Gideon The Ninth Quotes

One flesh, one end, bitch.

I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it

But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotion: being sick of everyone’s shit.

Harrow said, with some difficulty: "I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it." "Yes you can, it's just less great and less hot," said Gideon." "Fuck you, Nav—

While we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.

I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.

Harrowhark said, in the exact sepulchral tones of Marshal Crux: “Death first to vultures and scavengers.

Maybe it's that I find the idea comforting...that thousands of years after you're gone...is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice is.

Her adept said: "I'll keep it off you. Nav, show them what the Ninth House does." Gideon lifted her sword. The construct worked itself free of its last confines of masonry and rotten wood and heaved before them, flexing itself like a butterfly. "We do bones, motherfucker," she said.

If you do not find yourself a galaxy, it is not so bad to find yourself a star.

He had the eyes of a very beautiful person, trapped in resting bitch face.

Why was I born so attractive?” “Because everyone would have throttled you within the first five minutes otherwise,

She had left Harrowhark a note on her vastly underused pillow— WHATS WITH THE SKULLS? and received only a terse— Ambiance.

Harrow,” said Gideon, “if my heart had a dick you would kick it.

You couldn’t spell obligation if I shoved the letters up your ass.” “I gotta say, I don’t think that would help,” said Gideon. “God, I’m glad you didn’t teach me my spelling.

Too many words,” said Gideon confidentially. “How about these: One flesh, one end, bitch.

Harrow laughed. It was the first time she had ever heard Harrow really laugh. It was a rather weak and tired sound. "Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House," she said hoarsely, "you are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph, The best of all of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer.

Anyone can learn to fight. Hardly anyone learns to think.

I must no longer accept,” she said slowly, “being a stranger to you.

Harrow said, “But you're God.” And God said, “And I am not enough.

I need you to trust me. I need you to be trustworthy.

Nonagesimus,” she said slowly, “the only job I’d do for you would be if you wanted someone to hold the sword as you fell on it. The only job I’d do for you would be if you wanted your ass kicked so hard, the Locked Tomb opened and a parade came out to sing, ‘Lo! A destructed ass.’ The only job I’d do would be if you wanted me to spot you while you backflipped off the top tier into Drearburh.” “That’s three jobs,” said Harrowhark.

I have lots of fealty in me. I fealt the Emperor with every bone in my body. I fealt hard.

Gideon marvelled that someone could live in the universe only seventeen years and yet wear black and sneer with such ancient self-assurance.

He urged again, “Thoughts?” Gideon said, “Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get ‘Sex Pal’?

It had bewildered her, back at Canaan House, how the whole of her always seemed to come back to Gideon. For one brief and beautiful space of time, she had welcomed it: that microcosm of eternity between forgiveness and the slow, uncomprehending agony of the fall. Gideon rolling up her shirt sleeves. Gideon dappled in shadow, breaking promises. One idiot with a sword and an asymmetrical smile had proved to be Harrow’s end: her apocalypse swifter than the death of the Emperor and the sun with him.

Gideon rolled her eyes so hard that she felt in danger of twisting the optic nerve.

Don't die in a bone. I am your creature, gloom mistress. I serve you with fidelity as big as a mountain, penumbral lady." Harrow's eyes flickered open. "Stop." "I am your sworn sword, night boss." "Fine," said Harrow heavily. Gideon's mouth was about to round out the words "bone empress" before she realised what had been said.

So she said, “The arms kind of looked like swords. I want to fight it.” “You want to fight it.” “Yep.” “Because it looked … a little like swords.” “Yop.

She kept looking at Gideon with the screwed-up eyes of someone who had been handed an egg for safekeeping and was surrounded by egg-hunting snakes.

He say anything?” Gideon wavered. “He said to tell you he loved you,” she said. “What? No, he didn’t.” “Okay, no, sorry. He said—he said you knew what to do?

Now we kick her ass until candy comes out,” said Gideon. “Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don’t cry, we can’t fight her if you’re crying.

Two is for discipline, heedless of trial; Three for the gleam of a jewel or a smile; Four for fidelity, facing ahead; Five for tradition and debts to the dead; Six for the truth over solace in lies; Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies; Eight for salvation no matter the cost; Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost.

I hate it when you act like a butt-touched nun,

What do Marta the Second, Naberius the Third, Jeannemary the Fourth, Magnus the Fifth, Camilla the Sixth, Protesilaus the Seventh, Colum the Eighth, and Gideon the Ninth all have in common?” You could have heard a hair flutter to the floor. Everyone stared, poker-faced, in the thick ensuing silence. Magnus looked pleased with himself. “The same middle name,” he said.

I find the idea comforting.. that thousands of years after you're gone.. is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.

You’re going to die spewing your own lungs out of your nostrils, having failed at the finish line because you couldn’t help but prattle about why you killed innocent people, as though your reasons were interesting …

Ask me how I am and I’ll scream,” she said. “How are you,” said Camilla, who was a pill. “I see you calling my bluff and I resent it,” said Gideon.

You’re not very good at I’m Asking the Questions Now, Bitch, are you,” said Gideon.

He gave the impression of being the guy fun sought out for death.

This won’t work,” she said. “I’ve never had to work with something so small before.” “That’s what she said,” murmured Gideon, sotto voce.

I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because—I regretted I wasn’t! I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?

Gideon winked at her increasingly agitated companion. She said, sotto voce: “But then you couldn’t have admired … these,” and whipped on the glasses she’d unearthed back home. They were ancient smoked-glass sunglasses, with thin black frames and big mirrored lenses, and they greyed out Harrow’s expression of incredulous horror as she adjusted them on her nose.

He was narrow shouldered with long, long arms, and she was beginning to believe that he was not simply a douchebag who used lip balm, but a douchebag who used lip balm and had a very long reach.

Don’t hypothetically shove stuff up my butt again,” said Gideon, “it never does any good.

The man who'd put the sword to her neck was uncomfortably buff. He had upsetting biceps. He didn't look healthy; he looked like a collection of lemons in a sack.

Abigail Pent has been interfered with and opened up.” “Please elaborate opened up, because my imagination is better than your description and I am not having a lot of fun here,” said Gideon.

if it was murder, what if the murderer was, like, weird, which would make their subsequent marriage to Gideon pretty awkward? Maybe they could just swap friendship bracelets. In

Alas. I have a bad personality and a stupefying deficit of attention.

in some far-off way Gideon had always known that this would be how she went: gangbanged to death by skeletons.

Death first to vultures and scavangers.

Someone’s been having fun in here,” said Gideon. Harrow shot her a look but did not enforce the vow of silence. “Yes,” she said. “Me.

just had a near-death experience,” she said, “let me have my little moment.

In her comic books, necromancers kissed the gloved palms of their front-liner comrades in blessed thanks for all that they did. In the comic books none of these adepts had heart disease, and a lot of them had necromantically uncharacteristic cleavage.

Harrow laughed. It was the first time she had ever heard Harrow really laugh. It was a rather weak and tired sound. "Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House," she said hoarsely, "you are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph, The best of all of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer.

Harrow was too amazed by her body's expanding capacity for despair. It was as though her feeling had doubled even as she looked at it, unfolding, like falling down an endless flight of stairs. She dug her hands into the mattress and she cried for Gideon Nav.

Harrowhark’s talent had always been in scale, in making a fully realised construct from as little as an arm bone or a pelvis, able to make an army of them from what anyone else would need for one, and in some far-off way Gideon had always known that this would be how she went: gangbanged to death by skeletons.

Ortus wasn’t made in his mould. Coupling him to Harrow had been rather like yoking a doughnut to a cobra.

Cam,” Palamedes said. “Go loud.

In the myriadic year of Our Lord--the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!--Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.

Harrow, you can’t just ask someone why they want to be a Lyctor,

Surprise, my tenebrous overlord!” said Gideon. “Ghosts and you might die is my middle name.

But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotion: being sick of everyone's shit. She unsheathed her sword. She slid her gauntlet over her hand, and tightened the wrist straps with her teeth. And she looked over her shoulder at Harrowhark, who was apparently breaking out of a blue funk to experience her own dominant emotion of "oh no, not again." Gideon silently willed her necromancer to put her knucklebones where her mouth was and, for the first time in her life - for the first real time - do what Gideon needed her to do. And Harrowhark rose to the occasion like an evening star.

Harrowhark was pleased because everything was coming up Harrowhark

I want to go,” said Gideon. “This sounds impossibly vapid.” “I want to eat a dessert.

This calls for rigor, Nav.’ ‘Maybe rigor…mortis,’ said Gideon, who assumed that puns were funny automatically.

Ghosts and monsters," the lady of the Seventh continues enthusiastically, "remnants and the dead . . . the disturbed dead. The idea that someone is still here and furious . . . or that something has been lurking here forever. Maybe it's that I find the idea comforting . . . that thousands of years after you're gone . . . is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.

I pray the tomb is shut forever," recited Harrowhawk, with the curious fervidity she always showed in prayer. " I pray the rock is never rolled away. I pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest, with closed eye and stilled brain. I pray it lives, I pray it sleeps ... I pray for the needs of the Emperor All-Giving, the Undying King, His Virtues and his men. I pray for the Second House, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth; the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth. I pray for the Ninth House, and I pray for it to be fruitful. I pray for the soldiers and adepts far from home, and all those parts of the Empire that live in unrest and disquiet. Let it be so.

We do bones, motherfucker.

A head start,” said her necromancer, “is the only advantage one can claim by choice.

This whole thing happened because you wouldn't face up to Gideon dying.' he said, which was a stab as precise as any Nonius had managed. 'I don't blame you. But where would you be, right now, if you'd said: She is dead? You're keeping her things like a lover keeping old notes, but with her death, the stuff that made her Gideon was destroyed. That's how Lyctorhood works, isn't it? She died. She can't come back, even if you keep her stuffed away in a drawer you can't look at. You're not waiting for her resurrection; you've made yourself her mausoleum.

She couldn't believe she was being held at bay by someone who had eaten every cavalier manual and chewed dutifully twenty-five times.

It's a horrible thing to fall out of sight.

Look,” said Harrowhark. No murder, sorrow, or fear could ever touch Harrow Nonagesimus. Her tired eyes were alight. A lot of her paint had peeled away or been sweated off down in the facility, and the whole left side of her jaw was just grey-tinted skin. A hint of her humanity peeked through. She had such a peculiarly pointed little face, high browed and tippy everywhere, and a slanted and viscious mouth. She said irascibly, “At the key, moron, not at me.” The moron looked at the key, but did give her the middle finger.

Love between a necromancer and cavalier is vital to differentiate them from a soldier’s love of the Emperor: they are carrying out a personal devotion that beautifies both types of adoration.

You apologise to me?” she bellowed. “You apologise to me now? You say that you’re sorry when I have spent my life destroying you? You are my whipping girl! I hurt you because it was a relief! I exist because my parents killed everyone and relegated you to a life of abject misery, and they would have killed you too and not given it a second’s goddamned thought! I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because—I regretted I wasn’t! I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?” There were flecks of spittle on Harrowhark’s lips. She was retching for air. “I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.

As Harrow smouldered with hatred, Gideon began to enjoy herself.

Stay here,' I said. 'Get fucked,' she said thickly. 'I absolutely did not become the eighth saint to serve the King Undying so Gideon Nav could play hero for me.' 'Why did you ascend to be a Lyctor?' 'Ultimate power - and posters of my face.' Fair.

Gideon slid her glasses back onto her face, obscuring feelings with tint.

Harrow’s face was bright with elation and fervour. Gideon would have sworn there were tears in her eyes, except that no such liquid existed: Harrow was a desiccated mummy of hate.

Your heart is a party for five thousand nails,’ said Gideon.

The nuns tried their best, but a few minutes later it was confirmed that one of the hermits had died of shock, and everyone around him celebrated his sacred good fortune.

Suffice to say, all pushing, gripping, finger-inserting and pressing was in vain. It was locked as damn.

The blood all drained away from Gideon’s cheeks for some reason. The world spun off its axis. Bright spots sparked in her vision. She found herself saying, intelligently, “Mmf.

I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.

Stop that. I need you listening, not racking your brain for rare negatives.

Once Gideon would have loved to hear Corona talk to her with that low, breathy intensity, maybe saying “Your biceps … they’re eleven out of ten,” but right now she did not want anyone to talk to her at all.

Nonagesimus,” she said slowly, “the only job I’d do for you would be if you wanted someone to hold the sword as you fell on it. The only job I’d do for you would be if you wanted your ass kicked so hard, the Locked Tomb opened and a parade came out to sing, ‘Lo! A destructed ass.’ The only job I’d do would be if you wanted me to spot you while you backflipped off the top tier into Drearburh.” “That’s three jobs,” said Harrowhark. “Die in a fire, Nonagesimus.

Harrowhark smiled. This smile was unusual too: it betokened conspiracy, which was normal, except that this one invited Gideon to be part of it. Her eyes glowed like coals with sheer collusion. Gideon didn't know if she could handle all these new expressions on Harrow: she needed a lie down.

Idiot.” Harrowhark’s voice was distant and full of badly suppressed adrenaline. “Here. Take this veil.” Gideon kept mopping at her eyes. “I’m all good.” “I said put it on. I’m not having you struck blind when the door opens.” “I came prepared, my sweet.” “What are you even saying half the time—

Evidence,” he said, “outweighs testimony.

This won’t work,” she said. “I’ve never had to work with something so small before.” “That’s what she said,” murmured Gideon, sotto voce.

[...] cause by itself is an empty concept. [...] choices cause all sorts of things to happen. That doesn't make you responsible.

Please elaborate opened up, because my imagination is better than your description and I am not having a lot of fun here,” said Gideon.

you disrespect my retainers, you lie and cheat and sneak and steal—you know full well what you’ve done, and you know that you are a disgusting little cuckoo!

But what was Teacher the mould for? Griddle, at the first sign of trouble—” “Run like hell,” said Gideon. “I was going to say, Hit it with your sword,” said Harrow.

Her adept said: “I’ll keep it off you. Nav, show them what the Ninth House does.” Gideon lifted her sword. The construct worked itself free of its last confines of masonry and rotten wood and heaved before them, flexing itself like a butterfly. “We do bones, motherfucker,” she said.

She had found a nasty, forbidden little book in the great Ninth repositories of nasty, forbidden little books, and all the Houses would have had a collective aneurysm if they knew she’d even read it.

You apologise to me?” she bellowed. “You apologise to me now? You say that you’re sorry when I have spent my life destroying you? You are my whipping girl! I hurt you because it was a relief! I exist because my parents killed everyone and relegated you to a life of abject misery, and they would have killed you too and not given it a second’s goddamned thought! I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because—I regretted I wasn’t! I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?

Gideon looked down at her necromancer. She had the heavy-lidded expression of someone who was concentrating in the knowledge that once they stopped concentrating, they would fall abruptly asleep. Harrow had gone unconscious once before: Gideon knew that the second time she let Harrow go under, there would probably not be any awakening. Harrow reached up - her hand was trembling - and tapped Gideon on the cheek. 'Nav,' she said, 'have you really forgiven me?' Confirmed. They were all going to eat it. 'Of course I have, you bozo.' 'I don't deserve it.' 'Maybe not,' said Gideon, 'but that doesn't stop me forgiving you. Harrow - ' 'Yes?' 'You know I don't give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you,' she said in a brokenhearted rush. She didn't know what she was trying to say, only that she had to say it now. With a bad, juddering noise, a tentacle had started to pound their splintering shelter again: WHAM. 'I'm no good at this duty thing. I'm just me. I can't do this without you.