Palamedes started heaving the corpse over to lie on its back again—Camilla tried to approach and help, but he shooed her away—and once rolled, it lay there awkwardly, splayed, its clothes and sword in disarray. He said, in obvious satisfaction, “There. That’ll be a first barrier to stop her doing any kind of revenant transfer. Now, Cam, pass me the syringe.”
Camilla rootled around in the medical kit that Crown had brought in, and retrieved a big needle. She removed the webbing from around it, and Pyrrha said: “Sextus, don’t think I haven’t thought about this. If a blood sample was going to be enough, I would’ve said to do it first thing. Harrowhark Nonagesimus couldn’t have rolled aside that damned rock unless it was fresh out of the vat.”
“You never know,” said Palamedes calmly. “Look at her—her colour’s even, there’s no trace of dehydration or gravity acting on the internal fluids. If you examine the wounds, they look clean and cauterised. I can probably get a decent sample.”
“Even if the blood survives outside the body, we’ll need to take her along as a backstop.”
“If it survives outside the body, it’ll tell us something really interesting,” said Palamedes. “I’m going to puncture the femoral sheath.”
Camilla passed him a little pair of scissors, and he cut a short slit in the thigh of the corpse’s soft leather trousers. Then Palamedes prodded around with his fingers—he placed the needle to the dead skin—and the corpse’s hand shot out and ringed around his wrist before anyone could stop it. Nona noticed that one of the corpse prince’s sleeves had worked up, and that on her wrist was a funny fat bracelet: a braided cord of many colours, none of which matched.
“One, that’s not going to work. Two, I fucking hate needles,” said the corpse. “Three—Sex Pal, if that’s how you get a lady’s pants off, holy shit, no wonder I stole your girl.”
Palamedes rocked back on his heels.
“Not my girl. Unlike some of us, I’ve never much seen the allure of an evil cougar,” he said crisply. “Good morning, Gideon.”
25
PYRRHA’S GUN MADE A fast ker-KLUNK. She hadn’t pointed it at anyone, exactly, but it was in both her hands and her arms had tensed. “Back up, Sextus,” she said.
“Who’s that?” said the corpse, not letting go of Palamedes’s wrist. She craned her neck to one side. “Oh, hey. Long time no drown. You’re the one who bragged about spading my mum.”
“Anyone who spaded your mum would brag about it,” said Pyrrha.
“Ninth?” said Crown, sounding almost nervous.
Pyrrha ignored her, and said: “He brought you back. He’s made a revenant out of you.”
“Yope,” said the corpse prince.
“But that’s impossible. He shouldn’t have been able to separate you. Your girl didn’t manage full fusion, but what she took from you not even John could’ve got back. And … he didn’t bring you back all the way? He brought you back like this?”
“Sextus, if you don’t put that needle away I’m going to break Naberius’s fucking arm,” said the corpse irritably.
“I can’t,” Palamedes said. “You’re still holding onto my wrist.”
“Oh. Yeah. If I let go of your wrist you have to not stick me with the needle and then run for it, okay?”
“How exactly do you think blood samples work?”
“Please,” said Crown. “I’m so confused. You’re … actually the Ninth? Gideon the Ninth? You’re—what—alive?”
The corpse let go of Palamedes’s wrist. He withdrew his arm, still holding the needle, and sat back on his heels. The corpse levered herself up into a sitting position, then braced her arm against the floor and scrambled upright with surprising ease. She dusted off the thighs of her trousers.
What shocked Nona was not that the corpse moved. It was the way in which she moved. Nona was so distracted that she couldn’t stop watching. She had never seen anyone move like that before.
“Nope, and nope,” she said. “I’m Prince Kiriona Gaia the First, Her Divine Highness, First Lieutenant of the Cohort, Emperor’s Life Guards, non-auxiliary—honorary title but who cares—heir to the Emperor Divine, first of the Tower Princes. And I’m mega dead.”
“John, you mad bastard,” said Pyrrha softly. She hadn’t taken either hand off her gun.
“Heir to the Emperor Divine?” said Crown.