Funny / The Locked Tomb

As a note, please try to keep this in loose chronological order to keep things organized.

Unmarked spoilers ahead!

---

Gideon the Ninth

Chapter 1

• The opening paragraph of the entire trilogy:
  IN THE MYRIADIC YEAR OF OUR LORD — the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!—Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.
• Gideon nearly gives Crux a heart attack and an aneurysm simultaneously by sarcastically offering him a titty magazine if he lets her go.
  Gideon: Okay, you got me. Frontline Titties of the Fifth isn't a real publication.

Chapter 2

• Harrow's first introduction:
  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.
• When Aiglamene orders Gideon to give Harrow a weapon so that their duel will be slightly fair, Gideon can't help herself:
  Gideon: "Are you asking me to...throw her a bone?"

Chapter 3

• After Harrow reads the Emperor's summons to the rest of the Ninth:
  There was a wheezing squeal from one of the pews in the transept behind Gideon as one of the faithful decided to go whole hog and have a heart attack, and this distracted everyone. The nuns tried their best, but a few minutes later it was confirmed that one of the hermits had died of shock, and everyone around him celebrated his sacred good fortune. Gideon failed to hide a snicker as Harrowhark sighed, obviously calculating inside her head what this did to the current Ninth census.

Chapter 4

• Gideon talking to Harrow for the first time since she ruined Gideon's escape attempt.
  "Nonagesimus," she said slowly, "the only job I'd do for you would be if you wanted someone to hold the sword as you fell on it. The only job I'd do for you would be if you wanted your ass kicked so hard, the Locked Tomb opened and a parade came out to sing, 'Lo! A destructed ass.' The only job I'd do would be if you wanted me to spot you while you backflipped off the top tier into Drearburh."
  "That's three jobs," said Harrowhark.
  "Die in a fire, Nonagesimus."

Chapter 5

• Gideon's thoughts on Harrow's command that as a cavalier she must act accordingly.
  Act accordingly meant that any attempt to talk to an outsider as a kid led to her getting dragged away bodily; act accordingly meant the House had been closed to pilgrims for five years. Act accordingly had been her secret dread that ten years from now everyone else would be skeletons and explorers would find Ortus reading poetry next to her and Harrow's bodies, their fingers still clasped around each other's throats. Act accordingly, to Gideon, meant being secret and abtruse and super obsessed with tomes.

Chapter 6

• When Gideon and Harrow are getting ready to leave the Ninth, Aiglamene offers some words of encouragement to Gideon:
  "Gideon," said her teacher, "after eleven ghoulish weeks of training you, beating you senseless, and watching you fall around like a dropsical infant, you are on a miraculous day up to the standard of a bad cavalier, one who's terrible." (This was great praise.)

Chapter 7

• Gideon's summary of several paragraphs of description of her first impressions of the ruins of Canaan House:
  The whole place had the look of a picked-at body. But hot damn! What a beautiful corpse.

Chapter 8

• Gideon's thoughts on books:
  [...] A robed skeleton [carried] over a small chest made entirely of wood. It was no wider than a book and no deeper than two books stacked on top of each other, estimated Gideon, who thought of all books as being basically the same size.
• Gideon's assumption that Canaan House is an Academy of Adventure gets an elaborate fantasy description:
  Everyone was poised in readiness for the outlined syllabus, and scholarship made her want to die. There would be some litany of how breakfast would take place every morning at this time, and then there'd be study with the priests for an hour, and then Skeleton Analysis, and History of Some Blood, and Tomb Studies, and like, lunchtime, and finally Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone. The most she could hope for was Swords, Swords II, and maybe Swords III.
• Gideon's reaction to the passage of time on the First:
  [...] Gideon looked out the windows now into the featureless lumps of blackness and said thoughtlessly: "The lights are broken."
  Harrow turned to her for the first time since they left the shuttle, eyes glittering like beetles beneath the veil, mouth puckered up like a cat's asshole.
  "Griddle," she said, "this planet spins much faster than ours." At Gideon's continued blank expression: "It's night, you tool."

Chapter 9

• Whe Gideon first sees the training-room with the large chemical pit, she spies something on the wall at the other end of the room:
  Gideon abandoned the pit and peered through a set of grubby glass double doors. From the other side of the room beyond, a hunched, cloaked figure peered back at her, and she reflexively went for her rapier: the hunched figure swiftly—identically—went for its own.
  Good going, dickhead! thought Gideon, straightening up. It's a mirror.
  • What makes this funnier is that, with the prevalence of necro-magic throughout the setting, the reader is tempted to think that it's some supernatural creature mirroring her every move... but no, Gideon was just fooled like a dumb cat.

Chapter 10

• During Dulcinea and Gideon's one-sided conversation, Dulcinea ruminates on her past experience with the Ninth House:
  [...] "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. It seemed a romantic way to die. I must have been about thirteen... You see, I knew I was going to die then. I didn't want anyone to look at me, and the Ninth House was so far away. I thought I could just have some time to myself and then expire very beautifully, alone, in a black robe, with everyone praying over me and being solemn. But then I found out about the face paint you all have to wear," she added fretfully, "and that wasn't my aesthetic. You can't drape yourself over your cell and fade away beautifully in face paint— [...]"

Chapter 12

• Gideon objects to Harrow's taste in decor:
  [...] The way to the Ninth's living quarters—the corridor that led to their front door, and all about their front door, like ghoulish wreaths—was now draped in bones. Spinal cords bracketed the door frame; finger bones hung down attached to thin, nearly-invisible wires, and they clinked together cheerlessly in the wind when you passed. She had left Harrowhark a note on her vastly underused pillow—

  WHAT'S WITH THE SKULLS?
  and received only a terse—

  Ambiance.
  Well, ambiance meant that even Magnus the Fifth hesitated before saying Good Morning, so fuck ambiance in the ear.
• As Gideon tries to assess why Harrow is missing, she considers several possibilities...
  • ...one being that she "had chosen to live elsewhere, leaving Gideon free to put her shoes on Harrow's bed and indiscriminately rifle through all her things":
    [Harrow having chosen to live elsewhere] was an exciting prospect in that Gideon longed to put her shoes on Harrow's bed and to indiscriminately rifle through all Harrow's things, but given that those things were still there, this seemed unlikely. Given twenty-four hours to break a bone ward, Gideon would have immediately made plans to get into Harrow's wardrobe and do up all the buttons on her shirts, making sure that each button went into the hole above the one it was meant to go into. It was an inevitability that the Reverend Daughter never would have allowed for.
  • ...and another being that she was dead:
    [Harrow being dead] was contingent on either the world's happiest accident or murder, and if it was murder, what if the murderer was, like, weird, which would make their subsequent marriage to Gideon pretty awkward? Maybe they could just swap friendship bracelets.
• Gideon's first impressions of Palamedes are:
  Up close, he was gaunt and ordinary looking, except for the eyes. His spectacles were set with lenses of spaceflight-grade thickness, and through these his eyes were a perfectly lambent grey: unflecked, unmurked, even and clear. He had the eyes of a very beautiful person, trapped in resting bitch face.
• How does Palamedes get Harrow to wake up? Call himself the greatest necromancer of their generation. Harrow wakes up just long enough to sass him.

Chapter 13

• To convince Harrow to stop working alone, Gideon rants:
  "Don't go down there solo. Don't die in a bone. I am your creature, gloom mistress. I serve you with fidelity as big as a mountain, penumbral lady. [...] I am your sworn sword, night boss."
• And her response when Harrow tries to tell her that the Lyctoral labs are dangerous:
  "Teacher said the facility was chocka with ghosts and you might die?"
  "Correct."
  "Surprise, my tenebrous overlord!" said Gideon. "Ghosts and you might die is my middle name."

Chapter 14

• After Gideon witnesses the construct at the heart of the Winnowing trial:
  "Put me in there," said Gideon.
  That brought Harrow up short, and her eyebrows shot to the top of her hairline. She fretted at the veil around her neck, and she asked slowly: "Why?"
  Gideon knew at this point that some really intelligent answer was the way to go; something that would have impressed the Reverend Daughter with her mechanical insight and cunning. A necromantic answer, with some shadowy magical interpretation of what she had just seen. But her brain had only seen the one thing, and her palms were damp with the sweat that came when you were both scared and dying of anticipation. So she said, "The arms kind of looked like swords. I want to fight it."
  "You want to fight it."
  "Yep."
  "Because it looked ... a little like swords."
  "Yop."

Chapter 15

• During Magnus and Abigail's banquet, Jeannemary has an important question for Gideon.
  "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?"
• Which gets followed up on by Dulcinea and an overheard conversation between Jeannemary and Isaac:
  "Are your biceps huge," [Dulcinea] 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.
  [...] Jeannemary's sleeves pulled down to reveal her biceps. They were the muscles of an athletic and determined fourteen-year-old, which was to say, unripped but full of potential; her floppy-haired teen-in-crime was wearily measuring them with his hands as they carried on a conversation in whispers—
  ("I told you so."
  "Yours are fine?"
  "Isaac."
  "It's not like this is a bicep competition?"
  "Dumbest thing you ever said?")

Chapter 20

• At the beginning of the Avulsion trial, once Harrow makes it clear that to complete it, she will need to siphon Gideon.
  "I'd rather be your battery than feel you rummaging around in my head. 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.

Chapter 23

• Coronabeth is peevish about Judith pressing for a match between her cavalier and the Sixth's.
  Corona: "She's being an absolute cad, and I'm not even slightly sorry for pantsing her when we were eight."
  Palamedes: "Nor should you be."
• Gideon, looking over the various people lined up to watch the duel, observes them acting in ways she's come to expect. Jeannemary full of righteous outrage and held back by her necromancer, Ianthe and Naberius looking "bleakly hungry", and the Eighth, "filling their own bingo sheet by praying."

Chapter 24

• Palamedes uses a swordfighting metaphor and all three cavaliers present are horrified. Harrow has to come in and re-rail the conversation.
  Palamedes: "It's like - imagine if someone showed you a new sword move, or whatever, but then you never actually got to sit down and read up on how it worked. It might give you ideas, but you wouldn't really learn it. D'you follow?"
  Jeannemary: "The Sixth learns sword-fighting out of a book?"
  Camilla: "No, the Warden just hasn't been to Swordsman's Spire since he was five and got lost."
• After the disappearance of Protesilaus and the Houses degenerating to in-fighting finally sees Gideon's vow of silence break once and for all, what is the very first thing she says in front of the Fourth after being prompted by Palamedes for her thoughts?
  Gideon: "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'?"
• Immediately followed by:
  Isaac: "You — do you talk?"
  Camilla: "You'll wish she didn't."

Chapter 26

• Dulcinea asks Gideon how she looks:
  "Do I look like I'm at the queenhood of my power?"
  This would have made anyone sweat. "Uh—"
  "If you lie, I'll mummify you."
  "You look like a bucket of ass."
• In the turmoil following the deaths of Isaac and Jeannemary, Gideon is comforted by Dulcinea as she processes her failure to save the Fourth. Just as they hold hands and share a moment, Sextus proves himself a veritable master of timing.
  Sextus: "I came to check in on the both of you. Bad time?"
• Gideon's response to Sextus fussing over her wounds.
  "No, I'm fine, quit it. Thanks for the ointment, it smells bewitchingly like piss."
• Even in her spiral of self-loathing after the death of the Fourth, Gideon relishes her chance to finally tell the Eighth what she thinks of them.
  "They had names, you lily-livered, tooth-colored asshole," she said, "and if you want to make a thing about it, I warn you that I'm in the kind of mood that can only be alleviated by walloping you."
  

Chapter 27

• When the Sixth and the Ninth start working together after the deaths of the Fourth:
  "Ask me how I am and I'll scream," [Gideon] said.
  "How are you," said Camilla, who was a pill.
  "I see you calling my bluff and I resent it," said Gideon.

Chapter 31

• After Gideon and Harrow have an intense heart-to-heart about the secrets of the Ninth and their own complex relationship, Gideon lightens the mood a bit:
  "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.

Chapter 32

• As the Ninth and Sixth explore the Lyctoral lab of the Sixth and find that it is an absolute mess:
  "Hm," said Camilla neutrally, and Gideon knew immediately that she organized Palamedes's and her socks by colour and genre.

Chapter 34

• During Ianthe's Evil Gloating, she calls out Harrow being the only one who noticed her potential, and Gideon immediately copies her insult towards Harrow.
  "You noticed, didn't you, you horrible little Ninth goblin? Just a bit?"
  The horrible little Ninth goblin stared at her with tight pressed lips.

Chapter 35

• Trying to figure out where Palamedes has gone, Camilla finally tells Gideon that Palamedes has been in love with Dulcinea for years:
  Gideon: "[Palamedes has] probably gone to make sure Dulcinea's okay. Harrow says I'm a weenie over Dulcinea—
  Harrow: ("You are a weenie over Dulcinea.")
  Gideon: "—But he's six hundred per center weenier than I am, which I still don't get."
  Camilla: "The Warden has been exchanging letters with Dulcinea Septimus for twelve years. He's been—a weenie—over her."
  This turned all the fluids in Gideon's body to ice-cold piss.
• Following the above, the weight of what's happened at Canaan House over the past few days hits Gideon abruptly:
  Five people had died that day; it was weird how the small things ballooned out in importance, comparatively. The tragedy saturated the stiffening bones and static hearts lying in state at Canaan House, but there was also deep tragedy in the flawed beams holding up their lives. An eight-year-old writing love letters to a terminally ill teenager. A girl falling in love with the beautiful stiff she'd been conceived solely to look after. A foundling chasing the approval of a House disappointed with her immunity to foundling-killing gas.
  Gideon lay on the floor, facedown, and became hysterical.
• Her breakdown is immediately followed by:
  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.

Chapter 36

• After incapacitating Cytherea's bone construct, Harrow gets some gloating in:
  "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.
• Gideon proves her inner sappiness; when Camilla asks what Palamedes' Last Words were she wavers and says "He said to tell you he loved you." Camilla calls bullshit.

Chapter 37

• To stop Harrow from freaking out after she's consumed Gideon's soul and ascended to Lyctor until after they kill Cytherea, Gideon says:
  "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—"

A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers

• After a lengthy essay on the meaning and symbolism of the phrase "One flesh, one end," and how each of the Houses interpret comes the punchline:
  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

A Little Explanation of Naming Systems

• Some of Muir's notes on names and pronuciation are surprisingly funny:
  [Priamhark Noniusvianus] NOH-nee-us-vee-AHN-us. You should have the trick of the "us" sound by now. If you don't, it's fine, nobody cares, it's a random name in a novel about bonermancy."
  [Marta Dyas] DIE-ass. I'm sorry, I couldn't come up with anything better.
  [Ianthe and Corona] NOTE: In the original Ianthe and Corona were "Cainabeth and Abella", a feat of naming so unsubtle that I might as well have just gone with "Goodtwin" and "Badtwin". And it's not even accurate! It should be Badtwin, and Lessbadtwin.
  [Jeannemary and Isaac] I might as well have called Jeannemary and Isaac "Don'tgetattached" and "Deadsoon."
  [Lyctor] LICK-tor. In order to facilitate "Lyctor? I hardly touched her," stand-up routines in the Nine Houses.

Harrow the Ninth

Chapter 2

• When an officer tells the Emperor that Mercymorn is trying to get in touch with him, he tells them to keep her busy with Fake Static, and mentions that she's never caught on when he does it.

Chapter 4

• Harrow kisses Ianthe in order to make sure that her jaw and tongue haven't been replaced without letting Ianthe know that's what she's doing:
  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.
  • Especially funny in retrospect after the Narrator All Along reveal—Gideon has some opinions on the matter, apparently.

Chapter 5

• Harrow has some regrets about bringing Ortus to Canaan House as her cavalier primary, and considers what the alternative would've been:
  She regretted, not for the first time, not going for broke and taking Aiglamene. Perhaps there would have been something in rocking up to the First House with an octogenarian in tow: a sort of wild and confident fuck-you—Oh, your cavaliers are young? And they fight? How classic! So jejune!—but that would not have been the wild and confident fuck-you of the Ninth House. The Ninth House character, she was forced to admit, had always been low on wild and confident fucks.

Chapter 6

• A Cohort necromancer almost exsanguinates herself creating a blood ward in the shuttle. The Emperor brings her back from the brink with all the annoyance of a parent cleaning up after a careless child.
  The Emperor mumbled something that, you would swear on the rock before the Tomb, sounded like For fuck's sake.
• Mercymorn later complains that the crew of his “horrible flagships” are always trying to martyr themselves for him, adding another layer to the Emperor’s exasperation.
• Mercy and the Emperor spend several pages arguing over what kind of metaphor to use to explain the River.
  Emperor: I like to think of it as descending into a well.
  Mercy: Teacher, it is the River. There is a perfectly good water metaphor waiting for you.
  Emperor: Well, I want the idea of two depths, and I don't want to confuse them with the idea of speed where none—
  Mercy: —it's the River, which perfectly well lets you say, Imagine the River—
  Emperor: Mercy, either you don't like my previous, perfectly good river phrasing, or you do. Pick one.
  Mercy: I will not help you to make hyperpotamous travel happen, thank you for the option, my lord.
  Emperor: In that case, despite hyperpotamous being a perfectly good word that both catches the ear and does what it says on the tin, let's deviate. I'll use Cassiopeia's.
  Mercy: Oh, no, the lava.
  Emperor: Girls, imagine a rocky planet with a magma core beneath the mantle. Travelling overland from point to point might take a year. If you understood your journey and the relative spaces well enough, you could instead drop into the magma, which would carry you to your destination in an hour.
  [beat]
  Ianthe: Teacher, the River is an enormous liminal space formed from spirit magic, populated with ghosts gone mad from hunger.
  Mercy: The magma metaphor falls apart from here.
  Emperor: Let us imagine the magma is full of unkillable man-eating magma fish. Two problems arise. The first is that beings made of flesh and blood immediately die in magma. The second is our vulnerability to man-eating fish.
• Folllowed by Harrow's deadpan reaction:
  Your tolerance for man-eating magma fish would have been tested sorely by anyone who was not God. His divinity earned God, you thought, about sixty more seconds.

Chapter 7

• Once they accidentally get in the River, Harrow starts doing necromancy, causing this exchange (number of exclamation points exactly as written):
  The Emperor: Harrow, no theorems.
  Mercymorn: Don't be ridiculous. She can't be using theorems. She'd be barely awake and it's beyond her at this poi—John stop her she's using theorems!!

Chapter 8

• Ortus's solemn pronouncement is gloriously deflated by the narration:
  "Pray only that my bones be one day interred in the Anastasian monument, where even the ghost of the light does not go," said Ortus, in front of everybody, like an absolute shit.

Chapter 21

• Harrow examines a note in Palamedes' pocket, hallucinating a screed from Commander Wake before Ortus jumps in with what is actually written:
  "It is a drawing of the letter S," said the deep, solemn voice from over her shoulder, and she realized she had stopped midstride. "The letter in question is constructed from six short marks stacked vertically three by three. There are two triangles on the top and bottom, which, along with some diagonal strokes, form a calligraphic S"

Chapter 25

• Ianthe's rooms were intended for a necromancer and his cavalier, though ultimately they died before they could claim them. They were still decorated to their taste, though, so they are filled with dozens of life-sized nude self-portraits. According to Ianthe (presumably reporting from Augustine), they used to give these out as gifts.
• During Harrow's downward spiral, God asks her to find a hobby.
  So you went to Ianthe, and you asked her how to make soup.
  "Oh, it's easy," said the Princess of Ida breezily. [...] "You cut up an onion, burn it at the bottom of the pot, put in a few vegetables, and then some meat. It won't taste like anything, so put in a few teaspoons of salt, and then it'll taste like a few teaspoons of salt."
• When it turns out that Harrow put bone marrow into the soup in a (damn-near successful) attempt to kill the Saint of Duty, the Emperor's first objection is... unexpected.
  Emperor: Harrow. It has been ten thousand years since I consumed human flesh. I was not looking forwards to an encore.
• While leaving the room, Harrow hears Mercymorn complain that she can't possibly be that powerful. She's only 7! At this point, Harrow has turned 18, but has claimed to be 15.

Chapter 27

• After Harrow regrows Ianthe's arm bone in a scene that positively oozes Does This Remind You of Anything?, Gideon gets her most blatant narration interjection up to that point at the expense of Harrow's obliviousness:
  The smooth claw of the finger joint felt cool against your mouth. [Ianthe's] 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.

Chapter 28

• Abigail and Magnus pin down Harrow's mental health problems (namely, her hallucinations) by asking her to read a piece of paper for them. When Harrow reads it, it's a monologue by someone remembering a past lover they seemed to be fighting at the time. When Abigail reads it?
  "I still get an erotic charge from snakes, sorry to say."

Chapter 29

• In preparation for the party, Ianthe insists on dressing Harrow up in some of Valancy's old clothes, which Harrow is very resistant to.
  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."
  "Then we have no shared point of reference. Thankfully, however, this is not that part," she said. "Not even one of the Emperor's fists and gestures could give Harrowhark Nonagesimus a sexy makeover. Sometimes I think you look like a twig's funeral."
• On the topic of the garment Ianthe finally picks out:
  When you pointed this out she said, with some asperity: "Valancy Trinit was my height, weighed more than both of us put together, and—judging by her portraits—had a body that did not quit. Your body, by comparison, gave up at the starting line. Take off your clothes."
• Harrow goes to fix up her skull-makeup, and decides to use the "Priestess Crushed Beneath the New-Laid Rock". Not only does such a style exist, but it's apparently quite rebelious. Something Harrow knows that Ianthe will not get, but still does it.
• When Augustine's discussing the plan he breezily assures Harrow that when he wants the Saint of Duty gone then Ortus will be "Giddy-gone", which Harrow does not get, because the Saint of Duty's name is actually Gideon.

Chapter 30

• After everyone's started getting drunk, the topic of cavaliers comes up, and Augustine proposes a toast to Pyrrha:
  "I say, here's to Pyrrha, the woman I cultivated a smoking habit to impress—the cavalier, the legend, the stone-cold fox... John, please stop joggling my elbow, I have heard stone-cold fox from your own holy lips."
  The Emperor protested, "Respectfully! Respectfully."

• Augustine has promised to distract the Emperor for an hour, giving Harrow the chance to kill Ortus the First without risking divine intervention. Augustine’s plan: throw a fancy dinner, get everyone ludicrously drunk, “accidentally” offend Ortus into leaving early, and then tap Mercymorn to help him have a threesome with God. Harrow’s frozen, abject horror at seeing her God and two of his saints getting handsy is nothing short of apocalyptic, and is only spared from seeing more when Ianthe bodily drags her out of the room.

Chapter 31

• Leading directly out of Chapter 30:
  "That was the cue?" Your voice sounded humiliatingly high-pitched.
  "Harry," said Ianthe, thankfully also a trifle strangled, "when three people start kissing, it is always a cue. A cue to leave."
  You said, "I feel unwell."
  "Yes. Yes, me too," she said heatedly, in unexpected accord. "That was disgusting, to say the least. Old people should be shot."

Chapter 33

• Palamedes has been staying sane despite hanging on to some of his own skull fragments, without the ability to physically move or perceive stimulus, in a tiny room faked up in the River that contains exactly one useable book. He thinks it's been about a week and has spent this time reading that book upwards of fifty times. It's a terrible romance novel whose plot he explains to Harrow immediately upon her arrival. He also has a pencil, and has been writing a sequel to the book on the wall.

Chapter 34

• Harrow reads her letter on the topic of Coronabeth Tridentarius, and it turns out Ianthe had some things to say in it as well:
  Protect Coronabeth Tridentarius at all costs, even if this endangers your life. The work is forfeit if you contribute to her death by direct or indirect action. In the interests of the work, you may silence her, so long as this causes her no significant pain.
  In different handwriting:
  P.S. Or any pain at all.
  In yours:
  P.P.S. I cannot guarantee a total absence of pain.
  The first amender:
  P.P.P.S. There must be a total absence of pain actually.
  In yours again:
  P.P.P.P.S. We have jointly agreed on "as little pain as may be achieved via the fullness of necromantic effort."
  And in the first:
  P.P.P.P.P.S. xoxoxoxo

Chapter 36

• Mercy's entire attitude towards the presentation of the plan of attack on Number Seven is less that of an immortal warrior-magician and more like an irritated teenager giving a school presentation.
  Ortus: Our swiftest fight against a Beast took place in the bathyrhoic layer.
  Mercymorn: 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! It's a Resurrection Beast, honey! Thank you! Next!!
• Everyone, including Ortus the First, makes fun of one of Mercy's drawings and she snaps at them:
  "I hate you all," said Mercymorn passionately. "I have hated you for millennia ... except you, my lord."
  "Thanks," said God.
  "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 Admirality 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."

Chapter 37

• The Emperor tries to deflect when Harrow asks about A.L., and it comes out that he'd made some assumptions about Harrow and Ianthe's relationship.
  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 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—"

Epiparodos

• When giving her letters to Ianthe, Harrow tells her that the letters are encrypted in cipher and not to bother reading them. Ianthe asks why she didn't just use a blood ward, at which point Harrow says that she can't reasonably expect not to bleed for the next myriad and it would be stupid to rely on blood to keep anyone out. This is just after we learned that the Emperor himself sealed the Locked Tomb with one, hence why Harrow was able to unlock it with Gideon's blood , meaning Harrow is unknowingly insulting her god.
• Throughout the book, Harrow has mentioned that her hair is growing unusually fast; she assumes it's a side effect of her messed up Lyctoral transformation. Turns out that, after Harrow forced Ianthe to help her with the brain surgery, Ianthe modified her follicles to grow at an accelerated rate. Just because.
  You had to find joy in the little things.

Chapter 41

• Harrow at a ball trying to seem like a good prospect as a spouse. Despite her protests to Ianthe, apparently she does have some awareness of romance novels. Abigail is sorry to have to end this one - as is Magnus, who compliments Harrow on managing the taste of party food.
  Magnus: 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.

Chapter 42

• This Elseworld initially seems much more plausible and serious than the last one. One of Gideon's fantasies in the previous book involved earning money and prestige in service to the Cohort. It's been fifty years since the last "black friar", and Aiglamene served, so Harrow could have received first hand accounts about it. There's more detail than at the ball. Absent the invitation to Canaan House, Harrow could have been seriously and unhappily considering joining the military to help her house... but then the scenario takes a left turn to make it a Coffee Shop AU Fic which is far, far more flimsy.
• The entire premise of the Elseworld clearly has Jeannemary trying desperately not to lose it while Isaac plows through Harrow's supplied lines:
  A strange ripple passed over the younger girl's face, as though she was trying very badly not to laugh. But she said, "It's not like anything you get back 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, 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."
• And Abigail's response to Harrow re-imagining Gideon as a hot barista:
  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—
  "Absolutely not," said Abigail, from beside her.

Chapter 43

• After Harrow tells Abigail Pent how long it's been since Canaan House, Abigail is appalled. Death not being a complete end on the Fifth, her House will have been trying to call her spirit and worrying about where she's been! Her poor brother - Magnus's parents - her fern collection!

Chapter 44

• "Goddamn it, I told you to lift weights."
• About ninety percent of Gideon's piloting Harrow's body. Every time she says some version of "I'm inside you," she immediately follows it with "I'm really trying not to say anything."
• Gideon is horrified at the state of her sword, which Harrow has done absolutely no maintenance on and has regularly kept in a sheath of necromantic bone.
• Gideon tries to coax Harrow back from the River by complimenting Palamodes, or Ianthe, or herself.
  "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, an 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."
  

Chapter 46

• Gideon gets saved by Cytherea's animated body, and, due to their complicated history, she ends up just standing there and letting her leave.
  Sorry. Maybe I should've gone for her. Like, I can imagine what you'd say. All I can say is that it was complicated back in Canaan House, and sometimes a cute older girl shows you a lot of attention, because she's bored or whatever, and you sort of have this maybe-flirting maybe-not thing going on, right, and then it turns out she's an ancient warrior who's killed all your friends and she's coming for you, and then you both die and she turns up ages later in the broiling heat on a sacred space station and like, it's complicated. Just saying that it happens all the time.

Chapter 48

• Gideon reunites with Ianthe in characteristic fashion, i.e. pissed right the hell off about how she's been treating Harrow:
  Gideon: Do you want your ass kicked now, or do you want your ass kicked later, or both?
  Ianthe: Please, let's address this like gentlewomen.
  Gideon: Hell, no! I'm going to pull your whole ass off. You want that? You want Harrow to grow you a new bone ass where I pulled off the old one? Let's dance, Tridentarius.
  Ianthe: This can't be happening.
  Gideon: She's not even into you, okay? It's just the bones. She's into bones.
  Ianthe: One of the many aspects I possess that you now tragically lack.
  Gideon: Get down here. Fight me.
• When Ianthe tries to make Gideon jealous because Harrow doesn't actually love her (neither of them saw her Elseworld fanfics), Gideon says she coughed... because hearing Harrow's voice giggle uncontrollably is just weird. She then makes sure Ianthe knows she doesn't have a chance with Harrow in very dramatic fashion:
  Gideon: 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. 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.
  Ianthe: Oh, please, as though—
  Gideon: Don't start with the I was toying with her, mwah ha ha noise, because I won't believe it. 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.
  Ianthe: Really a corpse?
  Gideon: She wants the D. The D stands for dead.
• Gideon and Ianthe continue to argue over Harrow, and maybe come to a truce through the power of puns:
  Ianthe: You're wrong, you know. It's an interesting revelation. Perhaps it even gives some context. 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.
  Gideon: That! That's what I'm talking about. 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.
  Ianthe: What can I say, I love a little gall on gall.
  Gideon: Reverse everything I just told you. Let's get married.
• Just the fact that on a station full of people who've harmed Harrow, and also evil space bees, Gideon's full ire is aimed at Ianthe for flirting with her and "making her want you".
• Apparently Cyrus the First's painting of 'the bangin' cavalier holding a melon, with her necromancer friend standing on a plinth while the wind blew leaves to hide his junk' was good enough that Gideon thinks it was worth dying to see it herself.
• Gideon describes Mercy as 'the sour-faced donkey's ass with the net', which Ianthe instantly agrees with.

Chapter 49

• In an incredible display of mastery, Abigail Pent manages to summon the ghost of Matthias Nonius, inarguably the greatest swordsman the Nine Houses ever produced, to fight the Sleeper, using nothing but pure passion and Ortus' epic poem on the man. Unfortunately, due to the manner in which he was summoned, he sounds exactly like the sort of ponce who would pause a fight to give a soliloquy for twenty pages.
  Nonius: Why am I speaking in meter?
• During Nonius' unnecessarily dramatic banter, the Sleeper begins to answer in kind... before shaking her head and saying she's not getting drawn into his crap.
• It was mentioned earlier that Ortus had a portion in his epic poem where Nonius fought beside a Lyctor. This is one of Harrow's repeated complaints about the work, as it is a historical fact that there were never any Lyctors on any of his battlefields. When Nonius mentions that he fought beside and against Gideon the First when he was alive (and recognizes that he's in trouble now), Ortus gives Harrow a smug look.
• Marta decides to accompany Matthias Nonius to fight the Resurrection Beast, citing a Cohort rule:
  Marta: Chickenshits don't get beer. Might not be the official wording, but that's how I've always heard it.
  Magnus: I have never heard that one.
  Nonius: As it happens, I have.

Chapter 50

• Commander Wake forces the Emperor to speak her full name, ancient words in dead languages: "Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pa Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity." Wake clearly thinks this is some ancient epic poem. The Emperor is clearly less impressed. His voice in the audiobook really emphasizes that he knows this is a hilarious joke that he can't appreciate because no one else gets it.
  Wake: What do you think of it?
  The Emperor: Somewhat sad, bordering on genuinely funny.
• The Emperor introduces Wake to the lyctors as "Commander Wake Me Up Inside," then "apologizes" for getting it wrong.
• Gideon, having wondering who her family was her entire life, finally discovers the secrets of her parentage; that her mother was a revolutionary fanatic who planned to murder her to open the Locked Tomb, and her father was the man she intended to kill: God the Emperor. 10,000 years of Lyctoral drama and set up leads to:
  "So what," said the Emperor, "Gideon—you tossed Wake out the airlock—she and the baby died en route?"
  "No," said Mercymorn thinly. "It didn't."
  [...] It was seven steps out of that little foyer to the center of the room where the Emperor sat. I stood, breathing hard, my battered two-hander clutched in your hands. [...]
  Everyone turned to look at us. Nobody said a word. I stood behind the chair with the dead body in it, a dark hole at the back of its neck. The cigarettes made thin grey ghosts curl up toward the light.
  "I'm—" I said.
  The world revolved.
  "I'm not fucking dead," I said, which wasn't even true, and I was choking up; everything I'd ever done, everything I'd ever been through, and I was choking up.
  And the Emperor of the Nine Houses, the Necrolord Prime, stood from his chair to look at you—at me; looked at my face, looked at your face, looked at my eyes in your face. It took, maybe, a million myriads. The static in your ears resolved into worldless screaming. His expression was just—gently quizzical; mildly awed.
  "Hi, Not Fucking Dead," he said. "I'm Dad."

Chapter 52

• Gideon seeing the true nature of her Emperor, God, and father:
  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."
• The Emperor refuses to kill Gideon for defying him (or even ask her to swear loyalty), noting that 1: He's not so gauche as to murder his own child the day they meet, and 2: She's in Harrow's body, and she's the one he needs to ask. Overall, he treats her like a child throwing a tantrum, and shoves her in the corner like he's giving her a time-out.
• Gideon's final spoken lines of the book, said to her dead mother's ex-girlfriend in the body of her dead ex-boyfriend:
  Pyrrha sandblasted me with the calm, "Your mother would've picked the bullet."
  "Yes, well, jail for Mother," I said.

Chapter 53

• Harrow's final lines of the book are a Brick Joke from the very first chapter of Gideon the Ninth:
  "Frontline Titties of the Fifth," she read, and found she was smiling helplessly to herself. She murmured: "Nav, you ass, that's not even a real publication."

A Little Explanation of Naming Systems

• John Gaius' name is explained as "Guy-us, because he's just a regular guy, y'know". Apparently the author found that pun more important than the slightly more relevant fact that Gaius was Julius Caesar's given name, as well as the official name of the emperor more commonly called Caligula.

Nona the Ninth

• Starting before the book is even published, the cover features a character standing among piles of skeletons... including one that has its ass in the air and pointed at the camera.
  • The sheer contrast of the covers; Gideon wore a black nun's habit, Harrow wore skeletal armor and a white cape, and Nona wears a shirt with goofy hamburger on it.

Chapter 1

• There is a board of checkmarks on the wall for whenever Pyhrrha makes an ass joke. She makes two within ten minutes of Nona waking up.
• Nona remembers a time that Cam found a man touching Nona inappropriately. After she chases him off, she asks if Nona understood what was happening. Nona explains, quite calmly, that he wanted to see her naked and was making sex eyes at her. Cam is struck speechless.

Chapter 2

• Pyrrha is mistaken for Nona and Camilla's pimp. Pyrrha does not help by flirting outrageously with anyone she meets, and commenting that Nona's "dumb but pretty" personality will get her far in life.

Chapter 7

• Palamedes, who in life often neglected to feed himself, says while in Cam's body that he can't starve her and bolts a breakfast he hates.

John 5:18

• John's description of how he revealed he was a necromancer to the world references something Harrow/Alecto doesn't know:
  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."

Chapter 11

• Nona asks Camilla what Palamedes finds sexy, and Camilla says good work ethic and high test scores. Later Nona asks Palamedes the same question, and without missing a beat, he says "those little outfits nurses wear". Bonus, the context that he pined after terminally ill Dulcinea for most of his life seems to suggest that he might find wearing nurse outfits to be sexy.
• When Nona is asked what she thinks is sexy, she says there's a old shampoo advertisement on a nearby building. The one that has two flowers on it and nothing else.
  Nona: I think they're very sexy flowers.
• In the same conversation, Pyrrha mentions that she finds redheads sexy. Nona begs to differ, prompting Palamedes—clearly considering the two primary suspects for Nona's identity—to note that "That's a very interesting thing you just said, Nona."

Chapter 14

• Crown escorts Nona to school and diverts attention away from the Angel asking questions about how she knows Nona by claiming to be Camilla's partner. The Angel's body language immediately gives away her shock:
  Camilla?? Really??? Camilla????
  • Nona finding this insulting because Crown is almost pretty enough to be worthy of Camilla makes it even funnier.

John 1:20

• When John talks about eating the soul of the Earth, and then making a body for it because it was too much for him to absorb, he planned to make it the most beautiful body imaginable — and, in a moment of immense stress, fashioned it to look like his mother's old Hollywood Hair Barbie. He is rather defensive about this. (He fed Hollywood Hair Ken to his grandmother's dog.)

Chapter 21

• Due to Ianthe puppeteering Naberius' body around, Nona thinks she's Coronabeth's boyfriend. Palamedes has to clarify that Ianthe is actually Corona's sister, but he doesn't blame her for getting confused. Remember that Palamedes wasn't even there, but he still knew exactly who Nona was talking about.
• Nona's lack of an extensive vocabulary gives us this gem during the conversation between Camilla and We Suffer:
  Camilla: We'll want the shuttle too.
  We Suffer: With stipulations.
  [awkward silence]
  Nona: My friend had stipulations once, but the teacher put a cream on it.
  We Suffer: [very kindly] Thank you, Nona.
• Early in the story, Pyrrha's code words are explained, including one for "found important materiel, need help to retrieve." After a few times, Cam told Pyrrha that cigarettes don't count as "important materiel," so it doesn't get used as much. When Blood of Eden overhears Pyrrha supposedly babbling nonsense, Nona explains that she was actually telling them she found cigarettes.
  We Suffer: [stares at Nona]
  Nona: That's typical, I'm afraid.
• While they're trying to decode a coded conversation:
  Camilla: What are Pyrrha's nicknames for you?
  Nona: Kiddie. Junior. Small Fry. Cutie Pie. Li'l Bits. Small Cam. Hairy Maclary.
  Camilla: Keep going.
  Nona: Nums. No-No. Nope. None. Sweet Nons. Nona-Palona. The Big No.
  Camilla: She should be arrested.

John 9:22

• John mentions that he didn't need more cows to grow his barrier because he could just expand the original material, but that just freaked everyone out, including A—, who exclaimed that matter doesn't work like that and John was doing bone parthenogenesis. "I told him his mum did bone parthenogenesis. A— told me he'd kill me one day."

Chapter 23

• Ianthe insists she's going to tie Harrow up and take her home, and "not in a sexy way."

Chapter 25

• Gideon and Pyrrha's reuniting is... typical of them both, shall we say.
  Gideon: Oh, hey. Long time no drown. You're the one who bragged about spading my mum.
  Pyrrha: Anyone who spaded your mum would brag about it.
  • Later in the chapter, Gideon calls Pyrrha 'Mumfucker Prime'.

Chapter 28

• We Suffer's description of a bad situation:
  We Suffer: Out of the frying pan, into another frying pan—falling out of that frying pan—into the underworld, where there is a huge frying pan where the devils dance and say, "Fuck to you."

• The team eventually rescues the Sixth House refugees with the help of Blood of Eden. Palademes' mother has to be repeatedly dragged away from the soldiers who believe she's an abomination, because she won't stop bothering them with questions about anything and everything.

Chapter 29

• Verun the Eater has begun its attack in earnest, raining down Heralds and endangering countless people in the city below. Nona, however, treats this as if her little brother decided to crash her party (which, considering she's the Earth and he's Venus, is kind of accurate).
  Nona: I told you not to do anything weird!

John 5:4

• Harrow asks John what it means to love God. John, being John, replies "Decent dinner and a bottle of average rosé. Maybe a movie. I'm not picky."

Chapter 30

• Nona, exhausted and on the brink of death, briefly considers giving up and allowing the shuttle she's piloting to crash, which would doom everyone on board.
  Nona: Maybe if we all go, it'll be quick.
  Paul: Nona, Noodle's in the back.
  Nona: [suddenly alert] Oh my God, I forgot about Noodle.

Chapter 31

• Pyrrha tells Nona about the birthday gift she bought her: A Fun T-Shirt advertising "cheap mustache rides. Like, seriously, bargain stuff." She is very embarrassed by this fact, considering she didn't clear it with "the powers that be" first.
  Paul: Palamedes wouldn't have let her wear that out of the house. [pause] Camilla wouldn't have let her wear it even in the house.
  Pyrrha: And you?
  Paul: Her choice. I think mustache rides should be free.

Chapter 32

• How does Nona realize Gideon and Ianthe are friends? They're wearing friendship bracelets. Actual, handmade with colored string, friendship bracelets.

Epilogue

• Ianthe stands before Alecto, The Body in the Locked Tomb, God's greatest foe, with the slimmest hope that she can strike down the creature before it fully awakens. So naturally, she promptly gets distracted bicker-threaten-flirting with Harrow like she's forgotten Alecto is even present.
  Harrow: 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.
  Ianthe: Thou knows not what thou dost.
  Harrow: Not lately, but now.
  Ianthe: Dost thou oppose me, and thou half-dead?
  Harrow: I am as one half-dead, but you would be two-halves dead, bitch.
  Ianthe: My sweet, I only die of longing for thee.
  Harrow: Then perish.
• The epilogue is written in the style of an old religious text, but it still features Gideon, resulting in this gem:
  Which strength pleased Alecto, who said: Notwithstanding, I offer you my service.
  To which a voice 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.

The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex

• After the entire story studiously avoids making one single joke about the good doctor's name, at the very end Palamedes and Camilla look at each other and absolutely lose it.
  Camilla: Archivist, where are we going?
  Archivist Zeta: We're going downstairs—to the study of Doctor Sex!
  Camilla: *narrating* The Warden looked at me. I looked at the Warden. I recall that we decided not to.

As Yet Unsent

• Judith and Coronabeth have a fundamental issue in how differently they regard Blood of Eden, captivity, and how to proceed. "We had an argument" comes up often enough to make a Running Gag.
  • They find commonality in deciding that Blood of Eden's widely held belief that necromancers have enormous harems of sometimes deceased non-necromancers must come from niche pornography and some broad assumptions.
• Judith had nursed a crush on Marta as a teen and on meeting her "found out" they liked the same books - meaning that Judith had read the books Marta liked and spun that out as liking them as much as Marta, and hastily had to reread them after making that claim.
• Coronabeth had gotten nine-year-old Judith to unbend, for Judith, by falling flat on her face and playacting like she was dying, at which point Judith held her hand and told her she'd stay with her until the end.

---