Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Author:Tamsyn Muir
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

* * *

Well, passed out. But it felt a hell of a lot like dying. Waking up had an air of resurrection, of having spent a winter as a dried-out shell and coming back to the world as a new green shoot. A new green shoot with problems. Her whole body felt like one traumatised nerve. She was lying within the cradle of thin and wasted arms; she looked up into the soft and weary face of Dulcinea, whose eyes were still the dusty blue of blueberries. When she saw that Gideon was awake, she sparkled to life.

“You big baby,” she said, and shamelessly kissed her on the forehead.

Harrowhark was sitting on the cold ground opposite. She was wrapped in chilly dignity and Gideon’s overcloak. Even the bone studs in her ears had disappeared, leaving little pockmarks where they ought to have been. “Lady Septimus,” she said, “unhand my cavalier. Nav, are you able to stand?”

“Oh, Reverend Daughter, no … give her a minute,” Dulcinea begged. “Pro, help her … don’t let her stand alone.”

“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.”

Dulcinea ignored Harrow totally. “You were incredible,” she told Gideon, “astonishing.”

“Lady Septimus,” the other necromancer repeated, “I will not ask thrice.”

Gideon could not manage anything better than a very feeble thumbs-up in Dulcinea’s direction. 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.”

Harrow said, “Septimus.”

Dulcinea scooted herself back to the stairs. Gideon watched with dim interest as Harrow cracked her knuckles and sucked in a breath: nothing loath, her necromancer leant down and heaved one of Gideon’s arms around her skinny shoulders. Before Gideon could even think Oh shit, she had been pulled to stand as Harrowhark’s knees buckled beneath her. There was a bad moment when she wanted to puke, a good moment when she didn’t, and a bad moment again when she realised that she only hadn’t because she couldn’t.

The lady of the Seventh was saying, “Reverend Daughter … I’m terribly grateful for what you just did. I’m sorry for the cost.”

“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.

A barefoot Harrow grunted under her breath as she continued to try to haul Gideon up the short flight of stairs, panting for breath by the top step. Gideon could only watch, willing herself to come to full consciousness, astonished by the unreceptivity of her body.

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