I am unable to shake the thought that Harrow took Gideon’s sternum.
It makes sense for Gideon to have a huge hole in her chest—a fence went through it—but the description of the wound as ringed with teeth-like protrusions makes me think less of a mouth and more of a ribcage, cleanly missing its sternum.
While the image of Harrow using Gideon’s heart as the “incorporation” step of the lyctorhood process is poetic, it doesn’t feel like Harrow’s poeticism. She’s a bone witch, not a flesh magician.
I’m picturing Harrow, panicking at Gideon’s dissipation, pulling the sternum from the open chest wound and— in some attempt to preserve a piece of her, protect it somehow—carving herself open down to her own bones and incorporating the osseous matter, merging their marrow, hiding Gideon’s bones within hers. That’s where she keeps her.
After all, it’s just bones. She’s into bones.