Characters / The Locked Tomb Secondary

The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth | Harrow the Ninth | Nona the Ninth

Main Characters | The Sixth | Secondary Characters | The First House | The Nine Houses | Non-Empire Characters

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NOTE: Due to the large amount of reveals about secondary characters, this page contains unmarked spoilers for all works in the series, including Nona the Ninth.

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Secondary Characters

Ortus

Ortus Nigenad

CAVALIER PRIMARY TO THE HEIR

Ortus said, with his big, sombre eyes and his squashed, disheartened voice: "I do fear death, my Lady Harrowhark."

Harrow's original cavalier primary, and heir to the line of Ninth cavaliers that most recently ended with his father, Mortus Nigenad. Morose and massive, he is more fond of sad poetry than swordplay, with his greatest achievement being no act of swordplay, but the 18 books (and counting) of his epic verse The Noniad.

When the summons from the Emperor comes to the Ninth, he and his mother flee the planet rather than live up to his duties. And yet, in Harrow the Ninth, he is once again Harrow's cavalier, in her strange and altered memories of Canaan House.

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• Abusive Parents: Had a very complex relationship with his father, even before he died on the orders of Harrow's parents, as Ortus was never any good at being the cavalier he was born to be. After Harrow apologizes to him that her actions led to his dutiful suicide, Ortus confesses to Harrow that he often imagined Mortus coming back to his cell only to see him die again.
• Ascended Extra: Has only a single line of dialogue in Gideon the Ninth, but takes on a far greater role in Harrow the Ninth, after Harrow accidentally summons his ghost into her Dream Land, and his poetry even becomes a plot point.
• Bus Crash: He and his mother fled the Ninth after the Emperor's summons, intending to return to Glaurica's home in the Eighth. Silas later reveals to Gideon that Crux had rigged their transport with explosives and they never made it there.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: A direct invocation. His role in Harrow the Ninth directly contrasts Gideon's role in the prior book at almost every point, often serving as a direct inversion of actions Gideon took at Canaan House, and reversing her general character arc, being a talkative Non-Action Guy whose relationship with Harrow gets worse over time. However this ends up subverted after Harrow regains her memories, with Ortus reconciling with Harrow and likewise forgiving her. Despite being his lack of skill with a sword, Ortus chooses to join an impossible battle with his idol and two dead cavaliers he never met in life, and his final words to Harrow are exactly the same as Gideon's own:
  "For the Ninth."
• Gentle Giant: He's built like a truck, but is far more interested in sad poetry than fighting.
• Giftedly Bad: His greatest passion in the dreary Ninth is his (very) long form poetic epic about Matthias Nonius, The Noniad, which he has the unfortunate habit of loudly and constantly quoting from. The Noniad ends up being so important to him that he's able to summon a connection with the long dead Nonius and pull his ghost into Harrow's Dream Land to fight off the Sleeper.
• The Heart: Consciously attempts to take on this role in Harrow's Dream Land, as a Non-Action Guy and non-necromancer, though it ends up largely redundant alongside the Fifth.
• Hidden Depths: While he gives the impression of being a total pushover who has no greater aspirations than his love of sad poetry, he's a prolific (if not necessarily talented) poet, and isn't entirely bereft of backbone, being able to stand up to Harrow in his own defense at times. And despite being no warrior, at the end of Harrow the Ninth, he goes off to stand against the Resurrection Beast with Gideon Classic.
  • He's also the sole Ninth House adult who seems to recognize just how traumatizing Gideon and Harrow's childhood neglect and abuse were and regrets that he didn't do more to help them, and that Gideon died in his place.
• Informed Attribute: The portions of The Noniad seen in Harrow the Ninth aren't actually all that bad; Harrow's main problem with it is that it goes on and on in florid, gratuitous detail, which of course can't be shown off properly without grinding the book to a halt.
• Like Brother and Sister: In Harrow's Dream Land he notes that he should have been a big brother to both Harrow and Gideon, protecting them from the emotional (Harrow) and physical (Gideon) abuse the House was subjecting them to. Instead, he just hid in his room and let them suffer. Still, he manages to have something like a sibling bond with Harrow, albeit an antagonistic one, as she is quite familiar with his poetry and he is well aware of her own thoughts and feelings.
• Meaningful Name: "Ortus" is a dimunitive derived from his father's name, while also literally meaning "rising". He is much lesser of a cavalier than his father, but in death he becomes far more aware of his faults and goes from a morose pushover to being willing to sacrifice his potential afterlife in battle.
  • In-universe, Harrow is confused for much of Harrow the Ninth as to why he shares a name with a Lyctor, and concludes that Anastasia must have introduced her friend's name to the Ninth House. This ends up being completely untrue and due to a mix-up as a side affect of Harrow's brain modification, however.
• Momma's Boy: His mother Glaurica dotes on him, and she controls much of his life despite him being in his thirties.
• Non-Action Guy: He, much more than Gideon, fits the mold of a traditional Ninth House cavalier, who functions more as a mobile bone storage unit than a bodyguard, and professes to hate conflict of all sorts.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: His spirit joins Matthias Nonius and several other dead cavaliers to confront the Seventh Resurrection Beast - and they cause it to flee.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The normally morose pushover Ortus gets outright exasperated and mocks Harrow whenever she denies the existence of Gideon Nav, something that shocks her completely.
  • He also demonstrates he's fully capable of jealousy and hate from the moment he hears Protesilaus the Seventh speak.
• Refusal of the Call: Is called to serve as Harrow's cavalier primary in the Lyctor trials, and promptly bails. After he's pulled into her Dream Land however, he post-humously accepts and helps Harrow fend off the Sleeper.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Magnus jokingly warns him to stop flirting with his wife a couple of times when Ortus is effusively praising Abigail, then immediately has to clarify that he is joking because Ortus took him seriously.
  Magnus: Joke, man! Joke! Do they not have them on the Ninth? That would explain a lot—
• Sarcastic Devotee: While he tends to be an Extreme Doormat to Harrow and always agrees with her and bows to her wishes, he still makes his real feelings known sometimes with sarcastic comments, some of which are resigned and some are surprisingly venomous.
• Squee: When he actually helps to summon Nonius, he's clearly beyond excited, and reduced to a blushing mess when Nonius says that his poetry saved the day.
• Warrior Poet: Although the warrior part is more questionable until near the end of Harrow the Ninth, he is a trained cavalier, and has been working on his long form poetic epic about Matthias Nonius for most of his life.

Judith

Judith Deuteros / "The Captain"

HEIR TO THE SECOND HOUSE, RANKED CAPTAIN OF THE COHORT

The necromancer selected by the Cohort to represent the Second at Canaan House.

Judith serves as the in-universe author of two documents, the character profile "Cohort Intelligence Files"^note Added to the end of Gideon the Ninth with the release of the paperback edition and the short story As Yet Unsent^note Added to the end of Harrow the Ninth with the release of the paperback edition.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Coronabeth calls her "Jody."
• Bodyguard Crush: She had feelings for Marta, but Marta did not reciprocate due to her dedication to her duty as cavalier. Judith claims to have gotten over it and that Marta turning her down was the "best, kindest, most honorable thing" her cavalier could have done for her because necro-cav pairings can be codependent and it's forbidden. Still, even relayed abstractly and indirectly, the flowery way Judith talks about it and her suggests a bit less professionalism than Judith believes herself.
• Braids of Action: Tight braids to reflect that she’s an uptight, ass-kicking soldier.
• The Captain: Her rank as captain means she's used to taking charge, but her attempts to do so at Canaan House... do not go over well.
• Childhood Friends: Was friends, or at least friendly, with Coronabeth when they were children, though they don't interact directly in front of Gideon.
• Childhood Friend Romance: She's been in love with Coronabeth since they were kids — for "twelve long, stupid, fruitless years," as her narration in As Yet Unsent puts it — but refuses to let herself get closer to Corona due to their surroundings and to honor the memory of Marta.
• Child Soldiers: She entered the Emperor's service when she was six.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Marta's Senseless Sacrifice on Judith's orders and her long confinement by Blood of Eden takes her from a perfect model of a Cohort necromancer to bitterly cynical about her own ability to change anything around her, though part of the defiant soldier remains regardless.
• Death of Personality: Although her body is still alive, by the end of Nona the Ninth, much of what made Judith has been emptied out by Varun the Eater, who uses her as a mouthpiece. Nona, who has more reason to know than anyone else, says Judith's likely gone forever as a result.
• Defiant Captive: She refuses to cooperate while held captive by Blood of Eden, even when she's actively dying.
• Demonic Possession: Over the course of Nona Number Seven learns how to control Judith's body, until it eventually uses her as a mouthpiece and puppet in the final chapters. It attempts to consume her as well until Nona begs it not to.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Although she's the daughter of a Fleet Admiral, she's not truly the heir of the Second, as it doesn't appear to have traditional heirs like the other Houses. Judith was selected to go to Canaan House primarily to gather intelligence on the First and the other Houses and was never interested in becoming a Lyctor.
  • Despite openly disliking Camilla throughout As Yet Unsent, when Blood of Eden threatens her life to get Judith to tell them about a stele, she immediately caves.
• I Did What I Had to Do: She claims that she and Marta are forced to take action where all the other Houses have failed to. The action being confronting—and ultimately killing—Teacher so they can use the comm to call for backup, believing from how he fought back that Teacher was the killer. This costs Marta her life. Harrow bluntly tells Judith that their sacrifice accomplished nothing.
• Improbable Age: Despite her rank as a Captain of the Cohort, she's only 22 at the beginning of the series. Justified given she's been a soldier since she was 11, and joined the Emperor's service at the age of 6.
• The Load: In Nona the Ninth, being a necromancer in the continuous presence of the seventh Resurrection Beast has left her bedridden, in failing health and barely lucid at the best of times. The most she's able to contribute to the group is her value as a bargaining chip. And as a mouthpiece for Number Seven to communicate with Nona.
• Meaningful Name: "Deuteros" is the Greek word for "Second" (hence Deuteronomy is the "Second" Law as it supplements and clarifies the laws of the preceding books of the Pentateuch), and Judith comes from the deuterocanonical book of the same name. Judith Deuteros is likewise a widower (of a sort), and as a soldier is obsessed with order, rules, and serving God.
  • Gets an additional layer in As Yet Unsent, as the ship stolen by Blood of Eden is the Gorgon class, with the most famous Gorgon being decapitated, and the biblical Judith being best known for decapitating the general Holofernes.
• Sanity Slippage: Due to her untreated blue madness in Nona, she's completely incapacitated, barely able to recognize those around her, and keeps calling out for Marta and repeating her rank in between screaming fits.
• Squishy Wizard: Downplayed, as she was considered fit for a necromancer, and took a great deal of pride in that, stating that at her best she could run a kilometer in ten minutes. Apparently a trait of the Second House, practicing a form of necromancy that doesn't burn through the necromancer's tissues in the same way. Of course, 'fit for a necromancer' is a relative term and a kilometer in ten minutes is a modest feat for healthy non-athletes. Captive and wounded after the first book, Judith becomes much more fragile and says "Accepting a body that no longer works is akin to what I imagine amnesia is like."
• Thousand-Yard Stare: She's in terrible condition when she appears in Harrow the Ninth, the combination of Marta's death, her severe injuries, and confinement by Blood of Eden.
• Uncertain Doom: Ends as such in Gideon the Ninth, mortally wounded and emotionally broken, yet with her corpse not found by the First. She later reappears in Harrow the Ninth as a captive of Coronabeth and Camilla.
• Unexplained Recovery: Downplayed initially and eventually subverted. Despite being mortally wounded at the end of Gideon the Ninth, she re-appears in Harrow the Ninth in poor physical shape but healthy and alive. As Yet Unsent, which is written by Judith, proves to be a lengthy subversion, with Judith coming to the brink of death, having to rely on machines to keep her alive, and only surviving due to the Saint of Joy's intervention.
• Waif Prophet: Due to her poor health and untreated blue madness in Nona the Ninth, Judith is ill and infirm and barely coherent throughout the book, but also serves as a mouth for Number Seven.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Throughout the entirety of Gideon the Ninth. Her approach to the trials makes sense for a military officer who's used to trying to maintain order and minimize causalities, particularly given she was sent primarily to spy on the other Houses, but is woefully mismatched with the reality of Canaan House. Judith is so wrapped up in order and rules that the Second are the only House other than the Fourth to never even attempt a trial. Later, when she attempts to assert her authority as a captain of the Cohort, this approach fails to do anything other than create more chaos, and her final attempt to call for backup ultimately leaves her cavalier dead and fails to save any of the other Houses.

Coronabeth

Coronabeth Tridentarius / Lieutenant Crown Him with Many Crowns

HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE THIRD, CROWN PRINCESS OF IDA

Crown Him with Many Crowns Thy Full Gallant Legions He Found It in Him to Forgive

The Crown Princess of Ida, and heir to the Third House. Gorgeous, outgoing, and athletic, Corona is the nearly the opposite of her sister in every way, but shares everything with Ianthe regardless.

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• Abusive Parents: A few scattered comments from the twins imply that their parents were at best neglectful, and often bitterly critical of them.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Non-sexual example. She's dismayed that her sister didn't sacrifice her and consume her soul like she did to Naberius. Gideon explicitly finds this complaint bizarre, as do the other necromancers and cavaliers, themselves a pretty strange bunch.
• The Beautiful Elite: The Third House has a reputation for this, and Coronabeth exemplifies it as the beautiful, golden girl Crown Princess. It's also the main reason nobody suspects she's not a necromancer, as the Third House is known for flesh magicians, and its implied they frequently use their magic to make themselves more attractive. This is backed up when Pash accuses her of being nothing but boobs and hair and talk, and she replies that her hair is completely natural.
• Brainless Beauty: She actively allows people to think this about her, as it leads to them underestimating her, and it works a little too well: Pash at one point outright accuses her of being nothing but boobs and hair and talk.
• Cain and Abel: Coronabeth ends up joining Blood of Eden, who are deadly enemies of the Emperor, who Ianthe has in turn pledged her loyalty to, putting the twins on opposite sides of a ten thousand year old war. Hilariously, Tamsyn Muir was originally going to call them Cainabeth and Abella, before she realised it was a bit too on the nose.
• Character Development: Sets in slowly over the course of As Yet Unsent and Nona the Ninth. While part of the reason she defects to Blood of Eden is a desire regain some sort of direction, she doesn't follow them blindly and has valid and logical reasons for it, too. And although a lot of the unhealthy codependence between her and Ianthe returns in force when they reunite in Nona, she's able to push back at her sister's control significantly more than she was at the end of Gideon, forcing her to agree to evacuate Judith when she leaves, and to give Camilla the fair duel she technically owes her rather than executing her outright.
• Creepy Twins: While Corona's personable personality obscures it for a while, it becomes increasingly obvious that the sisters have a unhealthy codependency problem as the series goes on, thinking along the same creepy lines as each other when it comes to the opposing twin.
• Decoy Leader: Everyone pays more attention to Coronabeth, drawn in by her charisma and considering Ianthe as an afterthought. In public Coronabeth says "I" and overrules Ianthe, who says "we", but privately Ianthe is of much more importance.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Corona herself even admits it in As Yet Unsent, being drawn to joining Blood of Eden primarily because she's spent her whole life looking for purpose in the shadow of her twin.
  Corona: "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?"
• Eating the Eye Candy: Admits later in the series to having ogled Gideon as much as Nav did her, though this comes when talking to Judith over Gideon's corpse, which she also gushes over as being just like out of a picture book.
• Hidden Depths: Though her sister insists she's rather dim, due primarily to Corona having no actual necromantic aptitude, As Yet Unsent reveals that she's very well informed on the economics of the Nine Houses, and she comes to be sympathetic to the Blood of Eden in part because a lot of their arguments line up with her own observations from her time as Crown Princess. Additionally, according to Camilla, her intervention and mediation is the only reason their captors were willing to keep all three of them alive to begin with.
  • Nona the Ninth shows she's also surprisingly knowledgeable about the models of starship used by the Nine Houses, having once dated a boy who was crazy about them.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Underneath the gorgeous, flirtatious socialite is a deeply insecure and adrift woman who pretended most of her life to be the necromancer that she is not. She surreptitiously trained in swordplay like a cavalier, and is desperate to test her skills, but has to maintain the facade that she's the necromantic heir to the House. When Ianthe kills Naberius and consumes his soul to become a Lyctor, Coronabeth is distraught—not because of Tern's death, but because Ianthe picked him over her. As Yet Unsent makes it clear that Corona views herself as a cavalier who wasn't allowed to fight and whose necromancer abandoned her, but raises questions if she actually understands the bond between necromancers and cavaliers.
• The Leader: A lengthy subversion:
  • In Gideon the Ninth, she becomes the self-appointed mediator of disputes at Canaan House, but she ends up being mostly ignored, which is something that starts to take a toll on her.
  • In Nona the Ninth, she's ostensibly the leader of Troia Cell, which the remainder of Nona's family and the Captain form, as the only fully trusted member of Blood of Eden, the only true defector. In practice, Nona's family answers to their own agenda that only mostly aligns with Eden, and Crown becomes little more than a spectator to the events of the final chapters.
• Leg Focus: Very tall, and Gideon gets hung up on her legs when she flounces around in a wet swimsuit.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Ianthe keeps her explorations of the Lyctoral labs secret from her until Teacher forces Ianthe to tell everyone that she also has a key. Corona's reaction isn't seen, but it seems to be the first point of her Sanity Slippage.
• Loving a Shadow: She flippantly identifies it as her Fatal Flaw, always throwing herself in love at anyone who doesn't want her, and repeats it frequently throughout the series:
  • Her love for Ianthe is as much for the idea of her twin, her necromancer, as it is a genuine sibling bond; the real Ianthe often drives her to tears and anger, constantly belittles her appearance, and overrides her whenever she doesn't like Corona's opinions or ideas.
  • She asks to be Judith's cavalier in a way that has strong romantic overtones (see above), but it's debatable whether she actually wants Judith herself or if she simply craves the bond of "one flesh, one end." She also spends much of Nona the Ninth obsessed with protecting and caring for the ailing necromancer; having ignored Judith's wish to die, Crown fusses over her constantly, but fails to notice that her blue madness has become so comprehensive that Number Seven steps into her body.
  • She also has a strong sentimental attachment to Gideon after her death, being aghast at how her corpse has been treated, and wielding her rapier despite multiple characters saying she shouldn't, and, thinking Nona is an amnesiac Gideon, envies her completely.
• Meaningful Name: Both parts.
  • Not only does "corona" literally mean "crown," — a name she is literally granted later in the series — she's often compared to the sun in her radiance, and "corona" is also used to refer to the outer atmosphere of stars.
  • Having the same House name as her sister (which is unusual in the setting, even for twins) reflects both what their parents wanted from her and Ianthe—a matching set of necromantic heirs—and the result of the sisters having to pretend that's really what they are, and thus always having to act as a single unit so Ianthe can cover for her.
  • Originally she was 'Cainabeth' to Ianthe's 'Abella', suggesting their uneven standing and a degree of resentment.
  • On the name she takes after joining Blood of Eden:
    • Taken literally and as a whole, it can be seen as a reference to how she's now a ranking member of an organization that normally considers people like her their mortal enemies.
    • "Crown Him With Many Crowns" is the title of (and a verse from) a Christian hymn based on Revelation 19:12, a verse that refers to Christ with eyes of fire, many crowns, and a name only He knows. Coronabeth is a former princess turned commander, and was recently renamed in an attempt to create a new identity.
    • "Thy full gallant legions" is a line from the English translation of L'Abidjanaise, the national anthem of Ivory Coast. It was composed to celebrate the country's independence from French rule, and as a member of the Blood of Eden Coronabeth has also found independence from the Houses.
    • "He found it within him to forgive" is a lyric from The Mutton Birds' "Dominion Road", a song about a man who rebuilds his life in a halfway house. Coronabeth joined the Blood of Eden in the hopes of rebuilding her life after losing the opportunity to be her sister's cavalier.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's repeatedly noted to distract anyone who is distractable by hot women, and wears outfits that assist in doing so.
• Parental Favoritism: Ironically, given that she was the non-necromantic one, she was favored by their parents.
• Polar Opposite Twins: She's the hot, charismatic leader and mediator to Ianthe's grey, forgettable, vicious contrarian. She is also not a necromancer at all, while Ianthe is an immensely powerful one.
• Put on a Bus: Seemingly joined Blood of Eden in Harrow the Ninth and only appears briefly without speaking (though that's because Harrow glued her teeth and tongue shut on sight).
• Take Up My Sword: Invoked but subverted. She takes up Gideon's rapier after her death, but Gideon's most charitable thought for it was that it gave good service for a rapier, and she's not truly gone. Several other characters even tell her not to use it, which Corona also ignores.
• Sanity Slippage: By the later portions of the first book, as Ianthe continues to ignore her and people keep dying, and she can do literally nothing about it, she's increasingly unhinged and unstable. When they reconcile, it's Coronabeth miserably submitting to Ianthe's authority. This culminates in the final moments of the book, where she's left sobbing, not because Naberius is dead, but because Ianthe ate him instead of her.
• Sham Supernatural: It comes out late in Gideon the Ninth that Coronabeth isn't actually a Necromancer — her identical twin sister has been secretly doing double duty for them both, so much so that they have become joint Heir to the Third House. This has left Coronabeth a bit unmoored and Ianthe a very powerful necromancer.
• Statuesque Stunner: Over 6 feet tall and so beautiful that almost every character notices to some degree.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: One line in Nona the Ninth suggests that when they were teenagers, Coronabeth repeatedly threatened suicide, either to force Ianthe to do what she wanted or just to hurt her.
• Uncertain Doom: The last time she's seen in Gideon the Ninth she's still alive, if utterly devastated following Ianthe's ascension to Lyctorhood, but according to the Emperor she was not found either alive or dead in Canaan House. As Yet Unsent reveals she, along with Camilla and Judith, were captured by Blood of Eden, and she has defected to them by the time she reappears in Harrow the Ninth.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: She, Naberius, and Ianthe are constantly squabbling and insulting each other, but they're obviously very close despite that, especially Corona and Ianthe...until it becomes obvious mainly Corona and Ianthe are close, with Naberius drawing the short straw.

Ianthe

Ianthe Tridentarius / Ianthe the First / Prince Ianthe Naberius

HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE THIRD, PRINCESS OF IDA

Second of the Tower Princes, the Lyctor Prince, the Saint of Awe

The younger Princess of Ida, and an heir to the Third House. If her twin sister is everything a necromancer is not, Ianthe embodies everything a necromancer is, thin, mysterious, and powerful.

Following the events of Gideon the Ninth where she ascended to Lyctorhood, she becomes the Eighth Saint to serve the King Undying, the Saint of Awe. Alone together with Harrow in the ancient Mithraeum of God, the two of them undergo training to face an impossible enemy.

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• Abusive Parents: A few scattered comments from the twins imply that their parents were at best neglectful, and often bitterly critical of them. Ianthe in particular seems to have been viewed as lesser than her sister, despite being a necromancer while Corona is not.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Even while being pissed off at her for how she's treated Harrow, Gideon struggles not to laugh at some of her jokes, and Word of God notes that Ianthe genuinely having a sense of humor is one of her few humanizing traits.
• An Arm and a Leg: Cytherea gruesomely tears off her right arm in their fight, her 10,000 years of experience trumping Ianthe's youthful vitality. She survives, but remains pretty bitter about it afterwards.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: She becomes the viewpoint character for a single chapter in Harrow the Ninth, which is a flashback to Ianthe surgically altering Harrow's brain at her request to become unaware of Gideon.
• Angsty Surviving Twin: Shades of this in the second book, even though Corona isn't actually dead. Ianthe flinches when the other Lyctors refer to her as "sister," and in a moment of vulnerability, tells Harrow that prior to Canaan House, she and Corona spent only three nights apart.
• Artificial Limbs: At the beginning of Harrow the Ninth, she's replaced her right hand with a transplant, but struggles greatly with adjusting to it, Naberius' instincts seizing up whenever she tries to wield her rapier and her body rejecting it as foreign. Harrow replaces it with a construct formed of Ianthe's own bone, which fixes the problem. Ianthe being Ianthe, she then has the limb covered in gold.
• Bash Brothers: In the time between Harrow and Nona she's developed a strange brotherly relationship with Kiriona Gaia, who was Gideon Nav, as God's Tower Princes; they have a secret handshake, friendship bracelets, and even have in-jokes complaining about their father's prolonged midlife crisis after killing Augustine and Mercymorn.
• Big Damn Heroes: Saves Gideon from the possessed Colum, and Camilla from Cytherea, in a very dramatic fashion.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Harrow, though Harrow is shocked and offended when John assumes they’ve been intimate, saying their relationship barely even counts as platonic.
• Berserk Button: Threatening harm to Coronabeth, or even suggesting to Ianthe that Coronabeth may be dead.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: She's one of the more out-of-focus characters in Gideon the Ninth, barely having any appearances or lines in comparison to her sister and their cavalier. Everyone, even Harrow, believes Coronabeth is the dominant twin. She then kick-starts the climax of the book by being the first one to figure out the secret to Lyctorhood.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She's a necromantic genius, being skilled enough to piece together the Eightfold Word purely from observing the Lyctoral trials, and is well versed in both Flesh and Spirit magic. However Harrow accuses her of being prone to taking shortcuts and getting bored, and the narrative supports her: As a Lyctor, Ianthe is barely shown doing any necromancy, and even her supposed specialty in liminal magic is never demonstrated beyond her fascination with Hell.
  • Heavily downplayed, if not outright subverted as of Nona the Ninth. Pyrrha is openly impressed with her replication of Mercymorn's lethal entropy traps through nothing more than a blood ward, while scoffing at the insanity of making such a trap out of nothing but a blood ward, as in, no more contingencies or backups after that one ward is erased. Palamedes has nothing but awe and respect for her abilities after a grueling mental duel, and the revelation that what possessed and killed Colum the Eight was a Devil unknown to the Nine Houses makes her instant banishment of it all the more impressive in retrospect.
• Cain and Abel: Ianthe definitively pledges her allegiance to the Emperor by saving him instead of Augustine, while Coronabeth ends up joining Blood of Eden, who are sworn enemies of the Emperor, putting the twins on opposite sides of a ten thousand year old war. Hilariously, Tamsyn Muir was originally going to call them Cainabeth and Abella, before she realised it was a bit too on the nose.
• Creepy Twins: While Corona's personable personality obscures it for a while, it becomes increasingly obvious that the sisters have a unhealthy codependency problem as the series goes on.
• The Confidant: The only one besides Harrow herself to know the extent of "the work", and integral to maintaining the plan. While she gripes about it thoroughly once she realizes the extent of what being made a Sewn Tongue entails and when Harrow's obvious gaps in memory are blatant to her, she does genuinely help Harrow uphold the illusion, and even offers to undo "the work" several times when it might keep Harrow from dying.
• Dead Guy Puppet: Uses a variation crossed with Remote Body in Nona the Ninth, making a revenant out of Naberius Tern's corpse in order to avoid provoking the Resurrection Beast perched in New Rho's atmosphere, alongside an entire army of dead soldiers.
• The Determinator: Toward the end of Nona the Ninth, Ianthe is shot by a Herald bullet (which was known for driving even Lyctors insane) and surrounded by a small army of skeletons to pin her down while Nona and the others escape through the icy water of the Locked Tomb. In a matter of minutes she manages to remove the bullet, fight off the constructs, cross the waters to where The Body is resting, all so she could flirt with Harrow.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Was eager to gloat to the other surviving Lyctoral candidates that she'd figured it out first but also wanted it clear that she wasn't out to hurt them. When Silas started trying to execute her she tried to get out of the fight, even saying "Someone stop him", and then fought defensively.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For the awful things Ianthe does, she seems to genuinely love her sister, in her own twisted way. She forbids Harrow from even mentioning the possibility of Corona's death, and their deal explicitly bans Harrow from killing Corona or causing her any avoidable pain.
• Dragon with an Agenda: As the Tower Prince Ianthe Naberius, she’s very invested in keeping John depressed and isolated so as to be the Man Behind the Man, which is why she tries to stop Kiriona from waking Alecto.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Is shocked and horrified when, upon the Emperor's apparent death, she's told that all the denizens of the Nine Houses will die and Mercy and Augustine are so certain it's impossible to save any of them that they won't even try. Gideon is startled by her reaction.
• Evil Gloating: Specifically and gleefully sets this up after she figures out the secret of Lyctorhood and kills Naberius. She wants to rub in everyone's faces that they underestimated her.
• Evil Twin: Coronabeth isn't squeaky clean morally, but she's more idealistic and fair-minded. Ianthe's unambigiously evil moments seem to be confined to killing and consuming Naberius, but she's also much more cynical and mean-spirited.
• Eye Colour Change: After she consumes Naberius' soul and becomes a Lyctor, her eyes keep flickering between her natural eye colour and his, sometimes just becoming entirely pupil-less and white. This continues in the beginning of Harrow the Ninth, with the colour of her eyes bleeding from purple to blue to brown as well as combinations of the three, with them firmly settling into Naberius' brown and blue after her experience in the River.
• Fighting from the Inside: An interesting variant. Shortly after she consumes Naberius Tern's soul, she is clearly struggling to subdue it inside of her. Naberius fighting inside of her makes her fight against Silas not as much of a Curb-Stomp Battle as it otherwise would be.
• Foil: To Harrow and Palamedes. While she's just as intelligent as them, she has absolutely none of Palamedes' morals or Harrow's guilt, murdering her own cavalier to ascend to Lyctorhood and not caring in the slightest, wanting to pursue power over all else.
• Hidden Badass: Harrow originally considers her as an indifferent necromancer, but in fact she's been doing the work of two in order to perpetuate the fiction that both she and Coronabeth are necromancers, which has required astounding skill. In addition, despite not having access to any of the super-advanced necromantic theorems the other characters get to study, she figures them all out anyway from first principles just from observation, including the Avulsion trial which Palamedes said would have killed his cavalier, and almost killed Gideon.
• Human Resources: A downplayed version, but she seems to have a habit of eating parts of Tern (his hair, fingernails, and blood) whenever she needs a power boost for some necromancy. She's also shown doing it to herself after ascending to Lyctor, seemingly as a nervous tic whenever she's unsettled.
• It Amused Me: According to Gideon Nav, Ianthe flirted with Harrow and played mind games with her purely "because it was funny." Gideon also accuses Ianthe of developing genuine feelings in the process, though.
• Kick the Dog: Turns the other way when she sees Harrow distraught after being attacked by the Saint of Duty. Later Harrow is glad of this because even if Ianthe had been sneering and making comments, if she'd offered help or comfort in any way, Harrow would have loved her and belonged to her. Further in the book, though, she claims not to see Cytherea's body under Harrow's bed, contributing to Harrow's fear of being insane.
  • She also tweaks Harrow's follicles after the brain surgery so that her hair grows extra fast, just because she feels like it.
• Lack of Empathy: She genuinely doesn't seem to care about anyone other than herself and Coronabeth, at times offering comfort to Harrow only to immediately retract it when Harrow doesn't take the bait. However, this might be partially affected, as she alludes to being troubled about having killed Naberius in rare moments of weakness.
• Living Battery: Cytherea (briefly) turns her into one after she defeats her, noting Lyctors make the perfect battery because their Life Energy self-replenishes.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Demonstrates these at the climax of Gideon the Ninth, as a newly ascended Lyctor.
• Meaningful Name: Ianthe is not only the name of an ocean nymph from Greek mythology, fittingly for a Lyctor who travels the River, but literally translates as "violet flower," matching her original eye color.
• Nightmare Fetishist: As a liminal magician, she has a strong and persistent interest in Hell (or at least, whatever it is that lies beyond the Stoma layer) that even her fellow Lyctors find slightly unsettling when she tries to redirect conversation to discussing Hell.
• Odd Friendship: The climax of Nona the Ninth reveals she has one with Kiriona. They have matching friendship bracelets and a secret handshake.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: For all her cynical cruelty and dismissive attitude, Ianthe is visibly very uncomfortable with the idea that the Emperor's death means the deaths of everyone in the Nine Houses.
• Opportunistic Bastard: She cozies up to Augustine so he will train her better. When he tries to die to kill the Emperor and Ianthe has the chance to save one of them, she chooses the Emperor, which a furious Gideon interprets as selfish backstabbing.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being petty and quick to cruelty, Ianthe has a softer side that shows for those who are close to her:
  • In Harrow the Ninth, she allows Harrow to sleep in her bed when Harrow is too afraid to sleep in her own rooms without complaint or issue. Also, as The Confidant, Ianthe never attempts to subvert or break her oath to Harrow, and at a few points she gives Harrow what seems to be genuinely well-meaning advice. During the assault on the Mithraeum, Gideon also notes that Ianthe is genuinely elated to see that Harrow has survived, though her mood immediately sours when she realizes that Gideon is in control of Harrow's body.
  • Her reunion with Crown in Nona after over a year apart is genuinely heartfelt and emotional, moving to shush Corona's tears, even if she quickly pivots to criticizing her.
  • The Saint of Awe is upset, angered, and disgusted by Kiriona Gaia's betrayal of her at the end of Nona, and seems surprisingly genuine in those emotions, even trying to tell her that while Gideon can be stupid, even she can't really believe that John would let her replace Alecto.
  • Although she claims to be willing to let Harrowhark die for good, when she names Alecto and Harrow's body starts literally falling apart, Ianthe immediately stops fighting with Kiriona and drops to her knees to heal Nona.
• Polar Opposite Twins: She is creepy, grey, and abrasive while Coronabeth is beautiful, golden, and charismatic. She is also a powerful necromancer, while Corona has not an ounce of necromancy in her.
• Pronoun Trouble: While she's puppeteering Naberius' body in Nona. Most people who know her use female terms and pronouns, but Nona, who only knows her as Prince Ianthe Naberius, uses male or neutral pronouns to refer to her.
• Red Baron: In Nona the Ninth, as John's last living Lyctor, she alongside Kiriona is dubbed one of the two Tower Princes, the Lyctor Prince, the Saint of Awe in Nona the Ninth.
• The Rival: Firmly established as Harrow's rival in Harrow the Ninth, being constantly outdone by Harrow but persisting as the one favored by the Emperor and Augustine because of her proper Lyctorhood.
• Self-Mutilation Demonstration: Demonstrates that she can heal as a Lyctor by stabbing her hand, before looking expectantly at Harrow.
• Situational Sexuality: Discussed and subverted in Harrow the Ninth. Ianthe tries to play off her interest in Harrow as an inevitability, since as the only two Lyctors of their generation they're bound to spend centuries together, and Harrow isn't totally uninterested. Gideon shoots this down, noting that beneath her posturing and fucking around with Harrow, Ianthe has genuinely come to desire her. All Ianthe can offer is an uncharacteristically weak deflection when Gideon tells her that Harrow is not interested.
• The Unfavorite: Ianthe implies her parents, like everyone else, heavily favored Coronabeth over her.
• Wild Card: Ianthe's goals and loyalties are a mystery. She glibly admits to becoming a Lyctor in pursuit of "Ultimate power, and my face on posters" and is meanspirited and mocking, but also does some heroic things. While she ultimately saves the Emperor instead of Augustine in Harrow the Ninth, becoming his last full Lyctor, it's clear she does so selfishly - unless it's actually because his death means the deaths of the Nine Houses. With Ianthe, who knows?
  Pyrrha: God, that little shit shouldn't be running around in this day and age... would've taken Cassiopeia and Cyrus and Ulysses and Cytherea just to keep her in hand. She's good and she's imaginative and she's very frightening, and now there's no one to stop her.

Abigail

Abigail Pent

HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE FIFTH, LADY OF KONIORTOS COURT

Someone spoke up—the Fifth woman—and she said, fearlessly and amiably: "Then the path to Lyctorhood is independent research? Gosh! And it isn't even my birthday."

Abigail Pent is a widely renowned historian and teacher in addition to leading her House and being a widely trained spirit magician. She is among the most excited to study the wreckage of Canaan House as a primary goal, treating the chance to become a Lyctor as a bonus.

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• All There in the Manual: According to the Cohort Intelligence file on Abigail, she's studied in the Fifth, Third, Sixth, and Eighth Houses, published ten books and eighty-six articles, teaches, and harbors anti-Cohort sentiments.
• Ascended Extra: Only has a speaking role in one chapter in Gideon the Ninth, but gets more time and focus in Harrow the Ninth, as she's one of the most prominent characters in Harrow's Dream Land.
• Banishing Ritual: As a mature spirit magician, she's capable of banishing ghosts as well as summoning them. She used this to hurry Jeanne and Isaac out of Harrow's Dream Land.
• Brainy Brunette: A dark haired woman who functions as The Smart Guy in Harrow's Dream Land. Extra content from the first book establishes her as a well-respected academic.
• Chekhov's Gunman: A rare example of this being done posthumously. While it initially appears that she and Magnus were killed opportunistically, it's not until the final revelations of who the antagonist at Canaan House is that Cytherea reveals how Abigail nearly ruined her plans in three separate ways: her necromantic specialty in spirit talking had the potential to reveal the culprit behind other murders, her being a historian interested in piecing together Lyctoral history could have unveiled the secrets at Canaan House much earlier, and she had completed the challenge to gain the key to the Seventh's Lyctoral study, which Cytherea had neglected to clear of traces of herself out of sentimentality.
• Forgotten Anniversary: She forgot her eleventh anniversary with Magnus, so she insists on throwing a big dinner party the evening after to make up for it.
• Ghostly Goals: Sticks around in Harrow's Dream Land even after figuring out what it is and how to escape out of curiosity and the desire to help.
• Happily Married: To Magnus.
• Insufferable Genius: Deliberately defied. Abigail believes that if she can't explain the gist of what she's been studying for over eleven years in a way that can be understood to a layperson, it's her fault, not theirs.
• Interrogating the Dead: Her primary specialty as a speaker to the dead.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: She and Magnus very much wanted to have children but a chromosomal defect rendered them infertile; Abigail says she's past it, but it obviously remains a sore spot and it's part of why both of them step in as parental figures to the wayward children at Canaan House.
• Nerdgasm: Is extremely excited to study the details of the personal lives of the Lyctors at Canaan House and at the potential to actually summon a ghost to verify her historical theories. She stays in Harrow's liminal space inside the River partially because she's fascinated by the spirit magic underpinning the whole place, and is ecstatic when Ortus helps her form a spirit link with a ghost dead for 1000 years with nothing but sheer passion.
• Mama Bear: Takes her role as a Parental Substitute to Jeannemary and Isaac seriously. Judith's military files even imply that she pulled strings to stop their first attempt at enlistment in the military, on the grounds that they were eleven and twelve years old at the time.
  • She gently disrupts the majority of Harrow's alternate realities in Harrow the Ninth, recognizing that Harrow's a traumatized teenager who doesn't understand what she's doing. The only exception comes when Harrow accidentally draws Jeannemary and Isaac's spirits back, putting them at risk of going mad in the River. Abigail shuts things down immediately, with a flat "Absolutely not."
• Parental Substitute: To Jeannemary and Isaac, who she and Magnus have known for years, being very protective of them. She also recognizes Harrow as another wayward child, and gently attempts to comfort her throughout Harrow the Ninth. Early on she backs off realizing Harrow Hates Being Touched, though while saying goodbye Harrow accepts having a lock of hair tucked behind her ear.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Abigail is visibly a nice, maternal lady and has relatively few combat-applicable skills, but she's very sharp and extremely skilled in her field. When she's performing her great act of spirit calling, Harrow notes that she looks 'feral', and that the Fifth House goes to great effort to look genteel and civilized but it handles ghosts, which are savage.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Unlike Palamedes, hers aren't described as particularly nerdy.
• Soul Power: A well versed spirit magician, primarily in the summoning and banishing of ghosts.
• Spooky Séance: One of the uses of her spirit magic is the summoning and channeling of ghosts. Which becomes crucial to the finale of Harrow the Ninth when she works with Ortus to summon the ghost of Matthias Nonius from sheer passion.
• Team Mom: Takes up this role in Harrow's Dream Land, gently comforting and looking after Harrow while also holding the remaining revenants together.
• What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: Harrow starts thinking variations of this once she's aware of the nature of Dream Land, as she becomes increasingly impressed by and attached to Abigail, and more unhappy that she's dead, and died in such a pointless way.

Pyrrha

Pyrrha Dve

Gideon the First's cavalier, supposedly burnt to ash a myriad ago, had actually persisted inside of him for a myriad, occasionally resurfacing to pursue her own agenda separate from him.

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• Amnesia Missed a Spot: Her memories of before the Resurrection, as with the rest of John's followers, were tampered with, but - perhaps because he worked with the brains of his friends, and she's been dead a myriad and remembers as a soul - there are suggestions that Pyrrha remembers things others don't. She once refers to Gideon the First as "G—", she compares Nona to a commercial character named "Hairy McLary", and she brings up "the military wing of disco".
• Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: She and Gideon Nav escape the Mithraeum, but are two non-necromantic cavaliers stuck very deep in the River with no way out before Nav starts dying.
• De-power: With the death of Gideon the First, she's left as a dead cavalier in a dead Lyctor, unable to use necromancy and having only a modest Healing Factor.
• Dissonant Serenity: By her own admission, as someone who's spent most of the past myriad living in the back of her necromancer's head, the same necromancer who's just been Killed Off for Real, she's rather detached from her emotions when she shows up as herself in Harrow the Ninth, barely reacting to Augustine and Mercymorn's betrayal and the Mithraeum being dropped in the River except as a series of choices, compared to Gideon Nav freaking out.
• Eye Color Change: Gideon the First's eyes changing from the green eyes he took from Pyrrha back to his natural reddish-brown signifies whenever she's in control of his body, which becomes permanent after his death at the end of Harrow the Ninth.
• Fair Cop: Was a detective back when she was P—, and John and Augustine agree that she was very hot.
• Genius Bruiser: Despite not being a necromancer, she assisted her necro in designing their portion of the Lyctor challenges.
• Has a Type: Admits as much to Nona, saying she can't help falling for what she calls "landmine people", those who are filled with anger and drive to change the world and damn the consequences. And redheads.
• Healing Factor: As a cavalier inside a Lyctor, she has a very modest one, which takes visible effort to heal herself of major wounds. A destroyed heart doesn't kill her, but it does leave her nearly motionless for several minutes.
• Heartbroken Badass: By the time she identifies herself to the audience, her necromancer Gideon the First, her best friend who she's loved as a ghost for 10,000 years; and her former lover Commander Wake, who Pyrrha seems to have genuinely loved completely in spite of being the leader of the Empire's sworn enemies; are both dead and gone. Nona, who effortlessly reads emotions, notes that Pyrrha is completely heartbroken and mourns them both deeply, though she covers it over with jokes and cigarettes for Nona's benefit.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Reaches for tobacco and alcohol at the end of a given hard day.
• Knight in Sour Armor: The combination of her necro's death, being ancient herself, and the absolute clusterfuck of a situation she, Nona, Camilla, and Palamedes are in has her fully willing to give up on everything and run, saying she doesn't care about anyone but them. But she still does listen to Palamedes and Camilla about their goals and tries to work towards them and spends the entire book begging them to not go down the same path she and Gideon did, and make the mistake of becoming a full Lyctor.
• Last Episode, New Character: Only makes herself known in the final pages of the penultimate chapter of Harrow the Ninth, having assumed control over Gideon the First's body after his soul died fighting the Resurrection Beast, with extensive yet subtle hints to her existence prior.
• Love at First Sight: With Commander Wake, a woman who wants the destruction of the Empire she's served for a myriad, who Pyrrha genuinely seems to have loved completely:
  I WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU KISSED ME—YOU APOLOGIZED—YOU SAID, I AM SORRY, DESTROY ME AS I AM, BUT I WANT TO KISS YOU BEFORE I AM KILLED.
• Love at First Punch: See above, but Pyrrha also calls Matthaias Nonius, who fought the Saint of Duty a thousand years ago, "that mad sweetheart". She seems to have a thing for dedicated Worthy Opponents.
• Meaningful Name: "Pyrrha" literally means "flame colored" — doubly fitting for matching the Color Motif of the Second and her former lover being a Fiery Redhead — while being a variation of the name that would lead to the term Pyrrhic Victory. Additionally, Pyrrha is the alias Achilles used while undercover as a woman, which perfectly fits a terrifying Action Girl, and in a roundabout way foreshadows her ultimate existence as a woman's soul in a man's body. And "Dve" literally means "two" in several languages.
• Mercy Kill: She manages to talk Pal and Cam into not trying to rescue some strangers about to be burned alive by an angry mob but secretly attends the event herself. When Nona asks if she saved anyone, Pyrrha basically says not as Pal and Cam would see it. Later we find out that someone in the crowd sniped the unfortunate captives, shooting them before they could more painfully burn to death.
• Mind Hive: She and Gideon the First were a true Lyctor, one that preserved her consciousness, though Gideon was not aware of her presence and Pyrrha describes her preservation as an accident.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Although rarely given the opportunity, she has a paternal care towards Nav as Gideon is the only daughter of the woman she loved. Gideon isn't exactly thrilled about it, given Pyrrha expresses this by calmly telling her they should probably kill themselves.
  • Pyrrha is almost directly positioned as the parent of Nona's family in Nona the Ninth, as both father and mother to Nona who serving as the primary source of income by doing construction and demolition, and showcasing typical "dad humor" but direct love for Nona, Camilla, and Palamedes.
• Power is Sexy: According to Wake's memories of their first kiss, Pyrrha loved both Gideon the First and Wake on sight because of how utterly willing they were to burn for what they believed in.
• Pronoun Trouble: As the ghost of a dead woman inside a man's body, it comes up at times; Nav's narration fumbles around a bit for what pronoun to use for Pyrrha, and Pyrrha's position as a relative father figure in Nona the Ninth has her joke about Camilla and Nona being "Daddy's treasures" and calling herself both mother and father.
• Silver Fox: She was apparently extremely attractive in her original body, which was older than some of the other disciples. Augustine and God both agree she was easily the hottest cavalier among the disciples.
• Smoking Is Cool: She's a big fan of smoking, a habit both Augustine and Gideon the First picked up, the former in an attempt to impress her. Her family's relative poverty in Nona the Ninth has her constantly moaning about missing cigarettes.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Not Pyrrha herself, but before the Resurrection, as P—, she encouraged John to be the "bad wizard" people wanted to see in him in order to get leverage.
  "We can write the history books to say you were a good wizard. Or at least an okay wizard. They're not going to listen because we talk nicely, they're going to listen because we scare the shit out of them."
• Undying Loyalty: The Saint of Duty was named for her, and she immediately swears her loyalty to the Emperor when asked (though this comes after the Emperor showed the price of defiance). Then again, she was pretending to be Gideon at the time and in Nona is revealed to be hanging on to a Resurrection Beast bullet she stole from Wake and was reserving for God. Who she was pre-resurrection, John believes, only stayed with his cult because of Gideon so perhaps this loyalty applies to him instead.

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