Rei

“Love between a necromancer and cavalier is vital to differentiate them from a soldier’s love of the Emperor: they are carrying out a personal devotion that beautifies both types of adoration.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“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

“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

“Gideon looked down at her necromancer. She had the heavy-lidded expression of someone who was concentrating in the knowledge that once they stopped concentrating, they would fall abruptly asleep. Harrow had gone unconscious once before: Gideon knew that the second time she let Harrow go under, there would probably not be any awakening. Harrow reached up - her hand was trembling - and tapped Gideon on the cheek.
'Nav,' she said, 'have you really forgiven me?'
Confirmed. They were all going to eat it.
'Of course I have, you bozo.'
'I don't deserve it.'
'Maybe not,' said Gideon, 'but that doesn't stop me forgiving you. Harrow - '
'Yes?'
'You know I don't give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you,' she said in a brokenhearted rush. She didn't know what she was trying to say, only that she had to say it now. With a bad, juddering noise, a tentacle had started to pound their splintering shelter again: WHAM. 'I'm no good at this duty thing. I'm just me. I can't do this without you.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth