Posted by u/lik_bred on August 1st 2022

Welcome penitents and supplicants! Who is hungry tonight? On the menu is murder, mischief, Act Three, and a delicious first attempt at cooking.

Following last week's precedent, Ortus the First will be referred to as the Saint of Duty or Duty. Ortus, Harrow's cavalier, will be referred to as Ortus. Spoons up!

Chapter 21

Canaan House is rainy and cold, something that has never happened before, according to Teacher. The fog over the water outside smells of engine lubricant and blood. Teacher expresses his wish to die 3 times daily. The bodies of Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus are found in the mortuary. We find Harrow and Ortus assisting Abigail and Magnus as they examine the bodies. Both faces have been obliterated by a point blank gunshot. The Fifth house has asked the only flesh magician present to help them confirm the identities of both bodies.

Enter a ghost in a wheel chair with sugar-brown hair cut short, white skirts, and a lacy umbrella. She is being pushed by a large bronzed man in a sea-foam green kilt. Dulcie, as the woman is called, confirms that the bodies are those of Camilla and Palamedes while Harrow contemplates the relationships between the other houses - they all seem to have some kind of intimacy or antipathy with each other, and Harrowhark the Ninth feels disconnected from it all. Ortus and the others discuss the necessity of fighting the Sleeper, perhaps better named the Waker.

Protesilaus, the bronzed cavalier of the Seventh house quotes a bit of poetry:

"I held to the faith of my fallible flesh;

Why should I think of the irradiating star?"

and that seems to offend Ortus.

Abigail assigns Dulcie and herself the task of connecting with some of the other houses. Harrow and Ortus are left alone with the bodies. Harrow inspects the contents of Palamedes' pockets and finds a note reading

Him I'll kill quick because she asked me to and because that much he honestly deserves but you two mummified wizard shits I will burn and burn and burn and burn until there is no trace of you left in the shadow of my long-lost natal sun

which Ortus tells her is merely a stylized letter S. He also reveals he knows his father died at the order of Harrow's parents.

Chapter 22

It is the night after Harrow kills her thirteenth planet. She is dreaming about having dinner with The Body, and they enjoy a pleasant conversation until the body tells Harrow: "Harrowhark. Wake up... Wake up. Now."

Harrow gets out of bed with the sword and goes to look in the hallway. There she sees Cytherea's corpse shambling down the hall, knocking over gilded and bejewelled arm bones, as if a magnet pulls her towards Harrow. Harrow rushes back to her room and puts blood wards on the door and a chair under the handle. While the blood wards should have obliterated foreign magic, she hears fingernails on the door and watches the handle slowly get pushed down. The corpse does not enter. Harrow goes to bed and does not sleep. In the morning she goes to tell Ianthe. Ianthe gives Harrow a message: "Tell her I want my arm back."

ACT THREE

Chapter 23: Four Months Before the Emporer's Murder

Tensions are rising on the Mithraeum. The elder lyctors and God are absorbed in their tablets and other subjects over dinner, excluding Harrow and Ianthe from whatever it is they are working on. Augustine trains alone (kind of) and with Ianthe, whose arm still does not work. Harrow attempts to train with her two hander when everyone else is asleep.

God and Augustine discuss heralds and their upcoming arrival. Augustine describes them as the worst bee with a lot of different kinds of blood. God has never seen them, he is always bundled away into the inner sanctum. God tells Harrow he doesn't think Ianthe is the perfect sword hand and that she does surprise him. He encourages Harrow to keep handling the rapier when she insists she might not certainly die when the heralds show up. So Harrow does!

One night, after training, she finds the Saint of Duty in Cytherea's tomb, kissing her with eyes closed. She goes to tell Ianthe immediately, and Ianthe is dismissive, asserting that now Harrow knows why the corpse has been in different positions. Harrow knows that isn't why she saw the corpse walking down the hallway:

"The depredations of a bad man do not cause Cytherea to walk."

Ianthe and Harrow snipe back and forth, Ianthe calls God a dick; Harrow threatens her with the two hander, which Ianthe points out she doesn't know how she got, and tells Harrow that, despite Harrow's wish to be informed, she is unable to reveal the truth of the weapon because Harrow ensorcelled her jaw. Harrow contemplates killing her, which Ianthe seems willing to accept, rather than train with Augustine. Harrow does not, and goes to bed instead.

Chapter 24

Augustine has run out of patience for Ianthe. Her arm remains useless.

Harrow celebrates her 18th birthday without recognition, just the realization that the Saint of Duty has to die.

While Harrow is enjoying a bath, Duty breaks through her bone wards and throws his spear at her. She narrowly avoids the weapon and a battle ensues, destroying the room. As Harrow is piercing Duty with bone knives she realizes he is stripping away the thanergy she uses to manipulate bones. He fractures her skull a few times and then leaves after getting some of Harrow's teeth in his eyes. Ianthe walks by and sees the damage, and leaves without helping Harrow.

Harrow decides that Duty must die and the Body agrees.

Chapter 25

Harrow tattles to God about the Saint of Duty kissing the corpse. God seems unbothered. Harrow does not tell him what happened in her room. He comments that Duty is legendarily unamorous, but that he did express a profound glee in kicking "... that Edenite commander out an airlock...". God tells Harrow to do something normal - read a book. Make soup.

Augustine gives Ianthe 5 days to fix her arm, or else it won't be good for her. Harrow makes soup.

Harrow ruins dinner by bursting a construct partway through the Saint of Duty, but God will not allow her to kill Duty in front of Him. Nor would he allow Duty to kill Harrow in the open. God reprimands Mercymorn for failing to see what was in front of her. Mercy says that Harrow is nine years old.

Ortus gives respect to Harrow as she leaves supper.

Chapter 26

At Canaan House Harrow sees a bizarre event. Coronabeth stands at the edge of the docking terrace. Silas Octakiseron stands behind her. "And somewhere out there may all the blood of your blood suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered." he says, pushing Coronabeth from the ledge. Harrow confronts him, but Silas turns and throws himself off the ledge as well. Harrow thinks she sees blood pierce the fog where Silas fell.

Chapter 27

Harrow hangs out with Ianthe in the Third's quarters. Ianthe practices with the rapier while Harrow tries to recover from her week of sleepless nights. Harrow takes a nap.

When she wakes up, Ianthe is on the floor at the foot of the bed. She is covered in blood after attempting to cut off her foreign arm. Harrow goes to her, looks into her eyes that are blue, brown, and lavender in color. Harrow removes the arm entirely. She then sculpts a new arm of bone, padding it with fat, running nerves down the bone so Ianthe can move it, hold a sword. Bone recalls bone, nerves recall brain.

The construct finished, Harrow informs Ianthe the Lyctoral healing process depends on the nerves and that is why she put some in the new arm. The arm seems to work well for Ianthe. Who dips out for a minute. The arm is a success. Ianthe can fight with a rapier while in the river, she has come up heads before Augustine's five day deadline, and she is jubilant. Harrow is also happy to have done something good and awe-inspiring, a low miracle. In return, Ianthe says she will help Harrow kill the Saint of Duty.

Chapter 28

At Canaan House, all of the remaining house scions are sharing the quarters assigned to the 2nd house. The whole of Canaan reeks, is engulfed in fog, and the cold is constant. Abigail offers Harrow coffee.

They discuss what happened with the 8th house - apparently he said something horrid to Dulcie. Harrow decides to tell Abigail and Magnus the truth, that Coronabeth is gone because Silas pushed her and then jumped himself. Abigail asks Harrow to look at a scrap of paper she found, questioning why Harrow would want Ortus to read it with her:

I will remember the first time you kissed me - you apologised - you said, I am sorry, destroy me as I am, but I want to kiss you before I am killed, and I said to you why, and you said, because I have only once met someone so utterly willing to burn for what they believed in, and I loved him on sight, and the first time I died I asked of him what I now ask of you

I kissed you and later I would kiss him too before I understood what you were, and all three of us lived to regret it - but when I am in heaven I will remember your mouth, and when you roast down in Hell I think you will remember mine

Harrow can no longer hide her madness. Abigail tells Harrow she may actually be haunted.

Chapter 29

Augustine gilds Ianthe's arm and they are both very pleased. Mercymorn asks Harrow about making it, asks her some questions about math and the name of the Saint of Duty, and takes a peek inside Harrow's skull. Mercymorn laments the world she lives in, that children are fists, infants are gestures.

Ianthe is, again, dismissive of Harrow's take on the conversation. Apparently Augustine told her that Mercy went funny years ago.

The two young lyctors share the bed in Ianthe's room, under the naked portraits of Cyrus the first and his cavalier. Ianthe tells Harrow she has enlisted Augustine to help distract God while they kill Duty. Ianthe tells Harrow these are the oldest Lyctors among them. If anyone can distract God, he can. Harrow agrees with some reluctance. They talk ages. Harrow is 18, Ianthe an ancient 22. Ianthe asks Harrow about the letters, which she carries in capsules in the exoskeleton. Ianthe asks if she has regrets. Harrrow does not. Harrow quotes, of all things, The Noniad.

The next day they get an invitation to dinner from Augustine, including a note on the back to meet in his room ten minutes prior. The girls get glammed up, Harrow feels awkward, Ianthe looks pale.

They meet in Augustine's room, where he doubts Harrow's ability to kill Duty, but he tells her at the signal, which they will know, but can't be told about before hand, to find Duty in the training room. Mercymorn shows up, is informed the plan is "Dios apate minor" and then punches Augustine in the face. Mercy is not pleased, demands white wine for dinner. Augustine warns the girls not to get involved in anything they see tonight. And the gang heads off to dinner...

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the purpose of poetry within the Locked Tomb books? Who uses it? to what end?

2. Do the elder Lyctors even like each other? What would it be like to live with the same small group of people for ten thousand years? What would that do to a person? And how does God manage to keep out of the mess?

3. What are the implications for Harrowhark being haunted? Who would be haunting her?

4. How do the older Lyctors differ from the younger? Why don't they include their new sisters in any Lyctoral duties? What might those duties be? What is illuminated by pairing the very old with the very young?

5. Is Harrowhark an active participant in her own existence? Why, or why not?

Please add your pet hypothesis, favorite quotes, burning questions as well!

SPOILERS BELIOW

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END OF SPOILERS

Link to full discussion on Reddit with Comments