Gideon the Ninth

This was followed by, bafflingly, a woman’s voice, unreasonably calm. “This is a fire alarm. Please make your way to designated safe zones, led by your fire warden.” Then the klaxon again: BRRRARRRRP … BRRRRARRRRP … BRRRRARRRRRRRRP … and the exact same recorded inflexion: “This is a fire alarm. Please make your way…”

They looked at each other. Then all four of them sprinted for the door. Palamedes didn’t even stop to shut it behind them.

The Sixth and the Ninth Houses knew that a fire was absolutely no joke, and moved like people who had learned that a fire alarm could be the last thing any of them heard, the last thing their whole House heard. But this was curious. There was no smoke to smell, nor any latent heat: when they all got to the atrium, the only thing they saw amiss was that one of the skeletons had fallen over with an armful of towels, spread-eagle in the awful dried-up fountain.

Camilla looked around, narrowed her eyes, and headed toward the lunch room. Here there was an ongoing pssshhhtt sound that Gideon could not identify until they reached the kitchen—there was a bad smell, and white steam—and realised it was a water sprinkler, the really old kind. They all squashed themselves through the kitchen door and stood out of the reach of the spray.

All the skeletons were gone. In their places were untidy piles of bones and sashes. A pan of fish smoked on a lit stove: Gideon waded in, kicked aside a humerus, and fumbled with the knobs until the fire extinguished. There were piles of bones at the sink, a skull floating in a familiar pot of green soup: the tap had been left on, and the sink was close to overflowing. A pile of bones had mixed in among the potato peelings. Gideon ducked back out and away from the spray and stared. She was only vaguely aware of Harrowhark disdainfully mopping her wet head with a handkerchief.

The sprinklers stopped. Camilla knelt down and, amidst all the dripping and burbling, touched one of the phalanges that had fallen on the tiles. It dissolved into ash like a sigh.

Palamedes went and turned off the tap like someone in a dream. The bones in the sink gently bobbed against a saucepan. He and Harrow looked at each other and said—

“Shit.”

With only the faintest liquid whisper of metal on sheath, Camilla drew her swords. Gideon had never had the opportunity to study Camilla’s two short swords before: they were more like very long daggers, slightly curved at each end, wholly utilitarian. They glittered clean and hot beneath the soggy light of the kitchen; she marched back toward the door to the dining hall.

“Split up?” she said.

“Hell no,” said Gideon.

Harrow said, “Let’s not waste time. Get to Septimus,” and Gideon could have kissed her.

There seemed to be nobody else in the long, echoing halls of Canaan House, now longer and more echoey than ever. They passed another skeleton, arrested by an unseen force in the middle of carrying a basket. As it tumbled to the floor the weight of the basket had crushed its brittle pelvis to a powder. When they got to Dulcinea’s sickroom, Gideon had a sharp moment of not knowing what the hell to expect; but they found Dulcinea, struggling feebly to try to sit up, whey-faced and wide-eyed. Opposite her was the salt-and-pepper priest in the high-backed chair, looking as though they were peacefully asleep.

“It wasn’t me,” Dulcinea wheezed, in no small alarm.

Camilla ducked forward. The white-robed priest’s chin had slumped forward to their chest, and the braid was tucked beneath their chin. As Camilla pressed her hand to their neck, the priest lurched very gently sideways, limp and heavy, until the Sixth cavalier had to prop them up so that they wouldn’t slide off the chair entirely.

“Dead as space,” said Harrowhark, “though, accurately, that’s been true for a very, very long time.”

Palamedes turned to Dulcinea, who had given up thrashing her way to her elbows and was lying flat on the pillows, panting in exertion. He brushed her hair gently away from her forehead and said, “Where’s Teacher?”

“He left me maybe an hour ago,” said Dulcinea helplessly, eyes darting between him and the rest of them. “He said he wanted to lock a door. What’s going on? Why is the priest dead? Where did Teacher go?”

Palamedes patted her hand. “No idea. This is the interesting part.”

“Dulcinea,” said Gideon, “are you going to be okay by yourself?”

Dulcinea grinned. Her tongue was scarlet with blood. The veins in her eyelids were so dark and prominent that the blue of her eyes appeared a limpid, moonless purple.

“What can anyone do to me now?” she said simply.