Ianthe was chewing pettishly on a lock of that bone-yellow hair. I added, “I need you to lay off. I was already the worst thing that ever happened to her, and she doesn’t need you trying to one-up that, like, Bet I can make this double shit.”

I watched her recross her legs slowly at the knee. She was no longer examining her nails. She looked at me with a searching, almost studious expression, pale lashes down over her dead-man’s eyes. Her biceps weren’t bad, actually, there was definite muscle in her remaining skim-milk arm. Nothing to write home about, but she didn’t have to be completely ashamed. Unlike you.

“You’re wrong, you know,” she said calmly. “It’s an interesting revelation. Perhaps it even gives some context. But my … attachment … to Harry isn’t remotely what you think it is. I’m not her cavalier, her servant or thrall. I am a Lyctor … Harrow is a Lyctor … and the centuries will entangle us whether she wants them to or— Nav, if you persist in making jack-off motions when I am talking, I will show you what Harrow’s kidneys look like.”

“That! That’s what I’m talking about,” I said. “Don’t show me her kidneys. Don’t think about her kidneys. Don’t do anything with her goddamn kidneys. Get a grip. Don’t look at her blood, or lick her bones, or do any of the shit necromancers lie and say they don’t do the moment two of them get nasty.”

She shrugged that gold-skinned shoulder.

“What can I say,” she said. “I love a little gall on gall.”

“Reverse everything I just told you,” I said. “Let’s get married.”

“Ah, the romance I have been awaiting all my life,” she said pleasantly. “Babs always said it would come along … or at least, he once said I would go to hell and get fucked, which I took as a roundabout way of expressing the same thing. That’s all I had to give you, Gideon: now we are going to get out of my bedroom, and I am going to take you to Teacher.”

The Emperor of the Nine Houses. The Necrolord Prime.

I said, “No, thanks. I’m good.”

“He needs to know. He can help you.”

“I might lie down and see if this fixes itself,” I suggested.

“Do you want Harrowhark to reclaim rightful ownership of her body, or not?” she asked reasonably.

She knew I couldn’t argue with that, and when she looked at my face, she added: “This is your chance, Gideon. If you want to help her, this is the only way.” And, for the third stab: “I will remind you that a Resurrection Beast is descending on us, on her, as we speak.”