“If she had known anything about you at all, she would have never called you a nice girl,” Palamedes observes, and though he smiles, it isn’t a very nice smile. It’s a smile that could remind someone that being the greatest necromancer of one’s generation means one is capable of terrible things, even if one is as careful and kind a person as the Warden of the Library always strives to be.
He’s turning his glasses around in his fingers in silence when he hears the all-too-familiar crack of a tiny screw losing its structural integrity thanks to Palamedes’ slow, constant assault. The sound breaks the tension in his expression, and he holds them up with an apologetic wince. “…I’ll take care of that later,” he says, setting them aside.
His eyes brighten when Cam reveals that she has spoken to Gideon—it’s a lot of take in, of course, and Cam’s mind must be roiling in the aftermath as much as his own, but that does make it much easier to catch her up. “I think—no, I know—there’s another sort of lyctorhood, where no one needs to die. The theorem isn’t meant to create a perpetual furnace; it’s meant to create a perpetual wheel, no destruction necessary—“ he gestures at his papers— “well, sort of, it’s an awful metaphor, but I’m still stuck at the ‘awful metaphor’ stage of figuring it out.”
He scrubs his hands through his hair. “I’ve suspected as much for a while now, as it points to a different source to fuel the theorem, one that doesn’t lead to horror and bloodshed. But we didn’t have any proof, and no way to test it, not until Gideon woke up one day and realized that she didn’t actually die.” Pal flashes a smile that’s just a little manic with competing emotions: excitement, and weariness, and horror, and awe. “Harrow became a Lyctor, and despite that, Gideon Nav kept existing. And of course God knew it was it possible. He invented the fucking thing.”
no subject
He’s turning his glasses around in his fingers in silence when he hears the all-too-familiar crack of a tiny screw losing its structural integrity thanks to Palamedes’ slow, constant assault. The sound breaks the tension in his expression, and he holds them up with an apologetic wince. “…I’ll take care of that later,” he says, setting them aside.
His eyes brighten when Cam reveals that she has spoken to Gideon—it’s a lot of take in, of course, and Cam’s mind must be roiling in the aftermath as much as his own, but that does make it much easier to catch her up. “I think—no, I know—there’s another sort of lyctorhood, where no one needs to die. The theorem isn’t meant to create a perpetual furnace; it’s meant to create a perpetual wheel, no destruction necessary—“ he gestures at his papers— “well, sort of, it’s an awful metaphor, but I’m still stuck at the ‘awful metaphor’ stage of figuring it out.”
He scrubs his hands through his hair. “I’ve suspected as much for a while now, as it points to a different source to fuel the theorem, one that doesn’t lead to horror and bloodshed. But we didn’t have any proof, and no way to test it, not until Gideon woke up one day and realized that she didn’t actually die.” Pal flashes a smile that’s just a little manic with competing emotions: excitement, and weariness, and horror, and awe. “Harrow became a Lyctor, and despite that, Gideon Nav kept existing. And of course God knew it was it possible. He invented the fucking thing.”