harrowharks-iliac-crest

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Your reading comprehension is piss on the poor and you just ignored the people trying to help without spoiling you

I've sat on this ask for months at this point, and I'm gonna be honest:

This one, single, stupid, annoying, baffling hate message took much of the joy out of keeping this blog active for me.

Yes I've also been hella busy irl. Liveblogging is effort, and when I've had time, I've needed to just sit and stare at the wall or scroll or play on my phone. You know how it is.

But not gonna lie, to be doing something for fun and so others can enjoy my reading progress, only for some random anon to come in and shit on my effort, makes it a whole lot less enjoyable.

And for the record, I'm not reading a mystery book in order to figure out all the mystery as soon as humanly possible. Part of the joy is being surprised. I don't need help or hints - in fact I'd rather you keep them to yourself and follow my journey of discovery with earnest enjoyment.

If you're not enjoying my liveblog, the unfollow button is right there. I'm not forcing you to read any of this.

And if you can't be nice, maybe don't say anything at all.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Hey! sorry to trouble you, and I hope you're well.

I was reading through your Harrow and Nona liveblogs and really enjoying them. I got to the last post in your Nona liveblog (9 weeks ago?) and was wondering if you're going to continue with it or not in the future.

I loved your reactions to everything in Harrow and hope you've continued to enjoy Nona in the mean time!

Aw hi, thank you so much for this!! This was a really nice ask to receive.

I do intend to still continue the liveblog - sorry it's been so long, I've been super busy irl! I was hoping to get back to it soon though 😁

Thanks again 💖

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

9

And we're back to Nona, who's just waking up from a midday nap. Hence the dream.

Sixth skull - more Cam/Pal content? I hope so.

Anyway, they're not here to record what Nona remembers of her dream. Is she going to tell them when she gets home?

(It occurs to me, belatedly, that what Nona tells them is very different to what we're reading in John chapters. I assume there's a good reason for that.)

“What happened? When I talked on the radio?” Hot Sauce hesitated, then said: “The watcher took off.” “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Right?” “I need to investigate.”

The watcher heard what Nona was saying, without reading her lips, or reading her lips only in the few words before she covered her mouth; the most they could have gotten from this was Crown.

Someone from Blood of Eden seems likely. In which case, they're almost definitely watching Nona.

Unfortunately, these days if she said, “Cam, can’t we go swimming?” Cam would say, “Remember what happened the last time,” and won every argument that way. That was because what happened the last time was that Camilla had got sick, and less important, Nona had got shot.

Hey, that's not not important!

I assume the water's poisonous or radioactive which is why it's safe for Nona to swim but not Cam.

And that someone shot her because they don't want people in the water?

and her jandals, and then after masks were tied and hats put on they walked to the beach in the low dusk.

Jandals?

Jean sandals?

Lmao.

That was why Nona had always swum at dusk, because Cam said the jellyfish sting killed most people within minutes.

Ohhh, that's why - it's not the water that's poisonous.

Salt water had always relieved her: salt water made her feel as though, if there was someone in there with her, she would suddenly know the words to tell them everything.

Throwback to Harrow only being told secrets in salt water - the pool scene of GtN. Nona's dreams of being in water. Was Harrow's family tradition of only speaking secrets in water an Alecto thing? I'm so curious.

Anyway, I feel Nona here, I also love being in the water.

Camilla was crouched down, wiping her knives on one of their jackets. When she looked up, Nona was electrified. One of her eyes was a pale, pearlescent grey; the other one of her eyes was a deep, cool stone colour. Nona understood in a sudden shiver what she was looking at. “Stay calm,” said Camilla-and-Palamedes. “Five breaths, if you need it.”

So this is why Camilla had gotten sick; Pyrrha aluded to it in the conversation a few chapters ago. They can both be present at the same time, but not without a cost.

That was a tense little moment there!

The worst part was that the blood was coming from everywhere, with no wounds, or bullet holes, or stab marks. It was coming out of her skin.

Camilla-and-Palamedes did necromancy to incapacitate the people who cornered them, and Cam's body isn't designed to take that kind of strain. Terrifying.

“Hect, you’re not listening. It’s killing him too—” “It was good,” said Camilla, and her eyes closed. “It was good. We were happy.”

For just a moment, they were together again. Oh, this pains me.

“Here’s to Camilla Hect, yet another of devotion’s casualties,” and knocked back the glass. Then she said to the light, quite gently, “No, I don’t blame you, man … He was always looking for things to throw himself on.”

Pyrrha is talking to the blue light as if it's a person...

I can't make much sense of what she's saying, though.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

John 15:23

Another John chapter, so soon?

Okay, hang on, we're looking up these bible verses now.

First John chapter (20:8):

Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.

A few things here; the disciple who had reached the tomb first - the empty tomb - seeing and believing.

John Gaius's first "disciples" were the last to see and believe?

The tomb is empty. Alecto is (sorry to homestuck reference) already here.

Anyway,

Second John chapter (5:20):

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

I can't help but be reminded that John told Harrow that he'd be honoured to have her as his daughter. He is telling her this story, in a way - he is showing her his works, and will show her even greater works, so she will be amazed.

Alternatively, he showed the living people of Earth his work (on the cryotubes) and will show them even greater work (resurrection/necromancy) so they will be amazed (undead).

Either way, this verse makes sense for this chapter.

Now, this chapter we're about to read is John 15:23:

Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.

Short and rather ominous in the TLT context.

Let's read.

By the third day everyone believed, because of my eyes. [...] The morning after the lights went out they lightened to dark amber, then they went the colour of new lager, and on the third day they were gold. [...] He said, And all around us, those corpses refused to rot.

... *sits in mildly stunned disbelief*

... at, you know, Augustine and Mercymorn not knowing that John had Lyctored with Alecto. They clearly knew him before; they saw his eyes before.

Did he lie to them about what happened? Did they actually believe him?

Below them the waters were rising, [...] The rain would turn on and off. The clouds were strange, and in the far distance, a twister danced on the neon surface of the sea.

The waters were visibly rising? The sea neon? A twister - a tornado?

Something deeply fucked up has happened here, and it's still not really been explained exactly what.

He said: I’d been sleeping in the facility already. I refused to go home. A— and M— moved in with me, and G— set up outside; he was sleeping in his ute.

Whatever is happening to John, he's willingly subjecting his friends to his presence, which seems extremely ill-advised.

I started knowing what room they’d been stashed in even if no one told me. C— said it was psychological clues in their body language, but I wasn’t convinced. I could feel them—I could feel everyone in the building—it was like having the lights turned off. [...] It wasn’t that I hadn’t been able to hear them before, but I couldn’t separate the noises. Like hearing a chord without knowing what notes go into it.

That sounds a lot like necromancy to me. Did John just kinda... spontaneously develop necromancy as a mutation after being exposed to a bunch of radiation? As good a theory as any, at this point.

So I brought them into the room with the bodies and I was all, Let me introduce you to … Ulysses. Let me introduce you to … Titania.

... Hang on hang on those names sound familiar.

!!!!

Ulysses the First Titania Tetra, his cavalier SIXTH SAINT TO SERVE THE KING UNDYING

From Harrow the Ninth's Dramatis Personae.

These kids became a Lyctor.

He said, Well. When I said, Ulysses, I moved each of his fingers and his thumb into a fist, curled them into the palm. And when I said, This is Titania, same thing, I placed each of her fingers and her thumb into a fist. And I was laughing and laughing like I’d kicked out a chair before someone sat down. Like, good joke. But M— threw up. “Because, Harrow, I’d done it from the other side of the room.”

Puppeting the bodies -

Just like Harrow did her parents, just like Cytherea did Protesilaus.

This has extremely disturbing implications about humans post-Resurrection; are they really all just puppeted by John?

No, there must be more to this.

I wanna know more.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

8

Third skull - Ooooooohhh are we gonna see some of Ianthe or Coronabeth?? I really hope so. I didn't think I'd say this but I miss them! Especially Coronabeth, but even Ianthe.

When you’re out there today, I want you to pretend to do something.” “Okay. What?” “I want you to pretend you’ve got a radio,” said Hot Sauce, “and you’re making a call.”

Ohhhh, a challenge, presumably to see if they can find out anything more about the mysterious stranger who's been watching them.

Then Nona tried to put the shoes on Noodle. It was by far the most difficult thing she had ever attempted. It would have been easier to do the weird bone things that Camilla and Palamedes loved her to attempt. Noodle didn’t want to have his pattens put on.

Having attempted to put harnesses and tiny clothes on my cats, I know the struggle.

This is so precious.

“How are you, Crown? Things are fine over here. I wish you were around more. [...] You don’t have to bring me a present, but please wear your hair down. Anyway, I love you, so, bye.”

This explains the Third skull; Nona is pretending to call Coronabeth.

Also, she's so gay for her. (Who isn't? It's Coronabeth.) It's adorable.

And... nothing happens, and that's it. A very short chapter! I've come to expect longer chapters.

Oh well!

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

@stranded-cryptid As of the end of HtN, we don't actually know that much about either of them, and they are described in kinda similar ways. Cristabel was kind - but Augustine describes her as a "fanatic", and stupid, and a bad influence on his brother. She did something he found unforgiveable, that is not any more clearly defined. We know very little about her.

I've gone into more detail about what we know about Alecto here. In summary; she is only described as a "monster" post-resurrection, as far as I can tell, she is described as honest to a fault, sweet, and a bit stupid.

I don't consider Cristabel as relevant to the current Nona (as opposed to John) plot. I do however know that Alecto is absolutely relevant here, and that she did take up residence in Harrow's body. Hence my conclusion that Nona is Alecto.

@jods-duplicitous-sluts Yeah okay, but the chapter isn't written in Latin. I'm gonna continue assuming that this chapter was cut off in some way, just like the poem/prologue at the very start.

John 5:20

That's a different number to the one we had before. Which one was it before?

John's first chapter was 20:8. Are the numbers an indication of time? In which case, it is likely that this chapter refers to events happening even further in the past.

He sat down on a patch of brown grass and laughed a little, and said, “Beloved, it wouldn’t be over—it wouldn’t begin—for a year.” He said: It was the thin end of the wedge. He said that official paperwork claimed they’d decided to pull back and think things through again, but he’d always known they’d reinvested in something else, he just didn’t know what. He said when the leak happened everyone suddenly knew everything, their project was all over the news, everyone had a fucking opinion.

Yeah, in terms of timing, this is before the resurrection, regarding the ending of the project they'd been working on. The one where they tried to get everyone out.

It really sounds like John wasn't the one to kill everyone, rather - he was working on a way to save everyone, but it was the rich fuckers who cut the funding before they managed to save people.

C— was panicking because with the project over she was getting recalled to England and didn’t want to go, she’d got N— and didn’t want to leave her, refused to admit they were dating even though we all knew.

C was Cassiopeia, then, based on this, with N being Nigella, her cavalier. And partner.

He said, It was the last one that was getting to me. I knew all those bodies by name. Funny to say, but they were my mates, you know? I’d worked on them for such a long time, and they’d given us so much, and now they were going to get dumped in some concrete skip because after what we’d done to them they couldn’t be cremated or buried safely. I hated that.

Um

Yikes????

Did John know them when they were alive? Was he working with their bodies only, or with their revenants as well? Clearly he was conducting some kind of necromancy-resurrection research, and it did something to the bodies.

What the fuck did you do to the bodies, John?

Oh no but he felt bad about it and he knew them by name and they were his mates and that means it was ok for him to experiment on their bodies - but not burying or cremating the bodies, now THAT would be going too far.

Fucked up little man.

we had a pet cop, P—. She’d made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD. Knew G— from way back, and G— and I were both hometown boys, so P— kept the heat down for us.

Pyrrha was a cop? Makes sense, I guess. And she'd been friends with Gideon for a really long time.

M— and A— could’ve walked into new jobs in a heartbeat but I was irradiated, I’d never work in the industry again. I sure as hell wouldn’t be allowed to work on anything else to do with you.

The word "irradiated" catches my attention here - metaphorically, the public "needed someone to blame" and John might have been the most high-profile person involved with this project - but, really, I think he's being quite literal here.

His research was quite literally radioactive.

And the last bit here implies that he was working on resurrection only to save Alecto. There was mention of cryotubes before - the other project, the one to save everyone else, wasn't a resurrection project, it was a preservation of life project. Maybe similar methods were used but ultimately for different goals.

Interesting.

but it was like the crisis had been announced all over again. Like you’d sprung this on us out of nowhere, like you’d never said you were sick. [...] It was about giving you breathing room, you know? I knew I wouldn’t live to see you get well, but I wanted to stop you hurting.

Let's backtrack a second here. This here highly implies that the imminent crisis was not just caused by Alecto, but caused - or exacerbated - by Alecto being sick.

That shows everything in a slightly different light, huh? John wasn't just selfishly wanting Alecto to be well because he loved her, and damn everyone else - Alecto's presence, or her sickness, was imminently threatening humanity.

Wow.

Before I started reading this book, I had some theories about who - or what - Alecto was. Let's revisit for a second.

She could have been an alien, or a genetically modified human; this whole thing seems to suggest a volatile, radioactive nature about her, as if she'd been made only from radioactive isotopes of the atoms that make up a human body. The idea creeps me the fuck out. This, here, suggests that her fate was inextricably tied to humanity's as a whole, which suggests more than just a radioactive body.

She was definitely an experimental subject, that one is very clear now.

Augustine calls Alecto a "monster" only after her resurrection. Her pre-rez personality is... honest to a fault, sweet, a little bit stupid.

And that REALLY sounds like someone we've been following in this book so far. Until further notice, we're going with Nona Is Alecto (minus memories) theory. She's dreaming her memories.

Sorry, almost forgot we were still reading a chapter here with all the theorycrafting. This one has been extremely interesting and illuminating so far.

But I wasn’t taking anything. I was sleeping like a baby. I was looking at those guys on the slab and something in me was like, I know you, I know this. He said, Told M— that. Huge mistake. She was like, Oh my God, you’re drinking, aren’t you. You’re on amphetamines. You are on coke. You are on amphetamines and coke. I was all, Yeah … Coke Zero. She didn’t laugh. I laughed. He said, I guess I’ve always thought any pun was automatically funny.

Sorry Mercymorn, but that IS funny.

Mentions of a "canister" and a "mixture". John kept working on the cryo-experiment which was tangled up with the saving-Alecto experiment.

“Most of the bodies got the melt, like we thought they would,” he said. “Damaged beyond repair. Their brains liquefied almost immediately. But, Harrow … all the ones I touched, all the ones I loved … they stayed incorrupti

Aha-!

Another dead-cut off chapter, just like the poem in the prologue.

Another clue.

Interesting that he says their brains liquefied - not their entire bodies; it was an experiment very much focused on the brains. Lends credibility to my brains-as-river theory.

John hadn't done anything special at this point - other than research. And being, ah, irradiated.

Maybe not actually just nuclear radiation. Some kind of necromantic radiation. And touching the bodies, or being near them, somehow spared them from degrading instantly once their power was shut off.

Also - he's clearly talking to Alecto as you here; he's recollecting memories that include Alecto, and yet he addresses her as Harrowhark. And he's telling the story, she's not just reliving memories.

Alecto-as-Nona is super far away from John right now, as far as we know - unless John is emitting the blue light, but his presence doesn't normally hurt necromancers; it's far more likely that the blue light is a Resurrection Beast, or related to one at least. (Mercymorn described the RB attacking the Mithraeum as "Blue like Loveday's eyes"...)

Does he have a psychic connection to Alecto? Does he address her as Harrow because she looks like Harrow? In order to not invoke her name? Is this real? Is it a memory?

All of this is extremely curious, cannot wait to read more.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

It didn't sound like John's project was a bomb or necromancy in the first John chapter. What was described there made it sound like they were working on creating pods able to put a person in cryogenic sleep

Apologies for the late reply!

Yeah no absolutely, but they were working on the cryogenic sleep project BECAUSE of what was happening with Alecto, which was some kind of bomb-nuclear-necromancy explosion waiting to happen, by the sounds of the 2nd John chapter. The two were separate, but absolutely related.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

@alextarg Interesting question! So the way I see it there's actually a few different explanations for this.

Explanation 1: Gideon the Ninth is written from Gideon's perspective; she's not particularly reliable nor particularly observant, and the necromancers tell her jack shit. It's very possible that the necros in Canaan House did detect the murders and just... didn't tell her.

Explanation 2: The Blood of Eden have incomplete or inaccurate information. This is confirmed in a few different places throughout the books and appendices, so they might be having their own theories about necro "death-sense" which are flawed. I assume it is the thanergy bloom caused by death that BoE are referring to here; which will give necromancers extra power and will be detectable by them, but it's kinda unclear how accurate this sense actually is.

Explanation 3: I'm just thinking about how the deaths in Canaan House went down. Abigail and Magnus were killed not long before Harrow, Gideon and Cytherea were about to be in the area anyway. There doesn't seem to be any mention of how the others knew they'd been killed; just that they all appeared there shortly afterwards. Jeanne and Isaac were both killed in Gideon's view. After this, it got really messy and chaotic. We don't know for sure the necromancers didn't detect any of these deaths. But also, with how impossible Abigail and Magnus were to resurrect, it's possible that whatever Cytherea did to them just extinguished their thanergy, kinda like how Gideon the First did with Harrow when he tried to kill her in HtN; thus stifling the thanergy bloom and making the deaths harder to detect.

So, in conclusion; it's not clear, but there are a number of explanations why this isn't explicitly said in GtN.

Harrow the Ninth: Appendices

Glossary

I don't actually have much to say about the Glossary here, except for remarking on this one sentence in the entry for the Blood of Eden:

On Wake's death, Blood of Eden withdrew somewhat out of the eye of the Houses to regroup, but were enlivened by the reappearance of their legendary commander in the form of a revenant.

It's news to me that Wake was a revenant! Revenants, if I followed the lore correctly (rudely, there isn't a Glossary entry for them here or in GtN), exist when planets are killed (or resurrected - as the Resurrection Beasts are revenants). Is Wake's form as The Sleeper a revenant, and could she possess Cytherea's body as a revenant? This might be the first mention or inkling that people can become revenants as well.

(Hang on, I have to look something up -)

Ah, here it is, right at the beginning of the book:

"What happens to the soul?" "In the case of gradual death [...] transition is automatc and straightforward. [...] In cases of apopneumatic shock, where death is sudden and violent, the energy burst can be sufficient to countermand osmotic pressure and leave the soul temporarily isolated. Whence we gain the ghost, and the revenant."

This was early enough in Harrow the Ninth that I didn't pay much attention to it, I didn't know what it meant, but I remembered revenants coming up in this conversation. Though the mention I remembered was a little later:

"[...]when a soul is so rudely taken away from the planet--" [...] "A revenant," you said. "Always a revenant," he said. "Every single time, a goddamned revenant."

So I remembered revenants in the context of planets and resurrection beasts, but not people. But people very much can have revenants, and that's what was going on with Wake. Interesting!! Something to look out for for the reread.

Let's move on.

Blood of Eden Memorandum for Record

Oooohh, a look into some of the inner workings of Blood of Eden: The underlying ideology, strategies and plans of this group of rebel insurgents. Should be a fun read!

Your first tactical consideration should always be to identify present necromancers with the highest achievable degree of certainty.

Sounds easy, is anything but; the section directly after this goes into dispelling a bunch of myths regarding necromancers.

I'd look for someone who is physically small, unimposing, even weak or easily overlooked; possibly someone who is with a cavalier (armed, physically larger and stronger). This is by no means a fool-proof method, though.

Necromancers cannot "resurrect" the dead, [...] They often can animate human corpses--whether recent or heavily decayed--and use them as puppets [...] if a comrade is killed in battle, and their body is later seen walking around, they are not "alive." [...] They cannot be salvaged; they can only been avenged.

Well, when you put it like that, necromancy does sound like an absolutely horrifying craft which needs to be opposed at all costs. Yikes.

The offensive technique most commonly attributed to necromancers in popular anecdote - the so-called "death ray" - appears to be complete fiction.

This made me laugh. Though the idea is terrifying, it seems like the idea of necromancers has been rather elevated and twisted in popular culture. This is most likely to be common on occupied planets, where necromancers can't access thanergy and therefore don't have their full powers - and therefore presumably just don't go there very much.

Oh -

Necromancers seemingly do, however, gain energy from proximity to violent death. Although this is a disgusting notion, intelligence sources and tactical analysis make clear that a major House strategy involves trying to inflict multiple ground casualties as quickly as possible at the beginning of an engagement, in order to give any necromancers present a "boost" in their abilities.

Makes sense - if a planet lacks thalergy, just make some.

The actual mechanics of this process are still very poorly understood, and investigating them remains a strategic priority.

It didn't occur to Wake to ask her Lyctor friends about this? They should be able to explain at least the basics of this just fine.

If a necromancer happens to be in the next room - even if it cannot see, hear or in any way perceive your presence - it will immediately know that its minion has been killed, and how. Even if you conceal yourself or leave the room, it will still somehow know where you are.

The use of the "it" pronoun here is chilling. Clearly, necromancers are not quite seen as humans by the Blood of Eden. The act of necromancy - even the aptitude for necromancy - depersons them in the insurgents' eyes. (At least some of them - assuming that this was a collaborative effort - in the next bullet point, necromancers are referred to with singular they.)

Like, I can see why you'd want to deperson them in this way, given how they see necromancy. But hey, necromancers are people too.

Anyway, what they're describing here is definitely scary, especially from a recon/assassination attempt perspective. How the fuck do you even.

Ah yes, by killing the necromancer(s) first, if you can, or just avoiding engagement if you can't.

It would be dangerous to end this memorandum without mentioning the Emperor's most powerful servants, the so-called "Lyctors". Where these creatures are concerned, no normal rules of engagement apply. Avoid them at all costs.

This memorandum was likely written before Commander Wake's time, if they know so little about necromantic theory and caution to avoid Lyctors at all costs. I kinda really want to know how the collaboration between Wake and Augustine and Mercymorn kicked off - did she seek them out? Or did they look for her? She was driven by the desire to find a way to kill the Emperor, and with him the Empire - the Lyctors were driven by the desire to find out what had happened to Alecto, and what was in the Locked Tomb. And they were willing to sacrifice an entire Empire for it.

Which also, still doesn't explain the affair between Wake and Gideon the First/Pyrrha.

This concludes today's liveblog session - we will be back tomorrow hopefully, with As Yet Unsent!!

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

I've explained it in more detail here!

The basic idea is that brains are made of River, and the River is made of brains. I thought of this as minds and brains and souls seem to be treated as more or less the same thing in these books.

I haven't engaged with the fandom a ton in order to avoid spoilers so I don't know what the fandom consensus is. I'm excited to find out once I've finished Nona!

(Could take a while going at my current pace, but that's okay)

John 5:20

That's a different number to the one we had before. Which one was it before?

John's first chapter was 20:8. Are the numbers an indication of time? In which case, it is likely that this chapter refers to events happening even further in the past.

He sat down on a patch of brown grass and laughed a little, and said, “Beloved, it wouldn’t be over—it wouldn’t begin—for a year.” He said: It was the thin end of the wedge. He said that official paperwork claimed they’d decided to pull back and think things through again, but he’d always known they’d reinvested in something else, he just didn’t know what. He said when the leak happened everyone suddenly knew everything, their project was all over the news, everyone had a fucking opinion.

Yeah, in terms of timing, this is before the resurrection, regarding the ending of the project they'd been working on. The one where they tried to get everyone out.

It really sounds like John wasn't the one to kill everyone, rather - he was working on a way to save everyone, but it was the rich fuckers who cut the funding before they managed to save people.

C— was panicking because with the project over she was getting recalled to England and didn’t want to go, she’d got N— and didn’t want to leave her, refused to admit they were dating even though we all knew.

C was Cassiopeia, then, based on this, with N being Nigella, her cavalier. And partner.

He said, It was the last one that was getting to me. I knew all those bodies by name. Funny to say, but they were my mates, you know? I’d worked on them for such a long time, and they’d given us so much, and now they were going to get dumped in some concrete skip because after what we’d done to them they couldn’t be cremated or buried safely. I hated that.

Um

Yikes????

Did John know them when they were alive? Was he working with their bodies only, or with their revenants as well? Clearly he was conducting some kind of necromancy-resurrection research, and it did something to the bodies.

What the fuck did you do to the bodies, John?

Oh no but he felt bad about it and he knew them by name and they were his mates and that means it was ok for him to experiment on their bodies - but not burying or cremating the bodies, now THAT would be going too far.

Fucked up little man.

we had a pet cop, P—. She’d made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD. Knew G— from way back, and G— and I were both hometown boys, so P— kept the heat down for us.

Pyrrha was a cop? Makes sense, I guess. And she'd been friends with Gideon for a really long time.

M— and A— could’ve walked into new jobs in a heartbeat but I was irradiated, I’d never work in the industry again. I sure as hell wouldn’t be allowed to work on anything else to do with you.

The word "irradiated" catches my attention here - metaphorically, the public "needed someone to blame" and John might have been the most high-profile person involved with this project - but, really, I think he's being quite literal here.

His research was quite literally radioactive.

And the last bit here implies that he was working on resurrection only to save Alecto. There was mention of cryotubes before - the other project, the one to save everyone else, wasn't a resurrection project, it was a preservation of life project. Maybe similar methods were used but ultimately for different goals.

Interesting.

but it was like the crisis had been announced all over again. Like you’d sprung this on us out of nowhere, like you’d never said you were sick. [...] It was about giving you breathing room, you know? I knew I wouldn’t live to see you get well, but I wanted to stop you hurting.

Let's backtrack a second here. This here highly implies that the imminent crisis was not just caused by Alecto, but caused - or exacerbated - by Alecto being sick.

That shows everything in a slightly different light, huh? John wasn't just selfishly wanting Alecto to be well because he loved her, and damn everyone else - Alecto's presence, or her sickness, was imminently threatening humanity.

Wow.

Before I started reading this book, I had some theories about who - or what - Alecto was. Let's revisit for a second.

She could have been an alien, or a genetically modified human; this whole thing seems to suggest a volatile, radioactive nature about her, as if she'd been made only from radioactive isotopes of the atoms that make up a human body. The idea creeps me the fuck out. This, here, suggests that her fate was inextricably tied to humanity's as a whole, which suggests more than just a radioactive body.

She was definitely an experimental subject, that one is very clear now.

Augustine calls Alecto a "monster" only after her resurrection. Her pre-rez personality is... honest to a fault, sweet, a little bit stupid.

And that REALLY sounds like someone we've been following in this book so far. Until further notice, we're going with Nona Is Alecto (minus memories) theory. She's dreaming her memories.

Sorry, almost forgot we were still reading a chapter here with all the theorycrafting. This one has been extremely interesting and illuminating so far.

But I wasn’t taking anything. I was sleeping like a baby. I was looking at those guys on the slab and something in me was like, I know you, I know this. He said, Told M— that. Huge mistake. She was like, Oh my God, you’re drinking, aren’t you. You’re on amphetamines. You are on coke. You are on amphetamines and coke. I was all, Yeah … Coke Zero. She didn’t laugh. I laughed. He said, I guess I’ve always thought any pun was automatically funny.

Sorry Mercymorn, but that IS funny.

Mentions of a "canister" and a "mixture". John kept working on the cryo-experiment which was tangled up with the saving-Alecto experiment.

“Most of the bodies got the melt, like we thought they would,” he said. “Damaged beyond repair. Their brains liquefied almost immediately. But, Harrow … all the ones I touched, all the ones I loved … they stayed incorrupti

Aha-!

Another dead-cut off chapter, just like the poem in the prologue.

Another clue.

Interesting that he says their brains liquefied - not their entire bodies; it was an experiment very much focused on the brains. Lends credibility to my brains-as-river theory.

John hadn't done anything special at this point - other than research. And being, ah, irradiated.

Maybe not actually just nuclear radiation. Some kind of necromantic radiation. And touching the bodies, or being near them, somehow spared them from degrading instantly once their power was shut off.

Also - he's clearly talking to Alecto as you here; he's recollecting memories that include Alecto, and yet he addresses her as Harrowhark. And he's telling the story, she's not just reliving memories.

Alecto-as-Nona is super far away from John right now, as far as we know - unless John is emitting the blue light, but his presence doesn't normally hurt necromancers; it's far more likely that the blue light is a Resurrection Beast, or related to one at least. (Mercymorn described the RB attacking the Mithraeum as "Blue like Loveday's eyes"...)

Does he have a psychic connection to Alecto? Does he address her as Harrow because she looks like Harrow? In order to not invoke her name? Is this real? Is it a memory?

All of this is extremely curious, cannot wait to read more.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Day Two

Mush For Breakfast—Honesty’s Job Goes Terribly Wrong—The City Has A Worse Day—Camilla-And-Palamedes—“Keep Her Home Tonight”—Four Days Until The Tomb Opens.

Four days.

Starting to understand the format of this book: A "dream" about John, about Alecto, followed by a Day in Nona's life. Who's keeping track? Who knows when the tomb opens?

...Pyrrha?

Either that, or Nona is being watched by someone else.

Either way; One day down, four more to go. Let's get started.

7

Second skull. (Judith? The Cohort?)

Nona’s dream cut off abruptly. [...] “It’s the sitting part. My feet are in the nice water, the safe water. The water’s in my boots. My socks are full of it. I’m talking to her but I can’t see her face. I tried to, Cam, but it’s what always happens, I don’t manage to look at it, it just doesn’t work.”

Nona isn't dreaming about John; she's dreaming about someone else. The picture face, she called it the day before; we still don't know whose picture, do we?

“I’m touching her hands. She’s touching my hands. But in the dream it’s always my hands, remember, Cam, I’m touching my own hands but they’re not mine.”

I'm counting this as evidence that Nona is Alecto. Her hands but her hands are Nona's, she is Nona.

“There’s eyes all around us, red eyes. In the darkness. I remember this time, they’re red.” “Do you have any thoughts?” “Yes,” said Nona. “I’m hungry. In the dream. Really hungry.” The pencil stilled. “You’re hungry?” “I’m so hungry,” said Nona.

Welp, this isn't alarming or ominous at all. Red eyes? So hungry?

“Who do they feel like they belong to? Do you like them?” Nona chortled. “Not one bit.” Nona hated having hands.

That's interesting. Nona loves every part of her body. But not her hands? Or at least, not the hands in her dream?

I really wanna know more about this.

“Pyrrha—why does We Suffer hate you?” “Because I remind her that her God was just a human being who could get tired and fuck up,” said Pyrrha instantly. That was the wonderful thing about Pyrrha: she didn’t waste time saying things like “What made you think of that?” or “Why?” She went ahead and answered. In a way though, it was also a bad thing about Pyrrha, because she lied and told the truth at exactly equal top speeds.

So Pyrrha does lie, and could be lying about any number of things, including this.

Interesting that We Suffer considers Wake her God. I assume that's what this means.

“If you’re that charming,” said Nona, “how come you’re single?”

Oooooohhhhhh, sick burn. Careful Nona. Though if I were to guess, I'd say the answer is "because she's busy keeping you safe, Nona".

Pyrrha had used to be like Camilla and Palamedes and now her equivalent of Palamedes was gone—really dead—killed by a terrible monster that nobody would describe to her.

Yeah no it seems basically impossible to even describe the resurrection beasts. And also, yeah Gideon is dead - but that's most likely only part of why Pyrrha is heartbroken. She's lost all her old friends - all the first Lyctors are dead! - she's lost her necromancer, she's lost Wake as well, who she had a passionate affair with. Pyrrha is unspeakably old and everyone she used to know is dead. She must be so lonely.

“Who, and whyfor, did you bribe?” “Some guys. Site C,” said Pyrrha succinctly. “For God’s sake, Pyrrha, if it’s that hard to access I’ll swap you Site B, Cam and I have ways and means of accessing—” “I would pay any amount of money to stop you taking that risk you take,” said Pyrrha,

Palamedes and Pyrrha bickering is almost cute. But also what the fuck are they investigating? And why won't they tell Nona anything?

Oh -!!! They're talking about some kind of trial, which makes it very likely that Pyrrha helped Camilla and Palamedes achieve Lyctorhood. And they can both be present at the same time, only it puts a massive amount of strain on Camilla's body. Interesting.

“What d’you want from the cheap-jacks, No-No?” “Oh, nothing—except it is my six-monther soon,” she reminded Pyrrha. Camilla said, “You can get a present once it’s been a year.”

Is this what we're leading up to? Nona's six-month anniversary of being alive? Is this what her "birthday" is going to be?

I was wondering about that, and about how they'd know it was her birthday if she wasn't remembering anything, so that might explain it.

But Pyrrha said, “God, you think she’s ever gotten presents? I visited her hometown back before Anastasia got settled, and it was grim as fuck then. Just spooky caves all the way down…”

Damn, good point. I think the closest to a present Gideon ever got was that two-hander - and Harrow, that lollipop when she was like three. Fuck man, these girls have led extremely depressing lives so far.

Nona goes to school, Honesty has a black eye, and when he tells the story of what happened -

“Said the eyes was all white. But he said he was moving quietly, real quietly, and these guys—they’re all just sitting around—they all look up … they all look at him … with these white-out eyes … they all look up at the same time. They look at him. He kept saying that,” he said suddenly, breaking off. He said, “Kept saying, they saw me, they saw me, oh my God.”

What the fuuuuuuuck. Who are those guys? Eyeless creeps? Necromantic puppets? Pupilless necromancers? Victims of some kind? More experiments?

But then … then the driver said we were being followed … and the guy goes crazy sobbing and apologising, saying he fucked up, he got us in trouble, and then one of the old chicks is like, get the kid out, and … and they stop the car and there’s another two big trucks pulling up behind us, militia trucks with guys, and…”

Militia trucks? Jeeeeeeeeeez...

“I know what it was. I hang out with you lot. I know the deal. Nobody ever asks poor old Honesty … Honesty could’ve told him not to try and knock off the goddamned Convoy.”

The CONVOY????

The Convoy was mentioned in one of the previous chapters - the rumbling, earthquake-like transport that nobody quite knew what it was.

THIS is what it is????

I have so many questions but mostly I'm just fucking baffled that the petty criminals Honesty was working with don't know about the Convoy. It must be somewhat common knowledge where they live, right?

Right?

... Yikes.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Hi, really love the live blogs, seeing your speculation as you go along is really fun! Just wanted to note that the titles of the John chapters are actually notations for sections from the Bible, not timestamps! It's not really a spoiler, and the passages referenced usually only have a passing relation to the content of the chapter (with a few exceptions). They're mostly there to fit a cipher whose result is also fairly cryptic but will not be included here.

Oh cool that makes a lot of sense, i don't know why i dismissed the idea that it could be bible verses!

Maybe I'll incorporate the verse into future liveblogs :3

Thank you!!

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

John 5:20

That's a different number to the one we had before. Which one was it before?

John's first chapter was 20:8. Are the numbers an indication of time? In which case, it is likely that this chapter refers to events happening even further in the past.

He sat down on a patch of brown grass and laughed a little, and said, “Beloved, it wouldn’t be over—it wouldn’t begin—for a year.” He said: It was the thin end of the wedge. He said that official paperwork claimed they’d decided to pull back and think things through again, but he’d always known they’d reinvested in something else, he just didn’t know what. He said when the leak happened everyone suddenly knew everything, their project was all over the news, everyone had a fucking opinion.

Yeah, in terms of timing, this is before the resurrection, regarding the ending of the project they'd been working on. The one where they tried to get everyone out.

It really sounds like John wasn't the one to kill everyone, rather - he was working on a way to save everyone, but it was the rich fuckers who cut the funding before they managed to save people.

C— was panicking because with the project over she was getting recalled to England and didn’t want to go, she’d got N— and didn’t want to leave her, refused to admit they were dating even though we all knew.

C was Cassiopeia, then, based on this, with N being Nigella, her cavalier. And partner.

He said, It was the last one that was getting to me. I knew all those bodies by name. Funny to say, but they were my mates, you know? I’d worked on them for such a long time, and they’d given us so much, and now they were going to get dumped in some concrete skip because after what we’d done to them they couldn’t be cremated or buried safely. I hated that.

Um

Yikes????

Did John know them when they were alive? Was he working with their bodies only, or with their revenants as well? Clearly he was conducting some kind of necromancy-resurrection research, and it did something to the bodies.

What the fuck did you do to the bodies, John?

Oh no but he felt bad about it and he knew them by name and they were his mates and that means it was ok for him to experiment on their bodies - but not burying or cremating the bodies, now THAT would be going too far.

Fucked up little man.

we had a pet cop, P—. She’d made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD. Knew G— from way back, and G— and I were both hometown boys, so P— kept the heat down for us.

Pyrrha was a cop? Makes sense, I guess. And she'd been friends with Gideon for a really long time.

M— and A— could’ve walked into new jobs in a heartbeat but I was irradiated, I’d never work in the industry again. I sure as hell wouldn’t be allowed to work on anything else to do with you.

The word "irradiated" catches my attention here - metaphorically, the public "needed someone to blame" and John might have been the most high-profile person involved with this project - but, really, I think he's being quite literal here.

His research was quite literally radioactive.

And the last bit here implies that he was working on resurrection only to save Alecto. There was mention of cryotubes before - the other project, the one to save everyone else, wasn't a resurrection project, it was a preservation of life project. Maybe similar methods were used but ultimately for different goals.

Interesting.

but it was like the crisis had been announced all over again. Like you’d sprung this on us out of nowhere, like you’d never said you were sick. [...] It was about giving you breathing room, you know? I knew I wouldn’t live to see you get well, but I wanted to stop you hurting.

Let's backtrack a second here. This here highly implies that the imminent crisis was not just caused by Alecto, but caused - or exacerbated - by Alecto being sick.

That shows everything in a slightly different light, huh? John wasn't just selfishly wanting Alecto to be well because he loved her, and damn everyone else - Alecto's presence, or her sickness, was imminently threatening humanity.

Wow.

Before I started reading this book, I had some theories about who - or what - Alecto was. Let's revisit for a second.

She could have been an alien, or a genetically modified human; this whole thing seems to suggest a volatile, radioactive nature about her, as if she'd been made only from radioactive isotopes of the atoms that make up a human body. The idea creeps me the fuck out. This, here, suggests that her fate was inextricably tied to humanity's as a whole, which suggests more than just a radioactive body.

She was definitely an experimental subject, that one is very clear now.

Augustine calls Alecto a "monster" only after her resurrection. Her pre-rez personality is... honest to a fault, sweet, a little bit stupid.

And that REALLY sounds like someone we've been following in this book so far. Until further notice, we're going with Nona Is Alecto (minus memories) theory. She's dreaming her memories.

Sorry, almost forgot we were still reading a chapter here with all the theorycrafting. This one has been extremely interesting and illuminating so far.

But I wasn’t taking anything. I was sleeping like a baby. I was looking at those guys on the slab and something in me was like, I know you, I know this. He said, Told M— that. Huge mistake. She was like, Oh my God, you’re drinking, aren’t you. You’re on amphetamines. You are on coke. You are on amphetamines and coke. I was all, Yeah … Coke Zero. She didn’t laugh. I laughed. He said, I guess I’ve always thought any pun was automatically funny.

Sorry Mercymorn, but that IS funny.

Mentions of a "canister" and a "mixture". John kept working on the cryo-experiment which was tangled up with the saving-Alecto experiment.

“Most of the bodies got the melt, like we thought they would,” he said. “Damaged beyond repair. Their brains liquefied almost immediately. But, Harrow … all the ones I touched, all the ones I loved … they stayed incorrupti

Aha-!

Another dead-cut off chapter, just like the poem in the prologue.

Another clue.

Interesting that he says their brains liquefied - not their entire bodies; it was an experiment very much focused on the brains. Lends credibility to my brains-as-river theory.

John hadn't done anything special at this point - other than research. And being, ah, irradiated.

Maybe not actually just nuclear radiation. Some kind of necromantic radiation. And touching the bodies, or being near them, somehow spared them from degrading instantly once their power was shut off.

Also - he's clearly talking to Alecto as you here; he's recollecting memories that include Alecto, and yet he addresses her as Harrowhark. And he's telling the story, she's not just reliving memories.

Alecto-as-Nona is super far away from John right now, as far as we know - unless John is emitting the blue light, but his presence doesn't normally hurt necromancers; it's far more likely that the blue light is a Resurrection Beast, or related to one at least. (Mercymorn described the RB attacking the Mithraeum as "Blue like Loveday's eyes"...)

Does he have a psychic connection to Alecto? Does he address her as Harrow because she looks like Harrow? In order to not invoke her name? Is this real? Is it a memory?

All of this is extremely curious, cannot wait to read more.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

6

Sixth skull! Ohh, we might be digging deeper into Cam and/or Pal.

She said she didn’t mind what happened so long as Pyrrha got paid, because she wanted a birthday present. Then they chucked her beneath the chin and laughed a lot and Nona didn’t know why, because she had been perfectly sincere.

Had to look up the unfamiliar idiom (chuck under the chin) and I think it means that what they're trying to say is "what are you, five".

And of course Nona was perfectly sincere. Does she even know how not to be? I love her so much.

Nobody in real life would ever have the problems those people in the paper had, and the suggestions were even worse.

Nobody in your life, maybe.

Nona thought about it. “Tell me the story about how you met me again. Neither you nor Palamedes have told me that one in ages.”

Oh hell yes.

You’d disappeared. We’d been trying to get you. We found you and Pyrrha. You were hurt. Pyrrha helped us escape from an attack. We lost people. Ships. Something very important.

Did they lose Gideon's body in the attack? Did they get separated from Corona abd Judith there? But they are (presumably) still in touch, so it might have been Blood of Eden people we don't know who died, were "lost".

… back then We Suffer trusted us. We Suffer even let Pyrrha live. Pyrrha talked fast. Then I found a way for the Warden to come back.

Please say more, Camilla. I want to know how you did it!!!

You were waking up. You met me for the first time.” Nona said, “What did you think of me?” knowing the answer. “I thought I didn’t know you at all. You were new.” Nona always loved this answer unreasonably; the idea that that was when Camilla met her, that was her birth.

Camilla spent a lot of time with Harrow and Gideon. She knew Harrow became a Lyctor. She looked at Nona and immediately knew: This wasn't one of those two.

I love this answer as well, for slightly different reasons to Nona; I just love the idea that Camilla knew Harrow and Gideon both so well that she could instantly tell Nona wasn't them.

I mean, in fairness, it is pretty obvious. Neither Gideon nor Harrow could ever be sincere like Nona or show love like Nona.

“I don’t understand why We Suffer hates Pyrrha.” “Pyrrha’s best friend killed We Suffer’s boss.”

Hang on a minute -

Wake died three times. The first time, trying to deliver baby Gideon to the Ninth. The second time, her revenant was defeated by Harrow and friends in the River (or perhaps just fled). And finally, at the hands of Pyrrha herself, as she blew Cytherea's brains out while Wake was in there.

So they must be referring to the first time here - Gideon the First was on Wake's trail when she was on her way to the Ninth. That was when Wake's body died, at least.

Or did Pyrrha lie when she told people who killed Wake's revenant? She was in Gideon's body. It was definitely Pyrrha - she hid her eyes before killing Cytherea!Wake.

I reckon they're referring to Wake's body's death here. But Pyrrha could easily have lied about this, just to save her own ass. Blood of Eden would not have taken kindly to knowing, and they could torture this info out of Camilla/Palamedes. If Gideon the First killed Wake once, it wouldn't be implausible that he'd kill her again.

Sometimes it was hard not to be happy; sometimes it was so difficult when everyone else had that hard, hurt look at the corners of their eyes that meant they didn’t quite know how to carry on: the men at the dairy, Pyrrha, Palamedes, the nice lady teacher at school, Kevin.

Oh no, oh no. Even Kevin? Little Kevin, the youngest of Nona's school friends? Seven year old baby Kevin?

Man, everyone here has seen some shit, huh.

At least Nona is happy.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

5

Ninth skull.

As they went out of the school building Nona looked quickly in the alleyway for the person she’d seen in the coat and mask, but they were gone, which meant either they really had been alive or someone else had gotten to them already.

I doubt they were dead.

Maybe they were connected to the person Hot Sauce caught watching them?

Palamedes liked to ask probing questions about exactly what the teacher was teaching, and to say things like “My God, that’s how they teach mathematics?” and cluck Cam’s tongue in a way that was impossible to answer.

Why are you an old man, Palamedes? (Same, though. I'd be the same.)

Nona had decided that she was fine with having eaten fruit, but not with eating fruit; but she was too cheerful to disappoint Camilla, so they both ate slices of sweating orange melon

God I hate those melons. The texture and taste combination is just so yuck. I'm really picky with what fruit I'll eat so I totally understand Nona here.

“I love Crown,” Nona protested, giving the smallest bone a desultory grope. “Why do you love Crown?” Nona thought about it. “She has lovely hair. And when she hugs you she smells like cinnamon, and her breasts feel nice, and she’s so big and pretty.” [...] “That’s not exactly love as I would classify it,” he said. “That’s simply a list of things most red-blooded human beings like about Crown. How do you know what cinnamon smells like, Nona?” “Oh, I don’t know. I just do. Is your timer on?”

Crown... someone from BoE?

Hang on. This could be Coronabeth. Corona means crown. The description fits.

The "Guest List" at the start has Crown as "Crown Him With Many Crowns" - under Blood of Eden, which could mean Coronabeth fully went over to their side (if she wasn't already from the very start) and took on a BoE name.

But she "isn't our friend right now". Ominous.

Why don’t you pick out the piece of bone you like best, and tell me about it?” She looked at them all: there were long treelike pieces with branches coming off them, and little wedged pieces and a long smooth piece with a jaggedy end

Anatomy nerd getting stuck on this: No bones in the human body look like trees, with branches coming off them. Not a one. It could be antlers, or bones that have had necromancy performed on them, but these are not natural human bones.

“Do we still like the Captain?” (Even Nona couldn’t quite love the Captain.) “I pity the Captain to the very depths of my heart, and never did like her much,” said Palamedes.

The Captain!!! Captain Judith Deuteros!!! It must be her!!

I have been wondering what's happened to Corona and Judy and this basically confirms they are both still alive; both working with the Blood of Eden (Judith must be doing so very reluctantly, or under great duress); and both somewhat in contact with our main three.

I'm so happy. This means they will most likely be a more active part of the story later on. Judith flat-out denied the possibility of letting Corona become her cavalier in As Yet Unsent; but then, she also denied ever wanting to work with the Blood of Eden. Stranger things have happened.

Palamedes carefully drew it away—“Good thinking, that’s antiseptic, but I can do better,” he said—and, with fine lines appearing at the side of Camilla’s mouth, the minutest fragment of bone popped out from the blood. Then the wound was gone, and the warm feeling with it.

Palamedes can do necromancy in Camilla's body - interesting.

The "warm feeling" - pain? Thanergy?

“Why is it that the blue light in the sky hurts—other people,” said Nona, “but not you and Cam?” She had asked this upward of a dozen times, especially lately, but Palamedes always answered unhesitatingly no matter how many times he had been asked before. “She’s got the wrong kind of body. She and I can cheat … for now … draw on me, not her, for the unusual kinds of things that I do, with the downside being that our time is very limited. If I was in her body for too long, I’d hurt her and the blue light would start to hurt me. [...] “Is the blue light going to start hurting Pyrrha, Palamedes?” Another question she had begun asking again. Camilla said it was anxiety. Palamedes said gently, “No. She’s immune to the blue light and it’s not going to start hurting her. She’s got the right type of body to be hurt by it, but the wrong soul. She was made to be immune to the blue light.” “So do I have the wrong kind of body, or the wrong kind of soul?” This was the only question Palamedes ever hesitated on. “We don’t know. We were worried that the blue light was hurting you when you first came to us, but you’re fine. This could mean that you’re like Pyrrha, and that you’re immune because your soul is protecting your body. But … there are a lot of factors, Nona.”

A long quote -

The "blue light" is supposed to hurt necromancers.

Palamedes isn't hurt by it because he is protected by Camilla's body, as long as he sticks to time limits. Pyrrha is immune because she is protected by her non-necromantic soul. "She was made to be immune"... is slightly disconcerting, to be honest. It kind of implies that Gideon the First dying in the River was planned.

Which would make sense, to be honest. Did he know?

And Nona is immune, because, well, because she's not Harrow. Harrow isn't around to be hurt by it. She might still be Gideon, without any memories, or she might still be someone else.

“Is that why—Blood of Eden don’t want me?” “Oh, they want you,” said Palamedes. “They want you very badly. Look—are you scared by the conversation Pyrrha and I had this morning?” “Not really. I mean, I know things are getting worse,” she said, wanting to sound worldly. “I know I’m not fixed and we only have a few more months to fix me, and who knows what’s going to happen in the meanwhile. But I’m not scared of We Suffer. I like We Suffer.”

This clears up a few things:

Blood of Eden did send them off on this mission, to "fix" Nona.

Blood of Eden do want her, but presumably as a Lyctor, and allied double agent.

Blood of Eden could easily have been the ones watching earlier that day.

I am slightly scared for Nona, who is showing no signs of being either Gideon or Harrow, and is someone else, who is wonderful and deserves to live.

“Time’s up,” he said. “Give this to Cam for me, will you?” And he spread Nona’s fingers like he always did, and he quietly kissed the second right-hand knuckle. Nona always paid so much more attention to the lessons of the hand and the mouth than she did to the lessons of the bone and the sword: they were significantly more interesting. [...] But she was good at this, whatever this was; she didn’t even know; nobody would give her the words, and she didn’t have them herself. The first time Palamedes had asked her to do it, quite a long time ago, and the first time she had raised Camilla’s hand to her mouth and done it —pretty much exactly as Palamedes had, making the same shape as his mouth had done like she did when speaking languages, and touching the same way as his hands had touched—Camilla had looked at her, and then she had gone away to sit in the bath by herself in the dark for almost an hour, even though there hadn’t been any water in the bath. Now when Nona waited for Camilla’s eyes to clear, and she lifted up Camilla’s hand to press her mouth to it, all Camilla said was, “Thanks.” And she almost didn’t flinch.

Oh god this bit makes me feel all achey and feels-y.

This, this might just be why Judith tried to warn Camilla of being overly attached to her necromancer; what pain - to love someone, share a body with them, but never able to speak directly, or touch, or see each other's faces again.

And they are still barely more than kids.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

4

Seventh skull... that bodes well; everyone we've ever met from the Seventh is dead, and we are firmly in the realm of the living.

The plants filtered out some of the clinging smoke, and Nona loved to look at the trees and the bristly, curving shapes of the shrubs and bushes.

Me too, Nona. Sounds like you don't have a lot of plants there.

Another place had been cleared and ineptly concreted over, and they put the cages there. The cages were bone-cold and they’d been almost fully cleaned, but Nona didn’t like looking,

Cages... for what, Nona?? Or... for whom???

Then the teacher said, unexpectedly: “Hot Sauce is here too.” Not even the teacher knew Hot Sauce’s real name. Nona said, “That’s early.” “Yes. I asked her why, but she wouldn’t say. Check on her, won’t you?” As though Nona could check on Hot Sauce. “I’m worried about her, living alone. I’ve tried to tell her about the sheltered accommodation, but she’s too independent…”

We're finally getting to see Nona at school!

Honestly, I'm with the teacher on this one. As much as Hot Sauce is a leader and independent and all of that, she's also an orphan of like, fourteen.

Hot Sauce said, “Don’t let them see you from the window.” “Who’s watching?” “Don’t know. Green building. Fourth floor.” Nona was smart enough to catch herself getting up to look, which she privately congratulated herself upon.

Someone is watching. Hot Sauce doesn't think they're watching for Nona, but you can never be sure with these things. For all we know, the Emperor and/or Blood of Eden have lost track of Harrow's body and might very much like to get it back, no matter who is currently residing in it.

But Nona is so precious. I love her. She's so bright and full of love for plants and animals and people around her and herself. Have I mentioned that she's precious and that I love her?

Hot Sauce’s failure to ask anyone’s opinion on anything she did was probably the reason she was the unquestioned authority in the school, over and above the teachers. Nona had told Palamedes about it and Palamedes had said, Lead researcher material, certainly.

Lol, having worked in research, this is most certainly a diss against some kind of lead researcher Palamedes has worked with in the past. Maybe even himself.

She was a gallant little person of fortyish who gave the impression that she had learnt a lot early in life and discovered late that it was no real good to her or anyone else. This lent her teaching a weightless, secretive feeling, like it was really all for fun at the end of the day.

We meet "the Angel" for the first time properly, and this whole thing is a big mood. Same, Angel.

Nothing Pyrrha drank could really hurt her. She had even drunk the contents of the bleach bottle once. When Palamedes had asked why, Pyrrha said she had realised she wasn’t used to being tortured while immortal and wanted to get a head start, and Palamedes said bullshit because he thought Nona had not been listening. Nona wondered if the Angel had been drinking too, albeit not bleach, which had given Pyrrha some sensational hiccups.

Hold on. Pyrrha drank bleach?? Is she. Is she okay?

I mean, if you think about it, she's really not; she's stuck in Gideon the First's body, Gideon is dead, all Pyrrha's friends are dead, and she can't go back to the Emperor, and she can't go to the Blood of Eden, and she's here working her arse off for these kids, which is really what Nona and Cam and Palamedes are to her. Hard, thankless work day in day out, with very little idea of when this will end.

Oh, Pyrrha.

Everyone turned to look at Nona, who writhed beneath this judgement, and they agreed that she had not looked well for, like, weeks. “I do,” she said indignantly. “Look at my braids—I look wonderful,” which thankfully replaced their worry with a group effort to squash her vanity. They often took it in turns to squash Nona’s vanity, which never worked.

Good.

Anyway, she looks like Harrow, who's never looked particularly healthy in her life. Sorry to break it to you, Nona. She's in a Lyctor's body, which means very little can truly hurt her - I bet she could survive drinking bleach like Pyrrha - but if the other kids think she hasn't looked well in weeks, but she was looking better before then, is there something going on?

Even if they all assured her that she was nothing to write home about, she could say, “Who cares? I can’t write,” and then they had to switch tack and squash her for being proud that she was so goddamned stupid.

This is so fucking precious. Keep being proud of your dead-body looks and your above average stupidity, Nona. We love you.

Anyway, this kinda points to Nona's sickly looks just being general Harrow-ness.

The most interesting sight was someone lounging in an alleyway opposite the school building, sitting in a busted-up chair next to an overflowing bin, and Nona watched intently, trying to decide if they were dead or not. She decided not dead, because they were wearing quite a good jacket and faceguard and nobody was coming around surreptitiously trying to take either.

I'm sure this isn't of any importance whatsoever.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

3

We have a different picture: A tree, with an apple hanging off it.

This is the first time we've had one like this that wasn't a skull, or the tomb, I'm pretty sure. For the first time, it's something living.

(I think we've had heralds as well, but are those alive? Animated by the RB yes, but alive?)

Anyway, this is exciting. Let's read.

Nona didn’t want to be just good-looking and dumb; she wanted to be useful. She was dimly aware that she was not what anyone had wanted. This was why she had gone out and got herself a job, even though it wasn’t a paying one.

I love her so much. Did I say that already? I love her.

Cam had to tell the nice lady that Nona was nearly nineteen. The nice lady was totally foxed. “But she’s such a dot.”

Tiny Harrow's body. Mercymorn believed without a shred of doubt when Harrow told her she was fifteen. She's just little for her age. And this is adorable, except for giving random people our exact address. Don't do that, Nona.

They told her Nona couldn’t read or write and the nice lady said, Oh.

Did they teach her to write her address and flat number only, then? Nona wrote that much down for the teacher.

Then Pyrrha, much to Camilla’s disgust, flirted outrageously with the nice lady teacher until the nice lady teacher left.

Damn, Pyrrha.

(Extremely happy we're getting to know Pyrrha a bit better now!!)

Instead of getting to know what pimp was, she got in trouble for giving anyone their door number and house number. Nona cried, lavishly and immediately, but Camilla and Pyrrha wouldn’t budge.

I love her being so in touch with her emotions. So far we've seen Harrow and Gideon, both very detached from their bodies and feelings. Maybe Nona is who is left behind when neither Harrow nor Gideon are around to "drive". Plural vibes. I like it.

When she emerged, spluttering, she had presence of mind to ask: “Why did you flirt with the teacher, even though you didn’t like her?” Pyrrha’s hands stilled from folding laundry, sitting next to the tub. “How’d you know I didn’t like her?” she asked. Nona still didn’t have the words to explain. “Just where you put your body —you only looked at her sometimes, that’s all.” “Wish I’d had you in the Bureau,” said Pyrrha, but she didn’t answer the question.

So she can't just speak and understand all languages, she just intuitively reads people. That's so cool. And also not exactly one of Harrow or Gideon's powers, at least they're not aware of it quite to this extent. It's great.

In fact, she only loved the Hour of Science because that was when she was allowed to look after Noodle, the science teacher’s dog, who was a dirty white creature with six legs and a gentle disposition.

We meet the six-legged dog! I want to know more about why he's got six legs.

It was just as hard to make Nona learn any facts as it was to make her learn the sword or the bones—harder, probably; as she explained all the time, as sweetly as she could, her brain simply wasn’t interested in them. It was as though someone had probably told her everything before and she had already forgotten it.

And knowing how these books tend to go, that might be exactly what happened here.

At school, after the first week, Nona was cornered by five children who informed her that she was now their friend. “Okay,” said Nona. “Hot Sauce wants you,” she got told.

Oh cool some kids! These are the people mentioned on the birthday guest list, then - a bunch of children from the school. Nice.

“What’s special about the Building?” she asked. “It’s banned,” said Honesty. One of the other children, Beautiful Ruby, said: “My mother says that if you get caught downtown or you shoot at the wrong window you get taken to your building.”

The building Nona lives in almost evokes prison. Maybe it is, or at least a place to dump undesirables.

Hot Sauce simply said: “She talks to the Angel. She gets to look after Noodle.” The Angel was what they called the nondescript, washed-out, dusty-haired personage who came to teach the Hour of Science. Why they called her the Angel was unclear,

Another person from the guest list, the Angel, the science teacher. Cool stuff.

“I don’t,” explained Nona. “Honesty found someone else to buy him drugs, so I don’t have to.” “Is his name really and truly Honesty?” Palamedes wanted to know. Nona struggled. “That’s how I hear it. Anyway, he shouldn’t be called Honesty at all, he tells huge lies and he’s trying to teach me too.” Nona longed to lie, but didn’t know how to stop her body from showing the truth;

Aha - one of the things we know about Alecto is that she "never managed to lie", according to Augustine. The same thing could be stopping Nona from lying. Or maybe she just knows her body will betray her lie, and decides being honest is easier.

Honesty, the kid, reminds me a bit of serial liars like Trump, who called his platform "TruthSocial" and uses it to lie egregiously 24/7. Perhaps a bit unfair to this kid, but I do find it funny he's called Honesty while being a huge liar.

Every so often an absolutely enormous earthquake rumbled beneath them, and when Nona first asked what it was, Hot Sauce said, “The Convoy”; and because it was Hot Sauce and not Honesty, she knew it had to be true. How wonderful it sounded—The Convoy—so big and mysterious and subterranean.

I'm not sure we've heard about this before! Some underground mode of transport like a train? Like Nona, I wanna know more.

Pyrrha explained that it was a bunch of vehicles driving in a line, probably very big ones. But she never quite got over that little shake, that tight vibration of the stomach when the Convoy was near, how it excited her somehow. It was like she could feel something wonderful in it.

I really hope Nona gets to see the Convoy.

“You’ll join, Hot Sauce, won’t you? Hot Sauce will join.” “Join what?” said Nona, the ignorant one. Which made the others do their usual chorus of— “Nona doesn’t know.” “Nona doesn’t know anything.” “Tell Nona.” And Honesty, who had been very nice since the cigarette arrangement, said: “When we leave school, we’re going to kill zombies, we’re gonna kill necromancers.”

Join Blood of Eden? It makes sense that kids don't join from birth, but it seems like BoE are pretty popular round these parts.

Honesty said, “Some of the zombies go spying outside the barracks, they ain’t all mad. That’s why you got to make sure you see all your friends eating and bleeding, or, you know—bam, you’re dead, or bones, or worse.” “I eat,” protested Nona.

Shh, don't tell them you're a necromancer! (Not that Nona is, really. She's not got any necromantic ability.)

“The necromancers will come back. They may already be here.” [...] Eventually Beautiful Ruby broke the silence and said, “What about Varun, Hot Sauce? What about Varun the Eater?” “It’s here for them,” said Hot Sauce. They looked up through the big crack at the blued sky respectfully.

Varun the Eater? Is that one of the resurrection beasts? It would make sense, if "it's here for them".

The Resurrection Beasts don't like any necromancers, but particularly don't like Lyctors, and especially don't like God. It's a shame none of them are anywhere near here. No necromancers to be seen. No Lyctors. Hush.

Nona whispered, “Join what, Hot Sauce?” Hot Sauce didn’t answer her. When she did say anything, she asked a question instead, which was irritatingly like Pyrrha. “You like it here?” “I love it here,” said Nona sincerely. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” “You’re sweet,” said Hot Sauce.

I love this interaction, even though we don't know anything more about BoE from it.

What a great chapter. I love Nona, I love these kids, I can't wait what sort of adventures they're gonna get into.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

2

I've just realised! We have new chapter intro pics. This one is a stylised Locked Tomb:

We also had the same one last chapter.

Let's dive in.

PYRRHA worked for Nona, Camilla looked after Nona, and Palamedes taught Nona, all on the understanding that she was not simply a person, but probably one of two people. Nona did not know either of her real possible names.

We're starting with a banger. A quick explanation. This is, someone in Harrow's body, and the three she lives with seem to assume she is either Gideon or Harrow. She hasn't seemed much like either so far.

Nona talked to herself in the mirror even now. When she had been earlier born, and less self-conscious, sometimes she would rest her face against the mirror’s face, and try to reach her reflection. Camilla had caught her kissing it once, and had written about six pages of notes on that, which was humiliating.

This is funny and sweet and sad. Nona clearly loves herself so much more than either Gideon or Harrow ever loved themselves.

I don't think she is Gideon or Harrow. She could be Alecto, having left her memories behind with Harrow in Alecto's body, coming into Harrow's body nearly newborn, completely innocent. She could be some random revenant clinging to Harrow's body.

I suppose she could still be Gideon - reeling from Harrow's soul not being in her body, and working with Harrow's brain damage that is specifically designed not to remember Gideon at all. Therefore, she is now stuck in Harrow's body, unable to remember herself.

I suppose if that's true, even just getting a bit of tenderness from Camilla and Palamedes and Pyrrha is enough to make her love herself?

I suppose we will find out.

If Camilla had six pages of notes on her kissing herself she had about twenty regarding eyes. Nona’s egg-yellow eyes belonged to the other person —the other girl; that was how all of their bodies worked, not only hers.

Lending more weight to the Nona is Gideon theory; the only time we've seen Harrow's body have Gideon's eyes is when Gideon took over, when the Resurrection Beast attacked the Mithraeum.

Also this:

“So someone’s inside me, then? I mean—I’m that somebody?” She always stumbled over this.

Stumbling over Gideon's mere existence indicates this could be Gideon still struggling with the effects of Harrow's lobotomy.

Or Nona isn't Gideon but struggling with the existence of Gideon, thanks to the lobotomy.

Oh Harrow, I mean we knew you fucked up your body big time, but man, this kinda sucks, huh?

(Makes for very compelling storytelling, though.)

“They wanted to see me naked,” said Nona. “It was a sex thing.” Camilla had made a sound, and then pretended it was a cough, and drank a whole glass of water. After the glass of water, she said, “How did you know?” “That’s just the way people look when they want to see you naked and it’s a sex thing,” said Nona. “I don’t really mind.”

This made me chuckle. And points towards Gideon, again, I think.

But Nona couldn’t shoot or fight or think. All she had was a good nature —that wasn’t true all the time, but Nona didn’t want it bruited about that she had a bad temper when she had only ever thrown two tantrums in her life and couldn’t remember either of them.

She can't remember her "tantrums"? Interesting! Interesting indeed. What were they about? At least one of them was about getting stuck in clothes.

Every day she held a sword until she seriously didn’t care about swords anymore, but she still couldn’t fight with one, no matter how big or thin it was. Camilla had wanted to teach her properly, but Pyrrha said not to, that they wouldn’t be able to tell if anything suddenly came back. Nona couldn’t do the forbidden bone tricks either, even though Palamedes did nearly the exact same thing with big grey lumps of bone as Camilla did with the sword.

But Nona is weak, and doesn't seem to have either Harrow or Gideon's skills. She does have a very, very sweet nature.

Nona was good at: 1. touching, 2. wiping dishes, 3. running her hand over the flat cork carpet in a way that got all the hair out of it, 4. sleeping in lots of different ways and positions, and 5. speaking any language that was spoken to her, in person, so she could see the person’s face and eyes and lips.

That's a pretty good skillset, tbh. I love the languages thing. How??? It's so cool. I'm jealous.

Nona understood everybody, and could speak back to them so that they understood her, and nobody ever said she had an accent. This confounded Palamedes. When she first said that she could speak back by watching them talk and making her lips look like theirs, it confounded him so much more that it gave Camilla a headache.

That is pretty confounding!! Very cool, very mysterious. This isn't anything Gideon or Harrow could do, to our knowledge, and honestly languages never have been mentioned very much so far, so it's certainly very strange.

Was this one of Alecto's skills?

Many people had lived through at least one bad resettlement already. Everyone was crammed on one of three planets now, and they all agreed that this planet was easily the worst, though this always made Nona feel a little bit offended on the planet’s part.

"Everyone"?? All of humanity, presumably minus the Nine Houses, who live at the Nine Houses, and the Cohort, who seem to mostly live on spaceships? Who is "Everyone" referring to here?

You were not allowed to say the words zombies, necromancers, or necromancy outside her house, or really inside it either.

Okay, okay, so these are not necromancers, nor do most of them see necromancy in a positive light. Random civilians, people caught up in Blood of Eden stuff, or both?

Interesting that Zombie is used to refer to necromancers.

Nona was so grateful to have had a whole six months of this. It was greedy to expect much longer.

:(

Another girl, another teenager who's expecting to die by the end of the book. Haven't we had enough dead kids around here?