A thin young woman in a pearlescent robe stands on a white-and-gold terrace with a huge two-handed sword on her back, a pale woman in a white shift behind her, a blue gas giant beyond.
Harrowhark the First on the Emperor’s station, the sword she cannot account for on her back and the Body at her shoulder.

The Locked Tomb · Book II · 2020

Harrow the Ninth

A new saint wakes on the Emperor’s flagship, sick at the sight of a sword she cannot explain, with a stack of letters from a self she cannot remember.

Harrow the Ninth (2020) is the second Locked Tomb novel and the strangest. It picks up soon after Gideon the Ninth ends, with Harrowhark Nonagesimus newly made a Lyctor, an immortal saint of the Emperor, and then spends half its length telling the reader that the first book never happened. Harrow became a Lyctor by consuming her cavalier, Gideon Nav. She can no longer remember that Gideon existed.

Two strands braid through it, and this page says which is which every time. The second-person chapters (“you”) follow Harrow on the Emperor’s flagship and his space station, the Mithraeum, counting down to “the Emperor’s murder”: that is what really happens. The third-person chapters replay Canaan House with Harrow’s old cavalier, Ortus Nigenad, at her side and Gideon nowhere: that is a false version, a refuge Harrow built in the River of the dead, and the book eventually says so. The voice telling Harrow her own story turns out to belong to Gideon.

It was a Hugo and Locus finalist, and reviewers split on the puzzle. Vox called it “even odder than its predecessor”; Locus missed “a coherent narrative through-line”. It is a book about grief that keeps finding jokes in terrible places: a soup made of the cook’s own marrow, a dinner party staged as a murder plot, a heroine who cannot see the word Gideon.

Part 1

Prologue and Parodos: two beginnings

The book starts at its end. In the Prologue, the real strand in the second person, it is the night before the Emperor’s murder, and Harrow waits in warded rooms on the Mithraeum for the Seventh Resurrection Beast. The Emperor and Ianthe both offer her protection; she refuses. Over the comms he asks her not to be in such a hurry to die, and she answers:

“I have always lived.”

Then the Lyctors sink into the River, the afterlife-current that is also their road between stars, and Harrow comes to in the corridor outside her rooms, run through with her own rapier and dying faster than she can heal. The book then winds back fourteen months and starts again.

The Parodos is the first chapter of the false strand, told in the third person. At Drearburh, Harrow’s cavalier Ortus Nigenad reads the Emperor’s summons to Canaan House, and she makes him cavalier primary although he cannot fight. A reader of Gideon the Ninth knows this is wrong: there Ortus fled and died, and Gideon went in his place. Harrow sees the Body, the frozen corpse she loves from the Locked Tomb, dressed as a serving sister, and the Body tells her, “This isn’t how it happens.” Harrow tells Ortus she is insane and needs him to hide it. Every third-person Canaan House chapter from here on is that same impossible version.

A young woman in a pearlescent robe and skull face paint kneels in prayer inside rings of ground bone in a dark room, blue light at a shuttered window.

II · 1 The Night Before The Prologue, in the second person: the night before the Emperor’s murder, Harrow kneels inside rings of ground bone and waits for the Seventh Resurrection Beast. She has refused the Emperor’s protection and Ianthe’s, and told him “I have always lived.” Within hours she will be dead on her own rapier. The book opens on its ending and spends five acts finding its way back.

A heavy, sad-faced man in black robes reads a letter to a thin young woman in skull paint by candlelight, while a tall pale woman stands behind in the shadows.

II · 2 A Summons That Never Was The false version. In the Parodos, Ortus Nigenad reads Harrow the Emperor’s summons to Canaan House and she makes him her cavalier primary. In book one Ortus fled and died, and Gideon went in his place. The Body, posing as a serving sister, says it plainly: “This isn’t how it happens.” Harrow tells Ortus she is insane. Every third-person chapter from here replays this impossible Canaan House.

Part 2

Act One: waking a Lyctor

In the real strand Harrow convalesces on the Cohort flagship Erebos. She vomits whenever she touches the great two-handed sword she carries and cannot explain, loses hours, makes veils of bedsheets and paints her skull face in her own blood; the Body sits with her. The Emperor, an ordinary-looking man with ink on his nails and a crown of pearlescent leaves, walks her through a cargo hold of sleeping people meant to repopulate the Ninth House, past the Canaan House caskets. He explains the Resurrection Beasts, the revenant souls of the planets he resurrected, which hunt him and his saints forever; a Lyctor can never go home.

Someone tries to suffocate her in her sleep; she fights them off with shards of keratin, and the book never says who it was. Ianthe the First brings her a sealed letter in Harrow’s own hand, from a Harrow who says she is now dead, with rules: stay alive, never return to the Ninth, keep the sword on you, you are compromised. Harrow checks Ianthe’s jaw and tongue as the letter instructs, swears allegiance again, and is given the rest of the letters and a First House robe of mother-of-pearl. Mercymorn the First, the Saint of Joy, all one peach hue and wearing her dead cavalier’s eyes, as every Lyctor does, wheels her to the Emperor’s shuttle. The shuttle crosses the River, rusty red, and docks at the Mithraeum, a station whose very look announces, “HERE IS THE GRAVEYARD AND WE ARE THE GRAVES.”

There Harrow and Ianthe wake in the pews at the funeral of Cytherea the First, the Lyctor who passed as Dulcinea in book one and died there. The Emperor, Mercymorn and Augustine the First, the Saint of Patience, give the eulogies. Then the third surviving saint arrives, the Saint of Duty, and Harrow hears his name as “Ortus the First” and faints. He is Gideon the First; Harrow cannot perceive the word Gideon, and the book will not explain why until much later. One morning she wakes in the chapel with her two-hander driven into Cytherea’s corpse and no memory of doing it.

In the false strand, Harrow and Ortus land at a sunlit Canaan House. Ortus recites his endless epic The Noniad. Harrow finds notes about eggs that only she can see. The priest Teacher warns of the Sleeper, a monster in a coffin below the house; a construct servant asks, “Is this how it happens?”; Abigail Pent of the Fifth reads more than a hundred and fifty revenant signatures off Harrow.

A pale young woman with cropped black hair and smeared skull paint lies in a ship’s cot, a huge two-handed sword beside her, a woman in a white shift sitting at her bedside.

II · 3 The Sword She Cannot Hold Soon after Gideon the Ninth, the new Lyctor convalesces on the Cohort flagship Erebos. Harrow vomits whenever she handles the great two-hander she carries and cannot account for, loses time, makes veils of bedsheets and paints her skull face in her own blood. The Body, the corpse she loves from the Locked Tomb, sits with her and comforts her. Nobody else can see it.

An ordinary-looking man in a dark shirt with a crown of pale leaves walks beside a thin young woman between long rows of glass-lidded caskets in a dim cargo hold.

II · 4 The Emperor’s Cargo The Emperor, God himself, turns out to be an ordinary-looking man with ink on his nails. He walks Harrow through a hold of sleeping people meant to repopulate the Ninth House, past the Canaan House caskets, and explains the Resurrection Beasts: revenant planets that hunt him and his saints forever. A Lyctor, he tells her, can never go home.

Rust-red water rises around a man’s shoes inside a shuttle cabin while a young woman in a pale robe lies slumped on the floor.

II · 5 Through the River The Emperor’s shuttle takes the Lyctors’ road, through the River, the afterlife-current that carries the dead. To Harrow it is rusty red, with a bloom like sewage, and it rises inside the cabin. She starts to drift away into it and he hauls her out. On the far side is the Mithraeum, the station where she will spend the months before the murder.

A small bald old priest in white greets a thin young woman in black and skull paint on a sunlit marble dock, a heavy man in black robes behind her.

II · 6 Canaan House, Again The false version again. Harrow and Ortus land at a sunlit Canaan House, where Teacher hands each cavalier a key and warns of the Sleeper, a monster in a coffin below. Ortus recites his epic The Noniad; Harrow finds notes about eggs that only she can see; a construct servant asks, “Is this how it happens?” Everything is almost book one, and none of it is right.

In a dark chapel walled with whorls of bone, a man stands at an open casket covered in roses while a tall grey-haired man waits behind and two young women sit in a wooden pew.

II · 7 A Saint’s Funeral Harrow and Ianthe wake in the pews at the funeral of Cytherea the First, the Lyctor who passed as Dulcinea at Canaan House and died there. The Emperor, Mercymorn and Augustine the First, the Saint of Patience, eulogise her and her long-dead cavalier. Mercymorn will not look at the new saints; Augustine looks down his long nose at them both. The third surviving saint is still on his way.

A lean scarred man with a russet-fuzzed shaven head and soft green eyes clasps the shoulder of an ordinary-looking man in a pearl-white hall, a young woman watching from behind.

II · 8 “Ortus the First” The third surviving saint arrives with news that Number Seven is coming and asks the Emperor whether they stay or run; they stay. Harrow hears his name as “Ortus the First” and faints. He is Gideon the First, the Saint of Duty, and her mind will not let her hear the word Gideon. Over the coming months he will try to kill her more than a dozen times.

Part 3

Act Two: lessons, and a sleeper below

The Saint of Duty ambushes Harrow in the kitchen, stabs her between the ribs and drains her skeletons to dust. Mercymorn heals her and scolds him. It is the first of more than a dozen attempts on her life. The Emperor says the Saint of Duty has judged her dangerous and that he cannot forbid it; he asks her to wear a rapier, and tells her about Anastasia, the Ninth’s founder, who got the Lyctoral process fundamentally wrong.

Mercymorn teaches her to kill planets in Number Seven’s path: drive death-energy into the core and chase the planet’s ghost through the River. Twelve go well. On the thirteenth, a frozen world, Harrow comes back hypothermic and learns the flaw. A Lyctor’s cavalier pilots her body while she fights in the River, and Harrow has no cavalier inside her to do it. Against Number Seven she will die. Ianthe has the opposite problem: when Naberius’s soul lends her his skill, her reattached sword arm goes dead. One night Harrow sees Cytherea’s corpse walking the corridors with a locked, stiff-legged gait; she blood-wards her door and barricades herself in. The Emperor tells Harrow about Blood of Eden, the insurgency against necromancers, and on hearing of the Ninth’s dead children calls her a miracle.

In the false strand, Judith Deuteros is shot dead with an old carbine (in book one she lived and her cavalier Marta died); Marta follows the Sleeper back to its coffin of plex and cannot break in. Cold rain begins. Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus are found shot. The surviving Houses band together, and things start washing in from outside: pipette needles on the wind.

A young woman kneels with empty hands in a dark chapel at dawn, looking up at a huge sword standing upright in an open casket full of roses.

II · 9 The Sword in the Casket Harrow wakes in the chapel with her two-hander driven into Cytherea’s corpse and no memory of doing it. Ianthe finds her and is not surprised. Much later the book explains it: the ghost hiding in Harrow’s mind used her hands and Gideon’s sword to make a link into the dead saint’s body, and that body will not stay in its tomb for long.

A young woman slumps against a kitchen wall amid drifts of bone dust while a lean scarred man lowers a spear and a peach-haired woman strides in through the door.

II · 10 The First Attempt The Saint of Duty ambushes Harrow in the kitchen, stabs her between the ribs and drains her skeletons to dust. Mercymorn the First, the Saint of Joy, heals her and scolds him. It is the first of more than a dozen attempts. The Emperor says the Saint has judged her dangerous and he cannot forbid it; he only asks her to start wearing a rapier.

Two women in orange hazard suits sit far apart on a frozen, wind-scoured plain under a dark sky, eyes closed.

II · 11 The Thirteenth Planet Mercymorn teaches Harrow to kill planets in Number Seven’s path: drive death-energy into the core, then chase the planet’s ghost through the River. Twelve go well. On the thirteenth, a frozen world, Harrow comes back hypothermic and learns the flaw. A Lyctor’s cavalier pilots her body while she fights in the River, and she has none. Against the Beast, she will die.

A pale woman with fawn curls and staring blue eyes walks stiff-legged down a white corridor at night toward a young woman backing into a doorway.

II · 12 The Corpse in the Corridor Cytherea’s corpse is walking the station’s corridors with a locked, stiff-kneed gait, its eyes a nightmarish blue. Harrow backs into her room, blood-wards the door and wedges a chair under the handle; in the morning she tells Ianthe that “Septimus” is walking. The Emperor talks instead about Blood of Eden, the insurgents against necromancy, and, told what happened to the Ninth’s children, calls Harrow a miracle.

Two women stand at a sheet-covered table holding a small tray of bullets in a stone mortuary while a woman in a white uniform waits in the doorway and rain streaks the window.

II · 13 Eight Bullets The false version. In Harrow’s Canaan House, Judith Deuteros is shot dead with an old carbine, eight bullets, and Marta Dyas, who in book one died while Judith lived, follows the Sleeper to its coffin and cannot break in. Cold rain begins. Camilla and Palamedes are found shot too, though Camilla is alive in the real world. Things begin washing in from outside.

Part 4

Act Three: soup, a bone arm, a dinner party

Harrow catches the Saint of Duty desecrating Cytherea’s crypt; the Emperor waves it away. Later he breaks into her bathroom, spear first, as her bone wards crumble to powder, and she fights him off with bone and teeth while Ianthe looks in and leaves. Harrow decides to kill him. When the Emperor asks her to cook everyone dinner, she makes a soup with her own marrow in it and detonates the marrow inside him at the table; the Emperor freezes the room, heals him and sends her to bed after six sleepless days.

She finds Ianthe sawing off her useless arm, finishes the cut in one stroke and builds her a new one of bone, tendon and nerve; Ianthe adds a palm of flesh and fights at last with Naberius’s full skill. Ianthe brings in Augustine, and Augustine a grudging Mercymorn, for “Dios apate, minor”: a formal dinner to distract the Emperor while Harrow kills the Saint of Duty. Ianthe sews her a dress. The dinner is long and drunk; Augustine and Mercymorn stage a reconciliation. In the corridor afterwards Ianthe tries to kiss her, and Harrow declines: “My affections lie buried in the Locked Tomb.”

Her bomb in the training room finds nobody. A blood trail from Cytherea’s empty tomb leads to the incinerator, where the Saint of Duty lies speared through the chest and Cytherea’s corpse stands in the control booth. Harrow chooses to pull him out of the fire. He tells her that fresh blood wards defeat him, then claims not to remember saying so. The corpse vanishes from the station.

In the false strand, on a rainy terrace, Silas Octakiseron pushes Coronabeth Tridentarius over the edge and throws himself after her. Abigail and Magnus get Harrow to admit she cannot read the notes, and Abigail suggests she is not mad but haunted.

A young woman wrapped in a heavy dark robe crouches on a tiled floor beside a smashed door while a lean scarred man with a spear stands in the doorway.

II · 14 The Wards Fail Harrow has warded her rooms in bone needles. While she bathes, the wards die to powder and the Saint of Duty breaks in, spear first. She fends him off with bone spurs and her teeth; Ianthe looks in and leaves. Harrow decides she will have to kill him, and learns from Mercymorn how to keep herself awake for days to do it.

At a long dining table set with soup bowls, a lean scarred man doubles over while an ordinary-looking man stands with a raised hand and a pale young woman sits watching.

II · 15 Marrow Soup Asked by the Emperor to cook everyone dinner, Harrow makes the Lyctors a soup with her own marrow in it, which she detonates inside the Saint of Duty at the table. The Emperor freezes the room mid-gasp, heals his saint, and sends a Harrow six days without sleep to bed. It is one of the book’s grimmest jokes and very nearly works.

A pale youth with white braids in white robes stands at the rail of a rain-lashed stone terrace over a grey sea, a young woman in black running toward him with skeletons clawing at the flagstones.

II · 16 The Rainy Terrace The false version. On the rain-swept docking terrace, Silas Octakiseron pushes Coronabeth Tridentarius over the edge, asks the question the bubble keeps asking, whether this is how it happens, and throws himself after her. Harrow’s skeletons are too late. In the real world Coronabeth is alive, and in book one Silas died quite differently; the bubble keeps killing the living and sparing the dead.

A tall pale blonde woman sits on the floor of a white-and-gold room flexing a new arm made of carved bone and sinew, a dark-haired young woman kneeling beside her.

II · 17 Ianthe’s New Arm Ianthe’s reattached sword arm goes dead whenever Naberius’s soul lends her his skill. Harrow finds her trying to saw it off, finishes the job in one stroke, and builds her a new arm of bone, tendon and nerve. Ianthe adds a palm of living flesh, and for the first time fights with all of Naberius’s skill. It binds the two of them closer than either admits.

In a dim pearl-white corridor a tall blonde woman in violet leans toward a pale young woman in a dark dress and skull paint, who turns her face away.

II · 18 Buried in the Tomb Ianthe, Augustine and a grudging Mercymorn stage “Dios apate, minor”, a long drunken formal dinner to keep the Emperor busy while Harrow kills the Saint of Duty. Ianthe sews her a dress for it. Afterwards, in the corridor, Ianthe tries to kiss her, and Harrow declines: “My affections lie buried in the Locked Tomb.” Ianthe suggests somebody might exhume them.

A young woman in a dark dress heaves open the hatch of a furnace with levers of bone in a deep industrial room, a spear on the floor and a shadowy figure in a booth above.

II · 19 The Incinerator Harrow’s bomb in the training room finds nobody. A blood trail from Cytherea’s empty tomb leads her to the incinerator, where the Saint of Duty lies speared through the chest and Cytherea’s corpse stands in the control booth. Harrow has spent the act planning his death; now she chooses to drag him out of the fire. He tells her fresh blood wards can stop him, then claims not to remember.

Part 5

Act Four: Camilla, and the Beast

Sent to kill a forested planet, Harrow is stalked by Camilla Hect, whose corpse she thought she had seen. Harrow sends a skeleton across with the right sealed letter, and Camilla claims a promise of help from the Harrow who wrote them. She hands over a mended piece of Palamedes’s skull. Harrow dives into the River and finds him: a soul living in a single room around the moment of his death, held together by one theorem. He embraces a startled Harrow; the Sleeper arrives by lightning in an orange hazard suit with a wooden-stocked gun; and Palamedes glimpses someone else inside her. Back in her body Harrow shapes his bone into a hand. At Camilla’s battered shuttle she finds Coronabeth and Judith, both alive, and a portrait of a woman she has never seen that frightens her more than anything since she became a Lyctor. Judith starts to warn of a traitor before Coronabeth stops her mouth. Camilla says they are on different sides now, Blood of Eden’s, and makes Harrow promise silence.

Number Seven is sighted; Mercymorn, who looked at it, screams over the comms and the station locks down. The plan is to wear the Beast out, then drag its soul to the River’s floor and into the stoma, the mouth from which no Beast has ever returned. In his study the Emperor tells Harrow that if he dies the Nine Houses die with him, fields her question about someone called A.L., and says he would have liked her for a daughter. She confesses she opened the Locked Tomb. He says its ward answers only to his blood, and feels that her brain has been altered. Under her bed she finds Cytherea’s corpse; when she fetches Ianthe it is gone. The Saint of Duty’s last attack ends with advice: end your own life before you enter the River. The plots, he admits, were not his idea.

In the false strand, rain turns to snow, flesh grows through the cracks of Canaan House, and Teacher, half mad, confuses the Sleeper with the body in the Tomb.

A young woman sits in the open palm of a towering construct of bone in a dense jungle while a lean dark-haired woman in grey steps out of the trees holding a small cloth bag.

II · 20 Camilla Out of the Trees Sent to kill a forested planet, Harrow is stalked by Camilla Hect, whose corpse she thought she had seen. A skeleton carries over the right sealed letter, Camilla claims a promise of help from the Harrow who wrote them, and she hands over a mended piece of Palamedes’s skull. Harrow’s past self, it seems, was generous with favours.

A tall young man in spectacles and grey robes rests a hand on the shoulder of a stiff young woman in a pale robe in a small stone room, while outside the window lightning shows an orange-suited masked figure with a gun.

II · 21 One Room in the River Harrow dives into the River and finds Palamedes Sextus living in a single room around the moment of his death, held together by one theorem. He embraces a startled Harrow. Then the Sleeper arrives by lightning, orange hazard suit and wooden-stocked gun, and Palamedes glimpses someone else inside Harrow. Back in her body she shapes his bone into a hand.

Inside a battered shuttle a golden-haired woman and a dark-braided woman in a worn red-and-white uniform face a young woman at the hatch, a portrait of a red-haired woman on the wall behind them.

II · 22 The Living Dead In Camilla’s battered shuttle Harrow finds Coronabeth and Judith, both alive, and a portrait of a red-haired woman she has never seen, which frightens her badly. Judith starts to warn of a traitor before Coronabeth clamps a hand over her mouth and hauls her back; Camilla says they are on different sides now, Blood of Eden’s, and makes Harrow promise silence.

A small bald old priest in white stands in a snowy ruined courtyard where strange pink fleshy growths push up between the cracked flagstones.

II · 23 Snow and Flesh The false version is coming apart. At Harrow’s Canaan House the cold rain turns to sleet and then to snow, and growths of flesh push up through the cracks of the house. Teacher, half mad, prophesies doom and confuses the Sleeper with the body in the Locked Tomb. The bubble Harrow built to hold herself together is under siege from outside.

A young woman in a pale robe kneels with bowed head at the feet of an ordinary-looking man in a dark shirt, who reaches a hand down toward her head in a book-lined study.

II · 24 The Confession With Number Seven sighted and the station locked down, the Emperor tells Harrow that if he dies the Nine Houses die with him, speaks of someone he calls A.L., and says he would have liked her as a daughter. She confesses that she opened the Locked Tomb. He tells her its ward answers only to his blood, and feels that somebody has altered her brain.

A young woman lying on a dark floor holds a lamp whose light falls on the still, pale face of a woman with fawn curls hidden under a bed.

II · 25 Under the Bed Under her own bed Harrow finds Cytherea’s corpse. She shackles it with bone and fetches Ianthe, who sees nothing there. Soon after the Saint of Duty makes his last attempt on her and leaves her with advice: end your own life before you go into the River. The plots, he admits, were never his idea.

Part 6

Epiparodos: the procedure

This short section is real, a flashback in the third person to two days after Gideon the Ninth. Harrow, her eyes already turning gold as Gideon’s soul dissolves into her, has written twenty-four letters with Ianthe and gives her two to open only on Harrow’s death. Then she has Ianthe operate on her brain to remove her ability to conceive of Gideon Nav, so the soul can never be fully consumed. She chose Ianthe because Ianthe understood her grief. Everything strange in the book follows from this: “Ortus the First”, Ortus in the false Canaan House, the sword that makes her sick.

A pale young woman with black hair lies back on a narrow bed in a curtained room, her eyes turning gold, while a tall blonde woman in violet holds fine silver instruments beside a stack of sealed letters.

II · 26 The Procedure The real flashback that explains the book. Two days after Canaan House, Harrow, her eyes already turning gold as Gideon’s soul dissolves into her, has written twenty-four letters with Ianthe. Then she has Ianthe operate on her brain to cut away her ability to conceive of Gideon Nav, so the soul can never be fully consumed. “Ortus the First”, the false Canaan House: all of it follows.

Part 7

Act Five: the River, and who “you” is

Dying, Harrow slides through other lives in the River: Harrow Nova duelling a skull-scarred Ortus, a marriage-season ball, a Cohort cafeteria where Gideon Nav is the barista. Back in the false Canaan House she remembers Gideon and sobs. Abigail tells her the truth: this is a River bubble like Palamedes’s, and an invading soul is besieging it. Harrow apologises to Ortus, who says he let two children carry what was his to carry and stays to fight. She finds the note Gideon found in book one and understands that “Ortus the First” is Gideon the First. Abigail’s exorcism finds the Sleeper’s coffin empty; the Sleeper shoots Protesilaus, Dulcinea and Magnus, ghosts all. Ortus recites The Noniad, Harrow finishes the lines, and Abigail summons the legendary Ninth cavalier Matthias Nonius, who turns the fight into an epic and kills the Sleeper with his rapier. Unmasked, she is the woman of the portrait; her dog tags read AWAKE. She is Commander Wake of Blood of Eden. Nonius leads Ortus, Protesilaus and Marta out to help the Lyctors; the real Dulcinea Septimus tells Harrow that what holds her body is no revenant; and Harrow lets the bubble go, lies down in the Locked Tomb’s empty coffin, and sleeps.

In chapters interleaved with these, the narrator says “I”. Gideon Nav wakes in Harrow’s body with the rapier through it, pulls it out, and finds Harrow’s Lyctor healing works for her. The station is dark and hot and full of Heralds of the Beast, “wasp, and bone, and meat”. Mercymorn sees Gideon’s gold eyes in Harrow’s face, admits she killed Harrow, and tries again, until Cytherea’s corpse walks in, shoots her chest open and walks out. Ianthe gives Gideon a letter from Harrow and Gideon’s own old sunglasses. From behind a coat rack they watch the Emperor interrogate the corpse, tied to a chair with tendon: it is Wake, who has ridden Harrow’s mind and the sword-link into Cytherea’s body. Mercymorn and Augustine burst in. Wake says they worked for her: years ago she came to the Ninth House carrying a baby she had borne to open the Tomb. The Saint of Duty shoots her. Augustine explains dios apate, major: they got the Emperor’s genetic material to Wake. Gideon announces herself as the Emperor’s daughter.

Her gold eyes are Alecto’s, the Body’s, so Alecto was the Emperor’s cavalier, and a Lyctor never needed a cavalier to die. Of Alecto he says, “It might be more accurate to say that I switched her off”. Mercymorn asks him to say he loved Cristabel, her cavalier, then blows him apart into a red mist; he re-forms and kills her. He demands fealty. The Saint of Duty and Ianthe give it; Augustine refuses and drops the Mithraeum into the barathron, the River’s floor. The Saint of Duty pulls Gideon clear and reveals that she is Pyrrha Dve, Gideon the First’s cavalier: he died fighting Number Seven, and she has his body now. Ianthe frees the Emperor from the stoma’s tongues and Augustine is dragged in. Gideon smashes a window, the River crushes her, and the last thing she sees is the Body coming and someone starting chest compressions.

In a bright military cafeteria a pale young woman in black and skull paint stands at a coffee counter, served by a tall red-haired young woman in an apron.

II · 27 The Barista Dying, Harrow slides through lives that never were: Harrow Nova duelling a skull-scarred Ortus, a ball for “Her Divine Highness”, and a Cohort cafeteria where Lieutenant Harrowhark buys coffee and Gideon Nav is the barista. It is warm and bright and wrong, and it is the first time in the book that Gideon has a face. Back in the false Canaan House, Harrow remembers her and sobs.

Two women stand inside a chalk circle of candles around an empty glass coffin in a stone vault while a masked figure in an orange hazard suit raises a long wooden-stocked gun in a doorway.

II · 28 The Empty Coffin Abigail tells Harrow the truth: this Canaan House is a bubble in the River, like Palamedes’s room, and an invading soul is besieging it. Harrow works out that “Ortus the First” is Gideon the First. Abigail’s exorcism finds the Sleeper’s coffin empty, and the Sleeper comes for them, shooting the ghosts of Protesilaus, Dulcinea and Magnus in a world where necromancy no longer works.

A lean dark-haired swordsman in old black duelling clothes lunges with rapier and dagger at a figure in orange armour and a golden mask in a candlelit stone hall.

II · 29 Matthias Nonius Ortus recites The Noniad, Harrow finishes the lines, and Abigail summons its hero, Matthias Nonius, the Ninth’s legendary cavalier. He blocks a shot meant for Harrow’s head, the room turns into an epic poem, the guns fail, and he kills the Sleeper with his rapier. Unmasked, she is the woman from Camilla’s portrait; her dog tags read AWAKE. She is Commander Wake of Blood of Eden.

A thin young woman in black robes and skull face paint bends over an empty open coffin on a small stone island in still black water inside a vast dark vault.

II · 30 Into the Coffin Nonius leads Ortus, Protesilaus and Marta out to help the Lyctors fight. The real Dulcinea Septimus, whose name Cytherea stole in book one, tells Harrow that whatever now holds her body is no revenant. Harrow lets the bubble go. Surfacing in the Locked Tomb, she climbs into its empty coffin and lies down to sleep. She will not wake in this book.

A thin young woman with gold eyes holds a rapier in a hot red-lit corridor as a man-sized creature of pale armour plates, wings and a stinger crawls toward her.

II · 31 “You” Was Gideon The narrator says “I”, and it is Gideon Nav: the voice that has been telling Harrow her own story in the second person, alive in her head all along. She wakes in Harrow’s body with the rapier through it, pulls it out, and finds the Lyctor healing works for her. The station is dark, hot and full of the Beast’s Heralds, “wasp, and bone, and meat”.

An ordinary-looking man questions a pale fawn-haired woman bound to a chair with cords of sinew, while two young women, one in dark glasses, peer from behind a coat rack in the foreground.

II · 32 The Corpse in the Chair Mercymorn has seen Gideon’s gold eyes in Harrow’s face and admitted she killed Harrow. Now Gideon and Ianthe hide behind a coat rack while the Emperor questions Cytherea’s corpse, tied to a chair with tendon. It is Wake. Mercymorn and Augustine burst in, Wake says they worked for her, and the truth comes out: she bore a baby to open the Tomb. Gideon is the Emperor’s daughter.

A peach-haired woman in a pearlescent robe stands very still before a haze of pink and red motes gathering in the air of a pale study, a young woman with gold eyes watching from the side.

II · 33 Red Mist Gideon’s gold eyes are Alecto’s, the Body’s: Alecto was the Emperor’s own cavalier, and no cavalier ever had to die. Of Alecto he says, “It might be more accurate to say that I switched her off”. Mercymorn asks him to say he loved Cristabel, her cavalier, then blows him apart into a red mist. He re-forms, and kills her.

A lean scarred person with dark eyes holds a thin gold-eyed young woman back from a cracked window, beyond which dark red water churns over a vast pit ringed with giant teeth.

II · 34 Into the Barathron The Saint of Duty and Ianthe swear fealty; Augustine refuses and drops the Mithraeum to the River’s floor, the barathron, where the stoma waits. The Saint pulls Gideon clear and reveals she is Pyrrha Dve, Gideon the First’s cavalier: he died fighting Number Seven, and she has his body. Gideon smashes a window, the River crushes her, and someone starts chest compressions.

Part 8

Epilogue: thirty storeys up

Six months after the Emperor’s murder, in a hot, curfewed, war-torn city, a woman lives in an apartment thirty storeys up with three carers: one works, one teaches her, one looks after her. She sorts bones behind blackout curtains and trains with a sword; street-food sellers stop coming after they see hot food fail to burn her. Hiding from gunfire in the bathroom, she asks whether her carer has worked out who she is. “Not yet,” says Camilla. Nona the Ninth begins there.

In a hot dim apartment with blackout curtains, a young woman with a long black braid kneels sorting bones on the floor while a dark-haired woman in dark glasses keeps watch at the window.

II · 35 Thirty Storeys Up Six months after the murder, in a hot, curfewed, war-torn city, a woman lives thirty storeys up with three carers: one works, one teaches her, one looks after her. She sorts bones, trains with a sword, and is not burned by hot food. Hiding from gunfire, she asks whether her carer has worked out who she is. “Not yet,” says Camilla. Nona the Ninth starts here.

Necromancy and relics in this book

  • Lyctorhood, done the hard way. A necromancer becomes a Lyctor by consuming her cavalier’s soul and wears the cavalier’s eyes ever after. Harrow cut her own memory of Gideon out so the soul could never be fully absorbed, which leaves her with no cavalier to pilot her body while she fights in the River. The book’s last reveal is that it never had to cost a cavalier’s life.
  • The letters. Twenty-four sealed letters in Ninth crypt-script, written by Harrow and Ianthe before the surgery, each marked with when to open it. They run Harrow’s life on the Mithraeum.
  • The two-hander. Gideon’s sword, which Harrow carries everywhere and cannot touch without retching; it is also the link Wake’s ghost used to reach Cytherea’s corpse.
  • The River and its bubbles. The afterlife-current, rust-red to Harrow, is the Lyctors’ road between stars. A soul can hold a pocket world in it with one fixed idea: Palamedes keeps a single room; Harrow keeps a whole false Canaan House. At the bottom, in the barathron, the stoma swallows Resurrection Beasts.
  • The Resurrection Beasts. The revenant souls of the planets the Emperor resurrected. Number Seven is more than fifty thousand kilometres across; its Heralds are its swarm.
  • Bone work. Marrow in a soup, a new arm of bone and tendon for Ianthe, a hand shaped from a piece of Palamedes’s skull.
  • The Emperor’s crown. Pearlescent leaves, each woven with an infant’s fingerbone.

Continuity notes

  • Harrow: begins an incomplete Lyctor on the Erebos; is killed by Mercymorn on the night of the murder; her soul lies down in the Locked Tomb’s coffin and sleeps.
  • Gideon Nav: her soul, sealed in Harrow’s brain, has narrated the second-person chapters; she ends in Harrow’s body, crushed in the River, as someone begins chest compressions. She is the Emperor’s daughter by Wake.
  • The Emperor: blown apart by Mercymorn and re-formed; pulled from the stoma by Ianthe.
  • Ianthe: gets a bone arm and Naberius’s full skill; swears fealty to the Emperor.
  • Mercymorn is dead, killed by the Emperor. Augustine is dragged into the stoma.
  • Gideon the First (“Ortus the First” to Harrow) dies fighting Number Seven; Pyrrha Dve, his cavalier, holds his body.
  • Wake is destroyed in the bubble and shot in Cytherea’s corpse. Number Seven has fled.
  • Camilla, Coronabeth and Judith are alive with Blood of Eden; Palamedes is a soul held to his bone, now a hand; six months on, Camilla is one of the unnamed woman’s carers.
  • The deaths in the false Canaan House (Judith, Camilla, Palamedes, Coronabeth, Silas) are not real deaths; the ghosts there (Ortus, Abigail, Magnus, Marta, Protesilaus, Dulcinea Septimus) go back into the River or follow Nonius out.

Notes

  • On screen: nothing from the Locked Tomb has reached the screen. No film or series of Harrow the Ninth has been made or announced; Tamsyn Muir’s two screen credits are unrelated episodes of other series. The book exists in an unabridged audiobook read by Moira Quirk.
  • The 2021 trade paperback added the Judith-Coronabeth-Camilla story “As Yet Unsent”, reprinted free on Tor.com (now Reactor) in 2022, and a Blood of Eden memorandum.
  • Readers still argue over whether the bewilderment pays off, whether Harrow’s surgery was love or cowardice, and whose side Ianthe is on.

The whole walk: · · · II · ·