Gideon the Ninth

The woman who was party to that kind of magic and therefore maybe party to anything opened her mouth to speak, but instead had a coughing fit that seemed to start at her toes and go all the way up. Her spine arched; she bleated, and then began to moistly choke to death. Her face turned so grey that for a moment Gideon was convinced the Eighth House was doing something to her, but it was a block of phlegm rather than her soul being sucked out. Palamedes went for her, as did Camilla. He turned her over on her side, and she did something awful and complicated with her finger inside Dulcinea’s mouth. The head on her lap went rolling, and was caught only by the quick reflexes of Princess Ianthe, who cupped it between her hands like an exotic butterfly.

“What do you want, Octakiseron?” said the captain in the wake of this, stone-faced. “Room confinement? A death sentence? Both are uncharacteristically easy to fulfil in this instance.”

“I understand your point,” said Silas. “I do not agree with it. I will take my leave, madam. This is not interesting to me anymore.”

His exit was arrested by his cavalier, as brown and as careworn as ever, standing between him and the doorway. Colum did not really seem to notice his necromancer’s attempts to leave. “The furnace,” he said shortly. “If we’ve got his head, what’s in the furnace?”

Dulcinea, grey and squirming, managed: “What did you find in the fu—fur—fur—” before Palamedes slapped her on the back, at which point she coughed up what looked like a ball of bloody twigs. The Third turned their faces away.

Captain Deuteros did not: maybe she’d seen worse. She gestured to her lieutenant, who had removed the head none too gently from Ianthe’s fascinated gaze and was boxing it up as though it were an unwanted meal. The captain moved closer to Harrow and Gideon, and demanded: “Who found him?”

“I did,” said Harrow, casually failing to provide any details on how. “I took the head because I couldn’t readily transport the body. The body has since disappeared through unknown means, though I’ve got my suspicions. The skull’s mine by finder’s rights—”

“Ninth, the head is going in the morgue where it belongs,” said the captain. “You don’t have carrion rights over found murders, and today is not the day when I’ll countenance your House taking bones that don’t belong to it.”

“I agree with Judith,” said Corona. She had pushed her twin off her thigh, and was looking a bit green around her lovely gills. She also looked uncharacteristically tired and careworn, though she managed to pull this off with a certain pensive loveliness to the fine crinkles at her eyes and mouth. “Today isn’t the day when we start to use one another’s bodies. Or tomorrow, or ever. We’re not barbarians.”

“Sheer prevarication,” remarked her sister to nobody in particular. “Some people will do anything to get … a head.”

Everyone ignored her, even Gideon, who found herself trembling like a leaf. Harrowhark said merely, “The furnace bones are still mine to identify.”

“You can utilise the morgue all you like,” said the captain dismissively. “But the bodies aren’t your property, Reverend Daughter. That goes for the Warden, that goes for everybody. Do I make myself clear, or shall I repeat?”

“Understood,” said Palamedes.

“Understood,” said the Reverend Daughter, in the tones of someone who neither understood nor intended to.

Silas had not left.

“In that case,” he said, “I consider it my bounden duty to take watch over the morgue, in case the Ninth forgets what constitutes defilement of the bodies. I will take the remains. You may find me there.”

Captain Deuteros did not roll her eyes. She gestured to her lieutenant, who handed over the box: Silas took it and winced faintly, and then passed it to his nephew. Gruesome parcel secured, they finally turned and left. The Third were already starting to bitch—

“I always said he didn’t look right,” said the cavalier.

“You said no such thing,” said the first twin.

“At no point did you ever say that,” said the second twin.

“Excuse you, I did—”

Captain Deuteros cleared her throat over the fresh internecine squabbling. “Does anyone else want to take this opportunity to admit that they’re already dead, or a flesh construct, or other relevant object? Anyone?”