Elle (ellexamines on TT & Substack)

“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

“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.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“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’?”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“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?”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth