The backup plan with the revenant was always only ever supposed to be the ace up their sleeve, break glass in case of emergency, an absolute last resort play — because the Sixth was the Sixth, and they were prepared for everything. Still, academically preparing for Palamedes' possible death was such a far cry from viscerally experiencing it. Undergoing it. Assembling his bones and painstakingly gluing them back together. Going through those long, lonely months without him.
The expression on Camilla's face is usually so impassive, but there's a flicker of pain that ghosts across it, a twist at the corner of her mouth, as emotive as a sob if it had been anyone else. She's still hanging onto his hand (marveling at the warm skin and flesh: not just the cold assemblage of proximal, middle, and distal phalanges). If she was co-dependent and obsessively watchful before, well, congratulations, Pal: your new shadow is not going anywhere.
But she's also never bullshitted him as long as either of them have lived, so she says: "Not by yourself. She came back. I had to fight her, along with the Ninth and Tridentarius— the necromantic one. Both she and Nonagesimus became Lyctors. It took all of it to put her down."
A quick rattling-off the gruesome facts, despite the fact that they're standing on a pleasant cobblestoned street outside a souvenir shop on a pleasant autumnal day. She still hasn't let go of his hand; which isn't all that different from back home with the bones, now that we think of it.
"But they succeeded. Building on what you did to her. And your revenant was bound."
predictably: gideon the ninth spoilers all over this thread
The expression on Camilla's face is usually so impassive, but there's a flicker of pain that ghosts across it, a twist at the corner of her mouth, as emotive as a sob if it had been anyone else. She's still hanging onto his hand (marveling at the warm skin and flesh: not just the cold assemblage of proximal, middle, and distal phalanges). If she was co-dependent and obsessively watchful before, well, congratulations, Pal: your new shadow is not going anywhere.
But she's also never bullshitted him as long as either of them have lived, so she says: "Not by yourself. She came back. I had to fight her, along with the Ninth and Tridentarius— the necromantic one. Both she and Nonagesimus became Lyctors. It took all of it to put her down."
A quick rattling-off the gruesome facts, despite the fact that they're standing on a pleasant cobblestoned street outside a souvenir shop on a pleasant autumnal day. She still hasn't let go of his hand; which isn't all that different from back home with the bones, now that we think of it.
"But they succeeded. Building on what you did to her. And your revenant was bound."
A beat.
"Guess you can say 'I told you so' now."