“‘But when the work was done—when I was finished, and so were they, and the new Lyctors found out the price—they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm…’” (HtN 328) Alecto, the saltwater creature.
“Salt water had always relieved her: salt water made her feel as though, if there was someone in there with her, she would suddenly know the words to tell them everything.” (NtN 108) So, now that Nona and Alecto are confirmed the soul/RB of Earth, I can say firmly that she is into salt water because the Earth has a lot of it. But I’m still intrigued by this aspect of truth-telling and saying the right thing in the water. It definitely echoes Pelleamena’s rule, and the Pool Scene. But why? Why is salt water the key to communication?^[cv]^[cw] It’s so interesting! Also, is this affinity for salt water the reason Nona keeps dreaming about Harrow and Gideon in the pool specifically, or are there other reasons? (I do actually think there is at least one other reason, which is for a longer comment down in the Theories section later.)
This post by Tumblr user cobaltegg got me thinking about Anastasia as a link between Nona and Alecto and the contemporary traditions of the Ninth re: salt water. I love the idea that perhaps whatever vow Alecto made to Anastasia, or vows they made to each other, happened in salt water. (Because it calms Alecto’s rage the way it calms Nona, and she can express herself more freely? Or is there also some way in which being in salt water allows Alecto to hide what’s being expressed from John? Not that salt water is particularly conducive to truth, but that it’s particularly conducive to secrecy somehow?) From Anastasia and Alecto, it seems very plausible that this ritual could be passed down through the Tombkeeper line, whether it’s just because the Ninth is horny for tradition or because of some quality of salt water that connects to Alecto and inhibits John.

What is Ianthe doing??

“She had an exceptionally fine mind. She was not afraid of rigour. She was also obsessed with what might lie beneath the River and, though this was a touch hypocritical coming from you but never mind, a fucking crank.” (HtN 151)
“‘So we’re talking about ghosts, and liminal spaces, and hell,’ Ianthe said. Ianthe always wanted everything brought back to liminal spaces and hell, as though her rooms were not enough.” (HtN 171)
“‘I caught the Saint of Duty in the throes of grave lust,’ you told Ianthe, about a minute later: she was not asleep either, but sitting up in bed with the lamp on, making complicated notes in a little journal. ‘Oh my God,’ said the Princess of Ida. She looked enchanted. In the lamplight, the bags beneath her eyes were very pronounced. Two apple cores sat in a perpetual state of perfumed rot by her bedside: her attempts to halt decay had progressed admirably.” (HtN 216) What is her aim, with this decay halting thing?^[cx]^[cy]^[cz]^[da]^[db]^[dc]

After reading Nona I’ve been wondering if this decay-halting practice was about preserving Babs! ^[dd]^[de]Looking at the events of HtN chronologically, Ianthe helps Harrow with her bananas plan and then “goes to see a man about a queen” (HtN 364) and then after Harrow wakes up with her memory altered, John takes her to where all the remains and caskets from Canaan House are, and there’s just one casket for the Third and it’s empty. Obviously Ianthe and Corona are alive, but it’s notable that Babs’ body isn’t there either—because Ianthe already got it from John, and is preserving it for her own use? Or because she hid it away before John even knew Babs’ remains were at Canaan House to be found? (HtN 37)

“She reopened her small journal; you noted that whatever she was doing involved some quite substantial mathematics.” (HtN 217)
“‘Understand me, Harry. I always take the smartest option first…burn any bridges that need to be burned…I’m very good at seeing the big picture. And your being alive is, right now, part of my big picture.’” (HtN 258)
“You experienced a hot moment of aggravated panic; but when you crouched down with her, the Lyctor’s corpse was still there, dead and unmoving in her bracelets of bone. You said, ‘It’s right there.’ She did not answer. You said: ‘The body, Tridentarius. Cytherea’s body. Cytherea’s body is beneath my bed.’ She did not answer. … Ianthe sat up and brushed down her knees. She looked at you with an expression you could not parse in the diminished light, only it had been made with great care. She said: ‘I—can’t see anything, Harrowhark.’” (HtN 353) Why does she lie? What is she gunning for? Gaslighting Harrow into dependence on her sister Lyctor? Also why is she so uninterested in the mystery of Cytherea’s body moving around, in general?

“But when I saw that tall hot glass of skank and heard her diffident Oh, you—like she’d never faked to your fucking face like she couldn’t see a corpse that was obviously there—like she’d never messed you up or messed around with you, like she’d never seen you vulnerable and smacked her pallid mummified lips—like she’d never put her hands on you, never made you want her, and never imagined there’d ever be a reckoning. There would be a goddamn reckoning. Nonagesimus, I was going to reck her.” (HtN 429) Gideon confirms that Cytherea’s body was really there!^[df]^[dg]^[dh]^[di]^[dj]^[dk] Also I like how angry and frank she is about Ianthe’s manipulations, which remind me a lot of John’s manipulations. Also I love the wordplay of “reckoning” and “reck her” as a pun on “wreck her.”

“‘Honestly, the people here don’t know how good they have it. We’re dealing with some shit back on Antioch, and really, God can’t spare the Hands. No, the Sixth isn’t a priority. Which means…I really don’t need you. I don’t want the details about Cassiopeia, and God—doesn’t—need—to—know.’” (NtN 341) This is when I first start to get a sense that Ianthe’s long game involves power at the level of God. Manipulating the manipulator, keeping him where she wants him. Her end goals aren’t clear to me still, but she’s really fucking going for it, chutzpah-wise.

What is Mercymorn’s agenda during HtN?

“‘--back to the bad old tricks of decades past.’ ‘Oh, as if you’re my keeper, you chattering imbecile!’ ‘But does John know, my child?’ said the Saint of Patience, smiling. Mercy had bristled, the nacreous whites of her robe visibly shivering. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is a foul implication.’ … ‘Now, look: do I have to kill you before you get us both in trouble, or not?’” (HtN 166-167) Is the implication just that she’s working with BOE? But if John knew that, everyone would know. The “foul implication” part makes me think it’s something steamy.
“‘I’m going to give you three recommendations. One is to be in my airspace less. Two is to stop messing around with Cyth’s body. Three is to stop playing the rather dangerous game you’re playing—the one you said you’d stop.’ ‘I won’t do a thing you say.’ She sounded tearful now.” (HtN 167) What is this dangerous game?? Again, it could be working with the BOE, but how upset she gets about it makes me feel like it’s more personal. Also it’s interesting that Augustine thinks she’s the one moving Cyth around, when she says several times that it isn’t her, and she could easily be lying but we know in this instance she’s not.
“He raised his rapier up within its scabbard. It had a bright conical hilt of what looked to be copper, with pricked designs all over it. ‘I swear by the sword of Alfred Quinque, best of men and cavaliers, that the details of your, ahem, business will not be told by me, or revealed by me, or let fall from the lips of my mouth nor the pads of my fingers—even though I think it will be the death of us,’ he added. At this, there was a fractional relaxing of Mercymorn’s frowzled brow: not relief, but the germination of the seed of relief.” (HtN 269) Is he talking about her continued dealings with BOE? Or her plan to kill John? I thought he was pretty much in on both those things, but perhaps not.
“‘You can do it yourself,’ said Mercymorn. She was snappish and fretful, but Mercymorn was always snappish and fretful. She had not become any less snappish and fretful in the last handful of weeks: simply abstracted, as though her eyes already looked to the River. ‘I’m going to the moonlet next door. It’ll be covered in reflected thalergy.’ … There were red rings about those hurricane eyes, and she kept wringing her hands together and looking down through her lashes when she spoke. ‘I’ll be back in about six hours. Goodbye!’” (HtN 298) I assume she’s popping away to meet with BOE, and that the shuttle Cam comes to this planet in is attached to a larger ship that is here for this rendezvous. But I really want to know the deets of what information is passing hands at this meeting! It’s clearly not the first time, because we see a previous meeting in As Yet Unsent; is it an update on Number Seven? On a plot to kill John?
“Someone else said more clearly, How will we know where the anchor is? And the voice said, I’ve given you the blasted co-ordinates, haven’t I? It won’t be in the ship’s stellar registry, so you’ll have to do the input work yourself. And you must follow the route I’ve given you afterward. You understand that if the stele is discovered by God, this is all over. I’ve tried to make it look like it wasn’t my work, but that’s not going to hold up at all on close inspection. Another voice said something, but the shrill first voice said, I’ve facilitated your extraction mission and that is frankly as far as I am willing to go! I said twenty years ago that I’d give you a stele if you turned up the means to use one^[dl]^[dm], and this is what I call cashing in abominably late. What do you think you're going to do, march on the Mithraeum? Good luck!! Not!!! … Now show me this wretched body. I don’t believe this story for a second.” (HtN 548 - AYU) Mercymorn! Healing Judith so they can use her to work the stele, but why do they want to work the stele? Does it have something to do with what Cam and We Suffer were planning, the “break clause”? What extraction mission^[dn]^[do]? Also, this is when she sees Gideon’s body!
I’ve been wondering if some of the background warring that is happening in HtN and NtN is all related, and trying to draw a throughline. Is it possible that Mercymorn is the one who gave BoE the nuke that they attack with at the start of HtN? She wants to create an opportunity to kill John, to take him apart as she tries to do at the end of HtN. For that, she probably needs him to be on the Mithraeum, where there aren’t people all around who would be trying to protect him, or who might notice what she’s up to. To get him off this cozy ship he’s been so happy on and back to the Mithraeum, there needs to be a threat big enough that he has to retreat and the ship has to be put to use in battle. We never really get an explanation for why this escalation happened at this time in this way, maybe Mercy is the explanation!

What is John’s agenda?

“‘But don’t forget that he’s spent the last ten thousand years on a perpetual search-and-destroy mission out of, as far as I can tell, purely symbolic retribution.’” (HtN 168) Retribution against BOE, descendents of the humans who abandoned Earth to die? Symbolic because none of those original humans survive (even though I think Wake is one of them)?
“And Augustine said: ‘Stop your mission, John. Give up on the thing I know you’ve been looking for since the very beginning. Stop expanding. Stop assembling this bewildering cartography, this invasion force. I’ve puzzled over it for five thousand years, and I don’t believe I truly understand it now. But let it go. Let them go. Nobody has to be punished anymore for what happened to humanity.’” (HtN 483) Is that what John is doing? Trying to punish the descendants of people who abandoned the Earth? Something about the expanding and the invasion force imagery makes me feel like John is trying to become the God of places he has yet to be able to touch, across the River, and/or through the stoma. Heaven and Hell?
“‘I still have breath in my body,’ he said. ‘They are still out there. There can be no forgiveness.’” (NtN 434) This confirms for me John’s intentions—revenge against the people who “abandoned” the Earth, meaning the people who didn’t listen to what he said to do specifically, and then who he failed to reach in his killing spree. Yikes, man.
I also feel the need to consider the idea that John’s agenda has changed over time. He clearly is still into the revenge thing, but also he’s gotten tired. “Empty’s just another word for clean. / Let’s put this first-draft dream of mine to bed. / In the appointed hour / I’ll pull up your sheets. I’ll kill the light, / Lie down beside you; die; and sleep the night. / This time will be the time we get it right…” (NtN 9) He’s ready to end everything, and start fresh: “He said, ‘But that’s the grace of it, Harrow. If I’m God, I can start over. The flood, you know? You can wash things clean. That’s all the end of Earth was…making things clean. It gets dirty again, you clean it again. Like those old power-washing ads. Spray and walk away, right?’” (NtN 435) He’s only holding off on washing everything clean because he still can’t include, and so punish and control, the descendants of humans who escaped him the first time. What will it take to push him over the edge into starting over without his vengeance achieved? The stakes for the next book are going to be so, so high.

No really, why does G1deon keep trying to kill Harrow?^[dp]^[dq]^[dr]^[ds]

How much of it is G1deon and how much if any is Pyrrha? Are they working against each other? Does either of them think this is actually going to kickstart her into full integration?^[dt]^[du] Does either of them think, before Gideon pops up with her yellow eyes, that Harrow might be Wake’s baby who they thought was theirs? Or did they get to see baby Gideon?
“And he had said: ‘Ortus, have pity.’ ‘This is my pity, Lord,’ said the Saint of Duty. ‘She’s your responsibility, not your punching bag.’ ‘I find the responsibility a hard one.’” (HtN 193)
“The Emperor said, carefully: ‘He made a pact, with an authority I have no power to gainsay, that he would protect me from all dangers. Now it has been put to him that you are that danger. Harrowhark, forgive me. I need you to face him—each time—knowing your life is in danger…’” (HtN 194) Was this pact with Alecto, who was previously John’s protector? Setting up someone to look after him, while she was locked in the Tomb? What other authority would John have no power to gainsay?^[dv]^[dw] Does G1deon know that Wake is in Cytherea’s body and that her plan is to hop into Harrow’s body and use her Lyctoral power to kill John? Is that factoring into his motivations?

What’s up with The Necromancer’s Marriage Season?

Why is it there? Why is it complete? What is it foreshadowing? Was Cytherea reading it before Pal died, and is some part of her mixed in with him and mixed into his bubble in some way? Is it somehow related to Cassiopeia, since she is also Sixth? Is it somehow related to Ianthe, because the description of Abella^[dx]^[dy] sounds a bit like her? But why tf would something related to Ianthe end up in Pal’s bubble?
“A shelf held a few desiccated books, one standing out like a fleshy corpse among skeletons. Your eyes fell upon the title: The Necromancer’s Marriage Season. ‘It’s a historical,’ said a voice behind you. ‘Abella Trine, inevitably of Ida, is considered a poor prospect on the marriage market because she’s too skinny, her tract-specialist flesh magic is too good, and she wears her thick chestnut hair in an unflattering bun, which is mentioned at least twice a chapter.’” (HtN 308)

“He continued, ‘There’re a few suitors vying for her affections, though Abella’s such a pain in the arse I’ve got no idea why. There’s a spoiled swordswoman I’m quite fond of, but the narrative doesn’t like her because she goes to sexy parties every night, which I’d regard as a blameless enough hobby—and then Abella meets an insanely tedious widower from the outskirts of Tisis^[dz]^[ea]^[eb]^[ec], whose saintly husband ate a grenade in the war. After two massive misunderstandings, they hook up, and then there’s a time skip to their adorable baby, who talks with a phonetically impossible lisp and can already form a kidney. The whole is unspeakably sordid.’” (HtN 308-309)

“You frantically clapped your hands to your exoskeleton, but knew as your fingers touched the representation of bone that it was no good. There were no letters there; they could not transfer when you did not know their contents—and there had never, in any case, been a letter addressed to Sextus.” (HtN 309) So WHOSE memory of this book is allowing it to be represented in Pal’s bubble?
“‘Moment of death,’ he agreed. ‘I said the rules were limited. I can hang on to my sense of self in here, but not my necromancy. I can’t do anything. All I have is a single still image of the room, and for some reason a single romance novel, which I have read upward of fifty times. Thank God I had a pencil in my pocket; I’m in the process of crafting the sequel on a section of wallpaper.’” (HtN 311)

How did John take Alecto out of commission?

I mean this question in a literal way. I understand conceptually that he did something to put her to sleep or whatever, and I understand him luring her into the Tomb, but what did he actually do to her? And is it possible to do the same thing to him?
I’m intrigued by “You held aloft the sword. / I still love y” (NtN 9) from the poem at the beginning of the book, and how this exchange is continued by the Epilogue: “When the rock that had been made meat awoke in a body, it cried out aloud, saying—You.” (NtN 475) John holding aloft the sword in the poem implies to me that he stabbed her, as she stabs him at the very end of the book: “And so Alecto took that iron sword, and with one hand pierced John’s chest with it, even to the heart.” (NtN 477) This also calls back to Ianthe’s explanation of the Lyctorhood process in GtN, specifically this bit: “‘I put a sword through his heart to pin his soul in place.^[ed]^[ee]’” (GtN 384) Was John hoping to trap Alecto’s soul? If so, it didn’t work that well; she’s been attached to Harrow for years, and then had six months as Nona.
I also wonder about the details of Anastasia’s involvement in this whole plan. As Nona is remembering herself and becoming Alecto, she remembers being led/lured into the Tomb, and remembers, I think, sensing that something was amiss: “John had said, It’s so beautiful. Come and look. She had said, There are almost no beautiful things left. Where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia.” (NtN 472) We’ve been told by John that Anastasia asked him to kill her after Samael’s death, and that he asked her to build and guard the Tomb instead; we are told in NtN by Alecto that Anastasia’s bones are still there in the Tomb, where presumably she was locked in. What was her purpose? What did John want her to do? What was she actually doing?

There’s also the sub-question here of what was Anastasia’s relationship with Alecto, and what was the vow Alecto swore to her? I wonder if this vow, when we know what it’s about, will resemble in any way the deal Harrow made with Ianthe—because that bargain is brought up in the Epilogue also: “What is this that thou wouldst do, Tridentarius? Touch her and our vow will come to nothing, and I will slay you where you stand.” (NtN 475). Ianthe’s help to make Harrow forget and preserve Gideon, and in return Harrow owes Ianthe a favor Ianthe hasn’t yet called in. Between Anastasia and Alecto, it’s Anastasia who hasn’t yet called in the favor Alecto owes her—so what did Anastasia do for her?

What is Blood of Eden’s long-term plan?

“‘—ant her to be Harrowhark, Warden.’ … ‘Yes, bu the question we need to ask is, Why? They hate zombie wizards so much more than zombie thralls. To wit, Judith Deuteros. Why do they want a Lyctor on tap?’ Another pause, another clack. ‘To remove the R.B.?’ Pause. Clack. ‘Not sure. Get the feeling that the R.B. is more a crimp in their plans than the plan itself. At first I thought they were keeping Deuteros a live to see if they could make a Lyctor out of her instead, but I’m not so sure. I think I buy Corona’s story that she’s the getaway vehicle…put crudely. But it’s Harrowhark they want—or at least, it’s Harrow that We Suffer wants. I don’t think Merv Wing and the Hopers want Harrow at all, or at least—they’re not holding out for her. Everything comes back to the Tomb, Cam.’” (NtN 229-230) Does We Suffer want Harrow specifically in order to try to open the Tomb, as was Wake’s plan? That seems likely, but I don’t feel like it’s spelled out enough for me to be sure of it. And what do the other BoE factions actually want? Do they all agree on killing John? If they do all agree on that, how does each faction think they’re gonna get that result?

How do steles and obelisks actually work?

“The moment I saw the stele I underwent the phantom reaction, which I hadn’t had since I was very young. I shed phantom reactions when I was an auxiliary. Too many adepts took months to overcome aptitude dyspraxia in space, which the lieutenant always called arse over elbow: dropping cups or missing chairs or overcorrecting, the laziness of a body accustomed to necromantic backup. When I saw the stele I attempted to get out of the chair by drawing on any thanergy pooled around me, which had the effect that I tried to fall out of the chair. They said to me, Do you know how to use this? … Under this duress I told them I understood how the stele worked but had no ability to use it myself. I said it needed to be bathed in thanergy-enriched blood by at least three adepts and that the carvings needed to be kept clear of crusts or clots. I said one necromancer alone would not be able to use it as an anchor and that it needed to be energised on a thanergenic planet, so it would never be of any use to them. Blood of Eden convened for a while. Their commander, We Suffer, was brought in. They talked with her and then they applied what they said was deoxygenated blood. The stele spluttered. They asked me why it did that. I said that I didn’t know. … I told them that the stele had a number of bone cylinders within that would retain some thanergy, to help with deep-space transitions. I wouldn’t say any more.” (AYU)

“The Gorgon’s stele is active. They put me in the control seat. The blood oxygenates itself through two huge organic chambers at its base: half open-work heart, half fountain. It is a miracle of its art. They keep it behind mesh and won’t let me touch it in case I somehow siphon away its properties. I know I won’t be able to do so. Its thalergy and thanergy reaction is so complex that my ability to scaffold thanergy from it is almost nil. I would sooner be able to extract eggs from a baked cake.” (AYU)
So…the steles use flowing blood to power some kind of thanergy and thalergy reaction, and Judith by herself is able to make it work, so some of what she told BoE about it was misinformation. And the obelisks are anchors, created and placed by Lyctors. I forget where that information comes from, so I hope I’m remembering it right! The stele enables the ship to move through space in some super fast way, and the obelisk provides it a safe place to “land”? ^[ef]^[eg]

“‘Who knew the whole station was portable and built to propel itself wherever it wanted? Not a thing to feed the troops on, I must say. How’d you get it through a stele? With the weight of that thing, you’d never survive River displacement.’ ‘Five hundred and thirty-two obelisks,’ said Camilla. ‘Really? I’d guessed in the six hundred range.’ ‘Deleterious effects past five-fifty.’ ‘What’d you compensate with, purely out of curiosity?’ ‘Prefer not to say,’ said Camilla.” (NtN 334) Now this makes me feel like I don’t understand the system at all. What does “through” a stele mean? IF the obelisks are anchors, is that how many anchors it takes to stabilize the landing of something as big as the Library? Did Cassy make all those obelisks? Are they all together in one place, where the station ended up, or are they spread out?

Do necromancers have some kind of perception of thalergy that allows them to know when someone is nearby without being able to see them?

It’s come up a few times, and I’ve been wondering about it, but we never get a necromancer’s POV who isn’t Harrow post-Lyctorhood, when her sense of other people is super heightened.
“As they went through, exclaiming at the smell, the pale twin paused. She did not follow them. She looked straight into the darkness instead, the deep shadows around the stairwell. Gideon knew that she was completely hidden—hooded—invisible, but she felt herself pressing backward anyway: away from that pale, washed-out gaze, which was staring with discomfiting accuracy straight at her.” (GtN 100)
“Gideon had moved too close: even in the darkness, hooded and cloaked, they were both nervy. The young man in glasses jerked up his chin, staring blindly back to the stairwell: at his sudden switch in focus, the young woman with the sword whirled around and saw Gideon on the stairs.” (GtN 133)
“Camilla had one hand on her sword, and Palamedes kept wringing his together, rocking from foot to foot as he moved in a long, slow, 360-degree sweep of the room. At some stimulus, or lack of stimulus, he took a sharp turn toward Sanitiser.” (GtN 138) He picks up Harrow’s trail before there is an actual blood trail!
“‘I say, Reverend Daughter, is it an ancestral Locked Tomb tradition for your spirit energy to be so diverse?’ Abigail asked brightly. ‘I’ve counted up to one hundred and fifty signatures contributing to you, and there’s more—they’re stamps rather than complete revenants, of course, which means their spirits were manipulated to leave marks on you in some way, which is fascinating if it means…’” (HtN 132) This isn’t quite the same thing as picking out a person in the dark or while blinded, but it feels related.
“‘Sir, I am truly, truly sorry, but—Reverend Daughter, is that you?’ It was not likely to be anybody else standing on the threshold, unwilling to cross over and listen to the rest of the conversation. Harrowhark had been standing in profound silence, without so much as the rustle of a fold of robe, but the necromancer of the Fifth House had demonstrated extraordinarily acute hearing for eavesdroppers. ‘We’re used to Jeanne and Isaac, you know,’ she had said, as though that constituted an explanation all by itself.” (HtN 324)
“Honesty broke off. A shiver ran down Nona’s spine. Nobody asked him to continue. ‘People with no eyes,’ said Honesty. Born in the Morning said unsteadily, ‘He was bullshitting you.’ Honesty ignored him. He said, ‘Said the eyes was all white. But he said he was moving quietly, real quietly, and these guys—they’re all just sitting around—they all look up…they all look at him…with these white-out eyes…they all look up at the same time.’” (NtN 93) This one is especially interesting to me, because we find out later that these are the Sixth House representatives, and that they have all (except Kiana, who I presume is not a necromancer) actually blinded themselves in order to reduce the symptoms of the blue madness. It’s entirely possible that they just heard someone climbing around on top of the Convoy, but the detail of them all looking up at once is interesting, and on first read I thought it meant that they were puppets.
“I started knowing what room they’d been stashed in even if no one told me. C— said it was psychological clues in their body language, but I wasn’t convinced. I could feel them—I could feel everyone in the building—it was like having the lights turned off. You hear all the sounds outside. … It wasn’t that I hadn’t been able to hear them before, but I couldn’t separate the noises. Like hearing a chord without knowing what notes go into it.” (NtN 100) This is pre-Lyctorhood John talking about puppet Ulysses and Titania, and about having a different kind of sense of the living people around him as well!
“‘How’d you get here before me?’ she demanded. ‘Didn’t—got here after,’ said the thing, and it had Crown’s voice too: the same silvery, musical sweetness of Crown’s, but not nice at all. ‘I simply looked for any signs of god and slithered downward—easy pappy. This place is like a neon sign saying John Gaius Was Here.’” (NtN 464) Is Ianthe being able to sense John all over the Tomb a necromancer thing or a Lyctor thing?

How did Gideon’s body end up with John / what happened between HtN and NtN?

Thinking about the attack where Gideon’s body changed hands, as described by Cam: “‘Pyrrha helped us escape from an attack. We lost people. Ships. Something very important.’” (NtN 70) I think we can presume that the Erebos, renamed The Seat of the Emperor as John requested and sent to the front at the start of HtN in response to BoE’s nuclear attack, was involved. It also seems likely that The Seat of the Emperor is where John and Ianthe wind up after escaping the River, since the Mithraeum is wrecked. If this is all happening at roughly the same time, then it seems a little cleaner to me to imagine that the ship John was on, or would shortly thereafter be on, is the one that picked up Gideon’s body during the battle Cam describes. It’s even possible that Gideon’s soul, after being kicked out of Harrow’s body by Alecto, slipped back there on its own. And since John knew about her at the end of HtN, he might either have tried to track her soul and been led to her body, or happened to discover her body had been captured and recalled her soul from some other place (maybe Alecto’s body, something I theorized elsewhere in this doc), or maybe he guessed that the body of his actual child would be incorruptible and knew to go looking for it and then recalled her soul to it.

What are the implications of Dulcie’s appearance in TUG?

We understand how everyone who’s there got in there, except for her. Ianthe is there because she’s puppeting Babs. Babs is there because Ianthe ate him, and also it’s his body. Pal is there because, as I read it, Cam touched Babs’ puppeted body—and also allowed Ianthe to wound her—to create a thanergetic link for Pal to leap across. But Dulcie is a tantalizing mystery. Is it:

A perk of her new status, as a soul who has crossed the River? What happens to a soul on the other side? Is she able to just pop in wherever she wants to be, like some kind of angelic visitation?
Is it some feature of Lyctorhood, in this case Ianthe and Babs’ Lyctorhood, that makes this internal space accessible to Dulcie in her crossed-the-River state?
Is she connected to Pal’s soul by some thanergetic link, like a revenant? Was it her book that was the only thing in Pal’s River bubble? Was she clinging onto her own cremains and attached herself to Pal way back at Canaan House, when Ianthe is telling him the cremains are of two different people? “Ianthe said, idly: ‘You see? There’s at least two people in there.’ ‘But the time signature’s consistent throughout the remains—’ She tipped both fragments into the palms of Palamedes. ‘Happy birthday,’ she said. ‘They must have died at the same time.’” (GtN 257)

A selection of probably very small inconsequential questions:

“‘I don’t disagree,’ said her teacher, ‘but a House cavalier—with all her proper training—is a handsomely dangerous thing. I saw the primary cavalier of the House of the Second fight in his youth, and my God! I never forgot it.’” (GtN 53) Who is this he/him cav primary ^[eh]^[ei]of the Second? Not Marta Dyas, and not Pyrrha Dve. Presumably whoever was the cav primary when Aiglamene was a soldier, but I’m interested.
“‘The sword and the powder^[ej]^[ek]^[el]^[em],’ said Harrowhark eagerly. ‘The sword and the knuckle, my lady,’ said Aiglamene.” (GtN 54) Is “powder” like bone dust? More fuel for the necro that a cav can bring into battle? But that would be totally useless in a duel, where the necro isn’t participating. Maybe these are both reasons why Harrow is into it. I don’t have the source, but I read somewhere that Muir said in an interview that she doesn’t know what powder is either, just liked the sound of it as an option, which I am fully behind as a writing choice lol.
Did Gideon (POOR CHILD HOLY FUCK) ever hold any small hope that the Reverend Mother and Reverend Father might be like her adoptive parents, even though they treated her like absolute shit? As the parents of her only peer and the “parents” in title of the whole congregation, did she ever have a flash of wanting that for herself?

“And a very long time ago—painfully folded in the back of her amygdala—the Reverend Mother and the Reverend Father had also looked at her like that, though in their case, their diffidence had been cut through with a phobic flinch: the way you’d look at an unexpected maggot.” (GtN 102)

“What lay beneath the trapdoor was a retro installation. … This rhapsody of greys and sterile blacks was interrupted over the nearest arch, where, twisting in the dry breeze of the climate cooler, hung a bundle of old bones. Ancient prayer wrappers were ringed around it, and it was the only human, normal touch.” (GtN 137) Whose bones are these??
“Without another word, Camilla moved to bookend her adept as he paused before a large, gilt-framed picture: the gilt was mostly brown except where it had gone black, and the picture itself was so faded that it looked like a coffee stain. It was a curious image: a dusty expanse of rock, cracked into an enormous canyon running down the centre, a sepia river winding into flaked-off nothingness at the very bottom.” (GtN 306) Is this a real place? I picture the Grand Canyon, but maybe there is a canyon like this in New Zealand? Where on the planet is Canaan House located^[en]^[eo]?
Who is M. Bias, author of “A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers”? From the Second maybe? It’s from this person that we learn that “One flesh, one end” is the full necro-cav vow, the same on every House.
What does the “To open in case of your imminent death” letter say??? (HtN 17)
Is Admiral Sarpedon a BOE spy? “‘And it has been…twenty years since we last met, Most Venerated Saint?’ ‘Around that,’ agreed the most venerated saint, whose office had been enunciated by the admiral with the faintest and most well-bred suggestion of motherfucker.” (HtN 82) Around twenty years ago, coinciding with the plan with Wake?

“Necromantic vapour rose off him in roiling waves like sweat, unused and impotent in the vacuum of deep space.” (HtN 83) Sarpedon’s a necro! So probably not deeply BOE, but connected in some way? Or does he just hate Mercy because if John’s been on the Erebos for 80 years, that means Dios apate major happened here on Sarpedon’s ship? Is he pissed that she had a three way with the Emperor? Sarpedon in mythology was a war hero of Troy^[ep]^[eq], and in this situation Mercy is kind of a Trojan Horse. Though maybe Harrow is the real Trojan Horse, bringing Wake hidden along with her.
I did not expect Sarpedon to come back into the story really, but: “‘Do you know who I saw creeping out of his bedroom the other day? Grand Admiral Sarpedon, I shit you not.’” (NtN 468) This feels notable in the way that Tamsyn Muir makes notable things seem extremely not notable, lol. What are Sarpedon’s motivations for sleeping with God? The honor of it? Spying? Whose side is he on? ALSO, does the title “Grand Admiral” indicate that he’s literally the top guy of the whole Cohort—and does that in fact make him Judith’s dad?? Am I jumping a shark here?
Okay I feel very silly, I finally realized that when Mercy says that she saw Sarpedon about 20 years ago, they’re both talking about when Mercy and Augustine showed up out of nowhere to jizz heist God, who was living aboard the Erebos at the time, and perhaps fucking Sarpedon at the time too. So…Sarpedon is probably not a BoE spy or something, he’s a possessive dude who doesn’t like Saints showing up and fucking his divine passenger/crush.

“It was only the fourth funeral you had ever been to where you had been responsible for the corpse.” (HtN 118) What were the other three? Her parents and Mortus? Did she have a private funeral for her parents even as she was puppeting them? Even if she did, that’s one, and a funeral for Mortus makes two. Did she give Gideon some kind of funeral at Canaan House, in that missing span of time, and she’s unconsciously counting it here? What an awful thought. Just rereading this later and thinking: maybe a funeral for Ortus and Glaurica?
“‘When they first brought her to Canaan House, I thought there’d been some mistake. You know that I’d been to Rhodes, to see the miracle, but I asked not to see the woman—just so I could be a disinterested party—and of course once I saw that she was necromantic I said yes, she should come to me to be a disciple.’” (HtN 119) What was “the miracle”? ^[er]^[es]The way this is phrased makes it seem like Cytherea is the miracle, but in what way?
“‘Can we get back to this blasted funeral,’ said Mercy. ‘Sitting through six of these is worse than dying myself.’” (HtN 124) Who were the other five? Ulysses, Cyrus, Cassiopeia…did they have a funeral for Anastasia? Or one for Samael, after John killed him? Did they have one for Alecto?
“A Lyctor sitting on the outside of the rocky ring that haloed the Mithraeum would not think it hidden: they would see it as a screaming beacon of thanergy—a burning gyre of death—letters writ large in space, HERE IS THE GRAVEYARD AND WE ARE THE GRAVES.” (HtN 152-153) This is quoting something I think, or referencing something, I can kind of hear it in my brain and can’t identify it, and it’s going to make me crazy. UPDATE: Okay, I think I was hearing it in the cadence of “We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams,” which is not related except kind of in sentence structure lmao.^[et]^[eu]
“The rest of his private chambers remained a forbidden tomb. You’d traditionally been drawn to forbidden tombs, but this one repelled even your curiosity. The doors were always locked, and you nurtured no ambition to see them otherwise.” (HtN 154) WHAT’S IN JOHN’S SECRET ROOMS THO? Is he a slob? Does he have weird porn^[ev]^[ew], or a coin collection, or a stash of Beanie Babies? Is there some horrible mystery hidden in there that we will see in some revelatory flashback later on?
“‘Harrowhark, how many in your family? Your mother and father are dead, that much I know.’ You swallowed in haste. How he knew that—the secret you had broken yourself attempting to keep hidden from the rest of the Houses, from the rest of your own House—you didn’t know.” (HtN 156) How DOES he know that, actually? Is he still in contact with someone there? Maybe Aiglamene, if she is as I suspect, more than she seems?
What’s up with the weather in the River? It starts raining and gets colder and colder, and I take this as a representation of Wake’s influence over this space growing—but why? What’s the significance of the rain and the cold, for her? A thunderstorm follows her to Palamedes’ bubble too. The first description of rain in Harrow’s bubble is on HtN 197, after the Sleeper has already been up and about, killing Judith and escaping from Marta. Maybe this will be answered when we know more about Wake’s origins?

“The fog was bitterly cold, and the rain stank like engine oil and blood; it tasted indescribable.” (HtN 197) Engine oil and blood—is this Wake’s memory of her last hours in the shuttle on the way to the Ninth? It doesn’t rain inside a shuttle though, nor on Pluto.
“Days later, the endless rain and lubricious fog turned suddenly to ice. Harrowhark woke up in the unfamiliar annex where she now slept, red and chapped with cold.” (HtN 248) Is it a ghost thing? It’s getting colder and colder because there are so many ghosts in this bubble with her?

“Those fixed dead fingers caught a skeletal arm wrapped in gold foil, amethysts studded like so many eyes between the knuckle-bones, and it clattered to the ground, and Cytherea tripped over it—without the head losing its tracking focus on you, those unblinking eyes adhered to yours—and the body splayed and juddered on the ground.” (HtN 208) Who is the skeleton that Wake knocks over here? A bone arm covered in gold foil, like Ianthe’s gold arm, and decorated with amethysts^[ex]^[ey] “like so many eyes” when “amethyst” is how Coronabeth’s eyes are often described? Is this some important person from the Third? Why put this here, in the middle of this horrifying zombie moment, unless this is some small Chekov’s skeleton? I kind of wonder if these are Valancy’s bones, except I feel like those would be in one of those special crypts that had the rapiers hung over them, and also what did happen to all the OG cavaliers’ bodies? Are they on the Mithraeum? Are they in Canaan House?
What is Source Gram? “Ever since we were moved into We Suffer’s remit, Hect has let herself be persuaded into listening to propaganda. The crucial element was from something they call Source Gram, which Hect told me about firsthand. To believe Hect, Blood of Eden has been consorting with elements from within the Nine Houses for much of the last myriad. As this is exactly what Blood of Eden would want us to believe, I remain sceptical. Hect repeats We Suffer’s claim that Source Gram came from within the Sixth House around six thousand years ago, an incident that apparently even We Suffer admits has fallen into Edenite mythology. We Suffer and Hect often mention a ‘break clause.’” (HtN 529 - AYU) Is Source Gram a person? From the Sixth—Cassiopeia?

Given the titles that BOE gives the other Lyctors when they are acting as informants, Source Joyeuse and whatnot (NtN 155), I think it’s clear now that Source Gram is Cassy, though I don’t understand why “Gram.” UPDATE: I have a section on their BOE codenames now, they are all references to famous/mythological swords!

“Pyrrha was holding a can of spray-on oil whose nozzle she directed neatly into the pan, where she wiped the pale froth around with a spatula. She was wearing pyjama pants and a string vest and no shirt, so the orange glow of the hot plate ring lit up all the scars on her wiry arms.” (NtN 23) I think we’ve had this body described as scarred before, but I’m suddenly wondering, where did these scars come from? Were they from before the end of the world, and John re-created them when he resurrected G1deon? Were they from the time post-Resurrection but before Lyctorhood? Are they the result of 10,000 years of Lyctorhood with slower healing than the other Lyctors, which Harrow takes note of in HtN?
“He said, they let me in to see the body, and I realized who I was dealing with and how big this was. Because I wasn’t dealing with a group. I was dealing with a fucking nation. I was dealing with a huge political conspiracy.” (NtN 273) I so badly want to know who this political leader actually is!

For once I’m not going to quote the whole thing here, but on NtN 400 we find out via John’s bad joke that the meeting set up between G— with the suitcase nuke and the “clients” who gave them the nuke in the first place in exchange for making this political leader look alive was taking place in Australia. So perhaps this is the Prime Minister! But the “clients” also say that they’re not in Australia, a nuke going off there wouldn’t hurt them, and John counters by telling them the guy he’s puppeting for them has nuclear launch codes and has his finger on the button. This all makes me think they’re not Australian, which brings me back to the President of the US. The Australian government would probably care if a nuke was about to go off in Melbourne, and also even if this is a future where Australia has nuclear weapons ready to go, the place to launch them from probably wouldn’t be in some other country.

“They should’ve stopped the launch and seized the factories until they could investigate properly. But instead they asked the trillionaires for their point of view. And the trillionaires lied! They lied like their lives fucking depended on it! They had a glib answer for every question; I swear someone told them we were on to them beforehand!” (NtN 281) I really wonder if someone did tell them, if someone we know was betraying John way back then, or if it was just the spies he sent in getting caught that tipped them off.
“‘What happened after Mercymorn stabbed you, Harrow, and where did you go? You never came back, and God said he thought you might be lost to us…How are you surviving, Harrowhark the First? How can you stand beneath the light of Number Seven? Unless I am addressing…’” (NtN 338) Okay but who does Ianthe think she might be addressing, if not Harrow? She has zero knowledge of Nona at this point, but she does know that Gideon’s soul is stuck back in her body. Unless Ianthe is also a proponent of the cheeseburger theory, that some of Gideon is still in Harrow’s body.
“The new situation was much worse than before she screamed. She could see Prince Ianthe Naberius’s shiny knee-length boots, one of them at least. She was down on one knee, but had drawn a rapier from that scabbard at her side and the tip was pinked with blood. On the dais, Pyrrha’s red, rangy body was down—Pyrrha!—on her hands and knees, trying feebly to rise. She had drawn a gun from somewhere—Pyrrha was good at drawing a gun from somewhere—but it had been knocked out of her hand and lay glittering in front of the plain chair. Crown was standing, flanked by two dead people but not being held by them. Camilla, on the other hand, had her arms pinned to her sides by fully four of the dead guards. She had drawn her knives, but her hands were forced outward in front of her, unable to move.” (NtN 339) I’m wondering what actually happened while Nona was screaming? Ianthe is down on one knee, that I get, because she’s a necromancer even though she’s not in a necromantic body—or perhaps it’s a combo of the scream plus Cam getting a hit in on her. Cam, I think, took the opportunity to attack, and Ianthe drew on her, that’s the blood on the rapier. But what is Pyrrha doing? Is she down because she’s pretending to be the Saint of Duty, and so should be down? Who was she going to shoot with the gun, and who knocked it out of her hand? Did the scream actually harm her and she dropped the gun, even though she’s not a necro, because of the body she’s in? Even though Varun doesn’t affect her that way^[ez]^[fa]? Pyrrha does say on the next page, “‘Everyone with a necromantic body is down.’” (NtN 340)
“‘I’m holding you to that,’ said the body of Ianthe Naberius. It sat up all of a sudden, like Nona getting woken up by the sponge, only all at once instead of in stages. It jackknifed in two. Pyrrha had rushed to retrieve her gun the moment all the soldiers started toppling like dolls; now she walked forward holding it in both hands and released the safety, her aim on Ianthe. Then she saw something that Nona couldn’t. She lowered the gun. She said— ‘You fucking legend.’” (NtN 350) What is it that tips Pyrrha off that this is Pal? Was she aware of, or did she guess, the plan? This isn’t a pressing question, I just think it would be fun to know what gives Palamedes away in a body Pyrrha’s pretty unfamiliar with.^[fb]^[fc]
Why were no children born after Harrow, actually? Presumably at that time there were some people on the Ninth of childbearing age and health, because some of the children killed to make Harrow were infants. I’ve been thinking about John saying that what Harrow’s parents did to create her was “a kind of resurrection” (HtN 157) and describes their process as “...to concentrate so much thanergy into so precise a task—like using a nuclear detonation to power a sewing machine…the ovum ought to have been obliterated at a subatomic level” (HtN 157), and something Harrow says when she’s walking around on a planet she’s there to flip: “The creatures would not die immediately when the planet did. But they would—slowly—come to change, and in the end they would be thanergy mutants who could not reproduce. A rather Ninth House death, and the death that came for all flipped planets, in the end.” (HtN 299) I wonder if this is why there were no children born on the Ninth after Harrow. If what her parents did was so overpowered for the purpose that it created some kind of thanergetic radiation, and rendered everyone infertile, even if they had wanted to have more children after that tragedy.
What’s up with the fireplace in TUG? It’s interesting to me that it’s the only piece of set dressing in the room that isn’t being used for a specific purpose, it’s just creating the sense of the space. But there’s notably no fire burning in it, and Ianthe-as-the-butler is waiting by it when Palamedes enters, and Ianthe-as-the-maid is dusting it, and this is enough for Palamedes to pop over and investigate the fireplace and the ashes^[fd]^[fe] when he’s at loose ends waiting for Ianthe-as-herself. Is there no fire because they’re battling for custody of a dead body, no thalergy in it? Is it representative of Babs as the fuel of Ianthe’s Lyctorhood, theoretically burning inside her, but really he’s just…part of her? Part of the set dressing of the inside of her mind? I’m excited by both of these possible interpretations lol.
What happened 40 years ago? Recently I’ve been reading the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie, and thinking about the ways in which she very clearly and skillfully establishes a cycle of unrest under her version of space imperialism; one rebellion led to another rebellion led to more rebellions, a mix of very large and public and very small and private, with decades between them to simmer. This got me thinking about when Augustine says (and I’m at work without my books with me, so I’ll pull the quote and get the page number later) that he’s willing to help Harrow kill G1deon because he’s been causing Augustine trouble, or something to that effect, for the last 40 years. 40 is not a number that comes up a lot—20(ish) is more relevant to the plot points we know about, Wake’s plan and Gideon’s birth, and before that, Wake’s rise to power 25 years ago. Thinking about cycles of unrest has me wondering what was happening 40 years ago, and did it pave the way for Wake’s rise to power in BOE? What was G1deon doing that was causing Augustine trouble^[ff]^[fg]? How was that different from whatever he was doing before?

Things I think may come up later:

“Gideon never ran unless she had to^[fh]^[fi]^[fj]^[fk]^[fl].” (GtN 15)
“The remote, insensate planet where she lived was home to both the stronghold of the House and a tiny prison, used only for those criminals whose crimes were too repugnant for their own Houses to rehabilitate them on home turf.” (GtN 23) - Who are the criminals? Will we meet them?

“‘Why waste your shot on my smallest House? … And it wasn’t by accident. You skipped the dummy target in the atmosphere—you found the exact coordinates for the House.’” (HtN 466) Calling the prison a dummy target really gives away that the Ninth is what John wants to protect the most.

“It was real Ninth bond, written correctly and clearly. It purchased Gideon Nav’s commission to second lieutenant…her inflated Ninth serfdom would be paid for in five years on good conditions, rather than thirty.” (GtN 28) I wonder if Gideon still has this, and if it’ll ever come back or be a foil in future plans.
“Ever the obsessive and secretive scholar, she had derived at great cost some forgotten way of preserving and puppeting the bodies. She had found a nasty, forbidden little book in the great Ninth repositories of nasty, forbidden little books, and all the Houses would have had a collective aneurysm if they knew she’d even read it.” (GtN 37-38) Whose book did Harrow learn this from? One of Cytherea’s, brought to the Ninth via Anastasia?
“‘’Hello, I’m the woman who helped Harrowhark Nonagesimus’s facist rise to power,’’ said Gideon to nobody in particular. ‘’Yes, the universe sucks now. I knew this going in. Also, she betrayed me afterward and now my body has been shot into the sun.’’” (GtN 51) I’m dying to find out how this prediction reads after the end of Alecto.
“‘Oh, if she pulls this off she can have whatever she likes,’ said Harrowhark easily—way too easily. ‘She’ll have glory squirting out each orifice. She can do or be anything she pleases, preferably over on the other side of the galaxy from where I am.’” (GtN 52) How will they end?
“‘How I hate the water,’ he said, as though this conversation was one they’d had before and he was simply continuing it. ‘I’m not sorry that this has dried up. Ponds…rivers…waterfalls…I loathe them all, I wish they had not filled the pool downstairs. It’s a terrible portent, I said.’ ‘But you’re surrounded by sea,’ said Gideon. ‘Yes,’ said Teacher unexpectedly. ‘It is a bit of a pisser.’ Gideon laughed—slightly hysterical—and he joined in, but his eyes filled with tears. ‘Poor child,’ he said, ‘we're all sorry. We never intended this to happen, none of us. The poor child.’” (GtN 325-326) I have multiple questions here. Why does Teacher hate all water? Is this part of the whole saltwater thing these books have going on? And who’s the poor child? I almost feel like it could be Alecto, and I think this comment must relate to the water thing.
“So it was Crux’s mean, blackened revenge on his own House—his own zealous desire to burn it clear of any hint of insurrection—that had forced Glaurica’s ghost back to her home planet. She did not say this. Silas Octakiseron knew more than he should, but if Harrow discovered that now, she’d be off down the corridor in her nightdress with a sack of emergency bones and a very focused expression.” (GtN 360) - Even though Silas and Colum are both dead^[fm]^[fn], I feel like it will someday be important that the Eight knows the NInth’s secrets.
Beguiling corpsehood: “a remnant of spirit attached to a perfect and incorruptible body—that’s the idea, anyway” (GtN 366) vs hideous corpsehood: “a fully intact spirit attached permanently to a rotting body” (GtN 366) for example, the First House skeletons. These definitions feel important to remember^[fo]^[fp]^[fq]^[fr], especially since we know from As Yet Unsent that Gideon’s corpse is incorruptible^[fs]^[ft].

YOP, our girl Prince Kiriona Gaia is a beguiling corpse! Though it’s hard to describe her body as “perfect” with the wounds left unhealed, she is definitely incorruptible, and I theorize that her revenant spirit is not fully intact—I think some of it stayed back with Harrow, in Harrow’s body, and then as part of Nona. I wrote a Tumblr post about it here, and at some point I will probably just paste that whole post text into the Theories section, but that day is not today because it’s late and I’m sleepy.

“They had been walking around for ten thousand years, probably, and after two moments of panic and tragedy it was all over. The priests of the First House were gone. Maybe it was relief, or maybe it was sacrilege. Gideon wondered what her state of mind would be after a whole myriad: bored as hell, probably. Desperate to do anything or be anyone else. She would have done everything there was to do, and if she hadn’t seen it, she could probably imagine what it looked like.” (GtN 379) We see this play out in HtN with the older Lyctors and with John, but I wonder if we’re going to see it begin to happen with Gideon and Harrow, if they’ll crack perfect Lyctorhood by the end, if they’ll even want to.
“Palamedes said, though he sounded as though he were ten thousand years away, ‘Princess, whatever you think you’ve done, you haven’t done it.’” (GtN 384) I truly think Palamedes has already cracked perfect Lyctorhood—or at least, he’s cracked something other than what Ianthe and the old school Lyctors did. This will continue to be important in HtN, and I’m betting further.

Were Pal and Cam already beginning to put together the process that would create Paul, even then? Or was he starting to crack the kind of Lyctorhood John has with Alecto, and the kind I think Anastasia was trying to achieve with Samael, and that idea had to be adjusted once he no longer had his own body?

John worrying his temple -^[fu]^[fv] this feels like a way to identify him from just a description and I wonder if it will be a Thing.

“You imagined him sitting in his patchy, worn-out chair, all alone, worrying his right temple with the thumb he always worried his right temple with.” (HtN 14)
“When you had told Teacher of your worries—you little imbecile—he had grimaced, and worried his forehead with his thumb momentarily, and said: ‘Nobody would touch her, Harrow. I haven’t.’” (HtN 164)
“‘God, who did you bury?’ Teacher worried his temple with his thumb, and then worried his other temple with his other thumb. He took a biscuit and dipped it into his cooling tea, then ate it,then swirled the tea around in the cup and set it down again. ‘I buried a monster,’ he said.” (HtN 195)
“Then he said, rubbing circles into one temple with his thumb, I still can’t believe they wouldn’t give me the time of day and they were scared of me.” (NtN 280)

“...and even at fourteen she was good enough with a heart arrest to keep them going until she could give them final rites. She’d always disdained flesh magic, but she had a knack for the aorta.” (HtN 53)

Update, this does come back, I just forgot: “An easy thrust, with enormous strength behind it, straight past the right breastbone and right to the very centre of your heart, which had been fucked up one too many times in my keeping. It was a surgical, exact thrust. Her rapier was a slender needle, and if you’d carved us open you probably would have found that the slim blade had gone right through the central mass of the aorta. Mercymorn withdrew with the same precise, swift movement and stepped backward, rapier dripping with blood. That was her mistake. Your heart closed over the rapier as it punctured: your heart closed over the rapier as it withdrew. The slit so close to your breastbone sealed over instantaneously, just as fast as her stab, like an immunisation jab in Drearburh.” (HtN 411)
Kiriona is missing her heart………….

“The letter was written in Ninth House crypt-script; your own cipher, based off that of your parents and developed when you were seven years old. It was unbreakable to anyone who lacked your rosary, Marshal Crux, and a hundred or so years to spare.” (HtN 58) I don’t necessarily think cracking the crypt-script will come up again, but it’s interesting that her rosary is involved!^[fw]^[fx] And also Crux??
Harrow’s deal with Ianthe, “the favor of the chain”: “The agreement does end on your death. The agreement does extend into the House, but NOT into the Tomb. The agreement is singular but does take precedence over and above any debt you have sworn to anyone lesser than the Holy Corpse, over and above the Emperor of the Nine Houses.” (HtN 60) What is the favor of the chain? The chain could be a reference to Samael’s chain, a holy relic, or the chains that hold Alecto, though I think Samael’s chain is more likely as Harrow is the only one who knows that Alecto is chained. So, the favor of an ancient cavalier, maybe protection? Protection for Ianthe? For Coronabeth? Or a favor as in, Harrow has to do whatever Ianthe asks for, if she is able? But it doesn’t extend into the Tomb and it doesn’t take precedence over Harrow’s devotion to the Body, so Ianthe, in her future scheming, can’t use this to get to Alecto.
“Her cavalier rounded off the prayer, dolefully: ‘And so hail to the Lord of the Sharpest Edge, and the gossamer thinness of his blade, and the cleanness of his cut.’ ‘An ancient epithet!’ said the ghastly old man that Harrow would come to curse as Teacher. He looked near death with excitement. He looked close to capering, which filled Harrowhark with a dry and powdery despair. ‘A classic, unuttered for years even in this House!’” (HtN 109) What a wild way to end this prayer, and not the way it ends when we see it in full in GtN! Is it something from his studies of Nonius’ time? It feels prophetic, like so many things in these books.
“‘You might say I like to follow energy trails back to their source. Revenants in particular are fun that way. Resurrection Beasts feed like revenants: they find thalergenic planets and guzzle them up wholesale, crack them open like clams, and take the soul for meat. Then they turn all that remnant thalergy into what we call the corpus, or the hive, and the thanergy—the dead clam itself—for armour. … This is how the RBs got on, having scarpered away from the Dominicus system. Resurrection Beasts add to their corpus anything they’ve done a good solid murder to. They eat planets; they suck up the thanergy, then add bits of the planet to themselves, getting bigger and meaner each time.’” (HtN 171-172) Will this assessment of RBs ever apply to Alecto, I wonder? Or is John her battery, in the same way she is John’s battery?

NtN paints a picture of a very hungry John, Hungry Caterpillar John, consuming the Earth, consuming the whole system, but that consumption doesn’t seem to apply to Alecto I don’t think. There’s a line in one of the John chapters which I will put in if I find it later about them both getting hungry at the same time, as if John’s hunger triggers in Alecto a need to eat that is just sympathetic, or somehow related to their Lyctorhood. I feel like this carries over a bit to Nona, who hates eating actual food, matter that was living and now is not, but loves eating other things like pencil lead and erasers and sand, things that were never living matter. This feels like the opposite of RBs “adding to their corpus anything they’ve done a good solid murder to” and “sucking up thanergy,” unless maybe things that were never living have thanergy too?

Some more info on revenants from Augustine: “‘...it can inhabit anything it’s got a connection to. Anything thanergetically connected with their death.’ Ianthe suggested, in what you saw as a low-value suck-up play: ‘Burial implements. Grave goods^[fy]^[fz]. Any possession that they kept over time, that was exposed to their thalergy and thanergy. If they were murdered, the murder weapon.’ ‘Bang on,’ said Augustine. ‘Even things that touched the murder weapon, though the connection’s fairly weak there and the revenant would have to be particularly bloody-minded.’” (HtN 172) I feel very sure that one of these things will become relevant to one or more of our many revenant spirits in these books!!
“‘Lord, I saw the Saint of Duty kissing the body of Cytherea the First.’ Part of his biscuit dropped off in his tea. … ‘Harrow—Harrowhark, I hate to ask, but are you certain?’ Even God distrusted you. ‘Teacher, I swear by the Locked Tomb.’ ‘I wouldn’t swear by that in this instance,’ he murmured, and took his dented teaspoon to fish out a quivering and deliquescent glob of ginger biscuit.” (HtN 227) EXCUSE ME, JOHN, BUT WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING IN THE LOCKED TOMB THAT WOULD MAKE IT A BAD THING TO SWEAR ON IN THE INSTANCE OF PEOPLE KISSING DEAD BODIES?
“The Necrolord Prime said, very calmly, ‘Ten thousand years since I’ve eaten human being, Harrow, and I didn’t really want an encore.’” (HtN 232) Whyyy were you eating human being!^[ga]^[gb]

“‘The cells weren’t foreign.’ ‘What?’ ‘I sectioned my tibia for the soup,’ you said. God’s eyes closed, very briefly. He pushed his bowl another fraction away.” (HtN 232-233) Why is Harrow’s marrow worse than random marrow?^[gc]^[gd]

“At her creeping pace, Harrowhark had covered only half the distance when she heard Silas Octakiseron say, clear above the patter of falling drops: ‘And somewhere out there, may all the blood of your blood suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered.’ He pushed. The eldest princess of Ida dropped from the side of the docking bay with swanlike ease.^[ge]^[gf]^[gg]^[gh]” (HtN 236) I feel as though Silas and his vendetta against Ianthe and by extension Corona will come back, his disappearance from the story is too memorable and portentious to not be a Thing.
“‘Once upon a time, if my younger brother had deemed it fit for you to exit this vale of tears, I would not have stopped him, but I admitted long ago that Ortus no longer listens to anyone. He always did get his own bizarre obsessions, and you could never get them out of his head with a pneumatic drill. He has caused me more pain over these last scant forty years than I dare to admit.’” (HtN 268) This is an interesting timespan that has not been meaningful thus far, but I want to know what it might mean later. What happened in the last forty years between G1deon and Augustine?^[gi]^[gj]
“‘Oh, time…time,’ said a voice from the doorway. ‘Time means very little…mastery does. This temple stood for ten thousand years untouched by all but time’s clumsiest pawing…but then its master was the Master, for whom even the River will part. Time is nothing to the King Everlasting.’” (HtN 328) This brings me back to John’s comment that he should have mastered time instead of death. Is mastery of time going to become a plot point in the future?
“It was always a certain kind of ass who approached love like that—a certain kind of very good, talented ass, who had been overly used to their hands on the reins and never could cope when they were taken off—nor had the personality to put them back on again. Ianthe had that type of personality. And she had a few years on Harrow. ‘Someday I’ll marry that girl,’ she said aloud. ‘It might be good for her.’ And: ‘Probably not, though.’ And then Ianthe the First went to see a man about a queen.” (HtN 364) Dying to know how their weird relationship turns out!! Also, I really want to know what’s up with “go see a man about a queen.” The idiom it’s referencing, “go see a man about a horse,” is a euphemism for needing to disappear for a short time without giving explanation. But what is the queen part? Is she trying to find Corona? That’s where my brain goes first, but I’m not entirely convinced.

I mentioned this up above somewhere too, but I am starting to wonder if the queen in this instance is Babs, and she is planning to stash his body away for her later use! Especially since I don’t think Corona’s ever referred to as a future queen, but is several times compared to a king.

Another little detail about revenants and thanergetic links: “‘He must have created enough of a connection for the Doctor’s ghost to establish itself as a revenant in its own body—but, of course, it couldn’t get out of its copperwork. So it jumped across a thanergetic link to one of the cleaning servitors. Sixth bloodlines probably helped, presuming the corpus was a distant relative, although either way his success implies copper is more thanergetically permeable than we thought, which might have applications.’” (SEX) I want to know if the thanergetic permeability of copper will come into play ever, I feel like it should!
“The Archivist fiddled with one of the hairpins at the back of her bun, eyes distant. Then she said, ‘His study had been sealed. He knew that the Archies might not get to him for years and years and years. What’s inside that sphere is paper…real, delicate paper…and even if he didn’t know precisely what it was, he may have had a good idea. Opening the sphere would have meant exposing it to the elements. He preferred to defer the satisfaction of solving the puzzle fully so that someone in the future could benefit from his final deduction.’ ‘That’s conjecture,’ said the Warden. ‘Oh, entirely,’ said Zeta. ‘But it’s what I hope to God I’d do in his position.’” (SEX) This feels prophetic to me, like when I look back on the whole series, this is something that will have happened in the main plot somewhere.^[gk]^[gl]
“This is what happens when you force refugees from twenty different planets to live cheek by jowl and you keep thinking people unify under a common threat… She always made that mistake. I told her twenty years ago. Works beautiful in the short-term, but you’ve got to give them a future to really keep ‘em glued.” (NtN 29) In AtN, will we get a future that’s going to unite opposing factions?

“‘I know how hard it is for you to kick against the goad,’ said the new person. ‘But there are more worlds than this. Come with us. We are the love that is perfected by death—but even death will be no more; death can also die^[gm]^[gn].’” (NtN 424) I feel like Paul is going to be a big part of bringing the kind of future Pyrrha references.

“She struggled heroically to keep them open, even using her fingers, until Hot Sauce stopped her. ‘You can sleep if you want,’ said Hot Sauce. ‘I’ll be here.’ ‘You won’t tell, will you, Hot Sauce?’ ‘No,’ said Hot Sauce. And: ‘I’m here, Nona. I’ll look after you.’” (NTN 187) I really want this bond Hot Sauce and Nona have formed to come back into play somehow in AtN!!!
“Honesty said gruffly, ‘That’s not right.’ ‘No, but what can you do? Sometimes you step in to make sure someone won’t suffer,’ said the Angel.” (NtN 240) I wonder if this idea of mercy will come up again later.
“Hot Sauce automatically placed her thumb outside of the city gates, on a lone square. ‘I’ve hid out here before. It’s an old watchtower. Keep along the road. White building with the top railing. Nobody else likes it. One of its legs looks sunk into the sand. But it’s stable. There’s stuff there.’” (NtN 243) I wonder if this place will make an appearance later, if Nona’s gang does, or if what the Angel is teaching them about how to survive and this tower being their potential hideout is a metaphor for something that has happened or will happen with the tower in the River, the way Watermelon Steven episodes in Steven Universe foreshadow what will happen in the main plot?
“I was all, Next cult, let’s go for teenage girls instead, write that down somewhere. M— was all, Are you kidding, at least with these guys we have a chance of getting out alive.” (NtN 402) I can’t wait to see what our teenage girl cultists are going to do in AtN.
“She looked away from him, and she said: ‘I want to journey to find God. Maybe, at the end of that road, I will find God in you, Teacher…the God who became man and the man who became God. Or, perhaps, the child of the Nine Houses will recognize a different divine. But I am the Reverend Daughter—I am the Reverend Mother, the Reverend Father—I must find God, or some aspect of God, and understand it for myself…even if she lies, right now, within the Tomb.’” (NtN 436) I love this moment for Harrow so deeply. After everything she’s been through, every expectation she grew up with, every desperate prayer of her whole desperate life to this point, she is calmly assessing her God and finding him wanting, and allowing herself to find divinity outside of him. It feels very Jewish, tbh, and as a kid from a Catholic/Jewish interfaith family, I really love Harrow’s journey here and I’m excited to see where it goes.
“The First House was no longer a beautiful and empty shell, buffeted by the erosion of time. Now it seemed more like the blocked-up labyrinths beneath the Ninth House, kept sealed in case something became restless. When she was young she used to have nightmares about being on the wrong side of the door of the Locked Tomb. Especially after what Harrow had done.” (GtN 202) I was relistening to GtN and this stuck out to me! Will we get to see what’s restless in the labyrinths under the Ninth?? Or does this just mean the halls leading to the Tomb? Also, I love this tiny thread of connection between Gideon and Alecto and dreams, since Harrow and Alecto have so many and such complex dream connections. Were these normal nightmares, or some kind of connection between Gideon and her father’s cavalier?
“Harrow said to him, slowly: ‘Undoing the cavalier’s bodywork should have killed her. It would have been an incredible shock to her system.’” (GtN 344) Thinking about Harrow’s certainty that something was amiss with the whole puppet Protesilaus thing, and how she knows about it from the experience of puppeting her parents - is this why she had Crux basically build a tomb for them, and seal them inside? Aside from just not wanting anybody to notice they weren’t moving around anymore without her there, would destroying their bodies or otherwise undoing the necromancy Harrow placed on them cause some kind of backlash or recoil on her that would harm her? I wonder if this will happen at some point, or if it already did once she was out of the Ninth’s atmosphere.

Theories:

The Body in the Tomb is Alecto, A.L., “Annabel Lee,” John Gaius’ cavalier and partner in perfect Lyctorhood, and the Resurrection Beast of Earth/The First House.

“Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost.” The Tomb contains all that was lost, Alecto, the ten billion.
“‘How many revenants are there?’ You prepared for an astronomical number. The Body raised its eyebrows when the Emperor Undying said, ‘Three. There were nine. We called them by number. Over ten thousand years, we have managed to take out a grand total of five. Number Two fell soon after the Resurrection. Number Eight cost a man’s immortal soul, and—I still see that day in my dreams. Number Six died because one of my Hands—Cyrus—drew it into an ultramassive black hole, and Number Six had better be dead, because Cyrus won’t be coming back.’” (HtN 43) There were nine, they’ve taken out five, and there are three left—plus Alecto, who raises her eyebrows at being left out.
“To their silence, he added: ‘I believe we are now being punished for what they did. Even the devil bent for God to put a leash around her neck…and the disciples were scared! I cannot blame them! I was terrified! But when the work was done—when I was finished, and so were they, and the new Lyctors found out the price—they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm…Oh, but it is a tragedy, to be put in a box and laid to wait for the rest of time. It happened to me, but I was only a man, or perhaps fifty men… Reverend Daughter, your whole House treads upon a knife’s edge, as keepers of such a zoo. … You worship a monster in a box and play at being masters of its tomb.’” (HtN 328) Saltwater creature! RBs are the price of the Resurrection, and being pursued by them is perhaps the price of Lyctorhood.
“‘Number Two spewed quicksilver^[go]^[gp] and remade itself into hundred-foot spikes. Number Six kept sucking us into enormous sphincters and spraying us with worms. I cannot even remember what it looked like. I remember Number Four…it was a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held me under the water, and it spoke in a lovely voice but it only repeated, die, die—and I recall Number One as a great and incoherent machine…when I saw it I thought it had a great tail, and a thousand broken pillars on its back, but Cassiopeia saw it as a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.’ It was the Saint of duty who said, restlessly: ‘Number Eight was a giant head.’” (HtN 338-339) Now this is a wrinkle! I did not remember this mention of Number One! Is this Alecto before she was Alecto? Or is the Number One that Mercy and Cassy saw just the corpus or the projection of Alecto, and Alecto is the other? Is Alecto not an RB (but I really really really think she is)? Are the RB numbers not the same as the House numbers^[gq]^[gr], which would be very confusing to me but is certainly possible?
“He pronounced her name, as both his wayward saints had, as two clearly separate letters: you could hear the A and the L. He said, ‘It stood for a couple of things. A joke, mostly. I often called her Annabel Lee. Annie Laurie. When I first met her I just called her First, One. She had a real name, but I buried it with her, and nobody says it anymore.’” (HtN 345) Annabel Lee; Annie Laurie. Love and death. Also, “First, One,” I believe as in the first RB, Number One.

“‘She has been dead for nearly ten thousand years, but she keeps her vigil with me, as a memory, if nothing else…Annabel Lee was my…what do I call her? Guide? Friend? I’d hoped so…’” (HtN 346) His cavalier.
I’ve been wondering if maybe calling Alecto “First, One” was not referencing her first-ness as an RB, but that she’s the first cavalier, and also cavalier of the First House, since RB Number One is referenced as something other than her.

“The Lyctor called Mercymorn stared at your face, and I have never seen anyone so totally shocked by misery. It wasn’t just fear: it was this huge, grief-stricken panic, a welter of unhappy terror. It was the face of someone who had just seen their one true love drop-kicked into a meat grinder and come out the end as a pile of sausages. ‘So now you come to me, First,’ she said raggedly. ‘Now you come…at the end of everything.’” (HtN 408) Another moment when I think of Molly Grue: “How dare you come to me now!” Also, calling Alecto “First” again. Mercy’s reaction is interesting. Does she think that Alecto has possessed Harrow’s body^[gs]^[gt], which Mercy herself stabbed intending to kill? Does she think Alecto in Harrow’s body will be able to kill John, and that’s the awful grief?
“‘The stoma’s opened for John,’ said Pyrrha, and she sounded—detached, rather than triumphant, rather than grief-stricken. ‘It must think he’s a Resurrection Beast.’” (HtN 495) Because of perfect Lyctorhood with Alecto?
Delightful to come back to this and have it confirmed! Right now I’m just scrolling through this doc and updating things in a general way, but when I get around to actually rereading NtN with a fine-toothed comb and annotating, I’m sure I will have some quotes here about Alecto and her whole deal.

Aiglamene is either Anastasia, Samael, or both together.

She knows the secret of Harrow’s birth; I think it’s possible she encouraged/instructed Harrow’s parents on the method. We know from GtN that the 500 into 50 method to create Teacher, the priests, and the skeletons was Cassy and Anastasia’s work (Cassy’s room, note from Anastasia).

Gideon says “‘Your Lady would stone cold eat a baby if it meant she got to lock me up infinitely,’” among other things, and Aiglamene slaps her. The eating a baby one is the only thing Gideon says that accidentally is almost true. “She simply backhanded Gideon the way you might hit a barking animal. Gideon’s head was starry with pain. ‘You forget yourself, Gideon Nav,’ her teacher said shortly. ‘You’re no slave, but you’ll serve the House of the Ninth until the day you die and thereafter, and you’ll commit no sin of perfidy in my air.’” (GtN 21) Maybe the whole tirade just offends her, but the baby part sticks out.
“‘If I vouchsafe the freedom of Gideon Nav and it is not given to her, then—begging pardon for my ingratitude—it is a betrayal of myself, who is your retainer and was your mother’s retainer.’” (GtN 52) Her mother’s retainer! Not shocking, because she’s old enough to have been Pelleamena’s retainer, but it suggests that Aiglamene has been in place since before Harrow was born, and so Harrow wouldn’t necessarily know how long she’d been there—she’s just always been there. Also suggests she would be involved in the plan for Harrow’s conception, being close to the Rev. Mother.

She may have been part of a plan involving Wake, either Wake’s bomb plan, or some longer game involving a child of God. I think it’s possible she has a long game plan for Gideon and Harrow as two powerful kids who could grow up to be powerful perfect lyctors.

“Aiglamene had convinced the House to put a sword in Gideon’s hands, not to waste her on serving altar or drudging in the oss.” (GtN 22)

She was in on Harrow’s plan for Gideon to go to the First House as cavalier primary, and it’s possible this is part of her long game.

“Aiglamene refused to meet her gaze. That sucked, but fine.” (GtN 31) When Harrow is tricking Gideon into a “fair” fight.
“Aiglamene had probably focused her frustrations on Gideon because Ortus was such a drip.” (GtN 37) Has she always wanted Gideon to be the cav primary?
“‘This plan is doomed,’ she said to them, without looking up.” (GtN 49)
“‘If I vouchsafe the freedom of Gideon Nav and it is not given to her, then—begging pardon for my ingratitude—it is a betrayal of myself, who is your retainer and was your mother’s retainer.’...’If she satisfies you, you must let her go^[gu]^[gv],’ said Aiglamene firmly.” (GtN 52) As if she knows what lyctorhood, perfect or imperfect, could entail. Though this makes it seem as if it ISN’T part of her plan for these two kids to become a perfect lyctor together.

“‘The more you struggle against the Ninth, Nav, the deeper it takes you; the louder you curse it, the louder they’ll have you scream.’” (GtN 22) Is she talking about herself, stuck here for a myriad?
“The only member left of that order was Aiglamene, who’d left her leg and any hope of getting the hell out of here on some far-off front line.” (GtN 36) I’m not sure what Aiglamene as a soldier means for my pet theory, but it’s interesting! Also there’s a comparison to be drawn between her bone leg and Ianthe’s bone arm—even if she is some kind of lyctor, a lost limb doesn’t grow back.
“‘A cavalier should welcome death,’ said Aiglamene, affronted.” (GtN 41)
“‘A soldier’s best quality is her sense of allegiance. Of loyalty. Nothing else survives.’” (GtN 43)
“‘No, lady; I’m looking for a blade in the style of his great-grandmother’s. And a knife—or a knuckle.” (GtN 49) Did Aiglamene know Ortus’ great grandmother?
“‘You’re the best swordsman that the Ninth House has produced—maybe ever. Can’t say. I never saw Nonius fight.’ ‘Yeah, you would have only been what, just born,’ said Gideon, whose heart was hurting keenly.” (GtN 54-55) Something about the emphasis of this is interesting to me. She never saw Nonius fight, but Gideon the First did, and she may know that.
“There was something urgent in her voice: something worried, something new. ‘Things are changing. I used to think we were waiting for something…and now I think we’re just waiting to die.’” (GtN 55) We the Ninth? We the lyctors? We the citizens of the Nine Houses?
“She was already mounting the ambo and reading out prayers even as Gideon began desperately praying herself that she might one day go to be an enlisted soldier, which she had wanted ever since Aiglamene—the only person Gideon didn’t hate all the time—had told her she might be one. The captain had told her stories of the Cohort since Gideon was about three.” (GtN 332) All the Cohort stuff with Aiglamene kind of takes me away from the theory about her being Anastasia, but I want to note it anyway. Maybe it comes from a close relationship with Gideon the First and Pyrrha?
“‘Harrowhark, you really don’t have any insight into who might be haunting you? Do any of its signifiers mean anything? The suit? The blood? The gun?’ Harrow’s brain, though still a jumble, was no longer a mess in a darkened room. Memory had gifted her a small torch she could light the disarray with. She remembered the clipped Cohort accents: A standard-issue infantry sword. A two-hander. ‘The sword,’ she said. ‘It’s Gideon’s. But none of the other signifiers match.’ ‘Did the sword belong to anyone before her?’ ‘Not that I know of. Aiglamene petitioned to give it to Griddle from the Drearburh stock. I signed the order. The box was still wrapped.’ The light was not proving helpful enough: she was, in desperation, kicking over piles of the rubble in her own brain. ‘I hated that damned sword for years. I don’t know why; it just felt strange—rancorous. I cannot deny that I often assumed its edge would be the last thing I saw. I don’t know,’ she finished, frustrated.” (HtN 418) I really, really think the sword has a history that we don’t yet know.
Okay, I still love Aiglamene so much and I love this theory, but I have changed my mind on it after NtN. I have a new theory re: Anastasia, which I will add to the bottom of the Theories section when I get there. For now, suffice it to say that Aiglamene seeming to genuinely not recognize Pyrrha or have any particular knowledge or cryptique at the end of NtN has convinced me that she’s a badass old soldier but not a badass myriad-old almost-lyctor. There’s also the matter of Anastasia’s bones inside the Tomb, but I think we all know by now that bones don’t mean someone’s soul isn’t around.

Cytherea has some connection to Gideon, and to the Ninth, that encompasses knowing whose child Gideon is but is more specific than that somehow.

Was she close with Anastasia and Samael? Does Gideon remind her of Loveday? Is her plan throughout GtN part of some larger plan with other lyctors, a plan for Gideon and Harrow specifically?
“This appeared to be the greatest thing that had ever happened to her. She fluttered her hands like she was having the vapours. ‘Oh, God, I was rescued by a shadow cultist! I’m so sorry! Thank you! This is one for the history books.’” (GtN 75)
“‘Oh, yes,’ said the girl, dimpling. ‘You’re not the first Ninth nun I’ve ever met. I’ve often thought it must be so hard being a brother or sister of the Locked Tomb. I actually dreamed of being one…when I was young.’” (GtN 105) Is this true of Cytherea? What is the timeline of the formation of the Ninth? Were there Ninth nuns before the Tomb was created? Is the nun she’s talking about Anastasia?
“She slid her sunglasses off her nose and obligingly presented her face for inspection. And she was inspected, thoroughly and immediately. The eyes narrowed with intent, and for a moment the face was all business. There was something swift and cool in the blueness of those eyes, some deep intelligence, some sheer shameless depth and breadth of looking. … ‘Oh, singular,’ said Dulcinea quietly, more to herself than to Gideon. ‘Lipochrome…recessive. I like looking at people’s eyes,’ she explained suddenly, smiling now.” (GtN 105-106)

She’s definitely identifying Gideon here, but her reaction is much more measured than Augstine’s or Mercymorn’s to Harrow with Gideon eyes. Was she looking for this? Did she have some understanding, from Anastasia, that perfect lyctorhood was possible, and so is actively looking for Alecto’s gold eyes in John’s child? ^[gw]^[gx]
This reddit thread suggests that lipochrome (yellow and green eyes) and red hair are both recessive, John and Wake would have to both have the genes for both to create Gideon, and Wake’s eyes are likely blue because of the relative dominance of blue and green and brown eye colors. Interesting that these two traits are BOTH recessive, also interesting that John and Wake are (according to Muir) both Māori. How old is Wake? Were they connected pre-Resurrection somehow? I forget if we ever find out where BOE came from, genetically/as a population, in terms of the Resurrection. Did they come from the same community, in a small or large sense of community?

“‘Gideon the Ninth,’ said Dulcinea, slowly, ‘are you used to a heavier sword?’” (GtN 107) Does she know precisely what sword? Did Gideon’s two-hander belong to someone else before it wound up on the Ninth, passed to her by Aiglamene-maybe-Anastasia? She wouldn’t know that Wake is in the sword, as I don’t think that was part of anybody’s plan, but the sword itself might have a history.
“...but his adept was looking at her—wistfully. Gideon hesitated by the door for that look, in the shadows of the archway, buffeted by the wind from the water. Dulcinea said: ‘I hope we talk again soon.’” (GtN 108) Wistfully…is she missing Loveday?
“‘Do you ever think it’s funny, you being here with me?’ she asked once, when Gideon sat, black-hooded, holding a ball of wool for Dulcinea’s crocheting. When Gideon shook her head, she said: ‘No…and I like it. I send Protesilaus away a good deal. I give him things to do: that’s what suits him best. But I like to see you and make you pick up my blankets and be my scullion. I think I’m the only person in eternity to make a Ninth House cavalier slave away for me…who’s not their adept. And I’d like to hear your voice again…one day.’” (GtN 125) Again, I think this is more evidence that Gideon reminds Cyth of Loveday, and that whatever relationship she had with Anastasia is part of this Ninth House fondness.
“‘Ghosts and monsters,’ the lady of the Seventh continued enthusiastically, ‘remnants and the dead…the disturbed dead. The idea that someone is still here and furious…or that something has been lurking here forever. Maybe it’s that I find the idea comforting…that thousands of years after you’re gone…is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.’ Harrow said, ‘A spirit comes at invitation. It cannot sustain itself.’ ‘But what if one could?’ cried Dulcinea. ‘That’s so much more interesting than plain murder.’” (GtN 213) Is she talking about herself here? Loveday? Alecto? The 500 ghosts, or the ten billion? Also, the idea of a spirit that can sustain itself might be referring to Teacher and the skeletons, but also puts me in mind of Wake.
“‘Here we are,’ said Dulcinea. ‘Before we go through, please give me a little bit of your blood. I have warded the place up and down and I’m dreadfully afraid you won’t be able to go through the door without giving me a shock.’” (GtN 217) Why does Cytherea need to ward the door to the avulsion test? Does she just want their blood? Why?
Why does Cytherea ask the Sixth to do the avulsion test before she asks Harrow and Gideon? Does she want that key, or is she just trying to get some more people killed? Or is she testing the Ninth specifically?
“‘It’s all right,’ someone was saying, over the noise. ‘You’re all right. Gideon, Gideon…you’re so young. Don’t give yourself away^[gy]^[gz]. Do you know, it’s not worth it…none of this is worth it, at all. It’s cruel. It’s all so cruel. You are so young—and vital—and alive. Gideon, you’re all right…remember this, and don’t let anyone do it to you ever again. I’m sorry. We take so much. I’m so sorry.’ She would remember each word later, loud and clear.” (GtN 226) After all this time, Cytherea is still so actively mourning Loveday, and that’s so clearly part of her interest in Gideon in this moment.
“‘Good girl,’ the voice was saying. ‘Oh, good girl. She’s got it, Gideon! And I’ve got you…Gideon of the golden eyes. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault…I’m so sorry. Stay with me,’ the voice said more urgently, ‘stay with me.’” (GtN 227) What exactly is all her fault? Harrow and Gideon doing this test? Them being here together? The heirs being here at all? How much is she owning to here?
“Dulcinea unwound herself, which was a shame; she was warm, and the room was colder than ten witches’ tits. She reached out one last time to skim a hand over Gideon’s forehead. She whispered archly: ‘Nice hair.’” (GtN 229) Cytherea knows precisely who both her parents are.
“‘Don’t. It was a business decision. You’ll get your key when I’m done.’ ‘But Gideon—’ ‘Is not your business.’ Dulcinea’s hands came to rest in her lap, and she tilted her head. ‘I see,’ she said, smiling and somewhat crestfallen.” (GtN 229)
“‘Oh, could’ve…should’ve,’ she said. ‘You can could have and should have yourself back into last week…back into the womb. I could have kept Pro by my side, or I should have gone with him. I can go back and make things happen perfectly if I just think about what I should have or could have done. But I didn’t…you didn’t…that’s the way it is.’” (GtN 292)
“‘I just want to know what happened,’ said Dulcinea drearily. ‘That’s always the worst of it…not knowing what happened.’” (GtN 293) In context it seems like she’s talking about Protesilaus, but who is Cytherea really talking about? She knows what happened to Loveday, but maybe Anastasia? Her affection for the Ninth House has been implying that they were close.
“‘Whatever happened to one flesh, one end?’ ‘I’ve seen those words before,’ said Gideon, thoughtless of where she had seen them. ‘What do they mean?’ The blue eyes cracked open. ‘They’re not familiar?’ ‘Should they be?’ ‘Well,’ said Dulcinea calmly, ‘you would have said them to your Reverend Daughter the day you pledged yourself in the service of her cavalier, and she would have said them to you—but you never did that, did you? You weren’t trained in the traditions of the House of the Locked Tomb, and you’re nothing like a Ninth House nun. And you fight like—I don’t know. I’m not even certain you were raised in the Ninth House.’” (GtN 295) This sticks out, since she definitely was raised and trained there, and learned to fight from Aiglamene. I don’t know how it fits into the bigger story, but I wanted to note this for later.
“‘Who got rid of that? I’d thought I’d made it absolutely unusable.’ ‘That was the Ninth.’ ‘That’s more than impressive,’ she said. ‘The Emperor would love to get hold of her…thank goodness he never will.’” (GtN 400) The Emperor DOES get hold of Harrow, but doesn’t know what he’s getting. But, this bit is a strike against my idea that perfect Griddlehark Lyctorhood is part of Cyth’s plan.
“‘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. … I’ll give the King Undying, the Necrolord Prime, the Resurrector, my lord and master front-row seats as I shatter his Houses, one by one, and find out how many of them it takes before he breaks and crosses over, before he sees what will come when I call…and then I won’t have to do anything. It will be too late.’” (GtN 401-402) So her plan, as she states it to Pal, is to destroy the Houses by drawing John close enough to bring RBs to the system. But I still think her goals may have shifted when she met Gideon.
“‘For example, I’ve been thinking about doing this for the last three hundred years…’” (GtN 402) Why 300 years? Was 300 years ago just the first time she got fed up enough with everything to want to destroy the whole messed up system?
“‘I am the vengeance of the ten billion. 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.’” (GtN 405) Vaguely put! I mean, context gives a clear explanation, but “This begins with you” doesn’t necessarily mean she intends to kill Gideon. I’m holding on to my theory by the skin of my teeth.
“Behind them the construct shook and swayed and thrashed with whatever the hell Harrow was doing to it, and Cytherea’s eyes locked on Gideon. ‘I meant it,’ she said earnestly. ‘You were wonderful. You would have made that little nun such a cavalier—I almost wish you’d been mine.’ ‘You couldn’t fucking afford me,’ said Gideon.” (GtN 411)
“She vaulted daintily into their part of the courtyard and smiled Dulcinea’s smile at Gideon: dimpling, bright-eyed, as though they both knew something extra nice that nobody else did. ‘There’s that two-hander,’ she said admiringly. ‘Want a closer look?’ said Gideon. … ‘You know you can’t do this, Gideon of the Ninth,’ she said. ‘You’re very brave—a bit like another Gideon I used to know. But you’re prettier in the eyes.’” (GtN 424) Did Gideon’s sword belong to someone else, as Abigail asks in HtN? Where did Aiglamene get it from? How did it get into the Ninth House stock?
“‘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.’” (GtN 424) Cytherea knows she’s John’s daughter. Knows she’s proof of perfect Lyctorhood. Is that all she is to Cytherea? Though that’s plenty, to be honest. But I really feel like there is more to know here. Also I think “you might not have to die at all” is, again, a perfect Lyctorhood reference. Has Cyth since cracked it?
“She tried to conjure up some of the old, cruel caution with which Aiglamene had so often sent her to the mat—watched Cytherea closely, stepped away from a feint, saw an opening—turned herself to iron, and thrust forward, straight to her opponent’s heart. Cytherea raised her free hand and caught the blade before it carved through her sternum. She had to step back with the force of the blow, but her frail, worn hand wrapped around the breadth of the blade and held it as easily as Naberius’s shitty trick trident knife had her rapier, all those years ago in the training room.” (GtN 425-426) I think later, when Harrow and Gideon are a Lyctor, Cyth chooses to let the sword pierce her, and die.
“Before them stood Cytherea the First, though they noticed her only as an afterthought. She stood with her sword down, just watching them, her eyes as wide and as blue as the death of light. The garden narrowed to her and her bloody green sword. Her lips were parted in a tiny o. She did not even seem particularly troubled: just amazed, as though they were an aurora, a mirage, an unreal trick of the sunshine.” (GtN 436) Her maybe secret plan, fulfilled?
“Cytherea the First vomited a long stream of black blood. There was no fear in her now. There was only anticipation verging on panicked excitement, like a girl waiting for her birthday party.” (GtN 438)
“Her skin tore; her heart strained, stretched, and, after ten thousand years’ poor service, gave out. Cytherea the First sighed in no little relief. Then she toppled over, and she died.” (GtN 439) Thanks to Palamedes and Harrow and Gideon, Cytherea gets what she wants.
“‘When was the last time you saw her?’ … ‘And you, Mercy?’ You heard the molar-grinding again. Then the Saint of Joy said, colourlessly: ‘Nearly twenty years ago.’ And: ‘She laughed too much.’” (HtN 120) This kinda seals it for me that Cytherea was involved in the plan with Wake in some way!
“‘Well, which one of the kiddies did her in?’ The Emperor said sharply, ‘That doesn’t matter.’ ‘It’s not like I hold it against ‘em—I couldn’t. Believe me, if she went she chose to go.’” (HtN 123)
I’ve been thinking some more about Cytherea and her motives and her specific actions, and I think once I start doing NtN notes I will come back to this, but I don’t want to forget: my overall feeling is that she had her own plan, which aligned with what BOE wanted but was more about her own motivations. I have said this before but I think she hoped she could either force Harrow and Gideon to become a Lyctor, or hoped to in some other way prompt them to open the Tomb and kill John and destroy the system. I think part of this, part of her disgust with the whole structure of the culture John has built, is why she kills the Fourth in such a dramatic way. She kills Abigail and Magnus because Abigail is a direct threat to her, and could expose her; there are no messages drawn in blood, she just kills them and leaves them, and hides her room key in Abigail’s body. But with the Fourth, she sets up this whole horror show, the lights, “Death to the Fourth House” in blood on the wall, the giant construct, and then when Gideon gets Jeannemary away, she follows up with another dramatic scene, “Sweet dreams” in blood, putting Gideon to sleep so that she can set everything up how she wants Gideon to see it, and very obviously and purposefully sparing Gideon herself. I kept asking, why the Fourth? What could they possibly have done to threaten her? But it’s not about Jeannemary and Isaac. It’s about the Fourth House in its entire—the first to be sent to the front lines, the first feet on a new planet to kill and to die in order to turn it for necromancy. Even more than the Second, the Fourth is the House that represents the destruction and genocide John is perpetrating across the universe, they represent most painfully everything that Cytherea, I think, finds reprehensible about the spread of necromancy and the system that put so much value in her illness and pain and drawn-out death.
I still feel like there is either one or several long games that we don’t fully have the shape of, and Cytherea’s plan is part of that feeling, especially after the way We Suffer and Pyrrha each assess what Cytherea was doing at Canaan House.

“‘No, interacting with Lyctors has not been so bad. Of course, our greatest ally was Source Chrysaor, who taught us all about the obelisks and steles, and who defeated ten high-ranking House personnel and one necromantic monster.’ ‘Cytherea took out a handful of adults, a handful of kids, and an old science project,’ said Pyrrha impatiently. ‘And she let two new Lyctors through the net. It wasn’t her best effort. Whatever she was doing at Canaan House, it wasn’t helping you out.’ … ‘You must see it from our point of view. When you stand in our shoes, Chrysaor—Cytherea the First—came to us, and identified the crisis of many new Lyctors about to rise, and removed it.’” (NtN 156)

I’ve been thinking about this again, and feeling more personally convinced that Cytherea’s plan, by the end of GtN, was to force Gideon and Harrow into lyctorhood in the hope of creating someone whose power could rival John. Probably she improvised this when she got there, though I feel like there’s an outside chance she knew or had an inkling about who Harrow and Gideon were before they all arrived. I’ve become a bit more solid in my conviction on this specifically because I realized that not only is Cytherea grooming Gideon—giving her those good cav endorphins as Dulcinea, killing the necro-cav pairs around her whose relationships Gideon admires, building herself up as this unbeatable enemy—but she might also be grooming Harrow. She can certainly sense from the outset how powerful Harrow is, and it’s possible she can sense why. If my pet theory about Harrow having Anastasia’s soul is correct, then she may even sense that! And then she asks Harrow and Gideon to perform the avulsion trial, testing Gideon’s unkillability but also teaching Harrow a skill that will be essential to absorbing Gideon in lyctorhood, the final step of the eightfold word. We never get to see Harrow checking out Mercy and Cris’ room, she does that offscreen, and I wonder if there was something in there that Cytherea wanted her to learn. Knowing that Mercy became a lyctor under duress, maybe something there would be important to Harrow figuring out how to do the same.

Combining multiple old theories into one long game theory re: Gideon and Harrow

Tumblr user muppetebbtide got me thinking about Aiglamene again with this great callout linking Aiglamene to The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe, a children’s historical fiction novel about Roman Britain. The main character, a soldier who was wounded in the leg in battle, disguises himself as a Greek and goes behind enemy lines to find out the fate of the Ninth Roman Legion (and his father). The legion fell, but he retrieves their eagle standard as a symbol of their heroic last stand and returns it to Rome. It seems quite likely to me that Aiglamene (whose name comes from the French for “eagle”) is at least a bit based on this character, given the eagle connection, the Ninth, and the wounded leg. This, of course, leads me to wonder if any other part of this story is hinting at Aiglamene’s story, which we don’t really know much about! We know she’s been on the Ninth since before Harrow was born, and was Pelleamena’s retainer. We know she fought for the Ninth, and that’s how she was injured, because at some point she’s counted by the narration as the last remaining of the Ninth chaplains and soldiers who joined the Cohort in the past. Presuming all this is true, she’s been on the Ninth for some time. So several possibilities arise for me based on The Eagle of the Ninth:

Aiglamene was born on the Ninth and has been there all along, but at some point was a spy for the Cohort in BoE territory. (Perhaps less likely given her disdain for the Emperor’s Intelligence, as expressed to Pyrrha in NtN.)
Aiglamene was born on the Ninth, but has not yet had her stint behind enemy lines—it’s something coming in AtN. (This feels plausible, given where NtN leaves off.)
Aiglamene is from outside the Ninth, possibly outside the Houses, and her time on the Ninth is in fact her time behind enemy lines. (This intrigues me because if her story keeps with The Eagle of the Ninth, then perhaps Gideon is the eagle standard—the last remnant of a “failed”? war effort. This would also do a little to explain why Crux seems to hate her—he hates outsiders. I mean, Crux hates most people, and hates Gideon most of all so might hate Aiglamene just for training and looking out for Gideon, but it’s an extra little impetus.)

Whether Aiglamene is Ninth by birth or not, all this speculation brought me back to some of my early theorizing about Aiglamene’s involvement in Harrow’s birth. I’ve thought since before NtN that it’s possible she was involved in the Reverend Parents’ plan; thinking about the possibility of Aiglamene working with BoE at any point makes me wonder if she might have been part of suggesting the plan to Harrow’s parents in the first place. She didn’t seem to recognize Pyrrha, or the body Pyrrha was in, but could she have at some point been in contact with Mercy and Augustine? Or perhaps Cytherea? Could she have known Wake, or at least known of Wake, enough to recognize her and know Gideon’s origin when they first landed on the Ninth? Could she have been part of a very long game, something I wonder if Cytherea might have wanted to cook up as well, to take John down by arranging the ascension of a Lyctor who might have the power to kill him: overpowered Harrowhark Nonagesimus with the soul battery of John’s own daughter inside her? It’s pretty wild as theories go, but I want to lay out my thought process anyway:

Cytherea, we’ve been told by the narrative, had her own plan at Canaan House and nobody is totally clear on what it was. She’s been betraying John and giving information to BoE for a long time. Perhaps she was part of Mercy and Augustine and Wake’s plan, or just got wind of it and used it to craft a plan of her own. Perhaps she interfered, sabotaged the eggs and fetal dummies Mercy provided Wake with—we still don’t know why they all died—in order to force the creation of a child who would have importance to BoE as well as to the Houses.
Perhaps Cytherea made contact, or was already in contact, with Aiglamene—who may have been born outside the Houses and is on the Ninth as a spy or an escaped and disguised POW, or may be a House citizen who saw what the Cohort was doing first hand and turned against her Emperor—and enlisted her help in getting this kid to adulthood when the kill-her-to-open-the-Tomb plan didn’t pan out.
Perhaps through contact between Cytherea and Aiglamene, a very long game plan spun out—to engineer a Lyctor as powerful, or more powerful, than John, using his child as half of that equation. Cytherea, through Aiglamene, might have seeded information that became the plan to birth Harrow, to create an extremely powerful necromancer in close proximity to little Gideon.
Perhaps this is part of why Aiglamene looked out for Gideon, to the degree she did; why she put a sword in her hand. Honestly, if the long game was to raise Gideon as a cavalier for Harrow, then Aiglamene giving her the two hander instead of a rapier doesn’t make a whole lot of sense—but I feel like Gideon’s sword has its own story that may come out later.
Aiglamene definitely seems to be in on Harrow’s plan to take Gideon with her to Canaan House—but what if that plan was her suggestion? What if her reluctance, the worry she obviously has for Gideon’s eventual fate, is because she knows what the goal is—Lyctorhood, and Gideon’s death, and perhaps from there, John’s death—and is having second thoughts about feeding this child she helped to raise into the maw of a two-decades-old plan with Cytherea?
If anything like this actually happened, what will Aiglamene’s next move be, now that Cytherea is dead, Gideon is dead, and Harrow and Gideon are not a Lyctor? Is this part of why she’s so ready to open the Tomb? Where does she go from here? Will she join those allied with BoE, and try to bring Gideon over too?

Update: What if Harrow is Anastasia? There is something unusual about Harrow. Many things are unusual about Harrow, but I feel like there’s something that has not yet been revealed.

Why is she always so warm? Is it all the souls??
“‘Do not underestimate me, Teacher,’ you said. ‘I have always lived.’” (HtN 14) She tried to kill herself by rolling away the rock, and didn’t die. She didn’t hang herself when her parents told her to. She became a Lyctor instead of dying at Canaan House. All these things can be tied to Gideon, to lesser or greater degrees, but I think there’s something special about Harrow too.
“He said, ‘Harrow, you won’t kneel to me. I won’t let you, not until you know exactly what it means when you do it. It hurts me to see you perform obesiance when—if you knew the full story—you might strike me full in the face instead.’” (HtN 38) Why is John so invested in her from the start? Invested in her knowing him and liking him? Her more than Ianthe, when they’re both new Lyctors?^[ha]^[hb]
Some facts about Harrow that may or may not have relevance to this theory:

Would have been the 311th Reverend Mother of her line
87th Nona of her House (I assume this refers to the Nona in Nonagesimus, as a name fragment that gets passed down)
Named for her father, who was named for his mother, who was named for “some unsmiling extramural penitent sworn into the silent marriage bed of the Locked Tomb,” which I take to mean whichever of Priamhark’s mother’s parents was the one not of the direct line of Tombkeepers.
“Drearburh had never practiced Resurrection purity. Their only aim was to keep the necromantic lineage of the tomb-keepers unbroken.” (HtN 47) So this is confirming that there’s a direct lineage through the necromancers of each ruling couple of the Ninth, and that who the other parent is doesn’t really matter, but probably it helps if they’re also a necromancer. I wonder if it’s Pelleamena or Priamhark who was the direct line? Or maybe they are distantly related and it comes through both of them?

“‘Physical transference past the liminal boundaries,’ you said, and were surprised by the knowledge coming out of you, as though it weren’t your own. ‘This is deep Fifth spirit magic.’” (HtN 96) So whose knowledge is it? Where did she learn this?^[hc]^[hd]^[he]^[hf]

Re: wondering if Harrow is Anastasia, maybe this is Anastasia’s knowledge?

John favors her, why?

“‘I’ll grab Harrow. Gun it.’ ‘Oh, thank God, finally—what do you mean, grab—’ ‘I’m going to have to touch her. Hit the acceleration.’ ‘Wait, Lord, if she pulls you away—’ ‘The throttle, Mercy, in Cristabel’s name!’ God roared.” (HtN 107) Why does he take this risk? Saying things that sound nice doesn’t cost him anything, but this could actually cost him.

“‘Your obedient servant, Harrowhark the First—ninth saint, then, looking at you I can tell that’s appropriate.’” (HtN 123) It seems like all the houses have pretty narrow gene pools and so keep typical features over all this time, but also I think this means Harrow resembles Anastasia.
“‘I say, Reverend Daughter, is it ancestral Locked Tomb tradition for your spirit energy to be so diverse?’ Abigail asked brightly. ‘I’ve counted up to one hundred and fifty signatures contributing to you, and there’s more—they’re stamps rather than complete revenants, of course, which means their spirits were manipulated to leave marks on you in some way, which is fascinating if it means…’” (HtN 132) Is it just that Abigail is super talented in this area, or are these spirit signatures more visible because they are in the River right now? Anyway, wanted to note this as part of what is weird about Harrow, even though it’s already known.
“You grew bored. ‘Teacher, then.’ ‘He’d tell me how wonderful it would be to do it myself. We’re not all Teacher’s sweet little darlings for whom he would do anything,’ she remarked. ‘I have never been good at attracting indulgent fathers.’”^[hg]^[hh] (HTN 149) There’s so much made of John positioning Harrow as a daughter in his little happy family set up, more so than he positions anyone else as his child. This feels, a bit horrifyingly, like it relates to Alecto, and like his indulgence toward her is in some way taking the place of indulgence he can’t give to Alecto anymore.
“‘This was…all so different…before we discovered the scientific principles.’ ‘I am assured they had no previous research to go by. They came up with it themselves.’ God said, a little bewildered, ‘That’s not quite what I mean. … To all intents and purposes, your mother and father committed a type of resurrection,’ he said. ‘They did something nigh-on impossible. I know, because I have committed the same act, and I know the price I had to pay. Thalergetic modification of an embryo is difficult enough, but to achieve the same thing with thanergy…’ … ‘But, Harrowhark—even as the product of two obvious geniuses—you are a walking miracle. A unique theorem. A natural wonder.’” (HtN 156-157) I have a lot of questions here. What actually is the price John had to pay? Is this just referring to how he’s pursued by the RBs, or is there something more? How many people did he actually resurrect, compared to the number who died? Is it a 500-into-50, 200-into-Harrow kind of thing where he killed the ten billion people on Earth and only brought back some tiny percentage of that? Also, is he implying that he has tried to thalergetically modify an embryo, or is he just trying to imagine and express the level of difficulty of doing that thanergetically? In a myriad of time, have any of the Lyctors ever had kids?? Also also, the level of difficulty he’s implying makes me feel even more sure that the Reverend Parents had Lyctoral assistance, whether they knew it or not.

So, I really LIKE my Harrow-is-Anastasia theory, but this feels like the place to amend another one I’ve been thinking about for a long time, that maybe Harrow is a kind of RB resulting from the collective, simultaneous deaths of the 200 kids, the way a planet’s RB is the result of collective simultaneous death. As I’m typing this out I feel like I’ve written about this before, so oopsie if I have, it’s the ADHD. But it came to me again or for the first time as I was thinking about the great aunts, and how they were blinded by the gas, and about the Sixth House Oversight Body blinding themselves while in captivity on New Rho to alleviate the effects of Varun’s proximity. Is every necromancer on the Ninth just a little nuts because of Harrow’s presence?? Are the aunts immune because they are blind? Were Harrow’s parents slowly getting worse and worse as a result, until they died? It’s a fun theory to chew on!!^[hi]^[hj]

“Afterward, God was more careful with you than ever, and he had been careful before; sometimes you caught him glancing at you as if he was trying to see something in the confines of your face, but whatever he was looking for it was not what your parents had done.” (HtN 158)
“‘The card up the sleeve of the revenant, and the Resurrection Beast, is that it can inhabit anything it’s got a connection to. Anything thanergetically connected with their death.’” (HtN 172) Wake, a revenant (I think), and Alecto, an RB, are both connected to physical things—bones, the sword, Cyth’s body; Alecto’s body in the Tomb—but also they’re both connected to Harrow. This makes me wonder HOW they both stay attached to Harrow. Wake has the genetic connection of Gideon, even though it’s just Gideon’s soul that’s tucked away inside Harrow. But what about Alecto? What is her connection?
“Behind you, the Kindly Prince was saying, in far more ominous tones than you had ever heard him use: ‘Six days. No sleep. She still manages a full skeleton commencement from diluted marrow. What else have you failed to see, Mercymorn—?’” (HtN 234) I’m so proud of her, for real.
“The Saints of Duty and Patience were out in the corridor. If either had wanted to run you through, you could not have stopped them. You looked at them despite Ianthe urging you away: at Augustine, looking as though he had seen the ghost of someone he did not particularly like, and at Ortus.” (HtN 234) Who does she remind Augustine of here? After the soup incident?
“‘It’s coming for you, Reverend Daughter!’ said Teacher. ‘Oh, it’s coming for you—and once it’s got you, once that rock’s rolled away, once that tomb’s levered open, the Emperor of the Nine Houses will never know peace ever again! The King is dead! Long live the King!’” (HtN 329) This is really intriguing to me!!! I think in context that Teacher is explaining the crux (haha) of Wake’s current plan, which is to possess Harrow and use her Lyctoral power to kill John. But he puts this in terms of John’s prophesied death, the rolling away of the rock, the opening of the Tomb, the waking of Alecto. This draws a line between Alecto and Wake in some ways, but also parallels Harrow with Alecto, and that’s striking to me! I really think there is more connection between Harrow and Alecto than meets the eye at this point in the story.
“‘You’d have to pick the revenant’s path and travel along a thanergetic link, and that’s just madness again: sitting inside—I don’t know—a teapot, clinging on without sense or understanding, going slowly insane.’” (HtN 461) I wonder if Abigail’s description here will become relevant when we find out where Harrow’s soul ends up in Nona. What or who does she have thanergetic links to, and what does that reveal about her?
Ok I’ve been thinking post-NtN had a somewhat wild thought, and I want to get it down in case something comes of it. What if Harrow is Anastasia? What if Anastasia’s soul was just hanging out in the Tomb, attached to her bones maybe, waiting with Alecto, not wanting to leave her alone, all the way up until Harrow’s conception? What if the insane necromancy the Reverend Parents did to ensure Harrow would be a necromancer of the Tombkeeper line actually pulled Anastasia’s soul out of wherever she was chilling and stuffed her into this embryo? John called what they did “a kind of resurrection.” (HtN 157) What if they resurrected Anastasia? What if Harrow REALLY IS “Anastasia come again?” (HtN 170)

The name Anastasia means “resurrection,” and could easily also be a reference to the historical Anastasia Romanov. I’m fairly sure it’s been proven at this point that Anastasia Romanov did die with the rest of her family, but the pop cultural resonance is strong with a girl who escaped death and went into hiding, or in the case of many adaptations including the Don Bluth movie that most people my (and Tamsyn’s) age have seen or at least heard of, lost her memory and lived her life as a whole other person.
What if some of what Harrow perceives as hallucinations are repressed memories? Some of it comes from Wake, for sure, and seeing the Body is clearly coming from a connection with Alecto. But there are other things, the unexplained noises, doors opening and closing. There’s Harrow’s incredible overpoweredness, as a necromancer. These could be attributed to other things, but I’m warming to the idea that Harrow is Anastasia reborn, and possibly Alecto senses it, or is drawn to her because of it, as it seems from NtN that Alecto and Anastasia had a particular bond.
The Harrowing of Hell, for which Harrow is named (according to Muir), is also called the Anastasis. I think it’s likely, given what we know about there being a problem with the River, with Harrow walking on water toward the mysterious Tower, and with the tiny excerpt of Alecto the Ninth that begins “Harrow in Hell,” that Harrow is going to harrow whatever passes for hell in this universe, and release or maybe resurrect the mad and suffering souls in the river and possibly beyond.
There’s a fun parallel between Anastasia’s and Harrow’s failed Lyctorhoods! First we are told Anastasia got Lyctorhood “fundamentally wrong” and Samael died as a result, then John reveals that he killed Samael but still places the fault on Anastasia for panicking and not completing the process. I think it’s implied that John interfered and killed Samael in order to prevent them from achieving the kind of powerful and balanced Lyctorhood only he and Alecto have achieved thus far. Then we’ve got Harrow, who wants Lyctorhood until she finds out what it means, then is forced to begin the process by circumstance and Gideon’s choice, then halts the process herself in order to preserve Gideon and changes her brain until she believes that she just got it wrong, like Anastasia did. Neither of these “failures” are straightforward, and I think both are reaching for something balanced but fall short of it through the interference of others (John, Cytherea).
Anastasia, after her failed Lyctorhood attempt, begs John to kill her too; he refuses, and instead asks her (“asks…”) to become the first Tombkeeper. The Anastasian monument, named for her, is where the celebrated dead of the Ninth are buried. Anastasia almost literally becomes a mausoleum—and then we get Harrow, who buries Gideon’s soul somewhere inside her own body, and as Magnus says, makes herself a mausoleum too.
On Harrow’s power: she was able to open the Tomb, roll the true rock away, with just Gideon’s blood under her fingernails and her own necromancy. Mercy tells us at the end of HtN, and Paul shows us at the end of NtN, that in order to fool the blood ward with Gideon’s blood instead of John’s, a powerful burst of thanergy is needed. So much that both Mercy/Augustine/Wake’s plan and the actual event in NtN require a fresh death. But Harrow doesn’t sacrifice anyone in order to roll the rock away—she’s able to do it alone. Is it because she’s 200 souls? Is it because she’s Anastasia, and Anastasia’s bones are still sealed away in there? Is this, and not her conception, the moment when she becomes Anastasia, by succeeding in killing herself and being immediately reborn as some kind of Harrow-Anastasia combo?

“‘I’m saying nobody is good enough. There isn’t a bypass. I built that tomb with Anastasia, designed every inch of it, and I did not include a way in.’” (HtN 349) Did Anastasia know what the Tomb was for? What part of this is a seed of truth and how much of this is deception? And aside from those questions, if Harrow is Anastasia reborn, then Anastasia being involved in designing the Tomb may be part of what made it possible for Harrow to open it without the huge thanergy burst of a fresh death.
Something else I want to quickly consider: Is it possible that Harrow did provide the thanergy of a fresh death when she opened the Tomb? Is it possible that she went there wanting to die, and she DID? And that some combination of Alecto’s power and soul and Anastasia’s soul inside the Tomb resurrected her?

“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.” (GtN 25) This is such a small thing, but way back when we see Harrow for the very first time, Gideon uses “ancient” in this description. This reminds me a lot of how many times Gideon casually describes Dulcinea/Cytherea as looking ancient, or old, or ageless.
It just occurred to me recently that when Harrow’s pulling ghosts into her bubble to act out their roles, she pulls people who were there, who she at least briefly knew—but she doesn’t pull Cytherea. She pulls the real Dulcinea Septimus, and the real Protesilaus Ebdoma, who she never once met—only saw Pro’s corpse puppeting around, and perhaps briefly touched Dulcie’s cremains. This says something to me about her power. She’s not a spirit magician, but she called, and spirits who never knew her heeded her anyway. Truly incredible.
“I know where remembrance lives in the brain, and he won’t have any of it. You know that too, don’t you? It’s the easiest thing in the world… to forget.’ She said, ‘To forget…everything?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, and more sharply— ‘Yes. It’s the only way.’” (NtN 433) He’s talking about the lobotomy to forget Gideon, but this feels like the sort of thing that will have other meanings if this theory or something like it turns out to be correct. Anastasia would have to forget everything to be reborn as the Harrow we know, or to assimilate into ten-year-old Harrow. Perhaps she’s blocked off, like Alecto from Nona, a sleeping consciousness that will at some point wake up.
“‘Lady,’ he said, in a much softer creak, ‘you’ve gone away again, my lady; where have you run? Remember your catechism and your lesson, and remember them well now: this is where you come back to—you have your little escape. You’ll feel better for coming back…you remember that, Harrowhark.’ Nona whispered, ‘I’m sorry—I’m not Harrowhark.’ ‘Ay, and you’ve said that before,’ said the old man. ‘Who are you this time, if not my Lady Harrowhark?’” (NtN 459) Harrow is legit so haunted that these past episodes of possession (?) that Crux seems to be talking about could be any number of things. Alecto taking control, or any of the 200. But if she’s Anastasia, in something like the way Nona is Alecto, then maybe there were times when Harrow was unconscious and Anastasia’s full consciousness was present/took over. Is this what was happening in the times Harrow herself referenced when she was losing time? Does this poor girl also have DID on top of everything else going on with her??
“She hadn’t come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it—the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen. The teardrop on the hand. The hand that John had fashioned.” (NtN 472) “Scrap of black-eyed meat” is clearly referencing Harrow, who Nonalecto also called “the baby with the big black eyes. The scrap of meat with the purple mouth.” But “the chain of a kiss” brings my mind right to “the favor of the chain” and the favor that Alecto owes Anastasia. I’ll stick that quote in here too when I get there in a few minutes, lol. Anastasia, if Harrow resembles her, could also be a scrap of black-eyed meat.
“She looked back beyond, and she saw Anastasia, tucked where nobody would find her: Anastasia, all bones. Not really Anastasia. But Anastasia’s body without the meat on it, snuggled right into the curve of the rock, ready to close the door whenever it was opened. She remembered Anastasia.” (NtN 474) The phrasing here confirms for me that at the very least, Anastasia’s soul is not here lingering attached to her bones. It’s either in the River, or it’s in Harrow/became Harrow.
“Alecto said, The line of Anastasia is unbroken yet. The child answered, Through sin and iniquity, yes. Alecto said, I am very sorry about Samael. The child made no answer. Alecto said, I remember my vows. As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service until you bid me the favour, and whatsoever you appoint I shall perform, and consider the vow rendered. This is what I promised, until such a time as you deal with me as you see fit.” (NtN 477)
Thinking about math. Numbers rarely seem to work and have some flexibility in TLT, but I’ll put this down in writing anyway. GtN says that when Gideon arrived on the Ninth, there were 200 children between infancy and 19 years old, and Gideon became number 201. (GtN 24) This number would include Ortus, who is listed by both GtN and HtN as one of the three survivors of the “creche flu.” 201 minus Gideon and Ortus is 199—but Harrow always says that 200 children died to produce her. It could be rounding, sure. But I wonder if this is more of Harrow’s brain eliding things she doesn’t remember or understand, and she’s counting herself when she recalls 200 dead children—the original Harrow, who may have died to open the Tomb.

Who was Anastasia actually?: an unhinged theory

I’m not sure I want to fully commit to this one because it feels out there, but I want to get it down anyway. What if Anastasia is John’s daughter, with Alecto?
Gonna be real, this thought occurred after reading about Māori mythology on Wikipedia and have not yet followed up on sources actually from Māori people and culture, so more research required. But I was reading about Tāne Mahuta, who created the first woman Hineahuone from soil. They had a daughter, Hinetītama. Tāne Mahuta seduces her and they have children, and then when she finds out he’s her father she flees in shame and changes her name to Hinenuitepō and becomes the goddess of night, death, and the underworld. (Wikipedia) Perhaps John and the physical form of the Earth that he created had a child, and perhaps that child became the first Tombkeeper of the Ninth House. Perhaps even, though it’s a pretty fucked up idea, Samael was Anastasia’s child with John? But most of the allusions Tamsyn makes don’t follow the stories they allude to precisely, they always twist aside in some interesting way, so I think it’s more likely that if Anastasia is John and Alecto’s child, the incest part of the myth became John killing Samael, which has the same eventual effect of making Anastasia the Tombkeeper. Also, Anastasia’s kind of the first of the Ninth nuns, and Catholic nuns are married to Christ, a little parallel there with Hinetītama marrying her father Tāne Mahuta?
Some things that work well with this theory, though I hesitate to call any of it evidence:

John would have even more reason to want to stop Anastasia and Samael from achieving perfect Lyctorhood—if she was his daughter, she must have been an especially powerful necromancer just on her own.
Anastasia having John’s blood could be a reason why she decided, or why he persuaded her, to lock herself inside the Tomb—like Gideon, she would be a key to open it.
It’s a possible reason for Alecto to be so fond of Anastasia, and to have sworn some kind of oath to her.
Whether Harrow is secretly Anastasia (see the theory above this one) or just her direct descendant, it could explain why she’s so powerful herself.
It makes “‘There was no possible way Alecto’s genetic code—to the extent she even had one, which by the way I am not convinced she ever did—could have ended up in a baby in the Ninth House…’” hit pretty different. (HtN 480)
It makes “‘You’d make a hell of a daughter, Harrowhark. I sometimes indulge in the wish that you’d been mine.’” hit different too, especially if Harrow is Anastasia. (HtN 347)

Wake comes from before the Resurrection.

I don’t think her body does—I think she’s been a revenant since the death of her original body, passed down through BOE, perhaps through descendants. (A lot of evidence for this theory is going further down in the “Wake and Alecto” section!)
“The sword hated you to touch it. The long hilt burned your bare hands as though heated to starlike temperatures. The vacuum of space outside yielded no thanergy and generated no thalergy, but it didn’t matter. You no longer needed either. You iced your palms over with thick bands of cartilage, and you tried again. Now the grip seemed cold as death, and it was just as heavy.” (HtN 27) Wake’s revenant is SO POWERFUL, considering she’s not a necromancer and has been a revenant for at the very least 19 years, at the most a myriad.
“‘One,’ she said crisply. ‘The Sleeper can move from its coffin. Two, the Sleeper can pass through necromantic wards. Three, Teacher told us not to wake it. I don’t know what does. Noise doesn’t. … Four, it’s carrying a rifle. … One more thing—I’m not saying this with absolute certainty. I only got a glance before the lid closed and the plex fogged up again. But there’s something else in the coffin. The Sleeper’s lying on it.’ The lieutenant closed her eyes, though her precise posture did not shift. When she opened them, she said, ‘I don’t know if this matters. But it looked like a standard-issue infantry sword.’ She added, with Cohort precision: ‘A two-hander.’” (HtN 185) Surprisingly, a description of the Sleeper that I think couldn’t also apply to Alecto!^[hk]^[hl] Here again we see Wake passing through necromantic wards—what is up with that? Why can she do that? It feels like a Lyctor-level thing. We get the gun, which we’ve been told many times now is ancient, another point in favor of Wake being pre-Resurrection. And we get the two-hander! Wake’s revenant connection in the physical world. Is that the only reason it appears here, does it have a longer history with her somehow? I think it must, because at this point in the story the sword isn’t her revenant link anymore, her revenant is possessing Cytherea’s corpse! Also, her lying on it in the coffin reminds me of the many times Harrow lies down on that same sword because she struggles to lift it otherwise.
“She opened it, hummocked and huped all over with little rills from being over-folded, and she read: HIM I’LL KILL QUICK BECAUSE SHE ASKED ME TO AND BECAUSE THAT MUCH HE HONESTLY DESERVES BUT YOU TWO MUMMIFIED WIZARD SHITS I WILL BURN AND BURN AND BURN AND BURN UNTIL THERE IS NO TRACE OF YOU LEFT IN THE SHADOW OF MY LONG-LOST NATAL SUN” (HtN 205) Wake will kill G1deon quick because Pyrrha asked her to, and the two mummified wizard shits are Mercy and Augustine. What really interests me here is “my long-lost natal sun.” The sun of our solar system, pre-Resurrection? Before it was Dominicus?^[hm]^[hn]^[ho]^[hp]^[hq]
“And then, from the door, the warded door that should have burst its theorems outward upon even the touch of foreign magic—from the door there came the soft, scraping noise of someone dragging nails down steel. The handle eased downward in its latch, and hit the chair, and stopped.” (HtN 209) WHY does Wake not ever set off Harrow’s wards?? Does “foreign magic” mean they only respond if the person trying to come through is a necromancer? But, Cytherea’s body was a necromancer’s body, even though Wake inside her is not a necromancer, or at least as far as we know. Also, foreign as in, not Harrow’s? We know that blood wards can be fooled by a relative^[hr]^[hs], which just raises so many fucking questions for me, so many. I feel like after Alecto when everything makes sense I’m gonna come back to this and be like, OF COURSE!
“The bone fence shattered. It was impossible. Harrow now clearly remembered the wall of bone she had summoned up around herself, Gideon, and Camilla Hect, in those dreadful final moments on the garden terrace. She had been almost spent, and yet her barrier had held off a determined onslaught by one of the Emperor’s fists and gestures for at least a minute. Cytherea had been ten thousand years old and heir to limitless necromantic power. The Sleeper had a baggy orange suit and a gun collection. Yet now she shouldered her way through Harrow’s wall with irritable, disgusted motions, as if it were an unexpected curtain of cobweb in a catacomb archway. The bone barely even seemed to break; it simply flaked away in chunks, like old plaster from a ceiling.” (HtN 439) Another example of Wake being intensely powerful—and maybe it’s because her strength of will, which must be extreme to have lasted as a revenant, is shaping the rules of the bubble. But also it’s interesting that the bone crumbles, flakes apart, like when G1deon sucks the thanergy out. Can she somehow also do that? Is it a power she has given herself in this place, modeled on G1deon’s power? Is there something about her that neutralizes necromancy somehow?

“The shattered lumps of debris she spun upward into constructs—so easy even now, easy since she’d been a child—one, two, three, four clattering skeletons flinging themselves onto the attacker to rip and wrench with fleshless hands. The Sleeper was on her feet to meet them. She shot the first through the skull and the whole body resolved into ash, which was not how it worked—did the same to the second—the third managed to lay hold of her free arm before it got a bullet through its spinal column and crumbled into garbage.” (HtN 439)

“‘You’re just a ghost like the rest of them,’ said the Sleeper, but this time the flat voice that emanated from the haz mask carried a tinge of disbelief. ‘You don’t get special rules.’ ‘In life I was only a man,’ the ghost agreed. ‘But the Ninth House granted me honour, and made me, unworthy, its servant. I speak with the voice of the Tomb, and my strength is the strength of the Black Gate—why am I talking in meter?’” (HtN 443) So what makes Nonius’s ghost powerful enough to fight Wake is the cult worship status he has on the Ninth^[ht]^[hu], especially with Ortus but also built up over a thousand years; what does this imply for Wake? Has the hero worship of BOE contributed to her power? Does Ortus being present in the bubble, his intense belief and faith in Nonius, make it possible for Nonius to change the rules so quickly? Does the fact that nobody there even knows who Wake is weaken her?
“‘I find myself in the astonishing position of having created a revenant link through—well—sheer passion.’” (HtN 453) Abigail is talking about Nonius here, and Ortus’s passion, but it’s another possibility to apply to Wake, a strong revenant link through the passion of her hatred.
“‘How many babies died in the bomb, Gaius?’ ‘All of them,’ he said.” (HtN 467) She’s so sure about what happened to destroy the Earth, and it sounds like nuclear apocalypse. Certain because she saw it come to pass?
“‘They were working for me,’ said the dead Commander. Mercymorn demanded, ‘Are you flattering yourself, or being wrong on purpose? … Where the hell have you been hiding for nineteen years?’ ‘Where—you—fucking—left—me,’ she ground out. ‘In my bones. Then a blade. In—that—fucking—hole.’” (HtN 468-469)
After reading NtN, I think Wake is part of the message! “‘I’m the Messenger,’ said the Angel simply. ‘We are the Message…the message has two parts left, and you are looking at one of those parts.’” (NtN 427) We learn in NtN that Aim / the Angel is one part of a three part message, and that they have some kind of implant that was placed with necromancy. This fits in really nicely with my theory that Wake is from before the Resurrection—perhaps part of her was, in the same way that Aim is “they” except when teaching at the school and getting a chance to just be “she.” If Wake was the most recent, perhaps the final, person in a line of people carrying some kind of revenant or fragment of soul that comprises part of the message, that could explain a lot about her sudden rise to power in BOE and also perhaps about the line of portraits Nona notices of which the most recent is the mass-produced photo of Wake. “The portraits were of people from the shoulders up. There were little shelves inset at the bottom of each frame where people had left flowers, dried or plastic, and long burnt-out joss sticks in little glasses, or coins that didn’t look like any kind of legal tender Nona had ever handed over in return for a bottle of milk. What distinguished most of the portraits was that they were paintings, and very old, all except for one: a photograph of a woman with ferociously red hair and an expression that said she was about to hit the photographer.” (NtN 146-147).
Wake as a carrier of part of the message also resonates for me with my reading (rambled about somewhere else in this document) of Wake as the Lilith to John and Alecto’s Adam and Eve. This is going to take some twists and turns, so bear with me.

First: Lilith was, in some traditions, Adam’s first wife before Eve, created at the same time as Adam. Some texts say that she refused to obey Adam, and was cast out of Eden. She is also associated with demons, and is sometimes portrayed as the first demon. (Interestingly, after dumping Adam she gets with an angel, whose name is Samael.) (Wikipedia)
Wake, as the Sleeper in the Canaan House of Harrow’s River bubble, is quite plainly paralleled with Alecto, asleep in her Tomb on the Ninth. I have a whole section about this from before reading Nona, down below.
Palamedes’ theory about what’s going on in Canaan House, the megatheorem theory, proves to be right! But I think Harrow’s theory, that there’s a “secret door”, that there are lots of spaces inside Canaan that they can’t access, and that the trial chambers must be powered by something, is ALSO right. We learn a lot about what happened in Canaan House, ie John and friends’ cryolab-turned-cow-wall-haven, before the Resurrection; every creepy thing we hear in GtN and HtN about how the First is a grave, how the facility is the source of / the location of the worst necromantic transgressions, how it’s full of horrifying ghosts, all makes a lot of sense now. But I’m still wondering about the spaces we don’t get to see, and still wondering what powers the trials a whole myriad later. Maybe it’s John’s power, but maybe there is some other source buried there—and maybe it’s whatever is attached to Wake, her part of the message.
Teacher’s (and really, John’s) original only rule in Canaan House during GtN is not to open any locked door without permission. This calls to mind the story of Bluebeard, a folktale about a guy who goes away and gives his new wife the keys to the whole house, and tells her there is one room she must not open. She opens it, and finds inside the corpses of Bluebeard’s previous wives, who he murdered. (Wikipedia) This brings together Wake as part of the message and Wake as Lilith—the hidden power source buried in Canaan House is, maybe, John’s murdered “first wife.”

I entertained a theory at some point that maybe Wake and Alecto were parts of the same soul somehow, fragmented, and now I’m wondering about that again. If some pre-Res soul is implanted in Wake as part of the message, what if it’s a fragment of Alecto? Alecto is kind of a revenant in her Barbie body, in a way. And this would be a really interesting parallel if Gideon’s soul is also fragmented, part of it attached as a revenant to her corpse and part of it still absorbed in Harrow. Would it then follow that all the parts of the message are parts of Alecto? How would BOE have gotten pieces of her soul? This is all the wildest of wild speculation, but it’s interesting.
I’ve been thinking about Wake, and G1deon, and the prevalence of redheads in this story despite the rarity of them in the general population. Not that there aren’t redheads in New Zealand, there absolutely are, including Māori redheads. But some light googling seems to indicate that the percentage there is lower than it is in the US (where I live). Of course, Gideon’s red hair is genetic, she gets it from Wake. But G1deon’s red hair is a little more mysterious to me. It’s an interesting narrative choice, and I’ve pondered for a while whether it has a Purpose in the story or Tamsyn just likes redheads (I’m with Pyrrha on this one tbh). This theory is pretty out there, even for me, and is dependent on some of my other theories, but what is fandom for if not theorizing wildly?? So. I think I theorized somewhere else above or below in this section that part of Wake might be related to John, or have known him pre-Resurrection. Maybe a revenant, or a part of the message, passed down to her over all that time. Maybe the line of her physical body, she could be descended from someone close to John. But what if the connection is actually G1deon? G1deon and John grew up together; John would definitely know, but maybe not remember or not have paid much attention to, G1deon’s family. A sibling, maybe, also with red hair, who has passed it on down the line of BOE? Someone who was staff on one of the trillionaires’ ships? We know, because she tells us several times, that Pyrrha was sleeping with Wake. But John makes a point of how “famously unamorous” G1deon is; do we ever know for sure, from Wake herself, that she and G1deon slept together? Pyrrha says they were having an affair, but Pyrrha can literally never be there at the same time G1deon is to know this for sure; if one or both parts of Wake is G1deon’s family, it would explain his weird relationship with her in a different way. But even if this is just way off base, I wonder if we’re gonna find out that there’s a plot reason why G1deon is also a redhead, when we already have two redheads prominent in the story.

I think the closest we come to proof of Wake and G1deon for sure having a physical relationship is this one of Wake’s notes: “I KISSED YOU AND LATER I WOULD KISS HIM TOO BEFORE I UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU WERE, AND ALL THREE OF US LIVED TO REGRET IT—BUT WHEN I AM IN HEAVEN I WILL REMEMBER YOUR MOUTH, AND WHEN YOU ROAST DOWN IN HELL I THINK YOU WILL REMEMBER MINE” (HtN 253) This does seem to match up with what Pyrrha said about how Wake and G1deon had a relationship first and then Pyrrha started up with her without her knowing they were two different people, or at least that there was a point at which Wake didn’t know they were different and was kissing them both regardless of who came first, so maybe this disproves my idea. Or also maybe not, when the twins are right there being very incestuous LMAO.

Ok this is a wild one, but I want to also consider: what if Wake is Anastasia?

Betrayed by God, left in the hole that is the Ninth House to guard the Tomb until death, it’s conceivable that she could completely sour on necromancy and reinvent herself as Wake. I’m not sure how she’d get off the Ninth and to the BOE, or when, but it’s an interesting train of thought and it would explain some things about how Wake connects to Harrow, who is a descendent through the Tombkeeper line, and how Wake bypasses Harrow’s blood wards.
While I’m considering wild things, what if Wake is Samael?? ^[hv]^[hw]This makes slightly less sense but is a very fun train of thought also.
Not favoring this theory anymore post-NtN, but I’ll keep what I wrote here just for funsies! Also, my Wake-as-Lilith threads above and somewhere else below make a connection between Wake and Samael interesting, though I haven’t thought through what it could mean.

Cassiopeia’s not dead, or not fully dead, or is a revenant.

“‘And that was a titanic effort on the part of Cassiopeia the First, who was brilliant and sensible and careful—she thought she could bait physical portions of the Resurrection Beast into the current. She was right. It followed her.’ You said, ‘And?’ Mercy said lowly: ‘It turned out that being sensible and brilliant and careful doesn’t keep you from getting ripped to shreds by ten thousand feral ghosts.’” (HtN 97) Ok, yes, Cassy would be vulnerable to ghosts when she’s in the River with her physical body—but we learn multiple times in this book that ghosts all vacate when the RB is nearby, and if the RB was following her and emerged unscathed after she was dead, where did these ten thousand feral ghosts come from? Did she fake her death? Or purposefully become a revenant, like Palamedes? Was anyone else in on it? Sixth House shenanigans afoot!
“‘I stood on the bank and watched Cassiopeia die, Teacher—’ … ‘She led them away from the brain; I was there in projection, and I saw when they seized her legs and arms…I was laying stakes for the Beast, and I was there, and I thought to myself, Lord, But what will we do with your ceramics collection? There is so much of it.’” (HtN 105) I think it would be incredibly funny if Cassy is a revenant in a piece of ceramic dishware or something. I am on the lookout for ceramics mentions. I think there’s a teapot in G1deon and Pyrrha’s Lyctoral room? ^[hx]^[hy]^[hz]^[ia]
“She was talking a little bit too much, too fast. ‘I mean, there’s the issue of whether the Lyctor in question is even dead. That’s the first thing to consider. As a speaker to the dead, I really am at my best when people are not alive…’” (HTN 130) This comes right after a Lyctoral note about a recipe, which was presumably written by Cassiopeia. I hear you, Tamsyn, I AM in fact wondering about whether the Lyctor in question is even dead! Also side note, I love that Abigail is at her best when people are not alive…everyone here is not alive, except Harrow, and Abigail is SPECTACULAR.
“And no ghosts passed you to wade down to the water—no ghosts heaved themselves out of the waters of the layer that Mercymorn had called the epirhoic—they had fled for different climes. ‘The poor bastards are terrified,’ said Augustine. There was nothing to see in the River yet; no brain, no hint of Beast, no far-off haze that indicated anything amiss.” (HtN 343) Again I wonder, why were there ghosts in the River to rip Cassy apart, when an RB was also there pursuing her? Sus!
“‘You all said she was dead!’ ‘She is,’ said Pyrrha. ‘We watched her die.’ ‘Then how?’ But Camilla and Pyrrha didn’t answer. The Prince passed one hand over her dead blue-and-brown-spattered eyes and said, ‘Oh my God. This is the last thing we need. If he hears that yet another one of his duplicitous sluts betrayed him, he’s never going to come back from it.’” (NtN 336) Maybe this is too conspiracy-brain, but the fact that neither Cam nor Pyrrha will elaborate on Cassy feels like something. She could definitely be dead, have been seen to die, and still be hanging on in a teapot or wherever she’s hanging on. Especially if the instructions she left for the Sixth are from after she died, but I don’t think there’s a way to know that timeline from what we have.

Gideon can only die if she wants to

This is just a small theory, but Gideon’s ability to survive deadly things (the gas that killed the 200 kids, Harrow poisoning her to foil one of her escape attempts and Crux turning off the heat to her room for three days to punish he^[ib]^[ic]^[id]^[ie]^[if]r, avulsion) feels willpower-based to me. The only time a deadly thing kills her is when she chooses to die.^[ig]^[ih] Otherwise, I think if she wants to live, then she lives. Even her soul after death, tucked away inside Harrow, is more whole and conscious than any other absorbed cav in a Lyctor is. I wonder if this will come into play in later books.
I’m going to give Gideon in NtN her own section I think, but just want to ponder—how much of Kiriona’s state of being is John’s doing, and how much is her choice? I think it’s entirely plausible for John to just not fix up her body as a manipulative thing, but it’s equally plausible to me that Gideon is so deeply depressed that she doesn’t want a fixed-up body, and wants to keep being visibly dead, possibly as a way to avoid having to really be alive and come to terms with everything that’s happened to her.

Nona is Alecto in Harrow’s body; maybe Gideon is in there too.

“But as everything went black and I died the second time round, I didn’t see you. I didn’t even see me. The final thing I saw was a great sunshiny light: a blurred figure, hazing in and out around the edges. At first it looked to me like a woman—a grey-faced, dead-eyed woman, with a face so beautiful it almost went out the other side and became repellent; a woman with my eyes, dimmed dark yellow in death, whose hair fell in wet leaden hanks. I realised with exhausted indignation that, at the end of everything—after all I had been through—after the last word, the last strike, the last drop of blood in the water—your bullshit dead girlfriend had come to claim you. And she said in the wrong voice twice removed: ‘Chest compressions. I know her sternum’s shattered; ignore it. We need that heart pumping. On my mark.’ Hands pressed. We died.” (HtN 500) I think this is Alecto hopping in there, but does she dislodge Gideon? What is the “wrong voice twice removed”? We know Camilla is with Nona at the end of the book, is this Palamedes speaking through Camilla somehow?^[ii]^[ij] If Gideon is ejected, will her soul find its way back to her corpse? Abigail does say that souls want to return to their bodies, but Gideon’s body is technically dead.
“Harrow’s head broke the water. A thin skin of ice shivered apart as she emerged, panting for air, her skin burning with the cold. … They were all undead: revenant creatures and watchers, shifting restlessly forever on the rock of the Locked Tomb. Harrow was home. Harrow floundered, not toward the shore, but to the island in the centre—to the black mausoleum of glass and ice, sitting silently and reflectively beneath that sea of dead worms. … And yet Harrow felt no pain; she felt nothing, in fact, but a welcome sense of homecoming—the strange, tiny, pleased familiarity of finding an old book once beloved, or some other antique of childhood. … The chains in their great holes were snapped and broken. The ice crawled up the sides of the empty altar. Within that bed of ice and glass, on the stone-shaped pillow to prop the head, that final resting place of Harrowhark’s one true love, lay a sword. It was the two-handed sword that had lain at the bottom of the Sleeper’s coffin, just as Dyas had seen it. Harrowhark had come home, and she was not afraid. She did not know why she did it, but she climbed inside that empty coffin, and she took the sword within her arms. She was filled with a drowsy, comfortable certainty, as though rather than an icy tomb she had been tucked into a bed with a pillow fluffed beneath her. Her eyelids felt as heavy as the chains that lay broken round the outside of the bier. The sword she embraed shamelessly; those six feet of steel held no fear for her now. Something rustled at her side. She had not seen it when she climbed in; it had been tucked to one side of the coffin. … Harrow lay where the Body had lain, perfectly at her ease, perfectly comfortable, and she peered blearily at the header. ‘Frontline Titties of the Fifth,’ she read, and found that she was smiling helplessly to herself. She murmured, ‘Nav, you ass, that’s not even a real publication.’” (HtN 503-504)

I have so many thoughts here. First, Harrow feels at home, and this brings me back to the idea that the soul longs to return to its body. I think there’s a connection between Alecto and Harrow that has not yet been explained, something more than just Harrow breaking in to see her as a child. There’s a thanergetic link there, or something. Also, the chains are broken—Alecto’s not here. But the sword is, a link to Gideon and also another link between Alecto and Wake. And Frontline Titties is here, which we’ve been told twice now, is not a real publication. “‘I’ll trade you a skin mag. Frontline Titties of the Fifth.’...’Okay, okay. I take it back. Frontline Titties isn’t a real publication.’” (GtN 18) This isn’t a real place; I think Harrow ends the book inside Alecto’s body, and Alecto’s soul has broken loose, and is in Harrow’s body.

I’ve been thinking about this again post-NtN and wondering about timelines, and Gideon’s influence in this space that it seems pretty clear to me now is inside Alecto’s body. I’m considering: when Gideon’s soul is in Harrow’s body in the River at the end of HtN, and Alecto’s soul shows up, I think it’s likely that Alecto’s soul boots Gideon’s out in order for her to hop in there, possibly with the intent of getting Harrow’s body to safety. This leaves Gideon’s soul at loose ends in the River, but it’s possible that Alecto could have not just booted Gideon’s soul out into chaos, but perhaps sent her purposefully back to Alecto’s body, along a thanergetic link. Gideon’s blood has opened the Tomb once already, and it’s not unreasonable to think that her life on the Ninth and her blood present in the Tomb and Alecto’s level of power might be enough of a combo to safely send Gideon’s soul to Alecto’s body. Maybe Gideon spends a little time in there; she misses her sword, which at this point is likely lost in the River, and she needs something to pass the time, so she conjures up these comfort objects in the metaphysical space she’s now stuck in, a state she’s familiar with after being stuck inside Harrow all through HtN. At the same time we’ve got whatever is happening in the physical world, which is unclear but has a few key points: Camilla, with Palamedes working through her, somehow retrieves Harrow’s body and heals the injuries it sustained from the River’s pressure. Pyrrha is there too, and there is some kind of conflict happening. What that conflict is, why and where it’s happening, is info I would kill to know. We only get the simplified version that Cam tells Nona: “‘Pyrrha helped us escape from an attack. We lost people. Ships. Something very important.’” (NtN 70) I interpret this to mean that Cam was still with BOE, and that some BOE vs Cohort conflict happened, and Gideon’s body is the important thing that was lost. We can guess that her body made it into John’s hands somehow, and I would also guess that it was John who pulled her soul from wherever it was and attached it to her corpse. I think he pulled her out of her comfy little space inside Alecto, suddenly enough that her imagined-up comforts were left behind. This brings us to Harrow’s soul! Which, half an hour before Gideon-in-Harrow’s-body gets dumped into the River, breaks her bubble and enters the River herself. She enters as just a soul, with no physical form to give us a sense of any urgency or time passing the way we get with Gideon’s experience. She describes walking down her dark corridor, then being back in the pool at Canaan House, and THEN coming to the surface of the water in the metaphysical Tomb inside Alecto’s body. Time in the River is not the same as time outside it, that much is very clear! I think Harrow spent enough time floating aimlessly, just trying to keep herself out of her own body, that there was time for Gideon to pass through the metaphysical space inside Alecto. When Gideon is pulled out again, there’s a vacuum there—and Harrow has a very strong link to that body, especially since that body’s soul is already in Harrow’s body. It seems logical for her soul to be pulled there, once there is space to fill, and so she wakes up in a representation of the Tomb, with representations of Gideon’s sword and Gideon’s magazine, because Gideon has just recently vacated that space herself.

“She and the person who looked after her had used to go to a different haunt, where the food was cheaper and the sausages more juicy—but there the man who fried the food had once said warningly, ‘It’s hot,’ only to find that she had already stuffed her mouth full of lacy fried things anyway. The man had said, laughing, ‘Her lips should be burnt off, eh?’ But her lips had not been burnt off. It had barely hurt.” (HtN 506) Lyctoral healing?
“It felt as though she had always been fond of the face, and of the dark, sharply bobbed hair; and she loved without reserve the eyes^[ik]^[il]—those great, lambent eyes, the iris so skilfully and gently blent that it seemed there was no tint or shade in that clear and beautiful grey. And she would say, idly, more as prayer than demand: ‘Have you worked out who I am?’ ‘Not yet,’ said Camilla.” (HtN 507) Again I think Harrow’s body; some memory of fondness for Camilla, familiarity, though that could be Gideon too; asking “more as prayer than demand” feels Harrowy too. Also, Cam’s body but Pal’s eyes. He’s in there; they’re both in there.
The cheeseburger theory

I’m pleased that NtN has mostly proven this theory right! It’s quite clear that Nona was Alecto’s soul in Harrow’s body, and I do also think part of Gideon was in Nona too. I’m going to start filling in the specific places where I feel like we see some of Gideon peeking through in Nona as I go through NtN again, but for now, I wrote a post about what I am calling (only in my own head, and now here I guess) the cheeseburger theory. Go read the post maybe, but the tl;dr is that Muir said in an interview that “if Gideon’s soul is a Happy Meal, Harrow only ever ate the cheeseburger; whither the fries, the soda, and the tie-in toy?” I think Kiriona is the fries, the soda, and the tie-in toy (or who knows, maybe only some of those things), and the cheeseburger remains inside Harrow’s body, with Alecto, as part of Nona. Muir also said in an interview, and now I can’t for the life of me find or remember which one, that there’s an order of priority to who gets to narrate, and Gideon is number one. She narrates her own book; she secretly narrates HtN and is dramatically revealed; I think it would make sense for her to be, a little bit, narrating NtN too.

A note re: beguiling corpsehood: “a remnant of spirit attached to a perfect and incorruptible body—that’s the idea, anyway” (GtN 366) vs hideous corpsehood: “a fully intact spirit attached permanently to a rotting body” (GtN 366) for example, the First House skeletons. These definitions feel important to remember, especially since we know from As Yet Unsent and NtN that Gideon’s corpse is incorruptible. A remnant of a spirit is evocative!

“‘Her hands?’ ‘They’re the things around me—maybe they’re my hands.’” (NtN 19) Perspective confusion in Nona’s dream, Gideon’s hands feeling like her hands also.
“In the bad old days she used to have to be helped even with the nightshirt, because she couldn’t be trusted not to get stuck with it halfway over her head and get all hot and upset from claustrophobia.” (NtN 20) This is one of those things that could be Gideon or Alecto or both! Both of them have reason to dislike being trapped.
“‘Are you being serious or joking with me?’ Nona demanded, once this fresh pleasure had subsided. ‘Deadly serious. But go put another mark under ass joke anyway.’” (NtN 24)
“Nona wanted to know: ‘What part’s the upholstery?’ ‘A very nutritious part,’ said Palamedes. ‘The part that hung out in my dream,’ said Pyrrha. This set Nona off again, so she had to get up from her eggs to make another mark on her tally sheet. Palamedes stared, distracted, and said: ‘Dear God, two in a day? Why are we even remotely in doubt?’” (NtN 26) Palamedes “Sex Pal” Sextus is extremely aware of Gideon’s sense of humor, and it delights me.
“One of the reasons they had called her Nona was that the first thing she had said, when they saved her and brought her here, was No, no. Nono became Nona, and Nona meant Nine, and nine was an important number.” (NtN 34) This isn’t evidence of Gideon in her really, I just think it’s funny that Gideon was named the same way, for the only thing Wake’s ghost would say!
“More to the point, Nona thought she was gorgeous. She had a thin, complicated face, and a mouth too easily unhappy and too easily discontented; but she had nice white teeth in a smile that looked sad no matter how happy she was, and arched black brows like she always wanted to ask someone a question. Nona talked to herself in the mirror even now. When she had been earlier born, and less self-conscious, sometimes she would rest her face against the mirror’s face, and try to reach her reflection. Camilla had caught her kissing it once, and had written about six pages of notes on that, which was humiliating.” (NtN 34) There’s a lot here!! First off, this feels like an extremely veiled and perfect and funny reference to the opening of My Immortal (hello, Nona Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way). Second, the smile that looks sad no matter what reminds me of Gideon saying that Harrow was “always so fucking sad” (I’d put the page number here but I legit can’t remember when that happens right now). But mainly, the whole mirror thing makes me think of when Gideon inside Harrow’s body spots herself in the mirror on the Mithraeum, talking to herself, talking to Harrow, trying to get her to come back. “I shrugged off that stupid white robe—which looks dumb as hell, by the way, like Silas Octakiseron got into the glitter drawer—and I tried to get you back through sheer force of hope, and sheer force of want. No dice. I shouldered my sword. Your arms blazed in response. ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, honey. I’ll keep the home fires burning.’” (HtN 393) If some part of Gideon is still in Nona, then she really is still keeping the home fires burning—and her attraction is, perhaps, part of Nona’s wonderful self-love. On the other hand, I wonder if maybe Nona thinks Harrow’s body is gorgeous because she resembles Anastasia, and Alecto and Anastasia seem to have had some kind of fond relationship! I like how all my evidence for the cheeseburger theory could also just be #AlectoThings.
“‘Why do you love Crown?’ Nona thought about it. ‘She has lovely hair. And when she hugs you she smells like cinnamon, and her breasts feel nice, and she’s so big and pretty.’ Palamedes looked at her, and then he took the notepad out of Camilla’s capacious pockets. Nona despaired: there was always a tick somewhere if she mentioned breasts.” (NtN 62)
“‘I wouldn’t want anything to hurt Camilla. I love Camilla.’ ‘And why do you love Camilla?’ Nona struggled with this a little. It was like asking why you breathed air. ‘I love the way she moves,’ she said pitifully. He said, ‘Me too.’” (NtN 64)

“Holy shit. Here was a warrior, not just a cavalier. Gideon was suddenly fighting for her life and exhilarated by it. … She smashed the other girl’s offhand out of the way and into the wall, scattering loose glass tiles in its wake as it fell: her opponent dropped as though shot, crouched, kicked her dagger up into her hand, and did a handspring backward down the stairs.” (GtN 133)

“‘I’m touching her hands. She’s touching my hands. But in the dream it’s always my hands, remember, Cam, I’m touching my own hands but they’re not mine.’ … ‘Do you have any thoughts?’ ‘Yes,’ said Nona. ‘I’m hungry. In the dream. Really hungry.’ The pencil stilled. ‘You’re hungry?’ ‘I’m so hungry,’ said Nona.” (NtN 79-80) Hand confusion again, and the hungry feels like Gideon! An inherited trait from her father the Hungry Caterpillar?
“She didn’t like the T-shirt waiting for her, even though she had been the one to lay it out. It depicted a cheeseburger with little legs. The tinies liked it, but today she found it juvenile and unprofessional, not the kind of thing for a Teacher’s Aide at all.” (NtN 80) This isn’t evidence, I just think it’s funny. Gideon’s presence, embodied by the cheeseburger shirt that is featured on the cover, a goofy thing that Gideon would definitely like! Also it makes me think of the Pepe’s Burgers commercial in Steven Universe, another cute cheeseburger thing that a dead woman would have loved.
“‘I thought if I played dead,’ Nona began, and stopped, because a big lump had come into her throat. She felt stupid; she felt she was being ungrateful; when Camilla-and-Palamedes smiled that strange new person’s smile, she suddenly felt very shy.” (NtN 112) This brings me back viscerally to GtN, Magnus introducing himself to Gideon and Gideon finding that she was shy. It also feels like a Steven Universe reference, from Giant Woman, when Steven meets Opal!
“Nona said, ‘Okay. I don’t think redheads are very sexy.’ ‘What? Hang on,’ said Camilla, opening the door—no, Palamedes, opening the door, busy buttoning himself into Camilla’s jacket— ‘That’s a very interesting thing you just said, Nona. Let me write that down.’” (NtN 139) I wonder if Nona’s pretty specific dislike of red hair comes from Gideon—who, as we know, sometimes hates herself and is never quite as confident or vain as she seems. Red hair has really visibly marked her as an outsider her whole life on the Ninth, and in her own narration she almost never mentions it except to call it “incongruous” with her skull paint early in GtN.
“‘Hot Sauce,’ she said timidly, ‘I don’t want you to be sad or mad if anything happens to me. Promise not to be sad—I don’t like it on your face.’” (NtN 178) Okay, this isn’t evidence for the cheeseburger theory so much as just a connection that resonates for me between Nona and Gideon. Gideon approaches her own death in a similar way: she acknowledges that what she’s doing is cruel to Harrow, but also expects Harrow to be able to move past this quickly enough to become a Lyctor, defeat Cytherea, and then move on with her eternal life. The world without Gideon is just less great and less hot, she can’t actually grapple with any idea that Harrow would mourn her because she doesn’t have time. She wants Harrow to be okay, in the same way Nona wants Hot Sauce to be okay, and neither of them are able to fully understand that the people they’re talking to care about them, and will grieve no matter what they say.
“This second arm had come off longer, and she gripped that one firmly, one hand at the bottom and the other hand atop that one. Even with everything so soggy and slippery, that felt safe.” (NtN 277) Two-handed sword technique, which is something Gideon and Alecto probably share! In this moment, which is Nona’s tantrum, it might be more Alecto—but I don’t want to discount any moments that might be little bits of Gideon harmonizing with everything else going on in Harrow’s body right now.

“‘No, I mean—your stance was good,’ Camilla said slowly, as though trying to figure out how to say something. ‘Good grasp…two-handed.’ ‘Just like practise,’ said Nona. ‘With the sword.’ Camilla said, ‘But we practise one-handed.’ …Nona felt something strange. There was a hot trickle from her nose, and when Camilla wiped her face with her sleeve it was revealed to be a bright red streamlet of blood.” (NtN 307) Two-handed again, something Gideon and Alecto would share, but what’s interesting to me here is actually Nona’s nosebleed. Harrow’s body is starting to really fail, and revealing itself in ways we’ve seen from Harrow before—and in ways Cam’s seen from Harrow before, when Harrow had cut out chunks of her memory and even Cam’s face triggered bleeding. For Cam, it hasn’t really been very long since that probably pretty memorable meeting with Harrow. I wonder if she’s starting to make any connection between that blocked memory issue and this blocked memory issue, even if she’s not sure who’s memory is in there being blocked?

If Cam and I didn’t love you as much as we do,’ said Palamedes, ‘we would take turns throttling you, then give all your magazines to charity.’ Palamedes had never said the word love before. More than anything—even the idea of her beloved magazines going to charity, as though others were more deserving than Nona, the most deserving person on the planet—this broke her.” (NtN 287) This feels very Gideon!
“‘Do you remember the girl on the broadcast?’ he asked. ‘The one who wasn’t a startlingly handsome and very obviously dead person with fashion hair?’ ‘The redhead.’ That one was easy. ‘That’s the other body you might come from,’ said Palamedes. ‘Her real name is Gideon Nav, and we need to get you to that body, if we can. Spiritual gravity will do the rest.’ This was horrifying. ‘But I don’t want to be redheaded,’ said Nona. ‘I do not think of myself as redheaded. And I don’t want to be a necromancer. Or a prince.’” (NtN 291) This is just so funny to me! It’s really evidence against the cheeseburger theory, or at least this doesn’t seem like Gideon coming through in her, but it makes me want to know what Alecto has against redheads!
“Nona was incensed. ‘I hate it. I hate being locked up.’ ‘So did Gideon, I gather.’” (NtN 292)
“Crown looked so beautiful that for a moment Nona focused on her to the exclusion of everything else. She had her big beautiful golden hair down around her shoulders in a profusion of smoothed, rippling curls, and she was wearing a lovely pale yellow slip that left her golden shoulders and throat bare. The dress was slit all the way up to the thigh and she wore soft black leather trousers beneath it, and sandals on her big shapely feet, and the usual rapier girdled her waist. She was so stunning that Nona was devoutly grateful she was in clean clothes and not her fish-market tee.” (NtN 330) Nona is the cutest of all useless lesbians, this feels very Gideon, especially since that’s Gideon’s rapier she’s wearing.
“Nona found herself giving a fluttery sigh. She felt a little bit envious, and a little bit weary. ‘What’s so special about this body we’re going after, anyway?’ ‘In general? She’s the key to a door that’s been kept locked for ten thousand years,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Personally? She’s the last thing I have left of a woman I tried to trick into loving me, and got played myself. And for you? She might be you, kiddie.’ Nona found herself sighing again, like her body wanted to let out all its sound at once. One of her ears felt slightly blocked, and when she tilted her head and blew her nose and pulled at her earlobe a little trickle of water came out. ‘What if I don’t like me?’” (NtN 356-357)
“For a moment she wanted to yell, Help, like she had done before, pretending to be the Captain. She wanted to shout. She wanted to be listened to. She wished the barrier had taken her hands. She wished she had thrust herself into it—become that big seething mass of flesh and meat and tendrils—ruined her body, just melted it; come back messed up, so that nobody could want her body but her, so that it would be hers and nobody else’s. This was a horrible thing to think. Nona hated herself immediately and fervently.” (NtN 358) I love this so much. It’s so resonant. We’ve got Nona, her own person, her own consciousness, who just wants to exist in this body she’s borrowed and grown up in. We’ve got Alecto, who was trapped in a too-beautiful human body when she wanted to keep being a giant mass, full of life and flesh and meat and tendrils. And at the same time this is calling back so powerfully to Avulsion. This is Harrow’s body, which has been through this kind of field before; this is a little bit of Gideon’s soul: “...she did not want to be touched, but she was terribly afraid that if it stopped she would roll away into the field and dissolve just to get away.” (GtN 226) But Gideon didn’t roll into the field, she held on to her suffering long enough to keep Harrow alive; Nona didn’t throw herself in, she’s holding on to her borrowed body long enough to return it to its owner.
“Pyrrha ignored her, and said: ‘He brought you back. He’s made a revenant out of you.’ ‘Yope,’ said the corpse prince. ‘But that’s impossible. He shouldn’t have been able to separate you. Your girl didn’t manage full fusion, but what she took from you not even John could’ve got back.’” (NtN 369)
“‘Nav, take point, I’ll take the rear,’ said Pyrrha, to which the corpse prince said, ‘Nice,’ and Nona laughed out loud. She felt a little drunk and strange. At that laugh, the old man stared at her in frank dismay and reproof—then his face closed up somehow, left off its look of horror and awe, and looked at her with a totally different expression. … Nona looked away, and found that the corpse prince had looked at her briefly too, again with an expression even Nona couldn’t translate. Pyrrha held her close and said: ‘Can’t be doing that badly, if you’re going to laugh at an ass joke.’” (NtN 453) One more tally for the cheeseburger theory, either that or Gideon and Alecto have the same sense of humor!
“In her hands was a huge black-metal pike about the same height as her, with an edge that gleamed in the light. Nona couldn’t stop herself looking at that edge: for some reason it made her palms sweat, and the back of her neck itch again.” (NtN 454) It’s entirely possible that this weapon Aiglamene has dredged up is so old that Alecto remembers it—though we know Samael’s weapon was the chain—but I wonder if Nona’s reaction is the shred of Gideon in there, and this wrought iron pike looks uncomfortably like the posts of the fence she died on.
This is not evidence so much as a fun little parallel, but I was relistening to GtN last night: “These spears of bone met Jeannemary’s body with haloes of red, splotching through her clothes, seeping into the bedspread. ‘No,’ said Gideon meditatively, ‘no, no, no, no, no.’” (GtN 287) A perfectly natural thing to say in this very traumatic and unbelievable situation, but it reminded me of Nona—how she got her name, when all she would say was no, and also bringing Cam home in thanergy shock: “When Pyrrha opened the door all Nona was able to say was, pitifully, ‘No, no, no,’ like the baby she had been…” (NtN 115)

Physical descriptions make it super clear Nona is in Harrow’s body, but I love that attention is paid to Harrow’s trauma too, and how the memory of trauma that remains in Harrow’s body affects Nona! “Then much later on, when Nona was having her bath and Pyrrha was watching out for her, because back then there was still the danger that she’d have a funny turn and drown in six inches of water…” (NtN 43) Two different people, but the same actual bodies in this scene as the scene in HtN when G1deon tries to kill Harrow in the bath. The visual of that fascinates me.
“‘Sometimes,’ she found herself saying, quite meditatively for her, ‘I don’t like it when you do—the necromancy word—’ (‘You just said it,’ said Palamedes) ‘—but it feels nice at the same time. It’s mixed up. It’s like when you do that, it makes me sad—not sad that you did it, but sad that you can do it.’” (NtN 65) This is really interesting, I feel like this sentiment is coming from Alecto. She gave John this power, and he didn’t use it well, and in a way all the necromancers we know are necromancers because of that.
Just noticed this parallel when I was relistening to HtN: “He could not possibly know that in your youth her eyes had often been black, like yours were, but that ever since you had writhed in Lyctoral agony her eyes had turned a yellow that made you dizzy to beyond: a bronzed, hot, animal yellow, as amber as the inside of an egg.” (HtN 45) And then in NtN: “When she looked in the mirror she had skin the colour of the egg carton, and eyes the colour of the egg mixture, and hair the colour of the burnt-out bottom of the pan.” (NtN 34) I like that gold eyes get described many ways in these books, but Nona describes hers as like an egg yolk, and that’s how Harrow described Alecto’s eyes too.
“Nona couldn’t wait anymore; she ran the cold water tap before she died of being too hot, and let the water run over her wrists and her palms, like Camilla had taught her. Wrists were the best place for cooling down.” (NtN 122) I’ve wondered why Harrow is hot all the time, and wondered if it has something to do with all the dead kids’ revenant fragments attached to her since birth, if she just has more soul than other people and so she runs hotter. Nona seems to run hot too! Is this because Alecto is all the souls of Earth? Is it because she’s very powerful, as Harrow is unexpectedly powerful? Is it because she’s in Harrow’s body and Harrow just runs hot? It’s a neat throughline, I think, and also so fucking relatable, I’m always overheated and it’s the worst
“This was a secret that Nona kept from Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, almost the only one she kept from them, but one too beautiful to tell. … But Nona loved the blue sphere as much as she loved everything else. She, and nobody else, could hear it sing. ‘Good night, Varun,’ she said.” (NtN 124-125)
“‘Okay. What do you think is sexy?’ Nona cheered up immediately at being asked. ‘The huge old poster up on the side of the building at the end of the street—the one the dairy’s in. The old poster for shampoo.’ Camilla looked at her for a few seconds to many. ‘The painting of the two flowers,’ she said. ‘I think they’re very sexy flowers,’ said Nona.” (NtN 134-135) I had a fun discussion with my bestie recently about Nona’s interesting sexuality—how her understanding of what “sexy” means feels sort of expansive, encompassing more than what a human being would think sexy means, and how of course she thinks flowers are sexy, she’s the soul of the Earth! Not that there’s nothing human-ly sexy about flowers, just look at an O’Keefe painting. But with Nona, her understanding of concepts feels just a little alien sometimes, and it’s very charming.
“She said, ‘What was the Captain talking about before she fell asleep, and when we came into the room? What’s the water? What’s the hunger, and the green thing?’ … ‘Nona,’ Crown said slowly, ‘The Captain didn’t say anything when you came into the room. She only screamed.’” (NtN 171) I just love this moment!!!!!!! Chilling!!
“The Angel urged tersely, ‘Did you get this from a picture?’ Nona looked down at the animal she had drawn, and thought perhaps she understood. She said, ‘No, I made it up. It does work, I promise. See these things? They’re its ears,’ she said, in much the same tones as she would have explained to Kevin. ‘This thing is its nose, and you can’t see it because I didn’t draw it, but the mouth is under here. When first it was born it used to live in a river, but then it got cold so it had to get large. I know the legs can’t rotate but you don’t think that’s stupid, do you?’ She looked up at Camilla and the Angel, then said, ‘Am I in trouble?’ The Angel looked at Camilla, not Nona. ‘I’ve seen pictures of this animal before,’ said the Angel, slowly and carefully. ‘I only saw it because I did a special unit when I went to university. I went to the special zoology school on Miró and attended a heap of underground archaeology talks. I was a youthful firebrand. Political, you know. And that’s where I saw the picture.’ ‘Okay,’ said Nona. Camilla said, looking at the picture, ‘I don’t think I’ve seen this before.’ ‘You wouldn’t have,’ said the Angel. ‘It’s a cradle creature.’” (NtN 251) I love that Nona randomly doodles an animal from pre-Resurrection Earth, and I love that the Angel only recognizes it because she’s a vet and went to an archaeology talk on the dl while in special zoology school. It’s delightful to me. Also, is Miró a reference to the artist? Also, though we don’t get a really definitive description here, I think this animal is an elephant^[im]^[in]! Nona points out the ears and nose as being features of note, and that the mouth is kind of hidden “under here,” maybe meaning under the trunk. Also “it had to get large” over the course of evolution implies a pretty big animal! Also “I know the legs can’t rotate” is interesting to me. Elephants have unusual legs for a mammal, mostly straight up and down to hold their weight, and they have forward-facing knees in both the front and back, which is unusual. I can’t actually find anything in a brief Google search about whether or not their legs can rotate outward/inward, but the fact that they have unusual legs at all makes me feel like this is a fit.
“She raised the metal over her head, and she ran at him. They were screaming through their mask. Nona screamed through hers, the mask that was the front of her face.” (NtN 277) Alecto is so much closer to the surface in this tantrum moment than she usually is! Looking out from inside a body that isn’t hers, and having trouble fitting into it.
“She trembled so hard that she thought she would die then and there, that this was what dying was finally like. Inside the hood she heard her mouth say, savage and distinct and cool despite the trembles: ‘Fool. You’re killing her.’ But she was only talking to herself, after all.” (NtN 278) Alecto, coming through very clearly here. I think, anyway! It could also be John talking to Alecto, if they’re connected enough, or some fragment of Gideon in there talking to Alecto, but it doesn’t sound like her either.
Top, middle, and bottom - I want to take a look at the times Nona describes herself in threes, and make some guesses as to what the three consciousnesses are!

“She was beginning to feel like a floating balloon on a string, with a weight tied to the end—the balloon bobbing, the weight dragging behind. She was the balloon, and also the string, but she wasn’t sure she was still the weight.” (NtN 326) This is a little removed from Nona’s later descriptions of top and bottom and middle thoughts, but I wanted to note it anyway. I feel like in this instance, the weight is Harrow’s body, still anchoring her even as it becomes less and less hers. The balloon and the string are maybe Alecto and Nona respectively, Nona as the bridge between a fully inhuman consciousness and a fully human physical body.
“And Nona found herself saying— ‘I’m ready to die…really ready.’ ‘Nothing is ready to die,’ said the Captain. … Nona lay on her back atop the stretched canvas, and Nona’s mouth said— ‘Just wait. Just help me…help me do this. I might be different…soon.’” (NtN 393) Another one that’s not quite delineating three different Nonas, but acknowledging that she’s fracturing.
“‘But from some hole in the back of Nona’s cupboard behind a fake plank of wood in Nona’s brain, her voice said roughly: ‘Don’t touch me.’ Pyrrha dropped her wrist, and Nona’s voice went on and on: ‘Did you think this was fun, Pyrrha Dve? Did you think this was lovely? Family. Blood. Together. Kiss, kiss. A child’s game. You say nice words and everyone pretends they are the words you say. Here is a house. We live in it. Worms slithering over each other…Did you like playing pretend? Did you like being mother and father? You should have given into your desires and eaten us. Chew and swallow. More natural. Would have respected you for it…’ The voice died away and Nona, in agonies of hatred and repulsion and embarrassment, tried to curl up in on herself, only it didn’t work.” (NtN 413-414) Alecto is so close to the surface now! This whole rant is amazing but I’m really interested in the “chew and swallow” bit. Between this and “how meat loves meat,” I feel like Alecto gets a lot of imagery about consuming, and I wonder if that will continue, and if in some way it comes from her first moments inside John, going Hungry Caterpillar and eating up the universe.
“Nona’s eyes dazzled. Her body shuddered beneath her. For one of the first times she acknowledged it, she felt the body as something with her, on top of her, but not her; her sense of living outside it. There was a fragile, palpable ecstasy in that body. It was like one of the soft blue jellyfish in the harbour, with all its stings and promises, and now Nona’s self, Nona’s thoughts, were a hand closing around the jellyfish, unbidden, feeling it undulate blindly between the fingers. And the more she felt like fingers, the more she closed down.” (NtN 438) The visual of Nona, of Alecto, as a hand closing around a living thing reminds me of John going Hungry Caterpillar, reaching out for the escaping ships. Immense power versus small and mortal lives.
“Nona thought it looked like something out of a picture book, and held on to that thought, that middle-of-the-brain thought. There was a thought above and below that knew what it was, but the moment she looked at either thought she’d lose the game.” (NtN 440) Nona is the middle, and now we have a clear “above” and “below.” One of them is Alecto, certainly. The other might also be also Alecto, or might be the sliver of Gideon, or might be John-via-Alecto; at least, those are the three possibilities for consciousnesses who might know what the tower is.
“For some reason this tower scared Nona’s top and bottom thoughts so terribly that her heart went ker-CHUNK in her chest—there was a terrible pain in her side and all the way down her arm.” (NtN 440) Harrow’s poor body here having a heart attack! Also the level of fear here makes me think that maybe the top is Alecto and the bottom is John, which I had not really considered before this read-through.
“Seeing the tower had taken the fight out of her top and her bottom, and now out of her middle, too.” (NtN 441) This is feeling more and more to me like top!Alecto and bottom!John, which is also, coincidentally, how I think they’d mostly play things in bed.
“How could she say that she was so tired—that whatever was going on in her chest was so incredibly urgent that if she closed her eyes and let it happen, she could probably die right there, right then? How to say that she wanted to go as Nona—with all her thoughts and feelings being Nona feelings, which might only be about six months old and therefore not very good, but were still her own? What could she do with the little selfish thought that now Camilla and Palamedes were gone—even if they had left behind Paul, which was probably quite nice of them—and Pyrrha was broken somehow, it was hard to want to live, hard to want everyone else to live, even lovely Crown? The Captain was gone, forever probably, and it didn’t matter about the corpse prince, who was dead already and therefore used to it. Nona swallowed. She let her eyelids nearly touch, which would have been the end. ‘But maybe we shouldn’t,’ she said, holding the eyelids to that little slit—watching the onscreen scribbles flash urgently on the truck glass, watching the widening white crack, watching the river water pound itself into the place where it wanted to be even if the River itself didn’t. ‘If we end here, it’ll be just like…a bad dream, won’t it? And maybe we’ll wake up somewhere else. I know we won’t,’ she explained, ‘but we don’t have to know that…maybe if we all go, it’ll be quick.’ Paul looked at her, with those dark grey-brown pupils widening, slightly. ‘Nona,’ they said, ‘Noodle’s in the back.’ The middle thoughts surged. The slit widened all the way. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, in a panic. ‘I forgot about Noodle.’ The windshield cracked all the way across the middle. Paul leant their full weight on the accelerator. Nona drove the truck home.” (NtN 441-442) Bless her middle thoughts! Also I love that we get just the tiniest indication of fear from Paul, but they keep their cool entirely, and find just the right thing to say that Nona will care about, regardless of how tired she is, or the press of her top and bottom thoughts, or the problems happening with Harrow’s body. Also…she drove the truck home. She’s Nona the Ninth, to me, because she’s Alecto, who has been sleeping on the Ninth for a myriad, and because she’s a little bit Gideon, who hates the Ninth but it’s still the place she knew first and longest, and because she’s a bit Harrow, devoted to this place and devoted to the woman asleep there.
“Then she became aware of something else; an insistent tugging at top thought, bottom thought, and middle thought. She wanted something. She didn’t know quite what it was, only she wanted it—quite like a bathroom thought in its insistency.” (NtN 443) This again reinforces Alecto and John as top and bottom thoughts for me, both drawn to the Tomb. Though it could be Alecto drawn to her body and Gideon drawn to Harrow’s soul! I do like how many things Tamsyn leaves ambiguous, except I simultaneously want solid answers to everything.
“For some reason, the sight started a shudder at Nona’s feet that carried on all the way up to the top of her head. The awful pain tightened in her chest, and nearly shuddered her out of her body. The back of her neck itched so badly it felt as though it were bleeding. Pyrrha said a word so terrible under her breath that it startled Nona back into the middle ground of her thoughts.” (NtN 448) That ward on her neck is barely hanging in there…
“Nona shut her eyes. … She was outside the room—she was outside the great tunnel—she was looking down at the terrible dead grey-and-white surface, the great hollow pores set into rock. Then she went back down, pulled down into each cavern—the long central shaft—deeper and deeper. Her middle thoughts crawled into her top and bottom thoughts. For a moment she thought she’d die of it. ‘There’s a box,’ she said, ‘and…there’s someone in the box who isn’t me. I’m me. I don’t know who’s in that box, not really, only—when you open it—I’ll be gone, because I can’t survive…knowing. And I think—inside that box—there’s something that looks like a girl…’” (NtN 460) I’m fascinated by this bird’s eye view! She starts above the planet! Will this become significant when we find out what’s up with the prison? And then we’ve got something that looks like a girl inside the box, but is not quite a girl…
“Ianthe rounded on the corpse prince, and she gave her a ringing slap straight through the face. Kiriona did not stagger. ‘He loves her!’ Ianthe howled. ‘John loves Alecto—John needs Alecto! Without that piece of goddamned fridge meat, he’s nothing—and we need to keep him that way!’ The secret was told: the secret was out—the middle brain disappeared. Nona unravelled.” (NtN 470)

“She had never been good at coming up with conversations. Nona simply made her mouth go as the Captain’s had gone—she could remember the movement, it was easy—and she screamed, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ for want of anything better to say. The scream moved through her chest and up her throat and out of her nose. When she let it out, it did not at all sound like when she had heard the Captain do it. The scream somehow seemed to take all the lining of her throat with it. It was like the scream was made of her insides—her insides dissolved and resolved themselves by coming out her lips as a vocal bomb. The electric light sizzled in its housing. The room went dark. Prince Ianthe Naberius dropped her and staggered back, and Nona completed her Captain impression by pitching forward, onto the carpet, facedown, practically senseless, aware of nothing but the scream—a noise that seemed to keep coming out of her nose and ears and mouth. She went away from herself briefly.” (NtN 339) What a shock and thrill to get some of what Alecto really is, buried deep in Nona. This isn’t just Alecto, giant Barbie doll, Earth-made-human; this is Alecto, Resurrection Beast. Whatever it is about the RBs that takes out necromancers is normally disguised in Nona, and perhaps disguised enough in Alecto—though maybe it’s one of the reasons the OG lyctors mostly didn’t like her—but it’s coming out here at last, and it’s sound. So not only is the sight of an RB deleterious to necros, so is hearing one!
“‘I hope you don’t mind being the last one to know,’ said Nona, dusting herself off a bit self-consciously, ‘but I’m dying.’ This fell completely flat. ‘’Course you are,’ said Pyrrha. ‘I mean it, Pyrrha.’ ‘Yeah. I suspected you were, though,’ Pyrrha said cheerfully. ‘I didn’t make a big deal out of it. We’ve all got our secrets…but the soul longs for the body, Nona. Even a fucked-up soul…even a soul that’s been changed forever. It takes a lot to acclimate a soul to a body it wasn’t born in, if that original body’s around for it to miss.’ ‘But you’re not sad,’ said Nona. ‘Of course I’m not sad. You’re not dying on my watch. Kiddie, when you were yelling…’” (NtN 355) You know, I put this in this section because I thought the “fucked-up soul” was Alecto, and that Pyrrha is getting more and more solid in her thinking about exactly who is inside Nona. But as I was typing it out I realized, she’s probably talking about herself! Also a fucked-up and forever changed soul in a body she wasn’t born in. It makes me wonder if Pyrrha’s original body is out there somewhere, or if it’s long gone. Anyway, I do think Pyrrha has a strong idea at this point about who Nona is, but also this passage makes me wonder a lot about what happened to the bodies of the OG cavaliers, and whether they were incorruptible, and whether they’re in the hidden spaces we never saw of Canaan House.
“She walked to the end of the truck and stood where the wheels burred beneath her, and she pushed Pyrrha aside—Pyrrha fell back flat on her back on the bottom of the truck, and she was sorry immediately, but she didn’t have time—and she stood in front of Crown, and she held out her hand. ‘Sword,’ she said. Crown said, falteringly, ‘Nona…?’ She took too long. Nona took her sword. She had to use her hands to bend crown back, enough to get at the scabbard. It wouldn’t pull free—it was at the wrong angle—so she cut it out of its scabbard. The blade parted the scabbard and came out. It was very heavy on her wrist, and dragged a little on the truck floor with a bright, awful screeching.” (NtN 390) This sudden inhuman strength coming through is such a clear warning bell that Alecto is getting too close to the surface of Nona! It fascinates me! Imagine how terrifying this would be to everyone who thinks they know her, this sweet frail-looking kid, and then she does shit like this??
“She walked forward to stand on the hard shell driver’s cabin, and with a little run-up she jumped forward and sailed through the distance to land on the truck in front. This hurt her feet briefly—it also hurt the thin metal shell on top of the truck, which dented. She looked up at the sky, and she bellowed: ‘You said you wouldn’t do anything weird!’ Nona unsheathed her sword from herself, and nearly wept from fury. She put both her hands on the hilt. She did not know how to hold a sword, and she didn’t care.” (NtN 392) Even though this is Gideon’s rapier, she holds it like a two-hander, as both Gideon and Alecto are used to. This delights me. I love her so much in this moment.
“The Captain opened her mouth and said, ‘Get him. Get him. Get him. He flees.’ ‘I can’t,’ said Nona. ‘I can’t do anything. I don’t want to do anything.’ The Captain moaned, sharply. ‘All for nothing—you asked for help—you asked…and all for nothing, only pain. You asked…I gave you blood for blood.’ Nona, grief-stricken, hollered— ‘Not like this. I love this place.’ ‘Do you love?’ said the Captain’s mouth. Nona struggled. ‘Yes—no—yes,’ she said, then: ‘I don’t know what it means. I say it, and I don’t know what it means…Did I ever know what it meant?’ ‘Green thing,’ said the Captain. ‘Green-and-breathing thing, big ghost, the drinker, transformed, what will you eat now? Where will your body go? What did he do to you, to make you this way? You eat yourself. I gorge on unliving marrow.’ It was true; the Captain looked as though she were withering before Nona’s eyes. She cried out in haste: ‘Don’t…stop that! I can’t stop it, but you can stop it. Stop hurting her…She doesn’t know what you’re doing.’ (NtN 392) I want to take this conversation in pieces, because there’s so much, so here’s the first bit. Nona called for help back in the barracks, and didn’t know what she was doing; Varun has replied, raining down heralds in vengeance, which is naturally not what Nona wants! And I’m so interested in the titles Varun gives her, big ghost, the drinker, transformed…so interesting, is she “big ghost” because Earth had the most life on it when it died? “You eat yourself” calls back to Palamedes talking about how Nona’s body is consuming itself as though she’s starving, and “I gorge on unliving marrow” brings me back to the idea that necromancers, like Judith, are physiologically different from non-necromancers in some way that allows them to manipulate thanergy. Varun is consuming Judith the same way Alecto is consuming Harrow’s body, probably!
‘You cry mercy?’ said the Captain. ‘Yes—mercy—yes,’ said Nona. ‘I have crossed the face of the universe,’ said the Captain. ‘I poison it to match my grief.’ ‘Yes,’ said Nona, ‘but—but stop this, stop hurting the Captain…’ She rooted around wildly to find a phrase, and fell back on Cam— ‘You’re acting out. Maybe you should take five.’ ‘For eight thousand unjust bodies I will stop,’ said the Captain. Nona said, ‘No. I want you to stop now.’ ‘They concoct their own vengeance,’ said the Captain. ‘Their justice is not my justice. Their water is not my water. I came to help. I am made a mockery. The danger is upon you, and you do not even know…they are coming out of their tower, salt thing. There is a hole at the bottom of their tower. I will pull their teeth. I will make it blank for you.’” (NtN 393) “You’re acting out, maybe you should take five” makes me laugh so hard, and also really exemplifies how Nona has been shaped by the love and guidance she’s been given. She’s been taught coping mechanisms for anger, for grief, just a simple thing, but Alecto clearly didn’t even have that, and neither does Varun. For Varun, human revenge on John isn’t enough. Also, the tower!! Whatever is in the tower—maybe the ghosts of everyone who was killed and never resurrected, maybe the devils on Antioch, maybe those are the same thing—they’re breaking loose, and they’re dangerous to her somehow.
“The Captain was looking at her, eyes open: normal eyes—the whites covered in little red spindles from where the veins had burst, the ring around the iris deeply black, the iris deeply brown. One of her hands was clasped to the back of her neck, as though it hurt her. ‘Harrowhark?’ said the Captain doubtfully. Nona looked up at the sky. She was very tired—or at least, there was a tiredness happening to her: a huge, neighbouring exhaustion that lived, when she sought it, beneath her neck. It was hard understanding how her body fit together. She had to deliberately think about its different parts, when she wanted to feel a sensation. She closed her eyes. ‘No,’ she finally admitted. ‘And I never was.’” (NtN 394) Poor Nona. I really feel for her here. She’s struggling, and she’s nearing the end of her fortitude.
“It was Pyrrha, at the back of the truck, looking stretched thin and worn out. There were long, healing grazes going up both of her arms, like she’d taken a tumble since Nona last saw her, extending up to underneath her neck. Her stubble was a glittery scrape of red across her cheeks and on the underside of her chin and upper lip. Her hard, familiar face looked impossibly tired.” (NtN 412) On every previous read through I assumed these wounds were received fighting Varun’s Heralds, but then later on the same page she says “‘We fight those things up close, the fight’s over. You have to take them out long range.’” (NtN 412) So she wasn’t fighting them hand to hand or anything, which led me to wonder, where did these wounds come from? Then on the next page, we get this exchange: “‘Do you remember what happened after you blacked out on top of the car?’ asked Pyrrha. ‘No,’ said Nona. ‘Maybe that’s for the best,’ said Pyrrha. Then she opened her mouth and said quietly— ‘A…’ ‘Don’t,’ Nona found herself saying. ‘Don’t. Don’t call me that or anything like that…don’t make me remember. I don’t want to…You won’t like it. Don’t. Don’t make me do it.’” (NtN 413) I think this is implying that after Nona blacked out, Alecto came to the fore, like her tantrums, and Pyrrha was injured trying to restrain her. Pyrrha seems pretty sure about who she is now.
“Pyrrha put them around her shoulders and said— ‘You’ve been very calm.’ Nona found herself saying: ‘It’s not long now, is it? Are we going to find me?’ ‘Yeah,’ said Pyrrha. ‘I think it’s time to wake you up.’” (NtN 427)
“Pyrrha said, ‘This is impossible. We should be flayed alive,’ and Paul said, ‘Yeah.’ Nona tried to explain. ‘The water doesn’t want to touch us, that’s all.’ Crown was saying urgently, ‘Judith—stop, come back,’ and Nona vaguely heard unbuckling; and then shadows fell over her, people standing behind her seat.” (NtN 439) The ghosts aren’t there flaying them alive because, as we’ve been told, they steer clear of Resurrection Beasts! And this van has both Nona/Alecto in it, and Varun riding around in Judith. The River itself doesn’t want to touch them, it seems.
“‘Well, happy birthday to me, I guess,’ sighed Nona. And Nona tumbled forward onto the icy dead breast of the Body.” (NtN 474)

Pyrrha remembers her life before the Resurrection

“Pyrrha turned her eyes up to the ceiling in mute appeal. Her exhalation rasped loudly against the vent in her mask. ‘I used to run the whole Bureau,’ she said, and she didn’t sound like she was addressing either of them.” (NtN 33) Is this the Government Communications Security Bureau?? We know she was a detective (iirc) before the Resurrection, and it would be fully within John’s personality to reduce a position running a whole department of the government to “pet cop” in his descriptions of Pyrrha. We also know that she ran Cohort intelligence on the Second, which either supports that this used to be her job and she remembers it, or implies that “the Bureau” is Cohort intelligence. Either way, seems worth putting it here for the possibility!
“‘What were you and Camilla talking about? Sounded fruity.’” (NtN 136) This is truly ridiculous analysis but I have to say it anyway. First, I love Pyrrha calling things “fruity,” what a true delight. Second, in a universe like this, where everyone’s so queer and it’s so normal that they don’t seem to really even have language around it, “fruity” feels out of place! I guess it could apply kind of literally to talking about flowers being sexy, as sexified flowers become fruits, but I think this is vocab Pyrrha has kept from the pre-Resurrection world.
“She put her cheek up against Cam’s knee. Cam did not seem to notice or mind, until she looked down at Nona, and then at her paper, and she said— ‘What are Pyrrha’s nicknames for you?’ ‘Kiddie,’ said Nona immediately. ‘Junior. Small Fry. Cutie Pie. Li’l Bits. Small Cam. Hairy Maclary.’ ‘Keep going.’ ‘Nums. No-No. Nope. None. Sweet Nons. Nona-Palona. The Big No.’ ‘She should be arrested,’ murmured Camilla, then: ‘Got it.’” (NtN 315-316) Hairy Maclary is a reference to a beloved children’s book published in 1983 (and the series of books that followed). I didn’t realize before looking it up that the author was a Kiwi! I just recognized the name from having been a children’s bookseller for many years, and having done a Masters in children’s lit before that, but I imagine the books are much more commonly known in New Zealand. Anyway, point being, Pyrrha makes a very specific reference to a pre-Resurrection book, and it supports the idea that she never lost her memories, and also makes me wonder if she had kids in her former life. She could have read the books as a kid herself, but I get the vibe from her that she had a family, based on the way she seems to long for that kind of connection. Though if she was older than John at the time of the Resurrection, which is stated at some point, and John is Gen Z, then she could easily have read Hairy Maclary as a kid in the 80s.
“‘You want Cyrus, Augustine, Cassiopeia… You want Gideon the First, and Gideon the First is dead. He’s not coming back. Oh, God, Gideon,’ said Pyrrha, suddenly. ‘Gideon… G—, you died for nothing.’” (NtN 390) She remembers his original name! This is the biggest evidence, to me. She could have learned it some other way maybe, but I think the most likely implication is that her memories somehow weren’t wiped when John brought her back.^[io]^[ip]

The Tower, the devils, Antioch

I’m kind of formulating this theory as I go, but these are all elements in NtN that I think are related to each other. In some cases, like the devils and Antioch, the text tells us explicitly that they are related. The rest is just me making a murder wall as I reread, so it will continue to develop here.
Antioch: Antioch was an ancient city in what is now Turkey, which has historical significance in a lot of arenas it seems but was very important in early Christianity. This was where followers of Jesus were first called Christians. (Wikipedia) Antioch might also be referencing Pisidian Antioch, which was a home base for the Apostle Paul’s missionary work building the early Christian church. (Wikipedia) I really need to do a whole section on the Apostle Paul and Paul Pal-and-Cam, but for now I want to also add that in Pisidian Antioch Paul got into a fight with Peter about eating or not eating with Gentile Christians who didn’t adhere to Jewish customs. This is called the Incident at Antioch, and I feel like I’m going to want to come back to it after AtN, because Paul shaping a nascent religion and having conflict with the old guard over how this new religion interacts with the old one feels like it’s going to be relevant to our Paul and all the parallels between Palamedes and John.
“‘How was work?’ ‘Excellent. Two of my guys got in a fight because someone said the fighting at Prithibi had been tougher than the fighting at Antioch. Had to peel them off each other.’” (NtN 81) Some brief internet searching tells me that “prithibi” is the Bengali word for the world. So, fun name for an exoplanet! And here’s our first mention of Antioch, which keeps getting very quietly and casually namedropped.
“‘No, I ran into it with my face, so hard I fell on my ass and blacked out and when I woke up some wino who felt sorry for me had dragged me into their alley, so that’s how low I fell, I got babied by a tramp,’ said Honesty. Then he said more reflectively, ‘Probably saved my life though. They were good tramps. Didn’t understand what the fuck they were saying. They kept checking my eyes and my mouth and miming going ‘Ahhh’ and fucking biting at the air.’” (NtN 90-91) Are these tramps soldiers who fought on Antioch? Are they checking Honesty’s eyes to make sure he doesn’t have scary teeth and eyeball tongues in there? I wonder what language they speak on Antioch, or in any case what language they’re speaking that Honesty doesn’t seem to be able to identify.
“‘As time goes by…as we dither and panic here and lose more and more on Antioch…the antinegotiation sect loses momentum.’” (NtN 151) We Suffer mentioning Antioch seems to confirm that whatever’s going on there, BoE is involved also.
I was thinking about what Cytherea says about John never speaking out against the beguiling corpse, but he was against soul siphoning: “‘Oh, sit on it,’ said Dulcinea. ‘I know all about you and your house, Master Silas Octakiseron…the Emperor himself never bothered to speak out against beguiling corpsehood, but he did say that siphoning was the most dangerous thing any House had ever thought up, and ought only to be done with the siphoner in cuffs.’” (GtN 340) I’ve been trying to get my head around the Eighth, trying to draw lines between Mercymorn and Silas and Colum, to figure out how what they are came out of who she is somehow. I’m still having a hard time with that, but it did occur to me to wonder why John would have such a strong feeling that soul siphoning was dangerous. I mean obviously there’s a generic reason, which is that any old revenant wandering around could hop into the body of the person being siphoned and cause a ruckus, but that doesn’t seem on the kind of order of magnitude John would really care a lot about. But what happens to Colum does seem like something John would care about. If he’s known, or suspected, about the “devils” with the mouth-eyes all this time, if they are, or they’re connected to, some of the souls he murdered when he destroyed the system who were never resurrected, if they’re connected to what’s wrong with/beyond the River and whatever’s happening with the Tower, that all seems like a pretty strong reason to speak out against soul siphoning. John is the most vehement when he’s trying to cover his ass.
Tumblr user den-gamle-kartograf made this great post about the Tower card in tarot, and it’s possible origin from the Harrowing of Hell. Go read it, but Tl;dr is that the Tower is all about destruction and shakeup and ruination, and the iconic Tower image in the Waite deck may come from Jesus knocking down the tower gate of Hell to set the innocent dead free. It might also come from the Tower of Babel, but the Harrowing of Hell is so deliciously relevant! (Wikipedia)
I’ll have to come back to this when I actually get to the last few chapters of NtN, but I’ve been wondering if the reason the devils appear on the Ninth when Kiriona doesn’t seem to think they should be able to get there is because of the 500 Resurrection-era people John woke up and sent there at the beginning of HtN. I still have questions about why and how he preserved some folks without bothering to wake them, and what “waking them up” actually means—do they have souls in there from the time of the Resurrection, or will they somehow get new souls when he takes them out of stasis? In either case, is this process something that leaves them vulnerable to possession? Is this process somehow what creates the devils? If the devils are, as I theorize, souls from destroyed Earth that were never resurrected, are they drawn to the Ninth and perhaps these old-new bodies because of the presence of Alecto’s body, and how disturbed her sleep has become? And if so, what does this mean for Antioch? What’s going on there, why are the devils there?

After some thinking and re-listening to HtN, I have another theory about the devils on the Ninth! So, let’s assume that the devils on Antioch and maybe in the tower are revenants of the folks John murdered and then didn’t resurrect after the end of the world, the same way the RBs are revenants of planets he killed. What if the devils on the Ninth are revenants of people murdered on the Ninth? John says: “‘To all intents and purposes, your mother and father committed a type of resurrection.’” (HtN 157) I’ve taken this phrasing in a different theory as evidence that maybe Harrow is Anastasia, reborn without memories like Nona, but had not thought about the repercussions. Killing 200 children could have created 200 angry revenants; it’s possible they’re all attached to Harrow, haunted as she is, but also at the end of NtN we get this detail about the devils on the Ninth: “‘Can I get ‘too many’ in numbers?’ ‘Over two hundred.’” (NtN 451) What if it’s actually precisely 200, and these devils didn’t actually travel here at all, they’re home-grown revenants? The only problem with this, as with really all of my thoughts about how the devils got there, is why do they emerge at the moment they do? Maybe it has something to do with what’s going on with Harrow. If these 200 ghosts were all attached to her before, what if when she walks to the tower in the River to presumably harrow Hell in the next book, that dislodges them and they wind up back at home? What if Harrow is harrowing hell at the same time as Nona and company are heading back to the Ninth, and that’s what causes the devils to suddenly appear there? Or perhaps the Reverend Parents somehow sealed the revenants away, the way John perhaps stuffed his ghosts into the tower. Maybe they were sealed into the Tomb, and were thus disturbed when Harrow opened it, one more reason for the Rev Rents to off themselves? Overall, I kind of love the idea that the Ninth House is a microcosm of the whole system—murder, a costly “resurrection,” and now these angry ghosts are fighting back just as John’s angry ghosts are.

“‘I’m changing the terms of the demand, but don’t panic. You see, I don’t particularly care about Blood of Eden. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if you all survived for a few hundred more years, You think we’re fighting you on Antioch? You think you’re the main event? Sure, you’ve made a hell of a mess, but we’re already doing cleanup. My eyes are not on you. Do you understand? Go and live another five thousand years.’” (NtN 302) Ianthe gives us this first clue that what’s happening on Antioch is not as simple as Nine Houses vs BoE!
“‘The ride?’ said Palamedes. ‘Wait. You mean you both dropped through the River? In that shuttle?’ ‘Can’t be,’ said Pyrrha, who was watching the Prince narrowly. ‘Not anymore. You’ve got a soul attached to you, kid…or part of one, at least. John would have had to go with you to stop it being stripped bare.’ The corpse prince tilted her head to one side, like a curious bird. ‘You haven’t been in the River lately, have you?’ she said. ‘What’s that meant to mean?’ ‘Guess you’ll find out at some point,’ said the Prince.” (NtN 371) Since hungry ghosts are the primary danger of travel through the River, I take this to mean that the presence of the tower is somehow nullifying this danger, either by scaring the ghosts away, or trapping them inside maybe? Or sending them somewhere else? And Kiriona’s body can’t be crushed by the pressure anymore, so she would be able to travel the River just fine.
“‘The danger is upon you, and you do not even know…they are coming out of their tower, salt thing. There is a hole at the bottom of their tower. I will pull their teeth. I will make it blank for you.’” (NtN 393) Our first real indication that something is inside the tower and is now escaping, which I feel like lends itself to connection with the devils, who are a pretty new phenomenon in this universe it seems like.
“Harrow turned away from the hand, and crunched out, barefoot, over the wet sand—her feet slapped with each step—and she stood ankle-deep in the River, disbelieving. Before her, the waters parted, speared-through and mute, for the enormous lance of a tower—a tower that had never been there before—a tower that soared, impossible and deadly grey, out of the waters—a tower of grey bricks, lurching out of the River as though gasping for air. An impossible, cone-capped tower—a belled tower; she could see the steeple, but the bell cot was too far from shore to see the bell. ‘I’ll start there,’ she said.” (NtN 436) Okay, I have a maybe unpopular take here? Or just, uncommon? I did not read this as the tower appearing out of the water while Harrow is standing there, or as Harrow summoning it somehow. I read it as Harrow turning around and seeing a fully emerged tower that was not in the River when last she traversed it, and being surprised. I do see how the description has a lot of active words that make it sound like the tower is literally popping up out of the river right then, though I took them to be just descriptive of the vibe and presence of the tower. I think my impression comes from the hints about the tower that we’ve already had—the header on chapter 16, where we see the broadcast and are introduced to Ianthe and Kiriona as the Tower Princes; the fact that Kiriona was able to travel through the River, and her implication that something about it has changed; Varun’s warning to Nona about a danger coming that she doesn’t know about. Then after this first sighting of the tower, we get Nona and company seeing it in the River, and Kiriona seeming unsurprised that it’s there, like this is the change she was implying. That would either mean it’s been there for a little while, and Harrow is just now entering the River and encountering it after her metaphysical dream journey, or that time in the John chapters does not line up chronologically with time in the rest of NtN, and perhaps Harrow did somehow summon or just witness the appearance of the tower. I read it as the former, but I see the margin for error, as Harrow would say!
“Pyrrha sucked in her breath, and she said: ‘What the fuck is that?’ ‘Told you so,’ said Kiriona Gaia. As the megatruck spun around, the wide rippling grey waters resolved into something totally different. There was a big structure standing up out of the River—that water was the River, after all—a tall, cold cylinder of what was unmistakably stone. The waters parted around it, and each bulgy wave slammed into it as though trying to bring it down, but it was as hard and inexorable and real as the water and the skies seemed faint and fantastic. … The Captain’s voice was like old teeth. ‘He left them too long—you left them too long, my salt thing.’ ‘You are here,’ said Nona, finding talking was hard, that her voice sounded drowsy in her own ears. ‘Okay, good—the water really won’t touch us. I was worried about our back end.’ Paul and Pyrrha flinched hard away from that voice—dived to the other side of the cabin, wheeling away as though struck. … The tower was so big—as the megatruck approached she began to realise how big, as big as broad and as tall as any crane or building in the city—stretching higher than their Building at home, even. There was a clear mark where the water reached up it, where the stone was wet black rather than the dry-stone grey above. From inside the megatruck, she could not see how high up it went. … ‘The hole,’ said the Captain, ‘the hole in the road, the hole, the hole, the hole.’” (NtN 439-440) A lot happening here! RB to RB communication, the interesting solidity and realness of the tower, the way the River is characterized as trying to knock it down. I think this all supports my idea that the souls of everyone John killed and then didn’t resurrect are stuffed in here, or that this is their exit into the world from wherever they were stuffed before—and I feel like it makes some logical sense that the River and the ghosts in it would also shy away from these souls, the way they do RBs. They’re revenants in the same way RBs are, murdered, a sudden shock death. In HtN John even describes a planet as having a collective soul made up of systems in the same way that humans are a soul made up of all kinds of collective tiny lives: “More to the Body than to him, you said: ‘A planet’s a ball of dust. Its thalergy comes from the accumulation of microbial life. You can’t consider it one coherent system.’ ‘Call it a communal soul,’ said her Emperor. ‘What’s a human being, other than a sack of microbial life?’” (HtN 41) So if the RBs are revenants because planet souls are like human souls, then maybe a crowd of human revenants can chase off the other ghosts and repel the River because human souls are like planet souls. Cuts both ways!

Also wondering, if the ten billion are in the tower and the devils are a result of them leaking out, and the ten billion sort of have the same effect as an RB, maybe they are a collective consciousness? And the devils who have appeared so far are their heralds? This collective souls idea came from jeej on discord, u are so smart bro!!
If the tower containing these ten billion is sort of acting as a Resurrection Beast, maybe this explains why the River is so devoid of ghosts when our heroes travel through—they’ve all fled as they would from an RB.

“As they walked farther, Nona felt the twinge getting stronger, and she felt something else: something at once familiar and unpleasant, squirming far off in the darkness. She strained her thoughts toward it. Many things—small things—things she’d seen before, once, but didn’t feel up to seeing again.” (NtN 446) I’m putting this here because my strongest interpretation of this is that she’s feeling the devils, revenant souls that have invaded the Ninth, but “squirming” makes me wonder if this could also be referencing the glow worms inside the Tomb, if she’s starting to hone in on what’s surrounding her physical body.
“Beneath the light of the powerful lamp, the dead person’s face was startling. The eyelids hung slack, and there were rows of dark purple pinpricks above and below them—like something fine and sharp had come through. Hanging out of the eyelids—Nona at first did not know what she was looking at—was a shrivelled object, wet and red, like a slug. Like a muscle. The tongue hanging out of the mouth was a lot longer than a normal tongue—and pointed, triangular, deep blue in death. … Paul was crouched, staring thoughtfully at the dead, empty-eyed face in a way that would have been strange for either Palamedes or Camilla. … The corpse prince said tightly, ‘They shouldn’t be here. We would have gotten word if they were back in the home system. They’re confined to Antioch—he said they’d only be on Antioch. God damn it, he said!’ Paul said, ‘Gideon, I’ve seen this before. My memory’s split. Where?’ ‘Silas Octakiseron’s poor bastard cavalier,’ said Kiriona. ‘Colum Asht. I didn’t understand then…we call them devils. I mean, Dad calls them devils—this is what we’re facing on Antioch. Fuck me, I didn’t think…this is mental. They can’t be here. He said they couldn’t travel—he said…’ Paul said, ‘Gideon, cool it. Why can’t I heal this man?’ ‘Like this I am undesirable to them,’ croaked the figure. ‘They bit him,’ said the corpse prince, as though nobody had spoken. ‘I mean, they hit him—they don’t have to bite. It’s revenant magic. They’re waiting for him to die so they don’t have to work so hard. Heal him up now, and they’ll still ride that wound all the way into his hideous old body and I’ll get to kill him myself.’” (NtN 447-448) Some good info here! Confirmed that this is the same thing that possessed Colum, and this is finally where we learn that the fighting on Antioch is at least partly about these devils. Also, it’s unclear whether John lied or just didn’t know the devils could pop up here—and I’m wondering again if they got here via the new people John woke up and sent to the Ninth at the beginning of HtN. Also, I feel an intense amount of fondness for the way Pal and Cam and now Paul keep calling her Gideon—she said that was fine, so they’re gonna keep doing it, because to them she’s their friend before anything else.
“‘Nav, talk to me,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Antioch. You’ve been fighting these—things? How long?’ ‘Fuck knows,’ said Kiriona, highly distracted. ‘Three, four months? Took us a while to work out what they even were. Thought they only had a weird disease.’ ‘And how long have they been on the Ninth?’ This was addressed to the seneschal. ‘A night. A day,’ said the rasping old man. ‘You hold the Reverend Daughter, so I must answer. We shut them away…locked some of them inside their cells. They riot. Their touch consumes…they hunger for the youngest of us.’ ‘Boy, are they out of luck,’ said the corpse prince, sotto voce.” (NtN 451) So if they’ve only been there a day, what prompted them to pop up? Are they responding to Harrow in her metaphysical space? To Nona losing her grip, and Varun spinning up, even though that was so far away?
“‘Can the living ones be cured?’ asked Paul. ‘You can’t cure this,’ said the Prince. ‘It’s spirit shit…possession. You can ward people so they don’t get grabbed—if you’re really good—but otherwise, chop them up and burn the bits. That’s the cure. Civilian or Edenite or House, it makes no difference.’” (NtN 452)
A small thing, but I wonder if the tower is connected to some kind of physical structure outside the River? Part of Canaan House, or maybe the inverse of the shaft drilled into the Ninth?
I was thinking today about the devils, and the hole in the tower they’re maybe leaking out of, and how I hope Harrow will find a way to heal the River, and then thinking about Kiriona, and the holes that have been left in her, and how I hope Harrow will find a way to heal those too…and just kind of wondering if, either in-story or just narrative-structure-wise, there will be a connection between healing Kiriona and healing the River? Closing up the hole in the tower and closing up the holes in Kiriona? Is there any connection between when and where the devils show up and Kiriona’s presence, or intention to be present, or her state of being?

Or are they connected to Alecto (which probably makes more sense at this point), and her soul venturing out from her body is what’s causing Number Seven to act so wild and enabling the devils to escape? Or both, somehow? Are the devils now on the Ninth because Alecto left, was her soul’s presence protecting it?
Or maybe Harrow walking into the River is not happening simultaneous with the main storyline of NtN, and her going to the tower is somehow what prompts devils to travel to the Ninth?

Humans outside the Houses are descendants of the trillionaires

“She said to me, John, there is no second wave. There is no third. They’re escaping. The trillionaires have converted everything to material resources. Half these passenger manifests are made up, these aren’t real people. They’ve fucked everyone, even the governments. There’ll be one single ship of internationals who think they’re on Wave One to Tau Ceti, and everyone else will be corporate, or have bought a ticket, or be useful. They’re leaving us to die.” (NtN 396) I’m starting here because even though it’s quicker to say “the trillionaires” and I often do, this first wave is not just trillionaires. It’s some of those, but also likely people chosen and given a spot for their skills, skills that would be needed to continue humanity somewhere other than Earth, and skills that are needed to keep a lot of rich people happy on a very long space trip. I can’t remember right now where it is, but John says somewhere that the ships fit so many less people than if they were all in cryo because they bring living staff along as well! So this is a cross section of humanity that includes the very rich and powerful and also some of the least powerful, the working class who are doing their laundry and cleaning their toilets and making their food, and probably also some animals, both livestock for the journey and pets. Maybe a seed bank. These are rich-ass doomsday preppers, and this is where, I think, the populations and cultures and wildlife of systems outside Dominicus all emerge from over the course of 10,000 years.
“The moment I found the fleet spinning up to enter FTL, it was too late…I could only grab one of them. … Then they were gone…lost to me in time, forever. That’ll teach me not to hesitate.” (NtN 409-410) So a whole fleet of ships filled with the obscenely rich and their staff, which I somehow had not processed the other billion times I’ve read this book.

How Necromancy Works

I’ve been thinking about necromancy as a whole, and how it works. We know that in this system there’s thanergy, death energy, and thalergy, life energy. We know that regular necromancers use thanergy to power their magic, and we know that Lyctors use the souls of their murdered cavaliers as a battery, in a sort of unending death, a soul trapped forever rather than released in one big thanergy bloom after which the soul goes to the River (or becomes a revenant). And somewhere in between there we’ve got necromancers like pre-Lyctorhood Harrowhark, who the narrative tells us are exceptionally powerful. Harrow springs full skeletons from one chip of bone—and since this is presumably a universe in which the law of conservation of matter still holds true, because it’s our universe in the far far future, the shit Harrow does should probably be impossible. Lyctors are balancing that power somehow with the perpetual destruction of the cav’s soul, almost like nuclear fission, breaking the soul down over and over and using the energy released to cause, for example, incredibly fast and self-perpetuating bone growth. But Harrow, pre-Lyctorhood, doesn’t have any soul fission to draw on. She’s drawing on the same thing every standard necromancer draws on, the thanergetic nature of the dead planets of the Dominicus system. Except I’m starting to wonder if that’s all of it. Was the murder of these planets enough to keep powering necromancers 10,000 years later, even though some of them had no significant life on them at the time? Instead, what if necromancy as a system is balanced on a stash of battery souls^[iq]^[ir], just as Lyctors are? What if the ten billion people John murdered who were never resurrected are the battery of the entire system’s necromancy? Trapped in the tower in the River, in a state of perpetual death? A bit like a philosopher’s stone in Fullmetal Alchemist, dead souls creating enough energy to circumvent the laws by which the world works, a hidden price that’s balancing the exchange. I chatted about this to my bestie, who pointed out that this idea also resonates with the place of fossil fuels and energy in TLT, in the context of John—something he was concerned and angry about pre-resurrection, part of the Earth’s fall, now mirrored in the way he runs his empire. John is continually repeating the mistakes of the pre-resurrection world, and this would fit right in with that theme.

Tor Tumblr posts

So, I feel like Tor knows what they are doing by tossing tumblr posts into the fandom enclosure for our enrichment, and I am going to play with the toys they have offered!
The Venus flytrap post - I have a number of thoughts about this, and most of them don’t go anywhere, I’m just putting up red strings all over.

So we’ve got a Venus flytrap, which could be a reference to the Seventh House (Venus), and so might be meant to indicate either Cytherea and Loveday or Dulcie and Pro, or might be referencing Venus’ Resurrection Beast, whichever one that might be (I suspect Number Four), or might be indicating a Seventh House theme in general, about stopping deterioration. I’ll come back to that, because I have thoughts about Seventh House themes.
We’ve also got a green-blue hexagon, and green-blue is the Seventh House color, but a six-sided shape might be referencing the Sixth House! Paul and Dulcie together, in this combo of signals? Maybe? There’s also the tag on the post, “no solace in lies,” which references the Sixth House motto thing from the poem at the start of GtN. The Sixth references might easily also be for Cassiopeia and Nigella, or for a Sixth House theme in general.
Then we’ve got the text, “sleep, i’ll wake u in the morning,” a text-speak version of a line from the poem at the beginning of NtN. My bestie rightly pointed out that this is in interesting tension with the “no solace in lies” tag, because it is itself a lie that John told Alecto—or at the very least, a promise he hasn’t fulfilled yet, if “morning” by his estimation still hasn’t come. (“When everyone who fucked with me is dead” hasn’t happened yet, so…)
We’ve also got the non-image text of the post, “until the appointed hour, we offer your family generous portions of dubious soup, courtesy of the emperor undying” which is definitely an answer to the ask Tor is replying to, “Tor...please...are there any update on Alecto the Ninth? Please my family is starving,” but which also references the poem from John to Alecto again and references Harrow via the soup.
I wonder if the text on the image, from John, with the Sixth House references, is setting up a John vs Paul sort of thing? I’ve been wondering for a long time if the many parallels between John and Palamedes and then John and Paul will culminate in Paul being the one to lead the Houses in a new direction, away from John’s influence, the way the Sixth is already trying to go.
I also wonder if the Venus flytraps might also be visually referencing the stoma, or the devils with their mouth-eyes, or both! Certainly AtN will deal with what’s going on in the River, including the stoma, and with the devils, who I think are related to the tower. And if Harrow is going to harrow Hell, then bringing her in via the soup reference is a nice touch!
Or, might these plants also be referencing the roses with teeth at Cassiopeia and Nigella’s wedding? Is that effect of John’s magic linked to the stoma and the devils as well? Will Cassy appear in AtN?? It’s her influence and instructions that have started the Sixth and Paul on the path away from John’s influence.
And now I want to come back to the Seventh House again. There are a few chapters in NtN with Seventh House skulls at the beginning, which are (to the best of my knowledge at this point in canon) not direct references to either Cyth or Dulcie, but rather to the Seventh’s whole vibe, preserving something before it can fully deteriorate, and sort of beautiful, unnatural decay. Those chapters in NtN feature Aim; they’re not the only chapters to do so, not by a long shot, but I do think the Seventh House skulls there are picking Aim out, because they’re preserving the Message. Whatever the Message is, Aim is just the most recent host of probably many, keeping some piece of old Earth alive by passing it on and on and on, a little like the Seventh’s hereditary cancer being passed on as a desirable trait. So in some ways, Seventh House references also could mean the Message, to me.

This is getting even farther into the weeds, but the chapters in HtN that have Seventh House skulls feature Cytherea’s body—pretty straightforward, she was from the Seventh—but Cyth’s not in there, it’s Wake that whole time. We also know from Aim that the Message has “two parts left” implying that there used to be more, and I’ve been wondering for quite a while if Wake was also carrying a part of the Message.

The poem - Tor also posted the poem that appears at the start of NtN, but with a few slight alterations! It seems pretty clear they just posted an earlier draft, because the post version is also the one that was shared before NtN came out, but the changes are interesting to me anyway, even just from the pre-pub to publication angle. (NtN version first, then post version):

[I asked, What is morning? And you said,] vs [I asked, What is morning? and you said,] (no italics)

The italics vs no italics could be interesting, because in the John chapters those indicate two different kinds of speech; the italics indicate speech happening within the story John is telling, and normal text with no quotation marks indicates speech that is happening from John to Alecto within this memory/dream. (Dialogue with italics is speech happening between John and Harrow, in the present moment of those chapters.) So this change could indicate a shift in when things are happening in this poem; Alecto is now awake, and present in the story, and able to ask questions, and in fact speech in her epilogue in NtN is regular text with no quotation marks as well.

[That’s morning. Empty’s just another word for clean.] vs [That’s morning. Empty’s the same as clean.]

This one stuck out to me the most, because the change throws off the whole cadence of the line. This led me to go find that post annotating the poem when it first came out in Tor’s newsletter in March of 2022, and voila, a lot of the changes are reflected there, in what was likely an earlier draft of the poem!! So this plus typos kind of explains the changes for me, but it’s fun to analyze them anyway.

[In the appointed hour] vs [In that appointed hour]
[I’ll pull up your sheets. I’ll kill the light,] vs [I’ll turn down your sheets. I’ll kill the light,]

I like this in combination with the line that lost its italics in the first change! Again, Alecto is awake now, nobody’s pulling the sheet up over her. Turning down sheets is more what you do to prepare the bed for sleep; John’s got Alecto with him, he can wipe the world clean and they can both crawl in bed and pull it up after them, in his mind.

[You held aloft the sword.] vs [You held aloft the sword] (no period)

The seat of the soul

“IANTHE: The master will see you in the Almond Room, sir. PALAMEDES: Thank you very much.” (TUG) We’re in Ianthe’s mind, and perhaps also Babs’ mind. Is the Almond Room the amygdala? If that’s the reference here, then I feel like it has some interesting implications for souls, and maybe for revenants, in the system this universe proposes. Pyrrha mentions that “‘The body needs thalergy and a soul to keep the lights on. Anastasia’s tripod principle. Body plus thalergy, but no soul, is basically a very weird vegetable…’” (NtN 362) So the soul is its own thing, apart from the body, and apart from thalergy (which, I think, is what becomes thanergy at and after the time of death). Ianthe is present in this metaphysical space because she’s long-distance puppeting Babs’ body—her soul is here, detached from her own body (and thalergy?). Palamedes is ONLY a soul, a revenant I guess, also present in this metaphysical space. And the part of Babs’ body that Ianthe is receiving him in, the part she’s holed up in as Pal tries to unseat her control, is the amygdala! This is very interesting to me! The amygdala is responsible for processing memory, making decisions, and emotional responses. This suggests to me that in the world of TLT, the soul is essentially the collection of a person’s memories, their decisions, and their emotions. Or maybe it’s that the seat of those things is the best place for a soul that isn’t native to the body can best keep a hold? Thinking about Lyctors consuming their cavs’ souls, they also get their muscle memory, which is controlled by the cerebellum. But muscle memory isn’t what Ianthe needs here, for the most part; they’re not fighting with bodies, they’re fighting totally removed from anything physical. It’s ALL their memories, their decision-making, and their emotions powering this conflict, almost like dreaming that you’re moving around without actually moving around in your bed. So…I think I’m still into the idea of the amygdala as the seat of the soul, and it makes me wonder where thalergy resides in the body, what the source of it is.

The Sewn Tongue, the Sewn Brain?

This is a very small set of theories, but I want to write them down before I forget. So we haven’t seen the Sewn Tongue be either applied or removed, but we have some clues about it:

“Guideline #7: Examine Ianthe’s jaw and tongue after you read this. … If you suspect either jaw or tongue has been replaced, DO NOT SWEAR THE OATH.” (HtN 61)
“‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘that constitutes some improvement over your sewing my lips shut, like you did the…no, pardon me, I agreed not to mention incidental detail.’ ‘Wait. You submitted to be made a Sewn Tongue?’ ‘Ask me no questions and I shall tell you no lies,’ said the Princess of Ida, wiping her thumb against her bottom lip again, very delicately. ‘Look, all I shall say is that for a House that trades solely in bone, you own some enormous needles.’” (HtN 63)

So it involves an actual physical needle, possibly metal since Ianthe contrasts it to the House specialty of bone magic. It involves the tongue and jaw such that replacing either might circumvent the process. It involves sewing the lips, and since Ianthe is a Lyctor she clearly healed from this immediately, but I wonder if it usually leaves scars? That seems less sneaky and secretive than one might like, though I guess they’d be covered by the skull paint.
Though this is not explicitly stated, I assume it also involves necromancy. Somehow, this necromancy prevents certain speech. I started thinking about how, and how that could be bone magic, and this brought me to Harrow’s lobotomy. She describes it as: “‘I took the part of my brain that remembered her…that understood her soul…and I disconnected it. Then I made rather crude systems—so as not to be accidentally reminded…knowing that the pathways might reopen if they were knocked about. I had an accomplice…someone who knew how to manipulate the fatty tissue of the brain better than I possibly could. I made my skull a construct, programmed to apply pressure to specific lobes.’” (HtN 382-383) I think this must be similar to how the Sewn Tongue works! Maybe the jawbone, and perhaps the cartilage in the larynx, and certainly the hyoid bone at the root of the tongue, could be programmed like a construct in the same way Harrow programmed her skull, to physically prevent speech in particular circumstances. I’m less clear on how this construct would know when the person is about to say the thing they’re not allowed to say, but also…it’s magic that we don’t know everything about as readers, so I can handwave a little there lol. I think Harrow’s lobotomy plan worked specifically because she has the theory piece from this ancient art of her House for secret-keeping!

The Message and One Lost Ship

Huge thanks to Tumblr user gryphonwings for writing up her great theory with lots of interesting textual support, I am super on board for most of what is outlined in most of her post, and the rest all makes good sense to me even though my own crackpot theories don’t entirely agree/match up. Go read the original post, it’s great!! Lots of good stuff like John as an RB and oral history traditions as a plot point.
To summarize the bits that I am fully in agreement with/incorporating into my thinking:

John, in narrating how he ate the solar system, describes catching hold of one of the ships trying to escape: “The moment I found the fleet spinning up to enter FTL, it was too late…I could only grab one of them…and you and I held it in the palm of our hand. I was in there with them. All those frightened people. All those runaway rats.” (NtN 409) He also describes what happens to the one he caught, which I did not really register fully in any of my rereadings: “He said, Then they were gone…lost to me in time, forever. That’ll teach me not to hesitate.” (NtN 409)

Earlier in John’s story, he gives us some information about FTL: “First, send out a dozen guide ships. They said they’d managed to find some poor dipshit geek who’d fixed the FTL problem of getting locked in the chrono well, you know, moving so fast you were stuck doing quantum wheelies. They’d come up with something where you could oscillate out so long as the ship was attuned to a prearranged spectrum outside. I still don’t understand the maths. It’s going to take me ten thousand years to understand it. I couldn’t follow, but A— could. He said immediately, What is the point if you still have no fucking clue where your ship is going to end up when you shake out of FTL. They said, Aha, but we can track it once it’s out.” (NtN 221) The interesting bit to me here is the “chrono well.” I had been interpreting “lost to me in time, forever” as a little metaphorical, he crunched them or something and it’s been a long time, but that doesn’t actually make much sense. This one ship ACTUALLY being lost in time does seem plausible though, given this known chrono well problem!! Also, does “it’s going to take me ten thousand years to understand it” mean that perhaps he understands it now? Verb tenses are weird in John’s layered chapters, and this line could be read as him explaining how long it took him to understand it, rather than just an expression of confusion about math.
Pursuing this one ship that got away in a different way might explain some of John’s continued searching—he’s not only punishing the descendents of the trillionaires who populate space outside the Houses by killing their planets, he’s actively looking for people who are original to the death of the Earth who are unable to get out of whatever time sink they are stuck in, or who perhaps are hiding there or being left there on purpose, to protect them.

The message has three parts, is “too simple” for humans to understand, and Aim carries the second part.
“Too simple” might imply that it’s data of some kind, which I’ve seen theorized generally before and have been into as an idea. Some kind of record of the history of Earth and what happened to it seems likely, and it would have to be as simple as possible in format in order to pass it down through generations upon generations of Messengers and human technology.

Data could include whatever kind of beacon or tracking or coordinate information BOE would need to get that last FTL ship out of wherever it’s stuck/hiding! Whether BOE is protecting this last remnant of Earth’s people from John or whether they’re trying to get them out is unclear to me, but I think it’s absolutely plausible that some part of the message is about guiding that last ship home.

I think this all fits nicely with my sense that Wake was part of the message and was or carried a consciousness or information from before the Resurrection, and it makes more sense of some of John’s goals. I think it would be incredibly on brand and delightful for this series, which is such a great combo of fantasy and sci fi elements, to have magic and ghosts and devils and the River and also a time-traveling spaceship all coming to a head in the last book!
I’m also again led to wonder in what way Wake might have been carrying part of the message, and whether she discharged her part, or passed it along to someone (who?), or failed to pass it on. If she had an implant like Aim does, then it’s either been destroyed or is somewhere on the Ninth. If she had some other way to pass it on, is it somehow genetic? Revenant-related? Could she have passed it to Gideon, or Harrow, or Pash, or G1deon and Pyrrha in her last moments? Or was her part finished when she faced John, and charged him “with acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the human race … for which the sentence is death.” (HtN 465) Perhaps he’s been charged, Aim carries the evidence, and the third part of the message will see his sentence carried out?
gryphonwings also discusses the idea that John is himself an RB, because of the way he describes his hunger and anger and need for vengeance, and how that echoes the other RBs. I’m more inclined to think that this is a bit of Alecto’s soul influencing his via soul permeability, and a bit of John being the origin of all the RBs—I don’t think he quite is one, but he made them, and they perhaps take after him rather than the other way around.
A lot of good juicy stuff to think on here, I’m sure I’ll be back to this theory at some future point.

Tracking Wake:

“...she took the time to walk down five flights to her mother’s nameless catacomb niche. This was pure sentiment, as her mother hadn’t been there since Gideon was little and would never go back in it now.” (GtN 15)
“Aiglamene had convinced the House to put a sword in Gideon’s hands, not to waste her on serving altar or drudging in the oss.” (GtN 22)
“The remote, insensate planet where she lived was home to both the stronghold of the House and a tiny prison, used only for those criminals whose crimes were too repugnant for their own Houses to rehabilitate them on home turf.” (GtN 23) The prison is a “dummy target” set up to draw attention away from the Tomb, a trick Wake does not fall for. (Unrelated to Wake, but this also makes me think of Australia being used as a penal colony by the British)
“She would not be tempted back for fresh blood or old. She was too far gone by the time the exhausted nuns had tethered her by force, as though death had been a catalyst for the woman to hit the ground running…” (GtN 23) Wake attaches herself to her bones as a revenant.
“‘I never liked that cursed thing anyway; I always felt like it was judging me.’” (GtN 165) This one makes me wonder WHY Wake hates Harrow, is it just necromancer hatred or is it more complex than that?
“The first time the man you called God had delivered you the sword—in what seemed to you his aspect of the Kindly Prince, intending only gentleness—you’d fallen into a deep stupor from which you had never really risen. Maybe the sword had reified your grief into six feet of steel.^[is]^[it]^[iu]^[iv] You had loathed that thrice-damned blade from sight, which might have been unfair before you knew it loathed you in return.” (HtN 28) I feel like this is when Wake starts to actively haunt Harrow. Her revenant is still tied to the sword, but she’s inside Harrow’s mind too, for sure.
“They had tried to remove your sword, once—they had tried to take it away on some pretext you could not exactly remember—and you were perturbed in some distant way by that memory, which was red, and wet, and ill defined. … Truth be told you would have been happy hurtling the thing straight into the hot heart of Dominicus, as it was loathesome to you and you were convinced it wanted to do you harm; but it was very important that it should not be placed in anyone else’s hand.” (HtN 31) How much of this is Wake not wanting to be discovered and how much is Harrow’s trauma, repressed, clinging to Gideon by clinging to her sword? I think it’s both, tbh.
“Hot bloody blisters bubbled up from your skin, and you were aware of yourself, not as a structure, but as a sickly radiance: one sickly radiance among other sickly radiances, one, two, three, four, five, all around you, one beneath.” (HtN 106) “One beneath” is Wake, Harrow is lying on top of the sword.
“Later that night, or perhaps early that morning, you were found by the Lord your God in the little chapel. You were leaning over the corpse, your arms stretched high above your head, clutched around the hilt. Your two-handed sword was thrust through Cytherea’s breast for the second time. The rosebuds were scattered and stained with drops of old, sour blood. You could never recall how you got there.” (HtN 136) Wake leaves the sword and enters Cytherea, but remains tied in some way to Harrow also^[iw]^[ix]^[iy]^[iz]. Maybe it’s that she’s haunting Harrow, has wormed into her brain, but her physical tie to the world is now Cyth’s body? Anyway, is this what Harrow’s instructions to herself about not cutting flesh with the sword meant to prevent, or was this part of a pre-lobotomy Harrow plan? Also, I wonder why Wake didn’t jump to Cytherea when Harrow and Gideon stabbed her the first time?
“‘I want that sword,’ said Ortus the First. ‘What?’ ‘Give me her damned sword,’ said Ortus the First. ‘You’ve already got a whole complement of oversized weapons, greedy.’ Even an overexcited pituitary gland could not mask the sharp shank of fear that sliced down the length of your heart. You tried to raise yourself up on your elbows before you wobbled weakly back down. You said hoarsely, ‘No. No. It’s mine.’” (HtN 191) I’m putting this in the tracking Wake section, but this incident specifically happens after Harrow stabs Cytherea’s corpse and Wake transfers over—so why does G1deon (or Pyrrha) want the sword? Again, this makes me think this sword has a history, that it was Wake’s before it was Gideon’s, or someone’s before it was Gideon’s.
“‘A thesis I agree with,’ said Ortus heavily. ‘The Sleeper, who sleepeth not. Perhaps a better name would have been…the Waker.’” (HtN 201)
“A curtain of murky water splattered through the glass maw. The water carried with it a handful of flashing brown-and-steel objects, which fell in a tumbled heap on the rotten Canaan House corridor carpet. When they came to rest, she and Ortus stared down at a collection of large, rusted pipette needles, the hard plex type with measurement markings up the side.” (HtN 206) More of Wake’s consciousness producing things associated with her death; I would imagine these pipettes are related to the baby plan.
“‘Fine, pedants—I drink to the best of them, gone for absolute certain…’” (HtN 275) LOL, sorry, she’s not gone.
“In the protected plex booth stood Cytherea, spotlit by the strong white light from the panels above her, leaning heavily upon some handle within; a dead woman staring at you through dark and filmy eyes, her face freckled with drying blood, petals in her limp ringlets. The flesh was dead, but the hate in that face was alive and well and living.” (HtN 288)
About unusual revenants: “‘No, I mean he deliberately fixed his soul to his body, with spirit magic,’ said the cavalier. ‘We planned for it. In the event of his death.’” (HtN 306) Maybe the reason Wake seems to be attached to multiple sources, haunting Harrow and being detectable in Harrow such that Pyrrha can sense her there, while she’s also in Cytherea’s body, and maybe also has some link to the sword still…maybe it’s like Pal, she attaches herself thinly to multiple things, to keep from getting obliterated.

“‘I couldn’t anchor myself to my body properly when I was about to render myself down to my component parts. So I established a kind of bubble attached to the Riverbank and anchored it to myself at the cellular level—not one thick rope, but lots of tiny little strings. Like a spiderweb, I suppose. As long as anyone could find any bit of me, be it never so small and soggy, there’d be a couple of strands still clinging to it, and me on the other end.’” (HtN 310) If this is something like what Wake did, then would it mean Wake is a necromancer? A spirit magician?

“You said, ‘A human mind cannot live this way, Sextus. Being stuck in place is any revenant’s undoing, unless it has a very specific anchor. Eventually it will lose purchase—it will let go—it will return to the River. I cannot imagine the type of mind that would hold on to that edge, and keep holding.’” (HtN 311)
“The third staring inhabitant was not a person. It was an enormous flimsy poster in a chipped frame, the only sign of decoration in that untidy little shuttle. A head-and-shoulders photograph of an unsmiling, adamant person, in all assumption a woman, stared fixedly at you as though calculating how much effort it would take to snap your neck. She was dressed in black to the chin, and her red hair curled thickly about her neck and shoulders. Thick, itchy streams of blood began to ooze down your sinuses. That portrait frightened you more than anything you had seen since becoming a Lyctor; it scared the irresolute piss from your body. Yet you had never seen the face before in your life.” (HtN 318) Okay, I know this is not actually tracking Wake’s revenant, but it’s tracking Wake’s presence in the story. Is the fear reaction because Wake has been haunting her for most of her life? Is the blood because Gideon resembles Wake too strongly and the reminder is setting off Harrow’s brain?
“The snow had settled; the ice, in pinkish, crackling drifts, had formed miniature fernlike cherry-shaded patterns on all the ancient glass. In their wake, great slithering, pulsing tubes had worked themselves up through the cracks in the floorboards, or wound down among the frozen weeds. The tubes were a fresh, clear pink, with redder veins beneath the translucent topmost layer. At intervals, black clusters swam within, this way and that, like frightened fish. When one cut them, they bled a gush of filthy water, then the wound closed as one watched. … The tubes were not homogenous: every so often they would pouch out, or fall in dramatic drapes along the wall or from the ceiling, with whitish, pearl-bubbled globules secreted away within their flesh. The surviving inhabitants of Canaan House were united—even Harrow—in agreement with Dulcie Septimus’s pronouncement that it was ‘absolutely ghastly, bordering on shitty.’” (HtN 326)

I wonder if this is all related to Wake’s somewhat traumatic pregnancy, as the random rains of needles and pipettes and microscope slides or whatever have probably been. Canaan House is in some way transforming to reflect her horror of her own body and the events leading up to her death, overgrown with giant pink fallopian tubes and blobby white ovaries, and swimming with sperm fish. Whatever Wake may have felt then or may feel now about Gideon, impregnating herself was clearly something she did under duress, as a last resort, for a mission she ranked more important than her own survival, and it’s still eating at her.

“‘I should know; we measured summer to winter, temperature and precipitation and the acidity of the very sea beneath us, and it never hailed, and it never snowed, and we certainly never saw fimbriae hanging from the rafters.’” (HtN 329) This seems to support my theory—a fimbria is the fringey connecting the ovary to the fallopian tube.
“At first she assumed it was the howling, killing wind; but as she and Abigail watched, a questing pink tentacle, crackling with ice as it shifted and slithered, made a ropy trail down a broken hole in the glass. A long, pulsing tube. As they watched, a sphincter opened in the end, and from that hole emerged a clattering pile of plex scope slides, the type you would preserve a cell sample between.” (HtN 386)

“‘Your swords will not rend its armour,’ he said, with his back turned to them. ‘Its weapons will ruin your flesh. It will not stop until it has subsumed its quarry. And it would only acknowledge the blade without…all we have are the blades within. It has seen them and made them dull.’” (HtN 329) Harrow is the quarry—I think Wake really wants to possess her and use her living Lyctor body, way better than dead Cyth’s body, to kill John. Also “it would only acknowledge the blade without” is neat, it probably means that her revenant can only fully be destroyed on the outside of the bubble, in the living world, but also the blade is probably referencing the two-hander she’s been attached to at the same time. Lovely wordplay.
“But on the penultimate night before the Resurrection Beast was due, you dropped your glove down the side of the bed; you had to kneel down to retrieve it. And you found that far beneath your bed—hidden in the darkness where you had once lain, waiting for the Saint of Duty—lay an inert corpse: the missing body of Cytherea. You lay in that gap between the frame and the floor on the outside of the bed for quite a long time. You had not sensed any foreign thanergy in your room, nor trace of hostile theorem. Even now, she lay docile and dusty, empty in your sight. You extended your fingers to brush her arm—and there was the ever-present sign of God keeping her preserved, with the hot lemon scour of his divine necromancy punching the back of each sinus. She lay still as an abandoned doll. You even said, ‘Get up. I can see you,’ but this command did not rouse her, for some reason. At the time, you did not wonder how the body had breached your wards, which you dutifully reapplied each night with fresh blood.” (HtN 352)

I know I keep asking this in different places in this doc, but WHY does neither Cyth’s body nor Wake’s soul trip Harrow’s wards? How does she get in and out? How is Wake able to play possum in Cyth’s body like this? Is she not in there right now, or is she there and pretending she’s not? That doesn’t seem her style but also who tf knows. Why does Cyth’s thanergy not register as foreign? Does Cyth taking Harrow and Gideon’s blood for her wards on the avulsion room in GtN have anything to do with being able to pass Harrow’s blood wards now? Also for real why tf is she hiding under Harrow’s bed???? Does she need proximity to Harrow to fully wake up in the River bubble? I feel like this will make sense eventually but it really doesn’t make sense to me now.

“Cytherea was gone. There were cuffs of bone glued to the floorboards. You had left it for maybe three minutes. No ward brayed.” (HtN 354) How tf did she get out?

“The great sword you had taken off and laid before you, as though it were a beloved talisman and not a sickening, befuddling relic, a back-breaking burden your dead self told you to carry. You were almost fond of it, except when you looked at it, at which point all fondness was dispelled.” (HtN 357) I have this vague memory of some moment when Harrow thinks the sword seems benign and empty, which I now can’t find or figure out where I read or if it happened, which led me to think that Wake wasn’t in the sword anymore after jumping to Cytherea’s body. But if she’s still connected to it, maybe that would explain why she can move through Harrow’s wards? Because Harrow is bathing the sword in her blood and sheathing it in her bone magic? Or at this point is it a hated object just from the trauma that she can’t remember, as if that isn’t enough?
“That was wretched; but Harrowhark was more interested in the strange garbage littering the snow and the rotting furniture and the underfloor squish of tube and fossa. Pipettes, again; broken glass-fronted containers filled with dark fluid, mysterious lumps floating suspended within; and shattered skeletons, lying in the slithering mass of tubes or on mountains of what looked to be capsules or pills. At first her brain skimmed over the skeletons—it was Canaan House, ergo, there were skeletons—but then the familiarity dawned on her: some of the skeletons were not wearing First House sashes or raiment, but bearing Drearburh tools.” (HtN 394) Again, equipment and supplies for the baby plan. The Ninth skeletons are interesting too, maybe also part of Wake’s memories of her death, seeing them as she was falling into the drill shaft?

^[ja]^[jb]

“Cytherea looked at me with that dead-eyed, stony expression; and then, very slowly, she pointed the nose of the gun down. I didn’t know what to say—Thank you? Is this like round five now? I didn’t have to say anything, because her mouth opened, and the voice was Cytherea’s but the gravelly, hard-as-nails tone wasn’t. ‘Goodbye,’ she said.” (HtN 412) Wake knows who’s piloting Harrow’s body now, and spares her, which makes me feel eight million things about Wake’s trauma and her death and being stuck as a revenant in her own bones and then in Gideon’s sword, watching the daughter she didn’t want grow up, hearing all her inner thoughts. FUCK. Also, side note, but in this scene she shoots Mercymorn with a Herald bullet—where did she get it? From G1deon’s room? Was it Pyrrha’s? Something she’d stashed, somehow?

“I used to sit by my mother’s niche and catch her up on everything. Things like: Aiglamene says I’ve fixed my hand placement when I block and pivot from the lower left. Things like: Harrowhark was a giant bitch today. (Told her that on the reg.) Things like: I can do ninety-six sit-ups in two minutes now. Absolute fourteen-year-old bullshit. Serious A-grade drivel.” (HtN 477) Did Wake hear all this? What did she think of it?^[jc]^[jd]

“After a moment, the adept said: ‘The ties lead outside this place, Harrowhark. The spirit is linked to some physical object.’ Harrow said, ‘Then—what?’ ‘Oh, we can get the spirit out of you,’ said Abigail. ‘But we can’t kick it out of its other anchor. In other words, just because we banish it here doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily banish it there, outside the River…but let’s give a good, hard pull and see what emerges.’” (HtN 420) So the sword, still, outside the River, and also Cyth’s body. I think.
“The Sleeper was not, in the end, of any great height or breadth, and the voice that had emerged from that mask was not inhuman.” (HtN 422) So does Gideon get her height and breadth from John?
“The Sleeper said, ‘You’ll die. It doesn’t have to hurt. I’m not here to torture anyone.’ ‘And?’ ‘I get your body.’ ‘And?’ ‘I finish it.’” (HtN 426-427) Confirming that her plan is to use a living Lyctor’s body to kill John, though when this plan was hatched and how she came up with it is still murky to me.
“‘Harrow, do you know her?’ The Sleeper had the unmistakable face of the portrait in the shuttle, on the planet she had killed. The woman plastered behind Corona and Judith—the familiar woman with the pitiless eyes—had fought to usurp Harrowhark’s soul. ‘Not at all,’ she said.” (HtN 452) Wake is ejected from Harrow’s mind!

“The woman had not died tranquil; her features had settled into an expression closer to determination than the peace of the grave. … The chin was firm; the jaw stubborn in its lines, the nasofrontal angle of the nose barely present, with flared nostrils like a large cat’s. It was the jaw, and something about the eyes and brows, that kept distracting Harrow. Something grey protruded from beneath a flap of the orange collar, against the dead skin of the Sleeper’s throat. She crouched down and used one finger to hook it. It was a loop of thin chain. She tugged, carefully, and the rest emerged: plain metal links, unadorned except for a flat steel tag about the length of her thumb. She turned the tag over. The other side had been neatly etched with a single word: AWAKE.” (HtN 454)

“‘The only sure way to banish a revenant is to destroy the physical anchor it inhabits before it can escape the shell. Inanimate objects can be destroyed; corpses too, if you remove the brain.’” (HtN 455) So when Pyrrha blows Cytherea’s head off while Wake is in there, does that banish her for good?
“‘I just want to know—how? Seriously, I’m more impressed than angry.’ The voice was still gravel. ‘I charge you with acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the human race—’ ‘Commander.’ ‘--for which the only sentence is death; repeated mass killings, the utter disintegration of institutions political and social, languages, cultures, religions, all niceties and personal liberties of the nations, by use of—’ ‘Commander Wake,’ he said. It sounded like he scrubbed a hand over his face; there was a muffled exhalation. ‘I’ve heard this all before.’” (HtN 465) Wake is accusing him very clearly here, it seems to me, of willful destruction of Earth—which I’ve been wondering about, and suspecting is the truth.
“‘All of it, Gaius!’ There was the preparatory sound of indrawn breath. ‘Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity,’ he recited, all in one breath. ‘Correct?’ ‘They’re dead words—a human chain reaching back ten thousand years,’ said the corpse. ‘How did they feel?’ ‘Genuinely sad, bordering on very funny^[je]^[jf],’ said God.” (HtN 465) Everybody’s looked these up already, but: Henry V Act 1 Scene 2; “God Defend New Zealand”; “Lose Yourself”. If Wake has been a revenant since the Resurrection, I wonder how far back these name elements date for her, and whether she accumulated them over time or chose them all at the start?
“He said: ‘You’ve been trying to commit suicide by cop ever since I found you, Wake. I know when someone’s trying to get me to do something, and you’re acting like a woman who very much wants me to end her life.’ ‘Telepathy,’ she said. ‘Did the ten billion give you that too?’” (HtN 465) Does she want him to banish her completely, forever? Or is she anchored somewhere else as well, and now that her plan here with Harrow has failed she wants to get going on the next one? Or does she feel like her own part in the mission is now finished, because she saw Gideon present in Harrow’s eyes and decided to pass the plan off to them, in some way? She’s known Gideon was alive, but now that she’s failed to hop into Harrow, maybe she thinks Gideon in Harrow will get this done once she finds out who she is. Also, the ten billion: the people who died when the Earth was destroyed, I presume.
“‘I did what I had to do when the dummy ones died—even though you dried-up liches didn’t give me the first fucking clue what I was really doing! Checking for life signs? Retrieving a sample? If I’d known then what I know now, I would have just shelled the place!’” (HtN 469) I have a hard time wrapping my head around this. Did Wake not know that the bomb baby needed to be God’s child? Did she not know, when she impregnated herself as a last resort, that she was using John’s sperm sample? ROUGH.
“‘I always see the job through.’ Wake sounded bored. ‘You sent me out there to kill a baby and open those doors. Whose baby didn’t matter on my end. I carried that thing under my heart…threw up every morning that first trimester…felt it kick…had to induce labour and give birth in a shuttle, alone, knowing by then that Gideon was catching up…Do you know, I gave that thing a nickname, my whole pregnancy? I used to call it Bomb.’” (HtN 471) And Gideon is outside the door, listening to this. Devastating, all around.
“When I was seven the captain broke it to me that my mother wasn’t even in rotation yet. She only got boiled and sent out when I was eight.” (HtN 476) Is this when Wake hopped from her bones to the sword?
Not necessarily a part of tracking Wake’s movements, but I really appreciate that in NtN we get a little bit of Pyrrha’s pov on her, and also We Suffer and Pash get to weigh in about her. We get to see her from the perspectives of people who loved her. As I go through and annotate I’ll probably put some of those perspectives in here for reference.

The fight, the Tomb, the deaths:

“Certainly, they would have known by ten that she knew too much, and that she could never be allowed to go.” (GtN 24)
“Above all else Harrowhark was a skeleton-maker, and in her rage and pride she was offering an unfair fight instead. The thoroughbred Ninth adept had unmanned herself by starting a fight with no body to raise and not even a bone button to help her. Gideon had seen Harrow in this mood only once before, and had thought she would probably never see her in this mood again.” (GtN 30)
“She hadn’t executed it very well—her parents were fine from the shoulders up but from the shoulders down they were bad—though she had, admittedly, been ten.” (GtN 38)
“Gideon could only manage, ‘Why?’ The girl’s expression was the same as it was on the day that Gideon had found her parents, dangling from the roof of their cell. It was blank and white and still. ‘Because I completely fucking hate you,’ said Harrowhark, ‘no offence.’” (GtN 45)
“She remembered when Harrow was nine, when she had walked in at just the wrong moment. She remembered that nine-year-old Harrow’s mouth falling slightly slack.” (GtN 209)
“It was the brief delight of Gideon’s life that the unnecessarily beatified Harrowhark Nonagesimus chose to ditch her sainthood and unlock it, and that Gideon had been witness to that fact.” (GtN 333)
“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. ‘I was eleven,’ said Gideon. ‘And here I am, narking all over again.’” (GtN 334)
“‘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?’ There was another pause, and Harrow looked down into the water. Limned by electric light, her pupils and her irises appeared the same colour. ‘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.’ She lifted her gaze. She held Gideon’s. ‘But you came back instead,’ said Gideon. ‘I’d told the Reverend Mother and Reverend Father what I’d seen you do. I killed your parents.’” (GtN 354-355) This is going to appear in two places, but oh well. But the timing of this is so tricky to me. This makes it sound like it all happened at once; like Harrow and Gideon fought, Harrow wanted to die, Harrow broke into the Tomb and Gideon ratted her out. But other tellings of it don’t agree; breaking into the Tomb was a long process, and the final step (I think?) was the one that required Gideon’s blood. So…Harrow fought with Gideon, wanted to die, and decided to finally try this last ward that she thought would kill her? Is that how this worked?
“Her adept closed heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Beyond the doors there’s just the rock,’ she said. ‘The rock and the tomb surrounded by water. I won’t bore you with the magic or the locks, or the wards or the barriers: just know that it took me a year to walk six steps inside, and that it nearly killed me then. There’s a blood ward bypass on the doors which will only respond for the Necromancer Divine, but I knew there had to be an exploit, a way through for the true and devout tomb-keeper. I knew in the end it had to open for me. The water’s salt, and it’s deep, and it moves with a tide that shouldn’t exist.’” (GtN 357-358) Again, I find this hard to parse! So is the blood ward at the very first door, or at the rock, at the end? Gideon saw Harrow go into the Tomb in some way or another, tattled on her, and then presumably within minutes or hours Harrow was called back by her parents. But Harrow came back because she saw what was in the Tomb and wanted to live. But it took her a year to get through all the magic traps. So the blood ward couldn’t have been at the first door, it had to have been at the end? And Gideon caught her at it after she’d already been sneaking in for a year? Idk why I’m so fixated on this and why I can’t let it go but it bothers me.
“One very bad day—when it seemed as though everyone hated her, and as though this were a completely correct way to feel—with bloodied fists and a bruised heart, she wrote a note explaining her suicide then went and unlocked the door. Unexpectedly, this did not kill her; and what did not kill her made her curious. She was much older before she could cross the threshold. It was trapped like all hell. But the traps were Ninth traps, made of bone and grinning skeleton, and she’d been using them herself since she was toddling. In the end, the experience was merely educational. She crossed the cave, which was trapped, and passed the central moat of black water—which was deep, and trapped—and then climbed the island (trapped)( to the frozen mausoleum (ridiculously trapped), and when she got there—alive—she could look into the open-faced coffin where lay the reason for her existence.” (HtN 49-50) This version makes it sound like Gideon’s blood was needed for the first door, and that the year spent learning how to deal with the traps was after!
“Instead you said: ‘I broke into the Locked Tomb.’ After a moment God said, ‘You did not.’ ‘The wards to the stone were easily bypassed,’ you said. ‘The line of Reverend Mothers and Reverend Fathers has been responsible for their upkeep for years. The barriers and gates beyond were more difficult. I was nine years old when I began, and ten by the time I could traverse the shaft. I spent a whole year working on nothing but those locks. When I came to the blood ward on the stone, the ward of the tomb-keeper, I did not know how to pass. It remains the most complex piece of magic I have ever seen. It was my first vision of the Necromancer Divine…but one day when I was ten years old I decided to end my own life, Lord, and sometimes I think it was that which let me cross the tomb-keeper’s gate^[jg]^[jh]. I opened it; I saw the saline water that laps the stony shore, and I walked into the sepulchre. I have seen the Tomb and I have looked upon your death. My parents killed themselves over my heresy. I saw what lies within, and I will love it beyond my own entombing. I— Did I sin, Lord? Did I kill two of my fathers that day?’” (HtN 348) This description is quite clear, and I’m sticking with it. It breaks my heart that Harrow wanted to die, tried to commit suicide by blood ward, and has all along felt that her despair and her devotion are what got her through. In this telling, she doesn’t even remember fighting with Gideon, because she doesn’t remember Gideon at all, but it was still Gideon’s blood that saved her. SO UPSETTING ALL AROUND.
“‘I would have gone with a blood ward, personally,’ said Ianthe. ‘A blood ward is for those without imagination,’ said the astonishingly nude-faced girl. … ‘As I cannot reasonably expect not to bleed for the next myriad, I cannot rely upon a blood ward, and neither should you.’” (HtN 360) Love how she’s dissing John here—the most complex blood ward in the Nine Houses is on the Tomb, and she broke it.
“‘You never kept it secret from us. I always thought it was a little over the top. Teacher…you were always so fussy about never bleeding…but Cassiopeia told me a very interesting thing about blood wards, once. She always said that they should really be called cell wards, because they work of thalergetic enzymes…which can be spoofed with a substantial thanergy burst and the blood of a close relative. A parent. A child.’” (HtN 474) Gideon’s blood, on Harrow’s hands. The right thalergy, and powerful necromancy.^[ji]^[jj]
“I remember the time you caught me telling her, I love you, and I can’t even remember what you said, but I remember that I had you on your back—I put you straight on the fucking ground. I was always so much bigger and so much stronger. I got on top of you and choked you till your eyes bugged out. I told you that my mother had probably loved me a lot more than yours loved you. You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your fucking fingernails. When I let you go you couldn’t even stand, you just crawled away and threw up. Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? Was that the day you decided you wanted to die? You remember how the fuck-off great-aunts always used to say, Suffer and learn? If they were right, Nonagesimus, how much more can we take until you and me achieve omniscience?” (HtN 477)
“Pyrrha said, ‘We going in blind?’ ‘There is no light of electric or fat in this place,’ croaked out the old man. ‘There is no light but that which was given to us. Not before the rock and the Tomb. This is the palace you should not be travelling…none of us but the Daughter, and her cavalier.’ Nona could make out nothing in the darkness, but the corpse prince’s voice was unmistakable. ‘The Reverend Daughter has no cavalier living.’” (NtN 463) I’m fascinated by this no light diktat! So when Harrow opened the Tomb, every time she went in to work on the traps, she did it in the dark? And when Gideon saw her going in, that was in the dark too? I’m also interested in the addition of the cavalier here—Crux knows Ortus is dead, and he hates Gideon, why would he even bring up the cavalier primary? Is this traditional? If the Reverend Parents had opened the Tomb for some reason, would Mortus have been allowed in with them?
“They were standing in a huge room, a cathedral cave, with a great roundish cold stone rock placed at what was obviously the mouth of a tunnel leading away—a rock the size and height of a big car and probably the weight of multiple cars.” (NtN 464)
“Pyrrha was saying, ‘This isn’t the real entrance, right? It can’t be,’ and someone—the old soldier—was saying, ‘No. The true rock, so it is said, is down a corridor. But I can’t lift this—I’m no adept…’ An enormous sound. The rock, rolling away. A great grinding noise. Paul saying, ‘Not a problem,’ but the old man, hoarsely— ‘The traps…the thieves’ traps, the snares…’ Again, Paul: ‘Let me.’” (NtN 471)
“Paul’s voice again—Camilla’s voice, Palamedes’s voice—’Most of them are disabled. Neat work, whoever did it.’” (NtN 471) Nice work, Harrowhark.
“Maybe the body blacked out. The next thing she heard was Kiriona, urgently saying, ‘Take it. Take it from anywhere. Take all of it.’ ‘My lady,’ the old man was saying feebly. ‘My lady…my girl-child…’ ‘I don’t need all of it—but I need to keep it wet…’ Pyrrha was saying, ‘You can’t spoof this. Cass and Mercy and I worked on cell thanergy—we need thanergy, fresh thanergy, to activate…’” (NtN 471)
“‘Kill me,’ said Kiriona. ‘No. You’re dead,’ said Paul. ‘You won’t produce a reaction.’ ‘Me,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Take me and Gideon. If Wake had just asked me, I might’ve done it in the first place—died here, with her, for this…’ ‘Take me, you fools,’ said Crux.’” (NtN 472)
“There was a wet, meaty sound. The old man exhaled. It was dark. Then there was light, bright, cold, electrifying, like death; and the noise of another rock—slowly—agonizingly—grinding away.” (NtN 473)
This isn’t really about Harrow opening the Tomb, but I was rereading GtN and got to thinking. When she and Gideon are leaving the Ninth, Harrow says: “‘My mother and father will not be with you. My father has sealed shut the passageway to the tomb that must always be locked, and they have decided to continue their penitence behind that wall until I return.” I wonder if this means that before this point, there was just a door, and not an actual rock before the rock? Like, just a door with a lock that Harrow broke through at age nine, which Gideon saw her go through—and then when they were leaving for the First, she put her parents inside that door and sealed it up with a “false” rock, the one Ianthe and Kiriona have their confrontation in front of at the end of NtN? Either way, I had forgotten that at some point in that journey to get Nona inside to Alecto’s body, they must have passed by Harrow’s parents’ bodies. I wonder what state they’re in, after Harrow being away.
I’ve been wondering lately if some of the things I’ve quoted in this section might be a mislead. Or rather, if there are two secrets wrapped up in each other somehow: the fight Gideon remembers, her blood under Harrow’s fingernails, and then Harrow busts open the blood ward on the Tomb (which she’s been slowly working her way toward for a year), Gideon spots her and tattles, Harrow’s parents kill themselves, that’s all happening one thing right after the other.

Most references to their ages pinpoint them as age ten (Harrow) and age eleven (Gideon):

“She hadn’t executed it very well—her parents were fine from the shoulders up but from the shoulders down they were bad—though she had, admittedly, been ten.” (GtN 38)
“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. ‘I was eleven,’ said Gideon. ‘And here I am, narking all over again.’” (GtN 334)
“‘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?’ There was another pause, and Harrow looked down into the water. Limned by electric light, her pupils and her irises appeared the same colour. ‘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.’ She lifted her gaze. She held Gideon’s. ‘But you came back instead,’ said Gideon. ‘I’d told the Reverend Mother and Reverend Father what I’d seen you do. I killed your parents.’” (GtN 354-355)
“Instead you said: ‘I broke into the Locked Tomb.’ After a moment God said, ‘You did not.’ ‘The wards to the stone were easily bypassed,’ you said. ‘The line of Reverend Mothers and Reverend Fathers has been responsible for their upkeep for years. The barriers and gates beyond were more difficult. I was nine years old when I began, and ten by the time I could traverse the shaft. I spent a whole year working on nothing but those locks. When I came to the blood ward on the stone, the ward of the tomb-keeper, I did not know how to pass. It remains the most complex piece of magic I have ever seen. It was my first vision of the Necromancer Divine…but one day when I was ten years old I decided to end my own life, Lord, and sometimes I think it was that which let me cross the tomb-keeper’s gate. I opened it; I saw the saline water that laps the stony shore, and I walked into the sepulchre. I have seen the Tomb and I have looked upon your death. My parents killed themselves over my heresy. I saw what lies within, and I will love it beyond my own entombing. I— Did I sin, Lord? Did I kill two of my fathers that day?’” (HtN 348)
“I remember the time you caught me telling her, I love you, and I can’t even remember what you said, but I remember that I had you on your back—I put you straight on the fucking ground. I was always so much bigger and so much stronger. I got on top of you and choked you till your eyes bugged out. I told you that my mother had probably loved me a lot more than yours loved you. You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your fucking fingernails. When I let you go you couldn’t even stand, you just crawled away and threw up. Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? Was that the day you decided you wanted to die? You remember how the fuck-off great-aunts always used to say, Suffer and learn? If they were right, Nonagesimus, how much more can we take until you and me achieve omniscience?” (HtN 477)

The mentions of their ages as ten and eleven are pretty specific and clear about what’s happening. But there are other things I thought were references to the same set of events, that pin them as ages nine and ten respectively:

“Certainly, they would have known by ten that [Gideon] knew too much, and that she could never be allowed to go.” (GtN 24)
“She remembered when Harrow was nine, when she had walked in at just the wrong moment. She remembered that nine-year-old Harrow’s mouth falling slightly slack.” (GtN 209)

It seems possible that these are two moments in a very complicated series of books that just mistakenly have the wrong ages, or the ages were changed in the editing process and these two spots were missed. But I want to consider, for funsies, that maybe these two lines are referencing a different moment that hasn’t been revealed yet. They’re both vague enough that I assumed they referred to Harrow breaking into the Tomb and her parents dying. And they fit those moments! But they could be something else. The first one is in the context of Gideon narrating what the Ninth thought of her, and why they kept her; the second is a little more juicy, it’s when they’re investigating Pyrrha and G1deon’s room and Harrow is bargaining for Gideon’s trust. The Fifth have already died; the stakes are high; Gideon’s just had a vulnerable moment of grief and is trying not to show it, Harrow is trying to reach out to her. “In the thick dimness of the room she watched the black-garbed girl in front of her struggle around a thing that had settled over them like a net; a thing that had fused between them like a badly broken limb, shattered numerous times, healing gnarled and awful. Gideon recognized these strictures all of a sudden: the rope tying her to Harrow and back to the bars of the House of the Ninth. They stared at each other with shared panic.” (GtN 209) Their whole history is present to them in this moment, but it’s present to them specifically because they’re both trying in their own ways to carefully bridge the gap between them. I just wonder if this brings up something, for Gideon, that led to them being closer for a little while, instead of the events surrounding the Parents’ death, which Gideon later tells Pal “nothing had ever gone right” after. Maybe I’m taking my speculation too far in the absence of new information! But like all my weirdass theories, I’ll record it just in case I’m on to something lol.

Gideon and cavaliership

I am a little obsessed with this great meta about cavaliership as a kind of gender, and there’s something I am not smart enough to articulate in Gideon being queer, being butch, being a fucking fantastic cavalier, and constantly trying to figure out what cavaliership really means and should mean for her. Meanwhile Coronabeth, who wants to be a cavalier but can’t, and Jeannemary, who’s a baby queervalier, both seem to latch on to Gideon’s performance of cavalier as a goal. In a world where there seems to be zero homophobia and queerness is unremarkable, cavalierness feels in the same social category as gender or orientation are to us in the real world^[jk]^[jl].
“‘You’re the best swordsman that the Ninth House has produced—maybe ever. Can’t say. I never saw Nonius fight.’ ‘Yeah, you would have only been what, just born,’ said Gideon, whose heart was hurting keenly.” (GtN 54-55)

“‘But for the love of the Emperor, Griddle,’ she said gruffly, ‘you are something else with that sword.’ The blood all drained away from Gideon’s cheeks for some reason. The world spun off its axis. Bright spots sparked in her vision. She found herself saying, intelligently, ‘Mmf.’ ‘I was in the privileged position of feeling you fight,’ Harrow continued, fingers nervously flexing. ‘And it took me a while to work out what you were doing. Longer still to appreciate it. But I don’t think I’d ever really watched you, not in context…Well, all I can say is thank the Tomb that nobody knows you’re not really one of ours. If I didn’t know that, I’d be saying that you were Matthias Nonius come again or something equally saccharine.’” (GtN 182-183)

“‘Nothing stands between myself and Lyctorhood,’ said Harrowhark, ‘and you are not a part of the equation. Don’t get carried away by the Sixth’s ideas. The tests are not concerned with some frankly sickening rubric of sentiment and obedience; they’re testing me and me alone.’” (GtN 313) Harrow is hurt and angry here, and covering it with ice, but I really think she can see that the megatheorem idea might be right, that the necro-cav collaboration idea might be right, and she’s resisting it because she doesn’t want to use Gideon, doesn’t want Gideon to obey—she wants Gideon as a partner, and has told herself she can’t ever have that, so it’s painful any which way she slices it.

“Harrow was pleased, dimly, to see that for his main-gauche he carried his pannier, despite Aiglamene cutting up so rough at the idea; that felt appropriate. She had always desired a helpmeet^[jm]^[jn], not a circus performer.” (HtN 69) She’s revealing what she wants—a partner—and her biases—a knee-jerk dismissal of what a good swordswoman can do with her off-hand weapon—at the same time. A pointed Gideon-shaped absence.

“She descended the stairs and tipped her dark glasses high on her head. ‘A cav and their necro lived here,’ she said.” (GtN 207) I love that Gideon always puts cavs first. Lists the cavalier first here, learns Jeannemary’s name but not Isaac’s, is always taking note of her peers.

“She found herself laughing in that awful, high way that was totally devoid of humour. ‘Fuck. We don’t deserve to still be around—have you realised that yet? Have you realised that this whole thing has been about the union of necromancer and cavalier from start to finish? We should be toast. If they’re measuring this on the strength of that—we’re the walking dead. Magnus the Fifth was a better cavalier than I am. Jeannemary the Fourth was ten times the cavalier I am. They should be alive and we should be bacteria food.’” (GtN 312-313)

“‘I didn’t even see her move.’ Corona was breathing hard. ‘God, she’s fast.’” (GtN 116) - I feel like this moment is what Coronabeth remembers when she keeps Gideon’s rapier for herself in As Yet Unsent.

“Coronabeth spun to face her. Her stance was good: her eyes were very beautiful, like amethysts. ‘Have you ever seen a necromancer hold a sword before?’ she asked gaily. ‘No,’ said Gideon. … ‘Do you know, Ninth, I’ve always wanted to challenge you?’ This was said with a low, intense breathlessness, ruined by the addendum: ‘Babs said it was incredible.’” (GtN 326) This whole thing where Corona has a tiny duel with Gideon feels like flirting, like Corona is newly queer and has finally gotten up the courage to talk to that hot girl she’s into, except she’s experimenting with cavaliership with a cavalier who also doesn’t fit the mold and so is performing this cavalier gender in an appealing and more accessible way.
“Corona was breathing hard. For a moment Gideon thought that this was the necromancer weakness coming to bear—the lungs already sagging under the strain—but she realised that Corona was excited, and also very nervous. It was like the queenly, confident Corona of old, masked over badly damaged stuffing.” (GtN 327)
“‘Drop it,’ barked Naberius Tern. Not fucking likely, thought Gideon—but he skirted far around her reach, lunging past her to curl a hand hard around Corona’s forearm. His eyes were bugged out with alarm. He was in his undershirt, with his collection of rangy and sinuous muscles all being brought to bear on his princess. She sagged mutinously, like a child caught fist-deep in the lollies jar, and he was putting his arm around her. ‘You can’t,’ he was saying, and Gideon realised: he was also terrifically afraid. ‘You can’t.’” (GtN 327) Babs takes his job as beard for both twins extremely seriously.
“Coronabeth Tridentarius had already leapt to her feet and unsheathed a rapier you knew very well, and which froze you to the core to behold. It was a Ninth House rapier. The blade was black metal, with a plain guard and a hilt of the same colour. She stood before the mute shell that now constituted Deuteros, neatly at the ready with the rapier brandished and her left arm tucked behind her back.” (HtN 320) Corona’s been embracing her cavalier dream, with Gideon’s rapier, and the memory of Gideon’s butch and brash and unusual cavaliership, supporting her.
“When the princess and I looked down at her face, clean of her House’s ritual cosmetics, I envied the dead cavalier her incorruptibility. The princess reached over to touch one dead cheek, whimsically smoothing the red hair. I didn’t envy the dead cavalier that. The princess said to me, I have her rapier, you know. I picked it up that day I went to find you; I found it in the skeleton rubble. The Cell Commander says to keep it locked up, but I’ve got it. I didn’t want them to throw it out. When I told her that even a dead cavalier still had rights to their sword, she said, Oh, I don’t think she’d mind. The Ninth was sweet. She was never anything but nice to me. Then the princess said unnecessarily, She was yummy, too. Fantastic body. Makes a beautiful corpse. Don’t you think she looks just like a body in a picture book? I said, She looks like someone who died fighting.” (HtN 550 - AYU) Corona is ready to step into cavaliership now, and takes Gideon’s rapier because, I think, Gideon is part of what got her to the place she’s in now with her identity, just by being Gideon. Yummy and sweet and a good but fumbling cav.

“Jeannemary had risen to stand. She was a brown, bricklike young thing, Gideon had noticed, seemingly all corners: her eyes were alight, and her voice was piercing when she said: ‘That’s how I want to fight. I don’t want to spend all my time in show bouts. I want to fight like a real cavalier, as though my life’s on the line.’” (GtN 121)

“Isaac came to rest in front of the incinerator, beside Jeannemary the Fourth. He had looked stolid and dead, as though what was going on inside him had built up a thick crust, like a volcano; Jeannemary looked like a malfunctioning electric wire. You could practically see the sparks. Her rapier was naked, and she was pacing between the incinerator and the edge, every so often whirling around in a fit as though someone might attack her from behind. Gideon was beginning to admire her sheer animal readiness. When she saw the gang of idiots that her necromancer had brought her, she was intensely displeased. ‘I wanted the Ninth and Princess Coronabeth,’ she said. Her voice cracked. ‘Everyone tagged along,’ said Isaac. ‘I didn’t want to leave you—I didn’t want to leave you alone.’” (GtN 250)
“Jeannemary put her arm around his shoulder and pressed her sweat-streaked brown forehead to his, and both sighed defeated sighs in concert. The solace they were taking in each other was the bruising, private solace between necromancer and cavalier,a nd Gideon was embarrassed to be audience to it.” (GtN 253)
“The bleary necromantic teen looked to his bleary cavalier. Jeannemary said immediately, ‘We’ll go with the Ninth. She’s all right. The stories about the Ninth House seem probably bullshit, anyway.’ She’s all right? Gideon’s heart billowed, despite the fact that she had her own suspicions as to why her necromancer didn’t want her sitting with Dulcinea Septimus, and they were all extremely petty.” (GtN 274)
“Jeannemary sidled up alongside Gideon, rather shyly. Isaac was parasitically drifting with her: he was in the process of braiding her curly hair safely up with a tatty blue ribbon. She said, ‘Have you two been paired a very long time?’ (‘Don’t just ask them that,’ her necromancer hissed. ‘It’s a weird thing to ask.’ ‘Shut up! It was just a question!’) Gideon contemplated the growing braid, and the sight of Palamedes squeezing the noxious contents of a blue dropper into Camilla’s wound, and Camilla kneeing him with beautiful abruptness in the thigh. Harrowhark lurked next to them, pointedly not looking at Gideon, head hidden deep inside her second-best hood. She still didn’t understand what she was meant to do or think or say: what duty really meant, between a cavalier and a necromancer, between a necromancer and a cavalier. ‘It feels like forever,’ she said honestly.” (GtN 275-276)

“Holy shit. Here was a warrior, not just a cavalier. Gideon was suddenly fighting for her life and exhilarated by it. … Gideon descended like an avenging necrosaint as she rose—slicing down in a winging cut that would have destroyed the blade given a longsword and the right footing, just for the pleasure of seeing her partner duck, huff between her teeth with exertion. Her sword met the other cavalier’s dagger and she pressed, both leaning hard into the blow. The cav in grey’s eyes were only mildly surprised. ‘Camilla!’ She only distantly registered the call. Gideon was stronger; the girl’s arm was buckling—she brought up her rapier to harass Gideon’s blocking arm, stabbing at the ebon cuff of the knuckle-knife, the tiny torch spotlight wavering drunkenly from face to face, turning their pupils into big black wells— ‘Camilla the Sixth, disengage!’” (GtN 133-134) This might be the sexiest fight in the book.
“The smile she got in return had no dimples. It was strangely tender—as Dulcinea was always strangely tender with her—as though they had always shared some delicious secret. ‘You’re wrong there,’ she said. ‘If you want to know what I think…I think that you’re a cavalier worthy of a Lyctor. I want to see that, what you’d become. I wonder if the Reverend Daughter even knows what she has in you?’” (GtN 295) This is a lot! Cytherea knows what this actually means, what becoming a Lyctor means for the cavalier—but she also clearly knows whose child Gideon is, and so knows that perfect Lyctorhood is possible. I really think part of her plan is to push Harrow and Gideon into Lyctorhood in the hopes that they will kill John. Otherwise what has all this casual “training” in cavaliership been for, other than maybe a fun little fantasy for Cytherea?
“‘The Reverend Daughter has no cavalier living.’” (NtN 463) She lost a piece of her identity when Harrow cut her off, what she saw as her purpose!
“‘Dad won’t be immortal anymore, but he says he doesn’t care about that, and I believe him, Tridentarius…I’ll be his cavalier. I’m the First. Hell, I’m his child and heir. Isn’t this the neatest way?’” (NtN 468) Now she wants that piece of her identity back!
“‘Kill me,’ said Kiriona. ‘No. You’re dead,’ said Paul. ‘You won’t produce a reaction.’” (NtN 472) Still trying to die for Harrow though…

Unpacking the dinner:

“‘--the juicy part is the sarcotesta. Good, aren’t they? There’s a red seed apple growing in the greenhouse. Have you seen the greenhouses?--’” (GtN 172) Is this Abigail, who cooked the dish, or Magnus, given that Abigail talks later? Also I’m a little obsessed with an apparently thriving greenhouse somewhere in this crumbling castle, in which a POMEGRANATE TREE IS GROWING. Even aside from the text calling it a seed apple, some scholarship posits that the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that Adam and Eve eat in the Garden of Eden could be translated as a pomegranate. This also resonates for me, of course, with the myth of Persephone, and the pomegranate Hades gave her to eat to trap her in the underworld. Is this throwaway line going to connect with Blood of Eden??
“‘--in keeping with Ottavian custom for a necromancer’s fast until evening, which includes—’” (GtN 172) Is this Silas, or Colum? “Ottavian” suggests Eighth House. But Gideon runs into them in the dining hall, so Silas isn’t fasting during the day, he “can’t eat with your kind around” (GtN 103) at her early lunchtime.
“‘--which failed to fix the drive, which failed to get her back to the system in time, which meant I spent the first nine months wrapped in house dirt—’” (GtN 172) This is Judith! We find out from her intelligence files in the back of the GtN paperback that she was “born interstellar.” (GtN 456)
“‘--interesting question,’ Palamades was saying at Gideon’s right. ‘You might say that Scholar recognizes the specialist, and Warden recognizes the duty, which is why Master Warden is the higher rank. Taken in the sense of the supervisor and, if you think about it another way, the sense of the prison. D’you know what we call the internal jaws of a lock?--’” (GtN 172-173) I do NOT know what he calls the internal jaws of a lock, I tried to Google this with no success, please Palamades, explain your joke to me. Also—so as Master Warden, he’s the jailer of the Library? LMAO^[jo]^[jp]
“Opposite, Dulcinea murmured to Abigail: ‘I think that is a perfect shame.’ ‘Thank you. We’re over it; it simply wasn’t in our cards,’ the necromancer said, a bit bracingly. ‘My younger brother’s the next in line. He’ll do well. It gives me more time to collate the manuscript, which I’ve been married to longer than I have to Magnus.’” (GtN 173) So Abigail and Magnus can’t have children of their own, which Judith confirms in her intelligence files. This makes me have so many feelings about their relationship with the Fourth and with Gideon and later with Harrow.
“‘Canaan House is a holy grail! What we know about the Lyctors is tremendously antiseptic. I’ve actually found what I think are unencrypted communiqués between—’ Even with Dulcinea Septimus making the intense eyelash bat of What you are doing and saying is so fascinating to me, Dulcinea Septimus, Gideon knew a boring conversation when she heard one.” (GtN 173) There’s SO MUCH HERE. I love that “holy grail” has survived post-Resurrection, in this culture that is so clearly modeled on Christianity from both Watsonian and Doylist perspectives, but also this world is totally cut off from those stories so I doubt the source of this idiom survives. Also of course this is the line of conversation that gets the Fifth killed; Cytherea can’t afford to let Abigail find any photos or other evidence that would give her away. Also? I LOVE that Gideon interprets Dulcinea’s fascination as put on for politeness but does not suspect this has been putu on for her, when actually Cyth’s attention here is real and her attention to Gideon is not all it seems on the surface. Gideon, seeing the dots but never connecting them.
“The mayonnaise uncle was talking to the anaemic twin, his probably future bride. ‘I was removed by…surgical means,’ Ianthe was saying calmly, her long fingers toying with the stem of her glass. ‘My sister is a few minutes older.’ The white-kirtled young uncle was not eating. He had taken a few priggish sips of wine, but spent most of his time with his hands folded quietly over each other and staring. … ‘Your parents,’ he said, in his unexpectedly deep and sonorous voice, ‘risked intervention?’ ‘Yes. Corona, you see, had removed my source of oxygen.’ ‘A wasted opportunity, I’d think.’ ‘I don’t live alternate histories. Corona’s birth put my survivability somewhere around definite nil.’” (GtN 174)

I find this conversation a little hard to parse. I get that Corona was probably born vaginally and then Ianthe was removed by C-section. The oxygen thing is a little confusing; normally twins each have their own umbilical cord, which provides the oxygen. If they shared a placenta, it’s entirely possible that Corona got more nutrients on her side of it than Ianthe did, but I think that’s more of a developmental thing than a thing that is dangerous just at the time of birth…maybe Ianthe’s umbilical cord was pinched^[jq]^[jr]^[js]^[jt]? But that wouldn’t necessarily have to do with Corona being born. Anyway, I wonder if I’m just getting too into this or if it will come back. Also, is Silas’ comment supposed to imply that they wasted the opportunity to let one twin die?^[ju]^[jv] Is this part of the “twins are an ill omen” thing? Is the Third not in the same population decline as other Houses seem to be? Also also, Silas isn’t eating, is he opposite-fasting??

“‘This is going to be a weird question,’ said Jeannemary. Gideon dropped her arm and tilted her head quizzically. A little bit of blood drained from the teen’s face, and Gideon almost felt sorry for her: hood and paint and robes on the priesthood around her had put her off dinners at the same age. But the teen stuck her awful courage to its sticking place, breathed out hard through her teeth, and blurted very quietly: ‘Ninth…how big are your biceps?’” (GtN 175) JEANNEMARY PLEASE. Baby cavaqueer looking up to Gideon as the cool butch older teen means everything to me. Also, love the Macbeth reference.
“Someone touched Gideon’s hand, very lightly, as though afraid of startling her. It was Dulcinea, who had taken refuge in a chair; she was shifting her hips a little awkwardly in the hard wooden seat with the tiny, restless motions Gideon suspected she made when she was sore. She looked tired, and older than usual; but her pink mouth was still very pink, and her eyes alight with illicit amusement. ‘Are your biceps huge,’ she said, ‘or are they just enormous? Ninth, please tick the correct box.’ Gideon made sure her necromancer couldn’t see her, and then made a rude gesture. Dulcinea laughed her silvery laugh, but it was sleepy somehow, quiet. She pointed serenely to a spot next to her seat and Gideon obligingly squatted there on her haunches. Dulcinea was breathing a little harder. She was wearing a filmy, foam-coloured dress and Gideon could see her ribs expand beneath it, like a shocked animal’s.” (GtN 176) A lot happening here too! Cytherea IS tired, she’s been puppeting Pro in awkward conversation with Harrow, as well as attending to her own conversations and trying to figure out what to do about the new threat Abigail presents. This is also an incredible example of Cyth “training” Gideon in cavaliership via courtly love-style seduction, and I hate it, and I love it.
“Dulcinea murmured, ‘Oh, Gideon the Ninth, the Houses are arranged so badly…full of suspicion after a whole myriad of peaceable years. What do they compete for? The Emperor’s favor? What does that look like? What can they want? It’s not as though they haven’t all gotten fat off our Cohort prizes…mostly. I have been thinking about all that, lately, and the only conclusion I can come to is…’” (GtN 177) I have trouble making sense of this too, though maybe it will come clear later on. I’m interested in “not as if they haven’t all gotten fat off our Cohort prizes…” Who is the they, and who is the our?^[jw]^[jx] Our meaning the Seventh, because dying women make great necromancers? They meaning the other Houses? Also I wonder if her conclusion is that she has come to understand whatever John’s real plans and goals are.

The labs, the keys, the rooms:

The facility hub lists Laboratories one through ten. Why Ten? Ten labs, but eight original necro-cav pairs excluding John and Alecto, and Lyctorhood is achieved by the Eightfold word. Does John have a lab?
“‘A challenge taken purely as a necromantic exercise,’ said Harrow calmly, ‘suggests many things, but reveals none. Only the underlying theorem can lay bare the mystery.’” (GtN 271) Except I don’t think Harrow has this right! The theorems are interesting and powerful necromancy, but the challenges are what actually teach the skills needed to ascend, as Ianthe proves. Which makes me wonder why the whole thing was designed this way, or how intentionally it was designed to begin with.
Second House

Laboratory Two^[jy]^[jz] - #1-2 Transference/Winnowing and Datacenter - Possibly teaches the fifth step of the megatheorem, incorporate the soul.

“Above the sterile metal door was the more familiar sight of a mounted skull, probably once painted red but now tarry brown. It had lost its jaw at some point and seemed all front teeth.” (GtN 154) - Red for Second House
“This room—more spacious, more elongated—gave the distinct impression of having been ransacked. It was ringed with broad metal desks, and the walls were pockmarked with empty electrical sockets. There were shelves and shelves that must one have contained books and files and folders, but now only contained a lot of dust; there were discoloured places on the walls where things must have been tacked up and had since been taken down. It was a naked and empty room. One wall was windowed all along its length to let you see into the chamber ahead, and that wall hada door in it marked with two things: one, a sign on the front saying RESPONSE, and two, a little plaque on the top marked OCCUPIED. … The other wall—filled with brackets to prop up books that had long since been removed—had a door too, and this one was labelled: IMAGING. The Imaging door had the same plaque as Response, but with a little red light instead. Imaging also had a little plex window whose outside was smeared with bloody handprints.” (GtN 154-155)

The key - held by Harrow and Gideon

“Two keys now dangled there in triumph: the upper hatch key, and their new prize. They both admired them for a long moment. The new key was chunky and solid, and dyed a deep, juicy scarlet.” (GtN 181)

Gideon and Pyrrha’s room

“Bracketed by heavy pillars, set with forbidding stone supports, the overall effect was not exactly welcoming. The door itself was a crossbar of black stone set in a bevelled frame of the same. A weird relief was carved above the lintel, set within a moulded panel. … The relief was five little circles joined with lines, in no pattern that Gideon recognised. Below this sat a solid stone beam with carved leaves swagged horizontally from one end to the other. At the apex of each swag was carved an animal’s skull with long horns, which curved inward into wicked points that almost met. Slim columns reached up to support this weird stone bunting, and wound around each column was something carved to seem writing and alive—a fat slithering thing, bulging and animal. Gideon reached out to touch the intricately carved marble and felt tiny overlapping scales, touched the seam where its ridged underbelly met its back. It was very cold.” (GtN 96-97) There’s so much here.

I cannot for the life of me make sense of the “five little circles joined with lines.” Why five? This is the Second House’s room. Gideon was the third Lyctor. Five for the sun and four planets between the sun and Mars, which I think is where the Second House is? Sun-Mercury-Venus-Earth-Mars? Is it the constellation Aries, which is sometimes drawn with five stars, but also sometimes four or six or a bunch more?
What is the horned animal skull? Is it a ram skull, because Mars is the planet that rules Aries in the zodiac? Or maybe it’s a bull, like worshipping a golden calf, if it’s not unique to this room? There are lots of religious-leader-symbols around John and his Lyctors.

“Gideon flipped another page. There was a pencil sketch of an animal’s skull with long horns. The horns curved inward into points that almost touched but not quite, and the sockets were deep holes of black pencil lead. An electric thrill of recognition ran through her. ‘I’ve seen this before,’ she said.” (GtN 150) Again, is this skull specific to the Second House?
FUCK, are these skulls from John’s horrible cow and sheep barrier??

Are these animals on the columns snakes? Dragons^[ka]^[kb]? Why? I hope we get to find out. If Canaan House is kind of a Garden of Eden, maybe these are snakes?
“She said irascibly, ‘at the key, moron, not at me.’ The moron looked at the key, but did give her the middle finger. Harrow was holding the thing upside down for inspection. At the butt end, where the teeth terminated, a tiny carving had been made in the metal. It was a collection of dots joined together with a line and two half circles. ‘It’s the sign on my door,’ said Gideon. ‘You mean—X-203?’ ‘Yeah, I mean that, if you’re talking in moonspeak,’ said Gideon.” (GtN 203) I still can’t make sense of the dots and line, now with half circles also?

“Tacked up over one bench were thick sheaves of flimsy, dark with graphs and models: one of the flimsies was a rough drawing of a familiar chimera, many armed, armour ribbed, squat skulled.” (GtN 205) The construct that was in Lab Two!
“There was a blown-up picture on the wall—a lithograph, or a polymer photograph—of a group of people clustered around a table. Their faces had all been scribbled out with a thick black marker pen.” (GtN 205) Scribbled out by Cytherea?
“It took Gideon a long time to realise that she was looking at something goddamn ancient: it was a blowback carbine gun. She’d only ever seen pictures.” (GtN 205) I like the gun interest that connects Pyrrha and Wake, a vibe and kind of violence that links them.
“On the table was a teapot and two cups that lay abandoned forever.” (GtN 205) This is just so sweetly domestic, and also I wonder if this tea set is from Cassy’s collection.^[kc]^[kd]
“On the nightstand was another lamp, and debris that people had never cleared up. A very old watch. An empty glass. A filament-fine silver bracelet with no clasp. A shallow, greasy glass dish full of grey stuff like ashes. Gideon could tell they weren’t cremains, and when she touched them a strong scent clung to her fingers.” (GtN 206) Could be a reference, could just be my association, but this list makes me think of “21 Love Poems IX” by Adrienne Rich, which is a good poem for Gideon and Pyrrha I think. Also I love that Gideon (Nav) can’t identify what’s clearly cigarette ash in a glass ashtray, just another fun little reminder that this world is so different from ours. It makes me think of being a young queer and hating that my girlfriend smoked but loving the tobacco smell on her fingers when she came back inside.
“‘The Second House study contained a full and perfect explanation of the theorem which had been used to articulate the construct. Having studied the theorem, any halfway competent necromancer would be able to reproduce its effects. I now possess the competencies required to ride another living soul. I’m perhaps even more interested in what I’ve learned from the theorem behind the concept.’” (GtN 212) Is this the case with every lab and study combo, that the test teaches a skill needed for ascending (here, “riding another soul”) and the study teaches an unrelated theorem (here it’s regenerating bone)?

Third House

Laboratory Three (presumably) - Not yet seen - Possibly teaches step six of the megatheorem, consume the flesh. It seems like this was the first trial Pal and Cam tackled, or maybe just the first one they did that nobody else had done? But given that they already have it when Gideon first meets them, and up to that point possibly only they and Harrow and maybe Silas had even gone down the hatch, I think this being their first trial is a decent guess. Given that, it’s fun to me that the consumption step comes back very subtly in NtN, when Paul is born, and Cam consumes some of Pal’s remains to kick things off.
The key - held by Pal and Cam

“As he squatted beside her, smelling like dust and mould, she could see that a long key had been put through the loop and was clanking there untidily. There was another, smaller key dangling off to one side, gleaming golden, with an elaborately carved shank and deep pockmarks instead of cuts in the shaft.” (GtN 137)

Cyrus and Valancy’s room - Not yet seen

Fourth House

Laboratory Four (presumably) - Not yet seen - Possibly teaches step three of the megatheorem, absorb the soul.
The key - Never seen, held by Pal and Cam (he says they have three keys - GtN 309)
Ulysses and Titania’s room - Not yet seen

Fifth House

Laboratory Five (presumably) - Not yet seen - Possibly teaches step seven of the megatheorem, reconstruction.
The key - Never seen, held by Pal and Cam (he says they have three keys - GtN 309)
Augustine and Alfred’s room - Not yet seen

Sixth House

Laboratory Six (presumably) - Cassiopeia and Nigella’s trial - Possibly this trial teaches the second step of the megatheorem, analyze the soul.

“Palamedes was saying in his explanation voice: ‘It’s not as though I didn’t complete this challenge by lunchtime, though I had a distinct advantage. It was a psychometrical challenge. The main difficulty was working out what the challenge wanted in the first place: it was set up by someone with an obscure sense of humour. It was just a room with a table, a locked box, and a single molar. … I know every single thing there is to know about that tooth. Mandibular second, deciduous eruption, vitamin deficiency, male, died in his sixties, flossed obediently, never left the planet. Died in this selfsame tower. … I had tracked the tooth. It told me nothing—no spiritual links to any part of the building. It was a black hole. It was as though the body it came from had never been alive. No ghost remnants, nothing—this is impossible, you understand, it meant the spirit had somehow been removed entirely. So I did some old-fashioned detective work. … I looked upstairs for the skeleton with the missing upper molar. He wouldn’t come down with me, but he did let me make a plaster impression of his clavicle. The clavicle! Someone was having a joke. Anyway, you can imagine my reaction when I unlocked the box with it and found it empty.’” (GtN 365-366) There’s a lot here!! This one is not as clearly a test of necro and cav together, though Pal does say in the full text that Cam was the one who took over when he wasn’t getting anywhere. It feels very reminiscent of The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex—the puzzle, the Sherlocking, the teamwork of Pal getting too into the details and Cam giving him the breakthrough. Also we get interesting info here about the skeletons, as we’re about to find out that they’re revenants. Also, the joke!! “Clavicle” comes from the Latin “clavicula” meaning “little key.” (Wikipedia) I had a vague sense of this, but looking it up confirmed. The clavicle is the key to open the box and get the room key! Very Sixth House. I like Cassiopeia.

The key - held by Dulcinea/Cytherea, then by Silas and Colum

“Gideon instinctively put an arm around her shoulders, steading her so that the crutches did not give way, and found herself looking down where the edge of Dulcinea’s shirt met her bulging collarbones. A fine chain around her neck supported a rather less delicate bundle hanging tucked into her camisole: Gideon only saw them for a second, but she knew immediately what they were. The key ring was snapped around the chain, and on the key ring were two keys: the saw-toothed hatch key, and a thick grey key with unpretentious teeth, the kind you’d lock a cabinet with.” (GtN 217) So Cytherea, early on in the plot, went to the trouble of getting the Sixth House key (gray). Why that one? Because she knows Cassy’s study will give away Teacher and the priests and skeletons? Does she actually do whatever that test is, or can she just grab whatever key she wants whenever she wants it?
“Silas felt about in his pocket and raised his hand to display its contents. It was one of the iron key rings, and on it were two keys, one grey, one a familiar white.” (GtN 258)

Cassiopeia and Nigella’s room

“They were standing outside a laboratory door that Gideon had never seen. This one had not been hidden, just very inconveniently placed, at the topmost accessible point of the tower: it took more stairs than Gideon’s knees had ever wanted, and was situated plainly at the end of a terrace corridor where the sun slanted in through broken windows.” (GtN 361)
“This Lyctoral door was the same as the others had been—gaping obsidian eye sockets in carved obsidian temporal bones: black pillars and no handle, and a fretwork symbol to differentiate it from the other two doors Gideon had seen. This one looked like three rings, joined on a line.”^[ke]^[kf] (GtN 361) I’m still so pissed that I don’t understand these visuals. Why three rings on a line? This is the Sixth House door, Cassy was the fourth saint, Mercury is first from the sun…there are no threes involved anywhere. PLEASE I NEED TO KNOW
“This Lyctoral lab was an open-plan bomb wreck. There were three long lab tables covered in old, disused tools, splotches of what looked to be russet fungus, abandoned beakers, and used-up pens. The floor underfoot was hairy carpet, and in one corner there was a hideous, slithery tangle of what Gideon realised must be sleeping bags. In another corner, an ancient chin-up bar sagged in the middle alongside a strip of towel left to hang for a myriad. Everywhere there were bits of paper or shaken-out clothes, as though somebody had left the place in a hurry or had simply been an unbelievable slob.” (GtN 364-365) I’m still not sure why this room is a tip but not others. Why is Gideon and Pyrrha’s room so well-preserved, when this one has clearly been aging? Did Cassy just not bother to seal it in the same way? That seems maybe out of character for Sixth House, but who knows. Also, I am caught on every reading by the sleeping bags. Who all was camping out in here? Why?
Re: the skeletons - “‘They are autonomously powering themselves. It debunks every piece of thanergy theory I ever learned. … It still doesn’t explain why there’s no energy signature on the bones, though. Anyway, this is the laboratory of the Lyctor who created them—and here’s their theory.’ Much like the one back in the other laboratory, the theorem was carved into a big stone slab pinned down in a disty back corner and covered up with loose-leaf flimsy.” (GtN 366) So…the skeletons have no energy signature because they are the remains of people whose souls were stripped away for the 500 into 50 thing, right? And then new souls were attached to these blank bones as revenants, to create the skeleton servants. I think.
“Resting on the edge of the stone set into the table, there was a tooth. Palamedes picked it up. It was a premolar, with long and horrible roots; it was brown with age. He handed it to Harrow, who gently unfolded it in the way that only a bone magician could and in the way that always made Gideon’s jaw hurt. She turned it into a long ribbon of enamel, an orange with the skin taken off and flattened, a three-dimensional object turned two-dimensional. Written on the tooth in tiny, tiny letters was this: FIVE HUNDRED INTO FIFTY. IT IS FINISHED!” (GtN 367) I’m putting a bit about the Bible references here into the Christian and Catholic References section, but I want to note that this is Cassy’s room and clearly Cassy’s work, but Palamedes hands the tooth to Harrow to unspool because Harrow’s the bone adept. We know Cassy and Anastasia were working closely—did Anastasia set up this hidden message?
“She had opened up a ring-binder untidy with pages. Inside were an array of old flimsy lithographs, the black-and-white kind. On the very first page there was a faded note that had once been yellow, the letters still legible in a short, curt hand: CONFIRMED INDEPENDENTLY HIGHLIGHTED / BEST OPTION / ASK E.J.G. / YRS, ANASTASIA. / P.S. GIVE ME BACK MY CALIPERS I NEED THEM. … The overexposure did not disguise a head-and-shoulders photo of the man they all called Teacher, bright blue eyes a desaturated sepia, still smiling from a lifetime away. He looked not a day older or younger. And his photograph had been ringed around in a black marker pen.” (GtN 368) This is where we learn that Teacher and the rest were mainly Cassy’s work, clearly along with Anastasia, and maybe others given all the sleeping bags in the room. Also, “E.J.G.” - Emperor John Gaius?

Seventh House

Laboratory Seven (presumably) - Not yet seen - Possibly teaches step four of the megatheorem, fix the soul in place.

“She’d known before Harrow had rolled him over that before them lay the sad, crumpled corpse of Magnus Quinn, jumbled up with the sad, crumpled corpse of Abigail Pent.” (GtN 184) At this point in the chronology, Magnus and Abigail have completed the challenge in, I presume, Laboratory Seven, and the key they won to Cytherea and Loveday’s room is hidden inside Abigail’s body.

The key - held by Abigail and Magnus, then Cytherea (who hid it in Abigail’s body), until Ianthe took it from Abigail’s body.

“‘--three inches long, metal, shaft, teeth—’ ‘A key,’ said Silas. ‘But that’s insane,’ said Gideon. ‘Someone wanted to hide that key very badly—it may have been Lady Pent herself,’ said Palamedes. … ‘Or it may have been the person who killed her. There is one room that someone has made every attempt to keep us from. Octakiseron, this wasn’t defilement for the sake of defilement, it was someone breaking open a lockbox.’” (GtN 377)

Cytherea and Loveday’s room - Seventh House

“The great Lyctoral door behind it—with its black pillars and its carved horned skulls, its graven images and grim stone—was not particularly well hidden. In all respects, it was a nearly exact match for the other Lyctoral door Gideon had seen. But Harrow sucked in her breath. She went to the lock, and then Gideon saw why: it had been filled in with some hard, tarry grey stuff, like putty or cement. Someone had deliberately tampered with the keyhole. Part of the putty had been chipped away at the bottom, with great gouges taken out of it, but otherwise it seemed depressingly solid.” (GtN 306) Several points here: the horned animal skulls are not just a Second House door thing, which is interesting. Also, I wonder again why Cytherea particularly doesn’t want anyone to see her room. Is she worried that something in there will give away her deception?^[kg]^[kh]
“The other two laboratories Gideon had seen were caves. They were practical places to work and sleep and train and eat, homely at best, cheerless at worst, laboratories in the real sense of the word. This room was something else. It had been light and airy, once. The floors were made of varnished wood, and the walls were great white-washed panels. The panels had been painted lovingly, a long time ago, with a sprawling expanse of fanciful things: white-skinned trees with pale purple blossoms trailing into orange pools, golden clouds thick with flying birds. The room was sparsely furnished—a few broad desks with pots of neatly arranged pencils and books; a polished marble slab with a tidy array of knives and pairs of scissors; what looked to be an ancient chest freezer; some rolled-up mattresses and embroidered quilts, decaying in an open locker at one end.” (GtN 380) This definitely fits with “don’t smear my lipstick, Lord” Cytherea. Who painted these murals? Nigella? According to NtN, she was an artist! What was the chest freezer for? How much of this room was Loveday’s doing, making Cyth comfortable?
“On one of the sweetly painted frescoes, fresh paint marred the blossom-decked trees. Over them, on the wall, black words a foot high proclaimed: YOU LIED TO US.” (GtN 380) This is interesting to me. Cytherea painted these words. Very recently, after meeting Gideon and knowing what her eyes meant? Also interesting that she has left this message clearly for John, and is trying to lure him here, but perhaps has always been prepared to die as part of that plan—because why would she need to leave John this message if she could just say so to his face?

“Palamedes had moved to the wall behind Ianthe, flanking her. She did not even bother to turn or notice. She just curled in on herself. Behind Sextus, YOU LIED TO US stretched out in vast array.” (GtN 383) Is Pal purposefully trying to find out who wrote this message?
“Palamedes opened his mouth as though to answer this question; but he had bumped against something on the back wall, and had gone still. Gideon had never known him to be still. He was a creature of sudden movement and twitchy fingers. Camilla was watching him with obvious suspicion; one of his thumbs was tracing the edge of a black-painted letter, but the rest of his body was rigid. He looked as though someone had turned his power switch off.” (GtN 384) He’s putting it all together, right in this moment. Cytherea, and how to defeat her. He’s already planning his death.

Eighth House

Laboratory Eight - #14-8 Diversion. Procedural Chamber. Avulsion! - Possibly teaches step eight of the megatheorem, get the power flowing.

“There were hooks on the walls here, and a bunch of old, crumpled boxes made of thin metal, the type you might carry files in; these were dented and empty. Someone had taken the time and effort to affix a beautiful swirl of human teeth above the door in a widening spiral of size: in the centre, the neat little shovels of incisors, tessellated with arched canines and ringed all around with the long, racine tusks of molars.” (GtN 217)
“Laboratory Eight opened up on an enormous grate. A lattice of thick black steel barred the first part of the room from the second, which—espied through the holes—proved to be a long space with a claustrophobic ceiling. It was like stepping into a pipe. The door led to a metal platform on struts and a short flight of stairs leading down into the space, barred by the huge grate. The Seventh necromancer went to the wall and flicked a switch, and with a low vibrating moan, the grate slowly began to tuck itself up into the ceiling. With the removal of the grate, the room seemed enormously grey and empty. Only two things broke up the vast monotony of grey metal and white light: far off at the other end of the chamber was a metal plinth, boxed on top with what looked like clear glass or plex; and at the bottom of the stairs, about a metre away from its base, was a yellow-and-black-striped line that had been painted horizontally from wall to wall.” (GtN 218)
“‘You can’t have two spells with coterminous bounds. It’s impossible.’ ‘But true. They’re really coterminous—not just interwoven or spliced. It’s truly delicious work. The people who set it in place were geniuses.’” (GtN 219) What was Cytherea’s relationship with Mercy and Cristabel like?

The key - held by Harrow and Gideon, then given to Dulcinea/Cytherea, then taken by Silas and Colum.

“The key appeared in Harrow’s other hand, shining silvery white, austerely plain with a single loop for a head and three simple teeth on the shaft. ‘Nice,’ said Gideon. She rummaged in an inner pocket and removed the ring; the key slid next to the hatch key and red Response key with an untidy musical tinkle.” (GtN 230) White austerity for the Eighth House.
“She said, ‘Wake up, assmunch, I want to yell at you about keys,’ but this imperative did not have the desired effect. ‘The white key is now with your precious Septimus, as per the agreement,’ snapped Harrow, then pulled the covers over her head. ‘Now go away and shrivel.’ ‘This does not satisfy me, Nonagesimus.’ Harrow slithered more deeply underneath the covers like a bad black snake, and refused to get up.” (GtN 247) I think this is when Harrow has found twice-murdered Protesilaus and squirreled the head away in her closet, and it must fucking burn her to have had to give the key to Dulcinea afterward.
“Silas felt about in his pocket and raised his hand to display its contents. It was one of the iron key rings, and on it were two keys, one grey, one a familiar white.” (GtN 258)

Mercymorn and Cristabel’s room - Not yet seen

Ninth House

Laboratory Nine (presumably) - Not yet seen. Possibly teaches the first step of the megatheorem: preserve the soul. Interesting that this is the only trial Silas and Colum do, I think, and he’s so turned off by it somehow that he doesn’t do any others and decides not to become a Lyctor. Is that because he’s morally allergic to Ninth house things, or because he could tell the way this was all heading just from this first step?
The key - held by Silas and Colum

“The chain mail-kirtled boy tossed the ring to his cavalier, who caught it out of the air and fished his own heavy key ring out of his pocket. Gideon noticed that their ring held a facility key and one other, in black wrought iron with curlicues.” (GtN 259)

Anastasia and Samael’s room - Not yet seen

Lyctorhood

The Eightfold Word: Is it a single word? Is it eight words? Is it “preserve, analyse, absorb, fix, incorporate, consume, reconstruct, power”?

“Easier now, to recall it. A litany. The same singsong recitation as the Eightfold Word. It could almost live apart from suffering.” (HtN 382) So it was actually something that requires recitation.

Ianthe’s explanation of the steps, some well-reasoned guesses provided by One Flesh One End podcast ep 18, and my thoughts if they differ are in the quick reference doc!
“One for the Emperor, first of us all; One for his Lyctors, who answered the call; One for his Saints, who were chosen of old; One for his Hands, and the swords that they hold.” (HtN 9) Interesting the way this seems to divide Lyctors into Saints^[ki]^[kj]^[kk]^[kl] (the necros) and Hands (the cavs).
“The Emperor drummed his fingertips atop the plain coffin, and he said, a little whimsically: ‘Why have we not an immortal soul? I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day.’” (HtN 40) This is from The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen; a few lines later in the conversation, the mermaid’s grandmother tells her she can’t get a soul “unless a man were to love you so much that you were more to him than his father or mother; and if all his thoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and the priest placed his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here and hereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you would obtain a share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen.” This feels like a kind of Lyctorhood, but it’s not framed as an exchange—the man’s soul would fill in the empty space of the unsouled mermaid, and they’d both share. Interesting to me that John is framing himself, and Lyctors, as the mermaids here, long-lived and relying on the souls of their loved ones to be human beings. Also while we’re talking about The Little Mermaid as a story that has resonance with TLT, I’d like to point out that Hans Christian Andersen was queer, and that The Little Mermaid was in some ways a story about his own romantic struggles.
“He took a sip of his tea, sighed briefly in pleasure, and continued: ‘They were disciples, to begin with. Ten normal human beings of the Resurrection, though half were blessed already with necromantic gifts. But necromancy alone does not confer eternal life. Our Lord, the First Reborn, kept those ten devotees young and alive through his sheer might, but it was a shadow of living… They had to stay tucked near the Emperor’s feet so as not to strain his powers. They desired to spend their lives in service of him, not the other way around. They realised in the first hundred years how difficult their situation was, even as necromancy spread through the Nine Houses and even as other disciples joined their number. … Necessarily a great research had to begin, into how best to serve alongside our Lord without needing him to confer immortality—this search for what would become Lyctorhood.’” (HtN 110-111) So! Augustine and Alfred, Mercy and Cristabel, Gideon and Pyrrha, Cassiopeia and Nigella, Cyrus and Valancy. Then later Ulysses and Titania, Cytherea and Loveday, and Anastasia and Samael? Within the next hundred years, or longer?

An update^[km]^[kn]: Based on the John sections in NtN, I now presume the ten original disciples Teacher is talking about here are Augustine and Alfred, Mercy and Cristabel, Gideon and Pyrrha, Cassiopeia and Nigella, and Ulysses and Titania. This leaves Cyrus and Valancy, Cytherea and Loveday, and Anastasia and Samael in the later generation. Not in that order, necessarily; we know Cyth and Loveday came last to the group, and also attempted Lyctorhood last (I think), because they put it off until it was clear Cyth was about to die.

“This was the secret of the Lyctoral process. When a normal Lyctor’s soul went to the River, the dead, blank energy that had once been their cavalier kept the lights on in their body. A normal Lyctor’s dormant shell responded with mechanical precision to threats mundane or fantastic. It could normalise its own temperature; it could filter poisons and toxins; it could repair damage with preternatural speed; and, of course, it could fight like a highly disciplined tiger. A Lyctor’s limbs remembered all the training of her stolen second self, and would use it, ruthlessly and perfectly, until the Lyctor came back to reclaim them.” (HtN 145)
“You said, after a moment to peel up the edges of your words, ‘Is it mediocre, elder sister? I followed a recipe.’ ‘Cassiopeia’s? Now, there was a woman who could cook,’ said Augustine, and his granite-colored eyes grew soft and nostalgic in his long, hawk-featured face. ‘Not without injuring herself, mind. John, d’you remember that time she took half her finger off getting the meat out of that coconut? She didn’t tell anybody until after we’d eaten the meal.^[ko]^[kp] That’s a lesson for you, Harrowhark: confess, first thing, before we find a finger in the soup.’” (HtN 231) They would have noticed, I’d think, if Cass served dinner with half of one finger missing—so Lyctors’ fingers grow back!

“You weren’t wearing gloves. And it bit your damn thumb off. Again, let me say: sorry. It was not my thumb to let them bite off. I admit completely that this was my bad, but these motherfuckers had a hunger that only thumbs could satisfy. It didn’t matter—I was yelling, and trying to grab the damn sword away anyway, and I saw it eat your thumb—these details are important, so keep up with me—and your thumb was back in the next half minute. I watched it grow.” (HtN 405)

“He was totally incapacitated. His eyes were closed. You moved his hands away and looked more closely at that shattered heart; the wounds were closing, but slowly, far more slowly than you would have expected. His cyanosed lips bespoke terrible effort as his heart knit back together. He was a myriad-old Lyctor. You did not understand.” (HtN 290) This is really interesting! It’s like he’s healing the way Harrow does, because both of their cavaliers are compartmentalized, but Pyrrha is less totally compartmentalized than Gideon is I think.
“‘Tell me you did it correctly,’ he said, and there was a quick, questioning eagerness to his voice, something beneath the confusion. ‘Tell me you finished the work. You out of everyone could have worked out the end to the beginning I was starting to explicate.’” (HtN 312) So Pal and Cam had almost worked out perfect Lyctorhood, which is interesting given Pal now has no body and even if they got the theory all the way there, they couldn’t use it.

Paul deserves their own section and will get it but I just have to update this bullet point with… PAUL I LOVE YOU PAUL

“They had already been dimmed to preserve power, as apparently the defence mechanism locked inside a Lyctor did not need light to fight by—nor senses of any kind, in fact; Mercymorn said they did not even feel pain.” (HtN 357) I actually wonder if this is really true. Are Pyrrha and Gideon the only ones compartmentalized in such a way that they are conscious when their necro’s souls have left? We never get to see the others in that state, do we?
“The blade of the rapier tangled in your skin. Big hanks of dermis kept wending their way up along the fuller, unsure where to head from there; as organs knitted together inside your abdomen—the bloodied tip quivered, pushed this way and that by the regrowing tissue.” (HtN 387) Harrow’s body gains healing powers! But why? I imagine this is because Harrow’s brain alterations are now undone, she remembers Gideon, and also she’s unconscious and her soul is in the River bubble, a conscious Gideon who has been protected by Harrow’s lobotomy all this time is now on the road to full incorporation again, resulting in Lyctoral healing and (we see later this chapter) the appearance of Gideon’s eyes in Harrow’s Lyctoral body. Maybe Gideon is conscious in a way other incorporated cavaliers are not because of who she is, or because the process has been paused all this time, or both. But I’m not entirely certain; Gideon being God’s kid, and being so fully conscious, and Harrow being so absent from her body, makes the whole thing iffy to me, like there could be some other factors I don’t understand yet.

I love Gideon’s theory: “But some ancient engine had revved to life for me in a way it never had done for you, probably because I am a good girl and you are an evil nun, and it tore through us almost simultaneously: renewed those shredded muscles, tied back together that multitude of miniature rips.” (HtN 391)

“‘I know you and she are doing some ungodly tricks with soul manipulation, but what do you think you are, a damned Ly— L-word? You’re not even a fraction of one, you’re only a step in the theory.’” (NtN 122) This is Pyrrha to Palamedes, and I think it’s the first time we’re told explicitly in NtN that what Cam and Pal are doing isn’t Lyctorhood.
“In the end he said, ‘All I know is this, Nona: if you’re one of two people, current evidence suggests you’re not just the first person, the one who owns your body.’ Nona thought back to mathematics. ‘But that means I’m the second person.’ ‘Or—not solely the first person.’ This was hard to get her head around. ‘Can one person even be two people? I feel like I’ve only got enough room inside for me, and sometimes like that room’s not even enough.’ ‘Lyctors can,’ said Palamedes, ‘or at least—they thought they could; in fact all they became were half-dead cannibals. I think a true Lyctorhood is a mutual death…a gravitational singularity creating something new. A true Grand Lysis, rather than the Petty Lysis of the megatheorem…’” (NtN 291)
“Palamedes took her knife, and he cracked open an invisible seam on the end of the handle. A thin trickle of something white and grey and powdery dribbled into his palm. He held it out to her, and Camilla opened her mouth and—to Nona’s horror—ate it, whatever it was. He took the knife and he scored her finger, saying, ‘Not much longer,’ and he pressed her own bloody finger to her cool and bloody mouth, and he said, ‘Don’t look back. Whatever you do, don’t look back,’ and they huddled their heads together, they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders.” (NtN 422) At last, we get a look at some kind of Lyctoral process!!! Not the same kind that we didn’t get to see Ianthe or Harrow or any of the OGs do, but I feel like what we know about imperfect Lyctorhood and what we see here and what we saw John do to create Alecto all resonate with each other. The powdery substance hidden in Cam’s knife is, I think, what’s left of Pal’s bones. The hand he was in before he was in Cam’s body, powdered up and kept perhaps specifically for this purpose, which is pretty forward thinking of them and also typical. Cam consumes both of their bodies, instead of one person consuming a part of the other, his bone dust and her own blood. The “don’t look back” is wonderful too, evoking Orpheus leading Eurydice out of the underworld, and for me also evoking Lot’s wife, who looked back while fleeing Sodom despite being told not to and was turned into a pillar of salt. But if anyone can get through this on trust alone, it’s Camilla. It makes me wonder if Anastasia and Samael had it right, but one of them faltered and looked back, perhaps through John’s interference.
“Nothing particularly interesting happened, until Camilla burst into flames. She blazed like a white candle—she rolled away from the body of Ianthe Naberius, booted the inert figure away to roll over and over across the road—and stood, stumbling, completely ablaze, a hot white pillar of fire. Nona watched her open her mouth as though she were calling out, but no sound came. She sizzled: her bandages and clothes and injuries all sizzled, her hair sizzled, she blackened and wasted right in front of them. Wherever she staggered, she left bloody black footprints, and those footprints curled up in flowerlike wreaths of smoke and flame before dribbling to nothing on the road. She dropped to the road as though dying, rolled around in the agonies of the dying, until Nona thought she too would die of watching: that she had finally found something so horrible she could die just from seeing it, the worst thing you could ever see in your life. The whole tunnel was filled with sparking, sparkling flame, and the crackle of roasting human flesh, Camilla’s body dancing gruesomely trying to put it out—a black thing within the fire—then something red within the fire—and then she tried to stand; she arched, trembling, featureless; the flames died. In the darkness, the figure was naked and whole and unhurt. It crouched in on itself—elbows to knees, clasping itself, curled up in a kind of C—and then it said: ‘Clothes, please?’” (NtN 423) This is so horrible and fascinating. This is clearly not quite what happened when Harrow or Ianthe became Lyctors, because they didn’t turn up naked afterwards. This is a phoenix-style destruction and rebirth. I’m interested in the white fire, which seems magical, even though it does burn them; I’m interested in just like, conservation of matter here, does the fire burn them and then also regrow what was burned away? Also the visuals of this feel very Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood to me, and the footprints really tickle at my brain as if I have seen that before, but I can’t figure out where.
“‘Number Seven got him. I’m his leftover cavalier parts. Pyrrha Dve.’ ‘Does that happen—normally?’ ‘No.’ ‘Phew,’ said Ianthe, and then finally, ‘No. No, John Gaius didn’t send me.’” (NtN 465)
FANTASTIC post from tumblr user ossifer-bones on Lyctorhood as it may relate to science and nuclear fission and fusion, really clarifies things for me that I am not science-minded enough to hold in my head, and supports a lot of things I already thought were happening but couldn’t really explain why. Some of my takeaways from their analysis:

John’s Lyctorhood with Alecto is fundamentally different specifically because Alecto, as a soul, is so much bigger than his soul is. This is the key piece that possibly explains why he’s so much more powerful than the other Lyctors. If he does produce thalergy constantly through the Lyctorhood reaction, and turns it to thanergy which powers the Dominicus system, and used his own thalergy to perform the Resurrection…then this perhaps explains why he’s avoided resurrecting anyone since. He implies that it’s about the cost, and implies that the RBs are the cost—but they’re the cost of him killing everything, not the cost of bringing people back. Maybe there is a different cost that we haven’t yet seen (the devils, the Tower?); maybe he just doesn’t want anybody to know that he can resurrect the dead with no actual cost at all.
If John’s Lyctorhood is different, endothanergenic and producing thalergy, because he enacted nuclear(soul) fusion with a much larger soul than his own, then what are the implications for Harrow and Gideon? Harrow is also a very large soul—not on the scale of Alecto, but larger than a single person, because she’s got those 200 kids stamped on her the way a murdered planet becomes a communal soul. Harrow is, in a way, a Resurrection Beast just as Alecto is. And Gideon! Gideon is John’s daughter. How much of what Lyctorhood wrought on him has she inherited? Does she also produce thalergy? Is this why she can’t die unless she’s trying to? Her body will kick in and create enough new thalergy to keep her alive/bring her back? Why, then, did putting her soul back in her body result in Kiriona and not in an alive Gideon? Was that purposeful on John’s part, not only in not resurrecting her, but not allowing her body to resurrect itself? Is there something else at play there keeping her body from doing what it’s clearly done before? Is it Kiriona and her depression that’s keeping her body from being alive again?

And what does all this then mean for the Lyctorhood of Harrow and Gideon? In their case, the necromancer is the one with the bigger soul, and the one who “survives.” Does that matter, scientifically? Maybe I will ask the op, because I don’t understand nuclear fusion enough to know! But it could be why Harrow as a Lyctor, even an incomplete Lyctor, seems so powerful. Maybe it explains her extremely fast healing factor when Gideon is in her body, which seems perhaps better/faster than even the other “normal” Lyctors^[kq]^[kr]^[ks]^[kt].

Eyes!

Re: Ianthe after ascending - “Neither of her eyes were their original colour. Both the pupil and the iris were intermingled shades of brown, purple, and blue. Ianthe closed her eyes a third time, and when the pale lashes opened, both had returned to insipid amethyst.” (GtN 383) Babs is resisting her hard—at this point she hasn’t achieved full solid Lyctorhood, which would be indicated by Babs’ brown and blue eyes instead of her purple ones or a combination.
“She was staring, disbelieving, at Colum the Eighth. ‘Well, now you’re fucked,’ she announced. Colum the Eighth’s eyes were as liquid black as, before, Ianthe’s had been liquid white. He had stopped moving as a human being did.” (GtN 392) Ianthe’s eyes went all white in her struggle to assimilate Babs fully; Colum, when possessed, went all black, including the sclera. Like John’s eyes, which are Alecto’s eyes. Black sclera association with planetary revenants? Otherwise inhuman ghosts? Whatever is haunting Canaan House?
“As they fought—and fighting was like a dream, like falling asleep—they could see Cytherea was made up of different parts. Her eyes had been taken from somewhere else, two blue spots of someone else’s fire.” (GtN 438)
“The man must have sensed her wakefulness, for he looked up from his flimsy and his tablet at her, and he shuffled them aside to stand. He approached her, and she saw that his sclera were black as space. The irises were dark and leadenly iridescent—a deep rainbow oil slick, ringed with white. The pupils were as glossy black as the sclera.” (GtN 440) Our first look at John’s (Alecto’s) eyes.
“She looked like shit. You noticed that the eyes were a curious muddle of colours: washed-out purple jostled for space with a milky blue, freckled here and there with al ightish, hazy brown.” (HtN 56) Babs is still fighting her. It’s really interesting that an unwilling cav has this much of an effect, and it makes it seem more likely that Harrow was quick enough in sectioning off Gideon’s soul to preserve it completely.

“You looked at Ianthe. Even in that short interval, the battlefield of her eyes had changed. From beneath your palm, you could see that one iris was now wholly a washed-out purple, like a fading bruise or a dying flower; the other one was blue and brown commingled.” (HtN 57)
“When she looked up at you, you saw her eyes had changed yet again. They were both that bleached lavender now, but freckled with light brown like a constellation of little pupils.” (HtN 65)

“‘Good morning, my comrade,’ she said. ‘My colleague, my ally. I do like your eyes, Harrowhark—like flower petals in a darkened room.’” (HtN 56) This description is frustratingly flexible! Are they like a yellow flower in a darkened room, and so Gideon’s eyes? Or are they any color flower in a darkened room and because it’s a dark room they look black? What color were Harrow’s eyes before the lobotomy?
“You had seen a Lyctor’s eyes only once before. Lyctors kept their own faces, but the eyes they stole from someone else. You had been lucky that your own transition was not as startling. This pair of eyes were a slumbrous, sand-tinted hazel with grey-madder clouds within them, like a red hurricane moving over a gaseous mantle, like a storm-ridden planet of red dust.” (HtN 76) Hi, Cristabel!
“”Do I have Ortus’s eyes? Are these ones mine? I never really looked at them— Beloved, what were my eyes like?’ … But now, that which was buried insensate said quite calmly, ‘She asked me not to tell you.’ You awoke, flat on the floor in front of the water-pump sink, screaming until your throat was broken. When you stared at your bloodshot eyes in the mirror and tried to remember Ortus Nigenad’s, you couldn’t recall a difference: they were both that deep and fathomless black, the colour Ianthe called black roses^[ku]^[kv], because Ianthe was overfamiliar and frankly a pervert. You tried to imagine Ortus’s sad, heavy weariness staring at you from your own mirror. It did not work. You were both terribly relieved and terribly frightened.” (HtN 161)
“Within the incinerator, Ortus looked at you. In the shadows of the incinerator, his eyes seemed very dark. There was no bloom of necromantic power, nor move to save himself: the third saint to serve the King Undying stared at you with something very like helplessness, lying there with his heart exploded, a man before the flame.” (HtN 289) Are his eyes dark because these are his original, brown eyes, and not Pyrrha’s green eyes that he’s usually wearing? Indicating that Pyrrha is in control here, because eye swap?
“Then there were the eyes themselves: that solemn and lightless black that, whatever rictus the nun’s face might assume, could not hide the woman; they stared out of Nonagesimus’s face now with mute, flayed appeal, as stark and discomfiting as skinless muscle.” (HtN 362) Still black, pre-lobotomy.

“‘If you think that you and I are not more beholden than ever,’ said the girl, ‘you are an idiot.’ ‘Who is left? What is left?’ Nonagesimus shut her eyes briefly. When they opened, one was—not correct. She stared at her own heterochromatic, night-and-day gaze, at those celestially mismatched irises. One black. One gold. Then the Ninth House Lyctor said tightly: ‘We are wasting time. Open me up.’” (HtN 363)

“He looked at us, and he rubbed one of his temples as though he had a headache. And he said, with an enormous sigh: ‘Ah. The eyes.’ ‘Yes, the eyes,’ she said. ‘Your child…Alecto’s eyes.’” (HtN 477)
“I’d figured out that the eye change is what happens when two people become one. It’s not what happens when two people swap places. No one was ever going to see that ass Naberius strutting around with a pair of bad purple eyes that got left out in the rain, because the Lyctoral eye swap relied on him taking a rapier backward to the heart. There was no way a cavalier could end up with a necromancer’s eyes. Unless the cavalier failed to die.” (HtN 481)
“If Camilla had six pages of notes on her kissing herself she had about twenty regarding eyes. Nona’s egg-yellow eyes belonged to the other person—the other girl; that was how all of their bodies worked, not only hers. All four pairs of their eyes belonged to other people. Pyrrha’s deep brown eyes really came from her dead best friend, and Camilla’s clear grey eyes should have really been Palamedes’s, and vice versa with his wintertime irises. Nona’s eyes were a deep, warm gold, the colour of the sky at midday—or at least the colour the sky had used to be at midday. ‘You see,’ Palamedes had said to her, ‘the eyes are a dead giveaway. When you give yourself to someone else, their soul shows in yours by the eye colour; that’s why you’ll never see me looking out of Camilla’s face with my own eyes again.’ … ‘Eyes can also show that a soul is in someone else’s body temporarily. Your amber eyes could mean that you’re like Camilla and me, or it could mean something else.’” (NtN 34-35)
“By the third day everyone believed, because of my eyes. He coughed wetly and, once he had recovered, said: A girl in my high school once told me I had pretty eyes. I was puffed up over that until I was like thirty. You wouldn’t believe how stupid guys get over compliments on our looks, I was vain as. But my eyes weren’t anything special—light brown, not even hazel, yellow on a sunny day. The morning after the lights went out they lightened to dark amber, then they went the colour of new lager, and on the third day they were gold.” (NtN 98) This reveal has interesting implications! His eyes changing seems to indicate that this is when he gains necromantic aptitude, even though he doesn’t know how to use it just yet. We know necromancers have a different biology from non-necromancers; is this eye change something that’s shifting in John’s actual DNA or whatever? A permanent, genetic-level change, and that’s why Gideon inherits his eyes? Or do Gideon’s gold eyes imply some kind of latent power in her? The Harrow Nova AU in HtN makes me wonder a little if Gideon had brown eyes when she was an infant, and the same act that killed all the other children and failed to kill her and created Harrow sparked a change in her the way this change was sparked in John. I think John’s biology actually changing is the most likely, but the other options are interesting!
“Camilla was crouched down, wiping her knives on one of their jackets. When she looked up, Nona was electrified. One of her eyes was a pale, pearlescent grey; the other one of her eyes was a deep, cool stone colour. Nona understood in a sudden shiver what she was looking at. ‘Stay calm,’ said Camilla-and-Palamedes. ‘Five breaths, if you need it.’” (NtN 111) We’ve seen mismatched eyes before, on Ianthe when Babs was resisting being absorbed, and on Harrow when Harrow was resisting fully absorbing Gideon. It’s fascinating and painful to see it here, when they’re not a Lyctor, don’t have any of the healing benefits of being a Lyctor, but they want to be together. It’s like the resistance is coming from the other side—both partners are willing, but a Lyctoral bond hasn’t been established, so the eyes are still mismatched.
“This highlighted his face in strange ways. It made his brown skin bluish, and the white ring around his black iris a satiny gold.” (NtN 188) John’s eyes, the eyes we meet him with, after the end of the world. This is the first time we hear about them, I think, after he puts Alecto in a body and creates Lyctorhood and destroys everything else. It’s interesting to me that probably Alecto never had a chance to have her own eyes; they became John’s eyes in the moment of her creation, and his eyes became hers.
Tumblr user nose-coffee posted some cool eye color description charts for GtN, HtN and NtN!

Revenants and souls

Info on revenants from Augustine: “‘...it can inhabit anything it’s got a connection to. Anything thanergetically connected with their death.’ Ianthe suggested, in what you saw as a low-value suck-up play: ‘Burial implements. Grave goods. Any possession that they kept over time, that was exposed to their thalergy and thanergy. If they were murdered, the murder weapon.’ ‘Bang on,’ said Augustine. ‘Even things that touched the murder weapon, though the connection’s fairly weak there and the revenant would have to be particularly bloody-minded.’” (HtN 172)
Wondering about how each revenant we know travels/what they attach to.

Wake attaches to her own bones, which is maybe the strongest link possible. Then at some point in Gideon’s childhood she jumps from her bones to Gideon’s sword. I’ve wondered what the two hander’s history is before, and there are so many possibilities. Does it have more significance for Wake than just being her daughter’s weapon? Does it have more significance for G1deon, when he tries to take it off Harrow on the Mithraeum, than just having Wake inside it? Was it at one point Pyrrha’s, or G1deon’s, or both? Is it possible that it was involved in their last confrontation with Wake before she died, and made its way into the Ninth stock somehow? Or was it left behind on the Ninth by Pyrrha when she was alive in her own body, and that’s enough of a personal connection? Is the sword a “thing that touched the murder weapon,” if the murder weapon was G1deon’s body? And once she’s in it, she follows that link to hop into Harrow, and hop into Cytherea’s body, perhaps just by proximity.
Palamedes attaches to all his bones at once in little pieces, so at it’s heart a similar tactic to what Wake did, attaching to her own bones, but with his own twist on it. He follows that link to hop into Camilla and share space with her, and in TUG he hops into Babs by proximity, or touch, or using the necromancy Ianthe is working to puppet the body, it’s unclear.
Kiriona attaches to her own body, possibly not of her own will. I wonder if we’ll see her revenant travel again, or if she’s gonna stay put?
Dulcie. Is Dulcie a revenant? Did she attach to her cremains, and hop to Palamedes when he interacted with them, and so has been following him? I guess that doesn’t quite make sense if she’s also in Harrow’s River bubbles, but I’m intrigued by the suggestion that because she can appear in the metaphysical space of TUG, she is following an established link with Pal’s soul. Was she attached to The Necromancer’s Marriage Season? Was that her book that she brought along, that Cytherea brought with her into Canaan House, that ended up in Pal’s bubble because of Dulcie’s presence in it? It’s all quite murky to me, but interesting!

“...and yet there are many cases, recorded by our finest scholars, in which revenants were observed to act in ways informed by the experiences of their adult lives.” (TUG) This is the plot of Dr. Sex, right here. Palamedes is one of those Scholars, and Cam is another. I LOVE that what he learned so long ago in that story ends up supporting his argument in TUG.
Thinking today about Wake’s ability to sort of be in multiple places at once, to be connected to the two-hander in the living world and be present in Harrow’s River bubbles, and how that’s different or not from the other souls present there. I’m having trouble connecting my thoughts in a logical line, more like a cloud, so I’m just going to put everything here in the hope of a structure appearing by magic.

Wake is a revenant: her body is long dead, she is only a soul, connected to the two-hander in the living world in order to avoid going into the River. Using the sword as a sort of base of operations, an anchor point, she’s able to both tag along with Harrow’s soul into River bubbles, and to puppet Cytherea, possibly without fully inhabiting her body all the time (for instance, in order to be more sneaky or less discoverable, Wake might have stashed Cyth’s body under Harrow’s bed and then broken that connection, keeping it in a convenient place to pick up again later. Presuming what Harrow saw was real, and not a hallucination, which is not certain at all). Or—is there a point at which Wake transfers totally from the sword to Cytherea’s body?
Abigail says, in the fight with Wake, both that if they (the ghosts? Harrow also?) die in the bubble, then their souls are permanently destroyed, they won’t just go back to the River. But she also says that though Wake is defeated in the bubble, she is likely still holding onto something physical in the living world. We’ve also got Number Seven, which is in the River and has a physical form in the living world, but the Lyctors are fighting it in the River only. So I want to examine all these players and what their different situations are.

Whatever part of Wake has been haunting Harrow has been defeated in the River, but it’s not her full actual revenant—her soul has the anchor point of the sword, and perhaps Cyth’s body is a second anchor? Pyrrha shoots Cyth’s body while Wake is puppeting it, and then the two-hander is lost in the River at some point at the end of/after HtN. Perhaps only shooting Cyth was needed to fully get rid of Wake; perhaps the sword going into the River was also needed. Either way, she was kicked out of Harrow and then both her anchors in the living world were dealt with.

Another little side thought from this—Gideon’s sword is lost in the River, I think just before or maybe simultaneous with Harrow washing up in a metaphysical Tomb. And it’s Gideon’s sword that’s in this metaphysical Tomb. I have been assuming it was not Gideon’s real sword, since Frontline Titties is there and is also not real, and this is an undefined not-real space…but maybe this space is in some way like a River bubble, perhaps Alecto’s River bubble, created in the moment of her own death the way Pal’s bubble was created in the moment of his? It’s for sure a space that is connected to Harrow by virtue of Alecto haunting her/attaching to her, and a space that could then be connected to Gideon by virtue of Lyctorhood, hence the magazine. But if it’s a River bubble, then I wonder if it’s possible that this really is Gideon’s actual sword, real physical sword, and it will come back into play in AtN. Either way, Harrow says that “those six feet of steel held no fear for her now” (HtN 504) so I take that to mean that Wake is gone from it at last, whether it’s real or not.

Resurrection beasts, who are very big revenants, are fought in the River only, because efforts to fight their physical forms resulted in the deaths of Lyctors. But according to what Abigail says about Wake, killing the soul in the River shouldn’t kill the physical form of the RBs, right? Except I don’t think any of them are actually killed—just sent through the stoma, and so no longer able to access the living world. Are their physical forms just horrifying empty husks floating around in space now? Does this imply that the stoma somehow separates the soul completely from the body? I kind of think so. The connection gets broken, and there’s either nothing left in the living world, or not enough to pilot a huge RB body.
Then we’ve got Harrow, who has a body in the living world and is in the bubble with her soul, but Abigail seems to imply that Harrow’s death in the bubble would destroy her soul completely, regardless of being anchored to her own physical body. Except, is she anchored to her own physical body at that moment? For most of the book, her times in the bubble are more like dreams—she’s unconscious, she’s drifting into the River, but she’s not fully herself. She can’t remember Gideon, or understand where she is and what’s really happening. Then Mercy kills her, aboard the Mithraeum. Actually legitimately kills her, I think—enough so that her soul is completely cut off from her body, jettisoned into her confusion of AU bubbles and then back into the scenario she’d been building all along, except this time she’s able to remember. As I suspect happened with Pyrrha, death allows her to remember things her body was causing her to forget. This complete separation is what allows Gideon’s soul to pop into possession of Harrow’s body, to totally take control, and Gideon’s soul is such a good Lyctoral battery that Lyctoral healing brings Harrow’s body back from death almost instantaneously. I’ve theorized that Gideon can’t die unless she wants to—and she doesn’t want this body to die.
And then, the ghosts! Everyone else in the bubble, who have all died and been disconnected from their bodies in the living world previously, and were pulled in here from the River. They have no anchor points anymore—so if they die in the bubble, Abigail says they don’t go back to the River, they are destroyed in some more permanent or fundamental way. I’m not entirely clear in my own head about what it means that they all seem to come back from fatal wounds in that final fight…what does it take to actually kill a ghost in the bubble?
Last but not least, Dulcie. Dulcie vanishes beneath a crush of rubble—did she leave the bubble in time, or was she permanently destroyed? Before TUG came out, I thought that it was left a little ambiguous, but assumed that she had made it out—or maybe just hoped she did. After TUG, I think she purposefully didn’t. She waited to be crushed in the bubble, she “died again” as she tells Pal in TUG, taking a chance that it wasn’t really just a permanent nonexistence. Her bet paid off, and she found herself on the River’s other shore—a place where, apparently, one can read Shakespeare which was otherwise lost in the Resurrection. I can’t wait to find out what other delights are on the other shore.

Might we also find Wake on the other shore, because she “died’ in the bubble and then her physical anchors were disrupted, or do only loose, untethered souls get to cross by bubble death? Will Ortus and Pro and Marta get to cross, when they are destroyed fighting Number Seven with Nonius? Does Nonius also die and cross over in that fight?

The OG Lyctors

Lyctoral notes and other communications:

“Gideon picked up another book and squinted at the faded message on the flyleaf, written in black ink forever ago and frozen in time: ONE FLESH, ONE END. G. & P.” (GtN 207-208) In Gideon and Pyrrha’s room.
“She kept rustling when she turned over, trying to find a comfortable spot, and then she remembered the crinkled note in her pocket. In the dim light she smoothed it open and stared at it, blearily, pillow still sticky with bits of the cold cream she used to take off her paint. ‘ut we all know the sad + trying realit / is that this will remain incomplete t / the last. He can’t fix my deficiencies her / ease give Gideon my congratulations, howev’” (GtN 210) From Gideon and Pyrrha’s room. Anastasia to Pyrrha, because of the incomplete part? Or Cytherea to Pyrrha, her illness is her deficiency?

Just quietly having a thought that I may have had already somewhere in this monstrous document—I have assumed this is a note to Pyrrha, because it’s ripped up in her room, and it’s obviously not addressed to G1deon because he’s mentioned as a third party. I also really feel like this is from Anastasia, given the deficiencies thing, and remaining incomplete. Anastasia and Samael were trying to do lyctorhood differently, without Samael being totally lost or consumed, something like what John and Alecto have and what is imperfectly termed “perfect lyctorhood” in the books somewhere. So why would Anastasia be congratulating G1deon in the context of lyctorhood, and why would she be addressing that to Pyrrha who’s the one who would be getting eaten? Now I’m wondering if G1deon was intentionally trying to preserve Pyrrha, and this note is to Pyrrha AFTER lyctorhood. There may have been a time early on when G1deon was aware of her; he may even have altered his own brain, as Harrow tried to do, in order to keep Pyrrha’s soul as intact as possible. Horrifying and fascinating! This would also fit with the vague timeline I have in my head that Anastasia’s lyctorhood attempt was actually very early on, trying to forestall any more needless deaths after Alfred and Cristabel.

“Written on the tooth in tiny, tiny letters was this: FIVE HUNDRED INTO FIFTY. IT IS FINISHED!” (GtN 367) - In Cassiopeia and Nigella’s room!
“‘I didn’t think anybody would care about the distant past…but Pent had an unwholesome interest in history. She was interested in all the old things she was finding in the library, in the rooms. Letters, notes…pictures…the archaeology of a human life.’ ‘Abigail Pent may have been a necromancer, but she was also a historian—a famous one, I might add. You didn’t do your research.’ ‘Oh, I’ve been kicking myself, believe me. I should have gone and swept the whole place first thing. But—I was nostalgic.’” (GtN 399) Me, I’m Abigail, stringing together every little scrap of whatever that the Lyctors left behind lol
“A LYCTORAL NOTE ON CAVALIERS AND NECROMANCERS - NEARLY TEN THOUSAND YEARS OLD, KEPT IN SECRET IN A CHEMICAL FILE WITHIN THE LIBRARY OF THE SIXTH HOUSE TO GUARD AGAINST THE RAVAGES OF TIME - valancy says one flesh one end sounds like instructions for a sex toy. can’t stop thinking about that so can someone stop cris and alfred before the sex toy phrase catches on, thanks” (GtN 453) Who wrote this? Cassy maybe, and that’s why it’s on the Sixth? Cyrus, because Valancy?
“‘This library is stuffed. THe books, now, the books are interesting—but the Lyctoral traces—phwoar.’ Abigail Pent had not seemed the type of woman to articulate phwoar. She said it very boyishly.” (HtN 129) I just had to have Abigail’s phwoar in here!!!
“After that cut into cubes, fry in the butter or oil, turn it occasionally until it is crispy. Cut up the pickle so there are no big chunks and mix it into the pan before taking off the heat. M told us yesterday that Nigella ‘eats like a child,’ so I” (HtN 130) This is presumably Cassy writing, since she’s the cook,^[kw]^[kx] and I assume M is Mercy. The anecdote part reads more like a note than something for a recipe book, so maybe this is either a diary or a message to another Lyctor?
“‘If you come to my room, I will make you the potato dish you liked,’ he read aloud, with gravity.” (HtN 134) Cassy again! To who? Could be anyone, but gives me a slightly romantic vibe.
“‘I still get an erotic charge from snakes, sorry to say,’ she read.” (HtN 253) This lyctoral note is the same paper that Harrow hallucinates as Wake’s note to Pyrrha, “but when I am in heaven I will remember your mouth.” I wonder if it’s either Pyrrha or G1deon writing this note? Regardless of who it is, it makes me think of the snakes carved into the pillars outside the Lyctoral rooms in Canaan House. Also this line makes me laugh every time.
“They took the paper in the puzzle box away from the Warden before he could see the full page. But the Warden remembers everything he ever read. He only saw a scrap of it, and that would have been more than enough. Over the years, he always maintained it was a love letter. He should know. He wrote a lot of them, and never got any back. ‘Darling girl, Tomorrow you will become a Lyctor and finally go where I can’t follow. I want you to keep this letter when you are far away and think of me and want me and can’t have me, and know that no matter how far you travel, nor how long the years feel, the one thing that never stays entombed is’” (SEX) There are so many possible authors and recipients of this note. “Darling girl” referring to someone who became a Lyctor, or tried to, likely limits the recipient pool to Mercymorn, Cassiopeia, Cytherea, and Anastasia. Perhaps Cassy, since this relic has been on the Sixth all this time, and hiding a love note inside a wooden puzzle box seems quite a Sixth thing to do? And is the writer a cavalier, perhaps Nigella, about to get eaten? But the “entombed” part, and the phrasing about not being able to follow, makes me think it’s not a cav who got eaten, and that it might in fact be Anastasia, who is left behind on the Ninth. Were Anastasia and Cassy an item? Since everyone’s a threesome in these books, were they and Nigella a three way thing pre-Lyctorhood? Would this mean that Anastasia’s ascension attempt was earlier in the timeline of ascensions than Cassy? Anastasia is listed at the end of the OGs in the Dramatis Personae, but that could just be because she didn’t attain Lyctorhood.

Timeline of Lyctors

“‘How many revenants are there?’ You prepared for an astronomical number. The Body raised its eyebrows when the Emperor Undying said, ‘Three. There were nine. We called them by number. Over ten thousand years, we have managed to take out a grand total of five.^[ky]^[kz] Number Two fell soon after the Resurrection. Number Eight cost a man’s immortal soul, and—I still see that day in my dreams. Number Six died because one of my Hands—Cyrus—drew it into an ultramassive black hole, and Number Six had better be dead, because Cyrus won’t be coming back.’” (HtN 43)
“‘Was she the first gen, or second?’ ‘Second,’ said God. ‘Early second. We were still experimenting with getting the Sixth installation up and running. Some of the Houses were empty.’ Mercymorn spoke up: ‘No. We had it running by then. Because Valancy was with us, and Anastasia.’ The Emperor clicked his fingers, as though she had triggered some neuron flash. ‘Yes, you’re right. We were all there to meet her. All sixteen of us—and she acted as though she were at a wedding and was doing a receiving line of tedious cousins…’” (HtN 120) So Cytherea and Loveday were the last to arrive at Canaan House. “All sixteen of us” means Alecto was with them too.
“‘Do keep in mind that our holy resurrections were staggered, and it took generations fro our merry band to assemble. Alfred and I were there early enough to found Koniortos Court on the fifth, but Lyctors like Cyth wouldn’t be born for years and years, and she spent her whole life suffering Seventh House woo-woo theories regarding the value of hereditary cancer…whereas Mercy is the oldest lag except for me, and she was out hammering at the Eighth House before the paint was even dry on the Resurrection.’” (HtN 176)
“‘The Resurrection Beast is come! The seventh colossus, brood of that which murdered Cyrus the First, packmate of that which murdered Ulysses the First, the one and the same that Cassiopeia died for. Oh, god, John, sometimes I wish I were capable of dying—I saw it! I saw it, and it is blue like Loveday’s eyes! It knows what you did to its kin, and it sees my cavalier’s mortal soul burning in my chest!’” (HtN 333) A lot to unpack here. Are the choices of “brood” and “packmate” purposeful? “Brood” makes it sound like Number Seven is the offspring, in some sense, of another RB, whereas “packmate” feels more lateral, like a sibling. Also, blue like Loveday’s eyes is really interesting, since this is Number Seven and Loveday was the Seventh House cavalier.
“‘Yes, and Number Eight wasn’t tired by the time we got to the barathron, and Ulysses the First had to wrestle it through the stoma, and he is as we speak languishing in Hell!’” (HtN 335)
Copied from above: “He took a sip of his tea, sighed briefly in pleasure, and continued: ‘They were disciples, to begin with. Ten normal human beings of the Resurrection, though half were blessed already with necromantic gifts. But necromancy alone does not confer eternal life. Our Lord, the First Reborn, kept those ten devotees young and alive through his sheer might, but it was a shadow of living… They had to stay tucked near the Emperor’s feet so as not to strain his powers. They desired to spend their lives in service of him, not the other way around. They realised in the first hundred years how difficult their situation was, even as necromancy spread through the Nine Houses and even as other disciples joined their number. … Necessarily a great research had to begin, into how best to serve alongside our Lord without needing him to confer immortality—this search for what would become Lyctorhood.’” (HtN 110-111) So! Augustine and Alfred, Mercy and Cristabel, Gideon and Pyrrha, Cassiopeia and Nigella, Cyrus and Valancy. Then later Ulysses and Titania, Cytherea and Loveday, and Anastasia and Samael? Within the next hundred years, or longer?

An update: Based on the John sections in NtN, I now presume the ten original disciples Teacher is talking about here are Augustine and Alfred, Mercy and Cristabel, Gideon and Pyrrha, Cassiopeia and Nigella, and Ulysses and Titania. This leaves Cyrus and Valancy, Cytherea and Loveday, and Anastasia and Samael in the later generation. Not in that order, necessarily; we know Cyth and Loveday came last to the group, and also attempted Lyctorhood last (I think), because they put it off until it was clear Cyth was about to die.

Lyctoral names^[la]^[lb]

I LOVE the foreshadowing of the Lyctors taking their cav’s names as their last names!! This makes “John Gaius” basically “John Earth,” because his cavalier is the RB of Earth.

“‘Call her Cytherea Loveday,’ she said. ‘That’s what she wanted to be called…’” (HtN 121)
“Then Augustine said, quite irrelevantly: ‘I wouldn’t have called it glutinous. She was just lucky that Cythe-re-a Love-day trips off the tongue. Now, mine would alliterate in a way I couldn’t have abided. Abode?’” (HtN 121)

“‘His name isn’t Ortus,’ she said, totally bewildered. She found Ortus looking at her with a helpless and equal bewilderment. He offered, ‘Pardon?’ ‘I thought you were named for him—you’re not,’ she said, conclusions spooling out in front of her like an unravelled tooth, in hideous naked majesty of enamel and nerve. ‘My mechanism worked too well. It did not account for context. Ortus doesn’t come from a Lyctoral tradition. But what if hers did? What if we named her, accidentally, for him?’ But what could that mean? Mercymorn had said their names were considered sacred and forgotten, except for Anastasia’s, who had never attained Lyctorhood. Why would a necromantic saint’s name be evoked in such a way?” (HtN 403) This reveal was so pleasing to me on first read!! I understood what was happening with the find and replace problem almost from the start, but had not thought about what it meant until Harrow started to wonder too.

Cavaliers

“‘No,’ said Augustine. ‘They weren’t, John. She was a fanatic and an idiot—yes, she was, Mercy—and he…was a man who regretted that he wasn’t. It took surprisingly little to lead my brother astray.’” (HtN 274) Augustine on Alfred and Cristabel.
“‘Anyway, let’s drink to a woman who never divided opinion. Here’s to Pyrrha Dve.’” (HtN 274) Gotta mention here that I think Pyrrha’s name comes from the king Pyrrhus of Epirus, who won a battle against the Romans but took heavy losses, and from whom we get the phrase “pyrrhic victory” meaning a win that cost too much. Also,^[lc]^[ld] “pyrrhic” is a poetic foot made of two unaccented syllables. Both of these meanings feel relevant to Pyrrha Dve; a cavalier is always too great a loss to warrant the win of Lyctorhood, but Pyrrha Dve is the only OG cav (as far as we know) who managed to stick around and has been living below the surface all this time, the subtle and unaccented syllables in the poem of G1deon’s long life. Also, I adore her. I’m so excited for more of her.

I was today years old when I learned about Pyrrha of Thessaly, the daughter of Pandora—the famous Pandora, who opened the box. Also, she was married to this guy Deucalion, who was the son of Prometheus, and Pyrrha and Deucalion were the only people to survive “the great deluge” when Zeus ended the Bronze Age. Deucalion built an ark, which landed on Mount Parnassus, the only bit of land left. This Noah-ass man was told to throw the bones of his mother, which he and Pyrrha interpreted as throwing rocks (the bones of mother Earth, Gaia), to repopulate the world. The stones Pyrrha threw became women, and the stones Deucalion threw became men. There’s a lot here—I love that another reference for Pyrrha’s name (there are so many) was crucial in another flood/repopulation of the planet myth, and I love that her mother was the first human woman created by the Greek gods. According to Hesiod they each gave her a gift, including "a shameless mind and a deceitful nature" and "lies and crafty words" and then send her as a “gift” to the Earth with her jar of 100 plagues, which she releases into the world. There are parallels between Pandora and Eve, for sure, and so a parallel with Alecto; I also wonder if Alecto will have a part in releasing the souls from the River and whatever’s in the Tower, in a twist on Pandora releasing all the evils.

“‘I hope you don’t mind being the last one to know,’ said Nona, dusting herself off a bit self-consciously, ‘but I’m dying.’ This fell completely flat. ‘’Course you are,’ said Pyrrha. ‘I mean it, Pyrrha.’ ‘Yeah. I suspected you were, though,’ Pyrrha said cheerfully. ‘I didn’t make a big deal out of it. We’ve all got our secrets…but the soul longs for the body, Nona. Even a fucked-up soul…even a soul that’s been changed forever. It takes a lot to acclimate a soul to a body it wasn’t born in, if that original body’s around for it to miss.’ ‘But you’re not sad,’ said Nona. ‘Of course I’m not sad. You’re not dying on my watch.’” (NtN 355) I have this quote in a different section above too, but as I was typing it out I started thinking about Pyrrha referring to herself as a fucked-up and forever changed soul who longs for her body and has acclimated to this one over ten thousand years, and it made me wonder about the fate of the OG cavaliers’ bodies. John was keeping everyone alive for way longer than a human lifespan at Canaan House, and I think it’s entirely possible that the cavs’ corpses were incorruptible. Are they stashed in Canaan House somewhere, behind the locked door that we never got to see?

Other info on the OGs (mostly from Pyrrha)

“‘You should be draining and replacing her fucking brain fluid,’ said Pyrrha. ‘When Gideon and I designed that trial, I used to crack his skull and sieve it myself, just as a control variable. It’s aggregative. I doubt you’re testing her white blood cell count either. The only other people I put through that damn trial were Mercy and Cris, because only Cris didn’t mind being trepanned on the regular.^[le]^[lf] Fucking around with souls is the problem, Sextus…you can’t ever get the full data on souls.’” (NtN 84) This legit makes me wonder again what they built the trials FOR, what did they think they were going to be used for, if they were this dangerous?? Also Cristabel really sounds like a wild person and I want to meet her.
“But Pyrrha said, ‘God, you think she’s ever gotten presents? I visited her hometown back before Anastasia got settled, and it was grim as fuck then. Just spooky caves all the way down…’” (NtN 86)
Just want to link here this incredible analysis of Ulysses and Titania and what we know about them (which isn’t much, and yet!). Fantastic, Tumblr user thewinterstale.
Cassy’s duplicitous slut era

“Hect repeats We Suffer’s claim that Source Gram came from within the Sixth House around six thousand years ago, an incident that apparently even We Suffer admits has fallen into Edenite mythology. We Suffer and Hect often mention a ‘break clause.’” (HtN 529 - AYU)
“‘Cassiopeia the First left us instructions years ago,’ said Camilla. ‘We left for a Lyctor.’” (NtN 335)
So 6000 years ago, ish, Cassy set up the break clause, set up the obelisks they would need (I presume, anyway), and connected with BoE. Why BoE though? Is this a condition of the break clause? Some way of giving the Sixth allies at such time as they need to break away from the Empire?

“C— admitting out of nowhere she’s dating N—. All of us like, What? We’ve known for a year? Go ahead and get married already, we’ve got a nun. N— was all, That’s not legal. C— of all people said, Who cares.” (NtN 399) This puzzles me a little! Same sex marriage has been legal in NZ since 2013. Is there something else^[lg]^[lh] about this union that would be illegal that either I’m not getting or that will later be revealed, or is this a horrible future where same sex marriage becomes illegal again as the world goes down the drain?

The Mithraeum

A mithraeum is an underground temple of the Cult of Mithras, a Roman god! The whole Wikipedia article on Mithraism is worth reading, but I’m gonna pull out the things that feel very relevant. Everything below in this section is from that same Wikipedia article unless otherwise cited.
“Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals.” Seven grades of initiation brings to mind the Eightfold Word! Also family dinners!
“Mithraism is viewed as a rival of early Christianity. In the 4th century, Mithraists faced persecution from Christians…” John set out, perhaps, to break away from a Catholic upbringing—he’s very invested in ancient religions and references in his naming conventions, if nothing else. Instead, he ended up recreating Catholicism anyway, the dope.
“The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun).” Born on the rock that became flesh! Known for killing cows! Associated with the sun! Oh, John.

“In every mithraeum the centerpiece was a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, an act called the tauroctony.” For real, just go read this whole article, there’s a lot about the bull killing.

“One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head). His body is a naked man's, entwined by a serpent (or two serpents, like a caduceus), with the snake's head often resting on the lion's head. The lion's mouth is often open. He is usually represented as having four wings, two keys (sometimes a single key), and a sceptre in his hand. Sometimes the figure is standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross.” This actually reminds me of the pillars that are carved like serpents outside the Lyctoral studies in Canaan House!
Great post about Mithraism and TLT with deeper understanding than my basic ass googling!

Ianthe and Coronabeth

“Nor did Coronabeth spill her blood: she only drew close to the work to pull Ianthe’s hair away from her face, or to take a tiny knife from the twins’ bags to replace the one her sister was using.” (GtN 187) Foreshadowing for Corona, but also I like how the things she is doing to participate are kind of cavalier-y in Camilla’s style, minimizing distractions, sourcing tools.
“‘I am also in possession of one,’ she said, unruffled. … ‘Ianthe Tridentarius,’ said her cavalier, ‘you are—you’re—Corona, why didn’t you tell me?’ Corona stopped him, one slender hand on his shoulder. She was looking at her twin, who calmly avoided her gaze. ‘Because I didn’t know,’ she said lightly, chair scraping as she rose to stand. (GtN 199) I guess this isn’t exactly foreshadowing, but I’m interested in interrogating Ianthe’s motives. On first read this felt to me like she was trying to get ahead, even ahead of her own sister; but knowing Corona’s not a necromancer and that Ianthe won’t let her be a cavalier in the Lyctoral sense, this now feels like Ianthe is protecting her. I think Corona really is the only person Ianthe loves, and will protect above herself, even though she also manipulates her.
“The necromancer teen was saying listlessly: ‘I can tell fresh human cremains. Can’t you, Princess?’ Corona hesitated.” (GtN 251)
“‘Ianthe! Not helping! —Sixth, you mustn’t accept—the Third will represent the Sixth in this, if they’ll consent. At arms, Babs.’ Her twin sister’s voice was thin and soft as silk. ‘Don’t unsheathe that sword, Naberius.’ ‘Ianthe, what—are—you—doing.’ ‘I want to see how this plays out,’ she said with a pallid shrug, heedless of the growing ire in her twin’s voice. ‘Alas. I have a bad personality and a stupefying deficit of attention.’” (GtN 260)

“This was, you thought, your sister-saint’s downfall: she had pre-defined a set of things that merited her attention and consideration, and everything else she put aside.” (HtN 257) Gotta say, I’m very into ADHD Ianthe.

“‘There’s only the challenge…and how it’s answered.’ When she looked at her sister’s stricken face—Corona was somewhere beyond fury and shame now, and had lost every atom of her poise—she only said, quite softly: ‘This is for you, dear, don’t be picky. This may be the only chance we have. Don’t feel bad, sweetheart—what can you do?’ Corona’s face changed—the struggle gave way to exhaustion, but at the same time there was a weird relief in her. Her teeth were gritted, but one of her hands tangled in her sister’s long, thin, ivory-blond locks and she drew their heads close. ‘I can do nothing,’ she said, and Gideon realized they’d just lost her, somehow. ‘Then let’s do this together. I need you.’ ‘I need you,’ echoed her twin, rather piteously.” (GtN 267-268)
“‘It’s the Third I’m least certain of. I don’t know which twin to watch out for.’ ‘The big one,’ said Harrow, without hesitation. Gideon was pretty sure both twins were the same size, and was surprised to discover that even the anatomist’s gaze of Harrowhark Nonagesimus was not immune to the radiance coming off Princess Corona. ‘They’re both only middling necromancers, but the big one is the dominant. She says I; the sister says we.’” (GtN 310) I actually think Harrow is also fooled by Corona, as Gideon assumes. Corona does often talk about just herself, and Ianthe often talks about both of them. It’s part of Ianthe’s don’t-notice-me cover, and I think it worked on Harrow up to this point.^[li]^[lj]
“Harrow said to him, slowly: ‘Undoing the cavalier’s bodywork should have killed her. It would have been an incredible shock to her system.’ ‘Spreading it between multiple casters may have diluted the feedback.’ ‘That is not remotely how it works,’ said Ianthe.” (GtN 344) This is interesting! Does Ianthe know a lot about sharing a casting across multiple people because she is constantly doing the opposite, and needs to know what it should look like if she and Corona are meant to be doing necromancy together?
“The source of the crying became apparent a little way into the room. Next to the marble slab, Coronabeth was huddled, her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked backward and forward. Next to her on the ground— ‘Yes,’ said Ianthe. ‘My cavalier is dead, and I killed him. Please don’t misunderstand, this isn’t a confession.’” (GtN 381) This is all so tangled. Ianthe didn’t want to kill Corona. Corona wanted to be the most specialist, and also her sister’s cavalier. Ianthe calls Babs “my cavalier” because he is, he was never really Corona’s, even though that’s what he wanted and that’s how they played it in public a lot of the time. These three are so fucked up.
“‘Because I didn’t need any of your keys, and I didn’t need any of your secrets. I was always better than all of you—and none of you noticed—nobody ever notices, which is both my virtue and my downfall. How I hate being so good at my job…You noticed, didn’t you, you horrible little Ninth goblin? Just a bit?’” (GtN 382) I feel like this will always be important to remember about Ianthe—she gives nothing away until she’s ready. Even later, without Corona to pretend for and hide in the shadow of, she still plays everything so close to the chest that her poker hand is inside her fucking ribcage. ^[lk]^[ll]
“‘None of the thanergy signatures in this building added up…untilI realized what we were all being led to. What the Lyctors of old were trying to tell us. You see, my field has always been energy transferral…large-scale energy transferral. Resurrection theory. I studied what happened when the Lord our Kindly God took our dead and dying Houses and brought them back to life, all those years ago…what price he would have to pay. What displacement, the soul of a planet? What happens when a planet dies? … I’m interested in the place between death and life…the place between release and disappearance. The place over the river. The displacement…where the soul goes when we knock it about…where the things are that eat us.’” (GtN 382) All of this feels so fruitful with possible interpretations, and I can’t pin down a single one. How much has Ianthe actually figured out about the Resurrection, and John’s power, and Alecto? Not necessarily right at this moment, but in HtN as well? Is that why she attaches so strongly to Augustine, who spent thousands of years wondering from whence John’s power really came? Does she already know what Resurrection Beasts are, in a theoretical way, right now?
“The Crown Princess of Ida was not acknowledging the fact that anyone was speaking to her. Her sister continued: ‘Everyone’s blind. Corona? A born necromancer? She was as necromantic as Babs. But Dad wanted a matched set. And we didn’t want anything to separate us—so we started the lie. I’ve had to be two necromancers since I was six. It sharpens your focus, I tell you what.’” (GtN 385) At last, the reveal! I almost can’t believe I didn’t figure this out on first read, there’s SO MUCH EVIDENCE.
“She threw herself into Gideon’s arms, and she sobbed, silently now, utterly destroyed. Gideon was soothed by the fact that someone in this madhouse was still human enough to cry. ‘Are you okay—I mean, are you all right,’ said Gideon. Corona recoiled from Gideon and looked up at her, her golden hair smeared to her forehead with sweat and tears. ‘She took Babs,’ she said, which seemed fair enough. But then Corona started crying again, big tears leaking out of her eyes, her voice thick with misery and self-pity. ‘And who even cares about Babs? Babs! She could have taken me.’” (GtN 394)

I know this is played as unrelatable and callous and weird as hell, but for Corona this is a deep, deep betrayal. She’s been hiding who she really is, and at the same time trying to make herself more fit for Ianthe in the role she wants, as her cav. We’ve seen her modeling her cavaliership on Gideon a bit, who is very sucked into the self-sacrificial interpretation of what a cav is. Corona is transing her gender and all she wants is for Ianthe to see her, and find her good, and use her in the way a cav is used; what an awful rejection, even though I honestly think from Ianthe’s perspective, she’s trying to save Corona from this fate just as Harrow tries to save Gideon. They are a kind of twisted version of Harrow and Gideon, following some parallel lines.

“‘I’ve tried the sister thing already,’ said Ianthe, circling around to one side, ‘and I wasn’t any good at it.’ ‘But I have so much to teach you,’ said Cytherea.” (GtN 417) I wonder what she regrets, with Corona. Why does she characterize herself this way? I don’t think she was a great sister, but I think the reasons she would give and the reasons Corona might give would be very different.
“‘I don’t care about Babs… Just don’t suggest my sister is dead to me, ever again.’” (HtN 67)
“‘She accused me of being twelve, called me one of those animaphiliacs, then told me I wasn’t as good looking as someone called Cyrus. It was like being back with Mummy,’ she added, with a touch of fond nostalgia.” (HtN 80) Sounds like a fun childhood! I feel like there’s a lot of bad shit going down on the Third.
“It was with very little trepidation that you dropped to your knees beside her. You rolled her onto her back—and she looked at you with terrified eyes, half-blue, part-brown, with fragments of lavender. Her mouth was an ugly twist, contemptuous of herself. You had seen that expression a million times in your mirror, but never on her. ‘Harrow,’ she said unsteadily. She was trembling. ‘You’re a fool,’ you said. ‘How I crave your honeyed words,’ said Ianthe. Her mouth was almost purple from the pain. ‘How I love your tender compassion.’” (HtN 242) This is in some ways the reverse of Ianthe finding Harrow naked and nearly dead on the floor of her bathroom, except Ianthe doesn’t kneel and offer her any help or comfort; Harrow, when the tables are turned, does. I find the parallels between the Ianthe-Corona dichotomy and the Harrow-Gideon dichotomy really interesting, and I feel like that’s coming into play a bit here too. They’re both the heinous bitches of their primary relationships, lmao.
“You found yourself murmuring, almost more surprised with yourself than with her: ‘Warrior proud of the Third House! Ride forth now as my sister.’ There was a rustle from her side of the bed, and you saw that she had sat up a little, her exposed and metal-skinned humerus garishly propped on the covers. ‘Was that poetry?’ she demanded. ‘Debatably,’ you said, and she lay back down. … Then she said, idly: ‘Coronabeth and I spent three nights apart in all our lives, and the second time she cried so hard that she threw up…I hope she’s sleeping easy now. When she doesn’t, she gets bags under her eyelids you could carry water in.’” (HtN 260) One of the few moments I genuinely feel so sad for her.
“‘I may have been Sextus’s necromantic superior; but he was the better man. You are not even so worthy of that brain as to wipe its bloodied remnants from the wall,’ said the Ninth. ‘You are a murderer, a conwoman, a cheat, a liar, a slitherer, and you embody the worst flaws of your house—as do I… Nonetheless, I did not ask you because you are a Lyctor, Third.’ … The shadow cultist stared into the mirror. Those great black eyes were empty pools: abyssal holes—an oil spill in the dark—or unfilled sockets. ‘I asked you because you know what it is,’ she said haltingly, ‘to be—fractured.’ Of such banality was grief made.” (HtN 362)
“Somehow I managed to say: ‘We have to get everyone out. Now.’ ‘There is no way,’ said Mercy, cool as death. It was Ianthe of all people who said, ‘How can you say that? Will you not even try?’” (HtN 486) I think she’s thinking—My sister is there.
I’ll be coming back to this section over the course of rereading NtN with specific quotes, but wanted to get down some first thoughts about the twins in NtN. The parallels to Harrow and Gideon really come out in a big way, more so than I expected! We get Corona, who is really coming into herself as a person who cares about other people, and tries to do good, even when good is complicated and hard to determine. She’s very much taking up a Gideon sort of role, a protector. She was rejected by the most important person in her life, even though Ianthe wouldn’t see it as a rejection, and went careening off in a different direction. Gideon has done that too—she’s been painfully rejected, though Harrow also doesn’t see it that way, and has buried herself deeply into soldierhood on the opposite side. Gideon has, in some ways, taken Corona’s old place, where she’s pretending quite a lot, probably doesn’t like the situation she’s in but doesn’t know how to say anything about it, is being manipulated by her father, and has built a relationship with Ianthe. And Ianthe! She’s grasping more and more power, as much as she can, in a way Harrow may have thought she wanted but actually couldn’t bear the cost of. She has drawn Gideon into her orbit as a replacement for her muscley and dim sister, even though neither Corona nor Gideon are dim. Ianthe remains a bitch but shows, sometimes, her vulnerabilities. Harrow, on the other hand, has always been a bitch but her scales are tipping into vulnerability more and more as a result of trauma and grief. Ianthe and Corona can tell each other how they feel, can show it, but still can’t agree on how to be together or whose side to be on; Harrow and Gideon are totally unable to tell each other how they feel or show it, are constantly ships passing in the night. Ianthe and Kiriona as the Tower Princes, as friends or frenemies, as siblings under the wing of a depressed and manipulative God, are bonding over missing Harrow and also bonding because they fit together, imperfectly but in a way that’s familiar to both of them. Ngl, I would love to see Harrow interacting with Corona, as herself; would they bond in some similar way? I feel like from Corona’s side, part of her fondness for Nona might come from a place of fondness for Harrow, and fondness for Gideon and Harrow as a pair.
I’ve been thinking more about the twins’ long-term plan. We see over and over again that Corona is smarter and more strategic than she’s made out to be—she’s more like Ianthe than she ever shows, and they have always been co-conspirators. Even though they seem to be on opposite sides politically/morally in this situation, I feel like they may both still have the same goal. I kind of suspect that they both want, and have wanted for a long time, to usurp John and rule the Nine Houses. This bit in AYU, which I was rereading and thinking about after the AYU episode of The Locked Tomb Podcast, got me on this train of thought: “What am I to believe? That the princess was and remains an innocent victim, or that the princess maintained the pose of innocence and has become a victim anyway? She sincerely believes that the Houses have done wrong, and worse, that they are being led incorrectly. The tips of her ears go pink when she is genuinely impassioned.” (AYU) Also this bit: “She said she and her sister had always been interested in the way the Houses were being run, and that Ianthe had encouraged her interest. She had always thought we were being wasteful. I told her this wasn’t ideology, it was economics. I asked her if she was ready to sell her birthright for economics. She said as a Second I should be more than willing to sell my birthright for economics. We had an argument. Afterward she said it was much more than theory. She said she had groomed herself for something and all it had done was make her unfit for the purpose. What purpose?” (AYU) The Houses are “being led incorrectly,” and Ianthe encouraged Corona’s interest in pulling that apart, in preparing herself not just to rule the Third, but perhaps to go farther. And Ianthe clearly states at the end of NtN that she wants to keep John powerless and pathetic—that will make him easier for her to manipulate. Though the twins see different futures for the Dominicus system, I think, they both see themselves at the head of those futures. Who knows what thrones they’ll mount? (AYU)
Go read this truly delightful analysis of Iphis and Ianthe from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Tridentarii, it’s so good, thanks for this food Tumblr user thewinterstale.
“Crown, in her heavy boots and stained zip-up jacket and tough canvas trousers with bulging pockets, was the most beautiful woman in the city and maybe on the planet. She filled up the doorway like a light-up sign. She had skin like amber and wonderful hair exactly the colour of golden sugar, and if she had ever been in a queue to get something from a shop everyone would have asked her where she had been all their lives. YOu could have sold tickets to see her. When she smiled at Nona, like she did now, her purple eyes crinkled up at the corners. She was always happy to see Nona. Nona was regularly the only one happy to see her.” (NtN 143) I just want to note Crown’s first appearance in this book! Nona’s delightful assessment of her attractiveness, and how much it seems like she’s really thriving as best she can in a hard situation. Separated from Ianthe, all the qualities of people-pleasing and leadership and just attention-drawing she had to develop over their childhoods has really paid off in a new way, plus she’s been allowed the leeway to be strong, to be dangerous, to be dirty. It’s a fucking fantastic look on her, if I’m honest.
“‘You shouldn’t ask me things if you don’t want me to tell the truth about them.’ ‘I know. I do it all the time, I’ve never learnt. It’s awful—my sister says that. I’d ask her how I looked in an outfit and she’d always say exactly what was on her mind, and sometimes all I wanted was for her to tell me I looked perfect even if I didn’t.’ Crown signed, the picture of tragedy. ‘And, horribly, she was always right.’ ‘But you always look beautiful,’ said Nona. ‘That’s why I should ask you what I look like, and ask my sister what I’m feeling,’ said Crown. ‘You’ll always tell me I look beautiful, and she’ll always tell me what I want her to think.’” (NtN 175) This moment passes so fast, but it feels SO CRUCIAL to me. First of all, I think we already knew that this is what the twins’ relationship was like, but it’s another confirmation that Ianthe makes a point of being brutally honest for Corona’s eventual good (or at least the good of her outfit) and Corona sometimes just wants some reassurance or comfort. But the most important part here to me is “she’ll always tell me what I want her to think.” Corona is extremely confident that her real feelings, whatever they are, are always hidden from Ianthe—that even the person who knows her the best in the entire universe can be fooled by what she projects. Corona longs for Ianthe to really know her and see her, and simultaneously won’t allow it. And if Ianthe can’t see what she’s feeling, then it’s going to be even more hidden from anyone else—except maybe Nona. Deception is Corona’s specialty and the way she masks is so fucking relatable.^[lm]^[ln]
“‘You darling, I know what you are, even if they refuse to see it,’ she said softly. ‘All I can say, sweetheart, is I envy you more than anyone else in the universe.’” (NtN 177) So maybe this could go in the section about who Nona is, but I think it says more about Crown than about Nona! She’s still grieving the “betrayal” that was Ianthe not killing and consuming her, and that’s fueling her certainty that Harrow and Gideon have accomplished what she wants and can’t have.
“‘Corona,’ called out someone new. Nona had heard that voice once before, on the broadcast. Footsteps, evolving into running feet. Something hit Crown with a big thump. A mess of sounds—clothes rustling, a sobbing, the audio squeaking as it tried to keep up—and Crown, sounding unlike any crown that Nona had ever heard before, two voices trying to speak at once: ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking touch me.’ ‘Shush-a-shush, my darling. Shush. Shhh. Here we are. We’re fine. I’ve got you, love.’ ‘Oh my God, you’re so cold. He’s so cold.’ ‘He’s dead, sweetheart. It’s me in here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ ‘How could you? How could you?’ ‘Please touch me. I’ll die.’ ‘I love you…I love you, I Love you, I’ve missed you so much. Please be real.’ ‘I’m real—we’re real…’ ‘Oh, God, Ianthe,’ said Crown, and her voice changed a little. ‘This is sick. Look at him. I hate you.’ ‘No you don’t. You always say that. Don’t cry, honey…you can’t cry if I can’t cry with you. It’s not fair. I can’t cry at the moment unless I do the tear ducts manually. Look at you…more beautiful than ever, even with crappy jewellery and a million split ends. Studs, darling? Earrings on a diet?’ Crown was hiccupping, sobbing, laughing all at once: ‘Don’t do that. Don’t say what Babs would say.’ ‘You know I always said what Babs would say, except when Babs said what I would, We kept you honest. Come here, my heart’s love,’ said the voice, and Crown’s sobs were suddenly muffled, then quieted, then silenced altogether.” (NtN 298-299) How could I have a whole section on the twins without this scene? There are so many layers here. I think there’s genuine relief and love and sorrow on both sides, at being reunited, at being reunited in this particular way, with Babs’ corpse between them. I also think that part of Ianthe’s relief is having Corona back under her thumb; I think part of Corona’s sorrow is knowing that she’s working against Ianthe, even though she so desperately wants to have her sister back. They’re so deeply entwined, and so blatant about it, the intimacy of the language they use with each other feels strikingly genuine.

“‘I know what you’re thinking. You think you can’t come home again except as the conquering hero. Well, you’re wrong. One, absolutely nobody gave a hot toot about Judith, and two, they made our birthday a memorial holiday. Not a ‘congratulations on the Lyctorhood, our daughter of the Third’ day, a ‘Coronabeth Tridentarius, our darling gone too soon’ day. Talk about vom. When I heard, I nearly died laughing…Have I hurt your feelings already, love? I don’t mean to.’” (NtN 300-301) Ianthe’s so sure she knows what’s up! She’s never known Corona as well as she thinks she does, and she knows Crown even less.

“Crown made a small noise in the back of her throat. The Prince turned to her and said, a little accusingly, ‘You didn’t tell me this little detail. Has she been blinded this whole time?’ ‘I told you she was here,’ said Corona. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her eyelashes looked a bit too sooty. ‘I left out the details. So what?’ ‘There is so much you are not telling me and it makes me so cross,’ said the Prince. ‘You see, my emotions are being expressed through two nervous systems, so I really don’t know what to do with them.’” (NtN 332) There’s so much tension and deception between them, but also it feels like par for the curse somehow. Ianthe clearly trusts Corona, or at least trusts that she has the upper hand against Corona here—she’s not able to entertain the idea that Corona is still working against her. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, they have their own conflicts between them.
“‘This is—this is shitty,’ the Prince pronounced, sounding curiously young and woebegone and frustrated. Crown threw herself out of her chair and went down on her knees in front of the Prince—wrapped her arms around the Prince’s legs and put her cheek on the dead right thigh. The Prince reached out and tangled one hand in her bright, springy curls, and sighed a cold, dead, defeated sigh. When Crown spoke her voice was low and tender, the lowest and tenderest voice Nona had ever heard: ‘Baby, it sounds awful.’ ‘Corona, it’s death.’ ‘So stick it. Stick all this and come home with me…throw this all in and come to me.’ Nona would have immediately thrown everything down and gone to live with Crown, but the Prince was not so moved. She laughed a little and pulled at a handful of curls, dropped them to watch them bounce, and said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ But Crown did not relent. ‘Come to me. I need you…we’ve been apart for such a long time, Ianthe. They took you away from me. They took me away from you. Let’s let them hang and go off on our own. Drop Babs. I’ll take that shuttle and meet you wherever you want to meet me and we’ll go…we’ll start over.’ At the bottom of her voice, Prince Ianthe Naberius said— ‘There is no starting over, Corona.’ ‘There is. I know there is,’ Crown said eagerly. ‘But we’re closer to the goal than ever before.’ ‘Of course we are, you perfect genius,’ said Crown, lovingly, and she took the dead gloved fingers, and she kissed them. Every single dead soldier’s fingers twitched. Prince Ianthe Naberius raised hers, an involuntary movement almost, and that waxen, handsome face was an expressionless mask, with only the cool grey eyeballs moving in their sockets. Then Crown said quietly, ‘We can do good work, Ianthe. I know people who need us.’ For some reason that was what broke the spell.” (NtN 336-337) There’s a lot here!! I’m wondering again about what Ianthe’s long game is, what Corona’s long game is, and what their joint long game has been. I get the sense here that Ianthe is working toward some goal that they shared, which is maybe power. I also have the feeling that Corona’s not working toward that goal anymore, and that last thing she says is what gives away that her priorities have changed. The scale is so much larger and maybe more twisted, but they’re suffering something a lot of people suffer in their 20s—the shift from the goals of their childhood to the goals of their adulthood. These two have always been as close as two people can be, but they’ve reached a point in their lives where circumstances have given them different experiences, and they’re starting to veer apart from each other. This is Corona’s last ditch effort to get Ianthe off the path she’s on and into Corona’s power; she knows that if Ianthe refuses her, she’s going to betray her.
“There was movement by the chairs. Ianthe Naberius jerked her head toward Pyrrha—some of the zombies were lurching toward her—but Pyrrha had reacted too late. Crown had Pyrrha’s gun, and although one of the zombies was bear-hugging her around the middle, she had made the gun make that soft ker-KLUNK noise and pressed the barrel up into the soft part of her throat. Prince Ianthe Naberius cried out, ‘For the love of God, Corona—!’ ‘Let her go,’ said Crown. ‘The Captain or Camilla. Make up your mind, and take one. You know I can’t let them both go. Put the gun down, darling, I don’t want to hurt you getting it off you.’ ‘I wouldn’t get hurt. I’d just die,’ said Crown, her bronzed throat working against the barrel. ‘You’re not all-powerful here. All you have are wards and puppets. I shoot, the bullet goes through my palate and into the brain, and then you’re the Crown Princess of Ida…like you never wanted.’ ‘Stop being so fucking dramatic—’ ‘Staaahp being so fucking dramahhhtic,’ Crown mimicked, in a high-pitched voice. ‘This isn’t the time, you dumb, hilarious bitch!’ ‘You don’t even know how to fix Naberius’s hair! He needs it done pompadour! He looks awful!’ ‘That’s your opposition? Seriously?’ ‘I’m going to shoot myself and you’re going to watch,’ said Crown, with deep satisfaction. ‘Like when we were teens, but this time I’m going to really tie the rope…really drink the poison…’ ‘You didn’t then and you wouldn’t now—Corona. Coronabeth!’ Crown had closed her eyes. Nona found that she had started to leak tears from sheer fright, and her eyes felt gritty and awful. The Prince said even more urgently, ‘I can’t let Hect live. You know I can’t. I can fast-talk for Deuteros…your life is safe…’ ‘Then duel her!’ Crown cried, in obvious agony. ‘Duel her and give her what she wants! None of us ever could!’” (NtN 343) Fucking hell, okay, where do I even start with this? The pleasure Corona gets out of this power, out of using her own life as a bargaining chip to make Ianthe do what she wants, is really intense. The fact that it’s a pattern, that she’s done this to Ianthe before, the way she pretended to be hurt as a child to get Jody to pay attention to her, really says something to me about her self-esteem. She’s been the pretty one, the outgoing one, the bubbly one, all their lives—and Ianthe has been telling her, all their lives, that she’s also the brainless one. As I think I’ve said before in this doc, it’s a mirror of Harrow and Gideon—two people who hate themselves, except one lashes out in response and the other takes risks with her own self. And this, this is what works on Ianthe—she can’t take the chance that Corona would actually shoot herself, even though no previous threat of this kind has been followed through on. Except this time it’s not just a power play between Corona and Ianthe; Corona’s not only looking for Ianthe’s attention and fear and proof of her own importance. This time she’s taken a page pretty directly from Gideon’s cavalier gender book, and she’s willing to die to save the woman she’s in love with and the friend she trauma-bonded with.

“Crown was pleading, ‘One fight…one last duel. You challenged her with Babs, you know, back on Canaan House. I didn’t do it. So follow through, for me. You always do things for me, don’t you? My heart’s own…my necromancer.’ Prince Ianthe Naberius shuddered. ‘Drop the gun and I’ll do it.’ Crown hesitated. The Prince stepped back from Camilla, one step, then another; Crown fumbled with the gun. It made a backward KLUNK-ker, and then she dropped it loudly to the tiles, where thankfully it did not go off. Prince Ianthe Naberius’s shoulders sagged forward.” (NtN 344) “My necromancer” is the key, at last. The thing Ianthe just can’t resist. The reassurance that even though she’s going to such heartstopping lengths for these other women, Ianthe is the most truly hers, the object of what is, culturally, the deepest devotion.

“‘Just because I feel good about not killing her doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have. It wasn’t mercy, Princess.’ ‘I don’t care. Thank you—thank you for not…not hurting her.’ … Crown dropped the scraps of her dress. When she looked at Palamedes, Nona was suddenly struck by the idea that Crown wasn’t happy at all, or grateful—and yet she obviously was, hungrily and thirstily grateful; she put Nona in mind of Noodle, suddenly, wanting to go out but wanting to stay in the basket, wanting to run around outside but wanting to come back.” (NtN 353-354) This description is so good! Corona can’t have all the things she wants when some of them are directly contradictory, but it doesn’t stop her wanting.
I LOVE THIS POST by tumblr user lady-harrowhark, what a juicy detail!!! Like, either Ianthe has legit somehow been dead the whole time we’ve known her (which I don’t actually think is possible given the arm scene and all the bleeding and sweating and whatnot we see her do but in this series you literally never know) or it’s a really excellent bit of association Tamsyn is doing to give an impression of Ianthe and either way I think it’s great fucking writing.

The post has a longer chain now, and I’m still into it! I love the idea that Ianthe is dependent on Corona being alive, in some way, to be alive herself. I think it’s very juicy to have two characters who are so tied up in each other emotionally also be tied up in each other physically, it’s a neat and more fucked up mirror of Cam and Pal and later Paul.

The Pool:

“Harrow turned to face Gideon, and her eyes were as black and inexorable as a gravity collapse. ‘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.” (GtN 347) I just can’t leave this out of any discussion of the pool scene!! From the very start we have this empty room that echoes weirdly because pool rooms always do, Harrow’s skeletons making a barricade all around, this ominous vibe from Harrow, and Muir breaks this tension immediately with a joke about sudden shocking intimacy when what we’re about to get IS SUDDEN SHOCKING INTIMACY.
“‘The Ninth House has a secret, Nav,’ said Harrow. She sounded calm and measured and frank in a way she’d never been before. ‘Only my family knows of it. And even we could never discuss it, unless—this was my mother’s rule—we were immersed in salt water.’”(GtN 348) Let’s talking about the fucking salt water. The salt water all around Canaan House; the salt water surrounding Alecto’s coffin in the Tomb. If Alecto is the Resurrection Beast of Earth, which I think is likely, then salt water is important to her—most of the Earth is ocean, and if the Earth died in a climate collapse, then even more of the Earth probably became ocean as water levels rose. But how does salt water relate to secrets? Is it for protection? Is it to keep from being overheard? To keep from being stained by the sin of what’s about to be revealed, in some way, like a baptism? Does it actually relate directly to the Tomb and Alecto? Has this idea been passed down, or is it something Pelleamena came up with? Alecto, notably, is surrounded by salt water^[lo]^[lp]^[lq] but not immersed, does that make a difference? I have lots of questions and no answers, but salt water means something and I’m excited to eventually find out what.
“‘I didn’t kill him,’ said Harrowhark sharply. ‘Someone else did—blade through the heart, from what I saw, though I only got a few minutes to look before I had to run.’” (GtN 348) We never find out who actually did kill him, do we?^[lr]^[ls]^[lt]^[lu] Is it Cytherea, trying to relieve herself of the burden of puppeting him in a way that causes more chaos and doesn’t lead back to her, and it backfired? But then why this dramatic stabbing, and then later put the body in the incinerator? That feels like the work of two different people.
“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.’” (GtN 349) It really kills me that Harrow was trying very hard to get Gideon, and by extension the kids, AWAY from danger, and to take on to powerful necromancers by herself in order to protect them. I think this is the first time we really get clear evidence that Harrow’s motives are often obscured to Gideon, covered by her bitchiness—or that her motives have slowly been changing, and Gideon hasn’t noticed.
“‘I had no idea what it would mean for the Fourth House. The Ninth is deep in their blood debt and I am undone by the expense. I—I did not want to hurt you, Griddle! I didn’t want to disturb your—equilibrium.’ ‘Harrow,’ said Gideon, ‘if my heart had a dick you would kick it.’ ‘I did not want to alienate you more than I already had. And then it seemed as though—we were on a more even footing,’ said Harrow, who was stumbling in a way Gideon had never before witnessed. It looked as though she were ransacking drawers in her brain trying to find the right set of words to wear. ‘Our—we— It was too tenuous to risk.’” (GtN 349) This whole thing hurts, but ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Griddle!’ really gets to me. This brings me back to Harrow chewing Gideon out after Jeannemary died, which Gideon interprets as anger she deserves, and which I interpret as Harrow’s terror at the danger Gideon was in coming out as anger because she’s never learned how to show concern. She’s always had much more power over Gideon than Gideon had over her, and now that they’re away from the Ninth and away from the context that gives Harrow power, she’s trying to learn how to treat Gideon more like an equal, because that’s what she’s always actually wanted.
“‘Why was the Fourth cavalier killed, but you left alive?’” (GtN 351) I very much want to know this as well. I really do think Cytherea was anticipating Gideon to some degree, and that getting her and Harrow to Lyctorhood in order to challenge John was part of her goal.
Just want to note at this point that I think it’s interesting Gideon has started asking questions, when Harrow mentioned the Ninth House having a secret but has not yet said what the secret is. And Gideon stumbles right into it!
“The hairs on the back of Gideon’s neck rose, wetly. ‘Harrow,’ she said slowly, ‘by resources, are you saying—’ ‘Two hundred children,’ said Harrowhark tiredly. ‘From the ages of six weeks to eighteen years.’” I have some questions about this still. I feel like there are places where the 200 includes Ortus, and places where it doesn’t. Here, it obviously doesn’t, because he didn’t die. And in the beginning of GtN, Gideon says that she was the 201st child in the creche. So Ortus was 18? Or 19? When Harrow was born, just missed the cutoff? Or was he not in the creche because he was in cavalier training already?
“‘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.’” (GtN 353) It is truly wild to me that we get this huge reveal about Gideon and can’t comprehend what it means until the end of HtN. We have some pieces, but you’d have to be galaxy brain to put them together before then. But, ta da! Gideon can’t die. Unless she tries really hard, of her own accord?
“Gideon waited. ‘Of course I wouldn’t be worth it,’ Harrow said scornfully. ‘I’m an abomination.’” (GtN 353) We got to see Harrow’s worry and concern; now we get to see the other thing she covers up with bitch face, her self-hatred. I wonder if the stamps of all these innocent souls on her is what attracts/connects Alecto to her, if there’s some sense of kinship there.
“‘I had to be a necromancer of their bloodline, Nav…because only a necromancer can open the Locked Tomb. Only a powerful necromancer can roll away the stone…I found that only the perfect necromancer can pass through those wards and live, and approach the sarcophagus.’” (GtN 354)I feel like finding out the key was Gideon’s blood, and not Harrow’s “perfect” necromancy^[lv]^[lw], will hurt Harrow later. Just emotionally. All those kids died for nothing, except to make Harrow, who isn’t the key to the Tomb after all.
“‘The Locked Tomb’s meant to house the one true enemy of the King Undying, Nav, something older than time, the cost of the Resurrection; the beast that he defeated once but can’t defeat twice.’” (GtN 354) The Resurrection Beast of Earth.
“‘He left the grave with us for our safekeeping, and he trusted the ones who built the tomb a myriad ago to wall themselves up with the corpse and die there. But we didn’t. And that’s how the Ninth House was made.’” (GtN 354) I just so badly want to know if Anastasia locked herself in the tomb to die or not. If she’s Aiglamene, or still around somehow. If there were people on the Ninth before the Tomb was built, and what they thought of all this.
“‘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?’ There was another pause, and Harrow looked down into the water. Limned by electric light, her pupils and her irises appeared the same colour. ‘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.’ She lifted her gaze. She held Gideon’s. ‘But you came back instead,’ said Gideon. ‘I’d told the Reverend Mother and Reverend Father what I’d seen you do. I killed your parents.’” (GtN 354-355)

This is going to appear in two places because it has to be part of the notes about their fight and opening the Tomb, but oh well. But the timing of this is so tricky to me. This makes it sound like it all happened at once; like Harrow and Gideon fought, Harrow wanted to die, Harrow broke into the Tomb and Gideon ratted her out. But other tellings of it don’t agree; breaking into the Tomb was a long process, and the final step (I think?) was the one that required Gideon’s blood. So…Harrow fought with Gideon, wanted to die, and decided to finally try this last ward that she thought would kill her? Is that how this worked?

“‘I’m not saying I didn’t blame you. I did…it was much easier. I pretended for a long time that I could have saved them by talking to them. Them and Mortus the Ninth. When you walked in, when you saw what you saw…when you saw what I had failed to do. I hated you because you saw what I didn’t do. 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 helpMortus 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.’” (GtN 355) At last we get the real WHY. Why Harrow’s animosity went from childhood rivalry to something more vicious. Shame, and fear, and deep trauma and deeper self-loathing. It was never really about Gideon, as a person, at all.
“‘Harrow,’ said Gideon, and her voice caught. ‘Harrow, I’m so bloody sorry.’” (GtN 356) I think she’s apologizing for a lot of things here, all in one. That this tragedy happened, and also that Gideon had a part in making it happen. That Harrow was so traumatized, and also that this event set them against each other with two different understandings of what had happened.
“Harrow’s eyes snapped wide open. The whites blazed like plasma. The black rings were blacker than the bottom of Drearburh.” (GtN 356) I’m sorry to just quote every line of this moment, but this reminds me of descriptions of John’s eyes, even though Harrow’s are much more human than his are.
“‘You apologize to me?’ she bellowed. ‘You apologize to me now?’” (GtN 356) All I can hear is Molly Grue.
“‘I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because—I regretted I wasn’t!’” (GtN 356) This just hurts so bad. It makes Harrow make sense in a way she hasn’t up until this scene.
“‘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.’” (GtN 356) First of all, I can’t read this without crying, every time. Also it’s not the same situation AT ALL, but it reminds me of the most shattering moment of Code Name Verity. I won’t spoil it for anyone reading this who hasn’t read that, but if you have. Kiss me, Hardy. That aside…it’s awful, how much Harrow seems to think Gideon should kill her, should want to kill her, should be the one to put her down, and that to do so would solve something for Gideon. How deeply Harrow doesn’t understand Gideon at all, doesn’t understand being a person at all, if she thinks that is what should happen in this moment. IT HURTS.
“Gideon braced her shoulders against the weight of what she was about to do. She shed eighteen years of living in the dark with a bunch of bad nuns. In the end her job was surprisingly easy: she wrapped her arms around Harrow Nonagesimus and held her long and hard, like a scream. They both went into the water, and the world went dark and salty. The Reverend Daughter fell calm and limp, as was natural for one being ritually drowned, but when she realised that she was being hugged she thrashed as though her fingernails were being ripped from their beds.” (GtN 356) There’s so much here. This is a baptism; Harrow, a repentant sinner; Gideon, the daughter of God, with the grace to forgive and start fresh. And yet it’s the reverse also, it’s John the Baptist and Jesus in the Jordan River: “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan, unto John, to be baptized by him. But John stayed him, saying: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering, said to him: Suffer it to be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice. Then he suffered him.” (Matthew 3:13-15) They’re cleansing what’s been between them all this time; from now on, they’re much closer to the same page.
“Gideon peeled Harrow’s head off her shoulder by the hair and beheld it, taking her inventory: her point-boned, hateful little face, her woeful black brows, the bloodless bow of her lips. She examined the disdainful set of the jaw, the panic in the starless eyes. 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.” (GtN 357) This is the MOST INTIMATE THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN. I don’t even have much to say about it, except that they’re finally speaking the same language. Gideon is ENFORCING her forgiveness; Harrow is letting go of her self hatred just long enough to solidify this bond. I want to paste this into every single section of this document.
Just want to say here that in between “and then could say no more” and “After what seemed like a very, very long time” the three asterisks separating these sections leave a lot of space for things to happen. I’ve read the fics, and enjoyed them. But it’s important to me that both here and in the scene following, we don’t see them kiss on the mouth. There’s sexual and romantic tension, but that’s not the most important thing—it’s most important that they understand each other, and accept each other, and love each other without needing to pick apart what loving each other means. We see so many kinds of necromancer and cavalier bonds in this book and in HtN, and all of them have some basis of love and intimacy, even the unhealthy ones. I don’t need a hot mouth kiss. I don’t need them to declare any feelings. They are already declaring everything I need to know right now.
“Her adept closed heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Beyond the doors there’s just the rock,’ she said. ‘The rock and the tomb surrounded by water. I won’t bore you with the magic or the locks, or the wards or the barriers: just know that it took me a year to walk six steps inside, and that it nearly killed me then. There’s a blood ward bypass on the doors which will only respond for the Necromancer Divine, but I knew there had to be an exploit, a way through for the true and devout tomb-keeper. I knew in the end it had to open for me. The water’s salt, and it’s deep, and it moves with a tide that shouldn’t exist.’” (GtN 357-358) Again, I find this hard to parse! So is the blood ward at the very first door, or at the rock, at the end? Gideon saw Harrow go into the Tomb in some way or another, tattled on her, and then presumably within minutes or hours Harrow was called back by her parents. But Harrow came back because she saw what was in the Tomb and wanted to live. But it took her a year to get through all the magic traps. So the blood ward couldn’t have been at the first door, it had to have been at the end? And Gideon caught her at it after she’d already been sneaking in for a year? Idk why I’m so fixated on this and why I can’t let it go but it bothers me.
“Her eyes opened. A small, astonished smile creased her mouth. The smile transformed her face into an affliction of beauty that Gideon had heretofore managed to ignore.” (GtN 358) I’M SO UPSET, Gideon has been catching feelings and trying to ignore them all along and this is such a nail in that coffin.
“‘They packed her in ice—she’s frozen solid—and they laid a sword on her breast. Her hands are wrapped around the blade.’” (GtN 358) Because she’s John’s cavalier. I wonder if her sword is a rapier, or if it’s some other kind of sword? Anyway, this is like a pose from a tomb effigy of a knight (like this one at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) and it’s so telling.
“‘Nav, when I saw her face I decided I wanted to live. I decided to live forever just in case she ever woke up.’ Her voice had the quality of someone in a long dream. She stared through Gideon without looking at her, and Gideon gently took her hands away from Harrow’s jaw. Instead she sat back in the water, buoyed by the salt, her eyes starting to sting from it.” (GtN 358) So earlier on this same page, Gideon can’t ignore how beautiful Harrow is anymore, can’t ignore what she’s feeling anymore, has to let it surface. Now, almost immediately, she has to let it go. She disengages from this very intimate physical contact. She moves back, and gives Harrow space. Her eyes stinging from the salt my ass, she’s crying. Harrow loves the corpse in the Tomb, and Gideon puts her romantic feelings away without ever admitting them, without protest, without hesitation. They love each other, and that’s true and important, and now we find out that at least from Gideon’s perspective, they don’t love each other the same way.

“Gideon’s brain moved and broke against itself like the tiny wavelets they had left, the water lurching restlessly from side to side, until it came to a final conclusion. She closed the gap between them a little, until she could see tiny droplets run down the column of Harrow’s neck and slide beneath her sodden collar. She smelled like ash, even smothered under litres and litres of saline. As she approached Harrow grew very still, and her throat worked, and her eyes opened black and wide: she looked at Gideon without breathing in, her mouth frozen, her hands unmoving, a perfect bone carving of a person. ‘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.” (GtN 358-359) Gideon does the only thing she can—she’s just had her heart very quietly broken, so she defuses the moment with humor instead. Teasing is normal; teasing is the gentlest version of the ways they antagonize each other.

The Pool in Nona’s dreams

This isn’t Nona’s dream but it feels connected: “Then Harrow was back drowning in salt water. Gideon’s arms were around her. They were in the pool of Canaan House, and she had just been ducked by her cavalier. She had held her breath instinctively, though she had been serene at the time; to drown, she thought, was softer death than she deserved, and back then to die in Gideon’s arms had seemed entirely correct. She could feel Gideon’s fingers digging into the small of her back, could feel her shirt billowing in the pool as they sank to the bottom in a tangle. Harrow’s head broke the water. A thin skin of ice shivered apart as she emerged, panting for air, her skin burning with cold.” (HtN 502-503) At the very end of HtN, Harrow’s soul breaks her bubble and enters the River, then is absorbed in this brief memory of the pool scene, then emerges in what I think is a space she’s made for herself inside Alecto’s sleeping body. We don’t know how time works in the River, really, just that in Harrow’s bubble time was much slower than in the living world; is this memory she’s having simultaneous to Nona’s pool dreams somehow? Are they connected, via their soul and body swap, and dreaming the same dream? When, chronologically, and where, metaphysically, does Harrow’s dreamy backstory journey with John take place? Are Harrow and Alecto leaking into each other simultaneously throughout NtN? I kind of think so.
“She squeezed her eyes shut and began in a practised hurry: ‘The painted face is on top of me. I’m in the safe water—I’m lying down, I think. Something’s pushing at me. The water goes over my head and it’s in my mouth. It goes up my nose.’ ‘Does it hurt?’ ‘No.’ ‘How do you feel?’ ‘I like it. I like the water, I like her hands.’ ‘Her hands?’ ‘They’re the things around me—maybe they’re my hands.’ The pencil scratched loudly on the paper. ‘How about the face?’ ‘It’s the picture face.’ … ‘The arms go really tight around me. They’re her arms, definitely.’ ‘Is she familiar?’ ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ ‘How do you know they’re ‘her’?’ ‘I don’t know.’” (NtN 19-20)

Just the first one of these, and it feels so fruitful already! This reads to me as the pool scene. Salt water is safe to Nona, both because she’s Alecto, and maybe because of Harrow, memory held in Harrow’s body. This scene was both very hard for Harrow and also a moment of surprising peace, and the salt water released her from having to keep secrets. I think Nona’s dreaming Harrow’s perspective for the most part, Gideon’s hands on her, Gideon’s face—the picture face—and Gideon’s arms hugging her. This makes sense to me from the pov of Nona as Harrow’s body, and Nona as Alecto’s soul, who has in some way been haunting or attached to Harrow for many years. But this also fits with my cheeseburger theory, that part of Gideon’s soul is also in Nona—there’s a moment of lack of clarity, “maybe they’re my hands,” when Nona is having trouble sorting out who she was in this scenario. That is sometimes the way of dreams, but also suggests a plurality of perspectives making up Nona’s consciousness (or in the case of dreams, unconsciousness).

“‘It’s the sitting part. My feet are in the nice water, the safe water. The water’s in my boots. My socks are full of it. I’m talking to her but I can’t see her face. I tried to, Cam, but it’s what always happens, I don’t manage to look at it, it just doesn’t work.’ ‘That’s fine. Keep going.’ ‘We have a talk.’ ‘What do you talk about?’ ‘I don’t know. I can’t really understand. I hear the words. Sometimes I open my mouth and words come out and I know I’m talking.’ ‘Sensations? What are you touching?’ ‘I’m touching her hands. She’s touching my hands. But in the dream it’s always my hands, remember, Cam, I’m touching my own hands but they’re not mine.’ … ‘There’s eyes all around us, red eyes. In the darkness. I remember this time, they’re red.’ ‘Do you have any thoughts?’ ‘Yes,’ said Nona. ‘I’m hungry. In the dream. Really hungry.’ The pencil stilled. ‘You’re hungry?’ ‘I’m so hungry,’ said Nona.” (NtN 79-80)

This continues to solidify the reading of these dreams as the pool scene, which I was solid on anyway but here we are. Nona’s dreaming from Harrow’s perspective again, the part of the scene where they’re sitting on the edge of the pool. Perhaps this is the “chilly weirdo in a coffin” moment, or some moment after Gideon is punted into the pool again and presumably gets back out, when they’re reluctant to let go of each other and talking about nothing all the way back to their rooms. The red eyes all around are the skeletons Harrow made, which are described in GtN as having red eyes. But again, we get some bits of perspective shifting and confusion—the hands that are Gideon’s hands but also Nona’s hands. This feels related to Nona saying later in the book that she hates her hands, and that’s why she chooses her hand to put in Ianthe’s trap to disable it. I’m not sure who it is in Nona that doesn’t like Harrow’s hands, but it’s interesting that Gideon’s perspective in these dreams is strongest there, her hands take over even though Nona can’t really focus on her face or hear her voice. Being hungry also feels like Gideon!

“‘I’m holding something down in the water. It’s the same water, the good water. But whatever I’m holding down doesn’t want to stay down, it keeps coming back. To the surface, I mean.’ ‘What are you holding?’ ‘The girl with the painted face.’ ‘Tell me about the girl.’ ‘She’s under the water. She’s not drowning, she’s lying there. Her eyes are closed, I think. The water’s cloudy. But then there’s the arms still around me…I think. I’m mixing parts up.’ … ‘Demonstrate on me.’ Delighted at the opportunity, Nona immediately sat up—ignoring the brief wave of dizziness—and wound her arms around Camilla. She paused halfway and said, ‘It’s a bit—are you sure?’ and Camilla said, ‘You’ve shown me before. Show me again.’ Nona concentrated on how it felt in the dream, as strange and multibodied as it was: she was good at the hand and the mouth, she was good at this, but she hesitated. She said, ‘ I can’t do it by myself,’ and took Camilla’s arms. She put Camilla’s hand on her hip, put Camilla’s hand on her other hip, splayed her fingers, said, ‘More. No—there,’ as Camilla kept up, then reached out to Camilla—like she was drowning; like she wanted to drown. It was nice to be this close to Camilla. Camilla’s hands on her were a little clinical, a little unsure.” (NtN 133-134)

Again we have the muddled perspective, but even aside from that I think this can be read two ways. It definitely fits in with the pool scene, when Gideon is hugging Harrow and they go under the water; this is especially resonant with Nona reaching out “like she was drowning; like she wanted to drown.” But hands on hips is not the same as being held “as tight as a scream,” nor was Gideon pushing Harrow down in the water, so there’s some muddiness here. The beginning of this dream is also uncertain; I think “the girl with the painted face” is Gideon, the picture face, but Harrow’s face was also painted, so this could be a perspective shift again. The girl being Harrow would fit with Harrow going limp in the hug, accepting, ready to drown. But I think this can also be read as not a part of the pool scene at all—I think this is Gideon’s soul during HtN, surfacing in Harrow’s body and being pushed back down into what she described as a well, over and over. Again, a mishmash of memories from the perspective of Harrow, coming to Nona through her body, and Gideon’s pov, coming to Nona through the cheeseburger fragment.

“After that first, astonishing moment, Nona stared without seeing in a wild paralysis of recognition. She was trembling. The face on the screen was the face of the girl in her dream; it was the picture of the face that Camilla and Palamedes had drawn for her; but so much more serious, so lifeless, so slack, like the girl was sleeping with her eyes open, that for a moment she thought she must be mistaken. Yet there she was—it was her, the girl in her dream.” (NtN 209)
“...but then with a loud static squeal and a garble the recording swapped over into Nona’s own voice saying— ‘Water-mouth, water-salt-mouth,’ and Camilla’s, saying ‘In the dream, there’s salt water in their mouth?’ ‘Nn-hnn.’ ‘In your mouth?’ ‘Mm-hm.’ ‘’Yes’ when I’ve got it right, ‘no’ when I don’t. The salt water’s in your mouth?’ ‘Mm. Yiss.’ ‘Do you remember anything else?’ After another moment, ‘Face? Nona, are you pointing at your face?’” (NtN 231) A proto-dream, with the familiar themes! The safe salt water, being in it, and perhaps a painted face.

John’s manipulations

“The King Undying had asked her to follow him. All she wanted was to be alone and weep. ‘Or—you can go back home again,’ he said. ‘I have not assumed you’ll agree with me. I will not force you or buy you.’ … She said, ‘I will have to go back eventually.’ ‘I know,’ said the Emperor. ‘I need to find out what happened to my cavalier’s body. I need to know what happened to the others.’ ‘Of course.’” (GtN 444)
“The Emperor of the Nine Houses / ‘A.L.’, his guardian” (HtN dramatis personae)
“Away from Drearburh shears, it grew in a way that was almost debauched. You would cut it yourself and still find irregular little licks of it tucked behind your ears—or maybe you had not cut it at all. Sometimes, in reaching up to it, you would then recall that you had no robe or skeletal mask. Nobody had given you any paint and there wasn’t a stick of grease on board the whole ship, though even if there had been it would not have been blessed properly. The first time this happened, in your hot upset and shame, you ripped a sheet to shreds and covered your head with that. This still left most of your forehead nude, discounting the hair. Also, you were wearing a bedsheet. You took the poetic way out and used a black vestal’s last-choice gambit: you opened a vein and, trembling neither from pain nor blood loss, daubed blind up on your skin the sacramental skull of the Inglorious Mask.” (HtN 29) John is withholding the necessities of her religious practice. On purpose? I think so. He’s the Emperor. He could get her what she needs, but he doesn’t, because he wants her on the wrong foot, and wants to keep her entirely in his power. He wants an obedient child.
“‘Ortus Nigenad did not die for nothing,’ he said. As he spoke, his mouth looked strange. A hot whistle of pain ran down your temporal bone. … The Resurrecting King took on the expression of a man working out a very difficult and emotionally taxing anagram. He said, ‘Ortus,’ again, but the bile was sputtering up into your throat, your mouth, before the Body passed her hand over your eyebrows and the bridge of your nose and you slipped from his imperial grip. You fell almost senseless to the floor. ‘Ortus Nigenad,’ said the Emperor again, almost wondering; but then you knew nothing more, except that you hadn’t thrown up on God, which had to count as consolation.” (HtN 45-46) Really picture this. He’s saying “Gideon Nav” and she’s hearing and saying “Ortus Nigenad,” which maybe is an interesting puzzle from his point of view. But also she’s half-naked in a hospital gown and a ripped up bedsheet for a veil, her face painted with her own blood and a sword strapped onto her back with bones, all of this because he is failing utterly to provide her with clothes, with paint, with assistance of any kind. Also she’s collapsing to the floor, and he’s still just standing there watching her, saying “Gideon Nav,” like she’s a fucking science experiment. This makes me so incandescently angry.
“The Emperor set down his tea and finished off his biscuit, and did that terrible thing he did, on occasion: he reached over to touch your shoulder in that brief, tentative way, the lightest and swiftest of gestures, as though afraid that he might burn you. … When the Emperor touched you, your body recalled, unbidden, each rare and terrible touch committed by your mother and father.” (HtN 157) His fatherly thing is so infuriating, because I don’t think it’s all bullshit, I think it’s both genuine and bullshit manipulation simultaneously. Get your hands off her, you dickwad.
“For a moment, he changed. He grew angry, and you thought it was at the rank foolishness, the irresponsibility of what you’d said. Those monstrous, unnatural eyes narrowed, and his mouth became hard as the stones and rocks that had made up the planetoid you’d later slaughter. For a moment you perceived a hint of his great immortal age—of an enormous distance between you, of an ignition too bright for you to conceive. You were an insect standing before a forest fire. You were a cell beholding a heart. ‘Harrowhark, nobody has the right to know,’ he said fiercely. ‘Nobody has the right to blame you. Nobody can judge. What has happened, has happened, and there’s no putting it back in the box. They wouldn’t understand. They don’t have to. I officially relieve you from living in fear. Nobody has to know.’” (HTN 158) He’s talking about himself, what he did, not Harrow’s parents anymore.
“‘I need you to face him—each time—knowing your life is in danger…’ Here he broke off, and just said: ‘Will you wear a rapier, if I give you one?’ ‘For what purpose, Teacher? I could not use it, having misapprehended the Lyctoral process.’ ‘Just in case,’ he said, and it was the first time you had seen him wretched.’” (HtN 194) He’s wretched, but he won’t do anything about it, because he needs another Lyctor more than he gives a shit about any of these people he calls his family as individuals with lives and feelings. I’m still Big Pissed Off about John.
“And the Emperor of the Nine Houses had said, ‘Harrowhark, when the door comes down behind me, I want you in that room.’ You had said, ‘No.’ ‘Harrow, there has been no progress. That’s fine. I understand. But I want to give you more time…I want you to have a future.’” (HtN 299) I’m still dying to know why he’s so specially invested in Harrow. Not that it couldn’t just be her natural poor little meow meowness, I love her deeply and want to parent her, but this feels like one of those things that has many layers of meaning, most of which I can’t understand yet.
“You said, ‘I thought it was a flower,’ and god said, ‘No, yes, I agree, there’s something—florescent about it.’” (HtN 338) More John treating Harrow like his favorite youngest child.
“‘Harrowhark, if I went under—I’d enter that senseless state, and I am God. What if, forty billion light-years away, my people looked up to see Dominicus falter and go out? What if the very House beneath their feet died all over again, as I turned my back on it?’ You said, ‘So if you die, the Houses die with you. The star warming our system fails, and—becomes a gravitational well, as I understand it?’ ‘Yes. A black hole, like the one that took out Cyrus,’ he said. ‘I can only hope you’d all be dead already. Oh, there’d still be Cohort ships…hold planets…a scattering of us…but we would be so few, and so many people hate us, and my work is not yet done. I cannot behold that apocalypse, Harrow. I think you are one of the only Lyctors who can really and truly understand apocalypse…It is not a death of fire. It’s not showy. You and I would almost prefer the end, if it came as a supernova. It is the inexorable setting of the sun, without another hope of morning.’” (HtN 344) He’s not lying, about the sun going out if he dies, but he does in the next breath imply that the Heralds might drive him mad, and we later find out he’s immune to Herald fear. He’s painting things with his own very specific brush again, still getting Harrow on his side.
“You said, ‘Who was A.L.?’ His eyes flew open. God sat up straight in his chair, looked at you in open astonishment, and he said, ‘Are you sure you want to go with—that one? Let’s go through all the other, less awkward ones first. How is a baby made? I can do that, easy. I mean, I don’t want to, but I’m ready. I have this little book about babies, bodies, friends, and family. Are you and Ianthe being safe?’ It was your turn to sit up straight in your chair and intone, constructing each syllable with the same rigid emphasis you might give to a skeleton: ‘We—are not—intimate.’ ‘Sorry—I mean, you’re about the same age, I don’t really know how this goes anymore, we’ve all been alive for too long…’ ‘Neither are we romantic—neither are we, frankly, platonic—’ ‘Sorry! Sorry. Sorry,’ he added, ‘I should not assume these things.’” (HtN 345) Ok, first, I want to say how much it delights me to see sexual and romantic and platonic attachments so easily detangled by Harrow here. I’m always a happy aroace when that happens. But more importantly, here again John is straddling this weird fucking line between infantalizing Harrow with a pre-adolescent level biological question and his little book (and given the age of his references, I like to imagine that he grew up with this classic), and in the next breath he’s assuming she’s sexually active and asking her about it. You’re not her father, you dickhead!! Stop pretending!! It makes me so nervous. Harrow is reasonably very susceptible to this kind of attention, having been denied it for so long—and the same is true of Gideon, should John get his hooks into his actual daughter.

Looking at this again after reading NtN, I’m interested in the ways it seems like John manipulates Gideon in comparison to what he pulls with Harrow. He needs different tactics for each of them; Harrow worships him already, but he wants her to love him in a more personal way and he wants to fix her without regard for the trauma these efforts cause, whereas Gideon has plenty of reasons to dislike and distrust him and poses an actual threat to him, so he really needs to keep her close and keep her down in the low place where he finds her.

John has, I presume, given Gideon her new name—a name that calls back to his own heritage in a pre-Resurrection context, both because “Kiriona” is the Māori language pronunciation/spelling of “Gideon,” and because he’s given her the feminine of his own surname, which is in its own way an arithmonym because the Earth, Gaia, is the First House, but in House culture it’s not typical to pass an arithmonym from parent to child. He’s essentially renaming her Gideon the First, but with the added layers of racial and cultural heritage that are totally out of context in this world, they only have meaning for him. It’s of interest to me that none of the other names he chooses for his original disciples, who he also renames, are Māori language names; they come from Christianity, from mythology, from his nana’s dog. But with Kiriona, John is taking a page out of Blood of Eden’s book, particularly Wake, who describes her name (including the piece of it in Māori) as “dead words.” (HtN 465) I’m excited to find out, eventually, what Gideon thinks of this new name—certainly John came up with it, because she wouldn’t have that context, but did she agree to use it? Will she hang on to it?
Kiriona herself tells us that “‘My father has made my body’s bones denser than titanium plex,’ said the Crown Prince coldly. ‘My father has made my skin turn away bullets. I am the perfect sword hand and the final expression of the art of the Nine Houses. Don’t you get it? I am the Emperor’s construct^[lx]^[ly].’” (NtN 373) He’s pulled her soul from the River and stuck it back to her meat, and he’s made some changes that he probably framed as protection for her even though it’s really protection for HIM, but he hasn’t healed the wounds in her body. It’s possible she didn’t want him to; she’s very depressed, and may not be making all the best life choices. But when Pyrrha suggests that John should have fixed her up, she gets defensive: “Those are my speed holes. They help me go fast,” said Kiriona quickly.” (NtN 373) But we know John is capable of making her appear totally alive, because he did it before the Resurrection with the politician’s body. We know he could even actually resurrect her, though the details of how that actually happens are still not clear. So he’s made it impossible for anyone to use her blood against him, but left her with gory visible reminders that she’s dead—as a power play? To keep her tied to him, keep her hoping that he will eventually fix her? To keep her feeling like shit, constantly retraumatized by her own death? Or because she asked him to leave them? Or some combination?
Somehow John knows, or makes a lucky guess, or maybe Gideon even tells him, that when she was young she wanted to join the Cohort. So he gives her ridiculous titles; he makes her his Life Guard (the same term for bodyguard that Blood of Eden uses, Pash, for example) echoing him calling A.L. his “guardian”; he gives her medals and parades and sends her to the front lines on Antioch. He senses that Gideon needs to feel useful, and he marks her very visibly as his own. He lays claim to her in a way he really couldn’t with Harrow, in a way Harrow wouldn’t have responded well to at all (see the very next bullet point below), but for Gideon it’s difficult to resist, and she may not want to resist even if she understands he’s manipulating her.

“You had no idea, in those seconds after the gentle clink upon the table’s surface as the universe held its breath, that he was about to say the worst thing that had ever been said to you. The fine, forbearing lines at his forehead and at his eyes crinkled earnestly, and he said: ‘I like to think that she would like you. You’d make a hell of a daughter, Harrowhark. I sometimes indulge in the wish that you’d been mine.’” (HtN 347) I’M STILL SO UPSET ABOUT THIS.
“‘You’re still a liability.’ ‘Tell me.’ You thought he would not answer. But then he said, haltingly, in the manner of a man saying something difficult in a language he did not speak well: ‘Don’t go to the River. End it yourself. Before they breach. Cut off your oxygen. Or however you like.’ At your expression, Ortus added as though it were an explanation: ‘So you don’t…suffer.’ ‘Why do you care if I suffer?’ ‘Because I was the one who failed you,’ he said briefly. ‘I pulled too many punches.’ And: ‘Sorry.’ And, most horribly of all: ‘This wasn’t my idea.’” (HtN 355) I feel like Pyrrha is very present here, though there’s no discussion of hiding G1deon’s eyes or the color changing. But I’m putting it in this section because John is the one who told G1deon to keep attacking Harrow, trying to force her into incorporating her cavalier’s soul.
John’s Big Ole Lie

“‘You’re not her—she isn’t driving you—but you have her eyes. Why? When they showed me your corpse I didn’t think to check the eyes. Stupid, Mercy. Oversight. I thought I knew what you were, though I didn’t want to believe it…’” (HtN 409) Hmm, so when Mercy saw Gideon’s incorruptible corpse, did she think Gideon was the bomb baby at that point? But then why didn’t she take the corpse with her, or take some blood at that point? Or would it not work with Gideon dead already, instead of killed at the door of the Tomb for the thanergy burst?
“‘I thought the commander had simply been a bad girl…a workaholic, putting business before family. She was the type…but that would have been too much of a coincidence. Let me think. Let me think. I made her the dolls—they were perfect—and then she must have played silly buggers with—with the emission,’ she said, suddenly impassioned. ‘Of course it killed her! She was always arrogant! That moron knew Gideon was on her tail!’” (HtN 409) I take this to mean that Mercy also saw the resemblance to Wake when she saw Gideon’s corpse, because who wouldn’t, the hair is kind of a giveaway. But if she had those two pieces, then how did she not get until now that Wake impregnated herself? I feel like I’m not completely following Mercy’s train of thought.
“‘This could have been over eighteen years ago. But now it’s messy…now I have to take the River all the way home and fight my way through Anastasia’s horrid tomb cult just because the commander always thought she was so smart. Don’t know why Gideon was so obsessed with her…he never cared about beauty, and she was repellent to talk to.’” (HtN 409) So at this point she’s caught up with who Gideon is, and is making a new and more difficult plan to blow open the Tomb.
“‘Why are those eyes now in your face? Unless…’ And then, of all goddamn things, her voice caught in a great, shuddery sob. … When she spoke at last, she sounded frozen and numb. ‘I see. I understand. Lipochrome. Recessive. You are the evidence. He lied to us…and you are all the proof I needed. I don’t have to breach anything. I don’t have to go back.’ She exhaled. ‘Good God…Cytherea would have known as soon as she looked at you.’” (HtN 410) And now she’s caught up, even though on first read she’s the only one who knows what the fuck is going on.
“Mercymorn looked at us like we were the picture in the dictionary next to unhappiness. Augustine looked at us like we were the last thing he’d ever see. ‘John,’ he breathed. And: ‘Joy.’ And then—he fucking legged it.” (HtN 432) Augustine catches on MUCH faster than Mercy did!
“‘You don’t get your power from Dominicus,’ said Augustine. ‘It gets its power from you. There’s no exchange involved, no symbiosis. You draw nothing from the system. It relies on you entirely, as we all know. You’re God, John. But—as the Edenites are fond of pointing out—you were once a man. So whither that transition? … And then Mercy said to me—in a moment of true Mercy vileness—she said, What is God afraid of? … I never wanted to believe it when she said, What if he didn’t really put down A.L.? And then—What if he couldn’t put down A.L.?’ … ‘Summarise, please. You both do tend to go overboard on the foreplay.’ Augustine said, ‘You didn’t kill Alecto. And she wasn’t just your bodyguard.’ Mercymorn said, ‘Alecto was your cavalier.’” (HtN 479-480)
“‘You lied to us, John,’ she said. And, with a sob in her voice: ‘There is a perfect Lyctorhood…a perfect Lyctor process that preserves the cavalier, and you let us think there wasn’t. You let us think we’d cracked it… You let us think it had to be a one-way energy transfer…but nobody had to die. Alfred, Pyrrha, Titania, Valancy, Nigella, Samael, Loveday, Cristabel…You watched us kill our cavaliers in cold blood, and none of them had to die.’” (HtN 481) Mercy is a bitch, but I hurt for her here. What tragedy.

“The Saint of Duty was very still.” (HtN 482) Because Pyrrha’s still alive in there!

“The Lyctor said, ‘The Resurrection Beasts—’ ‘Can’t kill me.’ ‘You acted afraid—’ ‘Acted is operative. But this is not an FAQ. Let’s get a move on. Gideon,’ he said. Then he looked at us, gave a little crooked half smile, and said, ‘Gideon Episode One, I mean. Gideon the First—third saint to serve me—my fingers and gestures. Mate, I’m not mad about Wake. I’m not even mad that you failed to either fix or put down Harrow. I just want your loyalty. Do I have it, or not?’ ‘You have my loyalty,’ said Gideon.” (HtN 490) The lies coming out hot and fast now. John’s not in danger from the RBs! Why? Because killing him would kill Alecto? John ordered G1deon to either “fix or put down” Harrow, the fucked up kid he told, to her face, that he wished had been his. Also, I have zero issue with Pyrrha lying to save her life and Gideon’s, but also I feel like she is answering honestly for G1deon here—he was loyal to John, until his death in the River.

I think now that John is not affected by the RBs because Alecto is one, and he and Alecto share souls. He is part her, and she is part him, so he is part RB. This is why the stoma opens for him, and why he’s immune to Herald fear.

“And he looked at us. I said, ‘You told that bastard to beat up Harrow?’ That was my job, after all. God said, ‘I was trying to save her.’ Also my job. ‘Go to hell, Pops.’ ‘This isn’t a question for you,’ he said patiently. ‘You’re my kid; yikes. I’m not going to give you an ultimatum on our first day together. Let’s talk about me and you later. I can’t make up for all the years where I wasn’t around to buy you hot chips and go to your school gala, but killing you to escape a messy relationship is a bit beneath me. Besides, that’s not your body. I’d rather not punish Harrow for you acting out.’” (HtN 491) GROSS. SHITHEAD.
“He said, Some of them wanted to see the miracle. Some of them wanted my help, like, Oh, you’re the magical death man, can you do something about my body? Can you fix my fibromyalgia? Thing was, I could. That surprised me. I could take out their tumours. I could fix their macular degeneration. Big damage was easy, unless they’d actually lost the limb or whatever. Couldn’t grow those back. But I spent hours and hours a day playing Jesus.” (NtN 190) A lot of folks in the fandom have pointed this out, but…hey, John? You can heal people and cure disease and shit, so why let Cytherea continually die for 10,000 years?? ^[lz]^[ma]

This also brings me back to John talking about meeting Cytherea: “‘When they first brought her to Canaan House, I thought there’d been some mistake. You know that I’d been to Rhodes, to see the miracle, but I asked not to see the woman—just so I could be a disinterested party—and of course once I saw that she was necromantic I said yes, she should come to me to be a disciple.’” (HtN 119) This is so tantalizing. In the previous bullet point “the miracle” people wanted to see was John, puppeting dead bodies. In this quote about Cytherea, is the miracle also her puppeting someone? But that’s nothing miraculous at that point, right? Is the miracle just…Cyth, alive in spite of terminal illness? Is the miracle some other act of necromancy Cyth did? Does this relate to Loveday, in any way? I WANT TO KNOW SO BAD.

“Sure, I’d cured a bunch of people of cancer, but I was freaky. They treated us like we’d done some kind of huge crime. After a pause, he said: I mean, I had kind of done a huge crime. I’d turned several hundred animals inside out and made them into a big art installation and I hadn’t complied with the cops, but extenuating circumstances, okay? There were extenuating circumstances. It wasn’t my fault that turning several hundred animals inside out makes you look like the bad guy.” (NTN 193)
“So I did it. I fixed up the corpse, all the ice damage from storage, all the trauma of the body trying to eat itself after death. Did the blood transfusion manually, to rehydrate what was there and get it going. Made sure the body was working mechanically, unstiffened all the muscles. Rejigged the heart. Did the little tricks I’d thought of… He said, So I had him sitting up and walking around and moving and we even tested him making a video call home. All fine. It worked great.” (NtN 273-274) I want to take this moment to point out that he was able to make a dead body with no soul in it look alive enough to continue acting in the capacity of a VERY public figure. So the state of Kiriona’s body, her unhealed wounds, her wrecked heart, her very clear deadness, these are all choices. Whether they’re her choices or John’s choices remains an open question—but it’s not because he can’t heal her or make her more alive.
“He said, I got mad. He said, Back at home I told them, they want to call us a cult, let’s be a cult. It only takes a little bit of eyeliner and a couple of capes. N— already had eyeliner and capes. We’d tried to keep everything so clean-cut and scientific, but now we were streaming quicker than they could serve us subpoenas. End of the world is nigh, that kind of thing. Join us. Live forever. Your governments are lying to you. Before, when it started, I’d tried to use all these scientific terms—tried to coin phthinergy, talk about a word that needed an antihistamine. I’d tried to make out like everything I was doing had principles I was probably going to write papers on later. I dropped all that, because turns out nobody wants papers, nobody wants principles. They want the magic bullet. They just want to be saved. He said, I told them I’d save them. And I said, I’m a necromancer.” (NtN 281-282) This is it, the basis of everything John does to manipulate his empire on the large scale for the next 10,000 years: figure out what they want, offer it to them in a way that dovetails with what you want, and be aesthetic about it.
“Pyrrha ignored her, and said: ‘He brought you back. He’s made a revenant out of you.’ ‘Yope,’ said the corpse prince. ‘But that’s impossible. He shouldn’t have been able to separate you. Your girl didn’t manage full fusion, but what she took from you not even John could’ve got back. And…he didn’t bring you back all the way? He brought you back like this?’” (NtN 369) I’m interested in what John is actually able to do. Pyrrha is surprised he didn’t fully resurrect Gideon, but John says in HtN at some point that he hasn’t really resurrected anyone in a myriad. Is this because fully resurrecting even just one person has a cost that we don’t yet fully know? If so, why would Pyrrha expect him to resurrect Gideon when he hasn’t done so with anybody else this whole time? Just because she’s his daughter? Or did John downplay what he is willing to do to Harrow, the way he downplays so many things to cover his own ass? If that’s the case, what is he angling for by bringing Gideon back as a revenant? I kind of think he wants to keep her more firmly under his control, and that’s easier to do if she’s a revenant rather than a living and half-divine human being, but I’m willing to be proven wrong in AtN.
“I said, We’re doing that. This is how we save the world. Believe me. C— said, John, your problem is that you care less about being a savior than you do about meting out punishment. I said, C—, I was just your best man! C— said, You still are. That doesn’t change the fact that you can be quite the most appallingly vindictive person I have ever met.” (NtN 401)
“He was scooping indentations in the sand, making big, printblock child’s letters with the tip of his forefinger. As she watched, he made a pothook—J—then the finned spine of E. He wiped that E clean, and replaced it with A. He wiped that clean, and he drew the prison bars of H. This J and H he barred around with an uneven heart.” (NtN 432) This moment kind of encapsulates John for me. He’s drawing initials in the sand in childlike handwriting, in a heart like he’s doodling in his diary. It’s a little sweet, on the surface, and a little charming, and it feels of a piece to me with him modeling Alecto’s body on a Barbie—a toy, a childhood memory and comfort, but also carrying a societal weight. Writing his initial inside a heart with E (for Earth?), then A (for Alecto/Annabel?) and finally H (for Harrow, I presume) exposes both an adolescent-feeling desire for love and a complete denial of his actual position in relation to each of these objects of his affections. He loved the Earth, and he killed her because of his own greed and rage. He loved Annabel, and he trapped her in a body she didn’t like, and he locked her away to protect himself and his power. The addition of Harrowhark to this list is distressing. He loves Harrow—like a daughter? Like a potential lover? (‘“ What does it mean to love God?’ ‘Decent dinner and a bottle of average rosé. Maybe a movie. I’m not picky,’ he said.”) And he has made himself very vulnerable to her over the course of NtN, has revealed how much he is not really God and still more of an extremely fallible man. This feels to me like it’s both out of genuine angst and longing on his part, and simultaneously a ploy of the kind he is always utilizing. He’s constantly making himself sweet and charming and non-threatening, but the moment that kind of power isn’t getting him what he wants, he snaps with devastating viciousness. I’m so interested to find out what’s going to happen between him and Harrow in AtN, because I feel like this scene is setting up something.
“She said, ‘To forget…everything?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, and more sharply— ‘Yes. It’s the only way.’ ‘Teacher, why?’ ‘They won’t forgive themselves,’ he said. ‘They’ll spend the rest of their lives asking what-ifs. ‘What should we have done? How could we have done it differently? Did you need to do it?’ And—I did need to do it, Harrow. There was no other way. Once those bombs were going off, there was no hope for Melbourne anyway—G— was dead meat.’ She said— ‘You said that G—’s bomb went off first.’ ‘Yeah, it did,’ he said impatiently. ‘Of course it did…Look—what does it matter?’” (NtN 433)
“‘Then, when the disciples come to you and say the word Lyctor, she does not understand that they want the thing you did to her—she watches as you watch…watch them misunderstand the process.’ He looked up at her, squinting his eyes against the white and merciless sun. ‘God must be able to touch all of creation,’ he said. ‘I don’t—’ ‘You said it yourself. I can’t die if she’s alive; she can’t die if I’m alive. Why would you let something like that run around, Harrow? Why would you let someone go—away from you—untouchable—two people? I couldn’t—I loved them too much—I saw the face of Earth and choked the life out of it and ate it whole. Oh, I knew I was on the clock for the Resurrection Beasts. I pretended she was the only one, but I knew the others were coming. I needed my loved ones to be something I could touch…needed them to be my hands…my fingers.’” (NtN 435) Covering! His! Ass! Protecting! His! Power! What a dick.
“‘I didn’t sneak onto that ship for my health. Don’t you see? This is my chance. We go in there, we open up the Tomb, I take down whatever’s inside—Alecto, Annabel, I don’t care, whatever her name is—boom, we’re done. Dad won’t be immortal anymore, but he says he doesn’t care about that, and I believe him, Tridentarius…I’ll be his cavalier. I’m the First. Hell, I’m his child and heir. Isn’t this the neatest way? Are you going to help me, or not?’” (NtN 468) This breaks my heart into a million pieces. John knows Kiriona can’t touch Alecto. He knows Alecto can’t die as long as he’s alive, but that it’s possible Kiriona could. He knows none of this will happen—but it’s a fantasy he can put his enthusiasm behind, and it’s a fantasy tailored to get Kiriona on his side. This kid who has never been wanted in her life, who never had a parent who loved her, who thought maybe she had something with Harrow and gave it up, and thinks that Harrow threw away her sacrifice…of course a plan where she becomes cavalier to her dad who also happens to be God is going to convince her. And she can get rid of Harrow’s girlfriend in the process? And maybe get Harrow back?? She’s so vulnerable to specifically this, and he’s such a bastard for offering it to her when he knows it can’t happen.
“‘You let that monster out of its box,’ said Ianthe, ‘and you start us down a path nobody can save us from. If God truly wants her out…if Teacher set this all up…if he wants her…’ ‘Wants her? He told me to kill her. He said, Make it quick, but kill her, said me with my blood could do it—said me with my blood, I was the only one…’” (NtN 469) Master manipulator. But also I wonder, just a bit, how Gideon’s divinity will play into whatever final confrontation is coming.
“She had been down this corridor: she had squeezed through this crack in the rock—not a passageway, not at that point. John had told her he had something to show her. He had said, It’s very pretty. You’ll like it.” (NtN 471)
“John had said, It’s so beautiful. Come and look^[mb]^[mc]. She had said, There are almost no beautiful things left. Where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia.” (NtN 472)
Thinking tonight about John Gaius and I don’t know where to put it, so it’s going in this section. My bestie visited recently and we had many long conversations about TLT, and one of them is really sticking with me. For John, almost nobody is real. He watched every human on the face of the Earth die, then brought them back to life himself, with his own two hands and the same power he used to kill them in the first place. They’re dolls. Beloved dolls, made in the image of his most beloved doll! But over a myriad, their descendents have become even more abstracted, and even less precious. He can tell Harrow he wishes she was his daughter and tell G1deon to fix her using incredible trauma and suffering, and feel no cognitive dissonance, just like cradling and cooing at a baby doll and then dragging it around by the foot or throwing it down in anger when its mechanisms don’t work as expected. His Lyctors are closer to real: the fingers of his hands, minds that he so carefully restructured, with power he shared but not fully, not enough to ever get too far out of his control. He let these first dolls murder each other, and now they’re fancy dolls, lifelike dolls. But they’re still not fully real. Blood of Eden, though. They’re the only people in the universe he hasn’t been able to touch—they’re the only real people, and it infuriates him. And then there’s Kiriona, who, I think, is real. She’s a connection to the Earth as he knew it, before he was God; through Wake and Blood of Eden, and through his own flesh and blood. Gideon came to be with as little meddling from him as possible, and as much as I suspect he tried to shape this real person, his real daughter, into someone he could control, he’ll never fully have his hooks in her. Kiriona is real, and I wonder if she’ll be able to make everyone else more real to him, just by virtue of how much she still feels.

Harrow’s hallucinations (or are they?)

How much of Harrow’s “infirmity,” as she describes it, is actually a product of her mind, and how much is everyone who’s haunting her? How much of it was she experiencing during the events of GtN, in the actual Canaan House? I don’t want to start setting up some dichotomy where being haunted is ok and being mentally ill is not ok, that would be shitty and experientially for Harrow it doesn’t really make a difference, she’s having a hard time of it no matter what. But she’s so haunted in such plot-relevant ways that it seems worthwhile to try to sort out what’s coming from an outside source and what’s coming from an inside source!
“‘I am mad,’ she interrupted. ‘I have always been mad, since I was a child. I hallucinate sounds. I see things that do not exist. Ortus has masked much of it, but as you have identified and exploited, my vulnerability only requires his removal. … I am insane.’ … ‘You have kept that close to your chest,’ she said. ‘I would like to hear more sometime, if you are ever inclined to tell me. But, Harrowhark, that squares perfectly with another theory I have, if all this time you only looked to your own frustrations—have you ever considered the fact that you might also be…’ ‘Here it comes,’ said her husband wearily. ‘The ghost agenda.’ ‘Magnus! Haunted,’ his wife finished, in triumph. ‘Harrowhark Nonagesimus—I really think you should consider the idea that you might also be haunted.’” (HtN 253-254) This girl is so FUCKING haunted, Abigail. Two hundred dead kids, Gideon, Alecto, Wake…if she ever gets to be alone in her own head it’ll be a miracle.
“She had said to Ortus, ‘I thought the messages were hallucinations, even though I never hallucinated like that before. It was easier to believe I was succumbing to the madness again.’ ‘Harrow,’ he had said, ‘I have come to the conclusion that you were never mad…though who can be the judge of madness?’” (HtN 415) Ortus goes on to suggest that her “hallucinations” are the product of trauma, but I think actually all of her hallucinations come from being literally haunted by literal ghosts. Which, for sure, is traumatic! Wake, Alecto, the 200 children, they’re all combining to create the illusion of a problem with her brain when it’s really that the calls aren’t coming from inside the house. It is interesting to me that Ortus says he thinks she was never mad—so they did have some version of the conversation where Harrow tells him she is. Did that happen in the real timeline of her life outside the bubble, or did that conversation only happen inside the bubble, in the version we saw? Either way, I feel like the way Harrow phrases “succumbing to the madness again” makes me think that whether she told Ortus or not, she has always been “hallucinating,” even during the events of GtN and in her real childhood, not just her altered childhood.
“She hadn’t come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it—the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen. The teardrop on the hand. The hand that John had fashioned.” (NtN 472) This solidifies some things for me. When Harrow opened the Tomb as a child, she kissed the frozen body she found inside, and prayed. It reminds me of Nona calling out for help and Varun answering. Harrow didn’t know what she was doing, surely—but she reached out, and Alecto reached back, and got stuck.
I’ve been thinking more about this and I kind of said it above but I want to be really clear that whether everything Harrow hallucinates comes from chemicals in her brain or whether some of it comes from ghosts in her brain, she’s experiencing schizophrenia. She’s experiencing her disability and coping with her disability and trying to cover her disability all the time, and we can see that it’s difficult for her. Because Tamsyn has set it up such that, as Abigail says, Harrow “may also be haunted,” I find it fruitful to make some connections and meaning out of what Harrow experiences—but even if every ghost haunting her could be banished, she would still be schizophrenic. She may reach a point in the story where she’s not symptomatic, but she’s been shaped by this experience emotionally and probably physically, like her brain has probably actually been shaped by this experience. I don’t want my speculations to be in any way invalidating what’s happening with her, or suggesting that people in real life who are schizophrenic are just haunted, or anything like that. It’s a real thing, and in this universe it’s a real thing that seems to also be affected by ghosts Harrow has picked up. (And, all this said—I’m not schizophrenic, I have done a little reading but I’m entirely open to correction/education on this!)

The Body

“‘O corse of the Locked Tomb,’ you extemporised wildly. ‘Beloved dead, hear your handmaiden. I loved you with my whole rotten, contemptible heart—I loved you to the exclusion of aught else—let me live long enough to die at your feet.’” (HtN 18) She’s not hallucinating here, but I want to note that I think this prayer is heard.
“The problem was that the sister’s ashen paint was decorating the lovely face of the Body. … ‘This isn’t how it happens,’ said the Body. Which gave Harrow a curious strength. ‘I need you to hide my infirmity,’ said Harrowhark. ‘You see, I am insane.’” (HtN 22-23)
“The Body’s hands were grey with death and they were so soft and familiar on your skin, so much so that you were absolutely sure you could really feel them; that this time around, the dead caress was tangible.” (HtN 30) Why is the Body more tangible to Harrow now than she has been before? I theorize that in Harrow’s current state, the Body is mixing a little with Gideon in her mind, experience that she can’t currently remember giving more verisimilitude to the Body’s presence.
“There was a sword strapped to the Body’s back—you met God’s gaze in the mirror, and for a moment you were convinced he could see her too, that he beheld you both—but it was a trick of the eye.” (HtN 33) Is the sword Alecto’s? The one in the Tomb with her? It’s interesting that Harrow just calls it a sword, and never a rapier—though Gideon’s narration tells us that Harrow doesn’t know the difference between kinds of swords, but she certainly at this point knows what a cav’s rapier looks like—so I imagine it’s some other kind of sword, and having it strapped to her back indicates it’s kind of big, a heavy sword like Gideon’s. Is this overlap again between the Body and the blocked memory of Gideon? It’s one of several interesting parallels between them.
“You drifted a little, overawed and dizzy. The Body followed, exactly one half step behind, hand dead calm on the small of your back.” (HtN 36) Another overlap/parallel, following a half step behind as a cavalier does. Alecto was John’s cavalier, though likely not with any of the trappings of the role that developed over time, maybe including this half step—but Gideon was definitely trained that way.
“‘How many revenants are there?’ You prepared for an astronomical number. The Body raised its eyebrows when the Emperor Undying said, ‘Three. There were nine. We called them by number. Over ten thousand years, we have managed to take out a grand total of five.’” (HtN 43) There were nine, they’ve taken out five, and there are three left—plus Alecto, who raises her eyebrows at being left out. This is the moment that makes me think Alecto really is haunting Harrow, or attached to her in some way! Harrow wouldn’t know why this math is surprising, why would she hallucinate the Body reacting this way?
“‘What he is saying,’ said the Body distinctly, ‘is that you have to learn that sword.’ You looked at her, over his shoulder. The Emperor instinctively followed your gaze, but he could never have seen what you saw: the weals where the chains had passed around the other girl’s wrists, neck, ankles. He would not perceive that long hair hanging wetly over her shoulders, that resinous colour that in death might have been brown or might have been gold or might have been anything. He could not have heard the voice—low, husky, musical—or its dry and uncanny echo of other voices you had known: your mother’s. Crux’s. He would not know that in truth the Body of the Locked Tomb had not spoken to you since the night you massaged the purple, swollen clots of blood out of the necks of your dead parents, so that their strangulation might not be so obvious. He would not know that you had only walked with her one tranquil year, and trysted with her afterward only in your dreams. He could not possibly know that in your youth her eyes had often been black, like yours were, but that ever since you had writhed in Lyctoral agony her eyes had turned a yellow that made you dizzy to behold: a bronzed, hot, animal yellow, as amber as the inside of an egg. When you were ten years old, the Body was quiet and rigorous, practical and merciful. At fourteen the Body was tender and serene, and sometimes smiled. When you were sixteen the Body was resolute and impassioned. In all these incarnations, she had preserved her vow of silence. Now the sound of her voice meant the madness had returned to you in full.” (HtN 44-45) This clarifies some things for me, and complicates others! So she hasn’t spoken since the day Harrow broke into the Tomb, the day her parents died. I think the Body speaking to her now indicates a more real presence, and that the black-eyed Body of Harrow’s adolescence might have been more hallucination, or echo, or a looser haunting than what’s happening to her now. Also, the yellow eyes!! Gideon’s eyes, but also Alecto’s eyes (which are John’s eyes). Another overlap.

I’m thinking about the Body’s black eyes in Harrow’s early hallucinations. Eye colors are never meaningless in TLT, and it makes me wonder if those black eyes come from some soul permeability stuff with Anastasia, who was locked in the Tomb with Alecto for all that time. I’m so dearly hoping for more details about Alecto and Anastasia’s relationship pre-Tomb.

“The corpse lay packed in ice, wearing a white shift, her hands clasping a frost-rimed sword, and she was beautiful. The formation of her muscles was perfect. Each limb was a carved representation of a perfect limb, each bloodless foot the lifeless and high-arched simlulacrum^[md]^[me]^[mf] of a perfect foot. Each black and frosted lash lay against the cheeks with perfect still blackness, and her nose—it was the pinnacle of what a nose should be. None of this would have broken Harrow’s spirit except that the mouth alone was perfectly imperfect: a little crooked, with a divot in the lower lip as though someone had softly pressed a dent into the bow with the tip of their finger.” (HtN 50) Just want this here to compare to things Harrow sees her wearing or holding elsewhere. Also, a lot of language here that suggests Alecto might have actually been shaped, purposefully, by other hands. John? Did he actually make her?^[mg]^[mh] This supports an Adam and Eve reading.
“In that first year after her parents’ deaths she often saw the Body, when she was sleeping or when she was waking, and that was relief and frustration both. … When her pituitary gland kicked in, the Body stopped appearing when she was awake, but the other hallucinations kept on. Harrow was furious that she was doing something so—so pedestrian as to pubesce.” (HtN 51-52)
“‘How old are you?’ she asked abruptly. ‘How old in years?’ You held your flopping idiot’s head up, to look at her face again. For some reason—and you never needed a reason; you were very good at producing a reaction to no stimulus whatsoever—you became afraid. It was then that the Body emerged from behind the Lyctor’s shoulder, squatting somewhere close to the doors. Her sweet dead face floated a little behind the Lyctor’s. She looked at you with her heavy-lidded, yellow-gold eyes, and she said, quite clearly, with the voice of Aiglamene and your mother commingled: ‘Lie, Harrow. Now.’” (HtN 77) This is right after Harrow has undone the knot Mercy made in her spine to paralyze her; Mercy is impressed with her ability, and I’m guessing suddenly wonders, what if this is John’s child? Harrow isn’t—but if Mercy thinks she is, she might abscond with Harrow right now and kill her to bust open the Tomb. Alecto knows this, clearly—but how does she know this? And Alecto speaks with Aiglamene’s and Pelleamena’s voices in this moment, which connects to my theory that Aiglamene is Anastasia, or at the very least that Aiglamene had some kind of long game plan for Harrow and Gideon and that she guided Pelleamena in creating Harrow.
“To your right was a cockpit with empty seating for one pilot, spread with a wide and beautiful wrap of pearly material—and with a lurch in the back of your brain you saw it wasn’t empty at all: the Body had taken up residence on that rainbow shawl, sitting there with her hands prim in her lap and the chain of welts clearly visible. The gorgeous and severe angles of her face were softened, as though in recognition, and her lips were a little parted, enough to show her dead black tongue. When you followed her line of sight, she was looking at the entryway, and the Emperor.” (HtN 86) This is interesting! As a reaction to John, but also she’s been in his presence with Harrow before now, so perhaps she’s reacting to Mercymorn, who has just come in along with John?
“A shaft of light fell on the dead beauty of the Body. She was always there, when you made the cut. She was always there to welcome you home from the abattoir. She thoroughly screwed up your peripheral vision; at times you panicked and speared her through, and she would only look at you with an unreadable, lifeless expression.” (HtN 144) THIS IS SO FUCKING SAD, Alecto hanging out watching with dead eyes as other planets get killed like she did.
“One other consolation was the Body. She kept close by in the months that followed; she walked around in an old bloodstained copy of the scintillating First House robes, and you startled whenever you saw her. But you took enormous comfort in watching her pace your sterile, empty quarters, and in watching her kneel before the mummified assembly that lived within the corridors and apses of the Mithraeum.” (HtN 160) This makes me think the white First House robes date back to when Alecto was alive, which is interesting! Also the idea of her kneeling in front of various remains that are unknown to Harrow is so sad, did she know these people? Is she mourning them? Or are they people she knows just by virtue of them having been on Earth when the Earth died?
“In dreaming you would return to your old bed back in the sanctuary of Drearburh—your childhood bed, getting a little bit short in the toes for you now. … Instead, opposite your cot would be the Body, her hands neatly folded on the ancient shawl that your mother had always laid on the bed—the electric light in the sconce shining down on the firm musculature of her forearms, the calluses upon those dead palms.” (HtN 160) Again, I love the subtle observation of factors that point to her being a swordswoman and a cavalier that we can pick up, but Harrow doesn’t interrogate.
“‘Tonight I am afraid to die.’ ‘That is the same fear as failure,’ she said once. ‘You don't fear dying. You can tolerate pain. You are afraid that your life has incurred a debt that your death will not pay. You see death as a mistake.’ You said, a little bitterly: ‘What else is it?’ The dead corse of the Locked Tomb—the death of the Emperor—the maiden with the sword and the chains, the girl in the ice, the woman of the cold rock, the being behind the stone that could never be rolled away—said, in half-confused tones she had never taken with you: ‘I don’t know. I died once…no, twice,’ but then she had said no more.” (HtN 160-161) This feels important, but I’m not entirely sure why. The Body has indeed died twice, once as the Earth and once as Alecto, but I feel like there’s something else here about what death is and what it means. Harrow regards death as a failure to repay a debt, but how does Alecto think of death? And of her role as the prophesied death of the Emperor?
“And again: ‘Do I have Ortus’s eyes? Are these ones mine? I never really looked at them— Beloved, what were my eyes like?’ Unfortunately, that time she answered. Sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes she talked to you, quietly, about discursive subjects, and sometimes she didn’t say a thing. But now, that which was buried insensate said quite calmly, ‘She asked me not to tell you.’ You awoke, flat on the floor in front of the water-pump sink, screaming until your throat was broken.” (HtN 161) The first place my mind wants to jump is to Gideon, as the one who told Alecto not to say, but I think it’s more likely that “she” means pre-lobotomy Harrow. So FUCKING sad.

So post NtN, as I continue to ponder my theory that Harrow is Anastasia reborn, Anastasia becomes another possibility here for “she.”

“‘She had so much more to give. Later I would ask of her a greater and more terrible thing. I had a body and I needed a tomb…you might know of the body, Harrowhark, and you will know far better the Tomb.’ At the time the Body had stood at the curtained plex window that stared out onto th field of slowly spinning asteroids, the mother-of-pearl robe slipping from her supple, naked shoulders, still moist as though just taken from the ice of her grave. You watched a droplet of water trickle down the column of her spine. ‘The tomb that was to be shut forever,’ you said, and found the words so strange. ‘The rock that was never to be rolled away. That what was within should remain buried, insensate, with closed eye and stilled brain. Every day I prayed for it to live, I prayed for it to sleep.’ Your voice dredged up from your brain, which dredged up from your heart, which dredged up from the oily, filth-stricken depths of your soul, and you said: ‘God, who did you bury?’ Teacher worried his temple with his thumb, and then worried his other temple with his other thumb. He took a biscuit and dipped it into his cooling tea, then ate it,then swirled the tea around in the cup and set it down again. ‘I buried a monster,’ he said. From the glare of the plex window, beside some perfectly ordinary white twill curtains, the buried monster turned herself so that she was lit in the light of the undead stars. The curve of her cheek—the thick, black lashes that fringed her golden eyes—the thumbprint divot that lay pressed like a kiss within the bow of her lip—you had not known you were shaking until God himself reached out to still your wrist, so that you mightn’t spill your tea over your knees.” (HtN 195)
“That night, the Body consented to embrace you. You so nearly felt those long arms wrap around your neck, your middle. You were so close to feeling that press of graceful forehead to yours, the long, lean, dead body chilling yours to the shivering point, as you all but perceived one cool corpse thigh touching yours from hip to knee. You had been nearly eight weeks in the Mithraeum. The sword that you bathed in your own arterial blood was sheathed in bone and heavy on your back. You no longer knew what it was like not to be afraid. You—with your unfortunate memory for poetry—could still hear Teacher’s verse, in his low, soothing, ordinary voice, chase itself round and round your head: For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” (HtN 196) Did John calling her a monster hurt her? I wonder how much of Alecto’s time with Harrow is for Harrow, and whether any of it is for Alecto, and what it is that she gets. Comfort? Information? Does she have a plan, a goal, some intention, or is she just along for the ride? Also, the whole fandom knows this already but here’s a good place to link to the text of “Annabel Lee” by Poe.

Again interjecting post-NtN with my Harrow-is-Anastasia theory, but I wonder if Alecto is comforted by Harrow, and if she can sense Anastasia in her? Now that we know they had some kind of deep bond, given how willing Alecto is to give Harrow her service at the end of NtN, I wonder if Harrow being so like Anastasia and maybe actually being Anastasia is a balm for Alecto’s restless soul.

“But in the dream you wore your thick dark vestments of the Ninth House, and sat only opposite the monstrous dead of the Locked Tomb, who wore the shabby black shirt and trousers of some particularly slovenly penitent. Both of you wore the sacramental skull paint, and you talked comfortably of very little—yet it felt as though it meant very much. And nobody made you eat. Then the Body looked at you with those direct, incalculable eyes, and she said: ‘Harrowhark. Wake up.’ ‘Pardon?’ ‘Wake up. Now.’” (HtN 207) This feels VERY Gideon to me! The “slovenly penitent” clothes, talking about nothing just to hear each other’s voices like after the pool, both wearing the paint. It feels like a memory with Alecto’s face painted over Gideon’s, which is really interesting and heartbreaking, because usually Harrow paints over Gideon with Ortus, but in this case she needs a face she loves to fit the scene. But it feels like it’s Alecto for real who’s telling her to wake up, as if she can feel Wake coming. She knows more of what’s going on than Harrow does, which is neat.
“In the back of your head you heard the Secundarius Bell pealing, pealing, extents beyond any Ninth sacred composition, and never called by any Tomb ringer. Aloud, you said through swollen lips: ‘The Saint of Duty must die.’ And on the bed, the Body said, ‘Yes.’” (HtN 226) Does Alecto have any fondness for G1deon? Or Pyrrha? Did she ever, and now has changed her mind? For what reason? Why is everybody so willing to kill G1deon?

Wondering about this again post-NtN! Pyrrha tells Nona that she and G1deon always liked her. Is Alecto’s reaction here about protecting Harrow, and that overwhelms any fondness she might have had for G1deon and Pyrrha?

“At last you were able to wrench off the scarf that posed as a dress, and button yourself into a nightgown of your own, and you were able to brush your hair, and scrape off your paint, and wash off the blood from where Ianthe kissed you, and you were able to lie in the silence of the night with our sword beside you and the evening behind you. Next to you, the Body said quietly, ‘The water is risen. So is the sun. We will endure.’” (HtN 294) I think the water rising is environmental collapse on Earth; the sun rising is maybe the Resurrection, the creation of Dominicus from our sun. I also wonder if this is an oblique reference to Mark 13, which is about Jesus predicting the end of the world, specifically this bit of verse 13: “But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved.” This premise also comes up in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, but Mark is the one that specifically talks about enduring.

Well! The rising water is confirmed by NtN, and the sun still feels to me like it refers to the Resurrection of the Dominicus system.

“The Body walked beside your construct. The sun did not dry the melted ice upon that indistinctly colored hair. The moist warmth of the jungle around you did not impede her, and exertion brought no flush to those long, thinly muscled arms, nor to the slender, gracile legs, nor to the dead cheeks. She had been with you very often, of late. You saw all the signs of your undoing. You had few months to live. It could be quite easily counted in weeks now. God had been correct: you had not changed—you were not fixed. You were the last, lone, assailable Lyctor. … And yet—there, in the alien slather of forest, among the ferns, and fronds, and greenery arching against a skyline that was a more reticent verdancy paling into navy blue—you could almost believe that you had the capacity to be happy again. You were an unfilled hole, but even a hole might be content in its emptiness.” (HtN 300) There’s not much to pull out of the Body’s appearance here, but I love this passage a lot, I’m clinging onto the sense that someday everything awful will be sorted out and Harrow will have a chance to be happy and walk in a forest and just experience some life that isn’t all about death.
“But that night you just lay next to the Body, and you noticed that her eyes were open very wide, and that in the darkness they were death-mask gold. You said, ‘Beloved?’ She said, ‘It’s coming,’ with the most anticipatory astonishment you had ever heard in her low, many-personed voice—right then she used the voice of your father’s cavalier. And: ‘It’s near!’ Had she ever been astonished before? Had she ever been uneasy? You were lying face-to-face with her, centimetres from the wet sheen of her skin that ought to have made an imprint on your pillow, facing that crinkled lower lip. Her eyes, which the night lights had turned the sick amber of a healing bruise, stared through you. The Body was troubled: in that hovering place so close to the end of your life, it seemed only natural that you should reach for her. The fear of death had remade your worship into desperation, or maybe desire. You reached one hand out for that frozen tangle of hair at the back of the skull; you closed the gap between you, and you kissed that lovely corpse mouth. Of course, you could not. There was nothing there. Contact made her drift away, just as with any of your hallucinations. You had not touched her. Maybe you had not even reached for her. The Body watched you with an expression you were terribly afraid was pity. You said, ‘Please,’ and you reached out again. A wave of dizziness rocked you. You pushed at the robe lying crooked at the slope of her shoulder; you pressed your hand low to her belly. Her dignity was untouched by this gross urgency, this coarse frenzy; or maybe, again, you had not done it. You said again, ‘Please.’ As though you had crossed no boundary, and above the soundless rough shouting in your ears, the Body said: ‘I have to go away for a while,’ and you regretted everything. ‘I have done wrong,’ you said. There was the tiniest suggestion of a furrow in that cool unbreathing brow, and she said, ‘How?’ You did not begin to know how to answer that. The Body reached out, and stroked her fingers forward, as though to close your eyes: you were too tired to imagine how those fingertips would feel on your lids, how that thumb might brush down the bridge of your nose. You closed your eyes in obedient response. And then—you poor brokenhearted sad sack—you fell deeply asleep. In the morning, the Body was gone.” (HtN 333-334) I don’t even have much to say about this very long excerpt, I just feel so awful for Harrow, and I’m so interested in Alecto’s interest in her, why does she hang around?? Why does she have to leave now? Her leaving is clearly triggered by Number Seven arriving, but is she trying to get away from it? Is she preparing for some outcome? Will it being close make it harder for her to hang on to Harrow in whatever way her soul is doing that?

Still wondering why she has to leave! Is it to keep Number Seven from being particularly attracted to Harrow, trying to interact with her, the way it interacts with Nona?

Unidentified sounds

“Love had broken her life into two separate halves: the half before she had fallen, and the half afterward. Afterward, she hated to sit in the apse during chant and listen to a weird, thuddering beat disrupt the prayers of the faithful, a distant striking at the back of her head that she had taken for someone being out of time. She heard doors open and close in distant halls where no doors were opening or closing; her body would become very frightened, and her brain very frustrated. … It killed all her peace. Even in the long dark days she spent wholly alone—in the libraries, or in her laboratory, fingers burnt from handling fatty ashes—she would hear voices just out of her hearing, or see things in her periphery that were not there. It seemed to her that sometimes her hands would grasp her own throat and press up against her windpipe until she saw spots in her vision. She would see dangling ropes; she would forget where she was and wipe out a whole morning’s scholarship with false memory.^[mi]^[mj]^[mk]^[ml]” (HtN 51) The fact that this type of hallucination starts after seeing Alecto in the Tomb suggests that they are tied to Alecto somehow, some fragment of her that has attached to Harrow, memories of Canaan House with its many doors and the OG disciples hanging around. But this narration of Harrow’s past is already unreliable because she has excised Gideon; is the timeline of this narrative mismatched? Are these hallucinations coming from Wake, which the choking thing might suggest, and they’re a new feature of Wake being with Harrow instead of just in the sword, which Harrow has overlapped with the altered past her brain is creating? Or has Wake actually been haunting Harrow since she was a child, and Harrow just attributes it to the Tomb?
“When her pituitary gland kicked in, the Body stopped appearing when she was awake, but the other hallucinations kept on. Harrow was furious that she was doing something so—so pedestrian as to pubesce.” (HtN 51-52)
“But as puberty changed her yet again, with hormones or time or both, she was able to regain some semblance of control over her maggot-eaten mind. She prayed often. Her brain took refuge in rituals. Sometimes she fasted, or ate the same thing for every meal, arranged in a specific pattern on her plate, consumed in the same order, for months on end. She wore her paint far beyond the strictures of any nun, wore it in private, sometimes slept in it. She found the sight of her own unpainted face in the mirror impossibly wearisome, monstrous, and nonsensical, somehow faraway and yet heinously attached to herself. Harrow did not often weep, but at times she sat within the shroud of her cot and rocked back and forth with hard, fast motions, often for hours.” (HtN 52) First of all, this is so hard to read. She has so little support or comfort, and remembers having even less than she actually had. A need for control also makes sense of some of her treatment of Gideon, and just makes some sense of her as a person who we have mostly only seen through Gideon’s eyes. The way this all vibes with who she is in GtN makes me think she was experiencing these hallucinations and time issues during that book, and just was hiding it, though it’s entirely possible for her to need these coping mechanisms in her life without hallucinating anything, especially if, as this narrative suggests, she’s autistic or in some other way neurodivergent.
“At the back of the shuttle, you thought—you thought you could perceive a high and keening wail, at the very edge of your hearing—but neither God, nor the elder Lyctor, and certainly not Ianthe reacted to it. The wail was coming from within the shuttle. It had a hard, pained edge to it, like frustration. You cast around trying to figure out from where. There was another big wet thump as a fourth body slammed itself on the plex, and this one managed to hold on, scrabbling gruesomely; but you focused on the thin cry of violence. You found yourself saying, ‘Someone’s crying, Lord,’ but he just made a nonsense sound beneath his breath, a mumbled word that you didn’t recognize.” (HtN 104) Kumbaya. Very funny, John. Anyway, I think that this wail is Wake remembering newborn Gideon! Just a feeling.
“Your mistake was the time you stopped just outside the room, arrested by muffled creaks at the edges of your hearing; tortured past any shame, you turned to Ianthe and said: ‘Do you perceive any sound from within the mortuary chapel?’ … she looked at you queerly, and said, ‘No,’ and then, as though more enlightened by what she saw in your face, gently: ‘No, I don’t, crazycakes.’” (HtN 164) This is so rough!!!! Maybe it’s a haunting-induced hallucination, maybe Cyth is moving around in there at this moment, maybe Ianthe is lying, and all of those things might be true or untrue at the same time.
“This incidental noise was very difficult for her: it was fertile ground for the false symphony inside her head, and those banging doors and murmurous half-heard ghosts were now joined by a thin background wail, which sounded for all the world like the mewling of a newborn baby.” (HtN 197) Still not sure whose memory the doors and and murmuring come from, whether it’s Wake or Alecto, but I think the wailing infant is Wake’s memory of Gideon.

Written notes

“She could feel Ortus’s eyes upon her as she turned the piece of flimsy over. It was coloured all over with thin blue ink, scribbled so hard that the termination of each letter pushed holes into the surface, and it read: THE EGGS YOU GAVE ME ALL DIED AND YOU LIED TO ME. She gave it to her cavalier. … He cleared his throat—Harrowhark found herself flinching, and nearly tore herself to pieces for it—and he said: ‘It’s blank, my lady.’” (HtN 72) This one is quite clearly Wake to Mercy and Augustine, or perhaps just to Mercy, as they were her eggs, and she’s the one Wake met with. But Mercymorn is the anatomy specialist—why did the eggs all die, an outcome Mercy clearly didn’t intend? Did someone tamper with them?
“THE EGGS YOU GAVE ME ALL DIED AND YOU LIED TO ME SO I DID THE IMPLANTATION MYSELF YOU SELF-SERVING ZOMBIE AND YOU STILL SENT HIM AFTER ME AND I WOULD HAVE HAD HIM IF I HADN’T BEEN COMPROMISED AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE TOOK PITY ON ME! HE SAW ME AND HE TOOK PITY ON ME AND FOR THAT I’LL MAKE YOU BOTH SUFFER UNTIL YOU NO LONGER UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THAT GODDAMNED WORD” (HtN 134) A continuation of the last one! Wake to Mercy and Augustine. “Zombie” is, presumably, a slur for necromancer, and the “him” that was sent after her is clearly G1deon. This hallucinated note is what Harrow sees in place of “If you come to my room, I will make you the potato dish you liked.”
“She opened it, hummocked and humped all over with little rills from being over-folded, and she read: HIM I’LL KILL QUICK BECAUSE SHE ASKED ME TO AND BECAUSE THAT MUCH HE HONESTLY DESERVES BUT YOU TWO MUMMIFIED WIZARD SHITS I WILL BURN AND BURN AND BURN AND BURN UNTIL THERE IS NO TRACE OF YOU LEFT IN THE SHADOW OF MY LONG-LOST NATAL SUN” (HtN 205) Wake will kill G1deon quick because Pyrrha asked her to, and the two mummified wizard shits are Mercy and Augustine.
“Harrowhark looked down at its bloodred, panicked writing: a hasty, furious scrawl, written with such fury that the pen had bitten the paper. I WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU KISSED ME—YOU APOLOGISED—YOU SAID, I AM SORRY, DESTROY ME AS I AM, BUT I WANT TO KISS YOU BEFORE I AM KILLED, AND I SAID TO YOU WHY, AND YOU SAID, BECAUSE I HAVE ONLY ONCE MET SOMEONE SO UTTERLY WILLING TO BURN FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVED IN, AND I LOVED HIM ON SIGHT, AND THE FIRST TIME I DIED I ASKED OF HIM^[mm]^[mn]^[mo]^[mp]^[mq] WHAT I NOW ASK OF YOU / I KISSED YOU AND LATER I WOULD KISS HIM TOO BEFORE I UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU WERE, AND ALL THREE OF US LIVED TO REGRET IT—BUT WHEN I AM IN HEAVEN I WILL REMEMBER YOUR MOUTH, AND WHEN YOU ROAST DOWN IN HELL I THINK YOU WILL REMEMBER MINE” (HtN 252-253) Wake to Pyrrha. Pyrrha making this comparison between G1deon and Wake, both willing to burn for what they believe in, is juicy to me. Also, the first time Pyrrha died? Calling it the first implies there was at least a second time—does she remember dying in the Resurrection^[mr]^[ms]? Even though the others don’t seem to remember anything about who they used to be? Also, the way this unfolds makes me think that G1deon had been chasing Wake, and Pyrrha riding along fell for Wake and started up this affair, and then G1deon followed—but from his POV, Wake started an affair with him, not knowing that Pyrrha was someone else in there. Maybe? Fuck are they complicated.
“The page fell over her thumb. On the second page—much fresher—Harrow read: THE ONLY THING OUR CIVILIZATION CAN EVER LEARN FROM YOURS IS THAT WHEN OUR BACKS ARE TO THE WALL AND OUR TOWERS ARE FALLING ALL AROUND US AND WE ARE WATCHING OURSELVES BURN WE RARELY BECOME HEROES.” (HtN 403) Another message from Wake, but who is this one for? It could be addressed to G1deon and Pyrrha again, or to Mercymorn and Augustine, or to John. It feels like it might be to John, as the possible center and antihero of the first end of the world.
“Harrowhark had startled when she first saw it: END OF THE LINE. FALLING. OXYGEN CAN’T LAST THE DISTANCE AND WON’T REDIRECT POWER FROM THE PAYLOAD. INSTEAD I WILL MAKE YOU WATCH EVERY MOMENT AS I GET THE LAST PRIVILEGE YOU CANNOT ENJOY YOU BYGONE SON OF A BITCH. I HOPE YOU’RE BOTH AS SORRY AS I AM.” (HtN 414-415) At this point we, and Harrow, know that these messages are part of the haunting rather than random madness. Also this one is pretty clear, Wake’s last moments as she’s falling out of whatever shuttle G1deon caught her on and ejected her from. Did he do that thinking she’d have a chance of surviving? Did he hope she and the baby he thought was his might both survive? Or was the earlier message about taking pity on her maybe catching up to her before she gave birth, and letting her get away long enough for the baby to be born?

Gideon popping up in HtN:^[mt]^[mu]^[mv]^[mw]

“This didn’t stop you from dulling the blade, nicking the polish, and altogether fucking up the edge, as you vaguely knew you were^[mx]^[my].” (HtN 31)
“One very bad day—when it seemed as though everyone hated her, and as though this were a completely correct way to feel—with bloodied fists and a bruised heart, she wrote a note explaining her suicide then went and unlocked the door.” (HtN 49-50) The way she narrates around the bloodied fists!
“She had been careless with her visits. Her parents had…found out…about what she had done, what manner of sin she had committed, and they reacted just as they might have if she had admitted to smashing up the oxygen-sealant machine with a hammer.” (HtN 50)
“The womb-bearing populace was too old to have babies, barring two of their number, one of whom was herself.” (HtN 53) The other is, I assume, Gideon! It could be Ortus, but he’s later identified as “the only viable source of healthy XY” which makes it less likely that he also has a uterus, though of course not impossible. This seems to me like another purposeful and casual Gideon-shaped hole in Harrow’s narrative, which I love every time.
“There had been another girl who grew up alongside Harrow—but she had died before Harrow was born.” (HtN 54)
“You found your mouth and eyes screwing up, as though against the light, or a sour taste; you could not help it. But the vile course of action was obvious. You leant down and—holy shit—kissed her squarely on the mouth. This, at least, she hadn’t expected—how could she, what the fuck—and her mouth froze against yours, which gave you time to work.” (HtN 62) Gideon’s interjections here are so good and so her and I still can’t believe I didn’t know it was her for so long… also big ace vibes for Harrow here.
“And, presently: ‘I think ‘bone frenzy’ might be a term open to coarse misinterpretation, personally.’ … Ortus primly said he thought that nobody who read the Noniad would be the sort of churl who misread a simple and evocative collocation like bone frenzy; he went on to suggest that such a person probably didn’t even read in the first place, and would be more inclined to trifle with prurient magazines or pamphlets than to bother themselves with a complex epic such as the Noniad; he said that he wouldn’t want such a person to read his poetry anyway.” (HtN 70) I love that Ortus is vagueblogging about Gideon here, and that Harrow is so attuned to vulgar jokes Gideon might make that she picks this out as a danger.
“Through a thin curtain of your blood you could see the dizzying array of slippery corpses, their faces painted in black and alabaster greys. … A rubber-bodied toddler with a painted face and very red hair lay dead beside your knee and for some reason it was this that destroyed you, it was this that kindled within you something you had no hope of defending against. You howled in a purity of fright.” (HtN 103)
“‘Harrowhark—I don’t understand why you chose me.’ Harrow said, ‘There was nobody else.’ His mask slipped, and not the mask made of alabaster and black paint. Ortus looked at her with his steady dark gaze, and his heavy face flickered; she realised with electrified astonishment that he was exasperated. ‘You never did possess an imagination,’ he said, and, obviously upset with himself, his mask reappeared as swiftly as if slapped back on with both hands.” (HtN 114) Poor Ortus like “you really can’t imagine who else you might have taken with you??????”
“‘And you have the temerity to call yourself a son of Drearburh? Don’t answer that; I know you barely have the temerity to call yourself anything at all. For the love of God, Ortus, I need a cavalier with backbone.’ ‘You always did,’ said Ortus. ‘And I am glad, I think, that I never became that cavalier.’” (HtN 135) This is the first time I’m totally certain Ortus is awake and knows what’s going on! And I love Ortus a lot, but I’m also glad Gideon was that cavalier instead.
“You drove the point of the bone-sheathed blade into the talc—obviously you never wanted it to have an edge of any kind, ever again—and using the sword as your focus, drove a killing lance of thanergy right into the planet’s heart.” (HtN 140)
“What fitting epitaph for your fragile bones? (Perhaps: Here lies the world’s most insufferable witch.)” (HtN 193)
“You only ventured in there yourself far too late into sleeping hours for anyone else to be up. Then you would strip down to your shirt and exoskeleton, and your trousers and your bare feet—and you would hold the two-handed sword in front of you, and lift it up—and point it down—and do a long and unutterably dull series of minute movements, trying to feel normal, trying to understand. You tried hard, in a way that would have broken the heart of any actual swordswoman.” (HtN 214) I can see this so clearly and it’s so fucking sad!!
“Your eighteenth birthday passed without anyone noticing, even you. One night before you went to sleep you thought to yourself, restlessly: another year. You recalled it as you always did: the memorial to the two hundred who had died seizing, kicking, and choking as their neurotransmitters were poisoned into overdrive. You silently begged them to stay their hands, as you always did. You never asked for forgiveness. Then you slept. Most people would have iced a cake, or something.” (HtN 220) As if Gideon has ever had a birthday cake either! But maybe she’s seen them in comic books.
“The smooth claw of the finger joint felt cool against your mouth. Her head was quite close to yours. The lace nightgown gapped, somewhat, at the front. The Princess of Ida said, ‘I already know how I’m going to thank you,’ and you were bemused. You absolute idiot baby, you were mystified. You were tired, and you were embarrassed, and you were riding high from the satisfaction of doing one half-perfect thing—of having committed a low miracle of your own devising—of, for a handful of minutes, being Harrowhark Nonagesimus again, the greatest necromancer produced by your dark and sacred Drearburh.” (HtN 246-247) Poor Gideon, watching this whole thing.
“You were so afraid she might touch you. You were so afraid anyone might touch you. You had always been afraid of anyone touching you, and had not known your longing flinch was so obvious to those who tried it.” (HtN 261)
“But you were always too quick to mourn your own ignorance. You never could have guessed that he had seen me.” (HtN 314-315) SCREAMING CRYING LAUGHING HI BABE
“‘It’s a pure blood ward, Harrowhark. Whatever you thought you did—whatever false chamber has been built around that tomb that you mistakenly stumbled into—there is no possibility that you breached the real thing. I am so sorry. You were party to a tragedy based on a misunderstanding.’ You were rendered down to your incoherent parts. You wanted to say, I saw the Body; you wanted to say, I saw the tomb; but you were seized, all over again, by doubt in the face of fact. The uncertainty of the insane. The conviction of the mad. Nobody had seen you walk through that door. Nobody had watched you leave.” (HtN 349) It’s so incredibly awful that Harrow has made herself unable to remember the one person who can verify her story; also the use of “Nobody” here makes me think of Odysseus and the Cyclops. Odysseus tells Polyphemus that his name is “Nobody,” so that when the cyclops cries out for help and says that Nobody is attacking him, he is not believed.
“Nothing added to your resolution to live so much as someone else suggesting that you die. Ten minutes later you were eating leftover stew in the kitchen with something close to animation, choking down your last lunch before the apocalypse. And you were angry. You were always such a little bitch when you were angry.” (HtN 356)

Wake and Alecto

“‘You are not alone in the facility. In its heart lies the Sleeper, and how long that creature has lain there I do not know; but I do know that they are your greatest threat, for although they lie in sleep…in that sleep, they walk.”’ (HtN 111) We know the Sleeper is Wake, but this is the first of many instances where a description of the Sleeper really red-herrings toward Alecto.
“‘The Sleeper cannot die. I doubt they can be wounded; they certainly cannot be killed. The greatest advantage we have is that the Sleeper sleeps deeply! The second threat to your work is if the Sleeper wakes—it has never happened, though I know the Sleeper yearns to escape its incognizant state and pick up where they left off—for if they wake, none of us will live. If the Sleeper meets you on their unconscious peregrinations, your weapon should be stealth; if through unholy means you wake them, there will be no other weapons left.’” (HtN 112) INTERESTING implications about Wake! Or alternately, Teacher thinks the Sleeper is Alecto. But I’m going to move forward as though he knows who she is, because I want to follow that theory. “It has never happened” makes me feel like I am right that Wake is a pre-Resurrection soul, maybe someone who, like John, was continuous rather than “waking” mind-wiped in a post-Resurrection world, making unconscious peregrinations through different bodies over thousands of years. This also implies that Wake is very, very powerful. And of course, again, all of this could also be interpreted as Alecto, their parallels are very strong from the start!
I was listening to GtN and caught: “‘Ghosts and monsters,’ the lady of the Seventh continued enthusiastically, ‘remnants of the dead…the disturbed dead. The idea that someone is still here and furious…or that something has been lurking here forever. Maybe it’s that I find the idea comforting…that thousands of years after you’re gone…is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.’ Harrow said, ‘A spirit comes at invitation. It cannot sustain itself.’ ‘But what if one could?’ cried Dulcinea.” (GtN 213) This feels very connected to Teacher’s descriptions of the Sleeper!
Some info about revenants from Augustine: “‘When you look at a revenant on this side, what you’re seeing is the thanergy mass that it’s gathered. Usually revenants can only inhabit things connected to them in life—the best and most desirable would be its own corpse or skeleton, or planet if you’re an RB: you’ve formed a bond with that thing through habit and genetics, it’s your soul’s preferred housing. Unfortunately, apopneumatic shock makes most of us do a blind dash away from the site of our deaths—Resurrection Beasts included. The card up the sleeve of the revenant, and the Resurrection Beast, is that it can inhabit anything it’s got a connection to. Anything thanergetically connected with their death.’” (HtN 171-172) Alecto is an RB and I think Wake is a revenant, and this description aligns those two things in a way I hadn’t fully put together. Was Alecto’s body made for the purpose of giving her a thanergetic link to cling onto? I’ve been thinking about John and Alecto as Adam and Eve, but what if John made Alecto as God made Adam, out of clay? The material of the Earth, her planetary corpse?^[mz]^[na] For Wake, I think maybe a genetic line through the BOE makes the most sense, passing her revenant from descendant to descendant—but then we get to Gideon’s sword, and again I wonder where the sword came from, and what connection it might have to Wake that would allow her to hang on to it for so many years. I’m also interested in the bit about “when you see a revenant on this side.” This side, meaning the normal world, of the living, as opposed to the River? This maybe explains a little better why Wake seems to often be in two places. On this side, she’s attached to the sword. In the River, she’s attached to Harrow, manifesting as the auditory and visual hallucinations. Do these hallucinations actually carry over into the waking, living world? It’s not entirely clear to me. Is this also what Alecto is doing? In the physical world, she’s attached to her corpse, but in the River she’s attached to Harrow too? But Harrow definitely hallucinates her in the living world, so maybe it’s not the same.

Revisiting this after NtN, I think I still agree with myself on reading John and Alecto as Adam and Eve and also as God and Adam, I feel like those dynamics are both in there. John definitely thinks he’s God to her Adam, but the reader perspective on him and what he did is a little different. He does craft her out of earth, and also out of his ribs, out of the materials of his body and the materials he has at hand. And he crafts her as the most beautiful woman he can think of, a Barbie doll, which says a lot about him in a number of ways! I’ve seen people point out that his mom’s Barbie was a comfort object, a favorite toy, and that it’s fun gender-wise for young John to have played with this doll, and I think that reading is for sure there, I like it a lot. I think there’s also misogyny at play, these two readings are all tangled up for me. Barbie is a completely unrealistic standard of beauty as compared to actual humans; Barbie is a beloved object and icon; Barbie has had every career and can be a source of empowerment; Barbie is his first thought when he imagines the ideal beautiful body, instead of any actual real human, or even an animal. He says: “From my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done. I made you look like a Christmas tree fairy…I made you look like a Renaissance angel…I made you Adam and Eve…Galatea. Barbie. Frankenstein’s monster with long yellow hair.” (NtN 409) In some ways, he makes her a revenant inside this body, a giant haunted doll.
And then there’s Wake, and again I come back to my slightly altered theory about her being from before the Resurrection, as part of the message in the same way Aim is part of the message, passed through BOE via whatever this necromantic implant process is. Somehow a way of containing and preserving revenants, pieces of souls, for those without access to necromancy?

“‘You worship a monster in a box and play at being the masters of its tomb. Now we have a monster in a box, and it has become obvious that it means to master us all. … Let me prophesy in my old age: the Sleeper is getting up the strength to wake completely, and colonize what it finds.’” (HtN 328-329) I love Wake’s name popping up here, and also I’m interested in the idea of her colonizing this River bubble, and maybe colonizing Harrow’s mind, when BOE are fighting against the Nine Houses colonizing their planets. Nobody’s doing the right thing in this universe, in a structural way, much like ours. Also, a very direct comparison here between Alecto and Wake as two monsters in boxes.
Just thinking, it feels like something that the Sleeper’s coffin is down in the facility. I have a sense that Alecto is linked to the facility, by more than just having been around at Canaan House with the OG Lyctors, and Abigail also posits that John’s (and I assume also Alecto’s) quarters were downstairs alongside the facility too. Another small thing connecting Wake and Alecto.

I have definitely mused about this elsewhere in this doc too, sorry my notes are all kind of repeating themselves, but this feels like another place to come back to the idea of Wake as a pre-Res revenant and Alecto as kind of a revenant too, and that if Wake was part of the message, or carrying part of the message as a fragment of soul, maybe that fragment was from Alecto. Maybe shutting Alecto down, “killing” her and putting her to sleep, required fracturing her into pieces. Maybe she was fractured from the very beginning, maybe John really couldn’t encompass all of her inside the Barbie body and his own body. And what would it mean for Wake to either be part of her or to have been carrying part of her? If part of Alecto was implanted in Wake, and if part of Alecto is implanted in Aim, and in some third party we haven’t yet met (or maybe Alecto herself is the third part of the message), what would happen to that soul fragment when Wake died and became a revenant herself? Was that fragment absorbed into Wake, were they so tangled that Wake’s revenant soul still included this hypothetical fragment? Getting rambly again but I think there are a lot of possibilities down this road.

Gideon and Alecto

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the connective tissue between Gideon and Alecto, and wondering what it’s getting at, if it’s getting at anything narrative at all or if it’s purely allegorical. So here in no particular order are some notes about them and the commonalities between them:

The yellow eyes. Even though these are actually John’s eyes, visually and narratively they’re often connecting and confusing Alecto and Gideon. There’s definitely a reading of the Body where she’s part Alecto and part Gideon, I think, and Nona’s yellow eyes create more confusion about her identity for Pal and Cam than I think they might have otherwise had.
They both, quite notably, have been shackled or locked up or trapped, and been angry about it. I mean, who wouldn’t be, but you know. I was also struck on my current reread by “When she was young she used to have nightmares about being on the wrong side of the door of the Locked Tomb. Especially after what Harrow had done.” (GtN 202)
Two-handed swords. I’m not sure Alecto’s sword is ever described really specifically—but it’s never referred to as a rapier, and when Nona has a tantrum and Alecto is closer to the surface, she wields a chair leg two-handed. And of course there’s Gideon’s two-hander! This is a signifier for both of them, and it adds an interesting layer of uncertainty anytime a two-hander appears without an owner. In the Sleeper’s coffin, it adds to the impression that the Sleeper might somehow be either Gideon or Alecto, until that’s revealed of course, at which point Harrow identifies the sword as Gideon’s. At the end of HtN, when Harrow’s crawling into Alecto’s (I believe metaphysical) coffin, Gideon’s sword is there too, instead of Alecto’s, which more certainly belongs there. There’s even a moment at the end of NtN when both swords are, sort of, present, when Nona’s looking down at Alecto’s body: “But there she was—and within her the child, asleep, with the strange sword. The sword—her sword—her own edge had been pushed out, her swinging edge, her toy. Her plain-bladed sword.” (NtN 474) I take this to mean that Harrow’s, the child’s, soul asleep inside Alecto’s body as we see her at the end of HtN, has with her some metaphysical version of Gideon’s sword, no longer possessed—and Alecto’s sword in the physical world has been pushed aside, maybe even out of the coffin entirely. (Which is interesting too—Harrow describes seeing her with her hands around the blade, has her body been moving around in her sleep?)
They both share a connection with John, and a connection with the Earth. Alecto, as a person/RB, is in a body John crafted and stuffed her into, a body made of her own soil and his flesh. Gideon is his biological child and then a revenant he pins into a body he freezes, works his magic on, so much so that Kiriona calls herself his construct, and the other half of her biology is from a community that represents Pre-Res Earth and what was lost.
They don’t die, even when they do. I know we (the fandom) and I personally generally attribute Gideon’s miraculous survival ability to John, there’s a narrative connection there with Alecto as well—neither of them fully die. They become revenants, they black out or are iced over in sleep, they keep persisting in whatever form they can no matter how they’re pushed down or compressed.

I was relistening to HtN recently and had some more thoughts about the way that book parallels John and Alecto as a pair with Harrow and Gideon as a pair.

There are a number of Gid & Alecto parallels as I wrote about above, but what stuck out to me this time is the ways the Body is often elided with Gideon, purposefully, often in dreams! The eyes obviously, and the ways Harrow notices the Body’s musculature: “...opposite your cot would be the Body, her hands neatly folded on the ancient shawl that your mother had always laid on the bed—the electric light in the sconce shining down on the firm musculature of her forearms, the calluses upon those dead palms.” (HtN 160). This especially comes up in Harrow’s dreams of her, rather than her waking hallucinations/visions of her. There’s the moment when Harrow asks the Body what her eyes looked like, and the Body says “‘She asked me not to tell you.’” (HtN 161) That also happens in a dream, and though the “she” could be past Harrow, I like the idea that it’s Gideon sharing space with Alecto in Harrow’s mindscape. Then there’s the dream where the Body is opposite Harrow at dinner: “But in the dream you wore your thick dark vestments of the Ninth House, and sat only opposite the monstrous dead of the Locked Tomb, who wore the shabby black shirt and trousers of some particularly slovenly penitent. Both of you wore the sacramental skull paint, and you talked comfortably of very little—yet it felt as though it meant very much.” (HtN 207) This feels like a memory of Gideon mixed with things she can remember, skinned over with the Body because both Gideon and the Body are beloved. The wording connects it back to the pool scene in GtN, or rather the time after the pool when they talked about nothing just to hear each other’s voices, the first moment they were both on (or at least close to) the same page about their feelings for each other.
So Harrow’s altered mind is eliding Gideon and the Body in a number of ways; meanwhile Harrow is interestingly paralleled with John in the scene where she confesses what her parents did to conceive her, which starts on HtN 156. John explains that what the Reverend Parents did was conceptually like a resurrection. “‘I know, because I have committed the same act,a nd I know the price I had to pay.’” (HtN 157) While he’s marveling about this, Harrow is like, I just confessed I am the product of a genocide! Wanting him to be as serious about this as her guilt is. And very easily, John takes on that burden for her, takes on that weight, even though it clearly doesn’t weigh on him the way it has weighed on Harrow her whole life. He can relate to her parents because he’s done the same thing, except his death toll was so, so much higher that 200 more is a drop in the bucket. Then we get this exchange: “‘Teacher, have mercy on me. Please don’t tell anyone.’ A child’s plea. Nobody has to know. To God! For a moment, he changed. He grew angry, and you thought it was at the rank foolishness, the irresponsibility of what you’d said. Those monstrous, unnatural eyes narrowed, and his mouth became hard as the stones and rocks that had made up the planetoid you’d later slaughter. For a moment you perceived a hint of his great immortal age—of an enormous distance between you, of an ignition too bright for you to conceive. You were an insect standing before a forest fire. You were a cell beholding a heart. ‘Harrowhark, nobody has the right to know,’ he said fiercely. ‘Nobody has the right to blame you. Nobody can judge. What has happened, has happened, and there’s no putting it back in the box. They wouldn’t understand. They don’t have to. I officially relieve you from living in fear. Nobody has to know.’” (HtN 157-8) John is very clearly talking about himself here, his own sin that he doesn’t want anybody to know. He’s sick of BOE pursuing him, accusing him, as Wake will do later on in the book, holding him to account for 10 billion deaths. He’s connecting Harrow’s guilt with his own—but it’s an unequal parallel, because Harrow isn’t the one to blame for the genocide that created her. The real parallel is between John trying to save the Earth and instead killing her, forcing her into a form she doesn’t want and then entombing her, all because of how deeply he loves her—and Harrow trying to save Gideon and instead being forced to eat her, then entombing her against her wishes inside Harrow’s own mind, all because of how much she loves her. It’s a cycle—for they so loved each other that they fucked everything up.
This makes me wonder if their final fates will parallel, too, in the fourth book. I’ll have to remember to look at what happens with these two pairs through this lens when AtN finally comes out.

Resurrection Beasts

“‘Each Beast is different. I have fought numerous now, and each Beast is quite unlike any other… Number Two spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred-foot spikes. Number Six kept sucking us into enormous sphincters and spraying us with worms. I cannot even remember what it looked like. I remember Number Four…it was a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held me under the water, and it spoke in a lovely voice but it only repeated, die, die—and I recall Number One as a great and incoherent machine…when I saw it I thought it had a great tail, and a thousand broken pillars on its back, but Cassiopeia saw it as a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.’ It was the Saint of Duty who said, restlessly: ‘Number Eight was a giant head.’ ‘Finned like a fish,’ said Augustine, lost in reverie. ‘Its ribs were bloody bandages, and its teeth protruded through its own skull, tangled about its face like a nest. It was red, and it had a single eye of green that moved all about the body…’” (HtN 338-339)

There’s a lot to take in here! I want to say first that their weird and horrible forms remind me a little of descriptions of biblical angels, super terrifying and with eyes in weird places and whatnot. They also sound like they’d be right at home in a Bosch painting. Also, I have been and am still kind of assuming that the numbers of the Beasts match the House numbers of the planets they come from, because I am bad with numbers and it helps my brain.^[nb]^[nc]^[nd]^[ne]^[nf]^[ng]^[nh] But this list including Number One suggests that’s not true, or not strictly true, because the RB of the First House is Alecto. Of course, it’s also possible that this description of Number One is some kind of alternate form of Alecto that they saw, and is part of why they call her a monster! I really don’t know how to reconcile this, I don’t think we have enough info to say for certain. I do think it’s interesting that Number Eight was red, since Mercymorn’s (Cristabel’s) eyes are described as a stormy red, but that’s a pretty tenuous connection.

Number Seven / Varun the Eater^[ni]^[nj]

I’ve seen a bunch of different takes on what planet Varun is the soul of. Some folks are saying Uranus, because the ass eating joke there is funny; some folks are saying Neptune, because Varun is blue and also because the name Varun comes from a water god. I personally think (hope, for my sanity) that the numbers of the RBs probably line up with the numbers of the Houses, and I’m quite settled on Venus as the Seventh House! Venus/Aphrodite are also associated with water, but it also seems likely to me that Varun is a local name given because of its blue color, unrelated to any association with a planet in the Dominicus system, which is probably quite far from New Rho.

Gotta add in here that, against my desperate wish for numbers to line up, Varuna (for whom Varun is likely named) seems to be associated with Uranus, even though as a water god it might make more sense to be associated with Neptune. (Wikipedia) So there’s a case for Varun being the RB of Uranus, whichever House that may be, likely either the Fourth or the Eighth based on my other assumptions about which Houses are where.
Another update! In doing more searching about this, I found out that Varuna is the name for Neptune in Hindi! The name for Uranus is very similar, Arun. These are also two different gods. Surely this has been obvious all along to some folks, but I have zero familiarity with Hindi so I have been resistant and unforgivably slow on the uptake. This seems like further good evidence that Varun the Eater is the RB of Neptune!

“‘It is here! The Resurrection Beast is Come! The seventh colossus, brood of that which murdered Cyrus the First, packmate of that which murdered Ulysses the First, the one and the same that Cassiopeia died for. Oh, God, John, sometimes I wish I were capable of dying—I saw it! I saw it, and it is blue like Loveday’s eyes!’” (HtN 333) Here’s where the blue relates to the Seventh House and so Venus most clearly to me, as Loveday was Cytherea’s cavalier, and Cytherea’s eyes are that same blue the whole time we get to know her in GtN.
“Eventually Beautiful Ruby broke the silence and said, ‘What about Varun, Hot Sauce? What about Varun the Eater?’ ‘It’s here for them,’ said Hot Sauce. They looked up through the big crack at the blued sky respectfully.” (NtN 51) The first mention of “Varun the Eater” as a title for the RB!
“‘The Captain’s black brows drew together, and her face took on a hideous expression: a flat tangle of features that scared Nona so badly that she wanted to go to the bathroom again, right until the Captain opened her mouth and droned, punctuated by huge wheezing lungfuls of air: ‘Dust of my dust—such similar star salt—what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill—we see you still—we seek you still—we murdered—we who murder—you inadvertent tool—you misused green thing—come back to us—take vengeance for us—we saw you—we see you—I see you.’” (NtN 165) RB to RB communication! The ghost of one planet to another, made of similar star stuff, except Nona is twice removed from a form that Varun might expect. She was murdered and stuffed partly into a Barbie body and partly into John himself, “misused green thing,” but this also puts her in a position, when she remembers herself, to avenge her fellow murdered planets. Also this really confirms for me that Varun is there for Nona, is attracted to her, though how being in the Tomb hid her this whole time up to now is not clear to me.
“The Captain’s eyes restlessly passed to Nona. Sweat was beading on her temples. The Captain focused, and said hoarsely, ‘Ninth, where is the mercy of the Tomb? Where is your sword in the coffin? Who are your masters now, and who do you master? Where is my cavalier, Reverend Daughter? Where is yours?’ Her voice rose. ‘Because I saw her in the waves—she was there in the grey water—I saw them all—they hurt me—where is my hunger? I eat and eat and eat without surcease, my green thing, my green-and-breathing thing…’” (NtN 168) This is a fun mix of what Judith knows, as the host consciousness here, and what Varun knows, working through her. She recognizes Harrow’s body, remembers that Marta is dead and remembers that Gideon was, in theory, consumed. But Varun is the one who saw Gideon’s soul in the River, apparently! Who is “them all?” The Lyctors? Matthias Nonius and Protesilaus and Marta and Ortus? The latter might be right actually, and maybe Varun is referring to seeing Marta in the River. Maybe both! Then we have “green-and-breathing thing,” referring to the Earth. I’m intrigued by “your sword in the coffin” though, as a lead-in to asking about the cavaliers! Is it a reference to Alecto in her coffin, holding her sword? Or Gideon’s sword in the unreal Tomb space Harrow’s soul settled down to sleep in at the end of HtN? It also calls up the image of the Sleeper’s coffin and Gideon’s sword appearing there, in Harrow’s River bubble, though that in itself was I think referencing Alecto in her tomb.
“She so rarely got to look at it from here. It hung on the morning horizon, and as she watched the sphere made a low, voiceless moan—a wanting sound—but quiet, on the edge of hearing. A whispered vocalisation and nothing more. ‘Can you help me?’ Nona whispered. ‘Can you do anything? Do you know where Pyrrha is?’ But it only lowed sadly, like a cow.” (NtN 234)
“There was a rain of blobs falling out of the sky. They were shaped like teardrops, twirling crazily as they drove through the atmosphere, lodging themselves in buildings and in the road and in the tops of cars, coming down with an almighty splatter of thick grey mucus. Within these blobs, trembling—the truck was going too fast—Nona saw a thick pod thing like the miniature sleeping bags worms made for themselves before they burst out as moths. The pods and the mucus were transparent, wreathed in smoke, and there were irregular shapes inside—irregular and shivering shapes—and some of the pods had wings poking through, flexing, pushing.” (NtN 391)

“We Suffer had said, leaning over Nona’s face and checking the position of the plastic films: ‘I am glad you did not tell us this. We had no idea there was any recourse from Varun the Eater’s effects, nor any Beast.’ ‘It’s pure theory,’ Camilla said curtly. ‘Something’s being transmitted in the light spectrum. Absorption through the eyes is worst for the brain.’” (NtN 322) I don’t know what to make of this, but it’s interesting! I wonder if we’ll ever get to find out what it is that RBs emit that makes necromancers go crazy? Why only necromancers? Why the light spectrum? Do necromancers have more cones in their eyes?? LMAO.

Blood of Eden

“‘That’s an acronym for a group of maniacs. A cult who came to our attention maybe five thousand years ago. We stumbled on them during one of our pushes into deep space. Stumbled…they’d been looking for us the whole time. They hate the Nine Houses. … In fact, their existence depends on a secretive central organisation that sends its agents to people we encounter outside the Nine Houses, to populated planets we’re stewarding, and turns them against us from the shadows.’” (HtN 154-155)

Interesting that John thinks they only found BOE 5000 years ago, when Cassy at least was working with them 6000 years ago. “Hect repeats We Suffer’s claim that Source Gram came from within the Sixth House around six thousand years ago, an incident that apparently even We Suffer admits has fallen into Edenite mythology. We Suffer and Hect often mention a ‘break clause.’” (HtN 529 - AYU) John’s duplicitous sluts have been working against him for a long, long time, bless them.

“‘They upped their game about twenty-five years before you were born. They’d gotten a demagogue, a charismatic leader who wasn’t content to work behind the scenes.’” (HtN 155)

I continue to wonder if Wake’s sudden rise to power was a result of inheriting a revenant soul / inheriting part of the message.

“‘I think they were behind Cytherea’s coming to Canaan House. That’s a damned sight more terrifying to me even than old nukes they have in storage somewhere.’ … ‘But they got to her, Harrow. I know they got her on side, though I’m damned if I know how they even got to be in the same room. BOE hates necromancers and necromancy. It’s their fundamental tenet. And Cytherea? She would’ve been their bogeyman.’” (HtN 155)
“‘What does BOE stand for?’ ‘Blood of Eden,’ he’d said, slowly. ‘Who is Eden?’ ‘Someone they left to die,’ said God wearily. ‘How sharper than the serpent’s tooth, et cetera…Harrow, if you bother to remember anything from my ramblings, please remember that once you turn your back on something, you have no more right to act as though you own it.’” (HtN 159) I think Eden is the Earth, and BOE are descended from people who left the planet before the Resurrection, trying to escape environmental or nuclear disaster. Obviously John stayed, possibly even CAUSED environmental and/or nuclear collapse in order to start over with as many people as he could resurrect. “How sharper than the serpent’s tooth” comes from King Lear. In context: “Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear! / Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend / To make this creature fruitful. / Into her womb convey sterility. / Dry up in her the organs of increase, / And from her derogate body never spring / A babe to honor her. If she must teem, / Create her child of spleen, that it may live / And be a thwart disnatured torment to her. / Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth, / With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks, / Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits / To laughter and contempt, that she may feel / How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child.—Away, away!” (King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4) In the context, this feels to me like John chiding BOE, and possibly Wake if she is from before the Resurrection as I suspect, for fucking up the Earth and then abandoning her. John wishing infertility on Wake is very funny to me, as is wishing on her “a child of spleen,” given spleen’s obsolete meanings.

This all holds up pretty well after NtN! John did cause the nuclear destruction of the Earth, though not the environmental collapse leading up to it, and he did and continues to try to punish the people who escaped—the trillionaires and their crew on the ships that got away. Those people, over a myriad, became all the non-House humans we see in this universe, and I still think BOE’s origins are in there too. “Eden” is Alecto, who “they left to die” (not quite right John, you destroyed her for keeps), and Eden is also in some ways Canaan House, a name that resonates as a kind of Promised Land both physically, built up out of the destruction at the end of the Earth, and metaphorically, the promise of Lyctoral power. Also, way back in GtN at the anniversary dinner, there’s mention of a pomegranate tree in the Canaan House garden! Eden all over. I have some more about that in the section above devoted to the dinner scene.

“The moment Nona had moistly thrust the note into We Suffer’s hand, the commander had barked into her headpiece: ‘Go. All units not on barracks duty are now deployed. Inter-wing rules no longer apply. Ctesiphon Wing cells, repeat, this is Cell Commander We Suffer and We Suffer. We have recommenced Operation Lock and Key—repeat, we have recommenced Operation Lock and Key.’” (NtN 386)
The Angel and the Message

“This report has been created in code and stored in a subdermal implant under Cohort procedures, in the hope that if the body is recovered the Cohort may use intelligence received to counteract later threats to the Nine Houses. … This is my continued attempt to create a report. My current opportunity has been enabled by our move from spaceflight to what appears to be a ground encampment.” (AYU) Being on the ground as opposed to in space suggests that this implant process is necromantic in nature, and the implant itself calls to mind the scene in which Palamedes asks Aim if she ever underwent any kind of necromantic procedure. I’ll quote that scene in this section when I get to it, but wanted to get this in here when I was thinking of it. Is the message encoded in the same way Judith’s intelligence files are? Or some older version of that process? Does it get re-encoded onto new technology every time it passes to a new host, like converting home videos from film to a tape to a CDR to a file?
“The Angel was what they called the nondescript, washed-out, dusty-haired personage who came to teach the Hour of Science. Why they called her the Angel was unclear, but Hot Sauce idolised her; she was widely liked by all the children, because she was calm and even-handed and the same day in and day out, but for Hot Sauce and therefore the others it was more like an obsession.” (NtN 46)
“The Angel looked less like an angel than ever that morning. Nona always liked the science teacher’s face, which was sort of snub-nosed and thin and crinkly around the eyes, but that morning she was frankly untidy. She was a gallant little person fo fortyish who gave the impression that she had learnt a lot early in life and discovered late that it was no real good to her or anyone else. This lent her teaching a weightless, secretive feeling, like it was really all for fun at the end of the day. She liked to wear button-up shirts, often with suspenders to hold up the trousers, and a dust jacket to keep her clothes neat walking through the city; but that morning her shirt looked like yesterday’s shirt and her face looked like yesterday’s face—careworn, with her freckles fading into the background of her skin. All of the Angel was tinted in soft greys and browns, but she had delicious reddish freckles scattered on her cheeks and nose which added life and vivacity to her face; not so much today.” (NtN 57)
“There was no sign of Hot Sauce, not until the Angel came in with her tie on squiff and her shirt buttons all done up into the wrong holes, still wearing the same trousers that she had been wearing yesterday. She wasn’t late today, but she looked more tired and lined than she had the day before. Somehow she even looked shorter, more hunched and defeated, but she rallied magnificently when she saw Honesty. She paused in front of him and Nona and said, ‘Go on, let me have a look at it.’ Nona peeled away the cloth to reveal the damage. ‘Nasty!’ said the Angel appreciatively.” (NtN 88) I just adore her whole thing. Her look, her attitude, all of it. I think she would get along with Abigail Pent. I picture her as both Joel Grey when he was briefly in Buffy and Jane Lynch in Only Murders in the Building. Oh, and OF COURSE, Tilda Swinton in Constantine. Anyway, I love the Angel.
I want to noodle about Noodle for a minute. Noodle goes everywhere with Aim. We’re told he has six legs, and the middle ones are “arboreal,” meaning, I guess, that they are for climbing trees—maybe like a monkey? We’re told that Aim’s pronouns, for Blood of Eden purposes, are they/them, and I think it’s pretty safe to assume that this is more about being somehow two people, one who is the Angel and one who is the Message, than Aim being nonbinary (which is also maybe the case, or at the very least Aim has some gender nonconformity going on). We’re also told that Aim is Blood of Eden. Every time I relisten to the audiobook (which is often, I put it on to go to sleep), I take notice of Nona giving Noodle the title of “king of dogs in secret,” which is a very cute Nona thing but also feels portentous. I also always take notice of Aim saying “Noodle. Danger.” (NtN 261) All this is to say, I think Noodle is in some way representing the serpent in the Garden of Eden—one small creature that a LOT is going to somehow hinge around. A lot already does hinge around Noodle—it’s the reminder that he’s in the car that keeps Nona from giving up and dropping most of the main cast into the River to die. Maybe Noodle carries the message? Maybe Noodle is the other part of the they/them plurality of Aim? Maybe Noodle’s full purpose in the story, as a catalyst for something, hasn’t yet come, because the arboreal legs bring me back to the frequent portrayal of the serpent tempting Eve from up in Tree of Knowledge, and to the serpent being punished for its role in the Eden story: “thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” (Genesis 3:14) It’s not until after the temptation of Eve that the serpent loses whatever other method of locomotion it might have had, and becomes a legless slithering buddy. And if Alecto is Eve, then maybe Noodle’s purpose has already been served by convincing Nona not to die, or maybe there’s some greater purpose yet to come. I’m super excited to find out!!

“Nona hedged. ‘But the Angel won’t know where we’ve gone.’ ‘Write a note. Give it to Noodle. He’s smart.’ Nona was thrilled with the idea of leaving a note on Noodle, and was sorry they hadn’t struck on the idea before…” (NtN 201) Another important message for Noodle to carry, LMAO

“‘Who is driving this fucking car,’ said the driver. They had a low, terse voice and surprisingly good House. ‘You, so make sure we have a car to drive by the end of the journey,’ said the Angel.” (NtN 214) Nona never identifies the driver as Pash in this scene, but I’m quite sure it is, since Pash is her main bodyguard. I love that Pash speaks good House, it aligns with her comment later about learning to fight with the two machetes in order to get into the zombies’ heads. She’s trying hard to be as good at what she does as Wake was, to be ready for anything, but I wonder if that just made it a little easier to hate Cam less than she might have, and if it’s going to make it a little easier for her to find common ground with Gideon later.

“‘ Okay. You can sleep in—a place I know. It’s mine, but I’m not going to be using it.’ The driver said, ‘You’re not?’ ‘If I don’t go home with you, you’re going to crouch outside my door all night.’ ‘Don’t make it sound like it’s my idea,’ said the driver.” (NtN 214) This banter just makes me laugh. Poor Pash. She wants to be such a badass, and she is, but also she’s very good at protecting people. In her own way and context, she’s become a cavalier.

“The driver didn’t say anything. Hot Sauce spoke up— ‘We love her.’ The driver said, to the Angel and not Hot Sauce, ‘Now I see. Chance to be her, huh? A little independent living for once?’ ‘It is my enormous privilege to be they. Just drive,’ said the Angel crisply. ‘I don’t pay you for your opinions.’ ‘You don’t pay me anything,’ said the driver. ‘I’m here for my bloody sins.’” (NtN 215) What does Pash think she’s being punished for, being given this assignment? We Suffer at some point says that it’s meant to be an honor, and just based on how important Aim seems to be, that makes sense to me. Clearly Pash doesn’t like it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a revenge assignment or something. I want to know what she thinks the situation is! Also, here we get the clearest delineation between the Angel as a teacher at school and Aim as an important, and in some way plural, figure.
“Hot Sauce challenged, ‘So if someone says, ‘I’m a necromancer,’ we should wait around to see what they do next?’ Nona dared a glance at Camilla. She was in a posture of perfect stillness, face a mask behind dark glasses, but listening as hard as she possibly could, which made Nona doubt it was Camilla. She sat as though she had been bolted to the floor.” (NtN 239) I’m putting this here because I want to kind of piece together Pal’s thinking about the Angel. Pretty sure Nona is right and this is Pal now, not Cam, and I’m wondering if Pal has been in control since the Angel arrived: “Then she saw Camilla, and after a moment’s hesitation she reached out one firm little hand for Cam to shake, saying in the way adults spoke to each other— ‘Manic, isn’t it?’ ‘War zone,’ said Camilla. And: ‘I wanted to thank you.’” (NtN 238) Back on page 233, Cam says that “the Warden wanted to thank [the Angel],” and by p238 it’s become “I wanted to thank you.” Then we get this fun bit: “And as they went up the stairs she said, ‘I met your partner yesterday,’ which had the power of stupefying Cam into silence.” (NtN 238) This comes right after the handshake! On the surface it’s Cam being perplexed by this info that she hasn’t heard, about Crown saying they’re dating. But I think it’s possible that Pal could tell something was unusual about the Angel from the handshake, from that physical contact, and that’s what the stunned silence is about, and his careful attention when Nona starts to clock that it’s him.

“Camilla pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and said, softly, ‘That must have been hideous.’” (NtN 240) Hi, Pal.
“Camilla did not amble over, which surprised Nona. She was sitting with her hands clasped together, staring at the Angel as hard as possible.” (NtN 241)
“Everyone looked at her. Then they looked at Camilla, sitting in the back. Camilla didn’t move. She had found some bit of paper and was scribbling on it furiously, so Nona didn’t even get a ‘Well done, Nona,’ which she deserved because Cam had taught her all that.” (NtN 243) Still Pal I think, but I wonder if there’s another quick switch in here somewhere as they write notes to each other?
“Camilla did something a little strange then: she tripped. She pitched forward on a raised bit of the carpet and stumbled into the Angel, tried to right herself with her hands on the Angel’s hips and front, and stumbled upward, saying ‘Sorry—sorry,’ glancing out the window like she was embarrassed. Then she turned her head back and looked more normally Camilla, standing as gracefully as though she could never even think about tripping.” (NtN 250) This is clearly Pal, getting another “look” at whatever necromantic alteration Aim has had. Through psychometry, I guess? Which, in this moment, reminds me a lot of how lyctors can so easily read what’s going on inside a non-lyctor’s body. Maybe that’s a kind of psychometry too!
“Camilla took her dark glasses off and folded them up neatly, to put in her breast pocket. Then she said quietly— ‘May I ask a question?’ Nona glanced up at Camilla’s face, just to confirm it.’” (NtN 252) Pal about to cause chaos with curiosity.

“‘We’ve got responsibilities.’ ‘I thought you were your own boss here,’ said Nona. ‘I have a lot of bosses,’ said the Angel. ‘How many?’ ‘Millions,’ said the Angel, with perfect truth in the set of her shoulders.” (NtN 246)
“‘Back on Lemuria, or anywhere else,’ said Palamedes, ‘did you ever have an operation, or receive medical care, from the Nine Houses? Even if you don’t remember it. Did you ever get some kind of implant? You said you met archaeologists. Were they House? Did you specifically meet any necromancers who gave you any kind of treatment?’ Nona was so shocked that she forgot to breathe. Palamedes had not simply broken one rule, he had broken about fifty. The expression on the Angel’s face brought her back to real life: it was so terrible that it hurt Nona to look. The crinkles on the sides of her eyes and mouth froze. She suddenly seemed older and more shrunken—rather than tiny and buoyant, tiny and withered. Palamedes was moved to say gently, ‘I don’t mean you any harm,’ but a weird, high-pitched whirring had started at the vicinity of his ankles. Noodle had gotten up from the basket and the hair right at his flanks was standing up as though it had been electrocuted, and he was growling. Nona had never heard Noodle growl before. He broke into a volley of barks, with his lips pulling back from his sharp yellow teeth. This roused the Angel. She said, ‘Bloody dog. Let me put him in the kitchen with a toy,’ and she dragged Noodle to the kitchen by his collar. She picked up her big black bag and she closed the door behind her, and then a few seconds later she emerged, still looking grey and haggard but more resolute and settled somehow.’” (NtN 252) There’s so much here that I want to take note of. First, we get a sense of what Pal is sensing. Necromancy, clearly, but he mentions an implant. If Aim is carrying the message as part of her body, or carrying another consciousness as part of her body, that would make sense! I think I noted this somewhere else, but in AYU Judith mentions that she’s put her report on a subdermal implant, so we know that’s a way the Houses at least hide information. Was whatever Pal is sensing done by Mercymorn, and that’s why this chapter has an Eighth House skull? Why did this involve a necromancer at all, if the message is something that’s been passed through BoE, perhaps since the Resurrection? Was the necromancy done on Aim different from her being the message? Separate but related, or separate but unrelated? Then we’ve got Noodle, who may just be reacting to Aim’s body language, or who may have more understanding of language than a normal dog would. Aim’s first action is to get Noodle out of danger—is this because Noodle is vital to the message? Or just because Noodle is her dog and she loves him? Or just an excuse to leave the room so that she can activate whatever distress signal she activates that brings Pash and gets Cam and Nona shot? Possibly all three, or some combination thereof. When she returns she’s more able to calmly deal with the situation, because Noodle is safe and help is on the way to her.

“‘Did you know the children call you the Angel?’ … ‘Yes, they’ve come up with a very strange take on my—my nickname. It’s that Hot Sauce’s fault, I’m afraid. She’s overheard a couple of things she doesn’t understand. I didn’t know anything about it until last night, when she explained.’ … Palamedes said, ‘What is the implant? Please we only have so much time.’” (NtN 254) He seems quite sure now that it’s an implant, so I will accept that as known! Also, her nickname? The Messenger, I guess?
“Palamedes stepped Camilla’s body forward and the Angel said swiftly, ‘Don’t move, please. If you take one step closer, I’m leaving…out the window, if I have to. You can get what you can from my dead body, but if you’re this good you might have an inkling that my dead body is designed to deny you answers.’ Palamedes put his hands up. ‘I’m staying right here. I want no harm to come to you, I won’t compel you, I have no thought of hurting you—I am not your enemy.’ ‘You were born my enemy,’ said the Angel, very sadly and very tiredly now, ‘or, worse, you became my enemy…in the last five minutes. By doing the thing you can’t walk back from.’” (NtN 254) I wonder if Noodle is a backup, in some way? Like, if Aim has to throw herself out a window to avoid interrogation and “her dead body is designed to deny answers,” maybe Noodle is somehow a way to make sure the message isn’t lost if her body is lost? Or maybe Noodle is just a dog, but you know. Also, it’s interesting that she has such a clear understanding of what a Lyctor is in some ways, but also thinks that maybe lyctorhood happened in this room while she was standing there and she didn’t notice.

“She tapped something into it and held it up to her ear and said, ‘This is the Messenger. Holding pattern downstairs, please.’ Then: ‘Yes, we know,’ and ‘Yes, we know. These are unusual circumstances.’ Then: ‘Yes, but if you’re so hot on protocol, why aren’t you letting our designated lifeguard extract us from the building?’ Then: ‘That’s ridiculous.’ … ‘We don’t—yes, we know we can’t countermand—look, don’t you dare— We’ve got my dog in here! No, we will not put on a gas mask, this is a coup— Fine. If you come up those stairs the lifeguard will shoot you. Messenger out.’” (NtN 260) I think this is maybe the first time we actually see Aim identified as the Messenger? Also It’s neat that in this protocol-laden moment, they say “we,” and then “my dog.” This could point in the direction of Noodle just being a wonderful dog who happens to belong to Aim, the person carrying the message, one part of the “we” that is the Messenger.
“‘Who is the Angel, I mean, the Messenger?’ ‘That is above your pay grade,’ said We Suffer. ‘You don’t pay us,’ said Camilla. ‘Yes. My little joke,’ explained We Suffer. ‘All you need to know is that they are the one with the little arboreal dog who is elderly. That is enough to know.’ Nona said, ‘Is the Angel—important?’ ‘The Angel is Blood of Eden,’ said We Suffer, but did not elaborate…” (NtN 293-294)
“Nona, having seen the bags, and Noodle, and the leashes, found eagerness enough within her to say— ‘Are you coming with us?’ ‘Probably not, kiddie,’ said Pyrrha, but Pash said unexpectedly: ‘This is the fucking stupidest idea in the world, but yeah, we are. I go where this goes’ —a violent jerk of the head in the Angel’s direction— ‘and I guess this one is getting on the bus.’ ‘To the Nine Houses,’ said Pyrrha slowly. ‘Yes,’ said the Angel. ‘The very centre of the Emperor Divine’s power,’ said Pyrrha. Pash said, ‘Don’t even start. You’ll set me off again. We go where we’re sent…and this city’s a death trap. I don’t know, I would have moved out into the tunnels and tried to get clear of the city that way, but…’ ‘But I exist,’ said the Angel. ‘Pardon—we exist. And as long as we exist, we are a terrible liability. The commander will get some breathing room if she doesn’t have to take us into account with every movement.’ … Nona said: ‘Who are you?’ Then she explained, ‘Everyone asks me the same question, so—I feel like it’s my turn.’ ‘You don’t get to ask,’ said Pash roughly; which Nona thought was a wonderful and very cool answer she wished she had come up with herself. But the Angel leant down and looked at Nona. THere was something settled in her face: a calmness that had not existed there before—a kind of immovable, fixed-concrete resolve. She had never seen the Angel look like that. Every furtive, fleeting, mercurial spark had gone, leaving something hard and old, something that had touched light to some paper deep within Nona. She suddenly reached up and grasped the Angel’s hand, and the Angel grasped hers, and the Angel looked at her. ‘I’m the Messenger,’ said the Angel simply. ‘We are the Message…the message has two parts left, and you are looking at one of those parts. The name for this part of the message was ‘Aim’ when the message was passed to us through my forebear Emma Sen. The message is too sim[le for human beings like us to understand. What do you think them message is?’ Nona couldn’t guess. ‘I hope you hear it one day,’ said Aim.” (NtN 426-427) At last, the most concrete information we get about the Angel! This makes it very clear that there are two identities involved here, two consciousnesses in some way, a “we.” Now Aim, and in a different configuration, previously Emma Sen (good one, Tamsyn). I also love that Sen is an arithmonym: in a number of current and one former currency, it represents a hundredth of the currency unit and is in some cases related to the English word “cent.” (I wonder if this is going to relate, somehow, to Cam, whose arithmonym is not Sixth—”hect” is a prefix for 100.)
“‘No Pash?’ asked Pyrrha. ‘She has to stay with Aim,’ said Paul, ‘and Aim got knocked around in the crash. They’ll be fine.’” (NtN 445) This is just a little detail, but I was thinking about Aim saying that they have “millions” of bosses, which might mean millions of people living outside the Houses, but which I think means millions of people John murdered. I wonder if traveling through the River, coming close to the Tower, and then landing on the Ninth where there are devils present, had some kind of effect on them? Noodle clearly knows something’s wrong because he’s alert barking as soon as they land on the Ninth, it makes me wonder about what’s actually going on with Aim in the truck.

Meetings with We Suffer

“Camilla reached down into her shirt pocket to take out a hard-shell case. She retrieved the pair of worn dark glasses with big smoked lenses, and slid them up the bridge of her nose. Nona didn’t like the way they looked on her face: they made her look like one of the people who would sit in the back of an armoured truck with shiny rifles covered in blazes of orange tape, chewing bubble gum, waiting to get hired by people who wanted to go shoot something up but didn’t have enough friends to scare the militia. … Crown murmured, all her annoyance gone, ‘Be careful, Sixth, We Suffer’s not stupid,’ but Camilla just said— ‘Let’s get this over with. I had things to do today.’” (NtN 146) First of all, LOVE the return of Gideon’s sunglasses to disguise eye color changes. It worked for Pyrrha, and it’s gonna work now for Cam and Pal. Also, I didn’t notice on the first few reads through, but Crown definitely knows that’s what Cam is doing, and she’s warning them both when she calls them “Sixth,” because she knows Pal is in there somehow, but doesn’t know how it works or whether he’s always there. Also also it’s funny to me that Nona doesn’t like the glasses. She gives a great reason, which is an association with people she doesn’t like, who Pal has told her to avoid. But I feel like built in there is part of why they worked for Gideon—her butch bravado shares some elements with violent douchebaggery, it’s just that Gideon is also wonderful and has a sense of morality. There’s something in common there, though, and Nona sees it too, when she meets Kiriona and is presented with Gideon at her most douchey bravado-y, to cover how totally fucking lost and sad she is. Anyway, none of that really matches up with Cam in Nona’s mind, but for the reader, it’s so painfully good to see these sunglasses again and know that even though they’re practical in this moment, Cam carries around these specific sunglasses for deeper reasons.
“The only decoration was a series of portraits, clustered at the far end of the table. The portraits were of people from the shoulders up. There were little shelves inset at the bottom of each frame where people had left flowers, dried or plastic, and long burnt-out joss sticks in little glasses, or coins that didn’t look like any kind of legal tender Nona ever handed over in return for a bottle of milk. What distinguished most of the portraits was that they were paintings, and very old, all except for one: a photograph of a woman with ferociously red hair and an expression that said she was about to hit the photographer. She blossomed out of a thicket of dusty plastic flowers more numerous than those her painted associates got.” (NtN 146-147) I have this up above in the theories section, but it’s worth putting here too, because Wake and these other portraits are literally presiding over this meeting room the way a company might put up pictures of past CEOs, or colleges of past Presidents, but also very clearly as a memorial with a strong tinge of worship. The flowers around Wake’s picture are visually reminiscent of flowers on a grave or around a memorial photo or object, but the incense and offerings left for the other portraits really suggests worship of gods. I think it’s very clear that these are all people who have led BoE; I think this is also a line, whether genetic or just through the handing down of power, along which a part of the message has been passed, the message of which Aim is one part. A chain linking them back to the origins of BoE, to the Resurrection and before, to the death of Earth. I love, love, LOVE that we get this image in such detail at the start of our first meeting with BoE, our first real look into how they operate and who’s running things now. It’s such beautiful environmental storytelling.
“There were people already in the room when they got there, dressed the way Blood of Eden always dressed. Nona was forever amazed by their get-up. Everyone she ever met at the meetings covered their heads like they were in a dust storm, and wore masks that varied wildly—gas masks and surgery masks and festival masks with teeth drawn on, and welder’s goggles that covered the eyes, and dark glasses that let you see in the nighttime—everyone had visored eyes and swathed themselves in layers of fabric so that it was hard to tell what lay beneath.” (NtN 147) This honestly makes me think of people putting together whatever protective/identity-concealing stuff they can for a protest, and I like that vibe for them.
“Camilla took one of the click pens from the table in front of her and rolled it between her fingers very slowly, making it flip from knuckle to knuckle, her hips angled forward on the chair.” (NtN 148) So fucking relatable, Cam’s fidgets delight me, but also this feels like an establishing signal—we’re starting out this encounter with Cam, not Pal, though the sunglasses imply that will change.
“The guard flicked the switch. In response, the projector hummed to life and the white screen exploded into greys, but the image projected came into focus so slowly that it was barely a picture at all. It looked as though it was being painted on the screen row by row, from the top to the bottom, every row constantly redrafted with higher resolution and sharpness. Nona made out something lumpy on a darker background, but that was it. ‘The limits of technology. Excuse it. We are using shortwave,’ said We Sufer, with a touch of impatience. ‘I knew I should have loaded it before…I have been in cars all of last evening, all the night, all this morning. I will get a thrombosis.’” (NtN 151) This reminds me painfully of trying to load things on Prodigy, and also I just love We Suffer a lot.
“The moment the image came into view Camilla’s fingers had stilled on the pen. She clicked it so that the nib appeared, and then idly doodled on the paper, except Camilla was never idle and was physically incapable of doing anything that sounded like doodle. … Crown and Camilla exchanged a significant look. Camilla’s stilled fingers had returned to playing with the pen. Nona snuck a look at what she had been drawing: it looked like nothing more than three squiggles and a tiny heart. ‘How long has the Second House installation been abandoned now? Station Red-as-Blood?’ asked Cam.” (NtN 152) Cam going still and doodling makes me think that now Palamedes is in control, and the return to playing with the pen is Pal pretending to be Cam. But what is the little heart and squiggles?? Is it somehow referencing “Station Red-as-Blood,” passing info to Cam for when she’s back in control? Will this image make sense by the time the whole series is over? At the moment it really just makes me think of images of the Sacred Heart. Also, I’m just realizing, this could even be letters that Nona is interpreting as a drawing, since she can’t read!
“We Suffer said, ‘Ah. I see where you are going with this, the line of questioning you are bringing. The answer is three months since the troops of the Empire abandoned it. I received word yesterday of an investigation last week. It was reported empty. You are wondering about point of origin?’” (NtN 153) Is this and the previous quote saying that the whole Second House has been abandoned? Trentham, and everything? Why? Or is this a Cohort installation somewhere in this system, in proximity to New Rho, as part of the “shepherding” process? That might make more sense, when Number Seven arrived they would have had to get all the necromancers out anyway.
“Crown leant back in her chair, staring at the projector screen, head balanced in the crook of one golden arm. Nona noticed that her biceps showed even through her shirt, and that there were rubber bandages wrapped around one palm. She said, ‘Oh, that’s big enough for subluminary travel, Millie. See the double struts, and the massive exhaust? That’s a Ziz-class.’ It was hard for Camilla to hold anyone’s gaze behind the dark glasses, but she inclined her head a little way toward Pyrrha, who was staring at the picture.” (NtN 153) First of all, Crown has been working hard!! Biceps, babey!!! And she’s developing calluses on her sword hand under those bandages, I would bet. But what I actually want to focus in on here is her calling Cam “Millie.” It’s SO reminiscent of Ianthe calling Harrow “Harry,” but we find out later that Crown’s testing her—she knows Cam hates it, but this is Pal, so he doesn’t react to it. I fucking love how smart and strong Crown is. It’s entirely possible that she will turn out to be the evil twin of the two, but her arc in this book is just so good to me. Oh also, side note, a ziz is a big mythological bird thing! This matches up nicely with the only other House ship class I can remember right now, which is Gorgon. (Was it the Erebos that was a Gorgon class?? I’ll have to look that up later…) Mythological ship class naming theme is cool, I’m into it.
“Camilla had started writing on her bit of paper before Crown finished talking, somehow managing to write and stare intently at the same time. The bodyguard did not even try to hide their interest in Cam’s paper, craning their head to stare in open suspicion, but did not seem to find anything to be hostile about.” (NtN 153) Again, this feels like Palamedes.
“‘Have you forgotten Varun the Eater all of a sudden?’ asked We Suffer mildly. ‘Have you forgotten hive exposure and blue madness, for the sake of your argument?’ ‘Who says they haven’t come up with a cure for that? Who says they haven’t figured out magic, or a pill or whatever, that stops them throwing up and screaming? Have you forgotten Assume the worst, ignore the best?’ For some reason, Pyrrha smiled a little, like she was thinking of something. The bodyguard’s head had inclined briefly to the portrait hanging behind We Suffer. We Suffer said: ‘Have you forgotten: do not catastrophise? I heard that often from her own lips.’” (NtN 154) I love that Pash is actually right—the Sixth House Oversight Body did come up with a way to lessen the effects, by blinding themselves. It didn’t totally cure them the way Pash is worried about, but I think it’s great that her paranoia is founded. It makes me want to pay special attention to what she says, in case she’s the Cassandra of this story, predicting the future but never listened to. Also, again, weeping about Pyrrha Dve, so lovelorn.
“‘Back to point of origin. Either this shuttle’s derelict, or—it dropped through the River,’ said Camilla. The bodyguard said, ‘What River?’ but We Suffer interrupted: ‘That is above your security clearance. Ignore.’” (NtN 154) Security clearance to know about the River implies to me that people outside the Nine Houses either don’t believe in the River as their afterlife, or don’t go there when they die, or just have never “discovered” it because they don’t have necromancy, or some combination of those options. Which makes total sense and is really interesting!!!
“Camilla said, ‘Tell them collaring Lyctors hasn’t gone so well for you.’ We Suffer pressed her gloved fingertips together. ‘Well, no, that is not so true,’ she said meditatively. ‘Ctesiphon’s interactions with Source Joyeuse and Source Piotra got us many things. Accurate fleet schematics for the first time in a hundred years. Goodness, that was a day. I was only a young soldier then, but that was exciting. And the location of the Mithraeum…very useful. Not to mention a genuine attempt on the life of John Gaius. I know it did not take, but that in itself was important information. We would know nothing about Resurrection Beasts without Commander Wake’—here she and the bodyguard saluted the portrait on the wall, and Pyrrha’s mouth did something strange—’and her Source Aegis…leading to contact with a House, twenty years ago. A terrible mission failure, we thought. Until the posthumous contact a year ago. No, interacting with Lyctors has not been so bad.” (NtN 156) So much to untangle! Joyeuse and Piotra are Mercy and Augustine (see the OG Lyctors section about the codenames), and they’ve apparently been giving info to BoE for a few decades at least. If We Suffer is maybe 60ish and she was a “young soldier” then, maybe 40 years ago. (Side note: does this relate to Augustine saying he was willing to kill G1deon because of pain and suffering he had caused him over the last 40 years? 40 is a number that doesn’t come up a lot.) And we know Mercy continued to be in touch with BoE throughout the timespan of HtN, ending with the failed attempt on John’s life. Source Aegis is G1deon, and of course contact with a House twenty years ago is referring to when Gideon Nav was born. The posthumous contact thing is interesting—that must be Wake’s revenant, somehow finding a way to get a message to BoE, either when she was possessing Cytherea’s body or through Harrow without her knowledge, somehow.
“‘Of course, our greatest ally was Source Chrysaor, who taught us all about the obelisks and steles, and who defeated ten high-ranking House personnel and one necromantic monster.’” (NtN 156) It’s interesting to find out that Cytherea is the one who told them about how steles work, I associate that with Mercy because of As Yet Unsent but BoE could easily have already had the information and just asked Mercy to help them use what they knew.
“Camilla said, ‘Anyone who would describe two fourteen-year-olds as high-ranking House personnel isn’t interested in Nona as a person.’” (NtN 156) CRYING!! Also not that Cam wouldn’t say this, but it still feels like Pal to me.
“‘Lyctors take out the very flooring from beneath our feet. We cannot see them coming. We can never stop them. When they arrive the clock starts, and another home is taken away from us…our children stateless, our grandchildren perpetual nomads. How many lives, balanced against those ten dead people and that one old—thing?’ ‘Cytherea didn’t kill ten people,’ Cam said. The pen was held very tightly between thumb and forefinger now, and it didn’t move. ‘She only killed six. The cavalier primary of the Second House killed your monster, and died at its hands. The Eighth was killed by something even we don’t understand. And the Sixth House went out on its own terms.’ There was an unpleasant silence. ‘What happened at Canaan House wasn’t your victory, Commander,’ said Camilla. ‘It was Cytherea’s. She was the only person in the whole building who got what they wanted…you just got lucky off the scraps she dropped. And you still think Lyctors are a gun you can wield?’” (NtN 156-157) I really like this a lot. It’s like a microcosm of the structural evil that’s hurting both sides in this conflict, and the structural evil is represented bodily by imperfect Lyctorhood, the kind of Lyctorhood that consumes and kills. Also, again, this is a Pal-style speech. Buddy, is your timer on?
“‘You’re only boobs, hair, and talk, Crown,’ said the guard. ‘No,’ said Crown. ‘I’m boobs and hair and talk and a hell of a sword hand.’ ‘Did you think that sounded cool?’ said the guard. ‘You ignored my warning. Both of you are on bullet duty in your frees today,’ said We Suffer. ‘This is for saying boobs, and for being boobs yourselves.’” (NtN 158) This just makes me laugh so fucking hard.
“Camilla was still again, chin in one hand and pen in the other, more like a picture of Camilla than Camilla herself. There was a sudden noisy crackle from the speakers in the walls, and then a disembodied voice— ‘Master Archivist Juno Zeta reporting, remaining as representative of the Oversight Body in lieu of the Master Warden. I count six days, seven hours, and forty-six minutes since the last recording. In answer to the previous question, the article title is Heteroscedasticity in Viscus Models for Long-Term Data. Head count standard. All well within the house formerly identified as Sixth. Awaiting further instructions.’ The pen had scratched a tiny mark into the paper Camilla had been doodling on. Her shoulders suddenly relaxed, and she clicked the pen, and her face minutely bent toward the mark. ‘Do you accept this as proof of life?’ said We Suffer. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘This is the next proof-of-life question: How many pages in my Scholar’s thesis?’ … Camilla sat ramrod-straight, very still, in a pose of pure thought. ‘Tell them they’ll have a Lyctor, or equivalent, if they wait,’ she said.” (NtN 159) A lot here too. Just a lot in this whole chapter. Okay. I love Juno Zeta so, so much, let’s get that out of the way. This exchange starts with Pal still, “a picture of Camilla,” but then I honestly wonder if they’re doing a very quick swap in here as well. The pen scratching a tiny mark feels like a message between them, confirming that everyone is all right; Cam’s shoulders relaxing, looking surreptitiously at the mark, is maybe actually Cam back for a moment, getting the news that her family are still alive. But then a little later, I think Pal is back, sitting very still in a thinking pose and suggesting, because they’re both already thinking about it, that the two of them may be something like a Lyctor before they get Harrow back.
“Crown shouldered forward, but was told tersely, ‘Give me room. She’s not getting enough blood to her heart,’ and Cam placed one hand flat on the Captain’s chest before pulling the tinted glasses off her face in a fit of impatience. Nona took these and rubbed at the warm steel with her hands: she liked them so long as no one wore them. … Camilla’s hands hovered over the Captain’s chest, as though waiting to catch her heart. ‘That’ll do. Take her off the anticoagulants. Is the compulsive shouting typical?’ ‘Lately,’ said Crown, after another pause. ‘I’m not sure she’s in actual pain…Palamedes.’ Palamedes said nothing, simply made a quite good Camilla expression—one quirked eyebrow, the mouth not doing much—but Crown smiled and said, ‘You’ve been pretty obvious today. Get out of it, Master Warden.’” (NtN 165) Several things to note here! Nona likes the sunglasses when nobody’s wearing them—because there’s a bit of Gideon in her, and so they’re her glasses? Or because they belonged to someone else before Gideon found them, and Alecto has some other association? Also, even though this is not part of the meeting with We Suffer, I’m putting it here because Crown confirms that it’s been Palamedes throughout, as I suspected.
“‘I need you to hear this as it happens. I need you to translate the nuances. And she needs you to be here for her plan to work, though she said she would do it alone. She said she was expendable, and that you were not. We agreed with this.’ ‘You’ve been played,’ said Camilla.” (NtN 295) I’m interested in the way this interpretation of events begins, and then turns. Cam doesn’t trust Corona, even though she maybe wants to—but also Cam isn’t totally wrong, Corona did play We Suffer a little, to get Judith out of BoE hands. Crown’s walking a fine, fine line between these two forces, and she manages it pretty well.

“‘Get her out,’ repeated Camilla, and for the first time, there was a raw edge of desperation in her voice. ‘Corona can’t lie to her.’” (NtN 296) Corona has really fooled everyone, huh. She absolutely can lie to Ianthe—she’s such a good liar that people think she’s a bad liar, Cam included.

“The audio crackled. Someone was breathing, hard, a little too fast. … There was the noise of a big metallic bump, and then Crown’s voice, indignant, barely a mutter: ‘Stop throwing things at me, you jackasses.’ Her voice and the breathing sounded weirdly disconnected.” (NtN 297) That’s because the audible breathing is Judith!
“‘Ianthe…Ianthe, I need your help.’ ‘Anything, but come inside.’ ‘No, wait—’ Another clang. Footsteps. The noise of a car door opening. The other voice that had been so tender did not bother to hide its revulsion as it said: ‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.’ ‘She needs your help,’ said Crown. Camilla’s head lifted.” (NtN 299) I LOVE how quickly Cam catches on. I think she’s already starting to put together who this is, and what Crown’s plan is, and what’s really happening here.
“‘I thought she had exited this ghastly vale of tears,’ said the other voice, not at all pleased. ‘Didn’t Harrowhark tell you?’ The voice cooled and hardened like an ice cube. ‘Didn’t Harrow—what? When did you talk to Harrow?’” (NtN 299-300) I kind of think Corona brings this out as a way to needle Ianthe, and put her on the back foot! There’s no reason to think that Harrow would have told Ianthe about running into her on that planet, but Corona certainly knows that even back at Canaan House, Ianthe showed some interest in Harrow.
“Crown’s voice was quiet. ‘Ianthe, please. Please. There’s so much I don’t understand. About you…about what happened…about Gideon.’ The voice did not sound at all pleased when it said, ‘So you do remember her name.’” (NtN 301) It took me a while to realize, but this is calling back to HtN, when Gideon pops up in Harrow’s body and runs into Ianthe: “‘What was your name again? Goblin? Gonad? Help me out here.’ ‘Your cavalier knew my name,’ I said. ‘Corona knew my name. You know my name.’” (HtN 430)
“Crown said, ‘I don’t know what you want from me.’ ‘Only what you want from me,’ said the other voice. And: ‘I’m going to be piqued if you make me be the bad guy here, okay? I am not having the world’s most fun at the moment. I can’t even hug you with my own arms, touch you with my own body. Only Babs’s…there’s a metaphor in there. In conclusion, I am not self-soothing over here. And studs never suited you and you know it.’ ‘Exactly how much necromancy can you do?’ ‘That’s an interesting question,’ said the voice. Another long pause. The voice said impatiently: ‘Nod or shake. Are they listening?’ There was no answer: none that Nona could see. Camilla’s head had lifted entirely. We Suffer was saying into the earpiece, ‘Do not line it up.’ ‘I understand, said the voice. ‘Don’t worry, baby. I’m not mad at you. He told me what you were.’” (NtN 302) Again, layers of deception! Corona knew that Ianthe would at least suspect she was wearing a wire; did Corona know, or suspect, that Pyrrha was at the barracks feeding information? And Ianthe thinks she’s a step ahead, when really Judith is the spy she should be worrying about.
“The flip-top was held to We Suffer’s ear. Someone was speaking over it. We Suffer said quietly to Camilla: ‘They’re lined up. They can take the shot.’ ‘Don’t.’ ‘Our lives are at stake.’ ‘Don’t take it,’ said Camilla.” (NtN 303) Cam is just so smart!!!!!
“Over the line, Crown’s voice suddenly changed. Her mouth had moved in some other direction. She said, ‘Oh my God! No!’ The other voice drawled, ‘Don’t freak out, darling. He’s a tame Lyctor…he won’t hurt you. He can’t really hurt anyone anymore.’” (NtN 303) I do wonder if Crown is genuinely surprised and put off to see Pyrrha there, or if in the time Pyrrha was missing, the two of them were in contact and made some kind of plan. Crown’s been so reluctant to trust Pyrrha in the past though, and reluctant to actually see her as Pyrrha Dve and not Gideon the First, that I feel like Crown’s reaction here might be genuine.
“‘Anyway, what do you think? Do we take in the gate-crasher, or what?’ ‘Kill her,’ said the voice. ‘Deadweight.’” (NtN 303) At last, the payoff of Pyrrha’s code words from way back at the beginning of the book! “Pyrrha, now masked, paused before the door with her wiry knuckles: ‘Roll call. What’s this week’s all scatter word?’ ‘Lowdown,’ said Camilla. ‘And the all clear?’ ‘Deadweight,’ said Nona.” (NtN 32)
“Crown said, ‘I’ll walk back out to the streets and let the people have me if you touch a hair on her head. And I’m not going anywhere with…him.’” (NtN 304) Again I wonder if this is a genuine aversion or acting on a plan. Crown does misgender Pyrrha in an earlier meeting with BoE, referring to her as if she’s G1deon instead, and the hesitation here before the pronoun brings me back to that and makes me wonder.
“‘He told you about…Harrow? He told you about Cam?’ ‘He’s told me everything.’ The new voice said impatiently, ‘Get the fishhook out of the fish. Second earring. Right ear.’” (NtN 304) Another codeword: “Pyrrha also gave them special emergency code words for someone following (‘red ribbon’) and someone listening (‘fritters’). They even had a code word for important resource, come help me get it (‘fishhook’), but Palamedes said Pyrrha needed to stop treating cigarettes and liquor as important resources, so they hadn’t used that one in ages.” (NtN 36) Also, Corona’s hesitation before “Harrow” makes me more sure that she didn’t expect to see Pyrrha there, but has already caught on to what the Pyrrha’s doing, because Ianthe doesn’t know about Nona. Corona adjusts and starts playing along so damn fast!
“‘You are saying to me it went well?’ We Suffer’s voice jumped upward. ‘In my opinion, Lieutenant Crown has betrayed us all with a promptness and the eagerness you do not normally see outside cheap plays at the theatre. AndI believed…she swore a thousand times…she made the sniper order, you see. The headshot was not intended for the Lyctor. She ordered the headshot for her if she was found out…And I believed her. I have seen people call for the headshot before, and their eyes are not all like hers were. She had the conviction.’” (NtN 306) Another interesting layer of Corona’s deception here. She definitely has the conviction! We Suffer’s not wrong about that. But did she actually intend for this headshot plan to happen? Or did she bet on Cam listening, and knowing she had a plan beyond the bug Suffer knew she was going in with? How much risk was she actually taking of being shot by BoE?
“‘There is another node!’ she announced, in equal parts horror and excitement. ‘We still have contact! There is an inactive line! But where?’ ‘It’ll be on Judith,’ said Camilla, untangling herself a little from Nona. ‘Give them time. I knew the moment she brought Deuteros out. Pyrrha confirmed it. Nona was right. She gave us codes.’” (NtN 307) CAM IS SO SMART.
“‘All the little chips have been put in the middle of the table in everybody’s reach. We must proceed with great caution.’ ‘No,’ Camilla said again. ‘Quite the reverse, actually.’ Nona looked up in surprise. We Suffer seemed startled too, this was such an un-Camilla thing to say. Camilla’s mouth said, ‘Update, please…’” (NtN 308) Hi again, Palamedes!
“Then Camilla flopped forward a little in her seat, like she’d almost fallen asleep and caught herself at the last second. She sat up and looked at Nona. ‘Palamedes told We suffer everything about Ianthe and Lyctors,’ Nona said. ‘I don’t know why I bother,’ said Camilla, to herself.” (NtN 311) This is just so fucking funny to me. Poor Cam, she’s been trying so hard to keep all these secrets and then Pal pops out and reveals everything. They’re both just the best.
“‘Hect, what you must understand about Blood of Eden is that we own things in common, we share responsibilities and resources in common. She could have moved these resources at will’ —a head-tilt to the dusty portrait of the big redheaded lady with the chilly eyes— ‘but I must make one move at a time. And above all, I must place the safety of…Blood of Eden’s continuity…even above the mission.’ … ‘We’ll want the shuttle too.’ We Suffer did not miss a beat. ‘With stipulations.’ Camilla did not say anything, and Nona got more and more embarrassed by the silence, so she said: ‘My friend had stipulations once, but the teacher put a cream on it.’ ‘Thank you, Nona,’ said We Suffer, very kindly, and Nona felt pleased. Then she looked back to Camilla and said, ‘If you find a way off-world…I would like you to take a package with you.’ Camilla raised her eyebrows. ‘Where?’ ‘Anywhere away from here,’ said We Suffer.” (NtN 311-312) BoE’s continuity and the package are both referencing Aim, I assume! Also I couldn’t not include Nona’s stipulations comment, extremely charming. Also also, I know it’s not really new information, but it continues to be interesting to me that Wake could unite all these factions but without her they’ve all broken apart in the power vacuum she left behind. I really want to know what gave her that edge in the first place. I still kind of think she was carrying some kind of continuing consciousness, as Aim is, and because it was lost there is a struggle to fill the space at the top, and even more concern about keeping Aim safe.
“‘I don’t know your game,’ Crown was saying, ‘but I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you with Camilla…I don’t trust you with any of them. I don’t know who you’re for at the end of the day, and I never did. I knew that from the moment I saw you. I don’t think you’ve had a sensation in the last myriad. Did you have a family, once? Have you thought about them in the last hundred years…in the last thousand?’ ‘No,’ said Pyrrha. There was silence. Then Pyrrha said, ‘I don’t trust you either.’” (NtN 313) First of all, this does seem to indicate that Crown and Pyrrha didn’t have a plan beforehand, unless that’s also for show—but the only audience here is BoE via the bug, which they both know is there. If they had a plan together, why wouldn’t they want BoE to know that? So, I think they genuinely are playing along with each other against Ianthe, but there’s no trust between them either. Also “I don’t trust you with Camilla” is interesting! Corona is so possessive of her, and I really want to see more of their time together before things with BoE went to shit. Also, I desperately want to know which questions Pyrrha is answering. No, she didn’t have a family? Or no, she hasn’t thought about them? Or is she just straight up lying to both? Because she’s definitely thought about Wake, and the baby she thought was G1deon’s/hers.
“‘I thought Ianthe had come for me, but it was only a mission, after all. A honey trap.’ ‘Yes,’ Pyrrha said. Did her voice sound a bit closer now? ‘It’s a trap.’ ‘You know why it won’t work.’ ‘Doesn’t matter. None can get at that corpse.’” (NtN 313) This is purely for Camilla! Ianthe asking for Cam and Harrowhark is a trap, but Nona can get what they need, so they’ll have to spring the trap anyway.
“‘That’s a hint to make yourself scarce, by the way, Duty. God, how to refer to you? We’re going to need to give you a nickname to differentiate. What did Harrowhark used to always call you? Tortoise? Blorgus?’ Pyrrha’s voice was cool. ‘You cut slits in her brain.’ Crown said, ‘You pardon?’ ‘Long story. Very funny. Come and hear it.’” (NtN 315) Tortoise and Blorgus both gave me a good laugh, but also I’m really interested in Pyrrha here. She has quite a lot of personal experience being awake but stuffed in the back of her necromancer’s brain; is she angry that the same was done to Gideon? That Ianthe helped? Is she feeling defensive of Harrow, after keeping G1deon from killing her a bunch of times? Also, her comment and Corona’s reaction make me want to trace the flow of that knowledge. In theory, Ianthe was the only one on the Mithraeum who knew what Harrow had done, though in practice Mercy did probably figure out the bulk of it. But it wasn’t shared knowledge among the Lyctors, as far as I remember—so did she get this info from Cam, who got it from Harrow’s letter to her? And if that’s the path of the information, then what made Cam trust Pyrrha with this knowledge when she hadn’t even told Corona, who was literally there and saw Harrow in her confused state? Was it part of theorizing about Nona? Did Cam tell Palamedes, and Pal told Pyrrha, since he’s so often making executive decisions about revealing things Cam is trying to keep secret? There’s so much offscreen stuff that I am dying to know more about.
“‘Nona,’ said Camilla, putting the paper aside, ‘look at me.’ Nona, already so near to Camilla’s knee, was happy to raise her chin and have both of her hands taken—unusual!—by Camilla. Camilla squeezed her hands briefly, then paused, then put one of her hands to Nona’s forehead, and said: ‘You’re running a temperature.’ ‘Oh—I’m dying, that’s probably why,’ said Nona. ‘Don’t worry though, I’ve got whole days if I don’t do anything stupid.’ Cam’s expression said that she found this both surprising and unfortunate. She said, ‘Stupid how?’ ‘It’s complicated.’ ‘Does Palamedes know?’ ‘Yes, I told him.’ ‘Okay,’ said Camilla, with what Pyrrha always called her I will talk to your mother later face.” (NtN 316) I just, gender is so good, mother Palamedes Sextus is everything to me, as is Daddy Pyrrha, as is Cam just trying to get by without strangling everyone.
“At one point, Nona had been worried because Camilla had shut herself away in the corner to write backward-and-forward with Palamedes. … Then he’d gone back to his letter. When it was done, Camilla read it heaps and heaps and heaps of times, and then she had to lie down with her knees tucked up to her chest while breathing out through her nose. Nona came to lie down next to her. She whispered, ‘Did you overdo it?’ ‘Yes,’ said Cam shortly, then: ‘It wears off. We’re fine.’ Then: ‘Let’s take a nap.’” (NtN 323) I do think Nona’s right that this is a little minor thanergy shock from Pal being too present, but also I’m guessing that all this writing back and forth is when they’re making their plans for what’s going to happen in the barracks. Is this letter Cam reads heaps of times when Pal outlines his plan to jump into Babs’ body to fight Ianthe? To maybe take over said body? Is he laying out the possibility that he might lose that fight, or Cam might be wounded? Is he suggesting the future possibility of Paul, or not yet? Cam actually suggesting that she and Nona have a nap together in this very tense moment seems both like a bit of physical recovery she actually needs if she’s going to be at the top of her game, but also some emotional processing time for whatever has passed between her and Pal that Nona can’t read and so doesn’t interpret for us.
“‘I’m not going anywhere near that thing.’ ‘You have met a Lyctor before,’ said We Suffer. ‘I don’t mean the Lyctor.’ ‘It is only a body,’ said We Suffer.” (NtN 325) I love Pash, and I really feel for her in this moment. She doesn’t know Gideon is clinging on inside that body, she just thinks it’s the puppeted corpse of her beloved aunt’s dead kid she never wanted, who looks painfully like her, and is also the kid of the worst person in Pash’s universe. I wouldn’t want to go on this mission and see Cam pulling that body out of the barracks either.
“‘Every single hope of Eden now rests within this clapped-out vehicle.’ ‘Same for the Nine Houses,’ said Palamedes-and-Camilla. ‘You know what I want,’ said We Suffer. She turned to address the rest of the driver’s cockpit. ‘To complete what she started. Troia, listen to me. Every so often there is invoked a Blood of Eden mission protocol—we call it Protocol One. It is used in times of either terrible joy or the worst possible outcomes. … But now I give you Protocol One…and Protocol One is ‘Live.’’ Crown saluted. Pyrrha looked at the commander, and she saluted too, a slightly different salute with her hand over her heart.” (NtN 429) I hope that every single person in this cockpit does in fact live through AtN.

River Bubble AUs

Harrow Nova

Role Swap AU!
“Harrow Nova held her black rapier thrust upward in the direction of the top tiershaft. She laid her offhand arm across her chest, her knuckles against her collarbone, where the black chain of Samael Novenary—true black Drearburh steel, each link a death’s head, the weighted end a carved butterfly of pelvis in lead-filled bone—clinked unmusically against itself.” (HtN 367) It’s fun to me that she casts herself as a trained cavalier wielding a rapier, which Gideon only barely was, and that she brings back the chain as offhand, which she wanted Gideon to carry early in GtN. And not just any chain, but a sacred relic!

“Denied of weapons, it had been Harrow who had climbed the Anastasian monument and retrieved the chain of Samael, the sacred relic of the long-dead warrior servant of the original tomb-keeper; for that sin she had been forced to strip before the very altar she stood before now as the Reverend Father whipped stripes into her back, until the Daughter had intervened. Now Harrow had the chain, but the Daughter never let her forget the intervention.” (HtN 368) Also fascinating that, in placing herself in Gideon’s role, this whipping is something that stood out to her so starkly that she brought it into the narrative. Did she intervene, when she was the Reverend Daughter and it was Gideon being beaten? Not that she should or could have, she was a child herself, even younger, but it makes me wonder if she carries guilt for it anyway.
If Harrow is Anastasia reborn, then of course in this AU she’s creating she wants Samael’s weapon for her own—in his absence, it’s hers by right.

“‘Matthias Nonius never stood against a bloody Lyctor.’ ‘It is clear in the histories—’ ‘Half the page was gone!’ ‘A suggestive emendation makes it clear that—’ (HtN 368) You can’t actually take the nerd out of the necromancer, apparently.
“‘I am the daughter of the House of the Ninth,’ she said, cutting off whatever he had to say about suggestive emendations. ‘I am the unfulfilled vow and the bloody teeth of the unkissed skull. I acknowledge myself as a cruel disappointment. I may have been supplanted—I may be no real heir to the mysteries that belong only to the Reverend line—but I will bear the sword! If I am no adept, it is my right to carry the blade instead!’” (HtN 368) Here she lays out the premise of this role swap really nicely! I interpret this as an AU where Pelleamena and Priamhark still killed 200 kids to get Harrow, except Gideon not only didn’t die, but somehow absorbed that thanergy explosion as an infant and grew up with aptitude instead of all that power going into Harrow. Faced with the problem of a biological child who was not an adept and an orphan who had gained that power, they adopted Gideon as the Reverend Daughter to continue the necromantic heritage of the House (because Harrow has said before that the necromantic line is more important than biological purity).
“Ortus said tremulously, ‘But you know she quite—’ ‘No.’ ‘And they say she is petitioning for—’ ‘Continue that sentence,’ she said, ‘and I’ll make it to the pain.’” (HtN 369) This intrigues me! She quite…likes you, Harrow? She is petitioning to…make you cavalier primary? Or maybe to marry you? The best part of this is that Ortus isn’t a puppet, he’s an actual ghost she has pulled into her play—so he either is aware of what’s happening and is trying to tell her that Gideon likes her, or he isn’t aware of what’s happening and remembers from his time alive that Gideon likes her. I love Ortus so fucking much.
“She took the sword from her chest, and slung her chain from over her shoulder, and seized one weighted end between her gloved fingers. The welter of fury inside her resolved into a wet rush, like metal poured into a mould, and as it always had, the sword became an extension of her arm. ‘Prepare to die, Ortus Nigenad. Commit your soul to the Locked Tomb, and to the rock, and to the chains, and hope it floats high on the River.’ ‘For God’s sake, Harrow, please.’” (HtN 369) Does she get this impression of what it’s like being a swordswoman from being inside Gideon in the transference/winnowing room?
“‘Swords drawn!’ he cried. ‘Swords drawn in the narthex—before the altar, and before the vesting tables, and with the icons watching! You besmirch us. You sully us. You debase this place.’ ‘Forgive me, Marshal,’ said Harrow. ‘I do not speak to you,’ croaked Crux, with solemn dignities. Crux was the only reliable source of sympathy in Harrow’s life; sympathy always delivered in such a way as to be horribly unfair to everyone else, but sympathy all the same, and as unpopular as it made her she would not have swapped it for—anyone else’s tenderness^[nk]^[nl].” (HtN 370) God, a lot to pick apart here. First, I love that this calls back to Crux yelling at Gideon at the very start of GtN, and how he loves verbs. Second, is Crux dead, and this is his ghost? Or is this Harrow’s memory of Crux only? Either seems possible. Third, I have Feelings about Crux being the person who really tries to take care of Harrow in her real life, and how that bleeds through to this AU. Fourth, the pause in “--anyone else’s tenderness” is clearly replacing “Gideon’s tenderness” and it hurts me so good.

Crux isn’t dead! So this Crux is a construct of Harrow’s mind, which is really interesting in retrospect, it implies that she’s able to produce a really lifelike dummy in this situation for people she knows very well, and the less she knows them the less real they are. Which makes total sense! And if this is a Crux entirely from her brain, then of course he still coddles her and hates Gideon even though their roles have been reversed. He might have done so anyway, but it fits 100% with Harrow’s lived experience of Crux.

“‘I will not,’ said Crux indignantly. ‘Go rush to your cuckoo’s side. They are nearly done with the arrangements.’” (HtN 370) On first read, I think this was the moment that solidified for me that the Reverend Daughter in this situation was definitely Gideon—”cuckoo” is what Harrow calls her during their fight on the shuttle field in GtN.

“‘Rueful day when we send flotsam to be our champion…rueful day when we send jetsam to be its sword.’” (HtN 370) Flotsam, an orphan who appeared literally out of thin air; jetsam, the son of an immigrant from the Eighth. Crux is such a xenophobe.

“She wore spectacles, and her thick brown hair was neatly bound back in a black fillet, as was customary; the man next to her had shaved his head and kept running a hand over it surreptitiously, like a child at its first cropping.” (HtN 371) This is so charming to me, Abigail and Magnus dressed up in Ninth House cosplay! I bet Abigail looks pretty in a fillet.

The Ball

Royalty AU with a Cinderella-style competing-for-her-hand thing going on, chef’s kiss
“The lacework of her robes had been patched with thread as close to the original black as possible, but not quite matching, as was the perpetual trouble with blacks. The brocade of her skirts was stiff from bad storage. She was not ashamed of the ancient diadem and torc collar she wore. Both had been taken gently from the corpse of an ancestor, before that ancestor had sighed into powder under the beam of the torchlight. But she did not like what their patches of rust signified of their poverty.” (HtN 372) I had forgotten, but it’s not just the setting of a royal ball and a royal looking for a spouse that makes this Cinderella-y, we get an interesting focus on the poverty of the Ninth House here too. Where did Harrow get this story framing from? One of Gideon’s comics? Or is Wake’s influence in these AUs as well, pulling stories from pre-Resurrection Earth?
“Harrowhark fretted with the edges of her veil. ‘It’s no use the damn thing being down,’ said her captain, sotto voce. ‘I do not intend to compete,’ said Harrowhark—not moving her lips but inclining her face very slightly toward the woman next to her. ‘If I did, I would never compete with my face.’ ‘Yes, but you might as well have one,’ said the older woman calmly. ‘That’s the first thing Her Divine Highness will look for in a bride: presence of a face. It’s a precondition of attraction.’ ‘That is not why we are here. Unlike every other House scion present, I will not—flaunt my goods in the shop window.’ ‘Emperor knows what we’d even flaunt,’ grunted Aiglamene.” (HtN 373) Again I wonder, is Aiglamene dead, or is this a simulation of her? I could honestly believe either. Also, WHERE does Harrow get the idea to cast Gideon as Her Divine Highness? On first read, it just seems like a logical place to put her, in the role of the handsome prince. But on subsequent reads, knowing Gideon actually IS God’s daughter? This fascinates me. Again, is this Wake’s influence leaking in, because she knows who Gideon is? Does Harrow somehow have a suspicion? Has she subconsciously been putting things together and leaping wildly to this conclusion?

As with Crux in the role swap AU, Aiglamene is not dead! So this is a really good replica, because Harrow knows her really well. Also, “Her Divine Highness” is one of the titles Kiriona lists when she’s reintroducing herself!! (NtN 370) So Harrow’s brain has somehow both accurately cast Gideon as God’s daughter, and given her the correct title! I really think this must be Wake’s influence leaking into this AU, unless it’s Anastasia-in-Harrow being a little awake and putting things together the way the other Lyctors did.

“One tall, astonishingly built Third House princess had chosen to sit among their number like a butterfly in a grey bog^[nm]^[nn]; she wore a silk robe in gold and breeches that showed off a calf too fit to be called a necromancer’s, and she was holding a glass of champagne and laughing at something she was being told.” (HtN 373) I think it’s interesting that Harrow’s mind chooses Corona to cast here instead of Ianthe, who’s more familiar to her. Maybe because the premise is that they’re vying for Gideon’s attention, and Corona is the more likely candidate for that?
“She knew her eyes were too wide within her sacramental paint—the elegant skull called simply the Chain, which she had been practising for months—when a couple approached, without a retinue.” (HtN 374) A chain in this AU too! Harrow is so into chains. Is it because of Alecto being in chains? Kinky bitch!! But also it hurts my heart in nice ways that she practiced a special and elegant skull pattern for this event.

Is it because she’s Anastasia, and it’s in reference to Samael’s weapon again?

“‘To be honest,’ said Abigail, ‘I’m quite sorry to crash this one, as I would love to see where this mixer goes.’ ‘I, also,’ said Harrowhark’s cavalier primary, from behind her shoulder. Magnus had finished his canape, and added enthusiastically: ‘Agreed. This is top. Have you ever eaten party food before, Lady Harrowhark? Because if you haven’t, this is a very good approximation. No taste, but incredibly salty.’^[no]^[np]” (HtN 375) This whole exchange is top!! These busybodies all know exactly what’s going on now, watching Harrow’s brain flail to create a meet cute with her dead cavalier, and the whole party really feels like a scene the Fifth would love.

BARI Star

“She came to the unpleasant realisation that she would be forced to salute, and duly did so: although the navy-rimmed pins in front of her denoted the same rank as her own, the burnished steel pins on the opposite lapel indicated that these two had seen action. This was not greatly surprising, in the context of the navy edging of the Fourth House.” (HtN 375) This makes me weepy, it feels like a way for Harrow’s brain to recognize the Fourth’s deaths to give them this pin they get for being in battle.
“She said stiffly, ‘Lieutenant Tettares. Lieutenant Chatur. Do you require the service of the Black Anchorite?’ ‘No, because who would, ever?’ said Lieutenant Chatur, whose corkscrew hair had been bound up at the back of her head.” (HtN 375) LMAO, go easy on her Jeanne.
“Harrow had been allowed her paint—she had been granted her jewels of office—as a chaplain, she had even been allowed a bit of robe, though a cursory Cohort robe that pinned to one shoulder and was about as much use as sugar-spun bone.” (HtN 375-376) I don’t know why, but it charms me that she’s not a straight up Cohort necromancer even though she’s insanely powerful, she’s a chaplain. Who is she chaplaining^[nq]^[nr]? She’s the only Niner in the Cohort.
“‘The more substantial child before her was saying in a piercing voice: ‘I heard they actually had to exhume a book as to how your lot work, because we haven’t had a black friar for fifty years.’ … ‘Excuse her, please, she sucks,’ said her necromancer briefly. (‘Thanks?’ ‘You do though?) Look—I wanted to introduce myself. You obviously know who I am. But we’ll be going through training together—we’re the only House heirs entering on the same footing—I don’t think it would be stupid to keep together. And you’re here without a cavalier. Nobody knows why the Reverend Daughter’s signed up for action. But I can’t judge—I’m the Baron of Tisis, and they’re probably going to haze us all until we’re half dead. Now we’re all together, I’d like to be friends. Pax?’” (HtN 376) I’M WEEPING, Harrow pulls the teens’ ghosts in from the River and the first thing Isaac does is literally come out and ask to be friends. HARROW THEY WANT TO BE YOUR FRIENDS.
“‘Do you want to go to the cafeteria?’ Harrowhark did not want to go to the cafeteria. Lieutenants Tettares and Chatur accompanied her to the cafeteria anyway, a place she had contrived never to visit unless absolutely necessary.” (HtN 377) Can’t escape the gravity well of two sincere teens who want you to hang out with them!
“A strange ripple passed over the younger girl’s face, as though she were trying very badly not to laugh. But she said, ‘It’s not like anything you get back at home. It’s got extra stimulants and things—like acids—for space exposure. Bio-adaptive…Can you tell me what it is, Isaac?’ He screwed up his narrow eyes, sighed a little, and then supplied: ‘Bio-adaptive reuptake inhibitors.’ ‘And what do we call it?’ ‘BARI,’ he said. ‘Yeah, BARI! It makes the coffee taste weird, but if you make it the right way, with like spices and stuff, it’s actually great. The Cohort wouldn't run without the on-duty coffee adepts. We wanted to try this deck’s cafeteria, because they’ve got a hotshot new BARI star.’” (HtN 377-378) Another wealth of riches here, omg. I get the sense from Jeanne’s italicized questions and Isaac’s reactions that they are making this up as they go—they know what’s up, they’re having a last laugh before Abigail can send them on, and they’re delighted to be playing matchmakers and coming up with puns. Bless them.
“Harrowhark found herself at the front of the queue beyond which this BARI star apparent waited; and she found herself looking down at the counter, her tongue tied. ‘Let me guess,’ said a voice. ‘You take it black.’ She reached out for the cup. The server pushed it toward her in the same instant—their fingers brushed awkwardly in the act of transmission, and in a mummified moment of time, they looked at each other. The coffee adept was a girl that Harrowhark had never seen before, though she must have been part of their training platoon. With the plain shirtsleeves and apron, and a cloth slung over the shoulder obscuring her insignia, it was impossible to tell her affiliation: the arms beneath the rolled-up sleeves betrayed lean, taut muscle, a little dewy with sweat and steam from the mess. But it was the face that sent her neurons in a thalergetic spin. When Harrowhark looked at that face, she found a curious heat travelling all the way up from the pit of her pylorus to the high collar of her Cohort shirt. It then traversed her cheeks, her nose, her brow, her temples. The other officer smiled a firm-jawed, long, crooked smile at her; Harrow was electrified by the fact that beneath the hastily brushed crop of red hair those eyes were—” (HtN 378) GOD ALMIGHTY. Ok. We know where Gideon’s soul is, so this is an approximation. But who better to approximate Gideon than Harrowhark? She makes a perfect joke, she has hot and dewy arms that Harrow clearly is into, she has that crooked smile. Harrow fucking blushes!! It feels like such a relief, somehow, to hit this very uncomplicated moment of attraction when there’s so much tragedy for these two on either side of it. Also for Harrow, in this moment, she’s seeing what she thinks of as the Body’s gold eyes in this girl’s face, because she doesn’t quite yet remember that they’re Gideon’s eyes too.

Now I wonder if this really is a little bit of Gideon—the cheeseburger bit, as I’ve mentioned before, the part of her soul that Harrow has absorbed, that can’t be detangled. Though I still definitely believe Harrow knows Gideon well enough to have made this up out of whole cloth.

The immediate aftermath

“Harrow thrashed on the mattress and breathed in lungfuls of splintering air. She writhed like a shot animal; arms pinned her down—’Stay with us, Ninth, come on,’ someone was saying—and a sudden spasm seized her, shaking her from the inside untils he was certain she would vibrate out of her skin. There was a susurrus of hushed mutters coming from above her, urgent voices, none of which made sense to her: ‘Are we stable—?’ ‘I hope so; another pull like that and she’ll bring the children back wholesale, and I don’t think I can bear sending them out again—’ ‘Why now?’ ‘Wasn’t that—?’ ‘I honestly preferred some of those to—’ ‘No. Better the rules we have,’ interrupted the second voice. ‘We have no idea of the limitations in those other scenarios.’” (HtN 379) This brings home to me again how these people in here with Harrow must have perceived the last several chapters, being thrown into different simulations like a holodeck gone wonky after spending quite a while in a sort of familiar one. Now they’ve landed back in Canaan House, and Abigail is right, probably best to stick with the one that is the most predictable!

The Broadcast

“A strange, low voice, speaking what everyone called House, caught halfway into a sentence. ‘—esolved through official government channels. We will, of course, be happy to facilitate local elections to ensure the populace feels represented in those committees and resolutions. Under these conditions, no population-wide penalties will be levied. There will be no effects on resettlement. No legal ramifications will fall on groups or individuals, unless they are found guilty of terrorism in the aforementioned tribunal. Definitions of terrorism will be agreed on via elected representatives. All households and individuals can make a plea for restitution, which will be answered not through local authorities but by the Emperor of the Nine Houses.’” (NtN 205-206) I don’t know if this is actually a deliberate reference to anything or if it just resonates that way for me, but Tumblr user fortooate said it best! I ABSOLUTELY connect this with that Deep Space Nine episode and with the Cardassian occupation in general. It also really makes me think of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the announcement about the destruction of Earth, and all the impossible red tape and bureaucracy it’s parodying.
“Here the beautiful pale person paused for the first time, though it seemed it was less for not knowing what to say and more for the sake of waiting. ‘That any member of House personnel who has left their post—disappeared into the population—arrived after the siege and failed to make themselves known to the authorities—that anyone who serves the Emperor, Cohort or otherwise, and who has made themselves absent without leave, present themselves to me immediately, at the barracks, during the next twenty-four hours.’” (NtN 208) Ianthe is loading this with a lot of meaning. She’s looking for Corona, though she doesn’t expect her to be here; she’s looking for Harrow, I think more urgently than she would ever let on. She’s perhaps even looking for Camilla, and maybe hoping the Sixth House Oversight Body will fall into her lap as a nice bonus. She doesn’t give a shit about the rest of the stuff she’s said before, this is the part of her message she really wants to hit.
“‘I say this with all the authority invested in me as Prince Ianthe Naberius the First, the Lyctor Prince, the Saint of Awe.’” (NtN 208) This was the moment when I really lost my shit. There’s just so much here. The Saint of Awe, really John? Did she pick that herself because John is too busy getting drunk and fucking Cohort administrators? Also, I’m sure I’ve said this other places and will say it again, but I love that her title is Lyctor Prince, and not Princess. It’s fascinating. It’s wonderful. It’s so gender. What does it mean in this world, politically? I can’t really figure that out! Corona was a Crown Princess and Ianthe was a plain Princess of Ida, so it’s not about who’s higher ranked. So far in TLT we haven’t really seen indications of institutional misogyny or much gender inequality, at least as far as societal roles go—women can be heirs, can be cavaliers, can be high up in the Cohort, can be Saints, can found Houses—but in the end, the Emperor of all of this is a man. Does Prince, then, start to convey a little bit of patriarchy? Maybe! I honestly kind of hope it’s something Ianthe chose for herself, for gender expression purposes, and by extension something Gideon chose for herself for gender expression purposes, because that’s delightful.
“The first person sat beautifully, while this second person sat with ramrod posture. … Their crooked mouth was set in a serious, bloodless line, and their face held no expression at all. It was a grim mask on a forbidding face, with about as much animation as the portrait in We Suffer’s office. THe only thing alive about this second person was their hair, neatly arrayed with a wreath of fingerbones and white, springlike blossoms: wildly red hair, red enough to make the electric hexagons struggle with it. It was the face of the girl in her dream. And their eyes—” (NtN 209) I put the full description down in the character descriptions section, but I wanted to pull out these bits! On a first read we don’t know it yet, but this is Gideon playing dead, disconnecting from her body in whatever way she’s able to, and it’s delightfully deceptive in the moment because we don’t know yet where Gideon’s soul is. I also could cry forever about the comparison between her forbidding expression and the portrait of Wake. Serious, angry Gideon looks more like her mother than a smiling Gideon would, and the comparison gives the first hint at what her state of mind might be. Also, the wreath, the fingerbones are still fucked up even though this doesn’t specify that they’re infant bones like John’s crown, and also I want to know what these flowers are! There are so many little white flowers it could be a lot of things, I wonder if there’s something in particular that’s common in New Zealand that would be the obvious option? Also also, this is where we finally get full confirmation that when Nona dreams about the pool, she’s dreaming Harrow’s POV and seeing Gideon’s face.
“‘All these promises are made by no lowlier personages than myself and Her Most Serene Highness, Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia, heir to the First House, the Emperor’s only daughter.’” (NtN 209) Again the delightful gender fuckery of this title, Her Highness, Prince, daughter. Kiriona, te reo Māori for Gideon, which is a typically masculine name in English. Gaia, the feminine of Gaius and the name for the Earth, John passing the surname he chose to honor the lyctoral convention of taking your cav’s name down to his daughter in the tradition of pre-Res Earth. There’s so much story packed into this, and so much gender nonconformity.
“Prince Ianthe Naberius continued, ‘The Emperor Undying has sent nothing less than his own Tower Princes, as gracious tokens of his extreme love and concern…his unimpeachable authority.’” (NtN 210) Now we get the addition of Tower Princes! How did they get this title? It must connect to the mysterious tower in the River, but in what way? Are they Tower Princes because John has tasked them with fighting whatever force the tower represents? Were they somehow involved in the tower appearing in the River in the first place? John almost certainly knows what the tower is, and we find out later that Gideon at least has already seen it in the River—she hints that the River has changed in some way: “The corpse prince tilted her head to one side, like a curious bird. ‘You haven’t been in the River lately, have you?’ she asked.” (NtN 371) and then says “I told you so” when they reach it in the BoE truck. (NtN 439) She also mentions at various points fighting devils on Antioch, which makes me think maybe the Tower Princes name is because she and Ianthe have been charged with containing whatever’s escaping from the tower, or from the River via the tower. And of course, aside from all the plot reasons, it’s also a reference to Edward and Richard, the Princes in the Tower. The older of these two brothers had inherited the throne, but before he could be crowned, he and his brother disappeared from the Tower of London—likely murdered—and their uncle became king instead as Richard III. There’s a lot of heart-hurting art of them as two innocent boys locked up and awaiting some terrible fate that remains unknown, which is an interesting contrast to our Tower Princes, an immortal Lyctor and the already-dead heir, each of whom have their own agendas. They’re not the innocents that a 12-year-old and 9-year-old are, but they’re still young and have been through a lot of trauma, and thinking about them stuck together on the Erebos with John trying to cope and making friendship bracelets gives me feelings.

Kiriona Gaia

Just thinking about Gideon in a moment of absolute panic and terror after Isaac has been killed and she’s trying to save Jeanne: “Gideon wanted her longsword and she wanted Harrow.” (GtN 284) She’s been through so much worse since then, and she’s lost the two sources of support and comfort in her life.
“‘All these promises are made by no lowlier personages than myself and Her Most Serene Highness, Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia, heir to the First House, the Emperor’s only daughter.’” (NtN 209)
“It was just an ordinary bedroom. It didn’t have any windows—they were probably at least a floor underground—and it was only lit by a single lightbulb, so it was pretty dim. It looked wide: there was room for the whole bed, and would have been room for another if you pushed it up against the wall. And stretched out on the bed—nearly too big for it—was the girl from her dream: the girl who might be her.” (NtN 359) How much did Kiriona choose about this room? Ianthe could have put her underground so nobody could see her, and to eliminate windows as an escape route. But I also wonder if this is comforting to Kiriona, and if she keeps it dim for the same reason. She lived her whole life in a dark hole, and it sucked there, but everything that’s happened since she left it has been trauma after trauma. She’s lost everything familiar, including Harrow; maybe a dark underground room is soothing.
The kiss

“Nona put her hand close to the corpse’s cold hand, very tentatively, expecting something to happen, once she touched it; that she would suddenly melt away, or pop out of existence like a soap bubble. What happened made her think much better of the corpse. It opened its eyes—and its eyes were yellow, the gold of the old sky, like hers only much foggier. Those were beautiful: Nona had always adored her eyes, and here they were again, on the corpse, only partially spoiled for being dead. They looked like treasure at night. The corpse looked at her in such mute, helpless appeal—spoke to her in her first language—that Nona did not have to think about what she did next. She leant down and laid a kiss right on that cool, dead, crooked mouth. She kissed her just the once. The corpse’s mouth was soft and rough and cold, and did not respond to Nona’s mouth, but a tremble went through the upper body. Nona was surprised and relieved to find that the corpse girl tasted like toothpaste. At the tremble, Nona pulled back, self-conscious. The expression on the corpse’s face could not have been more rigid with shock and disbelief. She found herself saying, a little defensively— ‘You looked like you wanted to be kissed, that’s all.’” (NtN 360) GOD. Just, FUCK. Okay. I love that, like Harrow’s ball AU, this is framed as a fairy tale. We’ve got a handsome prince, but she’s the one in the bed—dead, asleep, tragic. We’ve got her rescuer, her love, her princess, or at least the body thereof—and a soul inside it who can read her unvoiced desire. And as with Harrow’s AU, this is a fantasy—nothing here is as it seems, and Gideon and Harrow still haven’t reached their happy ending, even though Harrow has expressed the same unvoiced desires with her subconscious. Harrow’s not here—this is Gideon’s fantasy, but a little bit off. It’s so painful!!!

Kiriona’s wounds

“He undid her scarf, and Nona looked away. Beneath the scarf a huge wound in the throat made the neck yawn wide open. When she peeked back, wishing she had her braids to screen everything, she saw that Palamedes had unbuttoned the shirt partway and there was another big wound in the chest—a big purple bloodless puncture wound, with white teeth peeking out coyly from within. ‘Damage is consistent with reported injuries. There’s another wound lower down.’” (NtN 365-366) Okay, I know this is a point of contention and has many interpretations in the fandom. I have pretty firm opinions, but before I lay them out, I want to be clear that I am all for multiple interpretations of a text, and everyone interpreting things their own way! My thoughts are just my thoughts. I am, a little, trying to argue for my interpretation, but if you don’t buy it or don’t like it, that’s very much fine with me! I wrote a post about it, but the tl;dr is that what I think we’re learning here is that when Gideon fell on the fence, she was pierced in three places: the throat, the sternum, and the abdomen (“another wound lower down”). Cam saw this in person, and told Palamedes about it (“consistent with reported injuries”). Pal takes what he’s seeing totally in stride, which is not how he reacts to unexpected things, like Nona not swapping souls with Gideon when they touched, or the citrus burn of John’s magic when he tries to use psychometry on Gideon’s body. To me, this means that the “teeth” are not literal teeth, which would be quite unexpected, but the edges of her ribs sticking out from where her sternum and heart were shattered. I don’t personally think John did anything to her body other than make it impenetrable, impossible for her blood to be used against him. Her body was already incorruptible, she didn’t need him to do that after he got her body; she was already preserved with exactly the damage she received in death. That’s probably John’s power too, by virtue of her being his kid, but it wasn’t something he had to be present for and purposefully do.

“‘I’m Prince Kiriona Gaia the First, Her Divine Highness, First Lieutenant of the Cohort, Emperor’s Life Guards, non-auxiliary—honorary title but who cares—heir to the Emperor Divine, first of the Tower Princes. And I’m mega dead.’” (NtN 370) I absolutely shrieked reading this the first time, and I want to pick it apart just a little.

First, “Prince^[ns]^[nt].” I’m delighted by the gender fuckery of Kiriona and Ianthe both being princes. I’m interested what, if any, power implications it has. TLT seems to be a world without any really strong misogyny, but John is the only person alive who remembers the world as it was before. Did Kiriona and Ianthe choose this title because they both liked it gender-wise, in their own ways? Or did John bestow this title out of some long-internalized sense that a prince is a more political/powerful/commanding title than a princess? I think either or both could be true.
Then we have “Kiriona Gaia,” which I’m certain I’ve talked about elsewhere in this document, maybe in the John’s manipulations section, but I’m going to talk about it here too. “Kiriona,” as the fandom pretty much all knows by now, is “Gideon” as it would be pronounced in te reo Māori. A name that Gideon may or may not have enthusiastically consented to, but either way, must have come at John’s suggestion, because again, he’s the only person alive who might speak it. He’s offered her a piece of his culture, a heritage that only John remembers or understands, and she is using it, either through her own interest in connecting with him or his insistence. And “Gaia,” which is the feminine form of John’s surname “Gaius,” and the name of the Earth who is John’s cavalier. By passing this to Kiriona, he’s breaking from the cav’s-name-as-surname Lyctoral convention that he himself is using and reverting back to an old Earth way, connecting Kiriona directly to him. Again, the gender here is interesting, because we’re switching back to feminine from a masculine title and a translation of a masculine name.
“The First” is very interesting! This convention of firstname-the-housenumber was established in GtN as a cavalier titling convention, and then in HtN we got the First, specifically, as a Lyctoral title. Kiriona gets a first name and a surname and “the First” even though she’s not at all a Lyctor, and she’s not demoted to just Kiriona the First as might be logical for a cavalier of the First House. John is just heaping titles on her, regardless of what’s customary.
“Her Divine Highness” delights me. This is precisely the unseen Gideon’s title in Harrow’s ball AU. How did Harrow and John both decide on this title, independently? According to this super useful post, “His Divine Highness” isn’t something John is ever called, so it’s not just a gender switch. Then again, as far as I understand it, “Highness” is used when addressing princes and princesses but “Majesty” is for the ruling monarch in British monarchy, so given all the titles John has that involve “Divine,” maybe this isn’t as big a leap as it seems to me. Also, we’re back to the feminine again after the gender neutral of “the First.”
“First Lieutenant of the Cohort” is a little harder for me to really pin down, because I know literally nothing about military things. Some Googling tells me that a first lieutenant is just above a second lieutenant, which is the lowest commissioned officer rank. Second lieutenant is probably what Gideon would have entered the Cohort as, had Harrow let her go with the paperwork to purchase her commission back at the start of GtN. So it’s not like John has put her in charge of anything, but he’s given her a bump up from the other brand new officers. Perhaps she answers to a commanding officer other than her dad when she’s out fighting on Antioch?
“Emperor’s Life Guards, non-auxiliary” is also delightful! We’ve heard Pash referred to as the Angel’s life guard, so this is a term that I take to mean bodyguards. Kiriona is one of her father’s elite guards, a job very like a cavalier. Also the non-auxiliary thing I had to look up but it seems to mean that she’s very specifically not a volunteer or a non-military person doing a job within the Cohort, it’s really calling out that she’s an officer, she’s legit. The fact that this one is an honorary title seems so mean—John made her one of his cavaliers, but she’s not actually expected to guard him? Or is it honorary in the sense that she hasn’t been through whatever training would normally accompany that title?
“Heir to the Emperor Divine” does what it says on the tin. She’s his only blood, but also he can’t die, but also perhaps he can, and if he does, the black hole that will be left when Dominicus collapses will be all hers. (I do actually wonder if AtN will involve Gideon becoming the anchor for the continued survival of the sun, at least for long enough to get everyone resettled in a different system, but who knows?)
“First of the Tower Princes” feels loaded. She gets to be the first of the two, because she’s the heir, even though Ianthe was a Lyctor before Gideon or John knew he had a kid. And what does “Tower Princes” actually mean, in-universe, to John? It’s definitely a reference to Edward V and Richard, which is a reference John could conceivably be consciously making. If he is, that’s super ominous, because Edward V and Richard are famous for being locked in the Tower of London and then murdered to keep Edward off the throne. I feel like it also must be an in-universe reference to the tower we see in the River, but since we don’t know anything about the tower, it’s impossible to know what this title would indicate about Kiriona and Ianthe, or what John wants from them. I’m so fucking excited to find out.
“‘John, you mad bastard,’ said Pyrrha softly. She hadn’t taken either hand off her gun.” (NtN 370) Pyrrha is the only other person who might have the full context of what all these titles mean to John, or coming from John, and this reaction makes me laugh and makes me so curious!!!!

“‘How long have you been awake?’ asked Palamedes, standing up with noticeably more difficulty than the corpse prince had done. ‘Whole time. I’ve been playing possum. Pretty clever, right?’ Nona was indignant enough at Prince Kiriona Gaia’s whole demeanor, but this last piece of self-congratulation was too much to bear. ‘I knew it!’ she burst out. ‘You didn’t fool me—I saw you looking at me, back in the other room! You know, when I—’ ‘Yes, congratulations,’ said the Prince sarcastically. ‘No, babycakes, I didn’t fool you. Who is this literal goddamn infant? Can someone give her like a rusk or something and shut her up?’” (NtN 370) Kiriona’s so sharp, and so hurt!! Harrow was lost, and everything familiar to Gideon gone with her. She’s been unhappy in her new undeath even though on paper it’s even better than she ever wanted. Then she’s taking a nap and HARROW comes into her room, and kisses her??? This cannot be possible! And oh, in fact it isn’t Harrow confessing her love, it’s Harrow’s body with someone else in it. Of course, because the real Harrow would never kiss her! What an awful, painful emotional space to be in, and then have the few people other than Harrow who she might consider familiar and even friends, be so focused on her body and her blood and not her as a person they miss?? It’s honestly no wonder she’s so mean about it, everything in this moment is stabbing at all her vulnerable spots.
“‘Oh—she got big pissed that I came along for the ride,’ said Gideon. ‘She shut me off in public so I wouldn’t screw up the very important Sixth House mission.’” (NtN 371) I’m so interested in this shutting off thing. Would any Lyctor be able to do it? What does it entail? Is it like the way Kiriona does to herself to play dead?
“‘Anyway, you’re going to the Ninth House, right? I want in.’ ‘Why?’ said Camilla. The Prince shrugged. … ‘Nav,’ said Palamedes levelly, ‘if you’ve been awake this whole time, you know perfectly well what we’re doing. Given that you’ve introduced yourself as Prince Kiriona Gaia the First, should you not be trying to stop us in the Emperor’s name?’ … ‘What do you want, Gideon?’ The corpse prince considered this. ‘I don’t want much of anything anymore,’ she said brightly. ‘I just don’t really give a shit. I got on Ianthe’s shuttle because it looked like it was more fun than standing around at home watching parades and getting saluted. I could kill all you guys and John would probably give me another medal or something—okay, not you, Corona, Ianthe would never shut up about it—but…eh, medals. I want to go where stuff’s happening. And I feel like…I feel like I’ve got unfinished business on the Ninth. Very cultural, very personal.’ ‘She’s lying,’ said Nona instantly. With all the white noise coming from the corpse prince, she couldn’t tell exactly where the lie was, but it was buried deep around her smile.” (NtN 372) I honestly feel like most of this is true. I think the lie is the very last bit, very cultural, very personal. She doesn’t miss the Ninth in that way, she’s not culturally attached, and I don’t think she would consider what she has to do there “unfinished business.” She’s going there on John’s order. But the rest of it, her detachment, her dissatisfaction, her boredom, her restlessness, I think that’s all real.
“‘I thought I told you to shut your stolen goddamned mouth,’ said Kiriona, not pleasantly, and Camilla said— ‘Don’t push it, Ninth.’ Nona’s heart fluttered. It didn’t even matter when Kiriona said, ‘Sure, Cam. Marry a moron, then die. I get the urge.’” (NtN 372) This reads to me like Kiriona is casting Nona and Harrow as the morons, which makes me laugh a lot.
“Camilla twitched forward, and the Prince saw her. She grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s the spirit,’ she said. ‘Come on, Cam. You’re still mostly alive, right? Here, look, I’ll make it easy on you.’ She rolled up one sleeve and stuck the bare forearm out in front of her, fist clenched, steady. ‘Try it. I’m ready for my shot, doc.’” (NtN 373) This feels to me a little like a callback to Cam showing up at the Ninth door in Canaan House to check on Gideon after the Avulsion trial, except this time it’s Cam who’s in a bad way, even though she’s still the doc.
“The needle snapped in half, like she’d jabbed it into the tiled floor. Camilla staggered back as if this had thrown her off-balance. Kiriona Gaia opened her hand—moved it to steady Camilla’s shoulder—then, like she was flinching, roughly shoved her away. Camilla fell back into Palamedes’s arms. The Prince stared at them. Her eyes weren’t like Nona’s at all now; they were hard and dead and bright, like something that had been dug up. ‘My father has made my body’s bones denser than titanium plex,’ said the Crown Prince coldly. ‘My father has made my skin turn away bullets. I am the perfect sword hand and the final expression of the art of the Nine Houses. Don’t you get it? I am the Emperor’s construct.’ Pyrrha said— ‘Shame he didn’t get some spackle for your extra holes, right?’ ‘Those are my speed holes. They help me go fast,’ said Kiriona quickly.” (NtN 373) I love this little glimpse of Gideon underneath Kiriona here, and then how she doubles down, puts even more walls around herself.
“‘My blood burns up outside my body, turns to ash,’ said Kiriona. ‘You need to preserve it to get it out—you know, like, impregnate it with thalergy to stop the short-term thanergy reaction. When it reacts with air, the preservation, like, rolls backward—it’s not static.’ When she looked at Palamedes’s face, she laughed again. ‘Come on, boy. I’m Gideon version two. I know up to five necromancy facts now.’ For some reason, it was this that made Palamedes look as though he’d been slapped.” (NtN 373-374) I wonder if he’s thinking of Harrow in this moment, cataloging the changes in a Gideon who’s been cut loose.
“Kiriona turned her body to look at them. Nona couldn’t quite believe that they couldn’t all see it; but they weren’t watching, goggle-eyed, they hadn’t even seemed to notice. It was in Kiriona’s every movement—the bright, swift flexions of her arms, and the way she swung her legs, big and brash, and the weirdly easy, light grace with which she moved her dead body. Nona had never seen anyone so sad in her whole short life. It made her nearly afraid to die. ‘Nobody locks me up anywhere,’ said Kiriona.” (NtN 374) SHE’S JUST SO SAD, I CAN’T TAKE IT.
“The corpse prince looked at her, and her expression was flat, and cool, and metallic. Kiriona said, ‘Where is she?’ Nona didn’t know what to say. The corpse prince urged— ‘Come on. Where’d she go? Where is she?’ ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ said Nona miserably. ‘Listen, she can be in hell for all I care, I won’t get mad,’ said Kiriona. ‘She can be at the bottom of the sea or at the bottom of space. I just need to know—where.’ When Nona didn’t answer, the corpse prince said— ‘Okay. Different question. Do you love her?’ ‘Take a walk, Nav,’ said a new voice.” (NtN 411-412) This hurts me so! Kiriona knows who Nona is. She’s the only one with the vantage point of being in Harrow’s body previously, seeing the Body coming and kicking her out. She knows this isn’t Harrow, and she’s figured out who it is instead, and she’s correct. The piece she can’t quite get is Nona, as her own person, who doesn’t have any answers to anybody’s questions. But it pains me that Kiriona wants to know where Harrow is, doesn’t matter where, and the “so I can go there and get her” is strongly implied. She might actually be in hell, or at the bottom of the ocean, or the bottom of space, or all of them simultaneously, either right this moment or in the near future, and I’m excited to find out. Also the “Do you love her” is so awful, as if she’s going to give up and let the Body have her if the Body loves her, will care for her.
“Kiriona said, ‘Kind of pretending to be dead here.’ ‘All right. We’ll take a walk. Don’t go anywhere, and stop being a little shit,’ said Pyrrha. ‘It’s genetic,’ said the corpse prince.” (NtN 412) This makes me laugh every time, and also it interests me that she’s adjusted to her new circumstances enough to make jokes explicitly about having parents and who those parents are, when being a foundling was so essential to her identity before. She’s unhappy and she’s been through a lot, but at least she’s gotten to a point where she can cope with humor.
“In the darkness, the figure was naked and whole and unhurt. It crouched in on itself—elbows to knees, clasping itself, curled up in a kind of C—and then it said: ‘Clothes, please?’ Nona watched as Kiriona started to unbutton her jacket, then thought better of it.” (NtN 423) I love this detail. I love that her first instinct is to help her friend who has just gone through this wild process that Gideon has also in a way been through—but even if she’s through playing dead, giving up her jacket will perhaps make it harder to hide her wounds. She’s been very buttoned up this whole time, and in fact was often quite covered up in GtN, she’s shy.
“The corpse prince was already in the cockpit. She had apparently walked there under her own steam—if anyone from Blood of Eden had noticed, they had kept it to themselves—and now she was strapped into one of the sideways seats, her sword beneath her feet, legs splayed carelessly wide at the knees, arms folded over her chest. She did not speak to them, even when Pyrrha said, ‘Hey, kid.’ She had not said much of anything since Camilla and Palamedes had become Camilla-and-Palamedes—seemed withdrawn and lost in thought, unwilling to look at anyone or anything.” (NtN 428) She’s got a lot on her mind!! Her secret mission from dad, going back to the Ninth, and surely missing Harrow worse than ever now that Pal and Cam have proven that everything she went through, dying, being eaten, being not-eaten, getting kicked out of Harrow and stuck into herself, didn’t have to happen that way. That if they’d just had a little more time, maybe she and Harrow could have been Gideon-and-Harrow, together, and is that something she’d even want?? Poor thing.
“‘Just Paul,’ said Paul. ‘U Lap,’ said the corpse prince, from the back of the cabin. ‘Thanks for your contribution,’ said Paul. ‘Aulp,’ said the corpse prince. ‘No,’ said Paul.” (NtN 430) Finding their footing together again, and it’s beautiful to see!
“Pyrrha swung around to the corpse prince and said, ‘Kid, you still in there?’ and Kiriona said scornfully, ‘It takes more than this.’” (NtN 438) “This,” in this context, meaning dropping into the River! I feel like this implies that Kiriona is stuck tighter in her body than a revenant would normally be—it’s possible she’s not even actively holding on, that John has glued her in there so well that she won’t come unstuck without his intervention.
“The Prince strode down the platform. She stood on the gravel, haloed in the underlights from the wheezing megatruck, and she said— ‘Home, sweet home.’” (NtN 444)
“Prince Kiriona Gaia had walked several steps away from them into the darkness, and now seemed to float in the gloom, ghostlike in her pure white clothes. She had drawn her sword, and she didn’t turn around. ‘Quiet,’ she said. Noodle ignored her totally: inside the truck he was doing the regular bark—bark—bark of a dog alerted to a nearby threat. Everyone else obediently stayed silent for a few seconds. ‘I don’t hear anything,’ said Pyrrha neutrally.’ ‘Nor I,’ said Paul. Kiriona made a noise that sounded almost amused, and said, ‘Fine. I’m going. Keep up or you’re probably dead.’ Then she crunched away over the gravel and dwindled out of sight.’” (NtN 445) I love that only Kiriona and Noodle have a sense of the danger here! Kiriona, perhaps, because she knows what an average day on the Ninth should sound like, and also is familiar with the devils; Noodle because…dog? Possibly more than just a dog?
“Kiriona hovered, sword still in her hand, staring at the archway. ‘Nav, come on,’ said Pyrrha sharply. ‘Any kid in the Cohort knows the mission comes first. Or did you get that uniform out of the dress-up box?’ Kiriona rounded on Pyrrha, her gold eyes cold and haughty, but instead of saying anything she shoved her sword back into its scabbard and moved to the cage as well.” (NtN 449) Pyrrha really knows how to go for the weak spots, goddamn.
“‘The marshal loves pain,’ said Kiriona. She was staring fixedly at the red bulb. The old man gurgled. ‘Seneschal, you fool.’ ‘Oh, congrats, I forgot Nonagesimus left you in charge,’ said Kiriona. ‘Where’s Aiglamene?’ ‘Dead,’ the seneschal said. Kiriona became very still. The seneschal wheezed with relish at her expression. Even in the darkness Nona could still tell, and surprised herself by saying to Kiriona, ‘He’s lying.’” (NtN 450-451) I just love Nona so much. She has no context so she thinks Kiriona kind of sucks, but she can still tell that this lie hurts her, so she calls it out. Also Gideon was so clearly not emotionally prepared to be back here, it’s so juicy and owie.
“‘Holy shit, Sister Canace is still alive?’ said Kiriona, startled. ‘She used to oversee me on oss duty. If you’re using Sister Canace as a last line of defense, how bad off are w—you?’” (NtN 452) Oh, honey.
“Aiglamene rose from one knee—it took a long time, but she quelled with a look anyone who offered to help—and then stumped forward into the ring of light flung by the corpse prince’s lantern. She reached out—she touched the side of the Prince’s face—they both recoiled. Kiriona Gaia recovered first. ‘You always said I’d come back in a box, Aiglamene,’ she said lightly. ‘They killed you,’ said Aiglamene. ‘Crime of opportunity,’ said the corpse prince. And: ‘Don’t tell Crux—I absolutely, positively cannot give him the fucking satisfaction.’ Aiglamene shoved her square in the chest, with the palm of one gloved hand; Kiriona tottered a little and wheezed, ‘Don’t—that’s where my heart used to be,’ but the old soldier’s gaze had already fallen upon Nona. Nona cringed back in Pyrrha’s arms, because the expression was as bad as every single time Camilla had caught her putting a mouthful of chewed-up food in the potted plant or elsewhere. She could read this very old, very furious soldier like a book: the woman was angry, and blamed her. Kiriona Gaia could read her too, because she insinuated herself between them, and said coolly— ‘It’s not her, Captain—it’s only her body.’” (NtN 456) SO PAINFUL. Aiglamene turning right to the person she thinks is Harrow, who she thinks allowed Gideon to die even though she gave her word to set Gideon free. And Kiriona! “Crime of opportunity!” GOD. It reminds me of Harrow yelling at Ortus, insisting that Gideon didn’t kill herself but was murdered through circumstance. They’ve come to the same page from opposite directions.
“Pyrrha said lowly, ‘Don’t do anything stupid, kid.’ ‘Are you ever too late to come into my life and say that,’ said Kiriona.” (NtN 465)
“She choked up blood; both Tower Princes had whirled around—dropped down to their knees beside her—one said, ‘Her neck—get her neck,’ but as fast as she could be stitched together, she came apart. The baby body was coming apart. A slim brown hand was at her cheek: ‘Keep it together. Wherever you are, idiot, I know you can hear me. Keep it together…’” (NtN 470)
“Someone said something. The old man, Crux—the child Crux, barely one hundred years old—was saying hoarsely: ‘Fix me, and I am taken by the unknown. Kill me, for the love of the Reverend Daughter. Oh, do you think you are the only one who knows how to die, Nav? I knew you were dead to see you…I will commit this apocalyptic sin. I will die for her. She is my nurseling. I am the only one who knows how to die for the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus.’ ‘Good,’ said someone, so savagely that it sounded like a new voice altogether. ‘Good. Die. Die for her…it’s the only goddamn good you’ll ever do her. It’s all any of you ever knew how to give her. You could have lived for her…but you didn’t know how.’” (NtN 472) Oh, Gideon, my love. This is so awful and so powerfully written. It’s true on both levels—the rest of the Ninth prioritized Harrow’s existence more than so much life, and left her with a devoted but dying house, but Gideon also couldn’t figure out how to live for her. I hope she gets the chance.
“‘Did you know I’m God’s child?’ Kiriona demanded. ‘Did you know all the things you did—all the shit you pulled—every single thing you did, every lock you snapped on me, every cuff you put on me, every—every crappy plate of food you put in front of me, every word—every look—did you know I was the real, true-blue daughter of the Emperor? I want you to know that—I want you to know what I am!’ ‘You remain—what you are,’ said Crux. ‘A worthless millstone hung about my darling’s neck. You were born to make her suffer. You died as you lived, Gideon Nav—a disappointment to me—and to God.’ There was a wet, meaty sound. The old man exhaled. It was dark. Then there was light, bright, cold, electrifying, like death; and the noise of another rock—slowly—agonizingly—grinding away. And Kiriona kept saying— ‘It didn’t feel good…Fuck…It didn’t feel good. Why didn’t it feel good?’ A rising, hysterical note. ‘Why didn’t it feel good? You fucking old…You hideous, cruel…you bastard…Why didn’t…Why can’t I…’” (NtN 473) IM JUST CRYING FOREVER

Paul Gets Born

I fucking love Paul so they get their own section!
“‘I don’t care how much you learnt in that bubble. You’re not a Lyctor,’ said Pyrrha. ‘You can’t keep the ghosts off. They’ll strip you to the bone.’ ‘Not this time,’ said Palamedes—very lightly. Nona felt Pyrrha’s arms suddenly lose their normal untrembling strength and let her slip down a couple of centimetres until she said urgently, ‘Pyrrha, you’re dropping me,’ and Pyrrha gathered her back up.” (NtN 418-419) The moment Pyrrha understands what they’re about to do. When I was reading this the first time, I think this is when I realized that now was the moment, too.
“Palamedes passed the sheaf of papers back to We Suffer. ‘Mum, can you get Kiana? She should be here…and Cam’s dads—’ ‘No. Just Kiki,’ said Camilla. ‘Just my sister. They won’t…they might not understand, Warden.’” (NtN 419) I have so many feelings about this. Cam doesn’t want her dads there to say goodbye to as she embarks on this new kind of life with Pal, because they might not get it. What a queer mood. What a trans mood. What a generational gap mood.
“Pyrrha sat Nona on the truck step, blindly, despite Nona’s warning squawk; Nona very much did not want to be sat next to the shimmering white figure of the dead Kiriona Gaia, who was watching the proceedings with the lively interest of a spectator at a ballgame. Pyrrha practically stumbled away—she dropped to her knees before the chair and Palamedes—she reached out and took Palamedes’s hand, and then Camilla’s. Her face and hands showed only dumb despair. ‘I’ve loved you two,’ she said. ‘Not well. Not even wholesomely. I don’t have it in me. But I’ve loved you—in a better world I’d be able to say ‘Like you were my own,’ but I don’t know what that would even mean anymore. You’ve been my agents…you’ve been stand-ins for something I haven’t had for longer than either of you can understand. Which is why I’m saying—don’t do this. Please, don’t do this.’ Neither of them answered. Pyrrha continued urgently: ‘Understand that once you do this, you can’t take it back. It’s better to die. There’s a power to dying clean…dying free. It’s not love, what you’re about to do. It’s not beautiful and it’s not powerful. It’s a mistake. We didn’t even do it right…we were children—playing with the reflections of stars in a pool of water…thinking it was space.’ Palamedes stood, and Pyrrha stood with him. He reached out and grasped her wrist strongly. ‘Whatever you think we’re doing, we’re not,’ he said. ‘Whatever you think you’re doing,’ said Pyrrha, ‘you shouldn’t.’ Camilla said, ‘Just watch us.’” (NtN 419-420) This is fully Pyrrha’s trauma talking. She’s never, at least in what we know of her, been able to just have a family life. She’s never been able to save anyone she loved. She was trapped inside G1deon, alone, unrecognized, for ten thousand years, an inconceivable amount of time, and he killed her to put her there. Lyctorhood, for her, can’t possibly be the right choice, and she’s been so harmed and changed by her own experience that she can’t conceive of another, more equitable way. It’s so awful.
“Pyrrha tugged her wrist free of Palamedes’s hand. She reached down, and tilted Camilla’s chin up, and looked at her for the longest time. Then she leant down—she kissed her brusquely and briefly on the forehead—and, startlingly and even more briefly, on the mouth. Nona, who even then could never ditch the lessons of the hand and the mouth, watched that kiss and felt very sad. It was like watching Pyrrha stealing something she didn’t want to take—reaching out for the juicy, cherry-red part of the oven, even when she knew that all it could give her was a burn. And Nona saw Camilla, with her cold, navy blue mouth, and could tell that Camilla understood. Camilla said, ‘Could you try not to be such a chicken hawk, Pyrrha?’ Pyrrha reached out, ruffled the perfect hair of the body of Ianthe Naberius, and leant in to briefly kiss Palamedes too—Palamedes said, tolerant and amused, ‘You are an appalling old roué, Dve,’ —and Pyrrha said, ‘Call me if you need me. Otherwise, see you around.’ Pyrrha crossed over to the truck, to Nona, and leant heavily into the interior; Nona could see that she was sweating, in exactly the same way she had sweated after the bottle of bleach.” (NtN 420-421) Pyrrha’s expressions of love are so much about touch! Everything that’s happening here is so gorgeous and painful. It’s quite open to interpretation, but I read this whole exchange as Pyrrha trying to fit the complexity and size of her love for the both of them into this final moment, a last chance. These kisses are, to me, a confession of feelings that are familial-romantic-sexual all in a big mixed up jumble, Pyrrha making the landmine people in her life into the center of her life in a way that feels like it follows from her relationships with G1deon and with John and with Wake. She can’t have all of the things she might have come around to seeking with them if there had been enough time, for probably a number of different reasons, but she has to let them know that all of that is in her, and they hear it, and they take it as meant even as they’re blowing it all up. Also, I had to look up “chicken hawk” finally just to figure out if it was slang I didn’t know, and it is!! Slang for, in fact, an older man who prefers younger men as partners, which is just such a delightful bit of banter coming from Cam. Being a pill is part of her love language.
“‘Camilla, we did it right, didn’t we?’ Palamedes said, and now Nona knew he wasn’t speaking to anyone else in the universe. ‘We had something very nearly perfect…the perfect friendship, the perfect love.’” (NtN 422) This brings me back to “Cytherea met them ably, but such was Camilla’s speed and perfect hate that she could only hope to block the thunderstorm of blows; she could not even begin to push back against them.” (GtN 406) Perfect hate when they’re separated; perfect love when they’re together.
“‘Camilla took a couple of gasping breaths—it was obvious how much they hurt her—and then she said: ‘Warden—will she know who we are, in the River?’ ‘Oh, she’s not stupid,’ said Palamedes lightly. ‘In the River—beyond the River—I truly believe we will see ourselves and each other as we really are.’” (NtN 422) It’s so beautiful to me that Cam thinks of Dulcie here, and makes me think of Dulcie mourning them in Harrow’s River bubble. I hope, eventually, they find each other.
“‘Tell me no, and we’ll go on as we have been…and we’ll go on unafraid…but say yes, and we will make this end, and this beginning, together.’ Camilla shivered all over. Then she was at rest; she relaxed her head—the lines of her neck drooped like a flower—she raised it again. ‘Palamedes, yes,’ she said. ‘My whole life, yes. Yes, forever, yes. Life is too short and love is too long.’ He demanded: ‘Tell me how to do it, and I’ll do it.’ Camilla said, ‘Go loud.’” (NtN 422) I’m weeping forever, I want this tattooed on my body. Also I think this is the only time we ever hear Cam call him by his name.
“Palamedes took her knife, and he cracked open an invisible seam on the end of the handle. A thin trickle of something white and grey and powdery dribbled into his palm. He held it out to her, and Camilla opened her mouth and—to Nona’s horror—ate it, whatever it was. He took the knife and he scored her finger, saying, ‘Not much longer,’ and he pressed her own bloody finger to her cool and bloody mouth, and he said, ‘Don’t look back. Whatever you do, don’t look back,’ and they huddled their heads together, they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders.” (NtN 422) At last, we get a look at some kind of Lyctoral process!!! Not the same kind that we didn’t get to see Ianthe or Harrow or any of the OGs do, but I feel like what we know about imperfect Lyctorhood and what we see here and what we saw John do to create Alecto all resonate with each other. The powdery substance hidden in Cam’s knife is, I think, what’s left of Pal’s bones. The hand he was in before he was in Cam’s body, powdered up and kept perhaps specifically for this purpose, which is pretty forward thinking of them and also typical. Cam consumes both of their bodies, instead of one person consuming a part of the other, his bone dust and her own blood. The “don’t look back” is wonderful too, evoking Orpheus leading Eurydice out of the underworld, and for me also evoking Lot’s wife, who looked back while fleeing Sodom despite being told not to and was turned into a pillar of salt. But if anyone can get through this on trust alone, it’s Camilla. It makes me wonder if Anastasia and Samael had it right, but one of them faltered and looked back, perhaps through John’s interference.
“Nothing particularly interesting happened, until Camilla burst into flames. She blazed like a white candle—she rolled away from the body of Ianthe Naberius, booted the inert figure away to roll over and over across the road—and stood, stumbling, completely ablaze, a hot white pillar of fire. Nona watched her open her mouth as though she were calling out, but no sound came. She sizzled: her bandages and clothes and injuries all sizzled, her hair sizzled, she blackened and wasted right in front of them. Wherever she staggered, she left bloody black footprints, and those footprints curled up in flowerlike wreaths of smoke and flame before dribbling to nothing on the road. She dropped to the road as though dying, rolled around in the agonies of the dying, until Nona thought she too would die of watching: that she had finally found something so horrible she could die just from seeing it, the worst thing you could ever see in your life. The whole tunnel was filled with sparking, sparkling flame, and the crackle of roasting human flesh, Camilla’s body dancing gruesomely trying to put it out—a black thing within the fire—then something red within the fire—and then she tried to stand; she arched, trembling, featureless; the flames died. In the darkness, the figure was naked and whole and unhurt. It crouched in on itself—elbows to knees, clasping itself, curled up in a kind of C—and then it said: ‘Clothes, please?’” (NtN 423) This is so horrible and fascinating. This is clearly not quite what happened when Harrow or Ianthe became Lyctors, because they didn’t turn up naked afterwards. This is a phoenix-style destruction and rebirth. I’m interested in the white fire, which seems magical, even though it does burn them; I’m interested in just like, conservation of matter here, does the fire burn them and then also regrow what was burned away? Also the visuals of this feel very Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood to me, and the footprints really tickle at my brain as if I have seen that before, but I can’t figure out where.
“We Suffer paused. Camilla-and-Palamedes cocked their burnt head to one side. ‘Paul,’ they suggested. ‘Paul. Good luck, Paul,’ said We Suffer.” (NtN 429) I lost my mind reading this for the first time. PAUL. What a perfect name for a new person who’s excited to defeat death and fix the River and spread the word about a better Lyctorhood.
“Paul released a lever, and the truck lurched forward into the darkness. They settled their hands on the wheel. There was nothing in their face but easy surety, not one trace of pain or fear or worry. Everyone had at least a slight trace of anticipation or pain or fear or worry, but not this new person called Paul.” (NtN 431) Paul is so Garnet and it makes me cry!
“Paul was crouched, staring thoughtfully at the dead, empty-eyed face in a way that would have been strange for either Palamedes or Camilla. Nona thought Camilla would have looked with eyes like stone and given away nothing, and that Palamedes would have reached out to touch. Paul did not reach out to touch, and Paul looked as though it were interesting.” (NtN 448) I love this characterization of Paul—as interested as Pal would be, but as physically reserved and cautious as Cam would be. It’s so charming. Best of both worlds, curious and careful.

Heeeere’s Alecto / The Epilogue

“The waters parted for her and it became possible to walk, crunching through the bones at the bottom. The bones at the bottom; what did they make her think of?” (NtN 473) Yeah, what? Also, SO NEAT that the water parts for her!
“There she was; John had made her so ugly, so unbearably ugly. The terrible face, with the terrible arms and legs and the terrible middle part, and the terrible hair, and the terrible ears: the nose too short, the ears too brief^[nu]^[nv]. But there she was—and within her the child, asleep, with the strange sword. The sword—her sword—her own edge had been pushed out, her swinging edge, her toy. Her plain bladed sword. And her body was chained up…” (NtN 474) This is interesting, I had not really clocked the sword part of this because I was so relieved Harrow’s soul was really in there. But the strange sword, that’s Gideon’s sword, right? “Her own edge had been pushed out,” meaning Alecto’s own sword had been literally pushed out of the coffin? Did Gideon’s real actual sword somehow make it from being lost in the River to being here with Harrow’s soul and Alecto’s body??
Okay so because the epilogue is so tricky to unknot, I’m going to put brackets inside the quotes to identify who I think is being referenced/who I think is speaking. Just as a heads up.
“At the breaking of the chains and of the bones, one of the children there [Ianthe] offered violence to her, appearing on the altar and raising her weapon high. But the black-eyed infant collapsed on the altar [Harrow] chid her sharply in a clear voice, saying, What is this that thou wouldst do, Tridentarius? Touch her and our vow will come to nothing, and I will slay you where you stand. To which the first child [Ianthe] said, Thou knowest not what thou dost. And the second child [Harrow] answered, Not lately, but now. And the first child [Ianthe] asked: Dost thou oppose me, and thou half-dead? And the second child [Harrow] said, I am as one half-dead, but you would be two-halves dead, bitch. To which the first child [Ianthe] said, My sweet, I only die of longing for thee. And the other child [Harrow] said, Then perish.” (NtN 475) This is just glorious. There’s so much here. Ianthe is attacking, because she believes Alecto getting out will be everybody’s doom. But Harrow’s deal with her way back in HtN, the favour of the chain, “does extend into the House, but NOT into the Tomb.” (HtN 60) If Ianthe attacks Alecto, their bargain no longer applies, and Harrow can fight back. This moment also confirms that Harrow’s soul back in her body does still remember Gideon: she didn’t know what she was doing before, but she does now. Also their banter is just so fucking good, and the meme reference, it’s all so good.
“Upon which the body that had been rock rose from the altar and struck the child who had offered violence to her [Ianthe] with one broken hand, forgetting the sword in the other, so that the child who offered violence [Ianthe] was not slain, but was cast into the water like a detestable thing.” (NtN 475-476) I think it’s possible, if the earlier quote about swords was actually indicating that it’s Gideon’s sword in her hands and not her own, that this is Gideon’s sword here too and continues to be through the rest of the epilogue! That would be pretty delightful to me, after everything we’ve been through with that sword.
“And many skeletons emerged from the bones of the bier, and from the walls of the tomb, but when the sword was raised, they fled.” (NtN 476) Who or what is animating these skeletons? Why do they flee? And again, is this Alecto’s sword, or Gideon’s, and why does it scare them away? This bit is one of the parts here that feels a bit impenetrable to me, that I hope to understand after reading AtN!
“And there was a crowd of dead children there. They were striving loudly against living children on the far-off shore of the tomb. The body did not understand how this had come to pass, yet when one on the shore [Pyrrha] called, Alecto, Alecto, then the body remembered, and was mightily dashed in the memory of Alecto, so that all their sleep was perished with a noise.” (NtN 476) I read this as devils, dead children, entering the open Tomb, and everyone over there—Pyrrha, Paul, Kiriona, Aiglamene—fighting them off.
“And Alecto said, Pyrrha, he laid me down as an appeasement to them; he fed you to them as an appeasement to them; but he has never appeased me, and now all he has done was teach me how to die. But Pyrrha did not hear above the noise.” (NtN 476) This is interesting. I feel like the first “them” means Mercy and Augustine and whoever else thought Annabel was too weird and dangerous to keep around. But the second and third “them” seems more specific to necromancers—Pyrrha was “fed” to G1deon to make him a Lyctor. They could all be the same “them,” the OG necros who became the Lyctors.
“Then Alecto remembered the vow, and turned back upon the altar to face the second child [Harrow] and raised the sword with wrath in her heart, for they meant to bring destruction upon her. But when the black-eyed infant [Harrow] showed her countenance to Alecto, Alecto recalled her, for it was a face once dreamed in Alecto’s dream. And Alecto stayed the sword.” (NtN 476) So curious about this vow!! Is this the same vow to Anastasia she will bring up later, or is this a vow to John to stay alive so that he remains alive? Also, I love that she remembers Harrow’s face from her dream—whether that’s Nona’s pool dreams, or whether Nona’s whole life was a dream to Alecto, or it means Harrow inside Alecto’s memories in the John chapters—whatever dream she means, she and Harrow have a connection and she remembers it.
“The child [Harrow] rose and said, O corse of the Locked Tomb, I have loved thee all my life, with mine whole soul, and with mine whole strength. I would to God that I find grace in thy eyes. Destroy me according to thy word, for I love thee. Alecto was angry, and raised her up, and kissed her. The child [Harrow] did not cry out, though blood fell from her lips and tongue, and she was wounded sore. For Alecto knew not how to kiss, except such as it involved the mouth and teeth. And Alecto said to her, Why are you not appeased? That is how meat loves meat.” (NtN 476) All the appeasement is a fun throughline, John “killing” Alecto as appeasement, Pyrrha being killed as appeasement, kissing rather violently as appeasement. Nobody’s getting it quite right, are they.
“The child [Harrow] was silent, but her blood was on Alecto’s lips, and through that blood Alecto was made to understand what it was, and was astonished exceedingly. Alecto put away her wrath and said: Thou art the blood of the tomb-keeper. The child [Harrow] answered, Yes. Alecto said, The line of Anastasia is unbroken yet. The child [Harrow] answered, Through sin and iniquity, yes. Alecto said, I am very sorry about Samael. The child [Harrow] made no answer. Alecto said, I remember my vows. As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service until you bid me the favour, and whatsoever you appoint I shall perform, and consider the vow rendered. This is what I promised, until such a time as you deal with me as you see fit.” (NtN 477) The favor, perhaps the favor of the chain, and I wonder whether it supercedes her loyalty to John or not. Also I’m very interested in the parallels here between Harrow’s blood being important in this moment, and Gideon’s blood being important to get us to this moment. There’s a lot of narrative around inheritance in TLT, whether it’s biology or political power or necromantic power or whatever.
“The child [Harrow] was afraid and said, My hands are too stained, and I am too lowly. So Alecto, wearied of talking, kneeled upon the rock and offered up the sword to her, and placed the child’s [Harrow’s] hand upon the blade, so that it received also the red blood of the child. This made the child [Harrow] exceeding faint, but it did not swoon of weariness. Which strength pleased Alecto, who said: Notwithstanding, I offer you my service. To which a voice [Gideon] on the opposite side of the shore was raised, exceeding wroth, and Alecto heard it shout in a very great shout: Get in line, thou big slut.” (NtN 477) GET IN LINE THOU BIG SLUT! My favorite line! Also, here we have the blood again as an important thing, and also the sword again! If this is Gideon’s sword, then Harrow has already been bleeding on it quite a lot, both accidentally and as part of her instructions to herself in HtN. If the sword is Alecto’s, it’s still interesting that this oath is made stronger somehow by Harrow’s blood on the blade.
“Afterward Alecto went down to the ship and stood before John, purposing to travel through the River, and was grieved to find it yet dead.” (NtN 477) This one sentence really bedevils me. “Down to the ship”? Down in what sense? What ship? How did she get there, if not through the River? But she doesn’t try to travel the River until after she goes “down to the ship.” They’re at the bottom of Drearburh, there’s no farther down to go. Though this does put me in mind of Nona’s dreamy bird’s-eye view moment, when she’s seeing the planet from somewhere above it. I’m presuming John got there via Ianthe, who maybe just brought whatever ship they were both on this whole time to the Ninth in order to catch up with Kiriona and company. But the “down” is just killing me, what does it MEAN
“John was asleep, and not in his garments, unshaved and still drunken. The child [Harrow] who accepted the blade and thereupon fainted with hunger and thirst was thrown over one of Alecto’s arms, a deep sleep like death upon her, and in Alecto’s other hand was the iron sword. And so Alecto took that iron sword, and with one hand pierced John’s chest with it, even to the heart. At which John awakened and said, Annabel, good morning.” (NtN 477) Continuing to wonder about the sword! And about whether there’s a long or short time gap between “Get in line thou big slut” and going to the ship and finding John. And poor Harrow’s really having a rough time of it, somebody get her some snow leeks and lemon water.

Other character notes

Harrow and Ianthe

There’s so much that could go in a section about Harrow and Ianthe, but I’m creating it specifically to record some musing I did on Discord that I still liked when I reread it in the morning: struck on reread by “Ianthe had two small fragments on her palms. One of them was recognisably part of a tooth. For some reason, this dental fact had Harrow looking at Ianthe’s palms, then Ianthe, then Ianthe’s palms again as though both were suddenly the most fascinating things in the world. Gideon recognised this sudden diamond focus: Harrowhark was reestimating a threat. Ianthe said, idly: ‘You see? There’s at least two people in there.’” (GtN 257) on previous reads i was never really able to parse what harrow is reacting to, but it finally just sank in that harrow has pro’s head, and that the body had disappeared when she went back for it—she knows this isn’t his tooth, but can guess his body was in there, and so can everyone else because he’s the only one they know is missing. so harrow has reason to know this is two people, but why does ianthe know that? they’ve all touched the remains at this point and none of the adepts noticed. is ianthe reaching this conclusion because of the specialty of her magic? or does she know that harrow has pro’s head? harrow says later that the head just fell off, and that he had a chest wound she didn’t put there; did ianthe also know what he was from the start, and practiced on him for her eventual rapier strike to babs’ heart? was she still skulking around when harrow knocked the head off, and so she knows the tooth in the cremains can’t be his?

Dulcie vs Cytherea

“This well-muscled individual was guiding a wheeled chair down the wide aisles between tables, and in the chair was what appeared to be a dead body, holding a little lacy umbrella of her own to keep off the drips. It was gowned appropriately in spindrift white skirts, and inappropriately in a little crocheted scarf of pilling white wool. … There was a gracile delicacy to her—a starved, wasted, childlike mien—and when she gave her umbrella to her cavalier, she actually rose to stand. A fine length of tubing emerged from her nose and was discreetly taped into the collar of her dress. Harrowhark had never seen its like before; it was a thin, stiffened cylinder of mucous epithelial tissue. ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ she said to Harrow, by way of hello. She had a sweet, modulated voice, only a trifle breathy. ‘It’s a pulmonary drain. It goes all the way down to my lungs.’ ‘I have never seen such a thing before,’ admitted Harrow. ‘You wouldn’t have,’ said the Seventh necromancer rapturously. ‘He came up with it, when he was fifteen.’” (HtN 199)

I really, really love that when we meet the real Dulcinea Septimus, she’s so very different from Cytherea! Cytherea, either as part of her plan or just part of her personality or possibly both, really made a meal of her illness—used it to make herself seem incapable, to allay suspicion, and to manipulate Gideon. Of course, she wasn’t really pretending, she was quite ill and had been for so long she must have been exhausted of it. But she made things harder for herself, perhaps in order to elicit pity. She hauled herself around on crutches, except when she wanted to get Gideon to move her from chair to chair; she forwent this pulmonary drain that Dulcie is wearing, and instead spent a lot of the book breathing as if her lungs were full of yogurt. Dulcie, on the other hand, seems quite comfortable with the drain and her wheelchair, making things physically easier on herself, possibly conserving energy, and coming off as quite capable and confident. This feels to me like a commentary on disability and the perceptions of disabled people. Of course, every disabled person is different, and wants different things; Cytherea is playing into the stereotype of a helpless, pitiful waif who couldn’t possibly do a thing but struggles so heroically, using that stereotype to fool everyone—but she is still genuinely disabled, is making this choice to further her ends, and more fool everyone who falls for it, including me on first read! Dulcie is making a different choice, using whatever aids she needs when she needs them in order to be comfortable and try to get shit done. Also, a tiny thing, but it pains me to think about Palamedes thinking he was meeting Dulcinea in person, and not only to have her treat him like a stranger, but not be using this piece of medical equipment that he invented specifically for her, that the real Dulcie clearly likes and does use.

“‘She stabbed Protesilaus before he’d finished taking his sword out the scabbard,’ she said, and scratched a flourish into her ward. ‘Then she started asking me questions. Who were my friends? Was I well enough to go out in public? Was I married? I told her a lot of hot bullshit,’ finished Dulcie. ‘I knew she was going to take my place—though maybe Camilla, at least, would figure out something was up…no such luck. I dont even remember dying—I suppose that was nice of her.’” (HtN 416) I love the real Dulcinea so much.
“Dulcie’s smile became ferocious; her lips curled to show that some of the very white teeth were a little pointed, and her pallid eyes seemed to turn up at the corners. She was no longer languid, but breathless, alive, and resembling nothing quite so much as a malign fairy. Harrow remembered that Palamedes Sextus had made a war of his whole life in order to prosecute his desire to marry this woman. ‘The only thing that ever stopped me being exactly who I wanted,’ she said, ‘was the worry that I would soon be dead…and now I am dead, Reverend Daughter, and I am sick of roses, and I am horny for revenge.’” (HtN 417)

Ortus and Protesilaus

“‘I agree,’ said her bronze statue of a cavalier. ‘Better that we make the first move. What is impervious? What is coffin?’ (Harrow was astounded to hear the older man beside her mutter, ‘An adjective and a noun.’)” (HtN 201) LMAO.
“‘Better not to die as Deuteros and Sextus and Camilla the Sixth have died,’ said the man. ‘If you think of the enemy as unassailable, shadow-priest, then the battle is lost already.’ Then this bronze statue cleared his throat, and added: ‘I held to the faith of my fallible flesh; / Why should I think of the irradiating star?’ Harrow’s cavalier swung his head to confront this act of spoken poetry. He looked like a man who had stood on the bailey, beheld the enemy at his gates, and found them manifold and terrible.” (HtN 201) I love Ortus so, so, so much.
“‘Do not mistake the thaw for the spring. / Our bud is not yet certain,’ quoth her cavalier. Harrowhark deliberately did not watch for the hot flash of murder in her own cavalier’seyes, though it at least leavened his thick, porridgy sadness.” (HtN 202)
“Harrowhark very specifically did not look at her cavalier to see how he took this pronouncement. He had formed a violent passion against the heroic knight of the Seventh House; she thought it was nice that he had a hobby.” (HtN 327) LMFAO
“‘I am not half-dead,’ he said. ‘I am dead, nothing more; but I am not afraid. This fight has sharpened my edge and awoken my senses. I am, if you like, warmed up—which in context, I realise, is not the best word choice.’ Ortus said, ‘I will go with you,’ and instantly, Protesilaus said: ‘So will I.’ … ‘My heart is set to go with the hero of my own House and the hero of the Seventh.’ ‘I shall be glad to stand beside you, Ortus Nigenad; never again will I doubt the will of the Ninth,’ said the unbelievably tedious hero of the Seventh, who then cleared his throat and said: ‘In the storm, the tree is gald of the root, / Not of the branch.’ ‘Well expressed,’ said Ortus. ‘It’s from a longer work of my own,’ admitted Protesilaus.” (HtN 456-457)

Pyrrha and Wake and G1deon

“You, who had been so familiar with his hands in all their violent attitudes, had not thought them capable of that kind of gentleness. It made them seem alien from the rest of the man. And he was… Crimson heat scoured your neck all the way up to your ears. … Ortus stiffened to the point that his shoulder blades showed real danger of bursting through his back. He had become one enormous hunch. You were frozen in a welter of adrenaline confusion, ready only for his inevitable murderous blow: you were not ready for the un-Ortuslike tenor of his voice when he said, calmly, back so vulnerably offered to you: ‘Close the door, and go away.’” (HtN 216) Is this G1deon, or Pyrrha? Do they both know that Wake is aboard, or does only Pyrrha know?

No real reason other than vibes, and “the un-Ortuslike tenor of his voice,” but I think this is Pyrrha.

“‘Don’t you think it’s strange?’ ‘Only in that the closest thing to interest Ortus ever showed in anybody was in Pyrrha, and in the criminals he hunted,’ said the Emperor of the Nine Houses. ‘When he kicked that Edenite commander out an airlock, it was like seeing a man on his wedding day. Not exactly romance though… Harrow, over ten thousand years I’ve known that man, and he is legendarily unamorous. I have watched six other Lyctors carry out a myriad’s worth of inadvisable love affairs with one another, because it is a very long time to be alone, but never him. He was unassailable. I won’t believe he’s doing anything to Cytherea. Everyone liked her, he liked her, but there’s a huge leap between liking and—corpse compulsion.’” (HtN 228)

I really want to know more about G1deon as a person. John’s assessment seems to put him on the aroace spectrum somewhere. But later, Pyrrha describes both him and her having separate affairs with Wake. He could certainly be aroace and still carry on a complicated sexual affair with an enemy, but I really want to know how much of that affair was him, on his own, and how much was him finding himself with her when Pyrrha goes back under, and not knowing how he got there. I have so many feelings about this. I want more aroace characters in these books. I want G1deon to do what he wants to do, and I wish he was aware of what Pyrrha was doing in his body without his consent. I want to know what makes this man tick, and why Pyrrha loved him, and what they were like together. I want to see the G1deon who sat in the overstuffed armchair in their Lyctoral study, who pledged “one flesh, one end” to Pyrrha, who slept in a bed so close to hers that they could reach across and touch each other. I want to know who he is when he’s not trying to kill Harrow, and what he was like with Wake, and what he thought of the idea that she might be pregnant with his baby, and what it did to him to let her go and never see her or that baby again. He’s presented as a villain with extremely mysterious motivations in this book, and I am very ready to feel things for him that I can’t quite access with what we see of him.

“You saw Augustine fumble for a cigarette, light it with the little silver arc lighter he kept in his breast pocket, and pass it silently to his brother Lyctor. Ortus was impassive. There was not a trace of blood on his clothing. There was not a stray lump of viscera upon the shabby shirt, nor on the mother-of-pearl cloak still slung over his shoulder. There was no betrayal of any emotion on his face: not the surprise that had dawned over his heavy-lidded eyes earlier, nor anger, nor even dissatisfaction. He caught your gaze. You held his. And the Saint of Duty lifted his lit cigarette to you in an unmistakable salute.” (HtN 235) It’s so tempting to think that this is Pyrrha, but Harrow looks into his eyes and doesn’t notice them a different color, and he’s cleaned all the blood off himself presumably with necromancy, so I think it’s G1deon! Also, it is occurring to me now that the Nona preview has predisposed me to think that Pyrrha is the one who always smoked, but maybe she gets the habit from being in G1deon’s body for so long, and he’s the one of them who smoked. Or maybe they both did, but. It’s interesting.

Still wondering if Pyrrha got her smoking habit from being in G1deon’s body for so long, it’s clear throughout NtN that she’s struggling without regular access.^[nw]^[nx]

Why, after everything, does Wake stab G1deon through the heart and shove him in the incinerator? Which would definitely kill both him and Pyrrha? Because they spared her before? Why make the attempt when she does, instead of any other time aboard the Mithraeum?
“The Saint of Duty said, with a kind of hoarse solemnity: ‘Fresh blood wards. Every night.’ You said, too surprised not to sound like a moron: ‘What?’ He said, ‘Can’t bleed thalergy…not fresh thalergy. Thanergy, easy. Mixed with thalergy…much harder. No bone wards. Blood wards. Understand? Fresh blood wards. Each night. Can’t break those.’ … The Saint of Duty did not open his eyes. He just concluded doggedly: ‘You’ll be safe from us.’” (HtN 291) This is clearly Pyrrha, keeping their eyes closed because that would give her away. Why does Pyrrha try to save her? Again I come back to my wonder if Pyrrha thinks that Harrow might be their daughter with Wake, or if she thinks killing Harrow will in some way harm Wake’s revenant?
“Then he reached out, and he put his bloody hand to your head, nearly covering your face, the tips of his fingers to your temples and your cheeks, like a smothering, or a benediction. ‘I know you’re there,’ he rasped. ‘Kill me all you like. I would know you in the blindness of my eyes…in the deafness of my ears…as a shadow smudged against the wall, annihilated by light…stop. Not here. Not now. Let it go, love. I just want the truth…after all this time.’ Ortus dropped his hand and said, with intent: ‘Just tell me—back then—why you brought along the ba—’” (HtN 291) Pyrrha sensing Wake in Harrow, attached to Harrow, haunting her. This confirms, I think, that Pyrrha (and G1deon also) didn’t know the dios apate baby plan, they were just chasing Wake and also fucking Wake and came upon her pregnant, and thought it might be theirs. Again I wonder, did either G1d or Pyrrha actually see the baby?
“‘You saw what you saw,’ you said. ‘You must have seen her stab you. The blow was from the front, with your own spear.’ Ortus said, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘You were conscious. You spoke to me.’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘We had a conversation. I want to know what it meant.’ He said, ‘I don’t remember.’ You looked into his clear green eyes; his expression had not changed, and neither had his voice. You could not keep the disbelieving contempt from yours when you said, ‘You don’t remember?’ The Saint of Duty turned his body toward you. … He looked at you, and he said in a voice you had known since you were eight years old: ‘I sometimes—forget.’” (HtN 292) So possibly from the time he left the dinner onward, G1deon was pushed down and Pyrrha was in control.
“Abigail turned to a tapestry that had been pinned up over one wall, and shouldering it aside revealed a cramped entryway to a hall that Harrowhark knew well. She said, ‘Surely not.’ ‘It’s not locked,’ said Magnus. ‘And it’s been left alone—no blood rains, nothing jiggly.’” (HtN 395) The only place in this bubble space that Wake’s trauma isn’t wrecking is G1deon and Pyrrha’s room, and it makes me have feelings.
“‘What other Gideon?’ ‘The Lyctor sent to kill your mother,’ said Mercymorn. ‘But Harrow’s mother—’ ‘I’m not talking to Harrowhark, you facile dead child,’ she said disdainfully. ‘I am talking to you…Nav…Gideon Nav…Gideon! What a laugh…you abomination, you heresy, you failed ambition nineteen years too late.’ … ‘What—about—my mother?’ ‘Excuse me. I am wrong. I should not use that term,’ said the necromantic saint. She rolled both her shoulders back and wiped those thin dilute tears of blood off her cheeks. ‘How she would have hated the word mother.’” (HtN 410) This brings back my interest in Wake’s revenant calling out G1deon’s name immediately after death. In anger, because he was the one who shoved her out the airlock? Why not Pyrrha’s name? Who was present and who did what? I really want to see that whole encounter. Also, poor Gideon, in this insane situation, and then being fed this incomprehensible scrap of information about her mother followed up with the idea that she would have hated to be called a mother.
“--he closed the door behind him and turned to look at Ianthe and me, with that weird scratched-up face and those dark eyes, and I knew that we were now well and truly rumbled. He swept aside the robes. He looked at us, Harrow. Then he made this weird, half-grimacing, excuse me expression, and he reached forward. I was so far fucking gone that I didn’t even flinch as he slipped the sunglasses off your nose. He slid them over his face, and then he let the robes drop back over me and Ianthe, and he walked straight into the shitshow.” (HtN 471) HI PYRRHA!!!
“The woman I was pretty sure was actually my mother—wearing the body of a woman I’d had a crush on, who in turn had been wearing the identity of a woman she’d murdered, until I fell on a spike so that my boss could kill her—craned her head around in her bonds. Harrow, I will never forget the look on her face so long as I live, or as long as I die. For the first time, she smiled—a small, dusty, crooked smile that was totally alien to Cytherea’s mouth, which had smiled at me often but never like that. It was the smile for your old cellmate who’d just landed back in prison, the one that told them at least you were in it together—or more correctly, the smile of someone stepping out of jail after serving a very long sentence, having seen someone there waiting for her. Someone whose presence meant total reprieve, someone she hadn’t expected. It was a little bit mocking. It was deeply relieved. It was a smile that said: You came back for me? The Lyctor who’d taken my shades pulled the gun out of his belt before anyone could stop him. He briskly closed the distance, pressed the barrel up to the base of Cytherea’s skull, and he pulled the trigger.” (HtN 472) Wake knows this is Pyrrha, I think. And it’s entirely possible that Wake is still anchored somewhere else, and will reappear…but this feels like mercy, to me. Like letting her rest, after a myriad of holding on. (On a very side note, fucking again, it haunts me, kiss me, Hardy!)
“‘Gideon, were you aware that, when you let Commander Wake get as far as she did—to the House of the Ninth, to one of our own Houses, our own people—that she was pregnant?’ A pause. ‘I was aware,’ said Gideon Classic. ‘Why the hell did you not tell me?’ ‘Because I thought it was—mine.’” (HtN 473) AGONY. What tangled, messy, fucked up agony.

“And Gideon Senior said, ‘Forgive me, John. I didn’t know anything about it,’ which I would have thought was a weird thing to say if I hadn’t been too busy staring at Cytherea. The Emperor said, ‘I’ve made mistakes too, Gideon…but you could’ve told me.’ And Gideon Prime said, ‘I didn’t know to.’” (HtN 473) I think this is Pyrrha playing G1deon, saying that G1deon didn’t know anything about this plan. Which is wild: from G1deon’s POV, he had an affair that he didn’t really remember beginning with a woman he was also constantly trying to kill, and then he found her with a baby, orbiting the Ninth, no clue why she’s there, only thinking that the baby must be his. Meanwhile Pyrrha…did know the plan? Was part of it, without Mercy or Augustine knowing? Was helping Wake, as G1deon was hindering her, maybe? Also, John saying he’s made mistakes—mistakes like having kids he didn’t expect? Are there others?? Or does he mean mistakes more generally, because that’s true as fuck?

This resonates so strongly for me with “guys like me don’t have accidents.” That’s one for the parallels section, maybe.

“‘My necromancer is dead,’ said Gideon. He took my sunglasses off his craggy, blasted face, and he looked down at me with eyes that would’ve surprised me first thing if I’d bothered to look at your memory files. They were a deep brown, with a kind of red spark to them; the brown of fractured rock glass, all mixed in with dark pupil, eyes that gave very little away. They suited the face better than the scintillating green ones you’d last seen. ‘He fought it alone for hours,’ said the stranger. ‘Then with some ragtag cavalry led by that mad sweetheart Matthias. They almost had Number Seven…almost. Gideon never could walk away from a losing fight.’ Before I could respond to this, they added, ‘He and your mother alike.’ ‘Why does it always come back to—my mother?’ I said, my voice rising to a squeal like an emptying balloon. ‘Who are you? How the hell did you know my mother, who seemed like a real dick, by the way?’ ‘My name is Pyrrha Dve,’ said the ghost in question. ‘Commander of the Second House, head of Trentham Special Intelligence, cavalier to a dead Lyctor. We compartmentalized from the Eightfold word, just like you and your girl—though I’m an accident, and he took more from me than got taken from you. I was able to go underground, even from him. Two years before you were born, my necromancer started an affair with your mother…not knowing I’d also been doing the same thing, using his body.’ I said, ‘What the fuck.’ ‘She was the most dangerous woman I’d ever met who wasn’t me,’ said Pyrrha Dve. ‘You’re right though. She was a real dick.’” (HtN 494-495)

“‘What do you think is sexy?’ said Nona, in her normal voice. Pyrrha seemed pleased to think about something different, and waited until the bubbles were getting really big before she took the spatula and slid it under a rising patty, flipping it over. Nona had come up by her elbow to watch. ‘Do you want what I really think is sexy, or what I’d tell someone if they asked and I wanted to impress them?’ Nona was pleased that Pyrrha understood. ‘The first one.’ ‘Landmine people,’ said Pyrrha, and when she saw Nona’s brows cross in confusion, she said: ‘Some people were put into the universe to rig it to explode, then walk away…I always fell for that.’ Nona thought she got it, but she was unsure on a few points. ‘But you can’t really tell that about someone when you first look at them.’ ‘Oh, you can,’ said Pyrrha. ‘You haven’t looked for it.’ She flipped over another pikelet, looked grave and intelligent for a moment, and then said: ‘I mean, also redheads. Love a redhead.’” (NtN 139) I’m right there with you, Pyrrha, that’s all I can say.
“Pyrrha was sitting in the special chair they always got out for Pyrrha. It was a hard chair made of bent metal tubing and scratchy matte plastic pads, and they always strapped a thing to her neck that made soft klik…klik sounds whenever she moved her head back and forth. This was because if Pyrrha made too many sudden movements it would blow out her spinal column automatically. It made a soft klik as Pyrrha turned back her head to look at them: she had been staring at the portrait of the lady who looked as though she were about to hit the photographer.” (NtN 147) I could CRY.
“...Pyrrha was staring at the corpse girl as though she had seen a ghost, or maybe two. … Pyrrha crossed over, stared down at the barely illuminated corpse, and said— ‘Yeah, that’s Gideon Nav, all right…I’d know her anywhere. I wouldn’t need to be told. Talk about being the mother’s daughter.’ Nona was puzzled. ‘Who?’ ‘You’ve seen her photo,’ said Pyrrha, and she reached over—hovered a hand quite close to Gideon’s face—and then pulled it back, apparently having thought better of it. ‘Blood of Eden mass-manufactured ‘em…wasn’t even a good shot. But this kid’s the spit of her…nearly. She’s him in the eyes and brows…amazed Mercymorn didn’t see it. But she wasn’t looking for it, I guess.’ ‘Her mother was the woman who broke your heart,’ guessed Nona. ‘Yes,’ said Pyrrha. And: ‘Let’s not get too cute about it, though. My best friend and I punched her out an airlock. Apart from that, I was ready to commit.’ For some reason, Nona felt vaguely hurt and envious. She didn’t have a mother for Pyrrha to have punched out an airlock. Nor had Pyrrha ever looked at her the way she now looked at the dead corpse with red hair—a kind of soft, guarded want; a hunger—a living desire to take the corpse in her arms like Kevin’s wanting desire with his dolls. To own, to squeeze, to cosset and destroy.” (NtN 361) So many things to think about here, like Pyrrha and G1deon punching Wake out an airlock, and the fact that Pyrrha has never actually seen Gideon’s body before even though they’ve met, so this is the first time she’s being faced with the resemblance. But also I’m struck here by Nona’s envy. It’s completely understandable in the moment, but also I feel this desire to own and squeeze and cosset and destroy isn’t something Pyrrha is reserving for Gideon, the child of her lover. It’s something she’s been indulging with Nona all along, hugging her, holding her, dancing with her, coddling her and being strict with her by turns. It registers in this moment as a deep want to have that with Gideon, but Pyrrha doesn’t look at Nona with that wanting because she has it with Nona. It’s not precisely the same, but it’s there.
“They were all, Shit, John, send someone dead, send a puppet. But I wanted G—. P— volunteered to go with him, but G— said he wouldn’t arm it if P— was in range. P— went off at him, but it was one of those times where he held his ground against her. I remember. She called him a stupid kid.” (NtN 399) This makes me so fucking sad. Landmine people.
“Paul dropped to Nona’s side with a clinical glance at Cron’s frothing, screaming sister, and said nothing more than, ‘Effective.’ ‘I was saving that bullet for John,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Herald bullets don’t grow on trees. Wake made that for me…Or I stole it from her…same difference.’” (NtN 470)

Palamedes and John

“He folded his fingers together as you would a piece of paper. Her body stopped where it stood, as though steel needles had pierced her hands and her legs. Gideon felt cold all over. She tried to speak, but her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth and she tasted blood. She struggled—an insect pinned to its backing—and he looked at her, cold and dispassionate, unlike himself. Palamedes surveyed his work, and saw that it was good. Then he opened Dulcinea’s door. Gideon tried to flail against her invisible bonds, but her bones felt rigid in her body, like she was just the meat sock around them. Her heart struggled against her inflexible rib cage, her terror rising in her mouth. He smiled, and with that strange alchemy he was made lovely, his grey eyes bright and clear. Palamedes entered the sickroom.” (GtN 398) This feels SO MUCH like the thing John does a few times in HtN to make everything stop, but maybe on a smaller level. I think at this moment we’re supposed to suspect Palamedes of being the villain all along, just for a moment; this is some intense power, and the Bible quotation really puts Pal in the place of God creating the universe. I’m interested in this parallel to John. Combined with his understanding of Lyctorhood, that there must be another way to achieve it without killing the cavalier, I feel like Pal is being set up as, in some ways, a challenger to God’s power. OOh, also especially since he’s about to explode but it doesn’t actually kill him, just as John explodes and isn’t actually killed.

“The sickroom exploded into white fire, and the bonds pinning Gideon snapped. … There was no heat, but Gideon sprinted away from that cold white death without bothering to spare a glance behind as though flames were licking at her heels. … She ran for her life down long corridors, past ancient portraits and crumbling statues, the grave goods of the tomb of Canaan House, the mechanisms of this feeble shitty machine crumbling as Palamedes Sextus became a god-killing star.” (GtN 404) Is this anything like what Wake was hoping to do with baby Gideon?
“And God said, ‘Stop.’ The world slowed down. Augustine and Mercymorn stopped, arrested in the act of half-rising from their seats. Ianthe stopped, left arm paused, outflung, to shield her face. You stopped, sitting upright in your chair: your bones somehow rigid and still, and your flesh chilly and rigid around those bones.” (HtN 232) This is the same sensation Gideon describes, of rigid bones and just being flesh around those bones! I am living for Pal-John parallels, I think there are more and I’m excited to find them.^[ny]^[nz]
Thinking more about this scene in a big-picture way, or at least slightly bigger than the details of what’s happening, and it’s a cool larger parallel that in GtN Gideon is trapped outside in the hallway listening to Palamedes unravel the mystery and unmask a “disguised” person, and part of it is for Gideon’s benefit because he knows she’s there. Then in HtN, Gideon is stuck hiding outside a room listening to John (and others) unravel the mystery and unmask a disguised person, but they don’t know she’s there until she decides to take action. The ways these scenes mirror each other structurally is fascinating.

Just noticed when I was listening to GtN - “The necromancer of the Sixth was rubbing at his temples. His cavalier looked at him, and he offhandedly took a few bites of his meat and his vegetables, but then he stopped pretending and put down his fork.” (GtN 240) Obviously plenty of people rub their temples. But this reminded me of how John is always described as worrying his temple with his thumb, and I wanted to pull it out for funsies.
This isn’t new from NtN, but I only just thought of it recently: I feel like there’s a little connection between John’s Lyctors being his Hands (and fingers, and gestures, and joints…) and Camilla’s title as Warden’s Hand.
“‘Palamedes, we made this mistake ourselves. You can have the barracks or your people—or neither. You can’t say ‘I choose both’ like a wet towel and expect the universe to fall into line.’” (NtN 29)

“C— kept saying, Pick one. Are we more invested in proving this new plan is bullshit, or in saving you? I was like, It’s both, how can it not be both. C— was like, It can’t be both. Pick one and stick to it. Decide what you give a fuck about.” (NtN 280) I really love that we’ve got Pyrrha telling Pal he has to choose, and then Cassiopeia telling John he has to choose. A great connection between Palamedes and John, but also an interesting disconnect between these two Sixth House necromancers, separated by 10,000 years.

“You said, with difficulty: ‘What is happening to me?’ ‘You’ve had a shock,’ said the Emperor, which was not an answer, actually. ‘Does this happen to all new Lyctors?’ ‘Some of them,’ he said vaguely…” (HtN 34)

“‘But you seem to have had…a big shock.’ ‘Maybe I’ve just lost my memory,’ said Nona dubiously. ‘It happens,’ agreed Palamedes—not convinced.” (NtN 35)
This is such a small parallel but I have so many feelings about it. We’ve got both of them happening early on in their respective books, almost on the same page even, so coming at similar points in the rhythm/structure of the books. We’ve got John being certain but vague in response to a Harrow who has in fact lost/altered her memory and is suffering in many ways from it, contrasted by Palamedes who is uncertain and much more gentle with Nona, a girl who has in fact also lost/put away her memory in order to have a life in the body of Harrow who Pal knows lost/altered her memory.

I want to think for a second about another Palamedes, “the Saracen,” an Arthurian knight. “He is a Middle Eastern pagan who converts to Christianity later in his life,” and his main shining moments in Arthurian legend are competing (hopelessly) against Tristan for the love of Iseult, and tracking and killing the Questing Beast. (Wikipedia) First we’ve got the Palamedes who is pursuing Iseult and is rebuffed, just as our Pal pursues Dulcie and is rebuffed. Of course, our Pal isn’t competing with anyone—except, in a way, Cytherea, who does get to meet, then kill, then become Dulcie while Pal never even gets to see her in person. Is Cytherea a twisted Tristan, having her torrid little identity stealing affair with Dulcie on the shuttle to Canaan? Maybe I will tackle that thought some other time.

Back to Palamedes, who had an Arthurian romance named after him, bless him. I think the bit of the Palamedes lore that relates to Pal and John is the Questing Beast. The Questing Beast is alternately the offspring of an incestuous union and a symbol for all the chaos and twisted goings on that brought Arthur’s kingdom down, or somehow a symbol of Christ’s destruction. Sir Palamedes, a pagan, is able to kill the Beast after converting to Christianity. (Wikipedia) This has fun resonance for me with our Pal, and later Paul, being positioned as a challenger to John. Is the Questing Beast here Cytherea? A symbol of John’s power starting to crumble, as it was a symbol of Arthur’s power crumbling? Though fellow knights Harrow-and-Gideon make the final blow, it’s Palamedes’ necromancy that weakens Cytherea enough to kill her. Pal’s conversion, though, is away from the religion of the Houses, which places John at the center; it’s the revelation of Lyctorhood and Pal’s unswerving moral fortitude that change his outlook on the entire Dominican religion, sending him and Cam both on the path to becoming Paul, and I think, the path to changing their whole world.

“Nona said tentatively, ‘I made a big mess, didn’t I,’ and Palamedes said briskly— ‘They should have bloody guessed. Every mistake they’ve made with us stemmed from a complete lack of trust—a cowardice and an unwillingness to let us in on the game. And now that I know what I know…or think I know…” (NtN 286) The way Palamedes sums up their interactions with BoE here makes me think of John, and the way John characterizes his struggle to save the world and the world’s population alongside other efforts that he felt were not in good faith and not doing the job well enough. We’ve got these two men, intellectuals, leaders of people, who have been parallelled in interesting ways all along, both of them struggling to get the opposing forces around them to trust that they know what’s best or that they have the right answer, and both of them concerned with the fate of the literal Earth and with saving as many lives as they can. For John, this goes terribly wrong, in a combination of circumstance and personality. For Pal, we have yet to see how it will end—but because we love him, we are encouraged to see him as doing the right thing and John as doing the wrong thing, though both of them are keeping their own secrets while expecting trust from others.
Re: dead bodies, and anger

“I went around to everyone, talking to my favourites—I know it was weird having favourites, but let’s bloody face it, I’d gone weird—not even saying goodbye, just saying it’ll be fine, hang on for me, kia kaha, kia māia.” (John in NtN 75)

“With more reverence than she’d given him credit for—he had just given a corpse an invasive massage and stolen it’s jewellery—Palamedes softly pulled the sheet back over the abdomen and legs of Magnus the Fifth. He said, quite gently: ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this one, if you give us a little time,’ and Gideon realised he was speaking to the body.” (GtN 244)

“The Emperor dropped to his haunches and eased the white robe off Mercy’s dead shoulders. He shrugged his naked body into it—coyly pulling it closed—and he stretched his jaw in his mouth, and wriggled the tip of his newly grown nose. … He rotated his shoulders like a prize fighter, and he said, conversationally: ‘I never like cleaning house all at once, but it seems as though I have to, don’t I? Let’s make this very simple and very clear. I am going to ask each of you a question. If you give me the correct answer, you live. If not’ —he nudged Mercy’s leg with his bare foot— ‘you know what happens.’” (HtN 489-490)

“Palamedes, wearing a scruffy bedrobe, had put up lights and marked the ladder with bits of tape at obscure places. He had stained the fluff on his dowdy old slippers pink as he walked quietly among the bodies, saying excuse me once when he stepped too close to Abigail’s arm. … He shed his scruffy bedrobe to reveal button-up pyjamas when Dulcinea drifted in wearing only a short shirt and trousers too big for her, and wrapped the robe around her shoulders without prompting. Then he went back to work.” (GtN 188)

“The Emperor of the NIne Houses—the King Undying—the Prince of Death—the Necrolord Prime—stood behind Mercymorn. He reached out with his naked hand. Her chest blew outward in a hot shower of ribs, meat, and diaphragm. Her body stumbled forward—he tapped the back of her head, something went crack—and the Saint of Joy fell facedown before Augustine, whose chest was decorated with the desecrated remnants of her heart.” (HtN 489)

“‘All this time we’ve been talking, I’ve been taking stock of everything that’s wrong with you—your bacterial lung infection, the neoplasms in your skeletal structure—and I’ve pushed them along. … You’re going to die spewing your own lungs out of your nostrils, having failed at the finish line because you couldn’t help but prattle about why you killed innocent people, as though your reasons were interesting… I also know you must have studied radical thanergetic fission, so you know what happens when a necromancer disperses their entire reserve of thanergy very, very quickly.’ ‘What?’ said the woman.” (GtN 403-404)

Paul and John

I’ll dive more into Paul when I get to them in my reread, but I’m establishing a subsection here for Paul specifically as a challenger to John’s power / potential creator of a new “religion,” a new way of being and thinking about necromancy and Lyctorhood and life in the Houses after John is removed from power. Paul inherits, from Palamedes and Camilla, the necromantic study and understanding of Lyctorhood and the moral uprightness and determination needed to bring the people of the Houses into a better place in the future. Palamedes is so insistent with Pyrrha that he doesn’t want to leave anyone behind, doesn’t want to leave anyone to suffer, wants to save everyone he can, and this resonates for me with the place John started, trying to save the population of the Earth as best he could.

“He said: You have to understand that right up until that last year we believed they were going to see it through. We knew the plan would work. The Mark-R cryo cans had room for eleven billion people, easy. We’d got the procedure down to five hours per person with a trained team of four. Assuming an existing medical degree, that training could take as little as weeks, manpower wasn’t an issue if we started now. Sure, the maternity stuff wasn’t totally ironed out, but we were nearly there, and the packing was perfect. Of course they bitched about the timeline, and they bitched about the money, but they were always going to bitch about the money. Our rule was, nobody knowingly left behind.” (NtN 13-14)
“‘It’s a false dichotomy, you know. We’re all of us in one layered hostage situation. Three million people squatting on a thanergy planetoid millions of kilometres away from us. Nine million people in this city alone…’ ‘Who aren’t yours by any stretch of the imagination.’ ‘Nine million, Pyrrha, that’s equivalent to the whole of the Seventh and the Eighth put together. Three million people, plus nine million people, plus sixteen. We refuse to leave any of them behind.’” (NtN 30)

Gideon and Ianthe

“‘What was your name again? Goblin? Gonad? Help me out here.’ ‘Your cavalier knew my name,’ I said. ‘Corona knew my name. You know my name.’ She fell silent. I said: ‘Gonad was pretty good. Mildly amusing.’ ‘Thanks.’ ‘Goblin wasn’t.’ ‘I haven’t had a good day. I’m very stressed right now. Give me a break.’” (HtN 430) This feels like the start of a delightful rivalry. They’re interesting as a pair. They share the same kind of lascivious humor, which is really fun, and they each stand in for the person the other one misses most—Ianthe as bitchy necromancer, Gideon as sometimes dim hunk—and they both have Nonagesimitis.

I’m SO PLEASED that they’re frenemies now.

“‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘Get fucked,’ she said thickly. ‘I absolutely did not become the eighth saint to serve the King Undying so Gideon Nav could play hero for me.’ ‘Why did you ascend to be a Lyctor?’ ‘Ultimate power—and posters of my face.’ Fair.” (HtN 431)
“‘How I hate seeing you in her face.’ ‘You’ve got two short minutes left before I punch you right in the butthole,’ I said. ‘Follow me. We haven’t got much time—quite apart from your hurtful threats of sexual violence,’ she said. ‘Why, your fist is so big, and my butthole is so small.’ ‘Just move, Tridentarius! I’m not ready to laugh at your goddamn jokes!’” (HtN 432-433) Their banter is very special, they have each found another person who will appreciate and return and one-up their lewdest bullshit.
“‘I am talking about forgetting, you big-mouthed warrior nunlet,’ she said … ‘Good God! Try taking Coronabeth’s memories from me…I’d kill you myself. Love—don’t make that face, child, I have loved plenty—true love is acquisitive. You keep anything…strands of hair…an envelope they might’ve licked…a note saying, Good morning, simply because they wrote it to you. Love is a revenant, Gideon Nav, and it accumulates love-stuff to itself, because it is homeless otherwise. I’m not saying she didn’t care about you. One does care about one’s cavalier, it can’t be helped…but I watched Harry rearrange her brain so that she could empty herself of you.’” (HtN 435) Are the examples she gives things she’s kept of Corona? From Harrow? Also, Ianthe definitely has the impression that Harrow did what she did as a romantic gesture, which is only partially true but it’s what she understands from what Harrow let her in on. The fact that she’s lying here, and that her lie supports what Gideon already thinks Harrow’s motivations were, breaks my heart a little.
“‘You think you can make me jealous? You think anything I did has been to make her love me? You don’t know. She didn’t even tell you.’ Her face didn’t flicker. … ‘Enlighten me,’ she said. … ‘Like I said before. She’s just not into you. She’s into bones. She gave her heart to a corpse when she was ten years old,’ I said. ‘She’s in love with the refrigerated museum piece in the Locked Tomb. You should’ve seen the look she had on when she told me about this ice-lolly bimbo. I knew the moment I saw it. I never made her look like that… She can’t love me, even if I’d wanted her to. She can’t love you. She can’t even try.’” (HtN 435) This is such an interesting assessment. Gideon’s not really wrong, but she’s also not really right. Harrow did give her heart to Alecto, and those feelings do seem different from her feelings about Gideon. It’s worship, even worship with love and desire laced in, versus the kind of love you build with someone over a shared life, and shared trauma, and confessing your darkest secrets in a pool of saltwater and being forgiven. Gideon has interpreted Harrow’s feelings about Alecto correctly, I think, and was both so rejected and so respectful that she’s gone too far in the wrong direction. Harrow does love her, regardless of how that love might be broken down and categorized, whether it’s sexual or romantic or platonic or any combination. But Gideon doesn’t know this, so she’s both lashing out and kind of bonding with Ianthe over her impression that Harrow can’t love either of them, though they both love her. Also, side note, does Ianthe get the implication here that Harrow has been inside the (un)Locked Tomb? Is that gonna come back to bite everyone in the ass someday?

“‘Your plan backfired, Tridentarius. You’ve got the sickness. I know the signs of Nonagesimitis. You were all lined up for a big hot injection of Vitamin H.’” (HtN 436)
This exchange really paves the way for Kiriona Gaia for me. Gideon thinks Harrow excised her out of hatred, or at least dislike, and Ianthe now knows Gideon thinks this. That’s to Ianthe’s advantage in making an alliance with Kiriona and keeping her close, through whatever happened offscreen between them during the six months between this and NtN.

“‘But my…attachment…to Harry isn’t remotely what you think it is. I’m not her cavalier, her servant or thrall. I am a Lyctor…Harrow is a Lyctor…and the centuries will entangle us whether she wants them to or—Nav, if you persist in making jack-off motions when I am talking, I will show you what Harrow’s kidneys look like.’ ‘That! That’s what I’m talking about,’ I said. ‘Don’t show me her kidneys. Don’t think about her kidneys. Don’t do anything with her goddamn kidneys. Get a grip. Don’t look at her blood, or lick her bones, or do any of the shit necromancers lie and say they don’t do the moment two of them get nasty.’ She shrugged that gold-skinned shoulder. ‘What can I say,’ she said. ‘I love a little gall on gall.’ ‘Reverse everything I just told you,’ I said. ‘Let’s get married.’ ‘Ah, the romance I have been awaiting all my life,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Babs always said it would come along…or at least, he once said I would go to hell and get fucked, which I took as a roundabout way of expressing the same thing.’” (HtN 437) This is just so good, so excellent, I actually love them together as frenemies.

The seeds of Kirianthe, a little gall on gall.

Parallel Duels
There’s an interesting parallel drawn between Gideon and Ianthe via their fights. Consider Gideon vs Harrow at the start of GtN, and Ianthe vs Camilla in NtN.

In both of these scenarios we’ve got one party (Gideon/Ianthe) who just wants to escape while the getting’s good, cut losses and run, and not get involved in a duel that seems fishy.
Both scenarios have pressure factors from the other parties involved; Harrow’s initial offer of the paperwork to get her into the Cohort, and Corona’s pleading.
Both Gideon and Ianthe resist these difficult temptations, only to have them ratcheted up to a level they can’t ignore: Harrow offering a “fair” fight, and Corona putting a gun to her own head.
These are duels that both Gideon and Ianthe, with the information they have, think are impossibly unfair, to their advantage, and both of them are missing a key element of the trap about to spring. (And, as first time readers, so are we!)
Both Gideon and Ianthe are shocked to find themselves beaten.

This even echoes back to Gideon’s duel with Babs, whose body Ianthe is later dueling in: “Gideon fell into stance, raised her sword, and let it come to rest at his collarbone. ‘Match to the Third,’ said Coronabeth, which startled her.’” (GtN 120) vs “Her empty right hand was grasped round the Prince’s right wrist; the Prince’s right wrist turned into the Prince’s right hand and then into the prince’s lovely thin sword, which ran all the way down into Camilla’s belly. The point was somewhere quite far inside Camilla, and Nona couldn’t see it anymore. ‘You really don’t know when to throw those things, do you,’ said the Prince a little sadly. Camilla said, ‘Match to the Sixth.’ Ianthe said, ‘What?’ and then her eyes rolled backward in her head and she fell.” (NtN 349)

There’s just a really fun thing happening here when we go from Gideon fighting Harrow to Gideon fighting Babs while Corona arbitrates and Harrow watches from the shadows to Ianthe in Babs’ body fighting Camilla while Corona arbitrates again and Nona watches from inside Harrow’s body, meanwhile Kiriona is in her room playing possum.
I also think it’s really fun that we have Gideon and Ianthe, now the Tower Princes and friendship-bracelet-wearing pals, playing the same role in two different duels in which Gideon is the “hero” and Ianthe is the “villain.” In early GtN, there’s no question in the minds of first time readers that we’re rooting for Gideon to get away from the abuse we’ve already seen her suffer on the Ninth, and get away from this horrible little demon Harrowhark, and instead she’s brought down by a dirty trick. In NtN, even Ianthe characterizes herself as the villain of this duel, and so do we as readers—she doesn’t give a shit about this planet we’ve come to love, or about the fate of the Sixth House Oversight Body, and she’s perfectly willing to maim or kill Cam, beloved in the eyes of Nona’s narration. When Cam and Pal play their own dirty trick on Ianthe, it’s a win for the good guys! I cried! I cheered! Different points of view and different priorities paint these two fights in totally different ways, but they set up Gideon and Ianthe for comradeship beautifully anyway.
Ok small detail but also?? From Gideon v Babs: “Naberius crumpled backward, and she kicked her robes aside to touch one booted foot to the place beneath his knee: he staggered, spat, and fell.” (GtN 120) From Cam v Marta: “She sliced a red gouge down Dyas’s immaculate white jacket and shirt, bashed her across the knuckles with the hilt of her rapier, and kicked her in the knee for good measure. The kick was Cam’s only mistake. The pain clearly set every neuron in Dyas’s body shrieking with adrenaline. Someone like Naberius would have been prone on the table from shock, probably bleating and shitting.” (GtN 263-264) From Cam v Ianthe: “Then the Prince did some sort of complicated dance-step back, bringing her sword in close against her chest, and she kicked out with her front leg. Not like when Honesty tried to kick a tin can off a fence post, just a little sharp shove with her foot, down low, like she was scaring off a stray cat. Camilla’s leg folded and her lunge collapsed in on itself: she dropped to her knees and started to roll backward, landing awkwardly on her left arm, still holding the knife.” (NtN 348) Gideon and Cam both fight to win—and Ianthe, with Babs in there helping her, has learned this trick from them.

Ianthe and Kiriona, the best worsties!

“‘Well, this isn’t turning out how I wanted it to. I thought you and I would share a couple of saucy quips…I thought you’d come in here demanding the body of your cavalier.’ This was dropped into the conversation like a bomb. Nona let her gaze fall straight forward, blindly, not reacting at all and not knowing how to. The room was silent. In the end, Ianthe said: ‘Has that fire cooled? Have you changed your mind on that one? Is Camilla the better model? I consider Camilla Hect an obvious upgrade; I imagine she hardly makes one ass joke a day…’” (NtN 333) I love coming back to this after having read the book a few times, the vibe totally changes! Ianthe knows, perhaps from Corona, that Harrow has her memory back. She’s put together what the readers have, after seeing both sides of Harrow and Gideon apart from each other, and understands how deeply they care about each other even when they’re saying they don’t. She’s pressing this button trying to get a rise out of Harrow, and I think enjoying the knowledge she has that the rest of them don’t—Kiriona isn’t just a body, and surely makes multiple ass jokes a day. She’s coming into this encounter thinking that she has what Harrow wants—Gideon back—and what Kiriona wants—Harrow back—and is perhaps planning to play them off each other while holding all the cards. Unfortunately, there are some key bits of information she doesn’t know she’s missing.
“Camilla said conversationally, ‘No offhand?’ ‘I didn’t mean to take anything to this planet I couldn’t replace,’ said the Prince. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered.’” (NtN 346) I never noticed this before but another reference to Kiriona being on board! Ianthe didn’t mean to bring anything valuable, like the key to the Locked Tomb, but Kiriona does what she wants.
“‘You’ve got better,’ said Camilla. ‘You’ve been training with someone who knew what they were doing.’ ‘You’ve gone to pieces,’ said Prince Ianthe Naberius. ‘Oh me, oh my. The locals not much good for sparring?’” (NtN 347) Ok, so Ianthe definitely did train with Augustine for a bit, who certainly knew what he was doing. But I really think this is referencing Kiriona! The worsties have been training together!
“Nona noticed that one of the corpse prince’s sleeves had worked up, and that on her wrist was a funny fat bracelet: a braided cord of many colours, none of which matched.” (NtN 368)
“‘Adipose fat and mucous membrane,’ said the not-Crown modestly. ‘It’s my own recipe.’ ‘Oh my God, Ianthe, barf,’ said the corpse prince.” (NtN 464) I just love this weird vibe they have.
“Ianthe, ignoring this interchange, said merely— ‘Prince Kiriona Gaia.’ ‘Prince Ianthe Naberius,’ said her opposite. And: ‘Can you not fucking smoke in here?’ ‘It’s a filthy habit,’ admitted the other prince. ‘I didn’t think you cared though.’ ‘I don’t, but there’s like a million fire detectors.’ In a show of obsequious obedience, rolling her eyes, Ianthe took her gold fingerbones and stubbed out the cigarette on her real, thin flesh hand, then tossed the discarded butt over her shoulder, where it smouldered on the stones. Crux started to make a noise like a teakettle filled with soup. Ianthe ignored him: a terrible hunger had sharpened her like a knife. ‘Did you bring my sister?’ ‘Upstairs,’ said the corpse prince, and thumbed vaguely somewhere over her shoulder. ‘You can pick her up whenever. She came on her own—I didn’t have to use my attraction or my charm.’ ‘You don’t have either. God, it’s like she wants me to catch her,’ marvelled Ianthe. ‘That ill-shampooed slut.’ ‘Sixth House bigwigs are up there too, don’t know if we want ‘em,’ said the corpse prince laconically. ‘The rest of the House is parked outside the Ur system, should be easy enough to sweep them up. Not that we’ve got the people…Anyway, I don’t think Dad even wants them, they’d only depress him.’” (NtN 466) This is a long interaction, so I’m breaking it up into chunks. This is the coworker chunk! They’re familiar with each other, they have some banter, but there’s no fondness showing yet. Ianthe thinks they’re here with the same goal, or at least she thinks Kiriona will go along with her goals. Two siblings who have had to take care of business together while their father/Emperor gets drunk and fucks admirals.
“Ianthe reached out—her sleeve fell away from her wrist—and Nona saw a strange fat bracelet ringing her bony wrist: a braided, hypercoloured cord in shades that were somehow even uglier than the cords she had seen before—in her class—and on the wrist of— ‘Friendship bracelets,’ she fairly shouted. ‘They’re wearing friendship bracelets.’ Ianthe grasped Kiriona’s wrist, and Kiriona pulled free of the sticky yellow muck as easily and as neatly as if it were dust. They stood there, hands clasping each other’s wrists, in their beautiful polished boots and their jewelled white swords—a matched pair of princes, one dead and one barely looking better. They tapped each other on the knuckles, did something complicated with their thumbs, and stood angled toward each other, easy and familiar, as though they had stood beside each other a million times. … Ianthe was saying— ‘I’m simply doing exactly what I think Harry would want me to do…Harry adores this ghastly old rock and its ghastly old inhabitant. Harry would be the first to say, ‘No, I’m not worth it, leave it shut.’ Don’t you think, Ninth?’ ‘I try not to,’ said Kiriona modestly. Both Ianthe and Kiriona briefly fell about laughing. They slapped each other’s shoulders in what seemed to be genuine mirth. … ‘Good to see you,’ said Ianthe, quite kindly, to Kiriona. ‘Yeah—same,’ said Kiriona, with infectious good cheer. ‘Anyway—let’s open the Tomb and get out of here.’” (NtN 466-467) The friends section! They’ve been training together, probably fought on Antioch together, and as I said above, have been dealing with John’s incapacitated emotional state. They’ve gotten comfortable! They have running jokes, like about how Kiriona is stupid. Except Kiriona’s not stupid. Her emotions make her a target for manipulation, but she’s not stupid.
“For a moment, Ianthe kept laughing, and then she said— ‘Wait. What?’ ‘That Tomb’s opening now,’ said Kiriona. ‘You can’t possibly be—Ninth!’ For Kiriona had taken a few steps backward, away from Nona, in no danger of tripping over her, bathed in the yellow glow of the electric light reflecting off the fat. She drew her sword with an oily rattle, and Ianthe drew hers. Nona stared, transfixed, at the edges of their swords. Ianthe said, ‘You little three-way double-crosser.’ ‘Haven’t double-crossed anybody, let alone three times,’ said Kiriona. ‘You’ve double-crossed God, for one—’ Kiriona said, ‘What? John sent me, you overgilded doorknob.’” (NtN 468) Aaand the final phase, temporary friendship ended. Ianthe has plans, and Kiriona also has plans, and they’re at odds again.
“‘...I’ll be his cavalier. I’m the First. Hell, I’m his child and heir. Isn’t this the neatest way? Are you going to help me, or not?’ Ianthe had withdrawn. Even from below, Nona could see the horror and disgust writ large on her face: it had a lot to do with the chin. ‘Oh my god,’ she said softly. ‘You can’t believe that. You’re very stupid when you want to be, Gonad…but you can’t believe that.’ ‘You know he’s never recovered.’ ‘Yes,’ said Ianthe, ‘Oh, I know.’ ‘If we weren’t around, I don’t know what he’d do.’ ‘I do,’ said Ianthe. ‘Exactly the same thing he’s doing right now, without trying to hide it. Drowning his sorrows in whatever or whoever comes to hand…Do you know who I saw creeping out of his bedroom the other day? Grand Admiral Sarpedon, I shit you not.’ ‘Oh, God, yuck,’ said Kiriona, looking highly diverted. ‘That’s sick—’ ‘--following a grand cavalcade of Cohort officials, ensigns, et cetera—’ ‘Yeah, but Sarpedon is old!’ ‘That’s your problem? Kiriona, you fat-headed wreck, John’s older than our recorded time,’ said Ianthe. ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t look it, does he,’ retorted Kiriona. ‘Sarpedon’s like, in his fifties? Sixties? It’s nasty! They should know how it looks! It looks suss! Anyway, that’s my dad!’ ‘You haven’t had to live through an atom of the worst of it,’ said Ianthe. ‘You are an exasperating child and a moron—stop making me argue with you! The important part of this, you gibbering bozo, is that the moment that door opens, you’re not killing the monster inside—’ ‘Give me five minutes—’ ‘--you’re not becoming his cavalier—you’re not fixing anything! You're signing our doom,’ snapped Ianthe. ‘He gets her back, you don’t know what he’ll become! You have no idea, and you’ve deluded yourself into believing him, and he’s just tricking you! You know that, don’t you? Are you trying to kid yourself?’” (NtN 468-469) This bit is so so fascinating. Ianthe, I think, really understands what’s at stake here. She’s willing to let Harrow die because John is perilously close to just wiping out everything and starting the universe over again—and with Alecto, he could do it. That endangers her and endangers Corona, Ianthe’s two top priorities, but it also endangers literally everything and everyone, and I really think she’s cognizant of that. She’s been with John through the full aftermath of what happened in HtN, before he had even Kiriona to occupy him, and she thinks big picture in the same way that he does, she can see what’s coming.
“‘Is this about Harry, after all?’ There was a deep indrawn breath; Ianthe laughed and said— ‘You don’t have to breathe, you know.’ ‘You’re so goddamned boring when you talk about Harrowhark, so don’t,’ said Kiriona. ‘Listen to you, big lady of the First. ‘Leave Harrow to die, don’t open the Tomb, mneh mneh mneh.’ What’d you come here for? Stop playing the good son. You don’t give a shit about anything except your own plans, you know. Your sister’s upstairs. Take her and go—let me fight this thing and win, or die trying, who cares?’” (NtN 469) And at last, Gideon shows her hand. I think she does believe John’s lies about killing Alecto and becoming his cavalier, but underneath all of that, with Harrow’s body right there, she can’t hide it anymore. She died for Harrow once, and she’s ready to do it again, because to her, that’s probably better than how things are right now.

Cam, Corona, and Jody

Second House vs Third House, Cohort vs hedonism, as exemplified by Judith vs Coronabeth

“The necromancer steepled her gloved fingers together and leaned forward. ‘I cannot speculate about motive or intent,’ she said. ‘I hardly want it to be murder. But if you don’t comply with me, I have reasonable grounds to stop this trial. I will take command if you cannot.’ Someone thumped their tea mug down on the table, hard. It was Coronabeth, who even with her violet eyes full of sleep and her hair in burnished tangles around her face would still have caused tourist traffic to wherever she was standing. ‘Don’t be silly, Judith,’ she said impatiently. ‘You don’t have that kind of authority.’” (GtN 195)

“Once Hect mentions Palamedes Sextus there’s no reasoning with her. Both the princess and I now understand this. During our hospitalisation when I could not get information out of her we played chess using the ceiling tiles and our imaginations. Hect has a good memory for where the pieces are, which helped when the sedative they gave me dulled my mind. I will admit with all honestly that even if I had been in perfect physical condition I would be no match for her in chess. Only the princess gives Hect a good game. Out of curiosity I once asked her if she had played her necromancer. She said that it bored him because two moves in he knew how the match would go. I asked her why she enjoyed playing in that case. Hect called it an act of meditation. She said it was good to play out the game even if you knew how it was going to go.” (HtN 530 - AYU) Corona isn’t an idiot, surprise surprise, she’s a Cam-level strategist. Good to know. Also, what game is it that Cam is playing out, that she knows how it will end?

Was she preparing to give up her life and be reborn as Paul, even then?

“There is no way of softening this. Coronabeth Tridentarius has already been radicalised.” (HtN 530 - AYU) Corona is BOE now.

I honestly love Corona’s arc in NtN so much. She’s been radicalised! She becomes Crown Him With Many Crowns, even as she’s trying to keep Judith alive and trying in her own way to protect Cam and Nona, even as she’s holding on to Gideon’s rapier, even as she’s longing for Ianthe. She becomes Corona again for a little while, in Ianthe’s presence, and her motives are unclear—but in the end, though I think she wants so badly to throw all this away and stay with her sister, she chose and keeps choosing throughout the scenes in the barracks to align herself with BOE, and with Cam and Pal and Pyrrha. Even though she wavers, she finds a way to be Corona and Crown at the same time.

“I think Camilla the Sixth and her adept failed to reach the critical point that many cavaliers and their adepts have to reach, where they understand the scope and the limits of what they will be to each other for the rest of their lives. I thank the Emperor’s mercy that I had a cavalier who taught me that so early. The princess has by turns tried to charm Camilla, play with Camilla, flirt with Camilla, and cajole Camilla. Camilla is currently unmoved. This lack of response might have been dangerous except for the pouch around Camilla’s neck: the princess knows that she would have better luck flirting with the earthly remains of Palamedes Sextus. I asked Coronabeth bluntly if she had designs on Camilla, who at the end of the day, is an attractive human being at the peak of physical health, contemporary in age, and also unexpectedly knows the value of quiet. Oh no, she said, and she seemed surprised I would ask. She said, one half plus one half is only ever half. I questioned her mathematics.” (HtN 536 - AYU) Their weird triad is so delightful to me. Also I love how clearly Corona understands everyone’s grief.

“‘I knew because…because she stopped being so unhappy. The whole time I knew her she was grieving…she couldn’t hide that. At the same time I was grieving, and the Captain was grieving, and we—she and I can grieve alike enough to fight about it, but Camilla was gone. Camilla was gone and then we met Harrowhark, and she came back. That’s all it was.’” (NtN 166) Corona is SO ATTUNED.

“The moment I saw the stele I underwent the phantom reaction, which I hadn’t since I was very young. I shed phantom reactions when I was an auxiliary. Too many adepts took months to overcome aptitude dyspraxia in space, which the lieutenant always called arse over elbow: dropping cups or missing chairs or overcorrecting, the laziness of a body accustomed to necromantic backup.^[oa]^[ob] When I saw the stele I attempted to get out of the chair by drawing on any thanergy pooled around me, which had the effect that I tried to fall out of the chair.” (HtN 537 - AYU) Oh, Jody. This is interesting, though I don’t quite understand the theory going on.
“Meeting in person did not, as it so often does, inoculate against hero worship. I found Dyas to exceed my impossible teenage standards. We found out that we liked the same books. I said to Hect, I hadn’t actually read them as closely as I’d made out to the lieutenant, in that initial conversation. I had to go back and reread all of them in a hurry. Hect said, That’s the first human thing you’ve ever told me about yourself.” (HtN 540 - AYU) WEEPING.
“I told her that when I was younger I was overwhelmed by the cavalier relationship. I told her that I hadn’t expected it to feel that way. I told her, using efficient and unsentimental language, that the love Lieutenant Dyas showed me as my cavalier—in all the ways she had made us one flesh—turned my head completely. I told her how deeply I had fallen for Marta Dyas as a woman, to the point where one evening I tried to make things different between us. At this point I tried to find the words with Camilla, honourable words, and Camilla Hect said: You propositioned her? I said, Yes. She was the age I am now; I was seventeen. I’d been secretly reading material…I was convinced…I thought it was a natural development, or at least, one nobody had to know about. Lieutenant Dyas was so handsome, so attractive, so alive. In my childhood I had already developed a taste for…strength, physical vivacity. What’s more, it’s a necromancer’s privilege to see their cavalier in moments of vulnerability. I was very susceptible. Camilla said, She turned you down. The Sixth House is renowned for its quick and accurate conclusions, but I’m still dismayed by this reality coming to life so completely in Camilla Hect. I said to Camilla, Yes; and it was the best and kindest, most honourable thing Marta could have done for me. … I knew without having to be told what I’d done wrong…And I didn’t err, ever again.” (HtN 541-542 - AYU) This is so fucking sad to me, the way Judith takes this one attraction and this one rejection and turns it into a rejection of herself, of her own sexuality. That she was so deeply wrong, not because she just read the room wrong and Marta didn’t want to have sex with her, but that she as a person with feelings was just deeply fundamentally wrong and should change herself. Awful.
“Camilla said, Captain. Come out and say it. I said, You’re obsessed with those bones and they are going to kill you. All for an empty remembrance of someone who should have taught you the danger of obsession. And Hect withdrew from me and was silent for a long time, if not still. Eventually she said, At least when the Warden acts like he knows everything, he generally does.” (HtN 543 - AYU) WOOF but love how Cam is talking about Pal in the present tense, she has such faith.
“I never had a promotion without sooner or later the arrival of flowers—if I was at home—or if I was shipside, a bundle of dizzyingly coloured flimsy, painstakingly folded into petals and sepals. Blatant shades of red and purple. She said, Did you know? Every birthday we got to have one person we’d invite and our mother and father would get to invite the rest, and Ianthe always invited whoever Babs didn’t want to see at the time, and I always invited you.” (HtN 545 - AYU) This is love, and it’s so painful.
“The princess turned to me then and took my hands. I kept my balance. She said, Jody, if I offered you that sword, wouldn’t you take it? I know how to use it. I know what it would mean. Lieutenant Dyas is dead. My necromancer wouldn’t have me. Won’t you let me be your cavalier? Here, now, at the end of the world? Save me, Jody. Bind me to you, or who knows where I will go? What throne will I mount, if you don’t bind me down? … I wasn’t tempted by Coronabeth’s offer. There was never any possibility of it. I committed the understandable crime of desire for Lieutenant Marta Dyas, having joined my hand to hers with the best and most pure of intentions. Why would I ever knowingly take Coronabeth Tridentarius’s, having desired her already for twelve long, stupid, fruitless years? And I said, Thank you for the offer, Your Highness, but not in this life or in any other.” (HtN 551 - AYU) JODY PLEASE. This is so rough. Judith really is messed up about her own attractions. Also, I’m excited to find out what thrones Coronabeth does mount.
“For Camilla’s bonds were already gone, even though both her arms had been taped squarely to her thighs. She must have used the very secret knife. Crown’s mouth tightened. Camilla was peeling the last remnant away, not making eye contact. All she said was, ‘Where’d you put Pyrrha?’ ‘The others only deal with the Saint after he’s scanned. You know that,’ said Crown. ‘She’s not a Lyctor.’ ‘Not everyone’s got that clearance. And it’s not like you know the whole picture either.’” (NtN 144) I have such a whiplash of feelings about this moment. Cam is pushing Crown’s buttons with the hidden knife thing, showing that BoE is never going to have her completely off-guard and unarmed, and Crown is pushing buttons back by casting doubt on Pyrrha. Their power struggle is small, personal, it comes out of their recent history together. Is Crown misgendering/misidentifying Pyrrha part of pushing those buttons? Or is it because not everyone who might be listening knows that G1deon is dead and it’s just Pyrrha in there? Cam’s quick to correct with “She’s not a Lyctor,” so clearly this either isn’t information Cam is worried about random BoE soldiers overhearing or she knows there’s nobody else in hearing distance. And also, though I don’t ever doubt Pyrrha’s intentions in NtN, I do wonder what intel BoE has on her that she hasn’t revealed to Cam and Pal. She’s had a very long life, of course nobody’s going to have the whole picture on her, but I love her so I want to have more of the picture than we do!

“Camilla fell silent. Then she said, ‘You’re still wearing the sword.’ This seemed to put Crown back on more comfortable ground. ‘Of course. Makes me think of home.’ ‘You’re not even wearing it for anyone.’ Crown was smiling. ‘I didn’t take you for a traditionalist. I don’t have to wear it for anyone. Anyway…it’s an aesthetic.’ ‘It doesn’t belong to you.’ ‘I’ll give it back if its owner asks, but otherwise, finders keepers,’ said Crown lightly. ‘You sound like the Captain, you know.’ ‘They haven’t put her down yet?’ If this was meant to hurt Crown’s feelings too, it didn’t appear to hit very hard. She said cheerfully, ‘If I haven’t put a pillow over her face, they won’t anytime soon.’ ‘Won’t be a pillow,’ said Camilla. ‘It’ll be head and hands off and the burn cage at the park.’ A silvery laugh. ‘Ooh, she’d love that. Head and hands, like a Cohort martyr. Can you imagine? Can’t you just hear her say, ‘I regret that I have only one life to give’?’ ‘You sound like your sister.’ ‘Do I?’ Now Crown sounded gratified. … ‘I don’t know you, Coronabeth,’ said Camilla. ‘I don’t know you at all anymore.’” (NtN 145) There’s a lot here too, this whole scene is really interesting. As much as Crown is thriving with BoE, has chosen a new name and seems to have been truly radicalized, she can’t easily jettison the life and culture she’s always known. Plus, this is Gideon’s rapier—symbolic, to Corona, of the kind of cavaliership she wanted. Strong, queer, unhealthily devoted, Gideon was a model to her when she was still in the cav closet. Then, immediately associated with the rapier and with cavaliership, we get Judith. The necromancer Corona wishes would accept her oath, and the woman Crown is trying to protect even as she believes in the cause of dismantling necromancy as a system. It makes me wonder if Nona’s incredible gift of reading people is reading Crown correctly, and she’s not actually upset by the suggestion of Jody beheaded in a burn cage, or if Corona is just that good at projecting something other than what she actually feels. I honestly believe that if there’s anyone who can fox Nona’s senses, it’s Coronabeth.

“Crown made them squirt antibacterial gel onto their hands, and fussed until they rubbed it in. ‘She gets everything going,’ she said. Once they had done that, they were allowed to approach. The Captain’s eyes were shut, her eyelids a little swollen, almost purplish, like somebody had hit her. Her deep black hair had been painstakingly braided away from her face, showing the pretty early silvering at her temples, but that was the only beautiful thing about her.” (NtN 164) Poor Jody is really going through it, but thinking about Crown fussing over disinfectant and braiding her hair for her makes me really want to cry.
“‘No. You didn’t react to Millie. She hates it when I use Millie now.’ ‘She didn’t love it before. Better friends to her than you have been glared at for less.’ Crown quirked her eyebrows together languidly, like she was too tired to make too many facial expressions in a row. Nona didn’t know why Palamedes wrinkled his nose as though he’d smelled something bad. ‘The Captain and Cam and I were stuck together for a long time, you know,’ she drawled eventually, ‘I’m not saying I knew from the way you moved or the things you said. You’re seamless, I’ll give you that! I knew because…because she stopped being so unhappy. The whole time I knew her she was grieving…she couldn’t hide that. At the same time I was grieving, and the Captain was grieving, and we—she and I can grieve alike enough to fight about it, but Camilla was gone. Camilla was gone and then we met Harrowhark, and she came back. That’s all it was.’” (NtN 166) Is Pal making a face at her because the expression makes her look like Ianthe? Also I just really love this assessment of Cam and of what the three of them went through in BoE hands together, it really resonates with As Yet Unsent.
“Cam said, ‘I still don’t trust you.’ ‘Doesn’t matter. You know, I really am glad you two are together…in whatever way you’ve managed. I’m glad Harrowhark helped you both. I know I said it was dangerous at the time…and I’m sorry that we didn’t believe you when you said he was in there.’ Camilla still did not look at her, but she suddenly said at the bottom of her voice, ‘Come back with me. Leave the facility. Before the negotiator arrives, come back with us.’ Crown stared at her. For a moment Nona thought she would say Yes and was very pleased. She didn’t mind sleeping in the bathtub. But Crown said, brightly—’I like my prison cells more obvious. And I hate not knowing where my next meal is coming from.’ Camilla said, ‘That’s not it.’ ‘Well, you know, the Captain wouldn’t last a day without me, and then how the hell am I getting out of here?’ ‘You’re a worse liar than Palamedes,’ said Camilla, with feeling. ‘You’re not a good woman, Tridentarius.’ ‘Not my name anymore, and none of us are good,’ said Crown. ‘Except for Nona, of course.’ ‘Thanks,’ said Nona, deeply flattered. ‘What about me?’ said Camilla. ‘You and I don’t even own our own souls,’ said Crown.” (NtN 170) So painful!! They could probably be friends, in a different situation. They probably ARE friends, and this whole thing they’re in makes it impossible to really be on the same side. Fucking trauma bonded.
“‘We’re near Nona’s school,’ said Crown, and Nona wriggled with pleasure and relief. ‘I thought I’d get out and walk her. How’s that sound, cutie?’ ‘Do you mean it?’ said Nona, ecstatic. ‘Please, Crown! I’d love that, I want my friends to see you.’ … Camilla said,through a thick mouthful of hood, ‘No.’ ‘What, you think I can’t look after her? It’s a hundred metres from here.’ ‘Nona. Wait—’ But Nona, who was desperate to get out of the car, had hopped out the moment Crown opened the door for her…” (NtN 172-173) I really like what this continuation of their struggle with each other is showing about each of them. Crown is always hovering on this edge between her two worlds; she’s fully committed to BoE, but she longs to stay connected to her home, and she’s indulging that here by involving herself with Nona and taking Cam’s place looking after her. She’s used to being the center of attention and the center of everyone’s affections, and I think she’s a little jealous of the domestic life Cam is getting to have—whether she understands how difficult it is or not, it’s clear that there’s more love there than she got from her own family. Cam, on the other hand, is a person who feels a strong need for control. On some level, she doesn’t think Crown can look after Nona, doesn’t trust her, and finds it really difficult to let a person she’s taken charge of be out of her sight. She was the same way with Palamedes, and now that he’s literally carried inside her body she has transferred this anxiety to Nona. Also she definitely knows what Crown is doing, that this isn’t exactly a favor, that Crown is indulging herself and it could end up being at Nona’s expense.

“‘I’ve got as much right to you as Camilla does,’ said Crown, still smiling. ‘In another world I might have been the one looking after you, you know. And I think Camilla does a bit too much looking after…you’re not so much younger than she is, after all.’ This resembled some of the darker and more resentful thoughts in the back of Nona’s head. She mumbled, ‘But I love Camilla.’ ‘Do you love love Camilla? In-love-with-Camilla?’ Crown sounded amused…’Maybe you could be the one to melt her icy heart. You’re cute…on your best days, adorable. But I’m not sure you’re her type.’ Nona flushed. Suddenly being treated as an adult made her feel out of her depth, like when a wave knocked her off a sandbar and her feet went out from beneath her.” (NtN 173-174) Another great comparison between Cam and Crown! They have different styles of “looking after,” one patient but very protective, the other the “cool parent” who treats her like they’re gal pals on the way out to brunch. There are good and bad things about both of these approaches! Cam has spent so much more time with Nona and been through a lot over the course of her six months of life, and the trust and love Nona has for her shows how well Cam (and Pal, and Pyrrha) are doing with her. But the situation is so unusual that Cam seems to really struggle with remembering that Nona’s a young adult. She’s nineteen, and progressing so rapidly that almost daily recalibration is required to determine how much agency she can safely have. Crown just jumps right in and treats her like a younger sister and fully acknowledges her age, but again this feels like it’s more out of her own desire to be involved and missing Ianthe than it is about offering Nona agency. It’s sudden, and Crown is not as immediately trustworthy for Nona as Cam is, so Nona’s not sure how to handle this switch even though she’s been longing to be given more freedom and listened to with more attention.

“‘You look at Commander We Suffer like you want her to think you’re into her, but you aren’t at all, it’s just something you’re doing with your eyelashes,’ she said. … ‘You don’t like Pash at all, but I don’t know what she looks like either. You’re scared of Pyrrha, and you do think she’s nice-looking, but you’re confused when you think that so you don’t look at her very much. You want Camilla to cuddle you but not in a—a sexy way. I think you want Camilla to look at you like she looks at me. And you’re in love with th—’ A hand went over the mask at Nona’s mouth. When she looked up at Crown, in that press of people and the clinging smoke, she could see that the eyes above the softshell mask had lost their soft purple gleam and were dark, with the heavy amber brows drawn low over them. She said, in a different voice, ‘All right, Nona. I’ve heard enough.’ Nona, when the hand was withdrawn, said thickly: ‘You’re mad at me. Shame on you.’” (NtN 174) I love every bit of Nona’s assessment. Corona DOES want Cam to love her, she wants to be special! Who wouldn’t want to be special to Camilla Hect?? And Nona reads her for filth on Judith, though tbh she’s not good at hiding it in the first place. I also ADORE Nona being so frank with Crown when she gets more truth than she was ready for. She asked for this, thinking it was fun, a tease, girl talk, and blames Nona for being honest about what she’s seen. It’s such an interesting contrast to how Ianthe behaves when things haven’t gone to plan, which is a more pouty disappointment.
“‘Oh, I’m Camilla’s partner. But I can’t stay.’ ‘I see! Lovely to meet you,’ said the Angel, unaware of how her eyebrows betrayed her, like everyone else in the world to Nona seemed unaware of how their eyebrows betrayed them, by immediately saying plain as day: Camilla?? Really??? Camilla???? Which Nona thought was unfair: Crown was really very nearly pretty enough for Camilla.” (NtN 176-177) This just makes me laugh so hard. Crown trying a little roundabout way to shoehorn herself into Cam’s “fun” domestic life, the Angel just not knowing what to make of this information, and Nona so confident that Cam is the best and most beautiful person in the entire world.

“‘That’s probably why I said it,’ admitted Crown, with genuine contrition. ‘I have a ripple of evil running through my soul—I know I do. But it wasn’t that bad a lie, was it Nona? Don’t you think it’ll raise Cam’s status? Don’t you think I’ve done her a favour?’ Nona thought about it. ‘Camilla doesn’t need raising. You could have raised my status by saying you were mine,’ she added. ‘They would have believed it—we’re both very attractive.’ Crown laughed in her lovely, husky, rippling way. ‘And there you go, reminding me of someone completely different.’” (NtN 177) Hammer it home, Nona! But also I love that Nona’s confidence here is ringing Gideon bells for Corona.

Cam, Pal, Pyrrha, and Nona - domestic life

“‘Is the blue light going to start hurting Pyrrha, Palamedes?’ Another question she had begun asking again. Camilla said it was anxiety.” (NtN 64) I just really love that Cam and Pal’s study of medicine seems to have included mental health, it delights me.

“It was more buoyed by the sucker-punch of Camilla’s belief than through her own confidence—she suddenly needed to go to the bathroom, which Palamedes always said was her displacement activity—that Nona got on the bike.” (NtN 114)

“There was another long pause. ‘Is there anything you’re not telling me?’ It was the first time ever that Camilla had asked that question. It was such an abundantly awful question to ask. The silence drew out between them in a way that made the tips of Nona’s ears feel hot. It felt as though it lasted a very long time. Then— ‘Yes,’ said Nona, faintly. There was another long pause. ‘Do you promise to tell me or Palamedes if you get scared about something, or don’t know what to do?’ That was more like Camilla. ‘Sure,’ Nona said. ‘Thanks. We appreciate it.’” (NtN 68)
“‘Cam,’ she said, snuggling up into her back, ‘can’t you tell me a story instead, like you used to? I’ll rest my eyes while you talk.’ ‘You haven’t wanted stories in a while. Said you were too sophisticated.’ ‘That was because Beautiful Ruby made fun of me when I sad what I did to get to sleep,’ said Nona. … ‘Hmm,’ was all Camilla said. Then: ‘What kind of story?’ Nona thought about it. ‘Tell me the story about how you met me again. Neither you nor Palamedes have told me that one in ages.’” (NtN 69) So much of the way Nona interacts with the world is childlike, but this is one of those things that sticks out to me especially. Wanting a story, and wanting the same story over and over, and wanting a story about herself and how she came to have this family who love her, it all reminds me SO much of my niece, who used to like the same books and the same stories about events, mundane or not, over and over. This story for Nona about how Cam and Pal met her, about the start of her life as Nona, is in some ways a birth story, which I think often fascinates young kids! And then on the other hand, Nona isn’t actually a kid—she’s new, but she’s also in some part of herself unbelievably old, and all that is stuck in the body of an eighteen-year-old. She asks for this story to be adulted-up, because she has grown and can understand more. She’s figuring out how to express her desire for information to caregivers who, understandably, have no idea what the hell is going on with her at any given time. It’s all Nona, the childishness and the adultness, and it’s lovely.
“When she was 90 percent asleep, she heard the door very quietly unlatch and close. Then she counted, and at the end of five counts there was Pyrrha at the door saying, ‘Ah, my darling hearts, my sleeping babes, Daddy’s own treasures,’ and Camilla saying without opening her eyes, ‘Go to bed. I just got her to sleep.’ Nona fell asleep and was happy.” (NtN 72) This moment will live with me forever, I love it so deeply. Pyrrha’s roguish but more openly expressed affection, Cam the tired guardian who desperately doesn’t want to wake the kid up again, but there’s love there too. They’re so tender in their own ways.
“‘Delicious num-nums for baby,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Anyway, it’s this or beans and dried fish flakes.’ ‘I thought you were bringing home groceries last night.’ ‘I’m on half pay until they find someone to foot the drill bill,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Yes, but what happened to that half?’ Pyrrha spooned the softened mush into the big-size bowl and handed it to Palamedes. ‘You’re going to make someone a really irritating wife one day, Sextus,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Dve, if I thought you were drinking all of our money away I would sleep a peaceful and easy sleep.’” (NtN 83) This just charms me so much. I love bickering. I love Palamedes as the nagging wife. It makes me very happy.
“After that there was still lots of time before school, so they did one of Nona’s favorite things. Nona got to stand on Pyrrha’s feet as Pyrrha and Camilla both lay down and did their morning crunches, their sit-ups, and their stretches, with Pyrrha helping Camilla to stretch both her legs to the point where Nona was afraid she would go snap—and then they ruthlessly stretched out Nona too, making her touch her toes, making her stretch out on one leg, stretching her out too until she did hear a lot of little things go snap and felt brief, bright sizzles of pain. ‘Got to keep your muscle up,’ said Pyrrha, ‘this is brute-forcing it.’ At the end she got her back and her calves rubbed, which was the best part.” (NtN 85) Just two cavaliers trying really hard to keep Harrowhark’s body in some kind of shape….
“Nona was puzzled. ‘That’s why I picked it, it’s cheap so you can probably get it even if you have to pay the demo crew half your money. You don’t earn much in the first place.’ ‘Domestic life,’ said Pyrrha to Camilla, over Nona’s head, ‘is immensely depressing and has a lowering effect on the ego.’ ‘Sometimes,’ said Camilla unexpectedly. Once they went down two streets and back to where the park cut-through usually led them, Pyrrha kissed the top of Nona’s head and said, ‘Be good,’ and to Camilla said, ‘I’ll be home for dinner, honey, so don’t go out with your girls and get your nails did.’ ‘Try to bring home something useful this time,’ said Camilla.” (NtN 86)
“In the end Palamedes had to promise her a swim for a whole twenty minutes before she would do anything, eat anything, or agree to anything. It was bad behavior, but Nona had been a whole month younger. Promises made, Palamedes got to go away, saying, ‘Tell Cam I said it was a water cure,’ to which Camilla remarked that Palamedes was an enabler.” (NtN 106)
“She kept looking at the fallen cops—at their necks and at their chests—but Camilla gently drew her chin up and away, urging her forward, putting the towel around her wet shoulders. It felt nice and dry and scratchy. Nona mechanically wheeled the bike over the sand. Cam threw down her jandals and she squeezed her feet into them, the sand gritty on the bottoms of her heels.” (NtN 113)
“It wasn’t that Camilla didn’t take this seriously: she could see right away that Cam had taken it a little too seriously. Her dark brows drew together a fraction, and she placed another plate in the rack, and one of her legs folded up beneath her so that she was standing on one leg and resting the other foot at the top of that thigh.” (NtN 117) I’m just so fucking in love with Camilla, extremely deadly and fit and incredible, drying dishes while standing in this maybe yoga position because every second of every day is a training opportunity, or maybe she’s just comfortable like that because she’s CAM.
“Nona got up and went to pour her a glass of ice water from the covered jug. Pyrrha said, ‘Thanks, Nums,’ and drained the whole thing. Nona, fascinated, watched the brown column of her throat move as she swallowed. There was already a fine dark rust of stubble beneath her chin, amid the dust and the dirt, and when Pyrrha caught her looking, she felt there with her hand and said, laughing, ‘I know, I know…Gideon always had a five o’clock shadow at three o’clock. Sextus, can’t you fix it? If you kick the sebaceous glands back a notch you can interrupt the hair cycle. Quick injection of thanergy below the root’ll freeze the growth.’” (NTN 119-120) The gender fuckery of this book is so delightful to me.
“Nona lay down on the mattress. She felt very tired and sad all of a sudden, seeing Camilla tired and Camilla sad. On some impulse she opened her arms, and Camilla unexpectedly lay down next to her and crawled inside them—not quite letting Nona hold her, but letting Nona put an arm around her, putting an arm around Nona in return.” (NtN 125)
“‘This won’t take long. Go when I say go,’ said Cam, and she smiled at Nona—smiled her lovely, exquisite little smile, the one that made Nona feel like she really could fall in love with Camilla forever and forever and get married to her and maybe adopt a dog.” (NtN 263) I COULD CRY
“She stared unseeing until suddenly Cam was back in the classroom and said sharply, ‘Nona, come here.’ … The spell was broken when Cam lifted her chin with one hand, so that she was forced to stare at Cam’s grave grey eyes, at the drying blood and the holes in her top. Camilla was wet with sweat. Nona buried her face in Cam’s chest. She listened to Cam’s heart thudding in her ribcage, the big soft da-DUMP…da-DUMP, and she was amazed at how fragile and silly a heart was, how poorly protected. Camilla let her stay there for quite a long time, until she extracted herself.” (NtN 267) It makes me really happy when these two can comfort each other.
“Nona started dry-heaving pitifully, and there was Cam with the wastebasket, pulling her hair back, saying gently, ‘There you go, don’t force it’—so it wasn’t Cam.” (NtN 285) I love the distinctions Nona makes between the ways Cam and Pal take care of her. Pal is much more likely to touch her and be gentle with her, to comfort her in a more openly affectionate way; Cam is kind but seems to usually be more efficient and maybe more removed, she plays things closer to the chest even with Nona.
“‘I’d never use the broom handle on you,’ said Palamedes. Nona was mollified. ‘You wouldn’t feel it. If Cam and I didn’t love you as much as we do,’ said Palamedes, ‘we would take turns throttling you, then give all your magazines to charity.’ Palamedes had never said the word love before. More than anything—even the idea of her beloved magazines going to charity, as though others were more deserving than Nona, the most deserving person on the planet—this broke her.” (NtN 287)
“Palamedes went silent. Then he said, ‘A few days of what?’ ‘Oh—living,’ said Nona, too relieved at having said it to feel stupid. ‘It’s nearly over, Palamedes. I’m dying. I’ve been dying for months.’ then Palamedes touched her, and he did not throttle her. He ran Cam’s soft, chapped hand all over her head. He touched her ribs and her belly and pulled off her shoes and touched the soles of her feet. Then he got up and he pulled open a drawer on the desk and he came back with, of all things, a fat black marker. He said, ‘Nona, put your hands on your hips and put your ankles together, I need a closed circuit.’” (NtN 288) I feel so awful for Palamedes. He spends his whole life learning medicine to help Dulcinea, and she’s killed before he can even meet her. Then he dies himself, and now he’s here again, another person he loves telling him she’s dying, and there’s very little he can do about it, but he’s gonna dive right into action anyway,
“‘I don’t feel well,’ said Nona, regretting all the water. Cam’s eyes flickered. ‘Take it easy.’ ‘I hate that shackle on your ankle,’ said Nona, feeling absurdly tearful. ‘You keep saying that. I don’t care. Come here.’ And Camilla did something she rarely did. She put her arm tightly around Nona so that Nona could feel all the bunched-up muscles of her shoulders and biceps, and she drew Nona close. Nona rested her head on Camilla’s shoulder and put her arms around her middle. They stood like that, Nona holding Camilla, Cam holding Nona. Camilla was warm and strong and safe and all her bones felt good: the hollow of her shoulder, the hard, firm line and ridge below her neck. ‘It’s been a long week,’ said Camilla. ‘Yeah,’ said Nona. ‘I want to go home with you…I want Pyrrha. I want Palamedes.’” (NtN 306-307) I know it’s obvious by now, but they haven’t been just playing house for six months. This is Nona’s family, her safest place, her most beloved people, and there are few things than wanting to go home with the people you love and be warm and safe. Little moments like this really break my heart.
“She put her cheek up against Cam’s knee. Cam did not seem to notice or mind, until she looked down at Nona, and then at her paper, and she said— ‘What are Pyrrha’s nicknames for you?’ ‘Kiddie,’ said Nona immediately. ‘Junior. Small Fry. Cutie Pie. Li’l Bits. Small Cam. Hairy Maclary.’ ‘Keep going.’ ‘Nums. No-No. Nope. None. Sweet Nons. Nona-Palona. The Big No.’ ‘She should be arrested,’ murmured Camilla, then: ‘Got it.’” (NtN 315-316) Bliss. When I talk to myself in my empty apartment about Nona, I use all of these names.
“And the features, though in the same order, were making such a different set of expressions—not Camilla’s, not Palamedes’s—that it struck Nona all at once: they were gone—they had left her—they were no longer there. Nona lifted her voice, and wailed aloud. The new figure broke past We Suffer and the hawk-faced woman, and rustled through the pockets of the inert dead body of Ianthe Naberius, alone and still on the road—loped over to Nona in a way that neither Camilla nor Palamedes had ever moved but was filled with both of them, long in the leg, easy in the stride, spare and efficient. They held out a lavender silk handkerchief. Nona sniffed thickly, and recoiled. ‘I want a tissue—that’s too fancy,’ she mumbled. ‘That’s the point,’ the figure said, and looked at her with a grave smile. ‘We know there’s not going to be a big birthday party anymore, but: happy birthday, Nona.’ Nona mopped her eyes dolefully with the handkerchief. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s a relief you didn’t get hair ties.’” (NtN 424)
“She noticed, vaguely, that Paul and Pyrrha weren’t talking to her anymore. They weren’t talking to each other either, just trudging steadily on through the darkness. Once upon a time Pyrrha would have jollied her along—made bad jokes or said things like, ‘Right, kiddie, another minute and then you’re carrying me.’ Now it was almost like they didn’t think Nona was awake, even though her eyes were open. The only time anyone spoke during the journey was when Pyrrha suddenly said— ‘Fucking dark in here.’ ‘Yes,’ said Paul, as if this was something intriguing that Pyrrha had been clever to notice. ‘Ninth House ambiance, you reckon?’ ‘No.’ ‘Someone should’ve told Anastasia that a string of fairy lights wouldn’t have gone amiss. They could shape ‘em like little skulls, stay on-brand. Then again, she always said the skull was the least interesting bone…’” (NtN 446) I love this little family, even though things are starting to come apart. This exchange makes me think of a bunch of different things! Of Pyrrha coming home and Cam telling her to be quiet, she just got Nona to bed. Of Harrow telling Gideon that the skulls around their door in Canaan House were for ambiance. Of Pal and Cam both getting the measure of Gideon the first time they met in a dark stair, and maybe now putting together Gid’s sunglasses and Harrow’s veil with the darkness here. Also, Anastasia, what is the most interesting bone??
“Nona reached out. She found Camilla’s wrist—a wrist she had loved so keenly, attached to hands that had bathed her and flipped the pages of magazines to read to her and spooned out food she didn’t want to eat. She looked up into the face of the woman who was gone, which had been shared by a man who was also gone, a face taken by someone new. She said— ‘The more I go back—the more I’m made to go back…it’ll hurt her. She wasn’t made for it, she’s not…not the right shape.’ ‘Don’t talk. Don’t stress yourself,’ said Paul, but Nona didn’t want to be interrupted. ‘I might not help you when…I’m back,’ she said, not quite understanding I. ‘I’ll be different. I’ll remember everything…I’ll remember the thing I’m trying to forget. And Palamedes—I won’t love him. I won’t love Camilla, or Pyrrha, or Hot Sauce, or even Noodle. I won’t love anything…I won’t know how. I won’t be me at all, or…I’ll be the me who knows the thing, and knowing the thing means I’m not Nona—I’m someone else.’ Paul, practical, clasped one of her hands between them, and used the other to rub a rough section of black frieze over her sides to try to warm her up. ‘Okay. Don’t worry,’ they said. Nona felt hot and cross. ‘I’ve just told you why I’m worried, in detail, and I think that matters quite a lot.’ ‘Camilla and Palamedes were loved by Nona,’ said Paul. ‘Pyrrha was loved by Nona. It’s finished, it’s done. You can’t take loved away. We loved you too. Palamedes and Camilla loved you.’” (NtN 460-461)
“Pyrrha was there too, floating into view above Nona’s head, in the darkness. Her mouth was set in that unmistakable need-a-cigarette shape. ‘Don’t worry, kiddie,’ she said tiredly. ‘I’ll keep loving you—my problem is I don’t know how to stop. And, you know…who you are…were…you’re capable of more than you think, right now. I liked you. He liked you—Gideon liked you. My necromancer and I always liked you…and hey, what’s like except a love that hasn’t been invited indoors?’ She reached down and ruffled Nona’s short hair. Nona felt her borrowed heart go thump-pa-thump-pa-thump. ‘But you didn’t 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 morning 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 in the sink cabinet.’ 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. 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. I’m ready. Let’s go.’” (NtN 461-462)

Reading Camilla as aroace

“‘If that’s meant to make me feel guilty, I feel nothing, thank you,’ said Palamedes. ‘Cam’s body is a temple. She’s the one who’s banned me from a life of peddling poor-quality erotica. Says she doesn’t want our last gift to the universe to be tales of people mashing birthday cakes beneath their bottoms.’” (NtN 26) This feels more particular to Cam’s personality than some of the other things, but I’m putting it in here anyway! Camilla seems to be resistant to all sorts of indulgences—probably part of what makes her a badass cavalier—including sexy indulgences. I actually read Pal as ace too (though not aro, he definitely had romantic attraction stuff going on with Dulcie), and I like the two of them as different examples of asexuality. Cam has no time for this bullshit; Pal, like me, finds delight in writing porn.
“‘If someone touches you again, and it’s not me, and it’s not Palamedes, and it’s not Pyrrha,’ Camilla had told her later, ‘move away. Get one of us. You don’t know what they want.’ ‘They wanted to see me naked,’ said Nona. ‘It was a sex thing.’ Camilla had made a sound, and then pretended it was a cough, and drank a whole glass of water. After the glass of water, she said, ‘How did you know?’ ‘That’s just the way people look when they want to see you naked and it’s a sex thing,’ said Nona. ‘I don’t really mind.’ After a moment, Camilla had told her it wasn’t a great idea for Nona to let people she didn’t know see her naked, and not to encourage sex things. She said sex things were right out. ^[oc]^[od]She said there were enough problems in the world. Camilla said twas bad enough that she had used to help Nona in the bath.” (NtN 36) This makes me laugh so hard every time. Cam is trying really hard to be a good caregiver here, and she is not prepared to have this talk with Nona, who is in the body of Harrowhark Nonagesimus, which Camilla has now helped in the bath. Cam, who seems generally to eschew sex things, is just ruling them out, because who has time for this?? I love her so much.
“Nona didn’t understand how the others could walk around and go through their lives only touching each other as much as was necessary. When Nona asked, Camilla said that this was because they needed to get the washing-up done.” (NtN 38) This could be read so many ways, and they all make me laugh. Maybe Cam or Pal in Cam’s body have a thing going on with Pyrrha that would keep them from getting the dishes done, whether that’s a sex thing or a cuddling thing, or maybe this is Cam’s opinion on allos in general and she has too much to do to bother with any of that, and tbh all of those could fit with an aroace reading of Cam. I love that they’re all getting the human contact they need by caring for Nona—they might deny themselves and each other for any number of complicated reasons, but none of them will deny Nona loving touch, so Pyrrha gets to have hugs and Cam gets to hold hands and Pal gets to fuss a little.
“Then Pyrrha, much to Camilla’s disgust, flirted outrageously with the nice lady teacher until the nice lady teacher left. After Pyrrha saw the nice lady teacher out, Camilla, who had been pacing around the kitchen, looked up and said coolly—’What was that?’ ‘Getting us out of hot water, my naive beauty,’ said Pyrrha, collapsing into a chair with an appalling creak. ‘She paid you and junior the complement of thinking you were working girls, and that I was your pimp. God knows I’d have had better luck pimping out Augustine and Alfred.’” (NtN 42-43) Cam is so fed up and I love her with my whole heart, I also love Pyrrha with my whole heart, everything about this exchange is so funny.
‘Demonstrate on me.’ Delighted at the opportunity, Nona immediately sat up—ignoring the brief wave of dizziness—and wound her arms around Camilla. She paused halfway and said, ‘It’s a bit—are you sure?’ and Camilla said, ‘You’ve shown me before. Show me again.’ Nona concentrated on how it felt in the dream, as strange and multibodied as it was: she was good at the hand and the mouth, she was good at this, but she hesitated. She said, ‘ I can’t do it by myself,’ and took Camilla’s arms. She put Camilla’s hand on her hip, put Camilla’s hand on her other hip, splayed her fingers, said, ‘More. No—there,’ as Camilla kept up, then reached out to Camilla—like she was drowning; like she wanted to drown. It was nice to be this close to Camilla. Camilla’s hands on her were a little clinical, a little unsure.” (NtN 133-134) I have always kind of read Cam as aroace, but it comes across so strongly for me in NtN, and this is one of the moments when it does! To Nona, this embrace feels intimate, enough that she wants to give a warning; to Cam, it’s clinical, and she’s careful about it, removed, trying to understand what it means in the context of who Nona might be.
“‘All right, your turn! Tell me what you think is sexy.’ ‘Eating breakfast,’ said Camilla. Nona lifted up her voice in despair. ‘You don’t. It’s not fair. We’re having a heart-to-heart, I’m sharing deep personal thoughts, and you just want me to eat.’ ‘Yes. I’m going to talk to the Warden.’ ‘Well, ask him what he thinks is sexy.’ ‘No. I already know.’ … Camilla took up the clipboard and the pen and wrote, serene and tranquil, underlining something once—twice. ‘Strong work ethic,’ she said eventually. ‘High test scores.’” (NtN 135) I adore that Cam just doesn’t answer for herself, and that her answer for Pal is, I think, accurate for some understanding of sexy and certainly accurate to something he admires in Cam. But compared to Pal’s later answer of “those little outfits nurses wear,” Cam is interpreting sexy in a totally different way. Actually I love that they all interpret sexy a little differently, it’s delightful.
“She was three-quarters unconscious pulling on the shirt she slept in, and stumbled out of the bathroom but didn’t quite get it all the way so that Pyrrha had to say, ‘Tits, Nona, don’t give Camilla a heart attack,’ which jolted her awake enough to lie down on the mattress and rebutton her shirt from the bottom.” (NtN 126) This makes me laugh every time I think about it, I really enjoy this image of Cam as a little bit of a prude, she just wants some distance from everybody’s bathing suit bits please.
“Pause. Clack. ‘I’ve carried you, Warden. And I’ve carried your memory…I’d rather carry you.’ Clack. ‘What about carrying nothing? What about Camilla Hect, the independent entity? Free to live her life outside the shadow of her necromancer? Free from his agenda dictating hers?’ Pause. ‘You thought it was your agenda? Huh.’ Clack. ‘I cannot bear the thought of using you.’ Pause. ‘Love and freedom don’t coexist, Warden.’ Clack. ‘This is all there is to love? Simply by being in your life, I have added indelibly to its weight?’ Pause. ‘Yes.’ Clack. ‘Camilla, I mean it.’ Pause. ‘I meant it too. You used to say it to me.’ ‘We are one flesh.’ Clack. ‘I am your end.’ Pause. ‘That didn’t mean I got squatting rights in your soul. I never would have asked for that. I never had rights to that.’ Clack. ‘Sure. That’s why I gave them to you.’ Clack. Pause. Pause. Pause. ‘I hope you know that I adore you, Scholar.’ Clack. ‘Indubitably, Warden.’” (NtN 230-231)

So I know that folks who read Cam and Pal as romantic and/or sexual partners are maybe looking at this quote under the heading of “Reading Camilla as aroace” and going “WTF?” But the ways they express their love for each other are all a part of an aroace reading, as much as they are a part of any other reading of these two. And I’m never going to argue that this reading is correct and others are incorrect, everyone brings their own experience and understanding to what they consume, but I want to make sure to address the ways in which multiple readings can spring from the same source text, specifically the reading of Cam and Pal as queerplatonic partners. Everything they’re saying to each other here speaks of an obvious and deep love for each other, but none of it is specific in the forms that love takes. They are devoted; they are concerned for each other’s well-being, and survival; they are on the same page about a life shared between them, a life in each other’s company and with the same goals. There’s nothing here to imply that they have a physical relationship, or even a romantic relationship, and by the same token there’s nothing here to imply that they don’t have those things either. What is here, textually, is a conversation that might happen between lovers, or between romantic partners, or between queerplatonic partners, or between devoted friends, especially given how young they both still are and what they’ve been through together. I think that can be hard for allo folks to wrap their heads around, so let me say from experience that this is a seriousness of love and a level of commitment that aroace folks (me, and certainly others, though I would never speak for all) can and do have with the people closest to us.

I guess my tl;dr is…we’re all reading the same book, and Cam and Pal’s relationship is left wide open to many different interpretations, and Cam and Pal QPR continues to be the most compelling interpretation to me.

“Pyrrha tugged her wrist free of Palamedes’s hand. She reached down, and tilted Camilla’s chin up, and looked at her for the longest time. Then she leant down—she kissed her brusquely and briefly on the forehead—and, startlingly and even more briefly, on the mouth. Nona, who even then could never ditch the lessons of the hand and the mouth, watched that kiss and felt very sad. It was like watching Pyrrha stealing something she didn’t want to take—reaching out for the juicy, cherry-red part of the oven, even when she knew that all it could give her was a burn. And Nona saw Camilla, with her cold, navy blue mouth, and could tell that Camilla understood. Camilla said, ‘Could you try not to be such a chicken hawk, Pyrrha?’” (NtN 420) I rattled on about this a lot up above, but putting it here too. I read this as Pyrrha trying to express a complicated mess of desire that is familial and romantic and sexual all mixed up together, something she’s been holding off on fully giving away, but now is her last chance. She’s reaching out for something she wants that can only hurt her—both because Cam and Pal are about to be gone in the way she knows them, and also because this isn’t a set of desires Cam reciprocates—but Cam gets it, and teases her in response, because she loves Pyrrha just as much.
“‘Camilla, we did it right, didn’t we?’ Palamedes said, and now Nona knew he wasn’t speaking to anyone else in the universe. ‘We had something very nearly perfect…the perfect friendship, the perfect love. I cannot imagine reaching the end of this life and having any regrets, so long as I had been allowed to experience being your adept.’ Camilla Hect stared at him stolidly, and then burst into tears. She made very little noise, but the tears were violent anyway; Palamedes took her hands and said in distress, ‘Cam—dear one—don’t.’” (NtN 422) In the end, they are cavalier and adept; that encompasses their bond, and while it holds so many things in it, that’s the aspect of their relationship that rises above all the rest. For these two, that is a perfect friendship and a perfect love.

Narrators

Just want to note, because I think it’s interesting, some trends with the narrators!

Each narrator so far has been on a time limit whether they were aware of it or not! Gideon narrated GtN and died at the end; Harrow partly narrated HtN, very aware the whole time that there was an expectation that she would die when Number Seven reached them; Nona narrated most of NtN and was aware, like Harrow, that she was dying. Will Alecto have a time limit, or will she be able to stay?
Also it’s interesting that Gideon’s narration carries over into HtN in spite of her death in GtN, and Harrow’s narration carries over into the John chapters of NtN even though she is taking herself out of commission at the end of HtN. This makes me feel like we will get some Nona in AtN!
ALSO also, I’m still trying to find the interview where Tamsyn said that Gideon is always first in the order of who gets to tell the story to the extent that she’s available to tell it, but that feels important to put here too. Gideon tells her own story in GtN, tells Harrow’s story and some of her own in HtN, and I think is part of Nona telling the story of NtN. The part of her narrating each story is getting smaller and smaller, but I wonder if some part of her will be telling AtN as well.

Camilla is a pearl

Apologies, this section will be mostly nonsense for folks who are not familiar with Steven Universe, but that was my fandom before this one (and still is my main fandom really), so this section was kind of inevitable. That said, I think Camilla is a pearl! She has some fun parallels with Pearl specifically and pearls generally: right hand person to someone in power, intensely devoted, skilled fighter and fights with two swords, extremely capable but is much more comfortable following than taking the lead. She keeps Pal organized. She grieves him so deeply and keenly that it can be felt whenever she’s present in the story, even though it’s never her POV. She protects Nona from the harshest realities of the situation they’re in, and what got them there. I could, and I might, do another whole section on how Nona as a POV character who understands even less about what’s going on than the reader does and much, much less than the “adults” in her life do is in delightful conversation with Steven Universe.
“Camilla Hect was a closed object, with locks and snaps; she had an expression like the rock before the Tomb, inexorable, giving nothing away. But her eyes—her eyes were dark as the grit mixed with the soil, neither grey nor brown but both. They were the eyes of a winter season without any promise of spring. In comparing the eyes to the face, you saw into a zipped-up agony. And she said, with that same dull, blank, diamond-hard pain: ‘The Cohort took the rest of him away. And I don’t know where they have put him.’” (HtN 306)
“To Nona’s awe, she twitched the blackout curtains aside—stood bathed in the hyper-blue light from the sky as Nona held her breath—and she said to the window, ‘Here’s to Camilla Hect, yet another of devotion’s casualties,’ and knocked back the glass.” (NtN 116)
“‘I don’t let go,’ said Camilla. ‘It’s my one thing.’ Nona was amazed at that—the idea that Camilla, who could do so much and do it so fluently, could sum herself up as having one thing. Amazed too, a little, that anyone might not love the weightlessness when your fingers slipped off the metal and you hung, unsuspended, in midair. Camilla’s hand wound itself around the end of her braid and held it, as though to find some kind of leash or safety rope, as though Nona really might fall.” (NtN 125-126)
“She didn’t ask anything else, except: ‘You heard about the broadcast?’ and Nona said, faintly, ‘Yes,’ ready to tell her about the girl from the dream; but Camilla had immediately changed tack, immediately gone to ask Palamedes what to do.” (NtN 227)
“There was another, less distant smash. Pash tensed up and said, ‘They’re taking the stairs.’ Beside Nona, absurdly, Camilla relaxed. She was crouched behind the desk doing something with the snaps of her baggy canvas trousers, digging her hands into her capacious pockets.” (NtN 263) Two things here—Cam always relaxes when she’s about to fight, because this is the thing she knows how to do best, and she’s the most certain of how to do it. The goal and the procedure are both clear. Also, storage capacity!
“Camilla had tried to say, ‘No pain meds,’ but Palamedes said briskly, ‘Every pain medication you have, please.’ Nona had never seen Camilla so meek or malleable. It was like all the times she had ever seen Camilla happy, all at once.” (NtN 375) What a relief, to have to give over and let Palamedes take charge, and to be able to be present while he does and reap the benefit of the security he brings her.
“‘No,’ said Camilla, after an obvious struggle to master herself. ‘No. I’m crying because…I’m crying because I’m relieved,’ she said, frankly mulishly. ‘I’m relieved…Warden, I’m so relieved.’ ‘Not long now,’ he promised. (NtN 422) God, to know you will never be unsure or afraid or alone again!!

Pyrrha lies

We’re told a number of times in NtN that Pyrrha is good at lying, she’s a fast talker, a gambler, but we don’t see her actually using this skill all that much I don’t think? And I’m interested in when and how she wields this particular weapon, so I’m gonna take note when I notice it happening.
“‘How many people do you leave to burn tonight, Dve?’ ‘You say that because you think it hurts, and because you’re frightened,’ said Pyrrha coolly. ‘The answer, my boy, is multitudes…so long as it doesn’t include you and me and Nona. We’re all three of us in enough trouble as it is. Don’t make me repeat myself.’ ‘Pyrrha, they tape their arms to their sides and they put them in those cages and they douse them in petrol, in gasoline…’ ‘Yes, and then they set them alight, and it’s terrible, and usually somebody shoots them long before the fire takes them. There’s always some softie in the crowd, Sextus, even for zombies.’” (NtN 122) “‘Keep—Camilla—home—tonight,’ said Pyrrha. ‘That is all I am saying. Keep her home. No heroics. I’m not moved by sentiment. Whatever it takes. Don’t feel. Just do.’” (NtN 123) I’ll quote it when I get there, but we find out later that Pyrrha is the softie this time who goes to the park and snipes the victims in the burn cages before they can suffer. Why does she lie in this moment? Why does she pretend that she can turn off any empathy for these people, when it’s clear that she can’t? Does she think she’s telling the truth here, and then later changes her mind? I have no problem believing that after 10,000 years of trauma she has learned how to compartmentalize and prioritize—I just wonder how much of this is an act for Palamedes and Camilla, and why she feels a need to deceive them at all.

“‘I went to the park.’ … Nona kept her voice at its very lowest register. ‘Pyrrha, why did you go?’ Pyrrha did not answer. Nona persisted, ‘Did you save anyone? Because you can tell Camilla and Palamedes if you did that, you know they’d like it.’ ‘No,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Not how they’d understand it.’” (NtN 137) This clarifies the lie a bit for me. In Pyrrha’s opinion (and I think she’s correct), Cam and Pal would want to save the people in the burn cages by keeping them alive; Pyrrha saves them by mercy killing them. Though I’m still interested in why she doesn’t want even that much softness to show. Maybe she wants Cam and Pal to keep thinking of her as the hardass who’s going to argue for the plan that prioritizes the safety of their little family and only that, because that allows Cam and Pal something to push against when they’re pushing for more, for saving everyone, for leaving nobody behind.
“‘Yes. Too quickly,’ said Hot Sauce. ‘Someone high up…took them out before they burned…sniper rifle…stupid, when people think you have to destroy the brain or they don’t go…don’t really die, not even if you burn them.’ … Hot Sauce said quietly, ‘Your people at the park?’ Nona swallowed. ‘One of them, I think.’” (NtN 183-184) Putting this here because it’s the other side of Pyrrha’s deception, and now Nona’s deception. To Hot Sauce, this mercy killing was both pointless and unsatisfying because she assumes it came from someone who worried the fire wouldn’t kill necromancers, and as a consequence they didn’t suffer. She assumes Nona’s person who was at the park was there to see the enemy be put to death. Nona understands all of this context, I think, and deceives by telling the truth without details, maybe the only way she can lie.

Cam and Pash

“A kind of bodyguard stood a little to their left, a long gun slung over their back and a big machete strapped to each thigh. Nona used to think that was cool, but Camilla said it was completely stupid and not cool at all. Palamedes then said Cam was a big hypocrite.” (NtN 148) I love the parallels between Cam and Pash, and I love how much they both resist everything they have in common so vehemently. For valid reasons, sure, but it’s extremely charming. They’re both devoted guardians, talented and efficient fighters, they’ve each got their two big old blades, and they hate each other on principle. I hope Pash and Paul can be friends, later on.
“The Angel said, ‘Oh, God, Pash, was that really necessary?’ Both Cam and Pash said, ‘Yes,’ at the same time, and then looked at each other.” (NtN 268)
“‘We are our swords,’ said Camilla. … ‘Yeah, you’re outdated, just like them,’ said Pash. ‘They’re a weakness. A hand-me-down form of complete fucking insanity.’ Camilla said, ‘You use machetes yourself.’ ‘Wanted to get inside your heads,’ said Pash. Camilla considered her, her clear grey eyes narrowing to slits in the sand and the sunshine. ‘Did you?’ ‘Occasionally literally,’ said Pash. Both of them fell silent. Nona twiddled her thumbs. Pash seemed to be the one pent-up with something she couldn’t quite say, standing there with her arms folded, until she ground out— ‘Die quick, die cold, bring ‘em with you.’ There was a movement on Cam’s mouth a little like her old smile. ‘That one yours?’ ‘No. Came down from someone much bigger than me,’ said Pash shortly. ‘Don’t get me wrong, wizard slave. You die quick—stay dead—and don’t get up again. But if you kill a guy who would’ve killed me, I have to give you that, right? I pulled a trigger next to you, that doesn’t mean nothing. But it doesn’t change who you are.’ Camilla held out her hand. Pash shook her head. ‘I’ll touch you at the end of the world, but not before.’ ‘Might be your last chance,’ said Cam. Pash barked a laugh. ‘In my final minutes, Hect, I won’t regret not shaking your hand.’” (NtN 328-329) This is just SO GOOD. Pash quoting Wake, admitting a little respect but really grudgingly, and Cam just kind of amused and stoic about things like she always is. Does Pash remind her of Gideon at all? Because she reminds me of Gideon here, a lot. Also, will Pash touch Cam at the end of the world! Or Paul, I guess? I’m interested to see if they ever interact again in a way that calls back to this moment.

Pash and Wake (and Pyrrha, and Kiriona)

“‘Pash,’ said Crown darkly, ‘is what happens when nepotism and bullshit collide.’” (NtN 161) which is pretty funny coming from Corona, who is the heir to a hereditary throne and spent her whole life up to this point bullshitting everyone. Anyway, this is the first hint we get about who Pash is.
“‘Everyone’s too busy for bureaucracy,’ said the voice. ‘We play our cards right here, I can get Suffer out clean. Hell—I play this really right, nobody’s going to know a thing until it’s too late.’ ‘Oh, God, you can’t believe that. You’re going to get yourself shot.’ ‘Not with my pedigree.’” (NtN 257) So being Wake’s niece doesn’t just help her rise in the ranks as Crown implies, but to some extent keeps her safe from inter-faction violence as well.
“‘Hang on a mo, I’m just going to deadhead these two.’ The Angel said tightly, ‘Don’t you dare touch them.’ ‘It’s for your safety, ma’am. Don’t watch.’ ‘It’s goddamn superstition.’ ‘Yeah, well, Aunty always told me it was ninety percent superstition and ten percent for the fun of it.’” (NtN 258) Aunty! Aunty Wake. I have so many feelings.
“The moment an unmasked, wild-eyed Pash hopped out of the truck to pull the ramp down for Pyrrha, she had looked at the corpse of Kiriona Gaia and said in the loudest possible voice, ‘Oh, fuck no,’ and gone to sit in the furthest corner of Nona’s truck instead.” (NtN 376) Poor Pash! She can see the resemblance too.
“Meanwhile Pyrrha kept twisting her neck to look at Pash, of all people, scowling maskless in the corner. Nona was desperate for Pyrrha to not do anything stupid, like flirt with her. She really thought Pash would do something awful to her kneecaps if she tried, and if that happened Nona knew she would throw up. It had been a very long day already.” (NtN 377) It’s so funny to me that Nona is worried Pyrrha will flirt, because Pyrrha flirts with so many people.
“‘Classic Blood of Eden move,’ said Pyrrha. ‘Fucking insane, surprisingly effective, relies on a lot of soldiers pissing in a lot of bottles.’ Our Lady of the Passion made a sound that, to Nona, was unmistakably a laugh, and obviously hated herself for this so much that she curled up into her seat and glared all around at everyone.” (NtN 378)
“Pyrrha was unmoved. ‘I like to think I knew her as well as anyone else, Commander…as well as anyone could know her.’ Pash viciously snapped shut the clasps on her trousers and pulled a vest over her head, putting her brightly dyed hair into complete disarray. ‘Say one more word on this fucking subject and I swear to all fuck, I”ll do for you.’ Pyrrha said, ‘Wake had your photo, you know. She kept it on her.’ When Pash’s head whipped around, Nona could see that this had shaken her badly. Her bird’s-beak features had all scrunched together toward the front, as though clustering for safety, and this made her scars zigzag up her forehead and her nose. She said, ‘Oh, shut your mouth,’ but there was a desperate note to it. ‘Knew it the moment I saw you. What were you, nine? Ten?’ We Suffer said, ‘Lyctor…Dve…I ask you to stop, from one alive human to another more or less so,’ but Pash was saying quickly— ‘Let her. She’s bullshitting. Con artist stuff.’ ‘This might be my only chance to say this,’ said Pyrrha comfortably, ‘and I’m seriously nicotine-deprived, which makes me sentimental. You’re the kid in that photo…She kept it folded up in her pliers case. You’re holding an automatic three sizes too big for you, right? One of your front teeth is gone. She holds up that photo to me and she goes, If it wasn’t for filth like you, nice kids like this wouldn’t have to hold these.’ Pash’s throat was working. Pyrrha continued, ‘I mean, I was all, I’d buy this a lot more if you weren’t so obviously proud as hell, and she only laughed in that mean-ass way she always laughed and said, That’s my submachine gun she’s holding.’ Pash closed her eyes. Nona held her breath, but Pash wasn’t mad or upset. She looked as though she were having a religious experience. ‘I remember asking if you really were a nice kid,’ Pyrrha said. ‘She said, No. She’s my flesh and blood. She takes after me. After that…I kept thinking about you for a long time. Sister?’ Pash swallowed once. Twice. Three times. ‘No. My mother was her sister,’ she said gruffly.” (NtN 387-388) PASH!!!!!!!!!!! I feel so many things about this, about Wake and how she clearly loved Pash but was ready to use her own child as a bomb, about Pyrrha and all the love she throws at people who can’t give it back the way she needs, about Pash who’s grieving so deeply.

Nona’s gang

“Nona recalled what Pyrrha had said about Hot Sauce. She looked her over carefully. It wasn’t as easy reading her as it was reading Pyrrha. Hot Sauce constantly stood as though she were disconnected from her own head. Her body and her mind seemed to actively ignore each other. And her burns sometimes made her look rigid in a way that scared the tinies and foxed Nona’s senses.” (NtN 178) TLT has so much to say about trauma, and the different ways it affects people, and this is another beautiful description of the physical effects. Hot Sauce’s scars are a constant reminder and could be a trigger, and her means of coping in the day to day seems to be very tight compartmentalization—she looks like her brain and body are disconnected because to some degree they are, she needs some mental distance, because she hasn’t had the time or help she’d need to process what she’s been through.
“Hot Sauce nodded. Nona guessed again, ‘Born in the Morning.’ ‘You mean Born in the Morning,’ said Hot Sauce. ‘That’s what I said,’ said Nona.” (NtN 184) It’s just so charming to me that Nona hears so many names literally. I’ve seen a bunch of takes and research about what Born and Ruby and Honesty might actually be named, but I almost don’t want to know, I get such a kick out of their literal names! Also, why does she hear Kevin and Joli, her teacher, as non-literal names? I assume even the gang’s parents, like “Sweetie” and “Brother Father” etc, are Nona’s translations, I think Kevin and Joli are the only two names that aren’t House in origin (or BoE, which are literal anyway) that she reproduces just as they are.
“It was incredible the way she moved. The moment she joined that crowd, her shoulders were flung back—she straightened up a whole inch—she swaggered with her hips. She aged fifteen years, no longer a child among that throng of people. Nona dropped her hand and tried to do the same, straightening her back, softening her hips, and Hot Sauce beneath her breath just said—”Keep it up.” (NtN 203) I just have so many feelings about Hot Sauce, and the life she has clearly lived up to this point, and how good she is at surviving that life.
“Hot Sauce looked at Nona. Her pupils had gone small and dark. ‘They’re not people, Nona,’ she said. ‘They’re not people.’ Nona ventured, ‘They seemed strange…’ ‘Because they’re not real,’ said Hot Sauce. Her lips were a little wet. She was terribly afraid all of a sudden, Nona could see, filled with the fear her body spent so much of its time rejecting. Nona thought about her tantrums and, buoyed by the courage that had brought her here, reached out to seize Hot Sauce’s wrist that wasn’t holding the pole. ‘Listen to me,’ she commanded. ‘I’m your Teacher’s Aide. Breathe with me…I’ll squeeze your hand for in and let go for out. In through the nose… Out through the mouth… Not so quickly. Don’t hyperventilate,’ she added, knowing she sounded exactly like Camilla. … Nona realized that although Hot Sauce was still her leader, she had to help Hot Sauce, she had to be the one who was nearly nineteen.” (NtN 211-212) This just makes me weepy.

“She hurled herself and Hot Sauce into the current and dragged her toward where they had come from—changed her mind in a moment of stillness, joined a rivulet heading east, wriggling into their midst and saying loudly, ‘My sister’s going to be sick,’ which got them a tiny opening, enough to move through.” (NTN 212) These are the skills Nona’s six months with a loving and prepared family have taught her—how to get through the crowd, and how to take care of someone who needs her. Also, Nona doesn’t know how to lie—Hot Sauce is her sister, in this moment.

“‘After this,’ Camilla said, ‘probably no more school. Probably no seeing your friends. You know that, right?’ She was glum, but she had been expecting it. ‘I do, I do know that.’ She couldn’t help but say: ‘I’ve loved them though.’” (NtN 234)
“‘What now? How do we stay together?’ ‘We’ll be together when we need each other,’ said Hot Sauce. ‘We have a place to go. There’s stuff there. Bring your families. I’ll look after you. I know how.’ Beautiful Ruby said, ‘Even my mum, boss?’ ‘Even your mum,’ said Hot Sauce, and Beautiful Ruby looked relieved.” (NtN 247) I hope they do all stay together and safe!!!
“Hot Sauce looked at her, but also didn't look at her. Her eyes were strange. She looked at Nona as Nona got out an old wad of tissue paper from her pocket and wiped Hot Sauce’s mouth and nose. ‘It’s me, Hot Sauce. It’s Nona.’ Hot Sauce said clearly— ‘I made it up?’ Nona didn’t know what this meant so she said, ‘Yes, it’s fine, I’m fine,’ so that Hot Sauce said, more strongly and more wonderingly, ‘I made it up.’” (NtN 264) Hot Sauce has been through SO MUCH, and here’s more! She just saw maybe her best friend get shot through the head and her brains go everywhere! She’s in shock, probably dissociating pretty hard, and now here Nona is again, whole and unhurt, so she’s suddenly forced to doubt her own senses.
“She tugged up her shirt so that Nona could see, along with the soft watery ripples of the burns down her belly, what she had tucked into the waistband of her trousers. It was a handgun. Nona said, alarmed, ‘Hot Sauce, don’t carry it like that, Pyrrha says everyone who carries guns in their pants ends up shooting off their balls, and it sounds incredibly rude but I believe her.’ Hot Sauce’s face wavered and softened. ‘You’re sweet,’ she said.” (NtN 264) Just, everything about this exchange is precious. Also, unbelievable that in a series so loaded with foreshadowing, there is also this Chekhov’s literal gun.

“She broke away from Cam to take a step toward her, and then—Hot Sauce took a step back. Nona felt wild and sparkling, electrocuted with despair. She said, and found her voice quite tight and funny, ‘Hot Sauce?’ ‘I saw you die,’ said Hot Sauce. ‘But I’m not—you see I’m not.’ … Before she could get any more shocked though, Hot Sauce raised her other hand, and the gun with it. She pressed the muzzle up against one of Nona’s temples. Nona dragged her eyes up to Hot Sauce’s face, stunned. ‘You’re out of the gang,’ said Hot Sauce, and squeezed the trigger.’” (NtN 269) This is just so devastating, Nona really tries to comfort Hot Sauce with proof of her aliveness, and in the course of that admits that she was in fact shot in a way that would kill anyone else. It’s the worst possible angle she could take, but she doesn’t know that, because she trusts that Hot Sauce loves her and wants her to be alive.

“It wasn’t Honesty. It was Hot Sauce. Honesty was right there behind her shoulder, saying mulishly, ‘I don’t care—I don’t care. She’s always gonna be my friend, boss. I won’t ditch a girl like that, a girl who thinks of my business like that. I’d go into business with a girl like that, boss, okay?’ but Nona had no eyes for him. Nona stood on the threadbare, filthy carpet and looked at Hot Sauce, and Hot Sauce looked at her; her heart trembled in her throat.” (NtN 383)
“Nona looked at Hot Sauce. She was terribly afraid she was about to cry, but then she burst out— ‘Hot Sauce, why are you called Hot Sauce?’ Hot Sauce blinked at her. ‘You really want to know?’ she said. ‘Yes,’ said Nona. ‘Yes, yes. Terribly, yes.’ Hot Sauce looked up at the chipped ceiling of Honesty’s apartment, then down at the carpet, and then at Nona. ‘Because I really like it,’ she admitted. ‘What?’ ‘You can put it on anything,’ said Hot Sauce. ‘Spicy food’s always better. You can put it on rice but you can also put it on bread.’ Nona reached out. She wrapped her arms around Hot Sauce. She whispered, ‘Hot Sauce, forgive me—forgive me so I can know what it feels like.’ Hot Sauce was still as a statue in Nona’s arms. Then she gently perambulated Nona toward the door—bumped her gently over the threshold—looked her dead in the face. ‘We’re cool,’ she said, and, awkwardly: ‘I’ll always love you, Nona.’” (NtN 385) The request for forgiveness really puts me in mind of the pool scene here! Nona, like Harrow, feels guilt for who and what she is even though it’s not her fault; Hot Sauce, like Gideon, has been hurt in the past but now finds it in herself to forgive, through love.

Cam, Pal, Paul, and Ianthe

“‘How’s it hanging, Hect? How’s tricks? Getting used to life without your necromancer? Going to parties, self-actualising, reshaping your identity? I don’t suppose you had much scope for it before.’ Crown said a little warningly, ‘Ianthe, don’t push it,’ but Camilla said— ‘I don’t care.’ ‘I love it when people don’t care,’ said Prince Ianthe warmly. ‘’Don’t care was made to care; don’t care was hung.’ Really, why should you care? Who cares what I think? I’m only a Lyctor, a sacred fist and gesture holding the power of life and death, having ascended to the state your pompous moralising blowhard of a necromancer disdained…’” (NtN 333) I’m really interested in Ianthe’s view of things here. Does her impression of Cam as something of a blank slate whose entire personality was based around Palamedes relate to her understanding of her own cavalier? Or of Corona? Or both? Has she wondered what Babs might be doing now if she had died in the chaos of Canaan House instead of killing him to ascend? She’s certainly feeling superior about her success, which is going to make it worse for her later when she loses this match, loses the mental fight with Pal, and sees Pal and Cam succeed in perfect Lyctorhood. Also, I had to look it up because I’d not heard it before, but “Don’t care was made to care; don’t care was hung” is from a nursery rhyme! Something that has survived in House culture all this time? Or something she has picked up from John?
“‘Head off, or arms and legs off and head off later? I don’t mean to sway you, but I’ve done arm off and it ruined my day.’ Camilla thought about it again. She thought about it for so long that Nona assumed, for a moment, that she was really considering these options. ‘You challenged the Sixth for its keys,’ she said eventually. ‘You named the time. You backed down, but I had right of reply. We didn’t consent. Or reject. I accept the challenge of the Third.’ Prince Ianthe Naberius looked at her. The expression was—strange. ‘That was a lifetime ago,’ she said. ‘Over a year.’ ‘The challenge is valid.’ ‘The prize isn’t, not anymore. What are the stakes?’ ‘If I lose, I die,’ said Camilla. ‘If I win, I walk away.’ ‘What—you and Harrow? I’ll never accept.’ ‘Not Harrow. Only me,’ said Camilla. The Prince sounded quite interested and reasonable. ‘You can’t kill me in this body, Hect, or even disable me. And you wouldn’t just be fighting my cavalier…you’d be fighting me and Babs. And you’ve got to know that between Naberius and me, there are no more weaknesses. I took those away…and now he is perfect. You’ve no way of winning.’ ‘No,’ said Camilla. And— ‘I want to die on my feet.’” (NtN 341-342) This exchange is so wild to me! It has moments that feel so very relatable, like how “over a year” was “a lifetime ago,” what a 20something feeling that is. Also just the fact that this is calling back to one of the top thrilling moments of GtN, seeing Cam fight and then “Death first to vultures and scavengers,” just makes me want to scream with how many feelings I have about it!! Also I’m interested in this angle Cam’s taking where she’s trying not to tip her hand that the Sixth can, actually, win this duel, but also trying to make it interesting enough to Ianthe that she’ll accept. And it doesn’t work!! Cam wanting to die on her feet is not a tempting enough reason to Ianthe! It makes me wonder what Cam could have said that would have actually gotten her to agree, without Corona interfering, if anything could.
“‘You really don’t know when to throw those things, do you,’ said the Prince a little sadly. Camilla said, ‘Match to the Sixth.’ Ianthe said, ‘What/’ and then her eyes rolled backward in her head and she fell.” (NtN 349) JUST SO DAMN GOOD!!! If Ianthe and Paul have a confrontation in AtN, she won’t underestimate them again.
“The new person suddenly whirled around in one movement They dashed toward the abandoned body of Ianthe Naberius—an abandoned body that was now propped up on its elbows, staring out with pale, distrustful eyes, an expression on its face of commingled hate and despair. ‘So there was another way, Sextus, after all,’ the body murmured. The figure crouched down and extended their arm. ‘I know how hard it is for you to kick against the goad,’ said the new person. ‘But there are more worlds than this. Come with us. We are the love perfected by death—but even death will be no more; death can also die. There’s still time, Ianthe. Time for you, and for Naberius Tern.’ The abandoned body stared at what had once been Camilla’s hand, at once had once been Camilla’s face, then at the hand again. After which it said brightly— ‘I bet you say that to all the boys.’ The body collapsed and was empty; staring up at the top of the tunnel, its eyes strangely white and silent.” (NtN 424) What went on, when Pal and Ianthe were fighting inside Babs’ head? Does Ianthe regret? (I think so.) I wonder if she will eventually change sides, or if her long term plans don’t allow for that.
“‘Don’t move please—Sextus—Hect—Hectus,’ they suggested silkily. Paul had moved to support the horrifying old man; the yellow stuff was creeping up above both of their ankles, holding them fast. ‘I don’t know what you are yet, but you know what I am, so…stay put, Sext.’” ‘It’s Paul,’ said Paul. ‘I respect that, but can’t admire it,’ said the new person, taking a long drag.” (NtN 464)

Cam, Pal, Paul, and Kiriona

“Prince Kiriona Gaia smiled. It was not a very friendly smile: it went slowly up her face, and there was something a little bit hungry about it. ‘Oh, Sex Pal,’ she said. ‘Do you—do you want to fight me?’ ‘No,’ said Palamedes, at the same time moving one hand up and to the side to stop Camilla, who had taken a first step forward. ‘I very much don’t. I’ve already fought one of the so-called Tower Princes today. Besides that, I consider you a friend of mine.’ This filled Nona with a vague outrage: she could not believe that someone as kind as Palamedes could be friends with someone as awful as Kiriona Gaia. ‘But I’m struggling to understand why you’re here…what you’re doing…what you want out of this. What do you want, Gideon?’” (NtN 371-372) After so much searching and struggle and effort, here at last is one of the people Pal has been trying to hard to find and save if he can, and she’s so wounded that her sharp edges are cutting everyone around her. I love that Cam is ready to throw down, because that’s how Cam relates, and that Pal is, despite everything, willing to trust Kiriona. He can see Gideon in her, his friend, and he’s going to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“When We Suffer had declared that the body had to be kept apart, Camilla said instantly, ‘I'll ride with it.’ Pyrrha said, ‘No, I will,’ but Cam said, ‘No. You stay with Nona.’ Nona thought this was a bit cruel. ‘Don’t you want to stay with Palamedes?’ Camilla and Palamedes—Palamedes in the handsome, nice-haired body that smiled in a much nicer way than it had ever smiled for Ianthe Naberius—looked at each other. They had not moved much more than an arm’s length apart since Palamedes had fought for rights to the body and won. Amazingly and fearfully, Cam looked at Nona and winked. ‘We need some space,’ she said. ‘I’m getting sick of him.’ ‘Not surprised,’ said Palamedes. And they parted with nothing more than Cam leaning forward to touch his forehead to hers again, very briefly. So the Prince and Camilla got their own truck.” (NtN 376) Again, trust! Pal and Cam are both trusting that Cam will be safe with Gideon, in spite of the multiple times in the previous chapter that a fight between them seemed like a possibility. But also I’m desperate to know why Cam wants to be in the truck with her! What do they talk about??? What does Cam want to say to her, or get from her, or establish with her? Is it suspicion or affection or both that prompt Cam to volunteer so quickly? We don’t hear from either of them again for a few chapters, at which point Kiriona seems a little less mean and a little more just tired and sad.

John’s indigeneity

I’m dipping back into this document at a moment when I’m seeing a lot of discourse on my Tumblr dash that seems to have somehow boiled down to “John is a misogynist” vs “John is an indigenous man,” and I don’t quite get where that dichotomy comes from, but it’s made me want to make sure that in my thinking and in my notes I’m holding space for both John’s identity and his actions simultaneously. So this is gonna be rambling! Also, you know, all this with so many grains of salt, because I’m white, and Tamsyn Muir is pāhekā, and I have a full time job so my rate of learning/reading on Māori culture and consuming Māori literature and art is v slow.
I feel like it’s really essential to John’s character to understand his progression and his relationship to the systems that shaped him and that he then recreates. John is Māori, and as I understand it, Māori identity is very tied to and protective of the environment. We can see this in the stories he tells about himself, his early efforts to evacuate humanity from the Earth so that the planet would stop hurting, could have time to recover, a measure to save both the people and the environment. He starts from a genuinely good place, in that way. But, because he has no other option, he’s working inside the system of colonization, of imperialism, and of capitalism. Also inside the system of conversion; Catholic and other Christian missionaries began converting Māori people in the early 1800s, and Christianity is still a large influence in Māori culture today. It’s ultimately these systems, all at work together in the near future world of TLT pre-Resurrection, that I think lead to John’s inclusive solution being shut down and a capitalist, “wealthy men head for the exit” plan replacing it. These systems that oppress indigenous people, that oppress Māori, that oppress John, specifically. It’s bad for everyone that only the trillionaires and their staff get to escape the failing Earth, but it’s especially painful to those people most downtrodden under the heel of all this shitty, racist politics and economics.
THIS IS WHY what he does next is so poignant and awful and interesting! His rage is earned—but in acting on it, he destroys what he was trying to save. Destroys so much more than he was trying to save. He’s given power, and he’s put under duress, and he absolutely fucks it up by losing sight of where he started—nobody left behind—and focusing entirely on his perception of who has wronged him, and who has wronged the Earth. (This is one of the most poignant ways in which Gideon differs from both of her parents—her capacity to forgive.) And finding himself in the rubble of his literally catastrophic mistake, John tries to start over and do it better. He says that he chooses to resurrect only those he thinks of as innocent of everything he’s blaming the trillionaires for; I think it’s entirely possible that he only resurrects the population of Aotearoa, and its specific racial diversity. I think it’s clear that he starts out with the hope of teaching, and learning, how to live again in a way that doesn’t repeat the problems of the past, and he does make some improvements imo—but because he’s lived his whole life in, and been educated within the systems that oppressed him, he can’t help but recreate them with himself at the top. He actually isn’t able to imagine what a society outside of imperialism is like, and that both is and isn’t his “fault.” Maybe it feels like a good reversal to him, to give himself the most power, but the structure of his power is the same as it was when he was powerless. The message here is about the insidiousness of power, of empire; John’s indigeneity is part of that message, to me. His misogyny, the way he treats Alecto, the way he treats Harrow, the way he treats Gideon/Kiriona, and Ianthe, and Mercymorn…all the nuances of his behavior that shape him as a sympathetic antagonist are part of that message. He’s not a villain because he’s brown; a majority of the people in TLT are brown. He’s not even entirely a villain. He’s an individual character whose minority identity informs the ways he handles power.

Other fun foreshadowing:

“‘Say my shuttle exploded, I died, and it was such a shame. Give me a break, Crux, I’m begging you here—I’ll trade you a skin mag.’” (GtN 18) I think it’s more likely that Crux was in on Harrow’s plan to keep Gideon around as her new cavalier and non-lethally get Ortus out of the way, but it’s funny to me to imagine that Gideon gave Crux the idea right in this moment to put a bomb in that shuttle.
“‘You threaten my House, you disrespect my retainers, you lie and cheat and sneak and steal—you know full well what you’ve done, and you know that you are a disgusting little cuckoo!’ ‘I hate it when you act like a butt-touched nun,’ said Gideon, who was only honestly sorry for one of the things in that lineup.” (GtN 29) I feel like “sneak” specifically is the operative item in the list, as well as obv “what you’ve done.”
“‘Do you want,’ Gideon whispered huskily, ‘my hanky.’ ‘I want to watch you die.’ ‘Maybe, Nonagesimus,’ she said with deep satisfaction, ‘maybe. But you sure as hell won’t do it here.’” (GtN 65)
“Harrow shook her head back into her hood and pinched the bridge of her nose, and said in tones between pleasure and pain: ‘This planet’s unbelievable.’ ‘It’s gorgeous.’ ‘It’s a grave,’ said Harrowhark.” (GtN 68)

YEAH WOW, it’s a GRAVE. Not only did John kill everyone on the planet before bringing them back, but Canaan House specifically is full of deaths, both before the Resurrection and after.

“‘We ask,’ began Teacher, ‘that you never open a locked door unless you have permission.’” (GtN 84) I think it’s interesting that “doing tests and winning keys” is framed as “permission,” given that we now know the tests were set up by the Lyctors and the key rooms are their personal spaces.
“‘I can’t be bribed with goods and services,’ said Palamedes, ‘but I can’t be bribed with moral platitudes, either. My conscience doesn’t permit me to help anyone to do what we have all embarked upon.’ ‘You don’t understand—’ Palamedes said savagely, ‘Captain, God help you when you understand. My only consolation is that you won’t be able to put any responsibility on my head.’” (GtN 241) Pal probably could have done what Ianthe did, he’s obviously putting all the pieces together here, but he has a moral compass where Ianthe doesn’t.
“Captain Deuteros cleared her throat over the fresh internecine squabbling. ‘Does anyone else want to take this opportunity to admit that they’re already dead, or a flesh construct, ,or other relevant object? Anyone?’ … Gideon looked away, blushing with a shame she didn’t interrogate, and found Teacher in the doorway with his hands folded before his gaudy rainbow sash. Nobody had heard him enter. ‘Maybe later, Lady Judith,’ he said.” (GtN 342-343)
“It spun over to the wall where Palamedes had been, and clattered there miserably, far out of reach.” (GtN 388) This is when Pal disappears from the fight with Ianthe to make his preparations and confront Cytherea, and it’s such a throwaway—in the chaos I lost track of him, same as Cam did.
“‘A Lyctor’s body, empty, with its battery intact but nobody in the driver’s seat? Do you know what could take up residence? Anything could get inside you—any horrible or evil or lonely thing, any miserable revenant, or worse—and you, Ninth House child, are not remotely qualified to fight an outside predator.’” (HtN 98) Not only is Harrow bringing along multiple souls not her own—Wake, Alecto, Gideon—but all the soul switcherooing to come is also nicely foreshadowed here.
“‘You need a blade, and someone with the will to wield it,’ he hissed. ‘How strange! I have never needed such a person in the past.’ ‘I would that you had chosen differently.’ Harrowhark was unsettled now, and she had been at peace, so she was cruel: ‘The choice is beyond me now, Nigenad—unless you can conjure me the spirit of Matthias Nonius, in which case I’ll take on his services if he promises not to speechify.’” (HtN 113)
“‘John, I am your servant. Tell me to stay and die, and I’ll stay.’” (HtN 126) I wish I understood Gideon well enough to feel sad that he does in fact stay and die. I hope we get more about him eventually, so I can make sense of him. I wonder if he and Mercy and Augustine have died for John before.

This is also A LOT to contend with emotionally now. G1deon’s first death was as John’s dead man’s switch for a nuke. Mercy and Augustine and the others did in fact all die for John once already. Fucking hell.

“You felt your own breath wet on your face in your crinkly hazard suit; worn to keep the dust off; needless, at least for the moment. You judged the angle. You hesitated. Your unwilling tutor mistook your hesitation for anticipation, sitting opposite you in her own rustling orange suit, the triple light of a three-star sunset dyeing her face orange through the soft plex stuff of the hood.” (HtN 139) This is a fun little clue! Associating the orange suit, which we will see on the Sleeper soon after this, with the kind of protection one needs on living planets outside the Dominicus system.
“‘It’s not my primary wheelhouse,’ Augustine explained. ‘But since our last expert vanished into a large intestine, unravelled by a troop of ghosts, I’m the last spirit adept standing.’ ‘He’s being modest,’ said God. ‘The barriers between us and the River are Augustine’s. He could plunge half a city into it, if he wanted.’ ‘What a gorgeously futile idea,’ said Augustine warmly. ‘I should chuck things in there more often. There’s no way that could come back to haunt me.’” (HtN 171)
“At their approach, Dyas drew herself up to her full height, and she looked at Harrowhark, not at Abigail. She said, with uncharacteristic frenzy: ‘Why am I here?’ Pent said, ‘Just to answer questions, Lieutenant Dyas.’ The lieutenant said, ‘I want to know—I just want to know—’” (HtN 182) I like all the moments when the ghosts in the River start to realize what’s happening, but this one hits me the hardest. Poor Marta!!
“Harrowhark suddenly felt something, in her core, though she did not know precisely what it was. Somehow in Canaan House her ability to feel had been blunted, leaving only a sense of dislocated longing, a bizarre yearning as though flipping through the pages of a book for a proverb she remembered but could not find.” (HtN 204) I love this description—somewhere in her mind, she knows this isn’t real, and also she’s only here in spirit while her body is unconscious, so there’s a dreamlike quality to everything.
“The total absence of shame made you suspect that this had happened between them before, a thought that made you want to give yourself a lobotomy.” (HtN 297) Telling us about dios apate major AND what Harrow’s done to herself in one fell swoop, what a great sentence.
“You said, and your voice sounded strange to yourself, as though you had heard the word only in dreams and never articulated by waking tongues: ‘The Sleeper.’” (HtN 313) This is, in fact, the first time she says it when she’s really awake and aware, even though she’s still just in the River and not in her body.
“Her cavalier and the historian did not warm her as they stood beside her: it was as though she were alone in the room. She was startled when the latter touched her: laid her hand on her shoulder as though she were no older than one of the vanished Fourth House duo, a gawky little girl in the face of death. ‘Well, bugger teacher,’ said Abigail Pent crossly.” (HtN 330) Obviously they don’t warm her because they’re ghosts, but also I love this peek at Abigail’s maternal impulse rising up quite powerfully.
“I’d never wanted to meet God. Nobody ever met the Emperor in any of the comic books. God only ever appeared as a letter to somebody getting written out of the story, because they had to go serve the Prince Undying. I was irrationally convinced that the act of seeing God—that was the end of the story. Space was being cleared for a new character.” (HtN 464) Space is being cleared for Nona!

Space is being cleared for PRINCE KIRIONA GAIA, serving the Prince Undying.

“It’s always necromancers who get all startled about dying. You’d think that they of anyone would have half a brain about their own mortality…” (SEX) I don’t know if I can really call this foreshadowing, chronologically, but it’s delightful to imagine little Palamedes taking Juno’s comment about necromancers being surprised by their deaths extremely to heart and starting to prepare for his own death immediately.
“Pyrrha, now masked, paused before the door with her wiry knuckles: ‘Roll call. What’s this week’s all scatter word?’ ‘Lowdown,’ said Camilla. ‘And the all clear?’ ‘Deadweight,’ said Nona.” (NtN 32)

“Pyrrha also gave them special emergency code words for someone following (‘red ribbon’) and someone listening (‘fritters’). They even had a code word for important resource, come help me get it (‘fishhook’), but Palamedes said Pyrrha needed to stop treating cigarettes and liquor as important resources, so they hadn’t used that one in ages.” (NtN 36)
“‘You might be the Saint of Duty, but I’ve been on call as Teacher’s whipping girl for the last six months, so fuck to you,’ the other voice said. ‘I can say what I like about him. Anyway, what do you think? Do we take in the gate-crasher, or what?’ ‘Kill her,’ said the voice. ‘Deadweight.’ … The new voice said impatiently, ‘Get the fishhook out of the fish. Second earring. Right ear.’” (NtN 303-304)

“‘Hot Sauce is a girl with a future, so long as she gets a new name.’ ‘Honesty says there’s a really special and wonderful reason behind her name and I should ask her sometime,’ said Nona, trying to select the smallest possible bowl to have mush spooned into^[oe]^[of].” (NtN 82) I feel like all the build-up around why Hot Sauce is called Hot Sauce, and then finding out that it’s just because she likes it and you can put it on anything, is a little bit Tamsyn teasing readers for deep diving the way I am doing on every single detail as though every detail has significance. But listen, so many of the details do have fucking significance!!!!! But I take this teasing fondly.
“This time it was Hot Sauce’s turn to not understand. ‘It’s okay. First necromancer who gets in range, I shoot,’ she said.” (NtN 185)
“It even scared A—. He was all, Matter doesn’t play by these rules! YOu’re doing bone parthenogenesis! I told him his mum did bone parthenogenesis. A— told me he’d kill me one day.” (NtN 319) He certainly did try hard to kill John…maybe he’ll get another shot. Also, it’s so clear here where Gideon Nav got her sense of humor from.
Ok, this isn’t actually foreshadowing so much as just…fun connectivity? But I wasn’t sure where else to put it. The opening scene of TUG says that we’re at a funeral, but more accurately we seem to be seeing a wake. We’ve got an open casket, we’ve got a line of mourners, we’ve got the delightful addition of this very Third House flesh consumption, and we’ve got some bloody kisses for the body which turns out to be Ianthe. This feels, like most of TLT, very Catholic and familiar to me. I think it’s neat that the word “wake” doesn’t come up in this text, but that’s where we open in a story about a revenant invading a body attempting to take it over, which Wake herself does multiple times. Also neat that in some traditions the purpose of a wake is to sit with the body to protect it from evil and to give the soul time to transition to the afterlife, and at this particular wake we’ve got two souls who don’t belong there fighting for control of it, and also fighting about whether the soul that does belong there has moved on or been consumed or is in fact still present. Delish!

Visuals:

“Gideon peered down at the bottom where shadows gathered over the cold white doors of Castle Drearburh, stately in the dirt, set into the rock three bodies wide and six bodies tall. Two braziers stood on either side of the door and perpetually burned fatty, crappy smoke. Over the doors were tiny white figures in a multitude of poses, hundreds to thousands of them, carved using some weird trick where their eyes seemed to look right at you.” (GtN 17) Rodin’s Gates of Hell; Notre Dame’s west facade portals; Petra
“Rearing up before them was a palace, a fortress, of white and shining stone. It spread out on the surface of the water like an island. You couldn’t see over it and you could hardly see around it. It lapped back in terraces of what must have once been fabulous gardens. It rose up in gracious towers that hurt the eye with their slenderness and precision. It was a monument to wealth and beauty. Back in its day, at least, it would have been a monument to wealth and beauty. In the present it was a castle that had been killed. Many of its white and shining towers had crumbled and fallen down in miserable chunks.” (GtN 70) I picture Camelot, in general as a big white castle but also specifically Château de Pierrefonds which played Camelot in Merlin. I also picture King Haggard’s castle, slowly crumbling into the sea (The Last Unicorn), and the top of the Ivory Tower (The Neverending Story) for the shuttle bay area. Update: Also this illustration of Jerusalem, which makes lovely thematic sense, as a holy site in Abrahamic religions. This makes me wonder, can the religion of the Nine Houses be called Abrahamic? Since in-universe John is clearly heavily influenced by pre-Resurrection Christianity? Interesting…
“The white-garbed skeletons circulated trays filled with astringent tea, steaming green—funny little cups with no handles, hot and smooth to the touch, like stone but smoother and thinner.” (GtN 80) I just love how the detail of these tea cups and the green tea makes me feel like this is an episode of an anime. I immediately pictured a stem standing up in Gideon’s tea, and the absence of a lucky stem in the text feels like a fun little bad omen.
“In the aperture before the tiled room, a cloaked figure stood: skull-painted, a veil pushed down to the neck, a hood obscuring the face. Gideon stood in the center of the training room, and for a second that emasculated minutes, she and Harrowhark looked at each other.” (GtN 122) I’m so interested in Harrow’s whole thing. The hood is clearly very deep, if it can obscure her face, and the veil down around her neck implies that it comes up from there when she’s wearing it, rather than over her head wedding-style. It puts me in mind of the face veil of a niqab or a burqa.

“They made it to the dismal hole with the access hatch without incident, though it was dark enough there that Gideon had to pocket her glasses and Harrow had to tug down her veil.” (GtN 154)
“The first time this had happened, in your hot upset and shame, you ripped a sheet to shreds and covered your head with that. This still left most of your forehead nude, discounting the hair. … Sometimes you were humbly prevailed upon to sit up and part your ad-hoc veil to struggle through a bowl of clear soup, though those memories were doubtful fragments.” (HtN 28-29) More description that makes me think it’s like a niqab, except instead of only showing the eyes, it covers the eyes but leaves some of the forehead open, which would be covered by the hood if Harrow had her usual robes.
“You unpinned your cloth mask so that you could look with your whole face, only a little ashamed to show it so nakedly to the Emperor.” (HtN 36) “Unpinned” again suggests something like a niqab! I think I have formed a solid image for myself of what Harrow’s usual veil and hood combo looks like and how it works.

“Light wells above made the panelling white; lights from below—little blinking lights attached to huge machines that went down metres beneath the grille, a huge deep way beneath their feet—made the floors softly green. The walls were unadorned, except for an enormous old whiteboard rimmed in metal, printed with lines for a timetable that had not been used in a very, very, very long time.” (GtN 138) All the descriptions of the facility hallways make me think of both the hand ship in Steven Universe and The Initiative from Buffy.
“Silas knelt by the puddle, and—silver chain starting to warp and buckle on his perfect white tunic—thrust his hand into it. Colum made a noise as though he had been punched in the gut. A bloodied hand emerged from the puddle, seized Silas by the shoulder, and jerked him in. The ceiling broke apart like a thundercloud, and a torrent of bloody, fatty rain sluiced down on them all. Gideon and Harrow gagged and pulled their hoods down over their heads. Two figures tumble from above, filthy with blood and lymph.” (GtN 390) This is so Poltergeist to me!! The passage through some other space, the bloody fatty lymphy gross shit…all they need is a rope lmao.
“You focused on the lovely silver-and-black chasing on the metal boards, the inlaid panels of rainbow colour, the skull above the door that some artistic adept had fashioned into the skull of the First; someone’s bones beautifully moulded into that central sign with the eight answering Houses around it. The skull of your House looked plain and silent next to the others.” (HtN 35) The chapter headers, in-universe!
“Your new homestead was perched in the middle of an asteroid field, made up of concentric rings, like a jeweller’s toy. It consisted of habitation quarters—a doughnut ring of them on the outer edge—an inner ring of preparation rooms, a couple of laboratories, a reading room that was bigger than Drearburh, and a storage lazaret where the foodstuffs were held frozen in time, unperishable. … The chapel, and God’s rooms, were at the centre.” (HtN 152) All I can picture is Deep Space Nine! Habitat ring, Promenade, and Ops. Garak would fit right in here. Except given that it’s also mostly empty except for a ton of skeletons and other remains, maybe it’s more like Terok Nor.
“There were nine decorative arches on the east-most side of the room. You had by now investigated each arch carefully. The brown floor tiles were inlaid halfway up the walls in these arches, and then became glass of every different colour, and in the centre of each poly-chromatic sweep was a sword-bracket. Some of the brackets were empty, and some held rapiers. One in particular always drew you back to it: a black rapier with a basket hilt formed of ebon wires. At the termination of each wire was a single canine tooth, and the end—pommel!--was a soft, worn knob of black-dyed bone.” (HtN 163) Resting places for all the Lyctors, even though all the ones who we’ve been told are dead (other than Cytherea) left no body behind to entomb. Also, the black rapier must be Samael’s! Why is it here and not on the Ninth with Anastasia?

Not that she couldn’t be drawn to it just because it’s clearly an artifact of her House, but…Harrow-as-Anastasia again!

“Cytherea looked at you, turned toward you, and began to walk. That walk! That shuffling, disconcerting, slithering walk! The body flung its arms before it for momentum, the legs stiff-thighed and lock-kneed, right-side arm moving in time with right-side leg, ridiculous, appalling.” (HtN 208) I’m not even going to put the whole description here, this is the most horrifying visual in either book so far for me, fucking terrifying!!!!!
“Gideon unsheathed and examined the sword. Long, black pieces of crooked metal formed a decaying basket hilt. A terrifically worn black pommel seal depicted the Tomb wrapped in chains, the sign of the Ninth.” (GtN 50) Aha! We get to see this image in NtN, as the image for some of the chapter headers!
Maybe this should go in the next section with the other Christian and Catholic stuff, but it’s mostly just a visual association to me so I’m putting it here. Kiriona’s chest wound and her missing heart make me think of The Sacred Heart of Jesus imagery. Both hearts are kind of visually out of their bodies, but Kiriona’s is missing and this reveals a gory hole. It’s interesting and feels connected to me! Also according to Wikipedia, reverence to the Sacred Heart developed out of reverence for the Holy Wounds in general, which brings me back to considering Kiriona’s holy wounds. Wikipedia also provided me this gem of knowledge about a Belgian mystic whose experience is another early precursor to Sacred Heart worship: “Christ granted her request and Lutgarde's mind was flooded with the riches of psalms, antiphons, readings, and responsories. However, a painful emptiness persisted. She returned to Christ, asking to return his gift, and wondering if she might, just possibly, exchange it for another. ‘And for what would you exchange it?’ Christ asked. ‘Lord,’ said Lutgarde, ‘I would exchange it for your Heart.’ Christ then reached into Lutgarde and, removing her heart, replaced it with his own, at the same time hiding her heart within his breast.” YEAH, I’ve been quietly hoping that maybe in Alecto the Ninth we’ll see Harrow repairing Gideon’s destroyed heart, and this exchange makes that idea feel both possible and good to me.

Also, I’ve been wondering, is this doodle a Sacred Heart?? Or something else obvious that I am not thinking of? “The moment the image came into view Camilla’s fingers had stilled on the pen. She clicked it so that the nib appeared, and then idly doodled on the paper, except that Camilla was never idle and was physically incapable of doing anything that sounded like doodle. … Nona snuck a look at what she had been drawing; it looked like nothing more than three squiggles and a tiny heart.” (NtN 152) I think I need to dig into this more when I’m rereading. Is this doodle a message to Pal? Is this actually Pal, doodling a message to Camilla? What does it mean, either way?

“‘Can I get braids?’ ‘Whatever the lady wishes.’ ‘Can I get one big braid and two little braids coming off it at the sides?’ ‘Sure, if we’ve got time.’ ‘They don’t come loose and the plain plaits do.’ Nona added in the spirit of truth: ‘And I can’t help chewing the ends with plaits. I want to steer clear of Temptation.’ … He put one mug where Pyrrha could reach it—she was currently leaning over to the counter for a hairpin—and kept one for himself. … Nona felt the pin securing the last little braid to her head, and then the braid being patted flat with one weathered hand.” (NtN 24-26) I know on the cover Nona’s got beautiful long braids hanging loose down her back and over her shoulder, but when I first read this description of her hair getting done (and I LOVE that Pyrrha is the one who does her hair) I pictured something like this. One big French braid close to the head with two small ones that help secure it all into a bun. I have fine hair, and it used to be as long as Nona’s, and it’s a pain in the ass to have it flopping around all the time, and regular braids do tend to come loose and get fuzzy and wonky over the course of a day. A braided bun is nice and neat and pinned and sturdy! Then started wondering—if Pyrrha and G1deon were both Tongan (which was implied in some details about G1deon, and has perhaps persisted genetically on the Second given Tamsyn’s descriptions of Judith and Marta), then maybe Pyrrha learned how to braid on Afro-textured hair! Maybe Nona’s got three big cornrow braids with a low bun, I love that look for her.
Just a little thing, but I could never quite figure out why the fandom consensus on the Body’s appearance was dark-haired pre-NtN, I wasn’t picturing Barbie but I was picturing light brown hair. I found the bit of description that made me picture her that way! “He would not perceive that long hair hanging wetly over her shoulders, that resinous colour that in death might have been brown or might have been gold or might have been anything.” (HtN 44)
Tumblr user gloriadenton put together this great post about Mercymorn and Augustine, including the descriptions of them in their fancy dinner outfits, and comparing that to the Leyendecker painting Couple Descending a Staircase. This is such a great pull, that is vaguely what I was picturing too but I couldn’t place it!

Christian and Catholic references and themes:

GtN opens with the Temptation of Christ. Gideon, after 18 years in the House of the Ninth (Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights - Lent), is tempted from her escape plan three times. In the Bible, “Satan encouraged Jesus to deviate from the plan of his father by misusing his authority and privileges.” (Wikipedia) Gideon’s three temptations are set up to emphasize her powerlessness here; she doesn’t know who she is, she has very few resources at her command, and her only goal is to escape. Any plans made for her by the Lyctors or her mother are as yet unknown to her and mostly unknown to us.

Crux - Tries to scare her into staying with threats and verbal abuse, focused on how she is chattel, and her basic needs are a debt. “You wrong this house, you misuse its goods, you steal its stock.” (GtN 18) Almost a reversal of “If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” (Matthew 4:3) Gideon has taken what bread the stones will give her. She can’t sustain herself; she is powerless here, in contrast to Jesus, who refuses to use the power he has.
Aiglamene - “‘You chose a bad day to fly the coop.’” (GtN 21) Aiglamene is more reasonable but adherent to protocol, trying to get Gideon physical down into the shaft for the muster call instead of up and out in a shuttle. Again almost a reversal of “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written: That he hath given his angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (Matthew 4:6) Again, Gideon’s powerlessness is contrasted against Jesus’ refusal to use his power.
Harrowhark - Harrow as Satan herself comes offering so much that it seems too good to be true. “From out of her pocket, with no small amount of drama, Harrowhark drew a fresh piece of parchment. It was paper—real paper!—with the official letterhead of the House of the Ninth on the top.” (GtN 27) This one is not reversed in its offer, like the others; it’s reversed in the result. “All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me.” (Matthew 4:9) All Gideon has to do is obey Harrow, come to the muster down in the House’s actual place of worship. The offer is real, but Harrow has all the power here and has planned it so carefully that Gideon can’t actually get what she wants. Gideon tries to keep resisting: “‘Nah,’ she said, and was interested to see a tiny beetling of the Lady’s black eyebrows. ‘I’ll go my own way. I’m not going down into Drearburh for you.’” (p29) But in the end Harrow gets her way.

“‘I am a keeper of the First House and a servant to the Necrolord Highest, and you must call me Teacher; not due to my own merits of learning, but because I stand in the stead of the merciful God Above Death, and I live in the hope that one day you will call him Teacher. And you may call him Master, too, and I may call you then Harrowhark the First!’” (GtN 71-72) “But be not you called Rabbi [teacher]. For one is your master; and all you are brethren. … Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, Christ.” (Matthew 23:8,10)
“Gideon had known on some basic level that the religion practised in the dark depths of Drearburh was not quite the religion practised by the other Houses. It was still a shock to the system to have it confirmed. By the expressions on some of the faces—bewildered or blank or long-suffering or, in at least one case, openly hostile—the others hadn’t been confronted with it either.” (GtN 81) This feels to me like the differences between Christian denominations, that there is different emphasis on different things, different prayers, different songs… Here we have the more mainstream worship of the King Undying and his Resurrection vs worship very focused on the Tomb, like how Catholics are very into praying to Mary specifically. I wonder if there will be parallels to draw later between Alecto and Mary as women to whom one might pray for special intercession.
Wake as Mary - in a literal way, the mother of God’s child, but all very reversed. Wake makes no claim to virginity, but her impregnation was not a result of sex. This all happened behind John’s back, in contrast to God having a specific plan to impregnate Mary. Gideon the First and Pyrrha both sort of in the role of Joseph, neither of them parents of the child but in love with the mother. And the plan, of course, is to sacrifice Gideon as an infant in order to release Alecto and (probably?) kill God, pretty different from the plan for Jesus even though there is a sacrifice involved. I hope we get to see more of Wake, I’m super interested in her and her difficult choices.

Thinking today about the Immaculate Conception as applies to Wake as a Mary figure. What would it mean in terms of TLT for Wake to be born without original sin? Original sin in the Catholic sense that only John would know, or original sin in the sense of John’s “indelible” sin of Lyctorhood? Or maybe of necromancy, generally? Or is she in some way particularly free of the “sin” John has been punishing the descendants of the trillionaires for this whole time? Or another indicator that Wake either is or carries part of the Message, whatever that may be, and wholly or in part originates from before the Resurrection?
Now that I’m thinking about Marian dogmas, what about the Assumption? Wake did in fact die a bodily death, and specifically spent a lot of time as a revenant not ascending to heaven. I wonder where her soul is now? Did she get to cross the River immediately, after Abigail kicked her out of the sword and Pyrrha kicked her out of Cytherea’s body? Or is her version of not dying and having eternal life just being a revenant forever, and she will turn up again?

Wake as Lilith, vs John and Alecto as a sort of Adam and Eve of the post-Resurrection world. More notes to come on this but…I suspect Wake is in some way related (either family, or just someone adjacent) to John, and has been kicking around since before the Resurrection. I wonder if BOE has been passing her revenant from body to body, the way they pass down contextless bits of pre-Resurrection references as names. This comes back to the idea of Wake and John needing to both have the genes for red hair and yellow eyes in order for Gideon to inherit both. Also, Wake is weirdly OP without an explanation. Also also, there are interesting parallels between Wake and Alecto. More on this when I get to it, and on Wake and Alecto specifically in the Wake and Alecto section.

“‘The Resurrection Beasts always know where I am, and wherever I am they turn themselves to me and start moving…slowly…but never stopping. And they don’t turn to me alone, though they focus on me most strongly. They hunt whoever has committed the—indelible sin.’ … You said, ‘Which indelible sin?’ ‘The one you committed when you became a Lyctor,’ said the Emperor.” (HtN 43) Thinking about John and Alecto as Adam and Eve in the post-Resurrection world, and the indelible sin as original sin, a sin of knowledge. Also thinking about the throwaway line during the dinner in GtN where either Abigail or Magnus reveals that there’s a pomegranate tree in the garden at Canaan House, framing Canaan House, and not pre-Resurrection Earth, as the Garden of Eden. John and Alecto, and the Lyctors, were ejected from that garden for this indelible sin of Lyctorhood. Is John the snake in this garden, guiding eight cavaliers to die and eight necromancers to consume their souls in an imperfect version of a process he had already perfected? Or is John lying, and the RB-attracting sin is his alone, killing and resurrecting the system?

It’s clear that Number Seven, at least, is attracted to Nona (because she’s Alecto), and I think it’s possible that they are really only pursuing Alecto and John. Putting Alecto to sleep in the Tomb kept her hidden from them, but they kept pursuing John for his indelible sin—knowledge of necromancy, of how to destroy the system and bring it back a little bit wrong, of how to kill planets in order to support his own power.

“God said, ‘She was the first Resurrection. She was my Adam. As the dust settled and I beheld what was left and what was gone, I was entirely alone. The world had ended, Harrowhark. One moment I was a man, and then the next moment I was the Necrolord Prime, the first necromancer, and more importantly, a landlord with no tenants. … I was dazed…I was bewildered...and she was my defender and my sole companion, and my colleague in the scholarship of learning how to live again. … Anger was her besetting sin. We had that in common.’” (HtN 346) John paints himself as the creator and Alecto as Adam, supposing no power higher than himself—but whether or not there’s a larger God in this universe, which is an interesting question to me just logistically, John IS just a guy. A dude with a lot of power, who’s been hiding the method to achieve that power so he’s the only one who gets to have it. I still interpret him as Adam and Alecto as Eve, not because of their genders or anything, but because John is too fucking full of himself and I constantly want to demote him.
“‘D’you know why you’re really the First? Because in a very real way, you and the others are A.L.’s children… There would be none of you, if not for her.’” (HtN 345) He’s often framing himself as a father figure, but here he’s specifically framing Alecto as a progenitor of the Lyctors. Because she was the first cavalier, and because she was the Earth they all came or are descended from. John’s Cains and Abels and Seths.
Putting this here because I feel like it ties back to John and Alecto as Adam and Eve or sometimes as God and Adam, but I’ve been thinking about Genesis and creation and the ways in which the progression of the Earth post-Resurrection both mirrors and deviates from that story. In Genesis, God creates: heaven (space) and earth; light, and divides it from dark; the firmament (sort of the atmosphere?); gathered the water under the firmament into seas to reveal dry land; plants; the sun and moon and stars; sea creatures and flying creatures; “cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth”; Adam, and the Garden of Eden, and Eve. In John’s Resurrection, we begin with all of these things, but the system is no longer working in a sustainable way. John destroys it all in order to create himself as God and transforms the Earth into his Adam, and also becomes his own Adam, the only human remaining, with an Eve created from his own body and the substance of the Earth. He recreates “heaven,” space, by destroying the system and rebirthing the sun as Dominicus. We see the destroyed Earth covered in rising water that John can hold back in spurts, creating dry land: “In the dream the waters kept rising. They started making a hut at the top of the hill. Bodies were bobbing up and down in the water. He was scared of that—he was always scared of the water—and he made the waters go away for a while, and he raised up some parts of the earth that had been covered by sea.” (NtN 219) The water full of bodies reminds me of the River; and are the bodies the reason he can move the water necromantically? Is he able to move the earth because it’s part of Alecto, and they are now Lyctors together? And the land he raises here is his facility, which becomes Canaan House, rising higher and higher as the waters return. We don’t get to see it, but we have to imagine that from here he goes on to bring back some segment of humanity, and that any plants and animals that survived start to repopulate, but the incredible lack of organic life in the present day of the Dominicus system seems to indicate that John didn’t make much of an effort to “create” the plants and creeping things and cattle in his new world. This is getting kind of rambly, but I just feel like there’s something here in John’s flawed creation, as compared to Blood of Eden and the other humans farther out in space who still have trees, and dogs, and whatever else.

If Gideon is Jesus, then who is Harrow? It’s super interesting to me how many allegorical roles she takes! Satan, tempter, in the opening chapters. Maybe sometimes an Antichrist—an opposite, created by the sacrifice of 200 children vs Gideon’s creation to be a sacrifice. Peter, chosen to carry on after Jesus’ death, denying Gideon over and over in order to save her so she can rise again. John the baptist, desperately unworthy but being forgiven and baptizing Gideon in salt water. Will she have a Judas turn? I would kill for that but also I want them to end up happy and together and safe and alive…

She takes on Peter again, imo, in the John chapters, to John’s flawed God/Jesus. He tells her all his parables, and like Peter, she doubts him. She steps into the River at the end of her dream journey with John, resonant for me with Peter walking on water. Except instead of following, she’s walking away! Also this isn’t the first time she’s done a walking on water thing, she does it with Mercymorn too, which I have a little bit about below.
I think her turning away from John and walking into the River also in some ways gives her a turn as Jesus—I think she’s heading to the Tower to go and Harrow Hell.
I’ve been thinking more about this lately, and realized I’ve kind of been ignoring Harrow as Judas at Canaan House, at Gideon’s death. As with all the allegory Tamsyn dips into, this story is not a one-to-one; Harrow and Gideon are close companions, but there’s no betrayal so much as a benefit—Harrow, though she doesn’t choose it, gains power and ostensibly safety from Gideon’s death. She brought them to Canaan House, and in that sense it’s Harrow who led Gideon to the circumstances of her death, and put them both in reach of the kind of power that rules their corner of the universe. Cytherea, even though she’s trying to fuck John over with her plan, still represents a version of his power—John Gaius, who wears his lil crown of leaves and bones, in all his Roman glory. And then, in her grief, Harrow almost destroys herself—sacrifices some of the power she gained in an effort to undo her loss, as Judas returned the silver he was paid and hung himself after the Crucifixion.

“‘When I release you from my service, Nav,’ her necromancer said, ‘you will know about it.’ And she walked away. Gideon decided, then and there, her betrayal.” (GtN 314) Guess what! Gideon is also Judas, for about five minutes. “Then went one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, to the chief priests, And said to them: What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? But they appointed him thirty pieces of silver. And from thenceforth he sought opportunity to betray him.” (Matthew 26:14-16)
“The only splash of colour was an enormous portrait of the Emperor as Kindly Master, with an expression of beatific peace.” (GtN 316) This makes me think of the different names/roles of Jesus, and also super reminds me of the many titles for Mary as they relate to different icons. LOTS of Catholic churches are named with one of Mary’s titles; the one I grew up in was Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This is definitely calling back to that trend, since it’s an image. But the “Kindly Master” title puts me in mind of the horrible trope of a sympathetic slave owner—particularly relevant in relation to the Eighth House, and the way Silas uses Colum as his battery and seems to regard the necro-cav relationship as one of ownership and “benevolent” control. Colum also calls Silas “Master” later in the tea scene (GtN 321) which is pretty awful.

“‘I am your cavalier,’ said his cavalier. This shut Silas off mid-flow. ‘I’ve got my sword. I’ve got my honour. Everything else is yours.’ ‘Your sword is mine also,’ said Silas.” (GtN 322) AUGHH I HATE THE EIGHTH HOUSE
“Colum said: ‘I respected the child. At times I can’t stand the man, Si.’ Silas’s voice had sunk to a dead whisper: ‘You made an oath—’ ‘Oath? Ten years of training, before you were even born. Oath? Three brothers with different blood types, because we couldn’t tell what you’d be and which of us you’d need. Ten years of antigens, antibodies, and waiting—for you. I am the oath. I was engineered into a man who doesn’t—pick and choose his decencies!’” I can’t really articulate what I want to say about this, except that I feel for Colum here, trying to be someone who doesn’t quite believe what his religious practice is telling him to believe, and telling him to be.

“Gideon braced her shoulders against the weight of what she was about to do. She shed eighteen years of living in the dark with a bunch of bad nuns. In the end her job was surprisingly easy: she wrapped her arms around Harrow Nonagesimus and held her long and hard, like a scream. They both went into the water, and the world went dark and salty. The Reverend Daughter fell calm and limp, as was natural for one being ritually drowned, but when she realised that she was being hugged she thrashed as though her fingernails were being ripped from their beds.” (GtN 356) There’s so much here. This is a baptism; Harrow, a repentant sinner; Gideon, the daughter of God, with the grace to forgive and start fresh. And yet it’s the reverse also, it’s John the Baptist and Jesus in the Jordan River: “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan, unto John, to be baptized by him. But John stayed him, saying: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering, said to him: Suffer it to be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice. Then he suffered him.” (Matthew 3:13-15) They’re cleansing what’s been between them all this time; from now on, they’re much closer to the same page.
“Written on the tooth in tiny, tiny letters was this: FIVE HUNDRED INTO FIFTY. IT IS FINISHED!” (GtN 367) In Cassy and Nigella’s room, where we find out about Teacher and the priests and the skeletons, we see this message. “It is finished” is a Bible reference, the last words Jesus said before dying at the crucifixion. Which, considering this comes up multiple times in the context of figuring out Lyctorhood, really drives home the sacrifice part of Lyctorhood as everyone other than John thinks it works. We also see it in the facility, on a whiteboard, on GtN 138! Also, “five hundred into fifty” resonates just a little for me with the miracle of the loaves and fishes but in reverse; instead of turning a small amount of food into a meal for 5000, it’s burning a lot of souls in order to make a small number of self-powered beguiling and hideous corpses.

“‘I forgive you everything, Lord,’ she whispered. And she slid her hands inside him. The Emperor of the Nine Houses came apart, layer by layer. It was instantaneous, but so simultaneously slow—so unbelievably fucking slow—that it was like we saw every moment, you and I. … Mercy turned around, to Augustine. She was not weeping now. ‘It is finished,’ she said.” (HtN 484-485)

“Camilla Hect off the leash was like light moving across water. She punched her knives into the Lyctor’s guard over and over and over. Cytherea met them ably, but such was Camilla’s speed and perfect hate that she could only hope to block the thunderstorm of blows; she could not even begin to push back against them.” (GtN 406) “Have I not hated them, O Lord, that hated thee: and pine away because of thy enemies? I have hated them with a perfect hatred: and they are become enemies to me.” (Psalm 138:21-22)
“‘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.’” (GtN 438) This is Ruth 1:17, in which Naomi, whose husband and two sons have died, tells her sons’ wives to go back to their homelands. One of them does; the other one, Ruth, refuses to be parted from Naomi. It’s a story about devotion no matter which way you slice it, but it’s frequently read as a queer story. I sob every fucking time I think about it. It’s also a bit about conversion: Naomi is Jewish, and in order to stay with her, Ruth declares that “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” This feels appropriate here too—in Gideon’s last moments, she’s not only thinking about saving Harrow’s life, but finding peace inside herself with her life on the Ninth and re-identifying with this place that caused her so much pain. It doesn’t necessarily seem like the healthiest way for her to deal with the abuse in her childhood, but it’s what is accessible to her in what she thinks are her last moments of consciousness, and so she at last becomes, at least a little bit, a devoted Niner.
Putting this way up here with the GtN stuff because it’s an excellent post by Tumblr user katakaluptastrophy about the “Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers” at the back of the GtN paperback and the references it’s making to St. Paul’s writings (and the writings attributed to him that are probably not his).
“‘Lady,’ ventured Ortus, voice deepening with timidity, ‘I would not venture it—but if a cavalier’s duty is to hold the sword—if a cavalier’s duty is to protect with the sword—if a cavalier’s duty is to die by the sword—have you never considered ORTUS NIGENAD?’” (HtN 21) “Then Jesus saith to him: Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” (Matthew 26:52)
“You were afraid someone might take your sword away from you if you left it; rather than lifting it, you lay down next to where it glowered at you blackly from the bed. You rolled over onto its flat steel breadth and bound crisscross straps of dense bone across your back, around the blade, around the hilt. Straining beneath its weight, with nothing but a ripped-up sheet to mask you, pathetic in your turquoise nudity, you found yourself accompanying the Emperor down long black corridors, trying to fix yourself in time and space. You were basically naked. The sword weighed you down so much that you were affecting a hump. Your Inglorious Mask was a patchwork of flaking osteology. You looked like an imbecile.” (HtN 33-34) You know what she looks like to me, with blood on her face, bent under the weight of a big cruciform sword, suffering in order to save a life? Yop.

Putting this here because it’s related to HtN and this image of Harrow, bleeding and in extremity and hunched under the weight of this sword cross on her back. I’ve been pondering John as Pontius Pilate. He’s not directly involved in the death of Gideon, our main Christ figure in TLT, but he’s very involved in the suffering, the passion, of Harrow. He’s the highest authority here, so it’s got one up on Pilate, who was just a governor. But he is the authority who decides that Harrow has done her Lyctorhood wrong, and orders her to suffer at G1deon’s hands. Who lets her walk around in a hospital gown with blood on her face. He doesn’t seem to find fault with her, but the threat of the RB is (in his view) forcing his hand, which resonates for me with Pilate’s attitude in John 18 and 19 that he can find no actual fault with Jesus, keeps offering to release him but eventually puts him to death under the public pressure (and in some interpretations, to avoid the thread of revolt). As Pilate in the Passion story doesn’t really know what’s up with this Jesus guy, John doesn’t know what’s actually going on with Harrow—what, who, she has inside her, and what she’s done to save that soul. He’s not aware that this “version” of Harrow, who can’t remember Gideon, was “born” in order to save Gideon—and then “dies” at the hands of one of John’s Lyctors and remembers Gideon again.

“Harrowhark— As I write, it has been forty-eight hours since you became a Lyctor at Canaan House. By the time you read this you will not recall the writing thereof, as the Harrowhark of the writing will be dead and gone. Her resurrection constitutes a fail state and must be avoided at all costs.” (HtN 59) Two days after Gideon’s death—one more, and she’ll rise again! Or at least, one more day in which Harrow remembers her, since plenty of time passes when she doesn’t remember. “Saying: The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.” (Luke 24:7)

Here I come back to Harrow as Peter; while Gideon is gone, because of what she’s done to preserve her, Harrow keeps denying her. “But Peter sat without in the court: and there came to him a servant maid, saying: Thou also wast with Jesus the Galilean. But he denied before them all, saying: I know not what thou sayest. And as he went out of the gate, another maid saw him, and she saith to them that were there: This man also was with Jesus of Nazareth. And again he denied with an oath, I know not the man. And after a little while they came that stood by, and said to Peter: Surely thou also art one of them; for even thy speech doth discover thee. Then he began to curse and to swear that he knew not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus which he had said: Before the cock crow, thou wilt deny me thrice. And going forth, he wept bitterly.” (Matthew 26:69-75)

“He took a sip of his tea, sighed briefly in pleasure, and continued: ‘They were disciples, to begin with. Ten normal human beings of the Resurrection, though half were blessed already with necromantic gifts. But necromancy alone does not confer eternal life. Our Lord, the First Reborn, kept those ten devotees young and alive through his sheer might, but it was a shadow of living… They had to stay tucked near the Emperor’s feet so as not to strain his powers. They desired to spend their lives in service of him, not the other way around. They realised in the first hundred years how difficult their situation was, even as necromancy spread through the Nine Houses and even as other disciples joined their number. … Necessarily a great research had to begin, into how best to serve alongside our Lord without needing him to confer immortality—this search for what would become Lyctorhood.’” (HtN 110-111) “Tucked near the Emperor’s feet” and being in service rather than the other way around really evokes Martha and Mary: “Now it came to pass as they went, that he entered into a certain town: and a certain woman named Martha, received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sitting also at the Lord's feet, heard his word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Who stood and said: Lord, hast thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? speak to her therefore, that she help me. And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42) Maybe John would rather his saints stay close to him and listen at his feet, but they want to get up and get in the kitchen!
“You hauled yourself up to stand upon the face of the churning grey waters, and, wet through with filthy, bloodied spume, you began to walk toward the maelstrom.” (HtN 141) Just a little casual walking on water, on her way to kill a planet’s soul. This is a tiny moment, but I’m gonna pair it with a rather long bible quote, because I’m into Harrow as Peter: “But the boat in the midst of the sea was tossed with the waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking upon the sea. And they seeing him walk upon the sea, were troubled, saying: It is an apparition. And they cried out for fear. And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying: Be of good heart: it is I, fear ye not. And Peter making answer, said: Lord, if it be thou, bid me come to thee upon the waters. And he said: Come. And Peter going down out of the boat, walked upon the water to come to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretching forth his hand took hold of him, and said to him: O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt? And when they were come up into the boat, the wind ceased. And they that were in the boat came and adored him, saying: Indeed thou art the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:24-33) HtN is playing with this in fun ways; Mercymorn is on the shore watching, the teacher in this scenario, and Harrow, less powerful and less certain, is Peter, aiming to kill this floundering planet-soul instead of saving a boat from a storm. Harrow dives on purpose, to follow the Beast when it tries to run—her fear and doubt takes the form of her compartmentalized Lyctorhood, and her unprotected body left behind in a hostile climate.
“‘Oh, goodbye!’ she called out suddenly, to the corpse borne aloft. ‘Goodbye, Palamedes, my first strand—goodbye, Camilla, my second… One cord was overpowered, two cords could defend themselves, but three were not broken by the living or the dead.’” (HtN 204) This is so dreadfully sad to me. Also it comes from: “It is better therefore that two should be together, than one: for they have the advantage of their society: If one fall he shall be supported by the other: woe to him that is alone, for when he falleth, he hath none to lift him up. And if two lie together, they shall warm one another: how shall one alone be warmed? And if a man prevail against one, two shall withstand him: a threefold cord is not easily broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)
“The Necrolord Prime said, very calmly, ‘Ten thousand years since I’ve eaten human being, Harrow, and I didn’t really want an encore.’” (HtN 232) Just thinking about the soup scene, in which Harrow makes everyone eat and drink of her body and blood (because marrow is a little bit both, thematically), instead of the other way around, where Catholics eat and drink the body and blood of Christ via transubstantiation. Something John likely did in his pre-Resurrection life, and clearly didn’t like enough to carry forward into the new religion he built around himself.
“Silas Octakiseron looked at her five full constructs with his lip curling. ‘Her filthiness is on her feet,’ he murmured. ‘She has not remembered her end.’” (HtN 237) Another biblical quote, about Jerusalem having fallen to the Babylonians: “Teth. [Nine.] Her filthiness is on her feet, and she hath not remembered her end: she is wonderfully cast down, not having a comforter: behold, O Lord, my affliction, because the enemy is lifted up.” (Lamentations 1:9) Do yourself a favor and go read this whole chapter of Lamentations actually, it’s very Harrowcore.
“You looked up into her face. Camilla Hect was a closed object, with locks and snaps; she had an expression like the rock before the Tomb, inexorable, giving nothing away. But her eyes—her eyes were dark as the grit mixed with the soil, neither grey nor brown but both. They were they eyes of a winter season without any promise of spring. In comparing the eyes to the face, you saw into a zipped-up agony. And she said, with that same dull, blank, diamond-hard pain: ‘The Cohort took the rest of him away. And I don’t know where they have put him.’” (HtN 306) This is a reference to Jesus’ resurrection: “And on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen cometh early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre; and she saw the stone taken away from the sepulchre. She ran, therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith to them: They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. … But Mary stood at the sepulchre without, weeping. Now as she was weeping, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, And she saw two angels in white, sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid. They say to her: Woman, why weepest thou? She saith to them: Because they have taken away my Lord; and I know not where they have laid him.” (John 20:1-2 and 11-13)

This devastates me. That Cam, who is extremely hard to read and gives nothing away, is suffering a grief so large she can’t even hide it from someone who barely remembers what she looks like. That the person she’s devoted her life to, her whole life, may be in some kind of madness-inducing limbo that she’s trying to find a way to get him out of, and he may not even be in that limbo at all, and other than these few fragments she glued together by hand she has absolutely nothing left of him. Lots of people take turns being Jesus in these books; Gideon is the obvious one, and Harrow takes it sometimes too, and certainly John tries. But in this moment it’s Palamedes, and in this dark in between time Cam can neither mourn him and move forward nor have him back—but unlike Harrow, she’s lived many more than three days in a world without her partner.

I LOVE THAT NTN HAS ANOTHER CAM-AS-MARY-MAGDALEN MOMENT! “‘Will you not look at me now, Cam, and know me?’ Camilla raised her chin. She looked at the dead face. She said quietly— ‘Yes, Warden, I will always know you.’” (NtN 351-352) There’s a lot happening in this moment and I cry every time, but one thing that sticks out to me is how this mirrors Jesus’ resurrection. As the above connection establishes, Mary Magdalen is the first one to come to Jesus’ tomb and see that it’s empty. Jesus then appears to her—she’s the first person to see him alive again. “Jesus saith to her: Mary. She turning, saith to him: Rabboni (which is to say, Master).” (John 20:16) I really like this throughline of Pal as Jesus and Cam as Mary Magdalen.

“You said, ‘You are the Prince Undying. You are the Necrolord Highest. Why do we lock you inside an airless room?’ He rested back in his chair and locked his fingers together over his belly. ‘You’ve hit upon a sore spot, Harrowhark,’ he said affably, brown brows crinkling together. ‘I am your salvation and your light. Who should I fear?’” (HtN 343) This is from a psalm: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” (Psalms 26:1) Also of interest in this psalm, which is about David’s faith in God: “For he hath hidden me in his tabernacle; in the day of evils, he hath protected me in the secret place of his tabernacle.” (Psalms 26:5) Fun, when Harrow is asking why God gets locked away in a secret place, and he’s trying to convince her to join him there for her protection. Also, John quotes the same line of the psalm again in Latin: “‘A myriad ago, I resurrected nine planets,’ he said. ‘And I reignited the central star, and I called it Dominicus. As a reminder. Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea, quem tiembo? God is my light.’” (HtN 344)
As I was working on this document I was streaming some random album of Catholic music (Catholic Marian Classics Vo. VI), as one does, and this Christmas carol I had never heard before, Nova, Nova, came on. So I looked it up, because I was in TLT brainspace and thinking about Harrow Nova and what might be behind that name, and found this explanation of the lyrics. “Nova” means “News!” and the refrain, “Nova, nova, Ave fit ex Eva,” means "News! News! 'Ave' has been made from 'Eve'!" which that page explains as part of a medieval tradition of songs about how Mary undid the sins of Eve. Given the connective tissue between Harrow and Alecto, and Alecto and Wake, and Alecto and Eve, and Wake and Mary…I just felt like I would want to remember this song and think more about it later, so here it is for future reference. Also I’m wondering if “Nova” comes from the same root as “novel,” meaning new, which would be a fun meaning! If I remember (unlikely), I will look that up later.
“‘If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten,’ her mouth was saying. ‘Add more also, if aught but death part me and thee.’” (HtN 380) Like Gideon’s quotation from Ruth at the end of GtN, this shatters me every time. It’s a combination of two passages! “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten” (Psalms 136:5), from a psalm about the people of Jerusalem mourning the loss of their home to the Babylonians (also where On the Willows comes from, if you’re a Godspell fan), which HURTS, Gideon is her home and she can’t go back. The second part is the same passage Gideon quotes: “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.” (Ruth 1:17). As I’m sure I said above, this section of Ruth is often read at weddings, and in this context it’s a vow they say to each other, when they are already parted by death. Everything’s queer and everything hurts.
“He asked: ‘How did Gideon die?’ She closed her eyes and lost herself in that dizzy unreality of blackness: of swaying minutely, of lost balance. So many months had passed: and yet, at the same time, she had only lost Gideon Nav three days ago. It was the morning of the third day in a universe without her cavalier: it was the morning of the third day—and all the back of her brain could say, in exquisite agonies of amazement, was: She is dead. I will never see her again.” (HtN 399) As Jesus rose on the third day after his crucifixion, so Gideon rises on the third day after she dies for Harrow! It hurts me that Harrow doesn’t know Gideon’s back in this moment.
“The corpse has still failed to rot. The princess says they are leaving it outside in significantly fluctuating temperatures, under observation, and it still fails to rot.” (HtN 528 - AYU) Gideon is incorruptible! In Catholicism, this is a sign of sainthood. “Incorruptibles” in the real world, at least the one I saw in Italy (I forget who or where at the moment, but I have a photo—from a film camera, ye olden days), look like mummies, not like Gideon Nav. But still, it’s a reference. Gideon’s incorruptibility, I presume, is her own divinity, as God’s child, preserving her, maybe the same way John kept the OG Lyctors from aging at Canaan House before they were Lyctors.

More on John conveying incorruptibility: “‘Most of the bodies got the melt, like we thought they would,’ he said. ‘Damaged beyond repair. Their brains liquefied almost immediately. But, Harrow…all the ones I touched, all the ones I loved…they stayed incorrupti’” (NtN 76)

“‘Blood of Eden is a house with many rooms, and I was only ever visiting one of ‘em.’” (NtN 28) This feels like a reference to “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2)
I don’t know why it took me months after reading NtN to think of it, but what we learn about the destruction of the Earth and John’s thinly veiled threat to just start over and wash it all away if things don’t work out is, in some ways, the story of the biblical Flood. “He said, ‘But that’s the grace of it, Harrow. If I’m God, I can start over. The flood, you know? You can wash things clean. That’s all the end of Earth was…making things clean. It gets dirty again, you clean it again. Like those old power-washing ads. Spray and walk away, right?’” (NtN 435) He even literally says “the flood,” what is wrong with my brain? Anyway, here’s God in Genesis: “And the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the earth was corrupted (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth,) He said to Noe: The end of all flesh is come before me, the earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the earth. … Behold I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, under heaven. All things that are in the earth shall be consumed.” (Genesis 6:11-13, 17) Looking at it from this angle, Canaan House becomes a kind of Noah’s ark, collecting necro/cav pairs who either found or come from each of the Houses, in a very collecting-two-of-each-animal way. The waters of Earth rise when she’s destroyed, and Canaan House builds and grows above it, perhaps tall enough to survive a second apocalypse. In the first instance John is both God and Noah, destroying the system and then carefully rebuilding it with the population he chooses; is he making plans to choose a new starter population before he wipes his mistakes clean again?
I’m thinking about how John renames his original disciples—we actually see him rename Ulysses and Titania in the text, and it’s implied that he resurrects the others without their memories and gives them new names—and bestows Saint names, and renames his daughter. These things resonate for me in different ways.

The renaming makes me think of Paul (the Biblical one, not Pal-and-Cam, though also kind of them renaming themself) and Peter. Paul was also called Saul, and though Jesus doesn’t specifically rename him or anything, he is referred to as Saul pre-conversion to early Christianity, and Paul after converting. This conversion happened several years after Jesus’ crucifixion, which is interesting too—if we consider John’s act of killing the system and resurrecting it as his crucifixion event, then changing his followers’ names and “converting” them to a new religion with himself at the center afterward echoes Paul’s narrative in fun ways.
Then we’ve got Peter, whose name was originally Simon, which Jesus explicitly does change! “He findeth first his brother Simon, and saith to him: We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looking upon him, said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter.” (John 1:41-42) This is an even stronger connection than with Paul’s name change, especially since I often associate Augustine in TLT with Peter (I know, I know, Saint Augustine is right there, but nothing is ever a 1 to 1 reference in these books). Augustine has a certain status, importance, among the Lyctors; he’s the first saint, edging out Mercy just a little, and seems to be (and have been in the past) John’s right hand man alongside Mercy. Even his BOE code name, Source Piotra, is a reference to Peter.
Then we’ve got John’s giving of saintly titles: Patience, Joy, Duty, Awe. Codifying, sort of, what his Saints (and really, what their cavaliers) are about, a little like Catholic saints’ patronage. This feels to me like making the Lyctors accessible to all the regular people of the Nine Houses, since the names he gave the Lyctors are purposefully not widely known or used, and their pre-Resurrection names have passed out of memory (except perhaps Pyrrha’s memory!).

It’s interesting to me that the names John gave his Lyctors are so hidden, actually—he went to the trouble of renaming them, why keep them secret? It’s so opposite Catholic saints, whose names are plastered all over everything, and are given as first names and middle names at birth and chosen as confirmation names and as new names by nuns and monks, and also the Pope! All of these name changes are somewhat about reflecting, through the common language of saints’ characteristics, what kind of person or leader you want to be. Fascinating to me that this is not at all a thing in TLT!! (My confirmation name is Thomas, for Thomas Aquinas, because he’s the patron of scholars and academics; I have always been a nerd.)

“‘Right, Gideon. Let’s have a look at you.’ He undid her scarf, and Nona looked away. Beneath the scarf a huge wound in the throat made the neck yawn wide open. When she peeked back, wishing she had her braids to screen everything, she saw that Palamedes had unbuttoned the shirt partway and there was another big wound in the chest—a big purple bloodless puncture wound, with white teeth peeking out coyly from within. ‘Damage is consistent with reported injuries. There’s another wound lower down.’ ‘If it’s John’s copy, that doesn’t prove anything. It’s going to be exact,’ said Pyrrha. ‘I know. But I do have a personal advantage here—I’ve touched her when she was alive.’ … Palamedes had placed Ianthe Naberius’s hand over the wound. He closed his eyes—really his eyes, his nice dark grey ones, not the strange blue ones with flecks—but almost immediately after closing them, he turned his head and sneezed violently; shuddered with the same violence; pulled his hand away, and said— ‘What? What is that?’ ‘You just met God,’ said Pyrrha.” (NtN 365-366)

I LOVE THIS A LOT, it’s referencing Doubting Thomas: “Now Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: We have seen the Lord. But he said to them: Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said: Peace be to you. Then he saith to Thomas: Put in thy finger hither, and see my hands; and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered, and said to him: My Lord, and my God. Jesus saith to him: Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.” (John 20:24-29)

Let’s talk about stigmata for a minute. I’ve seen some people comparing Kiriona’s wounds to stigmata, which is fun! But if Gideon is the main Jesus figure here, then her wounds aren’t stigmata—they’re the OG. Stigmata refers to wounds or scars that appear spontaneously on people who are not Jesus, in the same locations of his crucifixion wounds. And who suffers some pretty gnarly spontaneous wounds? “Nona unravelled. The first thing that happened was that a big slit opened up above her baby heart—she gushed up blood against the front of her black shirt; then more slits through her middle—then in and out of her mortal insides, her unshapely organs. …both Tower Princes had whirled around—dropped down to their knees beside her—one said, ‘Her neck—get her neck,’ but as fast as she could be stitched together, she came apart.” (NtN 470) Harrow’s body receives a LOT of damage here, but it feels notable to me that the main things we hear about in this moment are a slit over the heart, slits in her middle, and something going awry with her neck: the three places where Kiriona’s wounds are. These wounds aren’t spontaneous in the sense that Harrow’s great faith in Lesbian Jesus has caused her to develop them, but tbh she does spend time suffering very visceral grief for Gideon (and one theory about stigmata is that they are brought about by an intense compassion for Christ), and these wounds to Harrow’s body do happen without any outside force causing damage, just a result of having the wrong (and very big, powerful) soul (of someone she worships!) in her body for too long. Harrow also has some other attributes of stigmatics: most reported stigmatics are women; in addition to Jesus’ wounds, some stigmatics are said to sweat blood; some claim to live with minimal food or water except for the eucharist. I legit love the idea of Harrow as a stigmatic, it’s the ultimate in weird goth depressed Catholic girl energy.

OK OK BUT Tumblr user telemartus, in this excellent post, suggests that Kiriona’s wounds ARE stigmata, the original wounds being the stoma in the River! I love this take a lot!!!!!!!!!

Gotta talk about Kiriona’s wounds! I talked about this up in the Kiriona Gaia section too, and a little bit right above with Doubting Palamedes and Stigmatic Harrow, but specifically I want to relate my interpretation of her wounds to Jesus and the Five Holy Wounds.

I read her as having three puncture wounds from falling on the fence, in her throat, chest, and abdomen. Three puncture wounds brings to my mind the three nails holding a crucified body on the cross, one through each hand and one through the feet. In terms of the Five Holy Wounds, the punctures in each hand and each foot are their own wound; the fifth is the wound in Jesus’ side, where he was stabbed with a spear after his death. “But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it, hath given testimony, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe. For these things were done, that the scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him.” (John 19:33-36) Jesus’s corpse is still spilling blood and water, like the River, when punctured; Gideon’s corpse has been made impenetrable specifically so that her blood can’t be spilled. She also tells us that John made her bones unbreakable. I love how all this both mirrors and spins around the Passion story.
And of course, with the side wound, we also get the fun medieval representations of it that are…very yonic. Visually, I feel like this is connected to Kiriona’s yawning wounds, and theologically it feels a little connected to Jesus’ side wound being associated with a sort of maternal interpretation of Christ. This is not to say that Jesus’ weird wound/vag is referencing Kiriona’s genitals, but rather that Gideon, as our female-identified Christ figure, is herself our source of female divinity in TLT.
I also want to touch on the other wounds Jesus receives during the crucifixion: on his head, from the crown of thorns, and on his back, where he was flogged. We’ve got these visuals in Kiriona, as well—we know she was whipped as a child, and potentially still carries scars, and she’s got her crown of finger bones and flowers. This here is a Christ figure, folks, in case it wasn’t already so super duper clear.

“The figure crouched down and extended their arm. ‘I know how hard it is for you to kick against the goad,’ said the new person. ‘But there are more worlds than this. Come with us. We are the love perfected by death—but even death will be no more; death can also die. There’s still time, Ianthe. Time for you, and for Naberius Tern.’” (NtN 424) Here we’ve got a delightful reference to the biblical Paul’s conversion in Acts 9: “And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Who said: Who art thou, Lord? And he: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.” I like that this positions TLT Paul as Jesus, and Ianthe as biblical Paul (Saul).

I think “even death will be no more; death can also die” is gently referencing Revelation 21:4, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away.” As I think I’ve said already in ramblings about Paul, we’re really setting Paul up as a new and different deity for the universe post- whatever apocalypse will happen in AtN. Paul as a Christ figure again, dying and coming back and so defeating death itself for everyone.

(“the love perfected by death” is also more directly referencing Oscar Wilde, which is so beautifully queer of Paul, it makes me very happy. The Nightingale, life sacrificed to and absorbed by the Tree! Singing about a Love so perfect and powerful that is only in her imagination! The rose that results from her sacrifice thrown in the road and crushed by a cart! Juicy commentary on Lyctorhood and on Paul themself, this perfect and almost imaginary love.)

“As they stood in that filthy hallway, he looked down at the brown collection of clothes and body. She did too, recognising, dimly, what she was looking at. He said, ‘Don’t. This isn’t what she looks like.’” (NtN 404) I went down such a rabbit hole with this. So the body they’re looking at is the nun (who I believe to be Cristabel). There are a billion reasons for this pile of clothes and body to be brown, including decay and water damage and whatever the hell, but just for funsies I wanted to pursue it as if it were a tiny clue. There aren’t a ton of Catholic orders that wear brown habits; I’m most familiar with the Carmelites, but they’re cloistered, so not necessarily a good candidate for this particular nun’s lifestyle. Then I Googled around to see if there are brown-habit-wearing orders specific to New Zealand, and found the Brown Joeys! They’re an order founded in Australia who spread to New Zealand, and because of a conflict in leadership in New Zealand, ended up split between the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, who wear brown, and the Sisters of St Joseph of Nazareth, who wear black. (They have since recombined into one order.) “The Josephites were unique among Catholic church ministries in two ways. Firstly, the sisters lived in the community rather than in convents. Secondly, the congregation's constitution required administration by a superior general rather than being subject to the local bishop, a situation unique in its day.” (Wikipedia) This feels a little more in line with the nun we see joining John, involving herself inextricably in this weird little community at the end of the world! And the superior general in charge of this order for many years was Mary MacKillop, who founded the order. She was later canonized as Saint Mary of the Cross—and the miracles attributed to her (a requirement of canonization) were curing two women who prayed for her intercession. Curing them of what? In the first case, leukemia; in the second, lung and brain cancer. I don’t mean this to sound red string-y, but I do think it’s neat that Cristabel was perhaps wearing a brown habit, and so perhaps was a Brown Joey, an order founded by a woman who was canonized for curing two women with cancer, when cancer and it being cured or not has played such a large role in the series.
“John loved her. She was John’s cavalier. She loved John. for she so loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved her that he had made her she. For John had loved the world.” (NtN 471) Gorgeous. “For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.” (John 3:16-17)
“John had said, It’s so beautiful. Come and look^[og]^[oh]. She had said, There are almost no beautiful things left. Where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia.” (NtN 472) THANKS Nomie G for calling out the connection here to Revelation! I won’t quote the whole thing but in Revelation 6, six of the seven seals are being opened, marking the beginning of the apocalypse, and releasing the Four Horsemen: “And I saw that the Lamb had opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures, as it were the voice of thunder, saying: Come, and see. And I saw: and behold a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow, and there was a crown given him, and he went forth conquering that he might conquer.” (Revelation 6:1-2) As I feel like happens with so many of Tamsyn’s biblical allusions, in this moment John is not breaking a seal to release the apocalypse, but rather sealing the apocalypse away.
Prayers in the Nine Houses

I just realized that neither of the prayers we see in GtN are in this doc (unless I have forgotten and put them somewhere other than this section??) and I just don’t know how to express how familiar they feel. The particular cadence, the use of language, the use of repetition, Tamsyn absolutely recreated the experience of a Catholic prayer (and maybe other prayers, but the only ones I know from childhood are the Catholic ones), so much so that when I read them I start sort of fumbling along as if the words will come to me by muscle memory, except these are not ones I ever had to memorize. So here they are, for future reference!
“‘I pray the tomb is shut forever,’ recited Harrowhark, with the curious fervidity she always showed in prayer. ‘I pray the rock is never rolled away. I pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest with closed eye and stilled brain. I pray it lives, I pray it sleeps…I pray for the needs of the Emperor All-Giving, the Undying King, his Virtues and his men. I pray for the Second House, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth; the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth. I pray for the Ninth House, and I pray for it to be fruitful. I pray for the soldiers and adepts far from home, and all those parts of the Empire that live in unrest and disquiet. Let it be so.’” (GtN 42)
“‘Let the King Undying, ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death, look up on the Nine Houses and hear their thanks. Let the whole of everywhere entrust themselves to him. Let those across the river pledge beyond the tomb to the adept divine, the first among necromancers. Thanks be to the Ninefold Resurrection. Thanks be to the Lyctor divinely ordained. He is Emperor and he became God: he is God, and he became Emperor.’” (GtN 81) This is the one that everyone except Harrow and Gideon know, so more widespread in the religion of the Houses.

Excommunication

I wrote up a post about Tamsyn’s excommunication comment (joke) at the British Library panel, and then never ended up posting it, so I’ll put my thoughts about it here!
Writing fiction about people committing excommunicable offenses is not an excommunicable offense on its own; even to a devout Catholic, fiction has a place as a tool to discuss morality, and it's hard to discuss morality without showing opposing immorality. John isn't God, he's a human guy with fantasy magic who set up an empire and a religion around himself. It's not that spicy for a fictional guy to have a threesome, or for some fictional sisters to be incestuously close, or for fictional people to murder each other and magically dance skeletons around, because we don't yet know whether or how any of these characters might be "redeemed" or what moral arguments the story might make.
Where things start to get sticky is writing that directly challenges Catholic theology—and we do know that before John called himself God, he may have believed in one. When you're daydreaming about what Tamsyn’s excommunicably offensive scene might be, think bigger! Think, where is or who is or is there a pre-Resurrection Catholic God? Think, what is the River and what is it going to imply about life after death, when necromancy isn't messing up the system? Think, what's the most delightful and devastating and juicy way Tamsyn might take a religion that has deeply influenced her, a religion that is a struggle for a lot of queers, and fuck around with its most basic "truths"? I’ve been wondering if we’re going to get some more than allegorical plot points about Heaven and Hell, and Alecto, that connect the religion of the Nine Houses to pre-Res Catholicism in exciting and sacrilegious ways.

John chapters in NtN

Where, metaphysically, are these chapters happening?

“In the dream, he told her the words about where he took his degrees, his postdoc, his research fellowship.” (NtN 13) Our first introduction to this space is as a dream, and last we saw Harrow in HtN, she lay down in an empty coffin in an empty version of the Tomb with a sword and a titty mag that isn’t real, and “fell asleep, or dropped dead, or both.” (HtN 504) I think that Tomb is a metaphysical space inside Alecto’s body, where Harrow’s soul is hanging out. So are the John chapters a dream she’s having, in the sense of her mind making sense of memories she now has access too being in Alecto’s body?
Is John actually there with her, or is it Alecto’s memory of John? If he’s there, then that might indicate that this is a River bubble or something like that, or it could be a feature/bug of this type of Lyctorhood, like the shared perception of the Winnowing trial in GtN. If this is just a memory of John, that strongly implicates an actual dream Harrow is having while her soul is tucked safely inside Alecto’s body, not roaming the River somehow. It would also explain the enmeshing of Harrow and Alecto in these chapters, and why John calls her Harrowhark but addresses his conversation as if she is Alecto. It’s the same kind of dream logic and weirdness that produces people you are sure you know in the dream, but when you wake up you realize they weren’t anybody real, or they were a combination of people you know.
“He stepped over bodies as his skeletons fought him a path toward a set of cupboards, and he squatted in front of them and opened a cupboard, and more foetid water came out. She was feeling light-headed by then. Eventually he returned with his arms full of cans, saying, ‘Hey—peaches in syrup.’ He did not seem to know how to open the can. One of his skeletons came over and he fused their fingerbones into a kind of saw, and he sawed through the top of the can. In that dank and awful room they ate peach halves together, slippery and yellow and squashy, with their fingers. They were so sweet she stopped tasting them after the first bite, but they made her feel better.” (NtN 396-397) I’m really interested in this particular moment as it pertains to the metaphysical space. The quotation marks around John’s dialogue indicate, I believe, that this the John of the present moment, talking to the Harrowhark of the present moment. The peaches being too sweet also feels like an indicator of Harrow. I think that, as with the rest, they are walking through Alecto’s memories of this happening, but it’s interesting to me that the food is so visceral. Memory-peaches, but John and Harrow are acting out eating them in a more active way than any food that’s been mentioned before. The lines between them and the memory are really blurring in this chapter. It makes me feel like the space they’re sharing is inside Alecto in some way, or inside John, or inside the Lyctoral connection between the two, rather than the River.

John chapters as memory:

“In the dream they were sitting on the beach. He had made a fire from damp driftwood. The smoke made a black mark where it touched the tarpaulin, at the top, where it stretched over their heads. The ash was still falling. It made them sick, but only ever for a little while. Anything that hurt them only ever hurt them for a little while. In the dream, she was sat next to a bundle of meat he’d cut, thighs mostly, for when they felt hungry, which happened rarely and always simultaneously.” (NtN 14) I’m not going to quote every bit of setting-building in these chapters, but this is the first time we get to “look around,” as it were. Having read the whole thing, it seems pretty straightforward to recognize this as a post-nuclear-apocalypse landscape, with toxic ash falling from the sky. Also the vagueness of “thighs” and “meat” pretty heavily implies they are eating human meat, and then “drinking from the sea like dogs,” because the situation is that desperate. Nothing else on Earth has survived this; they’re reduced to cannibalism and drinking salt water, and none of this would be sustainable if they weren’t the literal soul of the Earth in human form and the superpowered human who shares a soul with her.
It also interests me that Harrow is in Alecto’s body, dreaming Alecto’s memory of the days after the end of the world, her first days in a body, while at the same time Alecto’s soul is in Harrow’s body, dreaming Harrow’s memory of the pool scene, where she “had become, for the second time, herself.” (HtN 402) There’s a beautiful parallel here, these two dreaming each others’ memories, the stories of their rebirths.

“You swayed a little. Maybe you fell. The metal grille was beneath your knees, making red sore marks in your flesh, the air through the grate reeking of antistatic pastes. You said into the panels, ‘Teach me, Lord, how to count that cost.’ God helped you up instead. He put his hands beneath your armpits in a perfectly normal way and raised you to stand, and clasped your arms clumsily—a quick, awkward squeeze, as though wanting to comfort and not knowing how—before he took his hands away. He said, ‘Harrow, you won’t kneel to me. I won’t let you, not until you know exactly what it means when you do it. It hurts me to see you perform obeisance when—if you knew the full story—you might strike me full in the face instead.’” (HtN 38) Just wanted to put this here because it feels painful and relevant to me that John is both aware of what a devotee might think up on hearing his whole story, and at the same time constantly manipulating Harrow so that she doesn’t think too much about that story, and then in NtN he’s giving Harrow context for the flashback she’s getting of that story, and by the end of it she’s questioning what it means for her to love God and whether he is God at all. He’s such a dick, and also very human and relatable in ways that make me even more angry at him.
A clever person on Twitter pointed out that the chapter and verse numbers are a simple substitution cypher spelling out “THE TOWER HAS REACTIVATED.” Since this means Tamsyn was limited in which verses went with each section, I’m not going to go too crazy trying to find intense significance—but I’m gonna do a little bit of that, because I’m me. Also, I’m fascinated by the choice of “reactivated,” which has some technological connotations to me, and is a fun contrast to the very fantasy image of a huge stone tower popping out of the River.
“He said, I had—I had this weird gut feeling before we sent him off, on that private plane. And I was getting pretty good at that time, even if I wasn’t good enough. I took G— downstairs and I got him to face the wall, and I took his arm off. He said, He didn’t feel any pain, and I grew him a new one then and there. Bit of a gamble, but I was sure I could do that by then. I wanted his arm…his material. … I stuffed it in the morgue so nobody would find it. I’ve got plans for that arm.” (NtN 399) I’ve seen a number of interpretations of this, but I take it to be Alecto’s memory of what John said to her then, right after the end of the world, before he had resurrected anyone. His plans for the arm are to use it to regrow a body to bring G— back in, because his original body was holding a nuke when it went off, so there’s nothing left. I don’t think the arm is still in play in the present day of the story, it became G1deon’s body and then Pyrrha’s body.
“She said, less patiently: ‘Teacher, what does it mean for a child of the Ninth to love God?’ The razor-sharp grasses lay in a shivering mat, cuddled like fearful animals, as the wind swept over them. Fine salty fragments got inside the corners of her mouth. He said, finally— ‘You live in a darkened house, and in your darkened house are infinite rooms. By the light of a dying candle you cross the room—knowing that when you reach the threshold of the next room you’ll be gone—the candle passed to someone whose face you can’t see clearly.^[oi]^[oj]’ She urged, ‘Is God the flame? The light? The candle?’ ‘The love of God is the trust that you won’t have to illuminate that darkness alone,’ he said.” (NtN 433) This brings up a lot of things for me. “You are the light of the world,” for one (Matthew 5:14), and “Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house” for another (Matthew 5:15), from the Sermon on the Mount. This moment also highlights John’s immense age; Harrow’s lifespan is the equivalent of crossing a room, and he can see all of the rooms, the continuity of faith and the passing of it across a myriad. It also highlights for me a sort of…pessimism, maybe? That the house of the universe, the rooms of humans’ lives, are inherently dark and require illumination. That this illumination is dying. That love of God is about faith in not being alone, but in this metaphor he’s created, she is alone. It’s also interesting that he doesn’t answer her question about what God is in this scenario—it’s very unclear to me, I think purposefully, whether John in this moment thinks of himself as God, or where he places himself in this metaphor.

And beyond all of that, it puts me in mind of John 8, which a previous John chapter has already referenced. Sorry in advance for this enormous quotation, but I feel like it’s relevant as a whole and in its small details: “ And Jesus went unto mount Olivet. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him, and sitting down he taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees bring unto him a woman taken in adultery: and they set her in the midst, And said to him: Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery. Now Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one. But what sayest thou? And this they said tempting him, that they might accuse him. But Jesus bowing himself down, wrote with his finger on the ground. When therefore they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said to them: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again stooping down, he wrote on the ground. But they hearing this, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus lifting up himself, said to her: Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee? Who said: No man, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more. Again therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying: I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees therefore said to him: Thou givest testimony of thyself: thy testimony is not true. Jesus answered, and said to them: Although I give testimony of myself, my testimony is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go: but you know not whence I come, or whither I go. You judge according to the flesh: I judge not any man. And if I do judge, my judgment is true: because I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.” (John 8:1-16) There are a number of evocative little parallels here: Jesus in his role as a teacher, and Harrow addressing John as Teacher; Jesus and John both writing on the ground with their fingers; the Pharisees all leaving, and the absence at this point of all of the OGs from John’s story; the light, and walking not in darkness. Then we come to the woman accused of adultery, and Jesus refusing to condemn her. We’ve got Harrow there, and could perhaps consider her opening the Tomb and her love for the Body and her questioning John now as “adulterous” behavior against him.

But I think really the adultery and the refusal to punish and the bit about not judging—but if he did, it would be the truth—is leading into the next moments of this scene in NtN: “‘After this, you’ll resurrect them.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, as though halfway dreaming. … ‘We’ll get them all back…some of them, anyway…or at least, the ones I want to bring back. Anyone I feel didn’t do it. Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look at the face of and forgive. And my loved ones…The ones I left, I’ll bring back. I know I can. Even G—. In fact, G—’ll be the easiest—he won’t remember the compound—none of them will have to remember anything. I know where remembrance lives in the brain, and he won’t have any of it. You know that too, don’t you? It’s the easiest thing in the world… to forget.’ She said, ‘To forget…everything?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, and more sharply— ‘Yes. It’s the only way.’ ‘Teacher, why?’ ‘They won’t forgive themselves,’ he said. ‘They’ll spend the rest of their lives asking what-ifs. ‘What should we have done? How could we have done it differently? Did you need to do it?’ And—I did need to do it, Harrow. There was no other way. Once those bombs were going off, there was no hope for Melbourne anyway—G— was dead meat.’ She said— ‘You said that G—’s bomb went off first.’ ‘Yeah, it did,’ he said impatiently. ‘Of course it did…Look—what does it matter?’” (NtN 433) John is perfectly willing to condemn those he feels were responsible for bringing the Earth to the brink of death; he never questions his own judgment, and he wipes his friends clean, brings them forth without sin, so that they can never question his judgment either. But now Harrow knows how it all happened, or at least she knows more than anyone other than John and Alecto, and yet it’s clear that John has been altering the story to paint himself in a better light. He is not at all without sin, but he’s casting so many stones.

About necromancy and Lyctorhood and what John actually did

“I was so close to cracking this third thing, the soul. I’d realised there was the energy you produced from being alive and the energy you produced when you died, but the fact that energy was produced when you died meant there was another phase. I could get a corpse’s heart beating and get all the neurons firing in the brain, but it wasn’t producing the alive stuff anymore. It wasn’t an on-off switch. … He said, It made sense that every human had a well of this energy, this soul energy, but I couldn’t distinguish it from anything else. Even on the day I’d killed all those cops there was too much noise and I couldn’t work out what the noise was. I could tell it was the thing I was looking for, but I didn’t understand why it seemed so big. And I didn’t know what to do with it, or how to use it.” (NtN 397-398) Thalergy, thanergy, and the secret third thing, the soul.
“For the first time I could hold a soul and see its edges, pin it down. It was like a tiny atom bomb. I could tell immediately that this was the missing link. If I could only control it. I should have been able to take that bullet out of her brain and undo the damage. Fix the soul back in. Bring her back to life. He said, But I held her soul in my hands and I knew why it had been so hard, because I was tuned in. I was looking at the code. I knew why I hadn’t been able to see anything. He said, When I touched her soul, I touched you. He said, You were the noise that was everywhere. It was like trying to talk to someone down a phone line with someone screaming through a megaphone in the same room. You drowned everything out. You were so huge and so complicated, and you were screaming. You wouldn’t stop screaming. You were so scared. You were so goddamn mad. … He said, But that’s when I realised you were there. And I realised the soul of a single human being was incredible, but at the same time—incredible small potatoes.” (NtN 405) Ok, this took me a little while to wrap my brain around, but. Human souls are separate from, but I think connected to, Earth’s soul^[ok]^[ol]—it’s just that when trying to sense any souls, the Earth’s soul drowned out individual human ones. But now he’s understood the human ones, and the Earth’s soul,a re there.
“He said, First, I became a demigod. I nearly fell out of my body. I put my hand around half the world’s throats. Some of them I managed to snap before they were melted away by nuclear fire. I did them clean. Everyone died, but I helped a hell of a lot of them go before they knew anything had happened. I drank them in, and it wasn’t enough. I needed those ships. I needed to extend my hand. I got it around the throat of the other half. I made them go away too. Then I had control of everything on the surface, but not the ships…birds flying above the fire…kids playing keep-away. He said, I put my hands around your neck. He said, I cupped your soul in my hands. He said, I took you into myself and we became one. He said, meditatively, I mean, I tried. There was so much of you—you weren’t the small, stained soul of a normal human being. You were so much bigger than that. I opened my mouth and tried to cram you inside…you didn’t fit.” (NtN 407-408) So, I’m thinking about what resurrection actually is in this context. John is “eating” the soul of every person on the planet. He frames this the same way he frames what he did to the Earth’s soul. This suggests to me that all those souls become part of him, the way he wants the whole Earth’s soul to be part of him. Does he then just find and break off the right bit of soul, to resurrect an individual? Does he start to consume them, the way a Lyctor consumes their cav’s soul bit by bit, and that’s the fate of all the people who weren’t resurrected? Is the tower in some way part of John, part of him that holds all these souls?
“He said, So I dropped to my knees here, right…I scooped dirt into my mouth…ate until I vomited. I gathered up the bloody earth…I realised you were too much for me. This is the problem, the incorporation, this is the hardest part…It’s the human instinct, to take. When you burn your thumb, you stick it in your mouth, right? And there was still too much of me that was just a human being… He said, I didn’t stick my thumb in my mouth. Had more sense than that. Fuck knows what would’ve happened if I tried to absorb you all the way; I probably would’ve burnt to death. But I needed a house to put you in, if I wasn’t going to put all of you in me. I made you one on the fly…I wasn’t even thinking…I ripped half my ribs from my body and made you from the dirt, my blood, my vomit, my bone. He said, I wanted to make you the most beautiful body I could think of.” (NtN 408) And this is a, but maybe not the only, “perfect” Lyctorhood. Part of her is in him, and part of him is in her.
“I made you look like a Christmas tree fairy…I made you look like a Renaissance angel…I made you Adam and Eve…Galatea. Barbie. Frankenstein’s monster with long yellow hair. He said, As the world went up I remade us both. I hid me in you…I hid you in me. And when we were together…once the shaman had claimed the sun…I became God. He said, It wasn’t enough. He said, The ships…the ships were still full of people. I reached out our hand into space. I extended. I struggled. He said, I bit through the sun first. It’s human nature. That started things going. Once you take down the sun, you’re cooking with gas, pardon the pun. I sliced through Venus, Mercury, Mars…by that point a couple of the tugs had already launched through the Kuiper. I had to kill Jupiter and Saturn in a fucking hurry. I reached…they blinked away from me…all I could do was hope that they’d watched what I was doing and all died from fucking terror. You and I went full fucking Hungry Caterpillar. We took Uranus…Neptune…crunched down Pluto…found every satellite and craft, reached in, crunched up all the humans, moved on. I didn’t know how to look, you see, only how to touch. The moment I found the fleed spinning up to enter FTL, it was too late…I could only grab one of them…and you and I held it in the palm of our hand. I was in there with them. All those frightened people. All those runaway rats.” (NtN 410) So: kill everyone on Earth, kill and absorb Earth, make a vessel for leftover Earth and a bit of John, kill the sun and the rest of the system, but miss a few ships packed with people. That’s the timeline of the end of the world! Jolly.

What does it mean that some of the dialogue is in quotes, and some of it isn’t? Is the dialogue in quotes directed at Harrowhark, and the dialogue not in quotes is directed at Alecto? Is it Alecto’s memory versus some actual presence of John’s consciousness speaking? There’s also sometimes italics in the quotation-mark-less parts, that seems to indicate a further layer deep: Harrow is witnessing memories Alecto has of John telling her the story of how this happened. Maybe dialogue in John’s story is in italics, dialogue in the present of Alecto’s memory is just plain text, and dialogue to Harrow specifically is in quotes? I want to consider this chapter by chapter as I go.

John 20:8 - the only dialogue in quotes is “‘You always say that, Harrowhark.’” (NtN 15) So this one, at least, supports any of my starting theories. The rest of the time in this chapter he’s addressing Alecto, and the italicized dialogue is dialogue within the story John is telling.
John 5:20 - the levels of dialogue idea is holding up here. This chapter is framed by dialogue in quotes, between Harrow and John—though in this dialogue he calls her “Beloved,” so there’s still some blurring between Harrow and Alecto as individuals here. There’s also the plain text dialogue of John telling Alecto his story with italicized dialogue within that story, and it’s hitting me now that in the chapter right before this, Nona asks Cam to tell her the story about how Cam met her. In John’s sections, he is telling Alecto the story of how he met her, of her birth as Alecto.
John 15:23 - It’s a little blurrier here, in interesting ways. Harrow prompts with a question in quotation marks, and John responds without quotation marks, the story inside this memory continuing as though maybe Alecto asked the same prompting question. Then at the end he addresses Harrow again, by name, in quotes, but what he says follows directly from what he was saying in the memory. This is fun! The lines are blurred, for Harrow, and for John, and for us! I love it, tbh.
John 5:18 - This one is fun for the layers of story and memory theory, because it starts out firmly inside the memory: no quotations around what “she” or John say, and also “The stars were sweet and familiar, but she did not know their names, though they seemed to be on the tip of her tongue.” (NtN 127) That’s very much Alecto’s POV, because the way the stars look from Earth would not be familiar to Harrow—the view from Pluto would be quite different. This is reversed back to Harrow POV at the end of the section, when we get dialogue in quotes: “He sighed and said, ‘We had the internet. We decided to stream.’ She said, ‘What is this internet?’ And he said, ‘See, I did make a utopia.’” (NtN 129)
John 8:1 - Gosh, I love how sad the moment is when this chapter drops out of the memory story and into Harrow’s dream. We go from “He said, I guess you could say…we had beef.” Inside the memory! To “When she did not laugh, he said, ‘I can’t believe nobody’s ever going to laugh at my jokes again. I can’t believe it. It’s all gone, I’m the only one left. It’s just me and you and no more jokes.’ She said, ‘I still love you.’ And he laughed and said, ‘That was a good one.’ Then he wept again.” (NtN 193) John, realizing anew that even his closest Lyctors are now gone, he’s almost totally alone in his inconceivable lifespan, and all his references are still 10,000 years out of date. Harrow, still professing her love of God, even though he’s gradually showing her why she shouldn’t. OOF.
John 19:18 - They’re fully in the memory story here except for one moment when John says “‘Don’t follow me, I’m mad.’” and kicks some things around, and then nothing until the end: “At that moment in the dream he got up off the car, and he said, ‘Fuck,’ in a normal voice, and then he said, ‘FUCK,’ so loudly that it echoed off the crumbling concrete shell and the bones and was carried off into the mist.” (NtN 223) This is super interesting, because John’s voice in the present moment of Harrow’s experience is interacting with their surroundings—so even though a lot of this is just Alecto’s memory of John telling her a story, even the frame narrative of Harrow and John experiencing Alecto’s memory is in a metaphysical space that they are really interacting with. I guess that was maybe obvious all along, but it strikes me here more than other places. Then there’s a brief drop back into the memory-dialogue until the last two lines: “She said,’ I don’t remember.’ He said, ‘I can’t forget.’” (NtN 223) A big oof for John Gaius the Emperor of Trauma.
John 5:1 - All the dialogue in this chapter is inside the memory! No John-and-Harrow dialogue!
John 3:20 - Another one that is fully inside the memory, dialogue-wise! Some of the narration might be more Harrow than Alecto, but without the formatting of the dialogue to really cue one or the other, the line is pleasantly blurred.
John 9:22 - Here we get maybe my favorite (by which I mean, fills me with most rage) bit of John talking to Harrow. Inside the memory, we get “I kept saying sorry, I’m sorry, I freaked out, it was an accident, I don’t know what happened, when they opened fire I lost my head. I said I made a mistake. She let it go eventually because the others were telling her to lay off. Just said, Guys as careful as you shouldn’t have accidents. If you’ve got a gun learn how to aim it. This is too big for fuckups now.” This is Pyrrha to John, after he kills a bunch of the people gathered outside, everyone with a gun. Then, outside the memory, we get: “She said, ‘Did you ever find out what happened? With your accident?’ He turned to her and he smiled a funny little smile. It only used one half of his mouth. In the dream his new eyes did not show happiness or unhappiness. And he said, ‘Come on, love. Guys as careful as me don’t have accidents.’” (NtN 320) This makes me FROTH AT THE MOUTH. John is the one who identifies killing the people with guns as an accident, when Pyrrha confronts him about it. It’s impossible to know if he meant it, in that moment, that he’d made a mistake. Or to know if he meant it when he told this story to Alecto, which is what we’re seeing. It’s already secondhand—he’s telling Alecto his version of events, which is the only version he allows anyone to have. Then he tells Harrow, in the “present” of whatever metaphysical space they’re sharing right now, that guys like him don’t have accidents. He either knew what he was doing and misrepresented it to Pyrrha and then to Alecto, or he didn’t know what he was doing but now isn’t willing to admit to Harrowhark that he’s fallible. Either way he’s lying to someone to make himself look as blameless as possible. And of course, even though he’s talking about murder, the phrasing of “guys as careful as me don’t have accidents” also definitely puts me in mind of guys who “pull out” or pretend not to have condoms or remove or break their condoms to trick their sexual partners (apparently this is called “stealthing,” which I’d never heard before.) Interesting phrasing for John, who has clearly tried to keep his genetic material on lockdown specifically to keep the Tomb secure, and wound up with a daughter via jizz heist anyway.
John 1:20 - This one has a lot of actual dialogue moments with Harrow breaking into the middle of the story! Sometimes it’s about place, the barricades, the wrecked kitchen—and, interestingly, the part where they eat peaches together—and once about the body of the nun. Then there’s quite a bit when he’s telling the story about finally pulling the soul out of the planet, Harrow asks a question and he answers it but they both frame Harrow and Alecto as the same; then bracing her for “the part where I hurt you,” and then the story about his Nana’s house and his mother’s toys and Hollywood Hair Barbie is also all in the present with Harrow! Crucially, this is also the moment when he admits that he wasn’t in his right mind, wasn’t himself, when he did any of this. Then when his story is finished, the section ends back with Harrow in the present, the dreamscape, though they’re both still equating Harrow and Alecto as the same.
John 5:4 - At last, the memory is done—this final John chapter is just John and Harrow, in their metaphysical space together, talking to each other.

The actual Bible verses!

John 20:8 - “Then that other disciple also went in, who came first to the sepulchre: and he saw, and believed.” I feel like the other disciple, in this instance, is Harrow—she’s entering the sepulchre of Alecto’s memories, of this end of the world story that only Alecto and John can tell. The verse itself refers to finding Jesus’ tomb empty after he has risen from the dead, and in a way (in different ways, I guess), John and Alecto have both risen from a kind of death in this post-apocalypse.
John 5:20 - “For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things which himself doth: and greater works than these will he shew him, that you may wonder.” This is the section where we get John’s first wonder—that the bodies he touched, the ones he cared for, were preserved. I love that this verse is establishing Jesus as being in God’s image, and John is just starting to establish the timeline of his own “divinity.”
John 15:23 - “He that hateth me, hateth my Father also.” As with the last John section, this one is also about establishing his Godlike power. I find it really…clever, maybe, or poignant, that this particular section refers to a bit of the Gospel where Jesus is telling his followers that people who hate him are going to also hate them, and that people who hate him are sinners because his power comes from God, and one of the main activities in this bit of the story John is telling is about doing experiments on the bodies that will become Ulysses and Titania, trying to make them rot, the same way BOE tried to make Gideon’s incorruptible body rot in As Yet Unsent. The story is making a connection there to people who DO hate John, and hate his disciples, and it’s fascinating to set that hatred (which is so deeply relatable, once we find out what John has actually done to the Earth) in conversation with hatred of Jesus and Jesus’ works. I feel like there’s so much in there, I want to make a little nest and just lay in the implications and absorb them through my skin.

Also: “He said: on the first day A— believed. On the second day so did M— and G—. By the third day everyone believed, because of my eyes.” This feels like it’s referencing the sort of domino effect of Jesus’ followers believing he rose from the dead! Mary Magdalen is first (and her part in this is referenced in TLT a bunch of times), then she runs off and tells the disciples, and then we come to Thomas, who won’t believe until he sees the proof and touches Jesus’ wounds himself. (John 20:16-28)

John 5:18 - “Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the sabbath, but also said God was his Father, making himself equal to God.” This one is really interesting, because it’s not the verse for any of the future John sections about government agencies or random people trying to stop him, it’s not about needing a cow wall for protection, it’s a section in which John convinces his friends/followers/disciples that what he can do is real—and they believe. And then, over the next 10,000 years, several of them make plans and attempts to kill him. Also, it’s worth noting that this is the section that ends with “‘We had the internet. We decided to stream.’” (NtN 129) So he is about to go public and invite violence. Anyway, I think all that is neat.
John 8:1 - “And Jesus went unto mount Olivet.” This is a fun one. This chapter of the bible is about judgment. It contains the parable a lot of folks might know about the woman accused of adultery who was going to be stoned, and when Jesus challenged the crowd to only throw stones if they themselves had never sinned, none of them could. There’s also a very John-resonant bit about how Jesus doesn’t judge—but if he does, his judgment is true, because it comes from on high, and other people can’t judge each other with that kind of authority and so they shouldn’t. In this chapter of NtN, we get the story of John fully leaning into his Jesus phase, healing people who come to him, and when there’s police pushback against the cult he’s creating, he builds the cow wall. John constantly puts himself and what he thinks is the thing to do above everyone else, and keeps justifying bigger and scarier things that way. I am REALLY into this like…view of John as a mundane and terrifying interpretation of what Christianity presents as miraculous and perfectly good: a god who believes he’s infallible.
John 19:18 - “Where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the midst.” This is what it sounds like! A chapter about Jesus being crucified, i.e. the Passion of Christ. It’s interesting that this particular verse mentions the other two people crucified at the same time, who don’t really come up otherwise in this chapter of John. In this chapter of NtN, John and Alecto/Harrow make it within sight of where his lab was, which became the facility and grew into Canaan House. The story he tells, still a distance from the building, is both about the problem of souls and not understanding where they go after death, and about the beginnings of the trillionaires and the FTL program getting ready to flee, and John still disbelieving that they’re going to get away with it. It’s about his anger; it’s about people, not as individuals but as collectives, getting away with terrible things and letting terrible things be gotten away with. Power and money are at work here getting ready to leave the Earth to die because too many people believe the comforting lie, and nobody believes John because he slaughtered all those cattle. And listen, I think John is a dick, but he is, predictably, the Jesus figure here. He’s got the technology and the plan that would save the most people, potentially save everyone, but public opinion and power have turned against him and his closest companions, the same way public opinion and power turned against Jesus and didn’t believe he could do what he said he could do, and put him to death. This makes me feel weird in innumerable ways, but narratively the comparison is there and it’s interesting.
John 5:1 - “After these things was a festival day of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” I know I say this about every single John chapter, but this is an interesting parallel! This chapter of John is about a man who has been suffering some unspecified illness or is maybe disabled, for 38 years. And this guy has been hanging out near a pond where the water has healing power, but only when it’s moving. He has no friends to help him get to the water when the moment is right, so he keeps missing his chance. When Jesus hears this whole thing, he heals the man and tells him to get up and grab his bedroll or whatever he was sleeping on, and walk. Except this happens on the sabbath, and for some reason someone smarter than me might know, it’s not allowed to carry your sleeping mat around on the sabbath. I guess it counts as work? So there’s conflict, because Jesus told this guy to do a thing that’s not allowed, and the Jewish community he’s in are telling him not to do that, and then get mad that Jesus is breaking the sabbath by working too, and also because he’s saying he’s God’s son and so making himself equal to God. So, in this chapter of NtN, we get the story of how John made a dead political leader appear to be alive, and got paid with a nuke. In many ways a mirror of the bible chapter—the focus is on someone claiming Godlike powers who is using those powers to make one other person get up and walk around again. Where Jesus receives resistance for this work, John receives payment—but the resistance will lead to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, and the nuke will lead to the Earth’s death and resurrection.
John 3:20 - “For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved.” Gosh, I love the connections here too! This chapter of NtN is about John and his followers trying to reveal the fraud being perpetrated by the trillionaires, the ships they’re only pretending to build and the meager 200 lives other than their own that they’re willing to save. (Fun, that 200 lives comes up here again, given its significance for Harrow.) It’s a chapter about work being seen and being believed and being “good” or “bad,” trying to shed light on deception. In this chapter of John, especially the verse quoted and the verses around it, we get a lot of language about Jesus saving the world, and truth coming to light. Also, an explanation of being “born again of water and the Holy Ghost,” which parallels nicely with the Resurrection John will soon be performing, foreshadowed in this chapter by naming what he’s doing as “necromancy” for the first time and the knowledge of the nuke he hides under the floor.
John 9:22 - “These things his parents said, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had already agreed among themselves, that if any man should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.” The connection here is more nebulous to me. This quote comes in the middle of a story about Jesus restoring the sight of a blind man, and then the blind man being questioned by the authorities about this miracle, and his parents being brought in and questioned too. Metaphorically, it’s about sin, and about knowledge. Feels shitty and ableist to say that if you’re “blind” you’re ignorant of the right thing to do and so you’re not a sinner when you do wrong, but when you “see” and know better and don’t do better, then you are a sinner, but that’s what we’ve got here. In NtN, John knows better—he certainly knows it’s the wrong move to just straight up murder everyone carrying a gun, regardless of whether they’re using it in that moment—but he does it, and calls it a mistake. This is also the section where he first sees fresh death up close as a necromancer: “I could feel it like it was happening to me. Like it was injected into the bottom of my spine. I could see everything. I could feel everything.” (NtN 319) This is the thanergy he uses to stop the hearts of the people he kills in this moment. He gains sudden understanding of death, and uses it to make more death. “But now you say: We see. Your sin remaineth.” (John 9:41)
John 1:20 - “And he confessed, and did not deny: and he confessed: I am not the Christ.” I mean, wow. This verse, and this chapter, is about John the Baptist, paving the way for Jesus. He in fact baptizes Jesus in this chapter, and that’s how he finds out who Jesus is, because he sees a sign of the Holy Spirit come down on him. This section of NtN is about John both finally figuring out how to reach the power that makes him God, and also admitting that all that power came from the Earth, from Alecto. That she chose him to give power to, and he killed her and the whole system instead. I think this verse is framing John not as God whose daughter is Jesus, but as John the Baptist who comes before Jesus, who will be greater.
John 5:4 - “And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water, was made whole, of whatsoever infirmity he lay under.” Back to John 5 again! This story about the healing pool and a guy who couldn’t get himself to the water was relevant to John 5:1 as well, but here it’s got a different angle to it. We’ve got a healing pond, made so by the power of an angel, not Jesus. We’ve got John and Harrow by the River, something even John doesn’t fully control or understand, a place that itself needs healing. We’ve got Jesus healing a guy who can’t make it to the water, just skipping the angel stuff altogether and telling him to walk; we’ve got John, everything he’s done finally revealed, and Harrow, who has suffered so long worshiping him now seeing him more fully, and walking into the River herself. We’ve got the tower, reaching upward, versus angel power reaching downward. And also we’ve got this beautiful analysis about how this verse is commonly omitted from newer Bible translations, and why, and what this means for this chapter of NtN. What a verse to end on!!

TLT and Mythology

This is such a huge topic and is present all over this doc, but I need a place to put mythology-based musings that don’t really belong in another category!
TLT as a Hades and Persephone myth - this post by Tumblr user scoobhead really sent me on a tear today, and I’ve copied my response in here so I can find it again later.

gideon is in some ways persephone, goddess of the flower, fallen through a crack in the earth into the hell of drearburh. harrow is in some ways hades, ruler of the underworld, unwilling to let go of gideon, clutching on to her though she tries to escape. the ninth and the tomb and alecto all tie to john, the necromancer divine, a god of death; wake, who gideon resembles more closely, represents the rest of the human race existing on thalergenic planets, fruitful, alive. as hades agrees to let persephone return to her mother, harrow agrees to let gideon escape—foils her—then brings them both out of hell to canaan house, where they (among many other things) both eat pomegranate seeds for the first time, in one of the dishes abigail serves at the fifth’s anniversary, gotten from a tree in the canaan house gardens. canaan house binds them together; gideon spends the next book buried in the underworld of harrow’s mind, and then emerges again into the living world, but still bound to death. even when they’re not together or unevenly aware of each other, gideon and harrow orbit each other, cyclical as the seasons. im absolutely dying to know what season they bring next.

TLT and other literature - UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This section is not meant to be exhaustive in any way, there is tons of literature Tamsyn is referencing in large and small and thematic ways all the time, these are just particular things that I personally got really excited about and interested in analyzing. Like definitely if I were doing this for a dissertation or something, I would read Lolita, and the Illiad, and maybe Dante’s Inferno, and certainly reread Revelations. But I’m not being graded on this, so I likely will not get there, lol.

Nona and The Last Unicorn

The Last Unicorn is one of my favorite movies of all time, and also one of my favorite books, and there’s a lot in Nona that is referencing it!! I’m currently rereading the book and filling it with sticky notes of things that parallel, so this section is going to be messy and under construction for a bit.
“She didn’t care whose eyes were whose; but she was a little vain, and cared about being nice-looking. Nona knew early that other people thought she was pretty too. Once a long time ago when she was waiting in line to pick up some detergent and Camilla was getting something else they’d forgotten, the person in the line behind her had said, ‘Hey, pretty thing, where have you been all my life,’ and laughed a lot when Nona said truthfully that she didn’t know. Then they had stood quite close to her and touched her on the hip, where her shirt was tucked in.” (NtN 35)

[quote here the bit in TLU about the farmer trying to catch the unicorn on the road]

“Hot Sauce didn’t answer her. When she did say anything, she asked a question instead, which was irritatingly like Pyrrha. ‘You like it here?’ ‘I love it here,’ said Nona sincerely. ‘I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.’” (NtN 52)

“Then she shocked Nona deeply by saying, ‘Nona, would you ever want to leave here?’ ‘What?’ ‘Live on a farm with the Warden and me. With Pyrrha. Out of the city. Away.’ ‘No,’ said Nona, startled and not at all pleased. ‘I love it here.’ ‘Would you love a new home too, if we were all there?’ ‘Maybe,’ said Nona, now startled and suspicious.” (NtN 68)

“This was a secret that Nona kept from Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, almost the only one she kept from them, but one too beautiful to tell. She knew the luminous sphere hanging above the city, high in space, had kicked off all the riots, and was making everyone scream, and had caused the siege in the port, and made people throw themselves in front of buses, and made everyone say the end of the world was coming soon. It was making everybody’s lives horrible, and it had given Palamedes and Camilla the same grave, pensive expression, and Pyrrha slapped on an extra nicotine patch every time the fog burned away and it hung like a great blue ball in the sky. But Nona loved the blue sphere as much as she loved everything else. She, and nobody else, could hear it sing. ‘Good night, Varun,’ she said.” (NtN 124-125)

[the unicorn and the harpy]

“‘The Captain’s black brows drew together, and her face took on a hideous expression: a flat tangle of features that scared Nona so badly that she wanted to go to the bathroom again, right until the Captain opened her mouth and droned, punctuated by huge wheezing lungfuls of air: ‘Dust of my dust—such similar star salt—what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill—we see you still—we seek you still—we murdered—we who murder—you inadvertent tool—you misused green thing—come back to us—take vengeance for us—we saw you—we see you—I see you.’” (NtN 165)
“In the dream she did not fear sleeping, but she did not know how to do it herself. Her body was a mystery to her. She did not understand what it meant or signified. She would suddenly collapse and sleep where she fell, shocked into unconsciousness by exhaustion, and wake wherever he put her, in whatever makeshift bed he had been forced to cook up: sometimes old stained mattresses, sometimes baby-soft skin hammocks.” (NtN 188)
“Nona looked at the faces of the crowd, hooded against the heat and the dust, wondering briefly and hopefully if Pyrrha and Camilla or Palamedes were somehow among them, or Crown. It was like looking at the sea—grey colours, drab green colours, every so often a paler moving blotch of dun or tan. It made her feel a little sick to look at so many people, so many sets of shoulders and crossed arms, so she stared at the screen instead.” (NtN 205)
To come back to later: I want to think about Pyrrha as the butterfly, advice cloaked in obscure references, knows the unicorn but hesitates to say it, knows what happened to the others.
Also to come back to later: The unicorn as Nona and Alecto, but also Harrow; the unicorn and Lear as Harrow and Gideon, and the horrors of love that we have yet to know—no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but now she does. The unicorns streaming from the sea as the castle crumbles, and perhaps, the souls Harrow will free from Hell and the crumbling of the tower in the River. The end of this story as a predictor of what will happen for Alecto, for Harrow, for John, and for the world of TLT.
“‘But you see, Palamedes, I don’t mind dying,’ said Nona, trying to make him understand. ‘I’ve been doing it for ages. I’m not scared.’” (NtN 289)
“‘Nona, Pyrrha thinks you’re the key to something we want.’ ‘The body.’ ‘Yes.’ And: ‘You're going to have to be brave.’” (NtN 316) and You can find the others if you are brave.
“‘Green thing,’ said the Captain. ‘Green-and-breathing thing, big ghost, the drinker, transformed, what will you eat now? Where will your body go? What did he do to you, to make you this way? You eat yourself.’” (NtN 392) and Molly Grue what have you done?
“He said: ‘You said, ‘What have you done to me? I am a hideousness.’’” (NtN 410)
“‘Do you remember what happened after you blacked out on top of the car?’ asked Pyrrha. ‘No,’ said Nona. ‘Maybe that’s for the best,’ said Pyrrha. Then she opened her mouth and said quietly— ‘A…’ ‘Don’t,’ Nona found herself saying. ‘Don’t. Don’t call me that or anything like that…don’t make me remember. I don’t want to…You won’t like it. Don’t. Don’t make me do it.’” (NtN 413)
“‘There can be no forgiveness for those who walked away,’ he said. ‘Just as there can be no forgiveness for me—even though I rip the very fingers from my hands…throw them into the jaws of the monsters who hunt me…as I run from them across the universe, end to end. Something will satisfy them eventually, but nothing satisfies me. Nothing.’” (NtN 435)
“‘Don’t talk. Don’t stress yourself,’ said Paul, but Nona didn’t want to be interrupted. ‘I might not help you when…I’m back,’ she said, not quite understanding I. ‘I’ll be different. I’ll remember everything…I’ll remember the thing I’m trying to forget. And Palamedes—I won’t love him. I won’t love Camilla, or Pyrrha, or Hot Sauce, or even Noodle. I won’t love anything…I won’t know how. I won’t be me at all, or…I’ll be the me who knows the thing, and knowing the thing means I’m not Nona—I’m someone else.’” (NtN 461)

“‘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. I’m ready. Let’s go.’” (NtN 462)

“Then Alecto remembered the vow, and turned back upon the altar to face the second child [Harrow] and raised the sword with wrath in her heart, for they meant to bring destruction upon her. But when the black-eyed infant [Harrow] showed her countenance to Alecto, Alecto recalled her, for it was a face once dreamed in Alecto’s dream. And Alecto stayed the sword.” (NtN 476)
“If I were blind I would know what you are” vs “I would know you in the blindness of my eyes” ? or maybe this just belongs in the references section

“The Unwanted Guest” and An Inspector Calls

Lines and sections I just really like:

Gideon and Harrow having complex feelings about each other:

Harrow was shooting herself in the foot. She was gamely firing into one foot and then taking aim at the other. She’d lose rights to Gideon forever. Gideon went absolutely cold.

“You can’t say I don’t care,” said Harrow.

“You don’t care,” said Gideon. (GtN 28)

***

…stalking back to the shuttlefield and presenting herself like an emptied quiver. Just in gloves and boots and shirt and trousers, with her cropped black head and her face pinched with wrath, she seemed like what she really was: a desperate girl younger than Gideon, and rather small and feeble.

“Look, Nonagesimus,” said Gideon, thoroughly unbalanced and now actually embarrassed, “cut the bull. Don’t do—whatever you’re about to do. Let me go.”

“You don’t get to turn and leave quite so easily, Nav,” said Harrowhark, with palpable chill. (GtN 29-30)

***

The Reverend Daughter turned up, as she always goddamn did, standing outside the locked door of her cell. Gideon knew she was there because the shadows in front of the little peephole changed, and because it would be nobody else. (GtN 46)

[Harrow is the only person who ever comes looking for her]

***

Harrow’s dark eyes were on Gideon’s, past the blade pointed at her skull. “Oh, I have hurt your heart,” she said.

Gideon kept it absolutely level. “I boohooed for hours.”

“It won’t be the last time I make you weep.” (GtN 51)

***

She looked worn and exhausted, even vulnerable. For the journey’s length she had kept her prayer knuckles in her hands and moodily clinked them into each other. In Gideon’s comics, Cohort adepts always sat on plackets of grave dirt to ameliorate the effects of deep space and the loss of their power source; trust Harrowhark not to take the placebo. Gideon had warmed herself with the thought that it was the perfect time to kick her ass up and down the shuttle, but in the end, the natural embarrassment of arriving with one’s necromancer’s elbows on backward saved Harrow’s life. (GtN 67)

***

Harrowhark threw herself upon the shutter and slammed it down; she and Gideon stood in the centre of the passenger bay, staring at each other. Gideon realized that Harrow was trembling; little licks of hole-black hair were pasted to her pale grey forehead with sweat, threatening to dissolve the paint. Gideon realised with a start that she was trembling and sweating in concert. They looked at each other with a wild surmise, and then started dabbing at their faces with the insides of their sleeves.

“Hood up,” breathed Harrowhark, “hide that ridiculous hair.”

“Your dead mummified mother’s got ridiculous hair.”

“Griddle, we’re within the planet’s halo now, and I will delight in violence.” (GtN 69)

***

Gideon felt the pressure and the edge remove itself from her neck, and she let out a breath. Not for long, though; it was replaced with a gloved hand pressing over the place where the blade had been, a hand which was pressing down as though its owner would quite like to punch her occipital bone into crumbs. That hand could belong to only one person. Gideon braced to be dropped headfirst into the shitter, and Harrowhark’s voice emerged as though it had been dredged up from the bottom of a charnel house.

“Your cavalier,” said the Lady of the Ninth quietly, “drew on my cavalier.”

As Gideon died gently of shock, buoyed back to this life only by the weird bruises forming at the top of her spine, the other girl broke out into miserable coughs. (GtN 75)

[As usual, Gideon is noticing but maybe incorrectly interpreting. Is Harrow mad that Gideon’s making a scene? Maybe. Is Harrow covering the nape of Gideon’s neck, an extremely vulnerable and eroticized part of the body, specifically Gideon’s body which has just been threatened, with her hand because she’s overcome with possessiveness and budding protectiveness? Definitely.]

***

In the end, (ii) had the most traction. The paint supplies were all here. She had never seen Harrowhark Nonagesimus’s naked face. With a deep resentment of heart and weariness of soul, Gideon threw on her robe and embarked upon a long, disconsolate day of searching.

…

She would not thank Gideon even if she had sat her flat ass in a puddle of molten lava, especially not as Gideon would religiously mark each anniversary of the day Harrow destroyed her butt with magma. She washed her hands of the entire scenario.

After she had choked down food and drunk half a jug of water in quick succession, Gideon gave up and resumed the search. (GtN 128-129)

***

At this clarification, a very strange thing happened to Gideon Nav. She had already exhausted neurons, cortisol, and adrenaline, and now her body started moving before her head or her heart did; she strode past the boy and yanked so hard on the top of the hatch that it damn near broke her wrists. It was shut tighter than Crux’s ass. At this embarrassing heaving, the boy sighed explosively and threw his zipped-up bag to Camilla, who caught it out of midair.

“Cavaliers,” he said. (GtN 135)

***

There were no other signs of blood on the rest of her clothes or her robes, just sweat patches. Gideon had checked for injuries and been traumatised by the experience.

She went to the bathroom and filled up a glass of water from the tap, and she left it next to Harrow, then hesitated hard. How to rehydrate? Was she meant to—wash her mouth, or something? Did she need to clean off the tusks of dried blood at each nostril? Gideon popped each shoulder in indecision, grabbed the water glass, and reached toward Harrow.

“Touch me again and I’ll kill you,” said Harrow, scratch-throated, without opening her eyes. “I really will.”

Gideon pulled her fingers back as though from a flame, and exhaled. (GtN 143-144)

***

“Quit bluffing, Nonagesimus! Quit acting like I was the one who messed up here! You haven’t spoken more than twenty words to me since we arrived, you’ve kept me totally in the dark, and yet I’ve done every single thing you ever goddamned asked of me no matter what it was—okay, I did come find you, nearly every single thing—but I kept my head down and I didn’t start shit. So if you could see your way to being even ten percent less salty with me, that’d be just terrific.”

Silence spread between them. The iron resolve on that scabrous mouth seemed to waver, just a little bit. Gideon added, “And don’t push me. The places where I can and would stick this thing for safekeeping would astonish you.”

“Puke,” murmured Harrow. And: “Give me the water, Griddle.” (GtN 145)

[This is the moment when Harrow starts to give in. She’s spent seventeen years with Gideon as her only companion, and expressing every feeling she has about that as anger, lashing out with it because she has no healthy example of how to love someone. Now she’s exhausted, depleted, away from everything familiar, and Gideon isn’t baiting her. She’s got no reserves left for anger, and comfort is winning her over.]

***

Gideon reflected on her unexpected victory as she stared in the mirror, idly counting the pimples cropping up as the result of repeated slathers of cult paint. The atmosphere was—relaxed, in this strange and waiting way, like the time she’d got a sedative and knew a nun was coming to whip out her tonsils. She and Nonagesimus were both waiting for the knife. She had never known Harrow to be so malleable, nor to go such a long time without raking her claws across Gideon’s internal tender spots. Maybe the Lyctor trials were having a mellowing effect on her. (GtN 168)

***

The expression on her face was completely alien. Harrowhark Nonagesimus was looking at her with unalloyed admiration.

“But for the love of the Emperor, Griddle,” she said gruffly, “you are something else with that sword.”

The blood all drained away from Gideon’s cheeks for some reason. The world spun off its axis. Bright spots sparked in her vision. She found herself saying, intelligently, “Mmf.”

“I was in the privileged position of feeling you fight,” Harrow continued, fingers nervously flexing. “And it took me a while to work out what you were doing. Longer still to appreciate it. But I don’t think I’d ever really watched you, not in context…Well, all I can say is thank the Tomb that nobody knows you’re not really one of ours. If I didn’t know that, I’d be saying that you were Matthias Nonius come again or something equally saccharine.”

“Harrow,” said Gideon, finding her tongue, “don’t say these things to me. I still have a million reasons to be mad at you. It’s hard to do that and worry that you got brain injured.”

“I’m merely saying you’re an incredible swordswoman,” said the necromancer briskly. “You’re still a dreadful human being.” (GtN 182-183)

***

“Look,” said Harrowhark.

No murder, sorrow, or fear could ever touch Harrow Nonagesimus. Her tired eyes were alight. A lot of her paint had peeled away or been sweated off down in the facility, and the whole left side of her jaw was just grey-tinted skin. A hint of her humanity peeked through. She had such a peculiarly pointed little face, high browed and tippy everywhere, and a slanted and vicious mouth. She said irascibly, “At the key, moron, not at me.” (GtN 203)

***

“He was a stranger, Nav. Why does it affect you so much?”

“He was nice to me,” she found herself saying. … “Because he was a stranger, I think… He didn’t have to bother with me, to make time for me or remember my name, but he did. Hell, you treat me more like a stranger than Magnus Quinn did and I’ve known you all my life. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Harrow’s hand, peeled and naked without a glove and stained with ink all the way up to her cuticles, appeared in front of her. Gideon found her shoulder drawn back so that she had to look Harrow square in the face. The necromancer regarded her with a strangely fierce eye: mouth a worn-down line of indecision, forehead puckered as though she was thinking her entire face into a wrinkle. There was still blood flaking out of her eyebrows, which was gross.

“I must no longer accept,” she said slowly, “being a stranger to you.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Gideon, sudden sweat prickling the back of her neck, “yes you can, you once told me to dig myself an ice grave. Stop before this gets weird.”

“Quinn’s death proves that this is not a game,” said Harrow, moistening her ashy lips with her tongue. “The trials are meant to winnow out the wheat from the chaff, and it is going to be exceptionally dangerous. We are all the sons and daughters that the House of the Ninth possesses, Nav.”

“I’m not anybody’s son or daughter,” said Gideon firmly, now in no small panic.

“I need you to trust me.”

“I need you to be trustworthy.”

***

There was something curious about Harrow’s face when it was not fixed into the bland church mask of the Reverend Daughter: something thin and desperate and quite young about it, something not totally removed from Jeannemary’s desperation. (GtN 209-210)

***

“Do you know what I’d have to do?”

“Yeah,” said Gideon. “You’re going to suck out my life energy in order to get to the box on the other side.”

“A ham-fisted summary, but yes. How did you come to that conclusion?”

“Because it’s something Palamedes wouldn’t do,” she said, “and he’s a perfect moron over Camilla the Sixth. Okay.” (GtN 223)

[Pal and Cam won’t do this test because they put their bond, and each other’s well-being, above everything else. Harrow is at this point still putting Lyctorhood and saving the Ninth House first, but she’s starting to take Pal’s example—she’s interested in Gideon’s thought process, and she’s hesitating to do something that will injure her without making certain Gideon knows what’s going on.]

***

“You want my juice? I’ll give you juice.”

“Under no circumstances will I ever desire your juice,” said her necromancer, mouth getting more desperate. “Nav, you don’t know precisely what this is asking. I will be draining you dry in order to get to the other side. If at any point you throw me off—if you fail to submit—I die. I have never done this before. The process will be imperfect. You will be in…pain.”

“How do you know?”

…

“It’s said they all die screaming,” said Harrow.

…

She said, “I’ll still do it.”

Harrowhark chewed on the insides of her cheeks so hard that they looked close to staving in. She steepled her fingers together, squeezed her eyelids shut. When she spoke again, she made her voice quite calm and normal: “Why?”

“Probably because you asked.”

The heavy eyelids shuttered open, revealing baleful black irises. “That’s all it takes, Griddle? That’s all you demand? This is the complex mystery that lies in the pit of your psyche?”

Gideon slid her glasses back onto her face, obscuring feelings with tint. She found herself saying, “That’s all I ever demanded,” and to maintain face suffixed it with, “you asswipe.” (GtN 223-224)

[Harrow’s taking more care with Gideon, and Gideon is starting to reward her; Harrow is becoming more trustworthy, and so Gideon is giving her trust. I’m just over here weeping into my book.]

***

Gideon was suddenly aware that she was very cold. Something had changed. It was getting harder to suck in each breath. “She’s stumbled,” said the voice, detached, and Gideon heaved: not against the connection, but into it. The consequent pain was so intense that she was afraid she might wet herself, but the spike of cold faded. (GtN 227)

***

She even let Harrow steer her toward the blankets that constituted her bed. Gideon was too exhausted to do anything but lie down and sneeze three times^[om]^[on]^[oo]^[op]^[oq]^[or]^[os] in quick succession, each sneeze a migraine gong through her sinus and skull bone.

“Quit looking at me like that,” she eventually commanded harrow, wiping bloody muck onto her hanky. “I’m alive.”

“You nearly weren’t,” said Harrow soberly, “and you’re not even aggrieved about it. Don’t price your life so cheaply, Griddle. I have absolutely no interest in you losing your sense of self-preservation.” (GtN 231)

***

Camilla hauled herself up to stand. She had taken Palamedes’s handkerchief and bound her arm, but the blood was already showing through and she held it in a funny way. Palamedes looked close to vibrating out of his skin from fear or anger. “Right,” she said laconically, “second round.”

But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotion: being sick of everyone’s shit. She unsheathed her sword. She slid her gauntlet over her hand, and tightened the wrist straps with her teeth. And she looked over her shoulder at Harrowhark, who was apparently breaking out of a blue funk to experience her own dominant emotion of oh, not again. Gideon silently willed her necromancer to put her knucklebones where her mouth was and, for the first time in her life—for the first real time—do what Gideon needed her to do.

And Harrowhark rose to the occasion like an evening star.

“The Ninth House will represent the Sixth House,” she said, sounding cold and bored, as though this had been her plan all along. Gideon wanted to sing. Gideon wanted to dance her up and down the corridor. She broke out in a broad, unnervingly un-Ninth smile, and Naberius Tern—who had gone from greasy villainy to aggrieved caution—was having to force his smirk.

Ianthe just looked a little amused. “The plot congeals. Since when has the Ninth been bosom with the Sixth?”

“We’re not.”

“Then—”

Harrowhark said, in the exact sepulchral tones of Marshal Crux: “Death first to vultures and scavengers.” (GtN 268-269)

***

The Fourth House cavalier couldn’t even stand: she was reduced to the small, disbelieving sobs of someone whose heart had broken forever. It was the second time Gideon had listened to Jeannemary really cry, and the second time was a lot worse than the first.

She had to get her to safety. Gideon wanted her longsword and she wanted Harrow. (GtN 284)

***

And Harrow, telling her to wake up. That had only happened the once: the Ninth necromancer sitting in the dark, wrapped in a mouldering duvet like a cloak, her face very naked and blank and shorn of its monochrome skull mural. Gideon had fallen back into an uneasy sleep almost immediately. … but she had been looking at Gideon with a coal-eyed expression of absolute pity. There had been something very weary and soft about the way that Harrow Nonagesimus had looked at her then, something that would have been understanding had it not been so tired and cynical.

“It’s just me,” she’d said impatiently. “Go back to sleep.” (GtN 300)

***

“Melodrama, Griddle, never became you,” said her adept flatly. “You’ve never complained about any of our previous transactions.”

“My ass, transactions. What happened to ‘I cannot afford to not have you trust me, now I’m going to make awkward eye contact and act like you broke my nose just because you hugged me once’?”

An indrawn breath. “Don’t mock my—”

“Mock you? I should kick your ass for you!” (GtN 312)

[Harrow is so stung, this bit of their fight in particular feels like Harrow’s autistic coding and Gideon’s ADHD coding are scraping past each other and doing damage. Harrow has been struggling with her emotions and how to express and/or repress them, how to have a different relationship with Gideon than she’s had before; Gideon has been sensing that new relationship too, and working it into her worldview, and this sudden swing back toward coldness feels to her like rejection, which she can’t see past far enough to understand what Harrow is feeling.]

***

The wardrobe door was ajar. Gideon made a beeline toward it, pulling it open violently, though she had no heart to sew shut the cuffs on all of Harrowhark’s shirts as she once might have done. She half-expected bone wards to yank both her arms from their sockets, but there was nothing. There was no guard. There was nothing to have ever stopped her doing this. This drove her demented, for some reason. (GtN 328-329)

[In this moment, when Gideon is still angry from their fight and unsettled by weird tea with the Eighth, the realization that she had more of Harrow’s trust than she knew THIS WHOLE TIME is so painful!!!]

***

Things were happening too much. She took a hot mouthful, swilled tea around her teeth, and swallowed mechanically. “She’s mine.”

“You’ve said that five times now.”

“I mean it. Whatever goes down—whatever happens—you have to let me do it. You have to.” (GtN 330)

***

And though Gideon hated the cloisterites, and hated the Locked Tomb, and hated the ghastly great-aunts, and hated Crux most of all, she was hungry for the Reverend Daughter’s preoccupation. They were the only two children in a House that was otherwise busy getting gangrene.

…

This was probably the best time of their relationship. Back then they clashed so consistently that they were with each other most of the time. They fought each other bloody, for which Harrow was not punished and Gideon was. They set elaborate traps, sieges, and assaults, and grew up in each other’s pockets, even if it was generally while trying to grievously injure the other one. (GtN 332-333)

***

Gideon peeled Harrow’s head off her shoulder by the hair and beheld it, taking her inventory: her point-boned, hateful little face, her woeful black brows, the bloodless bow of her lips. She examined the disdainful set of the jaw, the panic in the starless eyes. 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. (GtN 357)

[This is the MOST INTIMATE THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN. I don’t even have much to say about it, except that they’re finally speaking the same language. Gideon is ENFORCING her forgiveness; Harrow is letting go of her self hatred just long enough to solidify this bond. I want to paste this into every single section of this document.]

***

Her eyes opened. A small, astonished smile creased her mouth. The smile transformed her face into an affliction of beauty that Gideon had heretofore managed to ignore. (GtN 358)

[I’M SO UPSET, Gideon has been catching feelings and trying to ignore them all along and this is such a nail in that coffin.]

***

Harrow stepped closer to Gideon and muttered, “If anything moves—”

“Yaaas, I know. Let it head for Camilla.”

Gideon did not know how to handle this new, overprotective Harrowhark, this girl with the hunted expression. She kept looking at Gideon with the screwed-up eyes of someone who had been handed an egg for safekeeping and was surrounded by egg-hunting snakes. (GtN 364)

***

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?”

“Because everyone would have throttled you within the first five minutes otherwise,” said her necromancer. (GtN 396-397)

***

Harrow’s mouth briefly ruckled. “A necromancer alone can’t bring that down, Griddle. That’s regenerating bone.”

“I’m not running, Harrow!”

“Of course we’re not running,” said Harrowhark disdainfully. “I said a necromancer alone. I have you. We bring hell.”

“Harrow—Harrow, Dulcinea’s a Lyctor, a real one—”

“Then we’re all dead, Nav, but let’s bring hell first,” said Harrow. Gideon looked over her shoulder at her, and caught the Reverend Daughter’s smile. There was blood sweat coming out of her left ear, but her smile was long and sweet and beautiful. Gideon found herself smiling back so hard her mouth hurt.

Her adept said: “I’ll keep it off you. Nav, show them what the Ninth House does.”

Gideon lifted her sword. The construct worked itself free of its last confines of masonry and rotten wood and heaved before them, flexing itself like a butterfly.

“We do bones, motherfucker,” she said. (GtN 408-409)

***

“I need to be inside you,” Harrow bellowed over the din.

“Okay, you’re not even trying,” said Gideon.

Her necromancer said: “It’s all I can do to pin it in place, so you need to finish it for me. Breach the legs—I will show you exactly where—and then I can keep it quiet for a while.”

“Seriously? How?”

“You’ll see,” said Harrow grimly. “I apologize, Nav. Get ready to move.” (GtN 412)

***

“Oh, you were gorgeous,” said the Lyctor, “a thing apart.”

She batted Gideon’s sword away with her hand. Then she advanced.

“Step off, bitch,” said Harrowhark Nonagesimus, behind her. (GtN 426)

***

The Reverend Daughter of the NInth House smiled, tiny and triumphant. Then she keeled into Gideon’s arms.

Gideon stumbled, sick with terror, kneeling them both down to the ground as Harrow lay like a broken rag doll. She forgot her sword, forgot everything as she cradled her used-up adept. She forgot the wrecked ligaments in her sword arm, her messed-up knee, the cups of blood she’d lost, everything but that tiny, smouldering, victorious smile.

“Harrow, come on, I’m here,” she told her, howling to be heard above the thunder of the construct’s assault. “Siphon, damn it.”

“After what happened to the Eighth?” Harrow’s voice was surprisingly strong, considering she appeared to be all black robes and wounds. “Not ever again.” (GtN 428)

***

“Don’t do this to me.”

“I owe you your life,” said Harrowhark. “I owe you everything.” (GtN 429)

***

Harrow reached up—her hand was trembling—and tapped Gideon on the cheek.

“Nav,” she said, “have you really forgiven me?”

Confirmed. They were all going to eat it.

“Of course I have, you bozo.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“Maybe not,” said Gideon, “but that doesn’t stop me forgiving you. Harrow—”

“Yes?”

“You know I don’t give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you,” she said in a brokenhearted rush.. She didn’t know what she was trying to say, only that she had to say it now. … “I’m no good at this duty thing. I’m just me. I can’t do this without you. And I’m not your real cavalier primary, I never could’ve been.”

…

The construct wasn’t there: the shelter wasn’t there. Even Camilla, who had turned away to politely investigate something on the opposite wall, wasn’t there. It was just her and Harrow and Harrow’s bitter, high-boned, stupid little face.

Harrow laughed. It was the first time she had ever heard Harrow really laugh. It was a rather weak and tired sound.

“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.” (GtN 430-431)

***

She sucked in a wobbly breath. Harrow was looking at her with a classic expression of faint Nonagesimus pity, as though Gideon had finally lost her intellectual faculties and might wet herself at any moment. Camilla watched her with an expression that showed nothing at all. Camilla the Sixth was no idiot.

She said, “Harrow, I can’t keep my promise, because the entire point of me is you. You get that, right? That’s what cavaliers sign up for. There is no me without you. One flesh, one end.”

A shade of exhausted suspicion flickered over her necromancer’s face. “Nav,” she said, “what are you doing?”

“The cruellest thing anyone has ever done to you in your whole entire life, believe me,” said Gideon. “You’ll know what to do, and if you don’t do it, what I'm about to do will be no use to anyone.” (GtN 431-432)

***

“Okay,” said Gideon. “Okay. Get up.”

Harrowhark Nonagesimus got up.

“Good!” said her cavalier. “You can stop screaming any moment now, just an FYI. Now—first make sure nothing’s going to ice Camilla—I meant it about not wanting an afterlife subscription to Palamedes Sextus’s Top Nerd Facts.”

“Gideon,” said Harrow and again, more incoherently: “Gideon.”

“No time,” said Gideon. A hot wind blew over them both: it whipped Harrow’s hair into her face. “Incoming.” (GtN 435)

***

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—

“I cannot do this.”

“You already did it,” said Gideon. “It’s done. You ate me and rebuilt me. We can’t go home again.”

“I can’t bear it.”

“Suck it down,” said Gideon. “You’re already two hundred dead daughters and sons of our House. What’s one more?” (GtN 436)

***

“Now we kick her ass until candy comes out,” said Gideon. “Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don’t cry, we can’t fight her if you’re crying.”

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.

“Fuck you, Nav—” (GtN 437)

***

If it had been possible to die of desolation, she would have died then and there: as it was, all she could do was lie on the bed and observe the smoking wreck of her heart. (GtN 440)

***

She pressed her forehead down onto the cold, clean tiles.

“Please undo what I’ve done, Lord,” she said. “I will never ask anything of you, ever again, if you just give me back the life of Gideon Nav.”

“I can’t,” he said. He had a bittersweet, scratchy voice, and it was infinitely gentle. “I would very much like to. But that soul’s inside you now. If I tried to pull it out, I’d take yours with it and destroy both in the process. What’s done is done is done. Now you have to live with it.” (GtN 441)

[I think this is a lie. He needs Lyctors, and he needs to protect his power and his secret.]

***

You prepared to die with the Locked Tomb on your lips. But your idiot dying mouth rounded out three totally different syllables, and they were three syllables you did not even understand. (HtN 18)

[GIDEON.]

***

(Harrowhark had forgotten that he was Abigail’s husband, and found the concept of making eyes at one’s cavalier too revolting to bear.) (HtN 131)

***

You grieved the loss of your diary from Canaan House, but your things had been filtered through Ianthe back to you, which meant that all you got was a small supply of sacramental paint and your old clothes. When you inquired about the diary, you received the blunt response that it had been burned on your own orders. (HtN 162)

[A practical measure, but this implies that she wrote about Gideon, and I’m dying to know what she wrote!!!]

***

She awoke convinced that she was staring up at Dominicus framed within a blue sky, a lambent and unreal blue, a nonsensical backdrop. A familiar voice—Magnus’s—said kindly, “You’re fine. You’re fine.” The sky was the ceiling, and the ceiling was a decrepit room in Canaan House, veiled with the hot white breath from her own throat. When the world finally landed its long wound-up sucker punch, a tangled howl came out of her throat, and she was shocked that she was able to make such a noise. Memory hit Harrowhark Nonagesimus with the inexorable gravity of a satellite sucked from orbit, flinging itself to die on the surface of its bounden planet; the world hit her like a fall.

There was a blur of faces, of movement. Harrow found that she was not shocked, after all. She was consumed. She was the kindling for the arson taking place in her heart, her brain dry wadding for the flames, her soul so much incandescent gas. She could not do this. She absolutely and fundamentally could not do this.

“Harrow?” said someone close by—someone familiar; her vision swam.

“If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten,” her mouth was saying. “Add more also, if aught but death part me and thee.”

And, unsteadily: “Griddle.”

The hands must have withdrawn; she found herself facedown on the mattress, sobbing as she had not sobbed since she was a child. Someone said, “Everybody out. Go—” But this was more than she could take stock of. Harrow was too amazed by her body’s expanding capacity for despair. It was as though her feeling doubled even as she looked at it, unfolding, like falling down an endless flight of stairs. She dug her hands into the mattress and she cried for Gideon Nav. (HtN 379-380)

[There’s so much to say here. The Bible quote I’ll put up in the Christian and Catholic References section, but the rest of this, holy shit. Starting with the image of Dominicus in a blue sky, the blue sky she laid Gideon’s body out under after killing Cytherea. Magnus, being so tender with her. Memory hitting like “a satellite sucked from orbit, flinging itself to die on the surface of its bounden planet” and “like a fall,” both visually calling back to Wake falling out of the sky into the Ninth with infant Gideon. Abigail shoving everyone out of the room when Harrow breaks down completely. The description of despair, expanding and expanding. Everything here is so visceral.]

***

I said hoarsely: “Get back here. Get back here right now, or I’ll make you say the worst shit I can think of. Just mean and gross. Beneath even me, is what I’m saying.”

No response.

“Oooooh, Palamedes. I am measurably less intelligent than you. Put your tongue in my mouth, and I’ll flop my tongue against it.”

Nothing.

“I think bones are mediocre.”

Maybe you were dead.

“Ohhhhhrr, Gideon, I was so dumb to think a tub of ancient freezer meat was my girlfriend. Please show me how to do a press-up. Also, I’m very obviously attracted to y—no, damn it, this is just sad. This is garbage.” My temper was going. Maybe your temper was going. “Come back. I hate this. Eat me, and let’s go full Lyctor. I didn’t fall on a fence for this, Nonagesimus.”

…

No dice. I shouldered my sword. Your arms blazed in response.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I said. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll keep the home fires burning.” (HtN 392-393)

***

Harrow said, “Murder.”

Ortus said, “I thought—”

“We were pinned down by a Lyctor, our backs to a wall,” she said. “I was utterly spent. Camilla Hect, our companion, had suffered multiple injuries.” It was a blow to her dignity all over again, her unconscious gracelessness to Camilla Hect; a girl whom, in reality, she should have taken by the hands and thanked profusely for every time she tried to save her cavalier. “Nav had a fractured kneecap and a broken humerus. She pierced her heart on a railing because she thought I would use her to become a Lyctor. I will spit in the face of the first person who tells me she committed suicide; she was in an impossible situation, and she died trying to escape it. She was murdered, but she manoeuvred her murder to let me live.”

…

“I think you must hate her,” he said, and she thought she knew what he meant, until he said: “Don’t. If there is anything I know about young Gideon…if there was anything in her that I too understood…it is that she did everything deliberately.”

Very little in Harrowhark’s life had embarrassed her up to that moment. She had been caught naked in front of a stranger. She had been kissed by a half-drunk Ianthe the First. She had admitted to God her apocalyptic transgressions, and been gently told that she did not know herself. She had been outplayed by Palamedes Sextus, outgunned by Cytherea the first, undone by Gideon Nav.

None of that humiliated her so viscerally as her strangled, bellowing, unchecked shriek now, a child’s cry what whipped every head in that business room round in her direction: “She died because I let her! You don’t understand!”

Ortus dropped his book. He rose from the chair. He put his arms about her. The dead cavalier held her with a quiet, unassuming firmness; he petted her hair like a brother, and he said, “I am so sorry, Harrowhark. I am sorry for everything…” (HtN 399-400)

***

“Hurry up. I have a letter for you,” said Ianthe.

Harrow, it was in your handwriting. She handed me a fat, bulging envelope with your handwriting, and it said To be given to Gideon Nav, and I felt—strange. Time softened as I held it, and I didn’t even care about the barely repressed mirthful scorn on the other girl’s face. It was your curt, aggravated handwriting, curter and more aggravated than ever, like you’d written it in a hurry. I’d gotten so many letters in that handwriting, calling me names or bossing me around. You’d touched that letter, and I—you know it was killing me twice that you weren’t there, right? You must know it was destroying me to be there in your body, trying to keep your thumbs on, and I couldn’t even hear your damn voice?

I peeled open the envelope—you’d sealed it up tight, though I was pretty sure that Tridentarius had busted it open in between, she was just that type—and found a little piece of flimsy with the edges still ragged from where you’d torn it. The letter was wrapped around a black, folded-up bunch of angles: smoked glass, thin black frames, mirrored lenses. A little bend in one arm, but otherwise—you’d kept my sunglasses.

I slid them on your face immediately. They were a little too big for you. They kept sliding down your nose. I had to bend the hooks behind your ears to make them stay. With my eyes safely hidden, I opened the paper, and it just said one thing—four stupid goddamn words. No dry Nonagesimus explanation. No instructions. No commandments. In a way, I would’ve killed for one of your lists of rules about exactly how to treat your body, how I was going to have to take showers with all your clothes on, which, by the way, I’d already planned on doing.

But I almost knew what you’d written already, so I don’t know why I was surprised.

ONE FLESH, ONE END. (HtN 433-434)

***

Always your sword, my umbral sovereign; in life, in death, in anything beyond life or death that they want to throw at thee and me. I died knowing you’d hate me for dying; but Nonagesimus, you hating me always meant more than anyone else in this hot and stupid universe loving me. At least I’d had your full attention. (HtN 436)

***

If Gideon had been there—no, if Gideon had been there, Harrow still couldn’t have hoped for a running commentary. Griddle didn’t know how to do running commentary. She would suck her breath through her teeth, or mutter in ecstasy words that meant nothing to anyone who wasn’t her, things like “right foot,” in tones that suggested that if she died on the spot, that right foot would have somehow been the apex of her existence. Nor could she ever explain a fight after the fact in terms that Harrow could understand. But if her cavalier had been there, Harrow was fairly sure that she would have sucked her molars out of their sockets from sheer intensity of feeling. (HtN 445)

***

Gideon.

It had bewildered her, back at Canaan House, how the whole of her always seemed to come back to Gideon. For one brief and beautiful space of time, she had welcomed it: that microcosm of eternity between forgiveness and the slow, uncomprehending agony of the fall. Gideon rolling up her shirtsleeves. Gideon dappled in shadow, breaking promises. One idiot with a sword and an asymmetrical smile had proved to be Harrow’s end: her apocalypse swifter than the death of the Emperor and the sun with him. (HtN 459)

***

I’d had this choice before. The different deaths. The death of waiting; the death of optimism. Harrow, the last time I chose to die, I died with your face the last thing I ever looked at. Let me tell you a secret: it was easy to die thinking I wouldn’t have to see you go. It was so easy to check out before you did.

…

I wish I could say I was thinking about you. Harrowhark, there was so much I wanted to tell you. I wish that on the edge of an ending bigger than I understood, that I was thinking about you, that the last word on your lips would be me saying your name, taken down to the dark heart of some world beyond.

But my whole life and death had come crashing down around me. It turned out I was the child of God—hey, suck it, Marshal—but also nothing more than a stick of dynamite. I was nothing but a chess move in a thousand-year game.

I mean, yeah, I was thinking about you too; if I could’ve turned that off I would’ve turned it off years ago, but more importantly—I was absolutely fucking out of my mind Ninth House big pissed off. (HtN 497-498)

***

“There’s a difference between keeping a shred of dance card,” said Harrow Nonagesimus, “and saving the last dance.” (HtN 502)

Gideon and Harrow and physical intimacy

Gideon sat at a broad, sagging desk piled high with pages covered in necromantic marginalia, most of them in Harrow’s cramped, impatient writing. She held the letter before her with one hand; with the other, she wearily painted her face with a piece of fibre wadding and a pot of alabaster paint, feeling absurdly young. … Harrow was sprawled on a sofa spread with tattered brocade, robes abandoned, scrawny black-clad legs crossed at the ankles. In Gideon’s mind she looked like an evil stick. (GtN 56)

[They’re both so relaxed!! In between kicking the shit out of each other physically and emotionally, they are super comfortable and familiar.]

***

“I won’t have people asking questions. You’ll look the part. Give me that,” commanded Harrow, and she took the fat stick of black char from Gideon’s hand. She tried to turn Gideon’s face up to hers by force, fingers grasping beneath the chin, but Gideon promptly bit her. There was a simple joy in watching Harrow swear furiously and shake her hand and peel off the bitten glove, like in seeing sunlight or eating a good meal.

Harrow began fiddling ominously with one of the bone pins at her ear, so with extreme reluctance, as of an animal not wanting to take medicine, Gideon tilted her face up to get painted. Harrow took the black and stroked it beneath Gideon’s eyes—none too gently, making her anticipate an exciting jab in the cornea. (GtN 59)

[There’s so much here. Even though the whole interaction is based in animosity, what is literally happening here is that Gideon puts Harrow’s fingers in her mouth like an aggravated pet, and then submits and lets Harrow do her makeup. Close quarters, and stunning physical intimacy. Is Harrow the only person in Gideon’s life who touches her without expressly intending violence? Is Gideon the only person allowed inside the personal space bubble of the Reverend Daughter, close enough to play bite her like a neglected dog?]

***

“Your cavalier,” said the Lady of the Ninth quietly, “drew on my cavalier.”

As Gideon died gently of shock, buoyed back to this life only by the weird bruises forming at the top of her spine, the other girl broke out into miserable coughs. (GtN 75)

***

“Baseline standard of a cavalier,” said Gideon, “is you not dying in a bone.”

“There was no—”

“No. It’s Gideon Nav Talking Time. I want to get out of here and you want to be a Lyctor,” she said. “We need to get in formation if that’s going to happen. If you don’t want me to ditch the paint, this sword, and the cover story, you’re taking me down there with you.”

“Griddle—”

“Gideon Nav Talking Time. The Sixth must think we’re absolutely full of horseshit. I’m going down there with you because I am sick of doing nothing. If I have to wander around faking a vow of silence and scowling for one more day I will just open all my veins on top of Teacher. Don’t go down there solo. Don’t die in a bone. I am your creature, gloom mistress.” (GtN 151)

***

“Hell, you treat me more like a stranger than Magnus Quinn did and I’ve known you all my life. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I must no longer accept,” she said slowly, “being a stranger to you.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Gideon, sudden sweat prickling the back of her neck, “yes you can, you once told me to dig myself an ice grave. Stop before this gets weird.”

“Quinn’s death proves that this is not a game,” said Harrow, moistening her ashy lips with her tongue. (GtN 208-209)

[This is quoted in the feelings section too but I had to put this bit here. The emphasis on Harrow’s naked hand, Harrow’s power to make Gideon look at her which is not at all about physical strength, Harrow’s expression and licking her lips…there’s a lot of physicality here that is tense and interesting and intimate!]

***

It felt like nothing, at first. Besides Harrow touching her neck, which was a one-way trip to No Town. But it was just Harrow, touching her neck. She felt the blood pump through the artery. She felt herself swallow, and that swallow go down past the flat of Harrow’s hand. (GtN 224)

***

A new voice said: “Gideon?...Gideon!”

When she opened her eyes again there was a dazzling moment of clarity and sharpness. Harrow Nonagesimus was kneeling by her side, naked as the day she was spawned. Her hair was shorn a full inch shorter, the tips of her eyelashes were gone, and—most horrifyingly—she was absolutely nude of face paint. It was as though someone had taken a hot washcloth to her. Without paint she was a point-chinned, narrow-jawed, ferrety person, with high hard cheekbones and a tall forehead. There was a little divot in her top lip at the philtrum, which gave a bowlike aspect to her otherwise hard and fearless mouth. The world rocked, but it was mainly because Harrow was shaking her shoulders. (GtN 228)

***

“I do not want you or your cavalier to touch her,” said Harrow. Gideon wanted to say, Nonagesimus, quit the sacred-bat-black-vestal act, but found she couldn’t say anything. Her mouth felt like a dried-out sponge. Her adept rummaged around in her overcloak pockets and emerged with a few bone chips, which gave rise to the horrible idea that she had stashed them there. “Again…unhand her.” (GtN 229)

[I LOVE that Harrow has stashed bone chips in Gideon’s robes^[ot]^[ou], JUST IN CASE she ever runs out.]

***

How they got all the way up the ladder, Gideon later had no idea; it was with strange, dreamline precision that Harrowhark bullied and bolstered her down the long, winding halls of Canaan House and back to the quarters that the Ninth House occupied, without a flicker of magic, Harrow wearing nothing but a big black overcloak. Every so often she wondered if she had, in fact, kicked the bucket and this was her afterlife: wandering empty halls with a half-naked, chastened Harrowhark Nonagesimus who had no recourse but to be gentle with her, handling her as though at any moment she would explode into wet confetti giblets. (GtN 231)

***

“Because I am placing my trust in you,” said Palamedes. … “I don’t trust Silas Octakiseron, and I don’t trust Ianthe Tridentarius, but I trust the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus.”

Beneath the paint, Gideon could see that Harrow had changed colours a number of times through this little speech. She went from being a rather ashen skeleton to a skeleton who was improbably green around the gills. To an outsider, it would have just been a black Ninth HOuse mask twinging from darque mystery to cryptique mystery, given nothing away, but to Gideon it was like watching fireworks go off. (GtN 273-274)

***

As the Fourth conducted a quick conversation in what they thought were whispers, Harrow came to Gideon and unwillingly passed over the great iron ring that their keys jingled on, bodies almost pressing so that she could keep them out of sight of Palamedes.

“Come back with these or having choked on them,” she whispered, “and don’t get complacent around the Fourth. Never work with children, Griddle, their prefrontal cortexes aren’t developed. Now—”

Gideon put her arms around Harrowhark. She lifted her up off the ground just an inch and squeezed her in an enormous hug before either she or Harrow knew what she was about. Her necromancer felt absurdly light in her grip, like a bag of bird’s bones. She had always thought—when she bothered to think—that Harrow would feel cold, as everything in the Ninth felt cold. No, Harrow Nonagesimus was feverishly hot. Well, you couldn’t think that amount of ghastly thoughts without generating energy. Hang on, what the hell was she doing.

“Thanks for backing me up, my midnight hagette,” said Gideon, placing her back down. Harrow had not struggled, but gone limp, like a prey animal feigning death. (GtN 274-275)

[First of all, Harrowhark, your prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed either, and neither is Gideon’s. Second, all I can see is this.]

***

“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. (GtN 357)

***

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. That night, Gideon took all her blankets back to the unedifying cavalier bed at the foot of Harrow’s. When they were both lying in bed in the big warm dark, Harrow’s body perpendicular to Gideon’s body, Gideon said: “Did you try to kill me, back on the Ninth?”

…

“What a dope,” she said instead. “I was never loyal a day in my life and I still saw you in the raw.”

“Go to sleep, Gideon.” (GtN 359-260)

***

Gideon put her hand on her sword to draw it, and slipped her fingers into her gauntlet. Thin fingers wrapped around her wrist. When she looked around, Harrow was tight-lipped.

“Don’t go near them,” she said. “Don’t touch her. Don’t think about touching her.” (GtN 388)

***

With Harrow there, suddenly it was easy, and her horror of the monster turned to the ferocious joy of vengeance. Long years of warfare meant that they each knew exactly where the other would stand—every arc of a sword, every justling scapula. No hole in the other’s defences went unshielded. 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. (GtN 409)

***

“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 turned her head away from the iron railing and picked up the longsword, and cried out: it was far too heavy, far too awkward. Gideon reached her arm out to steady Harrow’s sword hand, shifting the other arm around her in a strange embrace. Her fingers wrapped around Harrow’s, scratchy with callouses. The sheer weight of the thing still stretched the muscles of Harrow’s forearms painfully, but Gideon clasped her wrist, and despite the pain they lifted the sword together.

“Your arms are like fucking noodles,” said Gideon disapprovingly.

“I’m a necromancer, Nav!”

“Yeah, well, hope you like lifting weights for the next myriad.”

They were cheek to cheek: Gideon’s arm and Harrow’s arm entwined, holding the sword aloft, letting the steel catch the light. (GtN 436)

[These Ghost ass bitches!!!]

***

The sword made a terrific clatter as it dropped to the ground. The breeze blew Harrow’s hair into her mouth as she ran back and strained at the arms of her cavalier, pulled and pulled, so that she could take her off the spike and lay her on her back. Then she sat there for a long time. Beside her, Gideon lay smiling a small, tight, ready smile, stretched out beneath a blue and foreign sky. (GtN 439)

***

Gideon had touched her in truth; Gideon had floundered toward her in the saltwater with that set, unsheathed expression she wore before a fight, her mouth colorless from the cold. Harrow had welcomed her end, but suffered a different death blow altogether—and she had become, for the second time, herself. (HtN 402)

***

At the end, we were left in a sea of dead space bees, and you were impossibly okay. Your arms didn’t even hurt, not anymore. You didn’t have your original thumb and I’d touched your intestines, which is usually what, fourth date, but you were fine. (HtN 406)

Gideon’s martyr complex:

Not for Gideon a security detail on one of the holding planets, either on a lonely outpost on an empty world or in some foregin city babysitting some Third governor. Gideon wanted a drop ship—first on the ground—a fat shiny medal saying INVASION FORCE ON WHATEVER, securing the initial bloom of thanergy without which the finest necromancer of the Nine Houses could not fight worth a damn. The front line of the Cohort facilitated glory. In her comic books, necromancers kissed the gloved palms of their front-liner comrades in blessed thanks for all that they did. In the comic books none of those adepts had heart disease, and a lot of them had necromantically uncharacteristic cleavage.

This had all played out in Gideon’s imagination on many solitary nights, and often she had indulged in a wilder flight of fancy where Harrowhark would open an envelope galaxies and galaxies away and read the news that Gideon Nav had won a bunch of medals and a huge percentage of prize money for her role in the initial strike, a battle in which she was both outstanding and very hot. Harrow’s lip would curl, and she would drawl something like, Turns out Griddle could swing a sword after all. This fantasy often got her through a hundred reps. (GtN 126)

***

She even let Harrow steer her toward the blankets that constituted her bed. Gideon was too exhausted to do anything but lie down and sneeze three times in quick succession, each sneeze a migraine gong through her sinus and skull bone.

“Quit looking at me like that,” she eventually commanded harrow, wiping bloody muck onto her hanky. “I’m alive.”

***

“Sixth are watching,” said Gideon, brutally.

At the last remark—which was a sledgehammer of a statement, not a stiletto—Harrowhark fell silent. Her expression was resentful in a way that her cavalier could not understand, except to parse it as grim hatefulness that—once again—the only path open to her was that of using her cavalier, a girl who had screwed up so badly as to provide the universe at large with a new understanding of screwup. (GtN 308)

[Sure thing, Gideon, this is definitely what Harrow is thinking, and also what she was thinking when she lobotomized herself to keep from using up your soul as a battery.]

***

“But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve known her as long as she’s lived. And I thought I knew how far she’d go, because I will tell you for free she has gone to some intensely shitty lengths, and I guess she’s gone to some shittier lengths than I thought concerning me, but that’s the thing—it’s me, Sextus. It’s always me. She nearly killed me half a dozen times growing up, but I always knew why.” (GtN 331)

[It hurts me that Gideon has never actually known the reason why. That it’s fear and desperation, and in Harrow that comes out as cruelty and violence, because she never learned how to process a single emotion.]

***

Palamedes said very gently, “You really should not need me to tell you that an eleven-year-old isn’t responsible for the suicides of three grown adults.”

“Of course I’m responsible,” said Gideon disgustedly. “I made it happen.” (GtN 335)

***

“Look, Nav. You ratted out your childhood nemesis to get her in trouble. You didn’t kill her parents, and she shouldn’t hate you like you did, and you shouldn’t hate you like you did.”

He was peering at her through his spectacles. “Hey,” she objected lamely, “I never said I hated myself.”

“Evidence,” he said, “outweighs testimony.”

Awkwardly, and a bit brusquely, he took her hand. He squeezed it. They were both obviously embarrassed by this, but Gideon did not let go … (GtN 336)

[I really feel like Palamades and Camilla see right through Gideon and Harrow, from first meeting.]

***

You set me up. You set all of it up. I gave you one damn job. And instead you rolled a rock over me and turned your back. I spent all that time drowning and surfacing in you, over and over and over, and all because in the end you could not bear to do the one thing I asked you to do.

I wanted you to use me, you malign, double-crossing, corpse-obsessed bag of bones, you broken, used-up shithead! I wanted you to live and not die, you imaginary-girlfriend-having asshole! Fuck one flesh, one end. Harrow, I already gave my flesh to you, and I already gave you my end. I gave you my sword. I gave you myself. I did it while knowing I’d do it all again, without hesitation, because all I ever wanted you to do was eat me. (HtN 434)

Harrow’s mask is slipping:

That evening, it was funny to see Harrow fuss. She put on her best and most senescent Ninth robes, and became a skinny black stick swallowed by night-coloured layers of Locked Tomb lace. She fiddled with long earrings of bone in front of the mirror and repainted her face twice. Gideon realized with no small amount of amusement and curiosity that Harrowhark was very frightened.

…

Why on earth was she scared? (GtN 168)

***

Gideon was forced to give her necromancer the first particle of credit in her life: Harrow did not yell at her. Harrow simply sank deeper and deeper into a morass of frustration and self-hatred, her fury at herself rising like bile. (GtN 179)

[Harrow’s modus operandi: turn every emotion into anger! Except this time she’s keeping it directed inward, instead of lashing out.]

***

“I need you to trust me.”

“I need you to be trustworthy.”

In the thick dimness of the room she watched the black-garbed girl in front of her struggle around a thing that had settled over them like a net; a thing that had fused between them like a badly broken limb, shattered numerous times, healing gnarled and awful. Gideon recognised these strictures all of a sudden: the rope tying her to Harrow and back to the bars of the House of the Ninth. They stared at each other with shared panic.

“Harrow said finally, “In what way can I earn your trust?”

“Let us sleep for eight bloody hours and never talk like this again,” said Gideon, and her necromancer relaxed, very minutely. (GtN 209)

[This is an important moment for Harrow in particular. Gideon has expressed a need; Harrow could dismiss it, as always, or she could try to provide what Gideon asks for. She chooses, maybe for the first time, to give Gideon what she needs, before it’s clear how she’ll be asked to do it. It’s a big risk.]

***

“Are we having this conversation? Are we really having this conversation?”

Harrow’s face was pinched into an expression of deliberate patience, “Nav,” she said. “Take it from me. Dulcinea Septimus is dangerous.”

“You’re nuts. Dulcinea Septimus can’t even blow her nose. I’m sick of how weird you’re getting over this.”

“And yet you’ve never thought about how she still managed to get a key—how am I being weird?” (GtN 311)

[Harrow KNOWS about Protesilaus but won’t say, and I honestly think it’s because of how much it would hurt if Gideon still didn’t believe her even when presented with evidence.]

***

Harrow had gone to stand over the quiet, punctured corpse of Teacher. She dropped to his side like a long-tailed crow. All Gideon could do was press herself back up against the wall, smell the blood, and feel absurdly empty. Her necromancer said, “You fixed nothing.”

“Harrow,” Palamedes said warningly.

“This man was a shell filled with a hundred souls,” said Harrow. The captain’s eyes flicked open, and stayed open. “He was a thing of ridiculous power—but he was a prototype. I doubt he had killed anyone before today.” (GtN 373)

[I love discovering that Harrow, who is 200 dead children made into one necromancer, has this small and personal empathy for Teacher.]

***

“I have bested my father,” said Harrow to nobody, staring upward at nothing, alight with fierce and untrammelled triumph. They were both lying supine on a pile of what felt like feet. “I have bested my father and my grandmother—every single necromancer ever taught by my House—every necromancer who has ever touched a skeleton. Did you see me? Did you behold me, Griddle?”

This was all said somewhat thickly, through pink and bloodied teeth, before Harrow smugly passed out. (GtN 414)

***

This was kindly, even humourously said, but you still found that you immediately wanted to be tossed out the airlock at the idea that your aptitude made you less than a flesh magician: someone whose entire education was in the carnal. Experts in things that were yellow, and wobbled. People who thought there was something really interesting to be found in meat.

He mistook your deeply bigoted hate for disbelief… (HtN 41)

[I know this is talking about magic and probably also relates to Harrow’s whole ascetic I-never-eat thing but I get a big ace vibe from her here and it makes me chuckle]

***

She was Harrowhark alone in front of the mirror again, a nonsense, a monster, an alien geometry. A loathsome squawk of a person. She was nine, and she’d made a mistake. She was seventeen, and she’d made a mistake. Time had repeated itself. Harrow would be tripping over herself for her whole existence, a frictionless hoop of totally fucking up.

There had been another girl who grew up alongside Harrow—but she had died before Harrow was born. (HtN 54)

***

Another time you said, “I’m afraid of myself. I am afraid of going mad.”

Another time, “I am still afraid of Cytherea the First.”

And, “I am afraid of God.” (HtN 161)

[This is so fucking SAD. Harrow is really going through it and so am I.]

***

You saw your probable future clearly. You had not until that point understood the danger.

If Ianthe Tridentarius knelt beside you then, no matter with what sugary contempt or filigreed Third condescension, you would press your diminished bloody terror into her; you would creep naked into her lap, shamelessly, and weep. You would crawl like a worm to whatever clinging scrap of solace she would give you. All your slithering, degraded desperation for condolence you would give to your sister Lyctor with a brazen thirst that you would never come back from. She would be your end, as surely as the hammer to the oxygen-sealant machine of your childhood. You would have reached for her with the mindless desire of an infectious disease. You would have whored yourself to her as necrosis to a wound. (HtN 225-226)

[SO GODDAMN AWFUL. Both how low she’s been brought with no one to help her, and how she thinks of her own need for comfort, how much she hates it and hates herself. This is truly torturous.]

***

In those last long, terrible days before the end—those strangled, claustrophobic, white-faced days that stalked the borders of your nights like predators waiting for your collapse—you began to pray again. This was not because you had anyone in particular to pray to. It just helped, in its own ineffable way, to read your knucklebone prayer beads, and to recite childhood meditations you had learned when you were yet too small to look out over the pew. You were filled with the baffling memory of Mortus the Ninth lifting you up to see your mother leading Mass; before you were allowed on the sanctuary, you were seated in front and held by your father’s cavalier, so that you might not stare at a softly powdered stone chair-back for the whole session. You remembered that you had far preferred the strong, sad hands of Mortus to being sat next to your great-aunts and given a stinging piece of peppermint candy to suck, as though you ever needed to be kept quiet. It had been the last assumption of immaturity you would ever enjoy. You had been three years old, maybe. (HtN 331)

[I have a million feelings about this. I love her fucked up queer Catholic ass so goddamn much.]

***

She was beyond pity, beyond the tenderness of a member of her congregation rendering her down into a neglected child. The problem was that she had never been a child; she and Gideon had become women before their time, and watched each other’s childhood crumble away like so much dust. But there was a part of her soul that wanted to hear it—wanted to hear it from Ortus’s lips more, even, than from the lips of God. He had been there. He had witnessed. (HtN 401)

***

She had never seen Ortus look triumphant. She had never seen Ortus in the eye of any storm of his own making.

She said urgently, “What did you do?”

“Oh, I did nothing,” he said breathlessly. “Pent…Pent is a marvel. I will write songs for Pent.”

“Write them later, and hurry up now—”

“If I die my final death here,” he said, “I will die knowing the only happiness that I have ever known.”

“Oh, shut up and move,” she said desperately. If all of her cavaliers were this excited for death, she was definitely the problem. (HtN 444)

Team 69

Palamedes was shouldering the zip-up bag and saying, “Give her water and food when she wakes up. She’ll take care of the rest. Probably. She needs eight hours of sleep—in a bed, not a library. When she asks how I knew she was in the library, tell her Cam says she clinks when she walks.” (GtN 141)

[The very straightforward way he gives Gideon these instructions as though naturally Gideon will take care of bringing Harrow water and food and forcing her to sleep, because these are things Cam does for Pal! THE CLINKING!]

***

Harrow did not open herself up. She walked the perimeter like a wraith, measuring her steps for Palamedes to draw by, swaying minutely with what Gideon knew was exhaustion. (GtN 187)

[LOVE TO SEE HARROW AND PAL WORKING TOGETHER]

***

The Sixth had been painfully useful. Palamedes, wearing a scruffy bedrobe, had put up lights and marked the ladder with bits of tape at obscure places. He had stained the fluff on his dowdy old slippers pink as he walked quietly among the bodies, saying excuse me once when he stepped too close to Abigail’s arm. He held the light up for Camilla as she sketched the whole unlovely scene on a long sheet of white flimsy, from the side, from the top, from their feet. He shed his scruffy bedrobe to reveal button-up pyjamas when Dulcinea drifted in wearing only a short shirt and trousers too big for her, and wrapped the robe around her shoulders without prompting. Then he went back to work. (GtN 188)

***

Harrowhark worked for nearly two hours before fainting abruptly into a puddle of congealing blood, at which point Gideon had removed her from the scene: upon waking she shadowed the Sixth instead, much to the ill-concealed annoyance of Camilla, who seemed to regard all incursions on Palamedes’s personal space as probably assassination attempts. For his part, Palamedes talked quietly and briskly to Harrow as though to a colleague he had known all his life. (GtN 188)

***

There was a knock on the door. Nonplussed, unpainted, and hungry, she opened it. Nonplussed, much-tried, and impatient, Camilla the Sixth stared back.

She signed, obviously tired of Gideon’s bullshit already,and raised a hand with three digits bent. “How many fingers?” she demanded.

Gideon blinked. “How many bent, or how many you’re showing, and do I count the thumb?” (GtN 233)

***

“Look, this conversation is all I’ve ever dreamed about,” said Gideon, “but I’m fine. H— My necromancer overreacted.” (This, at least, seemed to strike a chord with Camilla, whose glance softened with the understanding of someone whose necromancer was also prone to gross overreaction.) (GtN 234)

[I really feel like for Camilla, this is when they become friends.]

***

“Cam,” he said. “Ninth. When you’re finished, come with me.”

It didn’t take long for Gideon to finish, as in any case she hadn’t much bothered to chew. She stared with glassy eyes at Camilla the Sixth’s plate—Camilla, who had finished most of hers, rolled her eyes and pushed her leftovers to Gideon. This was an act for which she was fond of Camilla forever after. (GtN 240)

***

He urged again, “Thoughts?”

Gideon said, “Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get ‘Sex Pal’?”

The dreadful teens both stared with eyes so wide you could have marched skeletons straight through them.

“You—do you talk?” said Isaac.

“You’ll wish she didn’t,” said Camilla. (GtN 274)

[ADHD Gideon Nav, what a blessing]

***

“For God’s sake, Ninth,” said Palamedes impatiently, “sit back down. You need to rest.”

“Cast your mind back to previous rests I have enjoyed. Yeah, nah.”

“It’s not even ointment, it’s drawing salve. Be reminded that Cam pulled twenty bone splinters out of you and said there were still a dozen left—”

“Nonagesimus can get them out—or maybe not,” added Gideon, a bit wildly. “Might as well leave them in until I’m through getting people bumped off, am I right?” (GtN 296)

[I really want to write a fic about this, I have so many soft feelings about Cam’s POV on what happens when Gideon is in shock and not taking anything in.]

***

Camilla the Sixth’s shoulders were set. Her straight dark fringe fell out of the way as she half-turned her face to Gideon, briefly, expressionlessly, but that was all Gideon needed.

“Ask me how I am and I’ll scream,” she said.

“How are you,” said Camilla, who was a pill.

“I see you calling my bluff and I resent it,” said Gideon. “So, hey. What do you really use when you’re not pretending the rapier’s your main wield? Two short blades of equal length, or one blade and one baton?” (GtN 305)

***

“Then how exactly am I meant to replicate it?” demanded Harrow. “I can’t—oh. No.”

“You did Imaging and Response, right? You must have, you got the key for it. Same deal. I’m going to think about the key, and you’re going to see it through my eyes.”

“Sextus,” said Harrow darkly.

“Wait, wait,” put in Gideon, intrigued. “You’re going to read his mind?”

“No,” said both necromancers immediately. Then Palamedes said, “Well, technically, sort of.”

“No,” said Harrow. … “Sextus, this was bad enough when I did it to my own cavalier. You’re going to have to focus on that key incredibly hard. If you get distracted—”

“He doesn’t get distracted,” said Camilla, as if this had caused difficulties in the past. (GtN 362-363)

***

“I lost sight of him,” Camilla said. “I never lose sight of him.”

“Slow your roll,” said Gideon, with far more assurance than she actually felt. (GtN 395)

***

He raised his voice:

“Gideon!” he called out. “Tell Camilla—”

He stopped.

“Oh, never mind. She knows what to do.” (GtN 404)

***

It was a relief to know she would never have to tell Camilla that her necromancer had died. She was already fighting as though her heart had exploded. (GtN 406)

***

Gideon saw, as Camilla could not, the tentacle of bone that wound silently upward from the mess behind the cavalier, tipped with a vicious point the length of a duellist’s dagger. Even if she’d had a pristine knee and no necro to haul, Gideon was too far away to save her. The barb drew back, like a poised stinger, and Gideon yelled, “Cam!” (GtN 415)

***

Gideon started to look her over to see if her intestines were fountaining out, or something, but Camilla grabbed her sleeve. Gideon looked down into her solemn, obstinate face, and Camilla said—

“He say anything?”

Gideon wavered. “He said to tell you he loved you,” she said.

“What? No he didn’t.”

“Okay, no, sorry. He said—he said you knew what to do?”

“I do,” said Camilla with grim satisfaction, and laid herself back down among the bones. (GtN 418)

[I think daily about how Gideon lies first because that’s the message she’d like to get from Harrow.]

***

Camilla closed her eyes and relaxed. Her long dark fringe fell over her face. It was that—Camilla in motion now Camilla at rest—that made the tiny voice inside Gideon’s head say, amazed: We really are going to die. (GtN 430)

***

Nor could you locate bodies within either of the plain grey-sheeted hexagons intended for the Sixth, though there were pitiable scraps and remains in one: leavings only, much less than a corpse. Something flickered in your nervous system that was a bit like an emotion, but it struggled and died, much to your relief. (HtN 37)

***

And then a woman was standing at the edge of the clearing. She wore a peaked cap to keep the sun off her dark-eyed, scissor-slash face; a woman in a grey robe with the ends tied in a fat knot about her middle to keep them from dragging in the dirt. There was a rough canvas bag around her neck, an arresting, festering mass of thanergy amid all that clear and comprehensible life. She had two shabby scabbards peeking up over her shoulders, and chin-length, slate-brown hair tucked behind her ears, the colour of ancient tiles in an abandoned temple.

Your voice did not feel like it belonged to you when you said, “I saw your corpse.”

“Well,” said Camilla Hect steadily, “don’t tell everyone, or they’ll want to see it too.”

…

She took it, broke open the envelope, read the contents, and blinked; all while you siphoned blood out of your ears. She looked at the letter; she looked at you; she looked at the letter. Then she balled it up between her fists and ripped it to shreds.

“Okay,” she said finally. And: “It’s coming out your nose.”

You wiped your face, quashed your growing annoyance, and said, “Am I required to know the contents?”

Hect cleared her throat—you flinched—and recited perfectly: “For services previously rendered by your HOuse: invoke the rock that remains ever unrolled, and understand that I will both consider your life as inviolate, and aid you if I can. Thanks.” (HtN 301-303)

***

You startled badly when she dropped to her haunches before you and looked you over coolly; looked into your left ear, then your right, peered into your eyes, glanced up your nose.

“Nice intracranial haemorrhage,” she said. “Kills most of us non-Lyctors.” (HtN 304)

***

It was a cracked piece of human skull—a ridge of supraorbital bone and a cut-off curve of parietal, a bulge of zygomatic cheekbone, a shard leading down to the maxilla. That was all. As a skull, it was not particularly interesting—male, early twenties, maybe eight months dead—but as a reconstruction, it was incredible. The piece had been assembled from fragments, manually, and not by a bone magician. The smallest would have been no bigger than the moon of your cuticle. It had been painstakingly—passionately—laboriously reassembled, from the skull of someone who, soon after death or symptomatically during, had exploded. There were miniature cracks where it had been glued. You turned it over and over in your hands.

“Eyes,” said Camilla.

A thin stream of blood was emerging from your right lacrimal duct. You wiped it away. Your headache was quite bad now. (HtN 305)

***

Then he did a very terrible thing. He stepped forward, and he pulled you into a wild embrace—the hold of a man drowning in deep water who cannot help but drag his rescuer down to the bottom with him. He dug his fingers into you in a way you were a little familiar with: tight against the chance that the person in front of you might be a cloud, or a mirage. He lifted you off the ground in his impatient, overfamiliar eagerness, and then he set you down again and saw your face.

“Excuse me,” you said, with sodden asperity.

“Oh. Apologies,” said Palamedes Sextus. “Misread the moment. Let’s call it cabin fever. Nonagesimus, is Camilla—”

“She sent me,” you said, wringing out your wet hem. “She is alive and well and living.”

He whistled a sigh.

“Oh, thank God,” he said a little unsteadily. “Thank God for that mad, stubborn, lovely girl. Speaking of. Harrowhark, you are a sight for sore eyes.” (HtN 309)

[I LOVE THEIR FRIENDSHIP SO MUCH, EVEN WHEN HARROW HAS NO CLUE WTF IS HAPPENING]

***

He spluttered, “Eight months?”

“I don’t have an exact record, but—”

“What? Why did it take you so long? It should have taken you a week, tops.”

“Excuse my apparently sluggard pace,” you said, feeling that this was an unjust accusation, “but your cavalier only just brought me your bones, and regarding that I have more than one question to ask her—”

His brows were crisscrossing like swords. “How did you and Cam get separated in the first place?”

“I was not aware I owed a debt of care to—”

“I mean she wouldn’t have left your side, if you’d given her half a chance—”

You lost your patience. It was difficult to say if you’d ever had any; you’d just spackled over the hole with curiosity.

“Warden of the Sixth House,” you demanded, “why are you acting as though I should know you? Why are you acting as though your cavalier knows me? I am Harrowhark the First, formerly and in everlasting affections the Reverend Daughter of Drearburh: I am the ninth saint to serve the King Undying, one among his fists and gestures. I did not know you in this life, and I will not know you in the next one.”

He stopped dead.

“You became a Lyctor,” he said.

“That was always the plan.”

“Not for the Harrowhark I knew. Tell me you did it correctly,” he said, and there was a quick, questioning eagerness to his voice, something beneath the confusion. “Tell me you finished the work. You out of everyone could have worked out the end to the beginning I was starting to explicate. Your cavalier, Reverend Daughter—”

“Has become the furnace of my Lyctorhood,” you said.

The dead Warden stopped. He looked at your face as though his eyes could peel through dermis, fascia, and bone. And he said, quietly: “How God takes—and takes—and takes.” (HtN 312)

[There’s really no need to reproduce this entire quote except I do feel a need, I feel so many feelings, I am so upset]

***

You had been moved. You were lying down flat, not bent in the curved posture that you had been taught to adopt, and your sword was tucked beneath your arm, and you had been upended onto a thin blanket that nonetheless let you feel each blade of grass and uneven mound of turf beneath, and feel the beating sun overhead and hear the shrill host of outside creatures.

Camilla Hect sat beside you, and she did not flinch when you sat up all at once. (HtN 316)

[Somehow it’s very sweet to me, imagining Cam picking Harrow up and carrying her, putting a blanket down, shading her from the sun, tucking Gideon’s sword in with her.]

***

But your distaste and paranoia were stopped in midswing by Camilla saying with barely repressed intensity: “So?”

You said, “He’s in there.”

The cavalier of the Sixth House looked at you; then she collapsed back in a long, controlled movement. She lay flat on her back staring sightlessly at the sky, half-shadowed by the sheeting, half-glowing in the light. At last she gave a long, shuddering breath and sat back up with the same abruptness.

“Good,” she said, and she smiled, very briefly. This smile lit the corners of her face like a rising comet. It made her look, in fact, ridiculously like her adept. (HtN 316-317)

***

You drew your two-handed sword.

“Stop it.” The Sixth cavalier had joined this shitty tableau; she narrowed her eyes to slits in the sunshine. “I warned them already.”

“I do this on greater authority than your own.”

“Balls,” said Hect succinctly. “Let them go.” Then: “Why is that sword gummed up, and who taught you to hold it like that?”

“I refuse to— What?”

“Your hands are too close together. Put your left hand at the bottom of the pommel, tuck in the arm close to the chest. Right hand high on the hilt, close to the cross guard, up a bit with your thumb—yeah—that’s more like it.” You did all this, and she said: “Good…not like you have the muscle for a rising strike. Okay. Now let Coronabeth and Judith go.”

Your grip adjusted, you found it significantly less difficult to hold the sword pointed down than previously. (HtN 320)

[Cam is BEST BRO]

***

Sextus must have thought her such a churl. It would have been an enormous relief to have Palamedes Sextus with her then, if only so that she could, perhaps, offer some paltry thanks. But to have him see her so slow on the uptake would be hideous— (HtN 384)

***

Camilla had finished with her hat, and now she was easing the big dark glasses onto her face—the ones she kept specially, despite the fact that they were a little unbalanced on her nose and her ears. They made both Palamedes and Camilla look chilly and clinical, but as Palamedes said, they solved the problem of the ghost limb. Without them he was everlastingly pushing something up his nose that wasn’t there. And Nona thought Camilla privately rather liked them.

She settled them on, considered the question, and said: “Fight.” (NtN 32-33)

***

Palamedes had focused nearly all his attention on writing, except at one point he’d looked Nona over and said, “Look at me like you’ve worked out how to kill me,” and then, “More eyebrows,” and then, “Good God, perfect. Do you know, I miss Harrow terribly.” (NtN 323)

***

Cam had told her that her main job was to be a Distraction. Nona asked if Harrowhark Nonagesimus had been a Distraction in life, and Cam said it always was the quiet ones. (NtN 324)

***

Camilla flipped open boxes and took out a belt, which she tied around her waist, and she secured a hook to the side of the belt. To this hook she reverently attached a long plain black scabbard, then a shorter plain black scabbard, and she tested the hilts in her hands. Cam sighed—really sighed!—as though she had gone to lie down in a hot bath.

The last thing Camilla did was reach into her pocket and take out the sunglasses, and she perched them on her nose. (NtN 328)

Fidelity:

Gideon bellowed, voice deadened by a thousand million frigging bones:

“Run! Don’t fight it, RUN—”

…

Isaac did not stop and he did not run. It was one of the bravest and stupidest things Gideon had ever fucking seen. The construct teetered, getting its footing, cocking its great head as though in contemplation. The long straight spars of teeth hovered above the necromancer, bobbing and warping occasionally as though about to be sucked into his fiery gyre. Then at least fifty of them speared him through.

Blue fire and blood sprayed the room. Gideon sheathed her sword, set her shoulders, put one arm up above her eyes, and charged through the field like a rocket. It was like running through a landslide. A thousand fragments of bone ripped her robes to shreds and tore at every inch of exposed skin. She didn’t pay them any mind, but crashed into Jennemary Chatur like the vengeance of the Emperor. Jeannemary had no intention of stopping: she was tearing into her unbeatable foe as though running away had never been in question. She barely seemed to notice that Gideon had grabbed her, her limbs thrashing, her throat one long howl that Gideon only translated later: Fidelity! Fidelity! Fidelity! (GtN 283)

***

It couldn’t have been long. Fifteen minutes at the very most. She startled awake with the sheer unconscious panic of someone realizing they couldn’t afford to slip into deep REM, a haptic jerk flicking her awake. Her sword rattled off her knees and jangled to the floor. The only sound that could have woken her was a persistent drip she’d thought was coming from the tap.

Gideon did not understand what she was looking at when she awoke, and when she cleared her eyes and looked properly, she still didn’t understand. (GtN 287)

***

One of the grotesquely young pair of the Fourth actually tried to fill it in, and bleated: “There’s a—monster in a research laboratory? And we’ve got to—fight it?” (HtN 112)

In loco parentis

Gideon did not know what to do with the hand, which was offered to her fingers out, palm upward. She touched her fingers to it in the hope that she could grip it briefly and get out that way, but coronabeth Tridentarius, Princess of Ida, took her and and roguishly kissed the backs of Gideon’s knuckles. Her smile was sparklingly pleased with her own gall…

…If Gideon had not been so lonely; if Gideon had not been so used to having a fighting partner, even one more used these days to battling rheumatism; if Coronabeth Tridentarius had not been so astonishingly not. All these ifs she contemplated wearily… (GtN 110)

[Obsessed with Coronabeth trying to out-cav to a cav and be gallant to a butch, obsessed with how it works on Gideon and how little affectionate touch she’s had in her life.]

***

Magnus inclined his head.

“Of course I’m willing, and the princess is gracious,” he said, “but I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!”

From the other side of the room, Jeannemary let out a long noise like a death rattle. Princess Corona laughed outright; Magnus looked extremely pleased with himself. … Gideon made a mental note to write down the joke so that she could use it herself later. (GtN 112-113)

[I LOVE MAGNUS’ JOKES, I love that Corona always laughs and that Gideon privately likes them too! Also, it feels important that Corona is specifically into Magnus’ cavalier jokes, like when I was into horses as a kid and lost my shit over the “why the long face” joke. This is Corona’s special interest.]

***

“What do Marta the Second, Naberius the Third, Jeannemary the Fourth, Magnus the Fifth, Camilla the Sixth, Protesilaus the Seventh, Colum the Eighth, and Gideon the Ninth all have in common?”

You could have heard a hair flutter to the floor. Everyone stared, poker-faced, in the thick ensuing silence.

Magnus looked pleased with himself.

“The same middle name,” he said.

Coronabeth laughed so hard that she had to honk her beautiful nose into a napkin. Someone was explaining the joke to the salt-and-pepper priest, who, when they got it, said “Oh, ‘the’!” which started Corona off again. (GtN 172)

[A truly blessed joke, Corona is me]

***

“Cheeky little so-and-so,” said Magnus. “If he were my son, I’d give him something to think about. I’m not surprised he’s gone to ground.”

“I would hope your son might be of different character,” said his wife, half-smiling.

“Protesilaus should have biffed him.” (HtN 250)

[I’m so melancholy about them. About how much they want to be parents, and how generously and tenderly they parent every teen they see. I hope we get to see them again, before the end.]

***

“Keep moving,” said Magnus Quinn, with the friendly and unyielding iron of a parent taking a small child to the bathroom. “No time to take in the scenery.”

She fell in step again and said, “Where is this room?”

Abigail said, “Close by. The others will be there already, if all’s gone according to plan—take my hand; we’re heading outside.” (HtN 394-395)

***

The spacious apartment was cleaner and more…lived-in than when she and Gideon had first opened its doors and ransacked its mysteries. At her expression, Pent said: “I needed somewhere to keep the children, at the beginning.”

“The who?”

“You summoned Jeannemary and Isaac along with the rest,” said Abigail calmly. “I worked how to return them to the River first thing. They didn’t want to go, but I overruled them. …”

This sharpened Harrow’s focus. “You have the means to leave?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Everyone who has stayed,” said Abigail, “has chosen to stay, and risk their lives—or souls, I should say.” (HtN 396)

***

She looked up into the kind face of Abigail Pent, who was dead; and she said: “I owe you a great debt. You have given me much, in return for very little.”

“Oh, Harrow, bless you, I always was a busybody,” she said smilingly. “Don’t thank me for sticking my oar in. You asked me to come, and I came. I understand you didn’t ask on purpose, but I like to think that there was a grain in your soul that saw yourself in need, and perhaps thought to itself, I wish I had Abigail Pent. It takes a great deal of ego to be a psychopomp. Thank you for letting me be yours.”

And she curtseyed to Harrowhark, with enormous grace. Harrowhark bowed in return, and found herself saying, “The body of the Locked Tomb preserve you and yours, Pent,” and meaning it.

“Do you know what’s in there?” asked Abigail, eyes sparkling.

Harrowhark cleared her throat and said, “Yes.”

“Is it intensely mysterious?”

“Yes.”

“God, I love tombs,” said the Fifth House necromancer. (HtN 418-419)

***

“You’re keeping her things like a lover keeping old notes, but with her death, the stuff that made her Gideon was destroyed. That’s how Lyctorhood works, isn’t it? She died. She can’t come back, even if you keep her stuffed away in a drawer you can’t look at. You’re not waiting for her resurrection; you’ve made yourself her mausoleum.” (HtN 460)

***

Harrowhark said, “You’ve got to go before the roof comes down on you.”

Abigail gave a weary, rueful half smile. A very Fifth House embarrassment. “Not until you tell me what you’re doing. In loco parentis, you see. I’m afraid I feel responsible for you, and need you to promise me you’ll live.”

“Gideon decided that for me,” said Harrow. (HtN 462)

***

“Then this is not goodbye,” said Abigail, and she reached forward to brush a stray lock of hair behind Harrowhark’s ear, which was an instinct Harrow could not find it within herself to feel humiliated by. “I believe that we will see each other again.”

Magnus said quickly: “Jeanne said to tell Gideon hi. If you see her before we do—”

“Though try not to with any great hurry,” said the Fifth spirit-caller. (HtN 462)

Family

Once they were out of the park and out of the crowd, Pyrrha kissed the top of Nona’s head and said, “Be good,” like she always said. She did not kiss the top of Camilla’s head but told her, “Good hunting, you two.”

“Good hunting,” echoed Camilla.

Pyrrha melted into the crowd in her big steel-toed boots and her over-the-shoulder bag with her helmet and extra batteries for her helmet light and her gloves and her lunch. It was easier now than when Nona had been very new and Palamedes said she had no object permanence, but Nona still always felt a pang watching Pyrrha walk away, commingled with the pride of having Pyrrha, the familiarity of seeing someone and knowing they belonged to you. (NtN 54)

***

Before he could do whatever it was though, the timer bleated in his pocket. “Time’s up,” he said. “Give this to Cam for me, will you?”

And he spread Nona’s fingers like he always did, and he quietly kissed the second right-hand knuckle.

Nona always paid so much more attention to the lessons of the hand and the mouth than she did to the lessons of the bone and the sword: they were significantly more interesting. … But she was good at this, whatever this was; she didn’t even know; nobody would give her the words, and she didn’t have them herself. The first time Palamedes had asked her to do it, quite a long time ago, and the first time she had raised Camilla’s hand to her mouth, and done it—pretty much exactly as Palamedes had, making the same shape as his mouth had done like she did when speaking languages, and touching the same way as his hands had touched—Camilla had looked at her, and then she had gone away to sit in the bath by herself in the dark for almost an hour, even though there hadn’t been any water in the bath.

Now when Nona waited for Camilla’s eyes to clear, and she lifted up Camilla’s hand to press her mouth to it, all Camilla said was, “Thanks.” And she almost didn’t flinch. (NtN 65-66)

***

“I don’t think you’ve ever criticised me before. This is rotten. I was about to marry you.”

“I wouldn’t marry you even if you asked,” said Nona apologetically. “I love you, Pyrrha, and I think you’re wonderful and very beautiful—” (“Are you kidding?” said Pyrrha. “I look like two elbows.”) “—but I don’t want to be married to you. You’d never act like you were married to me.”

This briefly corpsed the person who went to work for her. Pyrrha leant against the sink and seemed pleased that the question of the park had passed, then shook the jug with the powder and the reconstituted milk in it until they were all mixed together. Then she poured it expertly into perfect circles in the hot pan, each puffing up quickly in the heat, big bubbles swelling like magic in the pale brown batter.

“It’s the job,” Pyrrha said. “You can’t take the woman out of the job.” (NTN 137)

***

When Nona was locked away in the bathroom stall stealing toilet paper, judiciously stuffing it down her shirt as Pyrrha had taught her—Pyrrha had a very Blood of Eden mindset, if you thought about it—she heard Camilla outside by the sinks, saying quietly: “Let me see her.”

…

When Nona rustled her way out of the stall, Camilla looked at her chest, and her mouth quirked in something that might have been the tiniest and most beautiful smile yet. But Crown didn’t notice. (NtN 162)

***

“Camilla hasn’t come for me.”

“Sleep at mine if she doesn’t,” said Hot Sauce.

This idea quite startled Nona, who had never slept apart from Camilla. She was homesick thinking about her. She had thought Hot Sauce would maybe say something sympathetic or understanding, like, “Don’t worry about it,” but the problem with Hot Sauce was that she was a little bit like Cam. When you came to her with a problem she gave you something to do about it. (NtN 199-200)

***

Camilla rose from the table, empty waterglasses stacked neatly before her, a whole page of newspaper torn into beautifully even strips, exactly as if a bird had done it—the work of hours, the labour of anxiety. Nona flew to her. Cam caught her up by the arms and looked through her, not at her; her beautiful pale grey eyes looked like holes burnt in a mask.

Then she held Nona so hard that it very literally hurt. Nona’s face was squashed into the hard bits of her chest. (NtN 218)

***

Nona woke up, cold and alone, with very little idea of how she had fallen asleep; she was still wearing all her clothes, and she hadn’t had her bath. In the night someone had unbuttoned her dust coat, taken off her shoes, and loosened what she was wearing, which meant Camilla or Palamedes; only they would have thought of it. (NtN 227)

***

Pyrrha looked at Nona. She looked at the dead body. She put her hand on the dead body’s forehead—worked her fingers into the funny little scarf at her neck—and the corpse lay as inert and as dead as it had when Nona walked into the room. Nona said, “I mean it…I woke her up…I, uh. I kissed her.”

Now Pyrrha looked at Nona. The look on her face was nothing but a very sad, rough kind of amusement, less desire than a kind of understanding that Nona suddenly didn’t want. Pyrrha touched Nona briefly on the cheek and said: “Why?”

Nona found her cheeks growing hot.

“I just did, no reason.”

“Nothing happened? What’d it feel like?”

“That’s private, thank you,” said Nona primly. (NtN 361)

***

“Where are your fathers? Why is this like herding chickens? Nona, how are you?”

Nona felt very lost and astonished and weary. “Are all these your family?” she asked.

“Metaphorically yes, literally it’s complicated,” he said. There was a great calm relief in his body, which Nona did not expect. Cam was slumped in her chair and she was about six degrees paler than she had ever been. “My mother wanted to meet you—too bad for her, I assume she’s off asking one of the junior officers about the philosophy of violence and how these trucks work and what everyone does for a living.” (NtN 415)

Just really good bits:

It would have been neater, perhaps, if all of Gideon’s disappointments and woes from birth downward had used that moment as a catalyst: if, filled with a new and fiery determination, she had equipped herself down there in the dark with fresh ambition to become free. She didn’t. She got the depression. (GtN 46)

***

Harrowhark looked out at the people of the Ninth. So did Gideon. There were all the assorted nuns and brethren; old pilgrims and ageing vassals; every gloomy, severe, and stern face of adept and mystic, of joyless and wasted men and women, of the grey and monotonous population that had made up Gideon’s life and never shown her one single moment of sympathy or kindness. Harrow’s face was bright with elation and fervor. Gideon would have sworn there were tears in her eyes, except that no such liquid existed: Harrow was a desiccated mummy of hate.

“You are my beloved House,” she said. “Rest assured that wherever I go, my heart is interred here.”

It sounded like she really meant it. (GtN 64)

[I love the contrast between them. This place wasn’t kind to Harrow either—but she has The Body, and she feels a need to pay back the debt of her birth, and her position of power allows her to feel fondly for this place in ways Gideon can’t.]

***

Gideon was genuinely surprised to find that she was shy, and more still to find she was relieved by Harrow’s diktat against talking. Gideon Nav, absolutely starved of any contact with people who didn’t have dark missals and advanced osteoporosis, should’ve yearned to talk. But she found that she couldn’t imagine a single thing to say. (GtN 93)

***

“You want to fight it.”

“Yep.”

“Because it looked…a little like swords.”

“Yop.” (GtN 159)

[Carefully constructed cavalier bait.]

***

Harrow never came back. Gideon was used to this by now. Seized with sudden experimental courage, she filled up the uncanny tub in the bathroom from the hot-liquid tap. When nothing jumped out at her, Gideon sat there in it with water all the way up to her chin. It was incredible—the strangest thing she’d ever felt in her life; like being buoyed on a warm current, like being slowly boiled—and she worried, irrationally, whether water could get inside you and make you sick. All her paint came off and floated in long, dirty flecks in the water. When she put soap in the water oily rainbow slicks shone across the top. In the end—suspicious of how clean it really got you—she went and stood in the sonic for twenty seconds, but she smelled incredible. When her hair dried it stood up on end, and it took a lot of effort to get it flat again.

The bath was soporific. For the first time since she’d come to Canaan House, Gideon was truly content to lie down in her nest, get out a magazine and do absolutely nothing for half an hour. Nine dreamless hours later she woke up with the pages stuck to her face via a thin sealant of drool. (GtN 247)

***

In the newfound dimness Gideon took off her glasses and nodded. Her hood fell back, sliding down in heavy folds of black to her shoulders. The exquisite eyes of the necromancer of the Third were upon her, and the doleful expression turned into a radiant smile, violet eyes crinkling up at the corners with the hugeness of the grin.

“Why, Gideon the Ninth!” she exclaimed, mourning banished. “You’re a ginger!” (GtN 253-254)

***

Camilla Hect stepped on to the wooden table with one long, lean movement. She wore a long grey shirt and grey slacks beneath her cloak, and she looked less like a cavalier than an off-duty librarian. (GtN 261)

[WHY IS CAM SO NERD HOT, WHAT A BLESSING]

***

Harrowhark looked as taut and distant as a hangman’s rope, but something in Gideon’s face must have caught her attention: she went from distant to bemused, and from bemused to something even a little bit offended. Gideon couldn’t blame her. The general atmosphere was ofa disapproving crowd before an execution, but she was trying and failing to smother a grin of savage anticipation.

Corona was saying, “Two paces back—can’t turn, damn!--this is so hard to do on a table—”

“Cam,” Palamedes said. “Go loud.” (GtN 263)

***

[in the Sixth House Lyctoral room]

“Hm,” said Camilla neutrally, and Gideon knew immediately that she organised Palamedes’s and her socks by colour and genre. (GtN 365)

***

Gideon lay on the floor, facedown, and became hysterical. (GtN 396)

***

Sometimes you would forget who you were, and at recalling yourself, weep like a child. (HtN 30)

***

You exhaled, trickling it out of your nose and mouth. Your brain panicked briefly as you took a shy lungful of warm, muddy water. (HtN 102)

[I just really like “shy lungful,” I dream about breathing underwater a lot and this is what those dreams are like]

***

The only thing you could hold on to was where you had been sat. You would know if all your sensation was removed; you would know if your brain had burnt away. You were the Reverend Daughter, and you had been placed in a pew. (HtN 116)

[This tickles me for some reason. Sitting in a pew is such a specific thing and I can feel and smell it, and I didn’t even do that much sitting in pews when I was actually practicing. I bet the kneelers in Drearburh aren’t cushioned.]

Once upon a time you might have fallen to position on the kneeler—soft and supple human leather, buttery, lovely—and thanked the Tomb that you had lived to see the death of a Lyctor, enshrined so, in such a place. You would have pressed your prayer beads to your mouth with one knuckle caught between you lips, the knuckle of your great-grandmother that represented the Rock, and the Universe, and God. Now you considered whether you or not you could pass out again. (HtN 118)

[This just really sends me!!! Also, HUMAN LEATHER, Jesus Christ.]

***

“Let me not be unpleasing to my lady,” he said. “Let the unseeing eye of the Locked Tomb gaze down upon me, and see me guard her with the unmoving aegis of a cavalier’s love. But I will not modulate my tone for you.”

She rounded on him. Harrowhark knew that she was being unfair; she knew that she was being petulant—had been scared into it, and could not soothe herself, and was using any means fair and foul to try to do so now. 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. Almost.

“I have every right to correct you. We are at the gates of the Tomb, even now,” she said. “I carry it with me, and its rules hold clear.”

“Let us never leave it,” said Ortus. “My lady, I follow your every order…I will accept your chidings gratefully. I will watch you slay whomsoever you feel the need to slay, and I will sponge the blood from your brow…but when I lay me down to sleep, I am a fully grown man who is allowed to feel precisely what I want, about anything I want.” (HtN 133)

[YES ORTUS TELL HER]

***

Lady Pent had assisted. Her thick brown hair was pinned up high on her crown and supported her first pair of glasses, swapped out for another, apparently totally different pair of glasses while she leaved through an ancient gloss-pulp book, with gloves on to protect the fragile pages from her sweat. (HtN 180)

[Harrow can’t comprehend being old enough to need two different pairs of glasses and it makes me laugh so hard]

***

This was far better than the normal travails of dinner, with its partakers all wearing the filmy mother-of-pearl Canaanite robes that clung to Mercymorn like starlight, turned Augustine ethereal, gave Ianthe jaundice, and rendered you a sacrificial parsnip; that trial where, if you did not eat enough, the Emperor of the Nine Houses told you kindly, “Try just a few more spoonfuls, Harrowhark,” as Ianthe repressed not her smirks. (HtN 207)

***

“The classical vice. Oldest sin in the book.”

“All flesh magicians,” you said coolly, “should be drowned in boiling blood.”

“Don’t tell me the Ninth never—”

“We do not.”

“Ah, but my beautiful naïf—”

“No.”

“Never mind that. Was he actually…?” (Here she made an evil gesture with her hands, which you took a moment to comprehend.) “You know. Waxing necrolagnic? Committing the love that cannot speak its name?” (HtN 216-217)

[This whole thing is so fucking funny to me, Ianthe is the best kind of perv, Harrow is such a nun she legit can’t grasp what is probably a classic finger-in-circle or maybe jerking it hand motion, and an Oscar Wilde and Bosie reference. I kind of dig the implication that in ten thousand years, everyone will be so shamelessly queer and so into necromancy that the “shameful” love is necrophilia^[ov]^[ow].]

***

In another lifetime you might have been icily furious, or at the very least chagrined. In this one, you were simply looking at your knife, and your fork, and your spoon, and trying to remember which did what. The spoon, with its concave pit, was probably for transferring liquids. (HtN 229)

[THIS IS SUCH A MOOD. The descriptions of how Harrow’s brain works when she’s super sleep-deprived are intensely relatable.]

***

“Marrow,” you said. (HtN 232)

***

You said feebly, “The Saint of Duty—Ortus can suck wards.”

Ianthe said something very coarse in response. (HtN 240)

[I really really want her to have said something about sucking dick, I deeply love that Ianthe provides the salacious humor in this book that Gideon is not fully present to offer.]

***

Ortus had placed his mattress between all concerned and the door— “I wil be that bulwark,” he’d said portentously, although Harrowhark had noticed that it was the driest and warmest spot. (HtN 248)

[I am Ortus, Ortus is me. I love him so much.]

***

“Augustine said yes? Augustine agreed to the murder of his brother Lyctor?”

“There are very complex power dynamics on this station,” said your sister Lyctor, with whom you had a very complex power dynamic. (HtN 259)

***

Ianthe looked at you; her blue-and-brown eyes were beatific. “Harry,” she said, and she said it tenderly, “have you never read a trashy novel in which the hero gets a life-affirming change of clothes and some makeup, and then goes to the party and everyone says things like, ‘By the Emperor’s bones! But you’re beautiful,’ or, ‘This is the first time I have ever truly seen you,’ and if the hero’s a necromancer it’ll be described like, ‘His frailty made his unearthly handsomeness all the more ephemeral,’ et cetera, et cetera, the word mewled fifteen pages later, the word nipple one page after that?”

You said emphatically: “No.” (HtN 264)

[I wish this was one of Harrow’s bubble AUs!!]

***

“I merely want to put you in a jail,” said his Lyctor, now meditative, “and fill up the jail with acid once for every time you made a frivolous remark, or ate peanuts in a Cohort Admiralty meeting, or said, ‘What would I know, I’m only God.’ then at the end of a thousand years, you would say, ‘Mercy, I have learned not to do any of these things, because I hated the acid you put on me.’ And I would say, ‘That is why I did it, Lord. I did it for you, and for your empire.’ I often think about this,” she finished.

The Emperor of the Nine Houses said, “I ate peanuts, discreetly, the once.” (HtN 338)

[Please go watch this animatic!!!]

***

The Sleeper tossed this gun to the side, broke suddenly into a run, and threw her haz-suited body into a diving handspring, jackknifing feet-first off the ground with a fluid agility that would have made even Camilla Hect erupt in a wild “Okay.” (HtN 422)

***

“Harry,” she said. Harrow, she was genuinely delighted to see you. The smile on that thin white face was real. “Harry, you’re—”

I moved closer and totally fucking ruined her day.

“Alive, bitch,” I said.

That expression hardened like it had been dropped in quick-set concrete. (HtN 429)

***

Ortus Nigenad’s voice reverberated around that ice-rimed, organ-swagged facility like one of the Sleeper’s gunshots. The great body, the one that Harrowhark had in her crueller youth assumed would look best once the man was dead and his bones settled in the family monument, proved to possess a pair of lungs that could declaim to wake the dead.

Abigail’s voice rose with his, though hers was desperate and somewhat wild: “Nigenad, you think too much of me!”

“Never, lady! —Matchless alike in my magecraft. Fall to your knees and be glad that I spare thee; thy courage is mighty:”

Book Five. Harrowhark’s least favorite.

“Oh, God,” she heard Abigail say. “God, please help me.” (HtN 438)

[I fucking love Ortus so much, everything he does in this chapter makes me weep including this, and it’s occurring to me right now that earlier in the book when Ortus and Abigail are talking about his rapier, and who would have held it and so on, I thought maybe he was suggesting they call his great grandmother or whoever it was his rapier belonged to—but if the cavalier line in the Ninth House has been unbroken like the Tombkeeper line, then Matthias Nonius is Ortus’s ancestor also! On a different note, I am caught by Abigail’s desperate prayer. As readers we now know God; we know, or at least I assume based on what we’ve seen, that he doesn’t hear anybody’s prayers. He’s not omnipotent, I think Abigail even says that at some point. But she needs to bolster herself, and so she prays—but it’s all her, and Ortus, and Harrow, who make it happen. There’s something to be said here about faith bringing strength, even when what you have faith in isn’t real, or isn’t what you think it is. Delicious.]

***

Abigail Pent blazed like a flare from a blue and alien sun. Long prominences of light trailed from her fingers: it seemed as though she held in her hands a book, with all the pages fleshed from that same azure radiation. Amid that frantic cold, Harrow saw that Abigail was soaking wet, wreathed in hot mistlike shimmers by spirit magic—she had thrust off her jackets and her mittens and stood there in just a dress, and her robe, and bare arms. A reek hit Harrow like a faceful of snow: water, brine, blood. A multitude of voices lifted up in Abigail’s, and screamed.

Glutinous time unglued. There was a crack as the Sleeper fired, and a sharp metal spang, and nothing hit Harrow in the head. A shadow rose before her, and it was all the shadows of the room. The candles were no longer columns of great blue light, but had sunk to billowing black flames. She was frozen by the sound of a great bell: BLA-BLANG…BLA-BLANG…BLA-BLANG.

The First Bell of Drearburh, of the House of the Ninth, sounded loudly in that laboratory atrium. And a figure stood between Harrow and the Sleeper. (HtN 440-441)

[SO FUCKING EPIC! Also this description of Abigail is Galadriel to me.]

***

From behind them, Lieutenant Dyas said, “I’m going too.”

They all turned to look at her. Her injured hand was stoically clutching her rapier; Harrow noticed that she had tied the hilt to her glove with a length of wire, so that it could not fall out of her grip. She was bloody, smeared, and untidy, but perfectly calm. “I”m going,” she repeated. And she shrugged. “Cohort rules.”

“What Cohort rule, Marta?” Abigail asked, bewildered.

“‘Chickenshits don’t get beer,’” Dyas said. And, after a pause: “Might not be the official wording, but that’s how I’ve always heard it.”

Magnus said, more than slightly delighted, “I have never heard that one.”

“As it happens, I have,” said Matthias Nonius. (HtN 457)

[Did he hear it from Pyrrha???]

***

“For the Seventh,” said Protesilaus.

“For the Second,” said Marta.

“For the Ninth,” said Ortus. (HtN 458)

***

Understandably I have adopted him as a younger brother and outwardly delight in all offerings, mostly roses or cups of tea. I do not have the heart to tell him that I wish he were bringing me anything else, maybe extramural magazines and cigarettes (THIS IS A JOKE). (SEX)

[Among all the many tragedies, it’s such a tragedy that the real Dulcie and Gideon did not get to meet. I hope they do, eventually, imagine what a great time they’d have together reading extramural magazines.]

***

Describing Juno Zeta as she was then would be stupid, because it’s the same Zeta as she is now. Very tall, age anywhere from forty to sixty. Brunette at the front, but iron grey at the end lengths of the hair, twisted up with black pins at the base of the skull. Round-cheeked and sweet-eyed. Voluble. Cheerful as a child. The Warden always said that this was a deeply sinister and inappropriate façade for her brain, which should have required thermal paste to keep from overheating. (SEX)

[I love Juno deeply just from this brief description, she reminds me of no less than three professors I have adored.]

***

The dorm halls always were busy, because Library guests inevitably got led there to admire the old view screens. When I was ten we were put on duty roster to clean them, and my admiration for the old view screens died quick. The Warden and I had allergic reactions to the panel cleaner. He didn’t ask for a duty swap because he wanted to “study his contact dermatitis.” (SEX)

[A truly blessed detail. It makes me laugh every time.]

***

The Warden said the whole cleaning system needed modernization, beginning with getting an expert out from the Ninth House. He never got far with that one in Oversight Body. (SEX)

[Ngl, this is an AU I’d love to explore. What would Team 69’s lives have been like if Pal sent this request to the Ninth and Harrow answered?]

***

“This was so much nicer when you used the white form for everything and attached a coloured bit at the bottom when you handed it in,” said one of the team, but someone else said, “Not for the admin staff, which I do understand.”

“Sod admin, honestly—”

“Come on, that’s not very—” (SEX)

[As an administrative assistant, this cuts me to the quick. Make things easier for the admins in your life, okay?]

***

When she had safely left, we looked at each other. Then we gave each other a ringing high five.

“A whole extra bloody grade point,” he said. “God, we’re good. Cam, you’re brilliant. The greatest future cavalier. My favourite second cousin in a very wide field that you nonetheless dominate.”

“Palamedes,” I began.

“Yes, Camilla?” he said.

I looked at him. He looked at me.

We burst out laughing. We laughed so hard that every time one of us stopped, the other one started us going again, just with a look, to the point where we were in real physical pain. The kitchen staff kicked us out, but the Warden was still wheezing—

“Doctor Sex!” (SEX)

[THEY’RE JUST SO CUTE. Also “favourite second cousin in a very wide field that you nonetheless dominate” is so wonderful to me, I have a LOT of second cousins and I cannot imagine having as many as your average Sixth House citizen.]

***

I don’t have a copy any more. He and I burned the transcript to keep from getting caught with it. He didn’t need one anyway. Nor did I. Palamedes remembers everything: That was his problem.

I always remember him. That’s mine. (SEX)

[My heart is broken. Also, the tenor of this makes me think it’s taking place/being related sometime during the events of As Yet Unsent, after Cam was with BOE but before finding Harrow and getting confirmation that Pal was actually attached to the bones.]

***

When she asked Camilla how she came across to other people, Camilla said unworldly. Pyrrha said she acted like she had given away one of her two brain cells already. Pyrrha said to keep going, that people loved it if you were good-looking and dumb. (NtN 41)

[This always makes me laugh!! Also, this tactic has worked for Coronabeth her whole life…]

***

“Am I not allowed to love Crown?” she said.

“I could never stop you from loving anything. I don’t have the right. Nobody has the right to tell you who to love or who not to love, and equally nobody’s obliged to love you. If you were forced into loving them, it wouldn’t be love…”

Nona liked that.

“That’s why I love Hot Sauce and Honesty and my friends so much. They don’t have to like me, and it was a huge surprise when they liked me, but they do.”

“Being unexpectedly loved is so wonderful or terrible, isn’t it?”

“Wonderful, I think,” she said. (NtN 63)

***

“Shut up, Nona. Haven’t you seen a black eye before?”

“Not really,” said Nona honestly. Whenever Pyrrha got hit hard in the face it was better in seconds, and neither Camilla nor Palamedes ever got hit hard in the face, and of course she’d never gotten any kind of black eye she could see. (NtN 88)

[This is just such a neat piece of writing, and exemplifies one of the things I love about NtN. Nona’s narration is presenting the information she knows without any explanation, because to her it’s normal. The writing is counting on the reader to have both the situational context (that in this universe only Lyctors have healing of that caliber and that this indicates things about Nona and her family) and to understand the character context (that Pyrrha is the type to get in fights and Camilla is too careful to ever get hit). Both of these character attributes are important to the plot, not just fun character details! This small moment helps to prepare us for a Pyrrha who disappears from the apartment and walks into danger on the off chance she can get her hands on a shuttle, and also helps prepare us for the intensity and full meaning of Camilla’s duel with Ianthe, in which she takes a potentially fatal hit because the outcome is that important. And of course, little drops of information like this about the healing speed of Pyrrha, Camilla and Palamedes, and Nona, all serve as clues to the ongoing mystery of what Lyctorhood really is and who Nona is. The whole book is like this!! Extremely artful, and I love it so much.]

***

Noodle didn’t want to have his pattens put on. He kept staring at Nona over his shoulder every time she wrestled a tiny, dirty white foot into a patten—it was like a little sock over a plastic grate—and there were six of them, she even had to do the legs he often stuck up or folded in at the middle. At one point, Noodle cunningly wriggled his way out of one shoe using another foot and Nona could have shrieked. She said, “Noodle, how dare you?” and he didn’t look guilty at all.

When the pattens were on, he clattered out into the courtyard. He sounded like one and a half horses. He bucketed disconsolately around, smelling things, doing his business, and then drinking from the bowl of chilled water that Nona poured for him. Then he politely clattered away to lie under the big stone seat in the shade, panting. (NtN 96)

[This is just the most accurate description of a mundane moment with a dog that I’ve ever seen in a book, I think. This dog is not here for plot reasons, he’s not here to bring comfort to the main character, Noodle is just doing his dog thing, hating shoes and being a pill and bucketing around smelling things. What a blessed creature.]

***

The only terrible part was an awful longing to let her head go below the surface, to lose all buoyancy and lie at the bottom like a flat fish. Nona didn’t want to die, but she wanted to sit in the water and drowse, which she was forced to admit was the same thing eventually. (NtN 108)

***

Nona had broken. Her only use was translating, and there she was, listening to the most important conversation that had ever been had, and she was not translating. She had surged out of the water and shrieked, “Run! They’re going to shoot you,” and instead of shooting Camilla, the cop with the gun aimed right into the dark water, and shot Nona. (NtN 110)

***

When Pyrrha opened the door all Nona was able to say was, pitifully, “No, no, no,” like the baby she had been: but what a relief it was at the time, to give things over to Pyrrha. Pyrrha had carried Camilla to bed in her big brown arms like Cam weighed nothing, was less than Nona. Pyrrha said, “What happened?” and Nona told her, and Pyrrha wasn’t even angry, but when Nona told her about Cam’s eyes she looked at Nona and said a completely new swear word. It was such an unusual swear word that later on Nona was able to swop it to Honesty for five whole cigarettes, he was that impressed. (NtN 115)

***

Camilla, cradled in Pyrrha’s arms, with all the towels bright red, looked up at Pyrrha like Nona wasn’t even in the room. Her eyes were chill and grey and gleaming. She whispered—

“Don’t tell him I was weak.”

“He’s going to know, Hect. You’re killing each other.”

“It’s our choice.”

“He’s going to ask.”

“Do what you’re good at,” said Camilla. “Lie.”

“Hect, you’re not listening. It’s killing him too—”

“It was good,” said Camilla, and her eyes closed. “It was good. We were happy.” (NtN 115)

***

All three of them were patted down for weapons in their clothes. Almost all of the knives Camilla had strapped to her got taken away, but not the very hidden knife, or at least the one hidden knife Nona knew about. There were probably more. (NtN 141)

[Cam, honey, where is this very hidden knife hidden??]

***

The Angel said, “Promise me, kids, please. I know you’re an honourable bunch. Especially you, Honesty.”

Honesty was touched.

“I am—so I won’t,” he said. “I swear. I mean, I could make a killing, so you’ve got me by the balls here.”

“Please never say that again,” said the Angel. (NtN 196)

***

“I won’t smile at the time,” Nona promised.

“Or turn to me when you’re scared,” said Camilla.

“I promise.”

“Or nervous.”

“Okay.”

“Or turn to me as though I know anything or could assist you in any way,” said Camilla. (NtN 321)

***

Cam said, without opening her eyes, “Don’t worry about me, Warden, I’ll walk it off.”

“Yes, thanks for your input,” said Palamedes pleasantly. “I’ve taken it under advisement and will add it to the next agenda.”

Camilla smiled that wonderful hot-metal smile that Nona had loved as long as she had been alive.

“Jackass,” she said. (NtN 352)

***

Nona was about to protest, but then Crown turned around and offered her back for a piggyback. Nona couldn’t resist, even if it was purely a kiddie thing to do; she let Crown pull her legs around her hips and heave her up onto her back, arms twined around Crown’s neck, with Crown saying in her gallant, flirtatious way, “Now I have you, my pretty maid,” and making Nona laugh, if weakly. (NtN 364)

***

She kept thinking in a welter of heartbreak about her bedroom, her mattress, her blankets. She had started thinking of bed in a kind of longing, desperate, hungry way. (NtN 425)

[Just, what a mood.]

***

Pash dithered behind a little—a more subdued and unsure Our Lady of the Passion. She said, “I have to shoot you now,” and then she burst out, quickly, “Joke—that was an actual fucking joke, you don’t even need to pay for it,” and she followed the Angel up the ramp. (NtN 427)

***

Aiglamene turned to look at Pyrrha, but Pyrrha—as per usual—was completely unmoved by any hostile, gimlet-eyed expression. Aiglamene said slowly: “You ask me, in the middle of the worst emergency my House has ever faced, to let strangers through to our holiest of holies?”

“Yes. We have a Lyctor’s rights,” said Pyrrha.

The old soldier sharpened, face alight with something that Nona could tell wasn’t hope, but was in the same room—at least the same building. She looked over Pyrrha again, Pyrrha in her ordinary jacket and her ordinary clothes with her very ordinary guns and her extraordinary scruff on her jaw, and she said dubiously, “Your Grace…”

“I said a Lyctor’s rights. Not a Lyctor’s prowess, sir—Captain?”

“Marshal,” Aiglamene corrected, but— “I ranked Captain, before discharge.”

“Territorials?”

“Strike force, for my sins.”

“You look too sensible for a Brandishment Baby,” said Pyrrha, her most winning smile in her voice, and the old soldier made a noise that was second cousin to a laugh.

“An’ there’s a term I haven’t heard since I was a child.” Then Aiglamene bristled, as though she had dropped her guard too far, and said, “Can you save us, or not?” (NtN 457)

[Yeah, I ship them. Hard. Also, just picking apart the jargon here…”territorials” and “strike force” both imply to me that Aiglamene was once on the front lines creating the thanergy needed to flip planets for the Empire. “Brandishment baby,” thought? Is this a term for like, young soldiers on the front? The weapons the Cohort is brandishing? Or literally babies born to soldiers on these far planets, perhaps with local partners?]

PRECIOUS ANALYSIS FROM FRIENDS

In response to “Harrow would hate that you described her as horny. Gideon would be fine with being described as horny. Nona would love to sit you down and talk about all the things that make her horny, at the end of which you are 50% worried that she doesn’t honestly understand ‘horny,’ and 50% worried that she DOES understand ‘horny.’” - Tamsyn Muir in this interview

“harrow becomes an auteur-like horny in a way that affords superiority and a buffer from any visceral acknowledgement of the horny, gideon is a horny that encompasses like giggling in the grocery store bc you're percussing two packs of hot dogs together and theyre making funny noises, nona im so sorry sweetie im assuming has some bugfucker volley meme energy type of horny

ok tho actually yeah fair i guess those are all pretty normal horny” - jeej

***

“Hmm the Body seems to be a manifestation of all of Harrow’s regrets, her guilt, all the deaths that she caused or resulted in her birth, and despite her dreading its presence at times, it’s also one of the only thing she allows herself to feel comfort in. It guides her in hard times, and gives her something to focus on when she feels she’s slipping away from reality

It’s the only thing in this world that’s hers and that could only ever be hers” - Water, mid-HtN

[a]i feel like this must be discussed somewhere but i'm not finding it in the doc--in the prologue to htn, ianthe says to harrow: "turn around. harry, all you have to do is turn around. i know what you've done, and i know how to reverse it, if only you'd ask me." as in, turn around and ask me to reverse the lobotomy. as in, turn around and look at eurydice. kind of obsessed with ianthe being harrow's draco-in-leather-pants sidepiece to gideon's eurydice. maybe i will disavow this interpretation once i finish re-reading but !!

[b]ah! this is because it's in the other doc, where i put all the parallels and light analysis of those parallels! 1000% with you on the eurydice thing, painful and glorious and also ianthe is there kljdfjkldkljdf this link should go right to the part of the other doc with thoughts on this moment: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qh4j0huELOM9Kh2ePccDtftSBpazsfbQcTPB3GFnNgU/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.3wetdmou87m

[c]i'm a fool! but aaaaahh the queerness of the necro-necro relationship is sooo incredibly juicy too. excited to re-read htn with my harryanthe glasses on!

[d]An example! I am saying hi to myself, because I'm having a tedious day at work.

[e]_Marked as resolved_

[f]_Re-opened_

[g]hello! here because ninth stuff is a joy

[h]hi! <3

[i]Hello, I am loving this! Wanted to point out these links I found to some more bonus content - esp. interesting IMO is A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers in the GtN drive. Thank you for making this document and making it accessible to all!

https://www.tumblr.com/theriverbeyond/700189468024553472/here-ya-go-gtn-bonus-content-google-drive-htn

[j]Oh lovely, thanks for this!! I have the paperbacks so I have seen the bonus content, but other folks may not have!

[k]Hello! This is all such a delight! I am re-reading all of the books and annotating myself before Alecto comes out, and this doc is just priceless.

[l]Yaaaay, i'm so happy other people are also engaging in this way lol!

[m]Something I wonder about is how Anastasia and Cassiopeia were working closely together about lyctor stuff, if Anastasia was sixth house before John had her on the ninth!

[n]That's an interesting thought!! I have been working from the idea that there were people on the Ninth before there was a Tomb and a whole religious offshoot around that, and so Anastasia might have grown up there before becoming the first Tombkeeper, but I don't know if anything in the text suggests that or if I just at some point decided it made sense. Fascinating to wonder if she came from a different house originally and then became one of the Ninth's first actual residents, I love it!

[o]hiiiiii!!!

[p]hi!!!! <3

[q]I'm not sure if anyone's addressed this here, but I recently realized that all of the cavalier-necromancer pairs that went to Canaan House have a cavalier that's older than their necromancer. It wasn't confirmed for Camilla and Palamedes until SEX (god, that looks so weird lol), but we have textual evidence that she's 3 months older than he is. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on why this might be.

[r]Ooh, that's interesting! It could be that over time it's become customary, maybe as one way to encourage a strong protective bond? Like telling an older sibling to take care of their younger sibling, "here, we're putting this kid in your care, they're younger than you so keep an eye on them" kind of thing. Clearly more than just that is going on with cavalier training across the board, but it could be the kind of thing that takes hold as a little extra insurance that this pair will bond in the way the social order calls for.

[s]WRITE IT

[t]lkjdsfkljdfs i may get there someday! maybe after alecto, when things either end well for them or don't and i need an escapist fantasy.

[u]ok but at least give us the name lol

[v]_Marked as resolved_

[w]_Re-opened_

[x]reading nona has kind of changed the math for me on it! but my horrifying sentiment idea was camillagail nigenad, in true "the bravest people i ever knew" style, millie for short. i'm still quite attached to millie as a baby name but seeing crown call cam that just to get a reaction out of her gave it a different feel

[y]I have feelings about this being an echo of Hecate (a trimorphic goddess) and probably a way that people have butchered the spelling of "hex", which Tazmuir would know, being a huge classics nerd. --influencethis

[z]that's an interesting idea, i like the hecate angle!

[aa]Also, if we had a Hex and a Sextus I think everyone would have spontaneously combusted due to the possibilities inherent in both rhyming and shipping.

[ab]LOL gideon would have even more of a field day

[ac]Also everyone would have been like "oooh, she's secretly a necromancer!" and talking about HexSex. Which is terrible and now something I want to inflict on people.

[ad]That post no longer exists 😭 I really hope someone has an archive link?

[ae]noooooooo T^T Wayback Machine doesn't have it either! i may have reblogged it myself though, I'll take a look when I have time and see if I can find it!

[af]having no luck searching my blog, or tumblr at large, or the internet for a reblog of this post T^T but if anybody wandering through this doc can find it, please drop the link!

[ag]Highly suspicious that it was Anastasia who imposed this limitation, given that we know she was working closely on research with Cassiopeia (though iirc only confirmed prior to the first ascension to lyctorhood)

[ah]SAME, why would she only want him there? Unless she already suspected Alecto was his cavalier, and was trying to catch him in his lie by proving what he did could be done, maybe!

[ai]This has been thoroughly answered as of NTN, only to leave us with many more questions, lol.

[aj]Haha yes, I got suddenly busy and haven't had a chance to go through this doc and update questions that have now been answered for me...

[ak]I think it's interesting that Dominicus now depends on John to exist, but there's no indication that there's a change in the Sun at all during the John dreams in NTN. Something happened in that gap that interests me greatly. --influencethis

[al]Yeah, I wonder about that too! He mentions eating the sun first in his list of Hungry Caterpillar destruction, but there's no clarity on whether there's enough life of any kind there to create an RB, or what happens to it when John kills it and restarts it as Dominicus, and it feels like it could be a purposeful omission that we're going to find out more about later!

[am]I also want to note that if it was killed, it had to be alive in the first place. So there doesn't seem to any reason why it's not mentioned as a Beast. Unless he used it for something else, like making the River or holding back the devils. --influencethis

[an]John confirms a suspicion of Augustine's, that John knew the pre-Res Augustine - HTN 483 "Augustine," he said, "if the man you were - the man you were before you died, before the Resurrection - could hear what you just said to me, he'd tear your throat out."/Augustine said, "Thanks for confirming that." And he was silent.

[ao]yeah that bit fascinates me! it's interesting and telling that John resurrected the people who were presumably closest to him, the ones who were there from the start, without any memories of who they were before.

[ap]is John an amalgam of billions of souls the way Harrow is 200 dead kids?

[aq]oooh that's a fun idea!!

[ar]Cytherea and Wake both refer to "the ten billion" at different points— I think saying that they had space for eleven billion was just emphasizing that they had More than enough space

[as]That makes a lot of sense! I suck at recalling numbers so I hadn't really put that together, just that numbers in the billions would be a world population scale lol!

[at]suddenly wondering...how many people got away on those ships that escaped john's kill-the-whole-system spree? maybe that's the difference, 11 billion total on earth, 10 billion killed, 1 billion escaped? Or 1 billion total escaped and resurrected, and 10 billion left unaccounted for?

[au]I am hoping SO MUCH that this is touched upon in Alecto. Why would Nonius have fought the Saint of Duty? Why is it not mentioned in any of the lore we hear about Nonius? Who is Nonius's debt to?

[av]YES I'M DYING TO KNOW!! I want that flashback so badly!!!!

[aw]Maybe bc Anastasia got to die and Teacher craves death?

[ax]Oooh I like that

[ay]Maybe he feels a kinship with Harrow because they're both boxes of souls? this is pure guesswork lol

[az]I like that!! On this reread I sort of came around to an interesting connection between them for that reason, and a connection to Alecto for the same reason, but I haven't quite solidified it in my thinking.

[ba]Rhymes with Harrow falling asleep or dropping dead or both "faraway in a land she had never travelled"

[bb]Ooh yeah there is a fun resonance there

[bc]'ten thousand million' is consistent with the pre-Resurrection pop. of Earth. So whatever's down there is probably what happened to the un-resurrected. Maybe 'down there' just refers to the bowels of the Earth in general?

[bd]Yeah it took me shamefully long to register that "ten thousand million" is the same as "ten billion" because I'm horrendous at math, but that's sort of where I have landed on this I think! Likely referring to the population of Earth who are now dead, and after reading Nona I can see how that tragedy could actually be centered down in the facility, since that's where it seems like everything went down with John and Earth and creating Alecto.

[be]Who said this quote? Could someone please add that?

[bf]It's Harrow quoting Teacher.

[bg]Pre-Resurrection global warming consequences?

[bh]Or perhaps saltwater inhibits John/necromancy in some way (see the Ninth rule about secrets and saltwater)...?

[bi]oooooh, i have always read it as global warming consequences, ice caps melting and such, but the idea that it might be related to the saltwater theme (or that it might be both) is really intriguing!!

[bj]is he also always hungry? he's always eating biscuits and peanuts and things...again this is barely a parallel but would be a fascinating one

[bk]OMG that's a good point, he's a snacker! Maybe all that divine energy = hungry??

[bl]its a good contrast to Nona/Alecto never actually being hungry - or maybe its just her "craving that mineral" instead ;)

[bm]LMAO she does crave that mineral doesn't she!! but i agree, i love the contrast with nona's weird eating, and also with harrow's weird eating!

[bn]https://old.reddit.com/r/TheNinthHouse/comments/unlqxc/theory_mercymorn_and_the_eighth_house_some/ Reddit post and comments collecting strange things about the Eighth. Some juicy stuff here.

[bo]Specifically relevant here: '“The Ninth House is a House of broken promises,” said Silas. “The Eighth House remembers that they were not meant to live.'

Also, Augustine mentions that Mercymorn was 'out hammering at the Eighth House before the paint was even dry on the Resurrection'. Also relevant to the discussion of Silas's connection to Wake! The Eighth House are so full of mysteries, I really hope we get SOME answers in Alecto.

[bp]Oooh thanks for this link, lovely!! I keep trying to dig into Reddit and find it hard to grok, lol

[bq]there's the bit in chapter 16 where Harrow seems very surprised that Gideon can see the coronas of light around where she's meant to hit, which to me implies the latter, that Gideon herself shouldn't have been able to see what Harrow does because she's not a necromancer

[br]Yeah, I think that's the most likely! But the two of them have no previous experience with this winnowing thing, so I feel like an argument could be made that Gideon is sharing Harrow's perception at the same time as Harrow is sharing Gideon's perception. Which is maybe not what the trial is meant to teach and is perhaps because of who Gideon is, anyway! That would actually be a nice parallel with Gideon remaining so whole and herself inside Harrow, and being able to be fully conscious in Harrow's body at the end of HtN; there is more of an exchange between them in Lyctorhood than there is supposed to be, through Gideon's unkillableness and Harrow's brain necromancy...

[bs]yeah, could definitely go either way imo. also apologies i accidentally resolved my comment about the shitty teens and their Saturnian earrings and i can't work out how to get it back :(

[bt]ooh lemme see if i can get it to come back!

[bu]Or Fourth! I read it as Glaurica explaining the creche massacre and as part of that explanation telling the story is Gideon's arrival in the Ninth House beside her unknown mother's corpse

[bv]Oh interesting, that makes sense as a conversational path, from the "creche flu" to the one kid who survived it to how she ended up there!

[bw]First time I'm ever considering this and I'm so curious!

[bx]I love Aiglamene so much that I feel like she must be extremely important somehow lkjdfsalkjdfsljkdfs

[by]Camilla? SEX indicates that revs were one of Pal's specialties, and of course the two shared knowledge like an osmotic barrier shares water.

[bz]possible!! and interesting!

[ca]I thought possibly it was the Body/Alecto? Since it's like a new tenant has moved into the crowded apartment that is Harrow. and Alecto is one of the oldest tenants, apart from the 200 babies.

[cb]Ooh that's an intriguing thought!! Maybe she can tell that this revenant means Harrow harm and means John harm, and wants to keep her stuck in the sword instead of wandering around in a body?

[cc]i interpret this as her being about to say 'like you did the last time', as opposed to talking about someone else

[cd]OHHH that makes sense!

[ce]Your theories are repeatedly blowing my mind and I am extremely thankful

[cf]lol I'm glad!! I'm sure so many of them are wrong but it's very fun to wonder

[cg]The 7th's speciality seems to be flesh magic, preserving the body but typically failing to fully preserve the spirit. The schools of necromancy overlap significantly but I still think the 7th is more flesh than spirit. So yeah I think she floods her w melatonin or something so she sleeps

[ch]Oooh that's a neat idea, I like it

[ci]Might simply be that the wards react to living thalergy - which a rev possessing a corpse doesn't have.

[cj]oooh that's a neat thought... though you'd think in a society revolving around necromancy, the average ward (or the above average Harrow ward) would also include dead people...

[ck]_Marked as resolved_

[cl]_Re-opened_

[cm]Other instances of this - the non-chubby toddlers with their first bones. Also I'm assuming fertility issues, with Harrow's mother having trouble conceiving/carrying to term, and Abigail Pent talking about the same thing with Dulcinea/Cytherea.

[cn]Yeah!! I've been starting to wonder, based on the way Nona being Nona is so rapidly harming Harrow's body, if necromancers are always just like...burning thalergy in order to handle thanergy, autonomically, or something like that. All the physical differences seem to revolve around a failure to thrive, as if they're nutrient deprived, except maybe thalergy deprived.

[co]linking to the commenter who suggested adding this quote here, because I deleted it by accident lmao https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BbLHiNDn6_04kd08P22SGxcUHa8YsTOIPQAPrB1oglk/edit?disco=AAACIW2MzYI

[cp]I was rereading Nona and it seems like Varun's attraction is less instinctive and more a choice. In NTN, Varun speaks through Judith to say " we see you still—we seek you still—we murdered—we who

murder—you inadvertent tool—you misused green thing—come back to us

—take vengeance for us—we saw you—we see you—I see you." It almost seems like they're going after Lyctors out of their grief, but their priority is to try and save Earth's R.B.?

[cq]Yeah it seems to me after a few rereads that Nona is the big draw, maybe with the hope that she'll remember herself and take vengeance?

[cr]Ianthe?

[cs]definitely possible! though the possible motivation there is less clear to me

[ct]"the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" etc etc

[cu]love that, the salt water covenant is thickest of all...

[cv]this is sort of a stretch, but the thing that most easily connects salt water and truth/communication in my mind is nona! nona likes salt water because she's the earth, nona can read body language (which helps her know when people are lying) because she's the earth and connected to its people. not sure what that means/if it means anything, though...

[cw]that's an intriguing thought, maybe it sort of entered House culture through Alecto? if she also was into salt water (likely) and could read people (also likely)?

[cx]Part of the Resurrection is preserving bodies until Jod wakes them up (like the Neo-Niners he pulls out of storage).

This also fits into my understanding that fixing the soul was the last step discovered of (imperfect) lyctorhood: Cytherea and Loveday arrived last, Ianthe needed to get into the 7th study to find out the theorem for the fixing step to complete lyctorhood (it's the only one she didn't reverse engineer), the "hideous corpses" who aren't protected from decay and Teacher as the "6th Installation" which was up and running before Cytherea arrived, the beguiling corpse as the height of decay halting and also the 7th's specialty that horrifies the other houses.

I wonder if this is her totally personal project or if Augustine's work on tracing energy back to its source gave her the idea

[cy]Yeah, clearly she's doing some work in areas that are tied to a lot of other parts of the plot!! Ianthe what is your long game????

[cz]I’m wondering if she was trying to learn to halt decay so that somehow Coronabeth could live for thousands of years with her despite not being a necromancer/Lyctor

[da]I LOVE that idea, it fits in with some of her other actions that i think are motivated by protecting Corona.

[db]I think so too - it's two apple cores, after all. Twin apple cores.

[dc]That's very fun!

[dd]perhaps babs, but i think it might be more accurate to say that she wants this to make sure corona is alive forever.

“Babs?” she said. “I don’t care about Babs ... Just don’t suggest my sister is dead to me, ever again.” (HtN 61 [or thereabouts my pdf is likely off])

and your note later about ianthe taking corona's threat that she'd shoot herself in ntn seriously despite earlier threats being meaningless. I think Ianthe is terrified of a life without Corona and Corona likely knows

[de]belated reply but i like this a lot! i definitely agree that ianthe prioritizes corona's survival over everything else, but had not put that together with the apple experiments before, and im into it!

[df]i may well be forgetting something but - can't Gideon see the Body when she is inhabiting Harrow? doesn't that imply that Harrow's hallucinations may extend to G when she is in that state, which means that if Cytherea's corpse under the bed had been a hallucination, Gideon would have seen it as well?

[dg]Yes, that's a great point! Personally I don't think anything Harrow "hallucinates" is a product of her mind, I think the Body is haunting her and so is in some way her spirit is legitimately there for Harrow (and Gid) to see. But you're right, what Gideon sees through Harrow's eyes could be the same as what Harrow sees in either direction, hallucinations or real.

[dh]yes sorry this is more or less what i meant, i also agree that the literal reality or otherwise of the things she sees is definitely less simple than 'it's a hallucination', but by hallucination i meant 'things harrow sees that others do not' - but i was unclear about that, apologies!

[di]i think i get it! there's so much going on with harrow that is hard to describe, lol!

[dj]_Marked as resolved_

[dk]_Re-opened_

[dl]Is this part of what Wake was getting out of Dios Apate Major? The chance to let free the death of your enemy is a pretty good deal alone but if stele access was also on the table

[dm]this definitely feels like it could be part of that same bargain, yeah!!

[dn]Extraction of Cam, Corona, Jody, and Gideon's body from Canaan House into BOE control is my guess

[do]That seems pretty likely! It's just so delightfully vague, lol

[dp]God asked him to either "fix or put down Harrow" or as Gideon puts it: "told that bastard to beat up Harrow" Chap 52 HtN

[dq]That's definitely the reason John offers but I do wonder if it's the whole reason for G1deon, and what Pyrrha thinks! It's so hard to get a read on either of them really at this point

[dr]I think Pyrrha is opposed, based on her giving Harrow warding advice after Harrow saves them from the incinerator, but it does emphasize the question of why G1deon is so dutiful!

[ds]Yeah G1deon is such a mystery!! I want a short story from his POV lol!

[dt]Oh shit, they (or at least Pyrrha) know better than anyone else that it won't bc nothing in 10000 years kicked G1deon into full integration

[du]omg i didn't think about that!!

[dv]Pyrrha

[dw]Can't say no to a stone cold fox

[dx]Tamsyn has said that her initial names for the Tridentarii were Cainabeth and Abella (I think). Presumably she included the name as a wink at that, but maybe it has deeper significance we will understand on a reread

[dy]OH i forgot all about that!! definitely a nod to Ianthe then!

[dz]👀 Fourth House widower

[ea]YEAH intriguing!!!

[eb]Wait I don't understand, what's the implication of this?

[ec]i can't speak for the first commenter but it's intriguing to me for several reasons: first, we just don't know that much about the fourth! jeanne and isaac give us a sense of it, but not as much as other houses i feel like, and we don't get much info about the OG fourth post-resurrection. second, Pal is relating this romance between different houses, it's a book in his bubble so it has SOME kind of relation to him/Dulcie whose book it might have been/Cyth who was in this room when Pal died, and Pal only took so long to clock Cyth as being not Dulcie because his own marriage proposal to Dulcie was refused and their relationship was awkward. iirc we learn somewhere that heads of houses can't intermarry, maybe for bloodline reasons or line of inheritance reasons, but Pal proposed to Dulcie anyway. third, we see a relationship between the third house and the second house via Corona and Judith, but this plotline in a book suggests that the third house is also mixing socially with the fourth, which implies to me that even though the fourth are always dying young and somewhat wasted in the forever war, there is still some kind of status equity between them and the third. fourth, if this story is in any way meant to tell us things about the OG third or the current third characters we know, then it's interesting to link them to the fourth just because we never see that happen anywhere else.

[ed]this has always reminded me of pinning butterflies to a board for study; very 19th century naturalist

[ee]yes!!!!! definitely has the same vibe

[ef]OK, so. crackpot theory about the steles, what if they're not a seperate process from river-transit, they're just the same principles applied to a different scale. what if steles act as heart-lung systems that pump blood throughout the ship, "animating" it in such a capacity that when it dips into the river (as is implied by quote three here), the thanergy that would be sucked away would be the ships' and not anyone on board, like the whole ship is acting as a massive "living" blood ward.

[eg]ooh that's interesting!! but wouldn't the people on the ship still experience moving through the River? with all the ghosts and bloody water and everything? but it makes total sense to me that the processes are linked, maybe the steles and obelisks allow ships to kind of ride the current of the River without actually going in, which would maybe make it a little slower but likely safer...

[eh]galaxy brain take not meant to be taken seriously - marta dyas trans woman confirmed??? i know she's probably too young for Aiglamene to have still been in the Cohort when she was cav prim but maybe there's Duelling Pay-Per-View or some shit

[ei]OMG that would be incredible

[ej]i have always assumed it means gunpowder, as in like a pirate style flintlock pistol - which makes no sense with BOE having guns and the Houses not, but i guess i thought maybe the houses have technology that's antiquated enough to fit the whole science fantasy vibe.

[ek]honestly that was my thought on first read too, but it seems so wild and OP to have a pistol as an offhand in a swordfight! funny to imagine though, gideon's dueling naberius and he knocks her sword away and she just pulls a pistol and shoots him in the foot or something...

[el]She'd make her momma so proud...

[em]LMAO right??

[en]Post-NtN, we can assume that the Canaan House is located above John's old laboratory in New Zealand/Aotearoa; a cursory google search tells me that one of the most famous canyons in NZ is called Sleeping God Canyon. Curious.

[eo]intriguing!!! yes, post NTN i think it's clear Canaan House is above the facility, which John places in Wairarapa (different area from Sleeping God Canyon, according to a map), but no reason this image couldn't be of a canyon somewhere else in Aotearoa! i like the idea that either John or Cytherea or Loveday (this is their study the image is hiding the door to, iirc) hung an image of Sleeping God Canyon just for the name of it. there's also something called Patuna Chasm in Wairarapa which looks quite photogenic lol!

[ep]I thought maybe a connection via the Eighth House? The wiki entry for Sarpedon of Troy says he fought beside his cousin Glaucus, which made me think of Glaurica, Ortus' mother.

[eq]OMG it never occurred to me he might be from somewhere other than the Second House, even though obviously all the Houses join the Cohort! The twenty years ago still feels very specific, but it's interesting if they have some specific history or animosity because he's from the House that Mercy founded lol!

[er]I thought maybe she was the first necromancer to be born after the Resurrection, maybe? The first that wasn't one of John's friends from before.

[es]Oh that's interesting!! But I think it says somewhere that the second gen of Lyctors were 100+ years after the originals? And if Cyth was the last one to join them, because Mercy says they were all there when she got there, then at some point between the Resurrection and that point Anastasia was also born a necromancer, I think? But it's all speculative, I don't think there's really enough info to piece together the whole OG lyctor timeline with any solidity.

[et]This makes me think of "here is the church, here is the steeple..."

[eu]YES! definitely has that feel as well!

[ev]Not me wondering if there are 20/21st century porn videos around that survived the resurrection

[ew]Incredible, God's secret stash hastily downloaded from PornHub

[ex]it's incredibly reminiscent of the 3rd house iconography seen here https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/the-ninth-house-trilogy/images/4/4b/Third_House_Icon.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200829211136

[ey]yeah for sure! it's so specific to the Third, and the gold arm is so specific to Ianthe, it sticks out to me.

[ez]Varun's voice *does* knock Pyrrha down later, when it speaks through Judith on page 440. So maybe only the vocal component affects every necromantic body similarly. --influencethis

[fa]ooh good callout...maybe proximity is an issue there too? interesting!

[fb]speaking as someone with face blindness, it's probably body language and a cocky smile.

[fc]yeah i'm sure it's body language of some sort! it delights me that she knows him so well.

[fd]Several pages ago, you posited that Dulcie might have been riding her own cremains, and could have influenced Pal's romance novel (The Necromancer's Marriage Season) existing in the bubble. The ashes in the fireplace that Ianthe isn't removing could be some kind of thalergetic traces of Dulcie following Pal?

[fe]OMG i LOVE THAT, what a great thought

[ff]Are we sure it was G1deon and not Pyrrha? I don't remember for sure, but I don't think Augustine knows about her.

[fg]oh true! there's nothing to indicate it's not pyrrha causing trouble in g1deon's body, mostly because there's no indication of what the nature of the trouble is at all.

[fh]There's definitely evidence of this in GtN (haven't read the others with enough of a fine-toothed comb since finding this doc, so I can't say about those). There's the bit on GtN 74 where she runs to "Dulcinea's" side after getting off the shuttle, but there's also this bit when Team 69 hears the fire alarm:

"Then the klaxon again: BRRRARRRRP...BRRRRARRRRP...BRRRRARRRRRRRRP....and the exact same recorded inflexion: 'This is a fire alarm. Please make your way...'

They looked at each other. Then all four of them sprinted for the door. Palamedes didn't even stop to shut it behind them." (GtN 369).

I can't remember right now if there's any more examples that establish a parallel between the life-and-death run and the determined-to-get-to-someone-Gideon-cares-about run, but I'd love to see if anyone else has noticed any!

[fi]yeah it definitely plays a part in GtN! i've been sort of waiting for it to come back in a character arc way, like not running in life or death or danger situations where it is definitely necessary, but running for something that she needs emotionally. (cue my fantasies of a cliche reunion scene where she and harrow run to each other across the field of battle afsl;kdfjasl;dkfjs)

[fj]Oh, i deeply want a plot-relevant reason for her to run that also shows a bit of growth from the second paragraph of the first book.

[fk]Ooh, one more:

"I kicked the stinger with your booted foot, which was like hitting a wall with a feather duster, ducked under another stream of acid, and then, sorry, turned and ran for your goddamn life." (HtN 390)

in contrast with when she hears Mercymorn fighting a Herald:

"I didn't run, but I legged it pretty quickly down the corridor, and then, beneath the alarm, I became aware of yet another sound: someone was screaming." (HtN 497)

[fl]that's a good one!!!!! girl knows where her priorities lie that's for sure

[fm]Colum is the sole character from Canaan House who never appears or is mentioned in Harrow's House-bubble in HTN. That he died while possessed is I think relevant. I think we'll see him again when/if we return to Canaan House to answer the fuckload of other questions there. Also, this may be an explanation for how John knows about Harrow's parents - 8th told him.

[fn]Oooh that's a great observation, I hadn't really noticed Colum's absence!! I definitely think what happened to him will be relevant again at some point. And I can absolutely imagine John getting information through the Eighth!! It's fascinating to me that Silas's whole vibe is so extremely God-focused, and yet at the very end he rejects Lyctorhood, as a parallel to Mercymorn who is so insistent (as the other Lyctors are too) that she loves John, but is also betraying him. Eighth as informants is really interesting, and Eighth as double agents would also be really interesting.

[fo]Also, Ianthe's work in preservation.

[fp]YEAH whatever Ianthe is researching feels important in the same way, I'm so eager to know what her long game is and how stopping decay is involved.

[fq]I always wondered if Ianthe's end goal was in part to end up in Corona's body due to all the creepy comments Ianthe makes about Corona keeping up her appearance

[fr]Oooh, that's twisted in a fun tridentarii way

[fs]Meaning that only a remnant/portion of Gideon is in her own body? Cheeseburger theory continues?

[ft]yes definitely!! this should be in the cheeseburger theory section too, if it's not already there... something for me to do to procrastinate working right now!

[fu]I have been wondering if someone/he has done some Harrow-style surgery too, and this tic is reflecting a weird pressure point on the temporal lobe. It seems deliberately repetitive.

(On the other hand I don't want his utter shittiness to be blamed on necromantic brain surgery, either?)

[fv]Oooh, that's interesting! I mean it's a common enough tic to have but i would enjoy it having some specific cause too

[fw]and where is Harrow's rosary now?

[fx]I think about this all the time because I wrote her rosary into a fic at some point lol! She only mentions it a few times, maybe on next reread I will track it. Maybe the rosary and crypt-script will come back at some point!

[fy]Huh Gideon describes the contents of the 2nd's study as grave goods the first time she and Harrow are in there

[fz]Oh yeah, that's an interesting link... as if the preserved study is a tomb, even though at that point both G1deon and Pyrrha are still alive.

[ga]In NtN John 20:8 (I only have audio, sorry, can't quote a page number) he and Alecto/Harrow eat unidentified thighs?

[gb]YEAH i think i have a note about that somewhere else in this doc but yeah that brought me back to this moment in a big way

[gc]Would this not be like "I'll eat bacon, but I wouldn't eat my pet pig"

[gd]hahaha maybe! suddenly i'm imagining a whole charlotte's web au...

[ge]This is a very tiny detail here that I am just noticing- I thought Ianthe/Corona were born at *exactly the same time*? Or was that just something they used to explain why both Ianthe and Corona had to go to Canaan House?

[gf]At the dinner party in GtN, Ianthe says that Corona is a few minutes older and that she herself was born "by surgical means," so I assume they're using the "born at the same time" thing at the beginning in a more general way!

[gg]_Marked as resolved_

[gh]_Re-opened_

[gi]40 years means something other than just killing Wake and fucking up the Dios Apate Major plan

[gj]yeah it's an interesting time span to throw out there, when everything revealed in this book hinges around what happened 18 years ago!

[gk]HARD AGREE. This whole series feels like one long series of leaving things just barely undone, so that when the thread IS pulled, everything unravels spectacularly!

[gl]YES, reading these books makes me feel like a conspiracy theorist, except a lot of the tiny insignificant-seeming details are actually very significant!!

[gm]Puts me in mind of the biblical, "the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

[gn]ooh yes, definitely! 1 Corinthians 15:26, for anybody wanting to look it up (and for my future reference lolol) i feel like there are other bits about christ defeating/overcoming/ending death, like death as a concept for everyone, but i can't bring to mind specifics.

[go]I want RB 1 to be the Sun/Dominicus, simply because that would lead into #2 being Mercury! And mercury, quicksilver... (Not sure what Jupiter has to do with worms though...)

[gp]that would be interesting if the sun is included, it would mean one of the planets is left out! and it would be very funny to me if pluto got left out lmao!!!! the RBs don't appear to be numbered in the order of the planets though, or in any order that i have been able to figure out and feel confident about, which plagues me. i do think 2 is Mercury though, because of the quicksilver thing!

[gq]I think they're not, I think they're in the order they encountered them. I can't remember why I think that though

[gr]Encounter order is plausible! or maybe the order in which John flipped that planet, unless he did the whole system at once?

[gs]Isn't Mercy the one who says she'd kill Harrow herself to prevent a lyctor's body from becoming possessed by revenants?

[gt]YEAH I was just listening to that bit this morning! It's such a nice bit of foreshadowing, or irony or something, since at the time Harrow is already packed full of hauntings.

[gu]Reminds me of Magnus and Abigail arguing to Harrow to let Gideon go

[gv]T^T OH NO that makes me so sad i love it!

[gw][very mild Nona spoilers]

Curious what you make of Gideon's eyes in light of what we lear about John's pre-and-post powers eye color in NtN

[gx]I find it VERY INTERESTING! I've been taking a few messy notes, but my Nona hardcover hasn't come yet (I read the galley) so I haven't been doing too much active analysis yet. But I'm fascinated by the eye color change, I wonder if it implies something about Gideon, maybe some latent aptitude, or if it implies something about John and his genetic code actually was altered by necromancy, or both???? So intrigued.

[gy]Warning Gideon away from Griddlehark lyctorhood?

[gz]that's how i interpret it! which is fascinating, given that over time i've settled into the theory that cytherea's INTENTION was to get gideon and harrow to become a lyctor together, in order to create a person powerful enough to take down john. it's like in this moment, her grief for herself and for loveday is stronger than her other intentions, or maybe her other intentions have not yet been clarified or solidified.

[ha]Coming back to these theories after NtN and Thinking

[hb]Hard same!!

[hc]Via Abigail being in her River bubble maybe?

[hd]Omg that's fun, I like to think she's chatting with Abigail offscreen in the River sometimes

[he]I read something about how this could have been knowledge gained from the offscreen time prior to Harrow's lobotomy that she doesn't remember

[hf]That makes sense! I'm sure she did some research in the couple of days pre-lobotomy trying to figure out a solution, this could easily have been part of it.

[hg]Also paints a sad picture of Ianthe's home life

[hh]For real, it sounds like both her parents are shitty

[hi]Ohmygod I never even considered her being basically a mini RB with the mass extinction of her house being summed up in the whole of her!!! Maybe she did drive some of the Ninth necros a little bonkers??

[hj]I feel like it would go a long way to explain some of the weirdness of the Ninth for me!! Not that they couldn't just be fucked up and weird because of the situation the House has been in for so long, but tiny!RB Harrow would be a really interesting explanation! Might even make her body a more capable host for Nona than anyone else's would be.

[hk]Bc Alecto isn't carrying a rifle? Bc the rest of it seems likely, that while the tomb appears to keep Alecto locked up tight and on ice, her soul can still move and can pass through the wards surrounding her

[hl]Definitely the rifle thing, but also the moving around and passing through wards--the only one who can see Alecto's spirit up and about is Harrow, and that's not her body moving around. Her body is quite specifically still chained and kept behind wards, as far as anyone other than Harrow knows.

[hm]I always interpreted that to mean that Wake's natal sun was drained/consumed by John in some way. Either directly by him/Lyctors or consumed by RBs.

[hn]Fourth House Wake

[ho]_Marked as resolved_

[hp]_Re-opened_

[hq]Oh interesting, I hadn't even considered that Wake's natal sun might be the sun of some other system that John flipped! That makes a lot of sense.

[hr]Is Alecto's presumed lack of a genetic code related to passing through wards? Doesn't work for Wake, since she obviously had enough DNA to pass on to her daughter but

[hs]Interesting!! There are so many links between Wake and Alecto, maybe there is something funny going on with Wake's genetics aside from the various important inheritance things.

[ht]Mayhap the Ninth's understanding of spirit magic is not so terrible as advertised. If Ortus can empower Nonius this strongly after 1000 years of honor, what would ~9000 years of worshipping the Body in the Locked Tomb do to empower Alecto's spirit when it is called?

[hu]What a great thought!!!!! She's going to be so OP with all the faith and worship of the Ninth behind her...

[hv]Harrow looks like Anastasia; I like the idea of her cav looking like Anastasia's cav

[hw]Ooh yeah I kinda love that! Extra funny because if the Ninth cavalier bloodline holds looks as long as the Tombkeeper bloodline does, then it's possible Samael's original body resembled Ortus...

[hx]the throwaway example of an object a revenant could be linked to which Abigail gives in chapter 49 of HtN is a teapot!!

[hy]OMg I forgot about that!! I would love it if she's in a teapot T^T

[hz]Related to this, in NTN Pyrrha implies she's at least partly in on this-"Cassy plays long games"

[ia]Yes! I've been wondering what Pyrrha knows, and whether Cassy's instructions to the Sixth were before she "died" or after, or if she did actually die but just put a lot of plans in place beforehand. It's very funny to me to think about Cassiopeia and Palamedes both making these elaborate plans for how to hang on in the events of their deaths.

[ib]This is super minor, but do you have a citation for this? I can't seem to find where this is mentioned in the books, but I see it in tons of meta and fic.

[ic]omg great catch actually, this is from GtN 20-21 but I misremembered it (or muddled it with some fic somewhere)! It's Harrow who turns off the heating, or has someone turn it off, and it's not three days, it's three of Gid's toes that got frostbite!

[id]Thanks for that! (It also gives us another “three times for emphasis”)

[ie]Just did another skim through and you were right originally that it was Crux:

"On the few early days when she had foregone the paint, Crux had appeared and turned off the heating to her cell: she would end up slumped on her tier, screaming with cold, numb and nearly dead." (GtN 61)

[if]HAHAHA omg! fantastic. that makes a lot of sense to me, as something harrow would order and crux would enforce.

[ig]Like Cytherea only died when she chose to die?

[ih]GOSH yes, what a great connection.

[ii]My money's on this interpretation of "wrong voice twice removed"

[ij]Yeah after reading Nona it seems pretty clear!

[ik]I would hazard a guess that Camilla looks like Cassiopeia

[il]Oooh I love that idea! I really really hope we get to meet Cassiopeia at some point.

[im]I wonder if perhaps it's a cow...? One of John's first non-human experiments?

[in]that's a fun idea!!

[io]Maybe she 'remembered' her pre-Res life only after Lyctorhood, and since she stayed separate from G1deon her memories were preserved. My logic here is that John wiping their memories is probably more of a physical thing (no reason behind why, except that it tracks with this theory) and Pyrrha's soul still had the memories, which were maybe slowly unlocked throughout the 10k years that she was sharing G1deon's body. An interesting question coming up from this is whether the revenants in the River who were alive pre-Res also remember it.

[ip]Ooh, that's an interesting idea!! It has some implications for any of the OG lyctors who have died but maybe not actually DIED as well. Like, if Cassy is a revenant in one of her teapots or something, does she have her memories of before the Resurrection back?? JUICY I LIKE IT

[iq]What if Harrow is unconsciously (subconsciously) drawing on the souls of the 200 children sacrificed to her parents? A special extra little battery pack just for her?

[ir]definitely possible imo!! i have other crackpot theories about Harrow but the 200 as her battery is definitely a clear explanation for why she's more powerful than anyone expects her to be.

[is]interesting given your previous note on measurements that the sword is at least twice described as being 'six feet', i.e. neither imperial mez nor metric units

[it]oh true!! that's interesting! i suppose one explanation is just that it's hard to write a narrative in which familiar measurements are never used, but maybe everyone uses "bodies" for large measurements and some houses use metric and other houses use the US imperial system? or "imperial mez" that they talk about IS the US imperial system? i can't remember the context of the phrase "imperial mez," just that i remember seeing it...

[iu]Context: it's from Camilla narrating SEX! "[The shuck] was one meter by two meters and eighty centimeters high, one and a half bodies by Imperial mez, and [Palamedes] was already one meter sixty." (Love the audacity of John's empire making the official unit of measurement "bodies" when the metric system is not only something he's gotta be familiar with as a science dude, but something that is still known in his resurrected world. Also, pretending to know math, I think we get here that 1 body = 6 feet? This is short people erasure >:C)

[iv]By that math my mother is 1 standard body and i already kind of measure things using her height as a reference LOL

[iw]At this point, Harrow has been bathing the blade in her own blood, as instructed by the letter from her pre-lobotomy Harrow, so the connection could have been made that way too.

[ix]Oh true! I'm still dying to know the purpose of that instruction.

[iy]I'm wondering if Harrow recognized that the sword was haunted but didn't know by *who*, and that this was a poor attempt at spirit magic to keep the ghost appeased.

[iz]Yeah, it definitely feels like something meant to deal with a haunted object or a revenant... maybe she doesn't know who and so she thinks it might be part of Gideon? Or maybe she thinks Cytherea is in there, since it's the weapon that killed her? There are just so many possibilities for what might have happened or what Harrow might have known before cutting up her brain that we don't get to see...

[ja]I think that thing with the tools is about Wake's awareness and trauma regarding what happened to her body after her death. She knows that her bones were eventually de-fleshed and set to work tending Drearburh's snow-leek fields: forced to work by a people and a means she hated so consumingly that she transcended death.

[jb]oh that's interesting, maybe representing the work her own skeleton was doing, even though she wasn't in it anymore!

[jc]Maybe this is why she hates Harrow so very, very much.

[jd]Possible!

[je]John and maybe Pyrrha with her possible-memories, the only living souls who remember those words in their original contexts.

[jf]RIGHT?? i agree with John, it is genuinely sad bordering on funny with the context

[jg]Interesting line for if it turns out Harrow DID die originally opening it and that was the sacrifice necessary for it!

[jh]SO TRUE

[ji]And Cassiopeia again!

[jj]I love it every time she pops up, I really want to know all her long game plans, she is definitely pulling strings in the background of everything!!

[jk]I think a really good foil to this concept in specific is the way we see harrow react with almost revulsion to Abigail and Magnus's marriage. This Tumblr post explains really well: https://www.tumblr.com/katakaluptastrophy/721730919369768960?source=share

Sorry I couldn't find a more appropriate section to put this in!

[jl]yes!! this is another really interesting aspect of the binaries that are still at work in john's "utopia." necro and cav is such a complicated dynamic, it's really working on so many levels!! as is everything else in these books i guess lol!

[jm]This is mostly a thing in American evangelism, so I'm not sure if Tamsyn would be using it in the same way, but this is basically a word for a godly man's wife in that culture, used very specifically

[jn]Interesting!! That adds a fun layer, whether it was intended or not. I feel like I've heard it used that way, but not enough that it stuck out to me!

[jo]I think he might be referring to the fact that the obstructions inside a particular kind of lock are called wards? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warded_lock

[jp]OH MY GOD THANK YOU this has been bothering me!!!

[jq]Or wrapped around her neck

[jr]Yeah could be!

[js]It's possible they were monoamniotic twins, who while they have their own umbilical cords, are often high risk births because the cords can easily become tangled or compressed, cutting off oxygen.

[jt]Oh that makes sense! I guess it was just presented so vaguely that i felt like i was supposed to understand what had happened just from that, which is just a feeling i have constantly reading these books lol!

[ju]I interpreted this as Silas saying if they'd let Ianthe die, Coronabeth would've been an even more powerful necromancer. Ironic, considering she wasn't one at all.

[jv]ohhh interesting!! especially since we hear so many other places that the death of an infant is the biggest thanergy bloom. That's a great take, thank you!!

[jw]In hindsight, knowing this is Cytherea speaking, this feels very much like "our" is the Lyctors and "they" is the Nine Houses in general. The Lyctors have been working to keep the peace and expand the empire for a myriad, and the Nine Houses have grown comfortable and complacent.

[jx]oh that could be! i've been assuming that the "they" is either the houses in general or her house in particular because the houses are the subject of the sentence at the start, but since the lyctors are the ones who put all the houses in place for the most part, it could easily be about them.

[jy]oh noooooo (p97 of HtN paperback): "Do you both recall the projection trial, back at Canaan House? It would have been in Lab Three." hopefully it's just a fuckup on either John or the editors' parts lol. if the numbering system of the labs doesn't consistently correspond to the houses I'm going to flip my shit

[jz]lol for real the numbers kill me!!! but i think it's a mistake, it's labeled laboratory two pretty clearly in gtn

[ka]Dragons puts me in the mind of Draco guarding the Golden fleece

[kb]Ooh that's a cool visual link!

[kc]Another point for the "Cassy is in a teapot" theory

[kd]true!!

[ke]Totally spitballing, but iirc these are supposed to be astrological/astronomical so maybe Orion's belt?

[kf]oh that's interesting! but then what does orion's belt have to do with the sixth? i know you can use it in the sky to find mercury sometimes, but that seems tenuous...

[kg]Sixth house might be able to trace her via psychometry, plus whatever she might not have hidden away, thinking no one would ever come back there. Also I got the impression she DIDN'T want any one to figure out the theorem, so this is a way to keep people from accessing her and Loveday's notes.

[kh]Yeah, that makes sense! Pal using psychometry in her room is what gives her away in the end, even though she says she didn't realize he was skilled enough to do that, so it makes sense that she might just want to avoid giving herself away with anything in there.

[ki]I always wondered if the Saints were the Cavs because that's where the names come from (Duty=Pyrrha, Joy=Cristabel etc) and Saints have to die first to achieve sainthood right? Although idk how awe-some Babs is

[kj]Lol yeah Saint of Awe is an interesting choice, given John didn't know Babs at all. But you're right, just calling them saints does point to the cavs as martyrs, and the necros who get to stay alive do technically hold the swords even though it's not their skill wielding them!

[kk]I also think this makes more sense because the saints were chosen of old ie they were chosen by the hands (the necros) in the pre times iirc? Memory is foggy here but I think the necro + cav pairs were friends in the pre times? Though I do wonder how that panned out if they didn't have their memory with them post ressurection.

[kl]yeah it's a bit unclear how they paired up! all the OG lyctoral pairs except for Anastasia and Samael and Cytherea and Loveday were John's followers pre-Res, but he tampered with their memories when he brought them back. So theoretically people who were friends before would become friends again, because they would get along, but it's not clear how the actual pairs and roles shook out, or if they were even all strictly binary necros and cavs. I've never made up my mind on what I think about it, but I've seen speculation that Pyrrha was actually the necro and G1deon was the cav, or that they could both do necromancy at some point. i hope we get to know more about that period in AtN!!

[km]hi!! ran across this on tumblr while doing a deep dive trying to gather as much info on ulysses/titania as possible. i was also reading the above quote thinking it implied that U/T were a second-gen lyctor pair (since it was 10 people at first and Ulysses was the sixth saint), but you're right that it's Cyrus/Valancy who aren't part of the original 10, not U/T. that raises the question of why cyrus ascended before ulysses despite coming later..... my pet theory is it has something to do with the lyctor process being harder for U/T on account of being dead for years before the Resurrection. desperately hoping we get more U/T backstory in ATN, thank you for putting all this together, what a great resource!

[kn]Oooh, I really like that theory! I have wondered idly but not in any studious way about what conditions might have caused each pair to ascend at different times, I hope we get to know more about that in the fourth book! My impression is that none of them ascended, or understood how really, until they were all assembled, because there's that line about how they were all there when Cytherea and Loveday arrived. So since it's not really related to arrival time at Canaan House, I wonder if it's more about personality, who was willing to do it, who had to be convinced, and so on. But it's a really great idea that maybe it was harder for Ulysses and Titania because their resurrection was different from the others! I like it!

[ko]More Cassie-being-suspicious fodder here; I REALLY hope that when her grand master plan is revealed the fact that all the Lyctors have eaten her flesh comes up.

[kp]that's a really good point, i never thought of it from that angle!! what if it was also on purpose, as harrow's marrow in the soup was on purpose.....

[kq]of note is how lyctoral healing apparently relies on nerves fibres, and yet harrow's body heals her severed thumbs. might be significant, might not

[kr]YEAH, i've wondered about the thumbs! we're told that lyctors can't regrow limbs, but is a finger small enough? and i think it's augustine who says that cassiopeia cut off a finger while she was cooking and the found it in the food, so i feel like her finger must have grown back, because otherwise someone would notice pretty quickly?? but the nerve fibers thing is a good point, i don't really understand anatomy well enough to know what that means, so i have mostly glossed over it!

[ks]oo, good point about cassie's thumb, i hadn't considered that; it would make sense that digits are easier to regenerate considering that harrow specifies during the arm scene that the elbow contains a majority of the nerve bundles, which is the area that cytherea specifically aims to sever

[kt]omg i hadn't put that together either!!! cyth you beast! knocking off just enough of the arm that it can't regrow...

[ku]Of note that we learn here that Ianthe considers Harrow's original eyes to be flower-like, re:her "flowers in a dark room" comment two bullets ago. Not that it clarifies anything of course, but it shows that Harrow having dark, flowery eyes before the lobotomy IS a possible meaning of Ianthe's comment!

[kv]True! That makes sense to me as a bit of connective tissue!

[kw]This felt unlikely to me in light of what we learned about Cassiopeia and Nigella's relationship in NtN - why would Cass need to learn about the way her wife eats from someone else? However, it is possible that M was being bitchy rather than imparting information, and perhaps C was about to describe a vengeance to be wrought about it. Many possibilities!

[kx]haha yes that's how i read it i think! mercy being judgey and rude as per usual, and cassy writing down a recipe she came up with to get back at her in some way.

[ky]Suspicious here - five and three makes eight, of course.

[kz]Yeah!! I think I have a note about that in a different section, but John being sus is always relevant.

[la]Don't know where to put this, but "Anastasia" means resurrection in (biblical) Greek.

[lb]ooh thanks for adding this here!! i think this info appears in the theories section but this is a more logical place to have it lol, someday i will make a section of name meanings

[lc]From the pronunciation guide in HTN: "NOTE: The name Pyrrha has many connotations, but my favourite is that it is the name that Achilles took in his disguise as a princess on Skyros"

Pyrrha had been compartmentalized inside G1deon, and had to disguise herself as him intermittently for ages and ages.

[ld]ooh i forgot that detail, another delightful layer of meaning for her

[le]MEAT FOR THE G1DEON WAS THE CAVALIER THEORY

[lf]perhaps!!! though personally i am resistant to that theory, but i can never pinpoint quite why i'm not convinced

[lg]I took this bit to mean either a) nuns are different from priests and can't perform marriages or b) they're behind the cow wall in the compound and can't go out to get a marriage license!

[lh]ah, the license part makes sense, i forgot about that bit! being married by a nun would be legal if the nun's an officiant, it just wouldn't be official in the eyes of the church. but not a lot of nuns are also officiants, so that's a sticking point i had glossed over too--unless somebody else in this motley crew got licensed at some point lmao!

[li]Also; Ianthe makes executive decisions for both of them via "we", and when Corona wants to do something else she has to try to asserts individuality via "I". I think it's really interesting that this moment is set up where either speaking pattern could be perceived as the "dominant" one- and then Harrow's biases influence which way she sees it!

[lj]OOOOOH yes i love that, what a great point!

[lk]No commentary I just love this visual!!!

[ll]<3

[lm]Love this point! Especially with all the comments in NTN about how Corona can't lie to her sister, and then she does exactly that.

[ln]YEAH i feel so sure that this is going to become an important plot point, that Corona is just as devious as Ianthe and also has fooled everyone into thinking she's not. She's good at chess!! She kept up an incredible lie for her whole life!! She's masterful and i love it

[lo]There's definitely a lot to be unpacked with where the *tradition* comes from, if Alecto or Anastasia or just Pelleamena had some sort of important moment in the water. But one interesting connection that just struck me is that of the necromantic grave dirt. We know that necromancers kind of freak out in space because of the lack of ambient thanergy, and they they frequently bring some dirt from their own thanergy-irradiated home planet. I wonder if Alecto (and Nona)'s PHYSICAL response to salt water relates to this! Most of the earth is salt water, so perhaps it's that "little piece of home" that helps ground her and keep her systems in check. Perhaps there's even some sort of bacterial component to it- the thalergy that makes a planet "alive" is usually from microbial life, so it might be a familiar and grounding energy signature to her?

But I don't know if it's more about the mechanics of energy signatures or just the mental relief of feeling like she's in her home environment.

[lp]Even if the mechanics of why it's happening are a bit different, I think it's a really fun parallel!

[lq]YES FOR SURE i love this analysis a lot!! is there thalergy inherent in salt water somehow, microbiome stuff as you say, that mirrors the effect of the thanergy in the grave dirt?? such a great idea!

[lr]Maybe this is completely out of left field, but I think Dulcie says in HtN that Cyth stabbed him to kill him the first time- what if she stopped puppeting him (For.... Reasons??? Wanted to drop another body to freak people out before incinerating him?? It's tenuous lmao) and letting the beguiling corpse loose made the wound visible again?

[ls]i love that idea actually!! for some reason i read this as Harrow found him with a blade through his chest, but it makes more sense that she just saw a wound--maybe she found him prone somewhere and started looking him over to confirm her suspicions, or was trying to find cause of original death after his head came off and PROVED her suspicions, and then had to bolt? UPDATE from ten seconds later, i pulled out my GtN to see what

Cyth says to Pal: "...I kept [Dulcie] for the longest time...until someone took out my cavalier." So she doesn't know who took him out either, which is very intriguing.

[lt]I read this as Cyth saying she didn't know it was Harrow who "pushed" the theorem and made Prot fall apart. So order of events would be:

- Cyth appears on the Seventh shuttle, kills Prot and Dulcie

- Cyth creates a beguiling corpse of Prot and puppets him

- Harrow figures out he's a puppet and "pushes" and removes the head

- Cyth realizes she's been rumbled and puts both Dulcie and Prot's bodies (minus the latter's head) in the incinerator

[lu]that makes sense to me!

[lv]I read this as a both/and - Gideon's blood for the blood ward, but there are many other traps and wards along the way! (And maybe also being of a Ninth resurrection bloodline and/or connected to Anastasia and/or Samael?)

[lw]yeah that's a really good point! gideon's blood is the key, but harrow still had the skill to get all the way to that point, and the skill to manipulate the thanergy of the blood ward.

[lx]I've lost my ebook - is "construct" used to describe the thing Gideon fights with Harrow riding her? It's such a striking word choice to use here, instead of "child" or anything like that.

[ly]YEAH it always sticks out to me here! you're right, "construct" is how the monster in lab two is described, and i think generally used to describe any skeletal creature, even just straight up human skeletons that are working the leek fields or whatever. really highlights how dissociated kiriona must feel from her own body, that she describes herself that way!

[lz]To me, this speaks to the same thing that Cyth as fake!Dulcie talked about-- the 7th House's belief that if you're stable, but dying all the same, you're a better necromancer. Was John the first one to think this?

[ma]i sort of wonder if it's the other way around—john wasn't thinking about the consequences of this woman becoming a lyctor while terminally ill, or possibly didn't care, or maybe after the fact he couldn't fix her—and cytherea's state of being ORIGINATED the idea that you're powerful when you're actively dying. i think john must have known that isn't true, or he would have cured her first, because he doesn't actually want any of his lyctors to be able to approach his level of power, that's how he (in his mind) retains control.

[mb]Echoes of Revelations, "Come and see."

[mc]ooh, good catch!!! i'm gonna add that to the christian references section!!

[md]Barbie feet........

[me]I just Googled to make sure I was remembering the meaning of "high arches" correctly and https://butchontap.com/i-have-barbie-feet/

lol

[mf]LOL YES I'm excited to go back and look at this description again knowing what Alecto's body was modeled on! Horrifying and incredible.

[mg]horrifyingly good job seeing the important details in advance here, OP!

[mh]I felt EXTREMELY gratified when this guess turned out to be right and still Tamsyn twisted it just enough that I was surprised! An ideal reading experience

[mi]This section to me strongly suggests the additional influence of the trauma of seeing her parents hang themselves, of having been asked to join them. It's confusing because it happened around the same time as the metaphysically-affecting occurrence of the Tomb opening we're focusing on here, and as you note this passage is also occurring in the River bubble memories, but I don't think the effects of PTSD from the rope experience can be discounted. Hauntings and neurodivergences and ACEs and lobotomies... I only have half of these and it's not easy; cannot imagine the immense stress Harrow must be and have been under throughout her life as all this accumulated.

[mj]DEFINITELY! I find the combination of factors working on Harrow's sense of reality all really interesting separately and in combination, and I think they're all mixed up together, and in the end they all have the same result on her experience of the world. I agree, I hadn't put it together with the choking before but that and the dangling ropes together suggest her trauma is at the forefront here, whether it's her brain chemistry producing these reactions via PTSD or it's some combo of her hauntedness being flavored by what she's been through. Also I've been thinking a lot recently about this mention of forgetting where she is and wiping things out with false memory; I haven't gotten there in Nona annotations yet but it feels VERY relevant to the moment when Crux addresses Nona as if she's Harrow, and implies that Harrow has "gone away" or been possessed in this manner before, even though with everything she has going on it would also be perfectly believable if she was losing time in a non-supernatural way.

[mk]Fascinating catch with Crux on her return to the Ninth - can't wait to reread myself and see to make of it!

[ml]I am daily haunted by the possibility that Harrow was sometimes not Harrow and Gideon never noticed, or maybe noticed she could be erratic but just took that all as part of the Harrow experience and never wondered why. Or maybe did wonder why and thought Harrow just...hated her more than she used to and forgot about her entirely sometimes?? AGONIES.

[mm]I took this to be Pyrrha speaking of the (post-Resurrection) expected death of becoming Gideon's be-Lyctored cavalier, that she kissed him before the merge (the same thing she's asking of Wake, a kiss before she is "destroyed" again as she expects Wake will still want to). This would make both mentions of "him," this other person Pyrrha noted was willing to burn for what he believed in and the person Wake kisses later before knowing about the body-sharing situation ("as I am"/"what you were"), the same: Gideon the First.

[mn]That said, since Nona I definitely do think Pyrrha remembers pre-Resurrection earth!

[mo]Yeah!! Someone pointed that out in another comment and it makes perfect sense to me, somehow I just didn't put together that "first time i died" didn't have to imply a second death had happened, just that presumably one was coming sooner or later, lol.

[mp]_Marked as resolved_

[mq]_Re-opened_

[mr]I don't think so; I understand the second time to be a possible future, since Pyrrha is talking to Wake here the first time they kissed, i.e. when they were still enemies.

[ms]That makes sense to me! There are some things in Nona that still make me think Pyrrha does have pre-Resurrection memories, but a logical read on this note that the first time was the time, and she is imagining she'll eventually die for keeps.

[mt]I'm not sure if this is elsewhere in this (delightful) mammoth of a document, but there's an interesting bit that comes up during Harrow's attempted smothering by pillow. The narration says "They were a damned fool for not getting atop you" (HtN 55). It makes for an excruciating parallel to Gideon's description of the pre-Tomb opening fight later on in HtN: "I got on top of you and choked you till your eyes bugged out." It makes it seem like the first quote is coming from a certain someone with the context to know how best to choke out a Harrowhark...

[mu]OOOOOH that's a really good catch i love it!!

[mv](Sorry for spamming btw. I’m in the middle of a series reread and this doc has my eyes SO open for things I overlooked the first two read-throughs 😅😅)

[mw]PLEASE I LOVE IT i am frothing for locked tomb interaction every moment of every day lol!! i really want to get back to this doc and taking notes on TUG but december has me so busy!!! so it's lovely to get all these exciting comments

[mx]Is it worth adding all the "pommel" bits to this?

[my]That's definitely a recurring thing! i have all the pommel bits together further down in the parallels section, it just seemed silly to repeat them all here.

[mz]This would fit with what Mercy said about Alecto in HtN chapter 51: "There was no possible way that Alecto's genetic code - to the extent that she even had one, which by the way I am not convinced she ever did - could have ended up in a Ninth house baby."

[na]i agree!! the implication that even though she has a human-seeming body, it's not human enough to have genetic material is really interesting, it makes me feel like her body must be something not-really-flesh

[nb]The glossary in Harrow the Ninth confirms that the Resurrection Beasts were numbered in the order of their discovery

[nc]"Resurrection Beasts— chiefly denotes the souls of the original nine planets of the Dominicus system, turned into stellar revenants that haunt space looking for significant sources of thalergy to eat. Unimaginatively referred to as Numbers One through Nine, in order of discovery." - HTN Glossary

[nd]oh gosh i forgot about that, good catch! then maybe "in order of discovery" means order of the lyctors' discovery of them/order in which they appeared to pursue the lyctors...because john knows they're all out there, pretty much as soon as he creates them i think. that still doesn't quite explain why there's a Number One that isn't alecto, but maybe that will come clear at some point...

[ne]i think alecto is number one! john says he used to call her "one"

[nf]Yeah, there's a bit about him calling her One and First iirc! But when the lyctors are describing all the RBs, I think it's Mercy says "I recall Number One as a great and incoherent machine" and describes what she saw and what Cassy saw, and unless Alecto had some other form at some point then what they saw is not a Barbie-looking yellow-eyed woman, lol!

[ng]oooooo you're right! OH! OH MAYBE ALECTO IS NUMBER NINE, AND THAT'S WHY SHE'S ALECTO THE NINTH?

[nh]THAT'S FUN I LIKE IT

[ni]With Waruna being the old Malay name for Neptune, and Varuna being the Hindu God of the seas + the knowledge that the numbers dont correspond to houses, I really do think that Number Seven is Neptune

[nj]Yeah if the numbers of the RBs don't match up to the numbers of the Houses then Neptune is definitely possible!

[nk]This is extremely random but in the copy of HtN that I have it says she would not have swapped it? So it would be, "and as unpopular as it made her she would not have swapped it for - anyone else's tenderness." But definitely double check your own copy because I could just be losing it haha. But I'm still all in with you with the Gideon implication at the end

[nl]Thanks for pointing that out, I must have missed it when I was typing it up!

[nm]I think it's also interesting that Corona is hanging out with the Sixth House contingent, since in real life Corona is with Camilla (and Palamedes in some form) at the time.

[nn]Oh that is fun! I hadn't thought of that, but at this point Harrow has seen her with Cam (and Judith).

[no]this is REALLY minor, but it's a callback to Ianthe teaching Harrow how to make soup: she says to add a few teaspoons of salt, at which point the soup won't taste like anything, but it'll be salty. So now that's Harrow's view of what food should taste like.

[np]omg i LIVE for these tiny details!! you're so right, what a great connection!!!

[nq]irl, chaplains generally serve people of any religion or denomination! they might be best practiced at their own tradition, and specific rites might require exclusively clergy from the correct religion, but in the armed forces or a hospital or etc, you kind of have to take what you can get.

[nr]that makes a ton of sense! it's almost funny to imagine harrow giving last rites to some unsuspecting dying cohort soldier, but actually given how much experience she has being present for her dying congregation, i feel like she'd be good at it.

[ns]the prince title also feels like a nod to revolutionary girl utena, a legendarily lesbian 90s anime about a tall, athletic longhaired butch who wears a boys’ school uniform, wants to become a prince, and fights a series of sword duels for the hand of the rose bride (whose chest she pulls the sword out of! would love to see something like that in alecto)

[nt]YEAH definitely some utena fingerprints on tlt, i feel like the dueling and the prince thing and the dreaminess of utena are all very present, especially in gtn!

[nu]The animal Nona drew had a notable nose and ears- they're probably big ones, and it seems like that's a form Alecto longs for! Or, at least, she doesn't like that a human's features AREN'T as cool as an (elephant, maybe? cow for thematic purposes?)

[nv]oh, that's a lovely connection!!

[nw]i've always assumed pyrrha had the habit before becoming a lyctor, because augustine mentions cultivating a smoking habit to impress her

[nx]Ooh, you're right! I think I just took that to mean that Augustine wanted to look cool so he started smoking, not that it was because Pyrrha made smoking look cool herself LOL but that does make more sense

[ny]from HTN: "'Harrowhark, /think/,' [the Emperor] said, which reminded you very unwelcomely of someone." I think this is another Pal-John parallel!

[nz]yeah i have that in this doc somewhere!!! i'm not sure where at this point but i also wonder if this is reminding her of pal, though i can't remember a specific time when pal talks to her this way.

[oa]This implies that necromancy isn't just magic, it's tied into senses like proprioception? Necromancers use thanergy in addition to/instead of their musculoskeletal system to move around, to move objects, to situate themselves in place. And when they come into space, the thanergy deprivation makes their bodies go haywire. (Harrow's implied to be hypermobile in a few places, and I wonder if this is related? If necros generally have proprioception *and* interoception problems, oof.)

[ob]i had to look up proprioception, fascinating!!! maybe using thanergy to assist with that all the time is making up for necromancers being typically frail? or maybe they're typically frail because they have used thanergy to help with movement instinctively since very early childhood?? gosh i want to know a lot more about necromancer physiology.

[oc]god i read this in the Monty Python holy hand grenade voice, "Five is RIGHT out"

[od]LOL i can hear it

[oe]The claim that there's a 'really special and wonderful reason' behind Hot Sauce's name is juxtaposed with Nona's perpetual struggle with food. I think from Nona's perspective, finding a food she likes and can use to improve other food would definitely qualify as special and wonderful.

[of]That's such a cute connection!!

[og]Echoes of Revelations, "Come and see."

[oh]ooh, good catch!!! i'm gonna add that to the christian references section!!

[oi]this is imagery reminds me of part of the andrei tarkovsky film nostalghia, where there is a man who tries to cross a natural hot springs/pool carrying a candle without letting it go out. he claims that he was given this task by god to save the world, but people in the town believe he is insane/trying to drown himself and prevent him from completing his task, which he eventually passes on to the main character. i don’t think this is a huge connection, but i can’t get it out of my head

[oj]oooh that's really interesting though!! a cool connection!!

[ok]as we know a planet's soul is communal, based on what jod says in harrow the ninth, an aggregate of all the trace thalergy and lifeforms on it: this, to me, indicates that there exists some sort of link between a planet's 'soul' and the inhabitants of that planet.

harrow says that anything of sufficient thalergetic complexity has a soul, and thalergy seems to be found in living things like cells, so each living creature could be viewed as a type of cell, within the 'body' of the soul?

[ol]yeah, i think that makes a lot of sense! it's so complicated, because any living thing is made up of lots of cells, right, so does a murdered animal create a revenant the way a human or a planet do? did the human souls on the planet when alecto was created become their own individual ghosts, or part of her, or somehow both?? it's murky and interesting and i can't fully wrap my head around the possibilities.

[om]Whenever Gideon sneezes, I wonder if it's because of the sinus-burning citrus effect of Jod's power?

[on]OOOH she does mention sneezing being like the woe of the Emperor after Harrow's skeletons beat the shit out of her at the start of GtN, the pain is from her tooth being put back in too roughly but maybe the sneezing is a reaction her healing via inherited God power, and right here she's healing up too! I'm gonna keep my eye out for more Gideon sneezes and see if this lines up!

[oo]Ok I got excited and searched the ebook for "sneeze" and this time and the other time I mentioned are the only Gideon sneezes! I'm definitely assimilating this idea into my headcanon now lol!

[op]I thought of it because it made Palamedes sneeze too.

[oq](Thank you so much for this doc, btw, I am so glad to find my people, my people being the kind who nerd out on details like this...)

[or]I was just thinking about Palamedes sneezing too! So funny. (I am also so glad to get comments like yours with little details and ideas I would not have thought of!! It makes my whole day <3)

[os]I texted my bestie about the sneezing and she said "Also connects to a thing where her life is so...overdetermined, like so many people collaborating to make/kill/destroy/use her...but then she exists and has real life in all these ways that aren't about that at all."

[ot]Also funny since Ortus carries a pannier of bone, the traditional Ninth offhand. If her cav has no panniers Harrow will find a workaround!

[ou]LOL TRUE!

[ov]Given the entire vibe of the Nine Houses, I feel like this is a problem that comes up with some frequency.

[ow]LMAO RIGHT? The taboos in this universe are so interesting.