“Come on,” said Gideon, “you fainted.”
“I do do that,” she admitted, and gave another wicked chuckle of delight. This appeared to be the greatest thing that had ever happened to her. She fluttered her hands like she was having the vapours. “Oh, God, I was rescued by a shadow cultist! I’m so sorry! Thank you! This is one for the history books.”
Now that the threat of violence had passed, the priest, with difficulty, had dropped to his knees. He unwound the exquisite prismatic scarf at his waist and hesitated before her. The girl gave an imperious little nod and he began wiping the blood away from her mouth, reverential, seeming far less worried about the entire mess than—Gideon didn’t know. Discouraged? Disconcerted?
“Ah, Duchess Septimus,” he said, in a tweedling old voice, “and is it so advanced as all that?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Oh, Lady,” he said sadly, “you should not have come.”
She gave a flashing, sudden smile, the edges of her teeth scarlet. “But isn’t it beautiful that I did?” she said, and looked up at Gideon, and strained past her to look at Harrow, and clasped her hands together. “Protesilaus, help me up so that we can apologise. I can’t believe I get to look real tomb maidens in the face.”
Great, rugged arms thrust past Gideon’s vision, and the girl in her lap was lifted up by a six-foot collection of sinews. 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. He was a dour, bulky person whose skin had something of the girl’s strange, translucent tinge. He was waxen looking in the sunlight, probably with sweat, and he wore the girl half-draped over his shoulder as though she were a baby or a rug. Gideon sized him up. He was dressed richly, but with clothes that looked as though they’d seen practical wear: a long cape of washed-out green, and a belted kilt and boots. There was a shining length of etched chain rolled up and over his arm, and a big swept-hilt rapier hung at his hip. He was staring at Gideon emptily. You’re gigantic, she thought, but you move awkwardly, and I bet I could take you.
The hand at the back of her neck relaxed a fraction. Gideon didn’t even get a hard flick to the skull, which boded ill. Whatever punishment Harrow was going to mete out would be meted out later, in private, and viciously. She’d screwed up but couldn’t quite regret it; as Gideon brushed herself off and picked herself up to stand, the Lady of the Seventh House was smiling. Her babyish face made it difficult to give her a timestamp. She might’ve been seventeen, or thirty-seven.
“What must I do to gain forgiveness?” she said. “If my House blasphemes against the House of the Ninth in the first five minutes, I’m going to feel like a boor.”
“Keep your sword off my cavalier,” said Harrow, in tones of the sepulchre.
“You heard her, Pro,” said the girl. “You can’t just get your rapier out willy-nilly.”
Protesilaus did not deign to reply, his gaze fixed on Gideon. In the awkward silence that resulted, the girl added: “But now I can thank you for your aid. I’m Lady Dulcinea Septimus, duchess of Castle Rhodes; and this is my cavalier primary, Protesilaus the Seventh. The Seventh House thanks you for your gracious assistance.”
Despite this pretty, even coaxing introduction, Gideon’s lady merely bowed her hooded head, her bound eyes giving away nothing. It was with glacial disregard that she said, “The Ninth House wishes health to the Lady Septimus, and prudence to Protesilaus the Seventh,” turned on her heel, and left in an abrupt swish of black cloth.
Gideon was obliged to turn heel and move after her. She wasn’t such a fool as to stay. But before she left, she caught the Lady Dulcinea’s eye. Rather than being missish or horrified, she looked as though giving offence to the House of the Ninth might prove the highlight of her life. Gideon swore that she was even favoured with a coy wink. They left the priest of the First House there to worry, brow furrowed, folding his scarf now encrusted with blood.
They’d caused a general ruckus. The curious eyes of the other adepts and their cavaliers rested upon the black-robed Ninth. Gideon was discomfited to find the gaze of the bloodless Third twin on her and Harrowhark both, her pale eyes like sniper sights, her mouth exquisitely chill. There was something in her stare that Gideon disliked on impact, and she held that gaze until the pale head was dropped. As for Teacher’s expression—well, that one was hard to fathom. In the end, it was something like melancholy and something like resignation, and he did not say a word about what Gideon had done. “A blood flaw runs through the ruling House of the Seventh,” was all he said, “sparing most who carry the gene … but fatal to a few.”