56 pages • 1 hour read
Tamsyn MuirGideon the Ninth
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act 2, Chapters 9-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Act 2, Chapter 9 Summary
Gideon wakes up and finds both her keyring and Harrow missing. With no directions or idea of what to do, Gideon wanders around Canaan House. In the dining room, Gideon meets the Fourth House’s team, Isaac Tettares and Jeannemary Chatur, and the Fifth’s cavalier, Magnus Quinn. Magnus and his wife Abigail, the Fifth’s necromancer, are the oldest of the eight teams present. The Fourth House are teenagers that the Fifth watches over like family. Magnus tries to befriend Gideon, despite the Ninth’s dodgy reputation, menacing all-black attire, and skull face paint.
Gideon continues exploring and finds the pool room and the attached training room. Currently, the pool is filthy and long abandoned, and the training room is full of disused swords. In the hallway leading to the two rooms, Gideon finds a strange door hidden behind a tapestry. This is the first Lyctor door that Gideon and Harrow will open in Chapter 19.
Gideon hides as the Third House comes down the stairs. She listens to their conversation, learning about the dynamic between the trio. Coronabeth Tridentarius is beautiful and charismatic, naturally drawing attention to herself. Ianthe Tridentarius is a pale shadow of her sister and easily overlooked. Their cavalier, Naberius Tern, tries to interrupt their sibling squabbles to take Corona’s side, but both sisters become agitated when he supports Corona in their arguments. The trio makes its way toward the pool room, and Ianthe stops. She stares into the darkness, directly at Gideon, and warns her to not spy on the trio. Ianthe does not know it is Gideon, only that somebody is there.
Act 2, Chapter 10 Summary
Gideon has lunch and meets more of the Houses. She suspects that there is something strange about the skeletal servants of the First House: They are too advanced compared to what the Ninth House can make. The Ninth House is the home of bone necromancy and so should have the most advanced skeletal servants. The Eighth House enters the dining hall. The Eighth necromancer, Silas Octakiseron, tells his cavalier, Colum Asht, to remove the “shadow cultist,” meaning Gideon, from his presence (96). Colum does so, and Gideon leaves the dining hall to wander again. She feels like an “unwelcome spectre” because of Harrow’s complete abandonment and how the other Houses treat her (96).
Gideon finds Dulcinea on a terrace outside. Dulcinea—Cytherea in disguise— enjoys Gideon’s attention and wishes she could be a Ninth House adept, so she could die (98). Dulcinea talks while the silent Gideon listens. She asks Gideon to show off her sword and fighting stance. Gideon, without thinking, draws her rapier and holds it like a two-handed sword, revealing her lack of training with a rapier. Protesilaus, Dulcinea’s cavalier, shows up, and Gideon promptly leaves, feeling embarrassed.
Act 2, Chapter 11 Summary
Gideon’s early days in Canaan House are empty. She is “sore and furious with loneliness” because Harrow has completely abandoned her (103). She rarely sees her necromancer in her bed at night, and Harrow does not talk to her about her adventures or anything she has found. Gideon goes to the dining hall for breakfast and finds Corona, who invites Gideon to the training room for some friendly sparring matches with the other cavaliers. However, Gideon feels like a “leper” with the other cavaliers (104).
Gideon spars Magnus and quickly beats him. She then spars Naberius, whom Gideon believes has been fed fencing manuals since birth. She is unable to beat him in a duel because of his cavalier training. Gideon loses and punches Naberius in the gut. Gideon is not a trained duelist, but she is a trained fighter, and her instincts tell her to act as if it were an actual fight. Naberius is furious: Dyas, the Second cavalier, tells Naberius he is the better duelist, but Gideon is the better fighter. Gideon wins the admiration of Jeannemary while Harrow lurks in the shadows and watches Gideon’s duels.
Act 2, Chapter 12 Summary
Gideon discovers Harrow has not been in her bedroom in at least two days due to the lack of new wrinkles in the bedsheets. Worried, she goes looking for her necromancer. Gideon encounters the Sixth’s necromancer, Palamedes Sextus, and his cavalier, Camilla Hect. The Sixth is investigating a strange hatch in the floor covered in Harrow’s blood, and Gideon breaks her vow of silence to ask Palamedes to help her open the hatch and look for Harrow. The trio discovers that the hatch leads to an ancient underground laboratory facility that pre-dates the Emperor’s Resurrection.
The trio finds Harrow in a bone cocoon, where she placed herself before passing out. Gideon carries her back to the safety of their rooms.
Act 2, Chapter 13 Summary
Gideon lets her frustration loose when Harrow wakes up. Harrow is incapacitated, and Gideon takes back her keyring with the facility key on it. This puts Gideon in a position to demand answers from Harrow. Harrow shows Gideon her map of Canaan House. Every door is marked, including several other strange doors that look like the one Gideon found. Harrow explains that the lab facility comprises “theorem chambers” (141) but doesn’t currently know they produce keys to the Lyctor doors. Harrow explains that she has lost over 100 skeletons trying and failing to solve one of the theorem chambers, and her over-exertion made her pass out in the bone cocoon. Harrow admits she was wrong in abandoning Gideon and promises to take her down to the lab facility.
Act 2, Chapter 14 Summary
Gideon and Harrow travel down to the “Transference/Winnowing” theorem chamber (146), which is a central chamber with two rooms attached. One has a wall of windows looking into it from the main chamber, and the other is a small closet-like room with a strange glass device in it. The door to the windowed chamber only opens when a necromancer grabs the glass device in the other room. Once something enters the windowed chamber, the door shuts, and a hulking bone construct emerges to destroy whatever has entered its chamber.
Gideon watches as Harrow pushes her magic to its limits. Harrow sends wave after wave of skeletons into the room to be destroyed by the construct. Harrow is convinced the test is only for her and does not involve her cavalier, but Gideon wants to fight the bone construct because Harrow’s plan isn’t working. Harrow does not agree. Gideon trips the next skeleton Harrow sends in and enters the chamber herself. Harrow screams in pain the moment Gideon steps into the room, which Gideon hears through an intercom. Using magic, Harrow enters Gideon’s head and sees the world through her eyes. Gideon discovers that the construct, which has a strange aura, endlessly regenerates and cannot be destroyed by brute force. Gideon will later discover this is the necromantic magic holding the construct together, its “theorems.” Harrow lets go of the device and ends the fight so the two can talk. She is frustrated she cannot complete the theorem chamber alone and faints from exhaustion.
Act 2, Chapter 15 Summary
The two retreat to try the theorem chamber again later. Harrow explains that necromantic constructs are held together by “necromancy theorems,” which can be seen by necromancers and picked apart like a tapestry (157). Soon afterward, Magnus and Abigail invite all of the Houses to an anniversary dinner for the couple’s marriage. Harrow is paranoid that the dinner is a trap, but it is also an opportunity for Gideon and Harrow to learn more about the other Houses.
They first learn that Teacher knows more than he lets on. Abigail Pent is a historian and experienced spirit summoner; Dulcinea talks to Abigail about her work, foreshadowing Abigail’s murder next chapter. Jeannemary is very impressed by Gideon’s biceps and admires her. Speaking with Gideon, Dulcinea implies that the competition of the Houses is not worth the Emperor’s favor. Harrow pulls Gideon away from Dulcinea and rushes toward the lab facility; Harrow is afraid Abigail will beat her at solving the theorem chamber and wants to get there first.
Act 2, Chapter 16 Summary
Gideon and Harrow try the transference/winnowing theorem chamber again. Harrow sinks into a “morass of frustration and self-hatred” because at first, she cannot synchronize fully with Gideon to help her pick apart the bone construct (170). Harrow eventually synchronizes with Gideon, and the two destroy the bone construct, which dissolves to reveal a single key that unlocks the Lyctor door Gideon discovered. Gideon remarks that she saw the necromantic theorems that held the construct together, but Harrow says this is impossible.
The two begin to leave the facility with their new key, but before they can, they find the mangled corpses of Magnus and Abigail at the bottom of the facility hatch ladder.
Act 2, Chapters 9-16 Analysis
Act 2 begins the rising action of the novel in its last chapter, Chapter 16. A large portion of Act 2 is dedicated to Gideon wandering around Canaan House and encountering new characters. In the Gothic fiction genre, the haunted castle or manor is often described in lavish ways that make it a character in its own right; for example, Gideon’s rooms are “decaying away in magnificence” (82). A hungry Gideon is led to the dining room by her nose where she finds “a hot, glass-topped hall, [with] modern conveniences haphazardly pasted atop ancient riches, out of place among the tapestries and gone-black filigree” (84). Canaan House is characterized as a place that belongs in the past. The modern conveniences seem garish against the ancient riches: Intrusions from the modern world in a place previously described as “a castle that had been killed” feel sacrilegious and wrong (65). Describing the castle as a being that can be killed is an instance of anthropomorphizing, or attributing human attributes to non-human things. Anthropomorphizing is key to making Canaan House its own character, which changes over time to reflect the changes in the narrative.
Gideon’s relationship with Harrow worsens in Act 2 before they solve the winnowing theorem chamber. Harrow leaves Gideon entirely alone in a strange place and does not communicate with her, yet Gideon would never have come to Canaan House without Harrow. Gideon goes to bed “furious with loneliness” because of Harrow’s abandonment (103). Despite Gideon’s anger, she readily puts herself in danger for Harrow’s sake; she even explores unknown parts of Canaan House with the Sixth House, who are complete strangers to her, just to find her missing necromancer. Gideon throws herself into the winnowing theorem chamber without a second thought though she claims it’s because the bone construct has arms that “looked like swords” (150). Gideon’s eagerness to fight the bone construct complicates her previous anger at Harrow. Gideon’s murky feelings toward Harrow, and vice versa, are the basis for the redemption they both find in one another’s love at the novel’s end.
Harrow’s frustration and self-loathing over her birth circumstances are expressed through her perfectionism. Harrow throws herself repeatedly at the winnowing theorem chamber because she is convinced she must be able to solve it alone (151). She tries the chamber over and over until her nose is bloody, and she is blank-eyed (151). Her first instinct is to comment that she has surpassed her parents and grandparents, but if she is the perfect necromancer that they sacrificed 200 children to make, why can’t she finish a simple necromantic test? Whenever Harrow is frustrated by an obstacle, her first instinct is to comment on how perfect her necromancy is. Gideon, at first, assumes this is arrogance. Harrow cannot let go of the atrocities committed to make her and this shapes her entire perspective on the events in Canaan House. Harrow’s judgment is compromised by her own guilt over her birth.
