Gideon the Ninth

Both girls rounded on him at once. The pallid twin simply stared, eyes closed to pale-lashed slits, but the lovely twin took one of his ears between a thumb and forefinger and tweaked it unmercifully. He was not a short young man, but she had half a head on him, and a whole head if you counted her hair. Her sister watched from the side, impassive—though Gideon swore that she was smiling, very slightly.

“If you talk like that to her again, Babs,” said the golden twin, “I’ll destroy you. Beg her forgiveness.”

He was shocked and defensive. “C’mon, you know I didn’t—it was for you—I was meeting the insult for you—”

“She can insult me as she likes. You’re insubordinate. Say you’re sorry.”

“Princess, I live to serve—”

“Naberius!” she said, and pulled his ear forward so that he had to come with it, like an animal being led by a bit. Two bright red spots of outrage had formed in his cheeks. The lovely twin waggled his ear gently, so that his head shook with it. “Grovel, Babs. As soon as possible, please.”

“Leave it, Corona,” said the other girl, suddenly. “This isn’t the time to horse around. Drop him and let’s keep going.”

The bright twin—Corona—hesitated, but then dropped the ear of the unfortunate cavalier. He rubbed it fretfully. Gideon could only see the back of his head, but he kept looking at the girl who’d basically clouted him like a whipped dog, the arrogant line of his head and shoulders drooping. Suddenly, impetuously, Corona slung one arm around him and perambulated forward, giving his other ear a tweak—he jerked sullenly away—before wheeling him through the doors to the pit room. The pale twin held the door open for them both.

As they went through, exclaiming at the smell, the pale twin paused. She did not follow them. She looked straight into the darkness instead, the deep shadows around the stairwell. Gideon knew that she was completely hidden—hooded—invisible, but she felt herself pressing backward anyway: away from that pale, washed-out gaze, which was staring with discomfiting accuracy straight at her.

“This is not a clever path to start down,” she said softly. “I would not attract attention from the necromancer of the Third House.”

The pale twin stepped through and closed the door behind her. Gideon was left alone.

Chapter 10

Harrowhark did not appear for a midday meal. Gideon, still unused to the concept of midday meal or honestly midday, appeared a good hour earlier than anyone else would have. Either everyone had an appropriate circadian pattern of hunger or they were being too Housely and well bred not to follow one. Gideon sat in the hot, scrubbed room where she had eaten breakfast, and was given a meal of pallid white meat and a bunch of leaves. It was good that she was alone. She had no clue what to do with it. She ate the meat with a fork—you didn’t need a knife; it was so tender that it flaked away if you touched it—and ate the leaves one by one with her fingers. She realised partway through that it was probably a salad. Raw vegetables in the Ninth came in the form of pitiable cairns of grated snow leek, stained through with as much salty black sauce as it would absorb. She filled up on the bread, which was really very good, and stuck a piece in her robe for later.

A skeleton had brought her food; a skeleton had taken it away, with the same pinpoint accuracy the others had shown. There were no cheap tricks with them, she noticed—nobody had jammed pins through the joints so that they’d stick together easier, or slabbed on big gobs of tendon. No, whoever had raised them had been extraordinarily talented. She suspected it was Teacher. Harrow wouldn’t like that. The House of the Ninth was meant to have cornered the market on perfect reconstruction, and here were a whole bunch of them probably made by a little man who clapped his hands together unironically.

Just as Gideon had shaken the crumbs off her lap and was rising to leave, two more novitiates entered. When they saw Gideon, both they and she stopped dead.

One of the pair was a wan, knife-faced kid dressed in antiseptic whites and chain mail you could cut with a fork, it was so delicate. He was draped in it even down to a kilt, which was strange: necromancers didn’t normally wear that type of armour, and he was definitely the necromancer. He had a necromancer build. Pale silk fluttered from his slim shoulders. He gave the impression of being the guy fun sought out for death. He was prim and ascetic-looking, and his companion—who was older, a fair bit older than Gideon herself—had the air of the perpetually disgruntled. He was rather more robust, nuggety, and dressed in chipped bleached leathers that looked as though they’d seen genuine use. At least one finger on his left hand was a gross-looking stump, which she admired.