#he very much chose to refrain for 10 000 years which. hm

[winepresswrath]

One of my favourite things about the locked tomb is the way it depicts love in the context of other people. Harrow loves Alecto loves John who feels some kind of way (tbd) about Gideon who loves Harrow, who is John's favourite. Nonalecto thinks Gideon is overrated but wants to be kissed enough to be kissable and Gideon makes friendship bracelets with Ianthe who wants to marry Harrow and whose sister is the other half of soul and her sickest obsession and her Barbie doll in a tower. Coronabeth is in love with Judith, who went to all their birthday parties. Judith is too sensible to have great loves, but the only people who really get to love in isolation are Gideon and Harrow and they mostly choose not to at the time. They're too busy being choked by trauma and duty and the miserable grind of isolation and loneliness. It's when we see them in the context of other people in Canaan house that the love becomes obvious. Love in the ecosystem of community. Ten thousand years of polycule hell. The most loyal man in the world being constantly torn between his two best friends, only to end up in a love triangle featuring bestie #1 and a woman desperately trying to kill bestie #2. There's no one it's safe to kill because everybody loves somebody. There's no vengeance that only targets the deserving.