49
" 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. "
― Tamsyn Muir , Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)
52
" 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. "
― Tamsyn Muir , Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)
55
" 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. "
― Tamsyn Muir , Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)