The Locked Tomb, #2
Harrow the Ninth
by Tamsyn Muir
Contents
Chapter 52
Overview
Mercymorn’s assassination of John fails: he reconstructs himself, kills her, and reveals that his death did not permanently doom Dominicus. Augustine refuses to return to John’s service and destroys the Mithraeum’s safety by plunging it into the River, attempting to drag John into a monstrous stoma.
Ianthe chooses loyalty to John over saving Augustine, allowing Augustine to be swallowed. Gideon Nav, still in Harrow’s body, escapes the wreck with Pyrrha Dve but is overcome in the River, ending the chapter on an apparent death and attempted revival.
Summary
Mercymorn tells Augustine that killing John had to be her sin, not his. She believes John’s death has also killed Dominicus and doomed every House system dependent on him, making evacuation impossible. Augustine refuses to honor their old suicide pact and instead argues that the surviving Lyctors must gather ships, seek peace with Eden, protect whoever remains, and eventually let necromancy die.
John abruptly re-forms from red particulate matter and kills Mercymorn with casual violence, then says he has stabilized the sun. John explains that Mercymorn’s attack was impressive but never truly capable of killing him. John then tests the room for loyalty: Gideon the First pledges himself, Ianthe immediately does the same, and John spares Gideon Nav because she is his child and because she is occupying Harrow’s body.
John offers Augustine a clean slate, but Augustine refuses. Augustine uses his power to drop the Mithraeum physically into the River, throwing the station into catastrophic collapse. John, Augustine, and Ianthe are pulled into the River outside, while the person in Gideon the First’s body drags Gideon Nav in Harrow’s body away from the flooding chamber.
In the outer ring, Gideon Nav learns that Gideon the First is dead and that the body is being controlled by Pyrrha Dve, his cavalier. Pyrrha explains that she survived hidden inside Gideon the First’s mind, knew Wake, and had also been Wake’s lover while using Gideon the First’s body. Pyrrha and Gideon Nav watch Augustine drag John toward a vast tooth-rimmed stoma that has opened in the River, apparently for John.
As the Mithraeum breaks apart and is pulled toward the stoma, Gideon Nav rejects Pyrrha’s bleak options of bullets, waiting, or being crushed, and instead breaks the plex to escape into the River. Outside, Augustine nearly succeeds in forcing John into the stoma, but Ianthe chooses to save John rather than Augustine. Augustine is dragged down into the mouth, and Gideon Nav, still in Harrow’s body, is crushed and drowned; in Gideon’s final vision, a beautiful dead-looking woman orders chest compressions before everything ends.
Who Appears
- Gideon NavNarrates from Harrow’s body, defies John, escapes the station, and apparently drowns.
- John GaiusReconstitutes after Mercy kills him, kills Mercy, demands loyalty, and survives Ianthe’s rescue.
- Augustine the FirstRefuses renewed loyalty to John and sacrifices himself trying to drag John into the stoma.
- Ianthe TridentariusPledges loyalty to John and ultimately saves him instead of helping Augustine escape.
- Mercymorn the FirstBelieves she has doomed the Houses by killing John, then is murdered when John returns.
- Pyrrha DveRevealed inside Gideon the First’s body; helps Gideon Nav flee and explains her history with Wake.
- Gideon the FirstHis body appears, but Pyrrha reveals his necromancer is dead after fighting Number Seven.
- Harrowhark NonagesimusAbsent in consciousness but physically endangered as Gideon Nav controls her body.
- Unidentified dead-looking womanAppears in Gideon’s final vision and orders chest compressions for Harrow’s damaged body.