"Just tell me how to play it." Camilla raised her voice: "Camilla the Sixth."
"Cam," Palamedes said. "Go loud." [2]
Camilla Hect (HEKT) is Cavalier Primary to the Heir of the House of the Sixth, Palamedes Sextus, and Warden's Hand of the Library. Intelligent, powerful, and loyal to a fault, Camilla perfectly embodies the cavalier maxim of "one flesh, one end."
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Camilla the Sixth applied to the position of cavalier primary at the age 12, and was accepted. Precocious and driven, she has ably proven herself a good match for Palamedes. Despite her weapons prowess, The Cohort Intelligence Files of Judith Deuteros remarks that Camilla has never entered any dueling tournaments, nor has she ever sought placement in the Cohort.
When both were 13, the Sixth attended Archivist Zeta in the opening of the Study of Doctor Sex (as chronicled in The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex). Regarded by Palamedes as "the first time we surprised them [Sixth House]," the pair investigated the strange scene in tandem and created an reasonable and verifiable explanation of the bizarrely dated skeleton pieces found within.
Both Camilla and Palamedes maintained a close correspondence with Dulcinea Septimus, Heir to the House of the Seventh throughout their youth.
The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex[]
Palamedes and Camilla, age 13, sit in Camilla's dorm bed reading a letter from their mutual friend Dulcinea and attempting to organize Palamedes school requirements when Archivist Zeta intrudes to invite them to the unsealing of an old room in The Library: The Study of renowned researcher Doctor Donald Sex. As they make their way to the study, Zeta explains the chain of deaths, sabbaticals, and bureaucratic red tape that has allowed her to claim this room. Down in the bowels of the basement, Zeta's four-scholar team awaits them, ready to work. She cuts down the "Achaeology Department" tape, and proceeds to organizing her crew.
The crew barely has a chance to begin a cursory documentation of the state of the room, when Palamedes spots a pair of skeletal hands sitting on the desk of Doctor Sex. Zeta directs her team to make note of the remains and search the room for anything more. Finding nothing, she instructs Julia to use psychometry on the hands to date them. Perplexingly, the result is over 200 years after the study was sealed. A flurry of debates over the proper forms and procedures ensues, and most of the team leaves to track down the signatures required to proceed with the investigation.
After a bit of solo investigation around the room, Palamedes and Camilla call Zeta over to show her a service tunnel above the desk. Explaining that he believes the rest of the skeleton will be inside, Zeta allows Palamedes to follow his hypothesis (putting both of their reputations at stake). They send Camilla through the tunnel and she reports back that the rest of a maintenance servitor is hunched over the grate-- in a position that would make it possible to lever off his hands. Palamedes and Camilla continue to poke around the study while the wait for the Collections team to return.
With everyone back, Zeta explains theirs findings and more forms and documentation is pulled out. At a snarky comment from an Archaeologist, Palamedes claims to know what has happened, and outlines his theory to the group. He theorizes that Doctor Sex, made a revenant by an incomplete summoning, possessed a servitor skeleton in order to finish his last research project-- a small wooden puzzle containing an ancient note. As he makes his case, Zeta probes him with questions and clarifications, all of which he answers aptly. He ends his presentation with unlocking the puzzle, revealing the note.
Zeta and her team pursue the leads offered by Palamedes, confirming the servitor skeletons AWOL date and location, as well as exhuming the body of Doctor Sex and seeing signs of his becoming a revenant. Later, Zeta finds Palamedes and Camilla in the dining hall to convey this information.
Gideon the Ninth[]
Act I[]
Sixth House arrives with the others to Canaan House and disembarks without issue. Camilla receives an iron key ring and listens to Teacher explain the task before being led to the rooms provided for them.
Act II[]
Palamedes and Camilla begin to puzzle out the challenge of Canaan House just two hours after Harrow. Receiving the key to the Facility from Teacher, they begin solving the laboratory rooms. Though they will eventually complete each room (with the exception of the Avulsion Room), they only earn three keys, the rest having been claimed by another team. They identify Harrowhark and Third House as their primary competitors.
On the day that Harrow goes missing, they are having an argument of the illogical psychometric timestamps of Canaan House when Palamedes spots Gideon on the stairs behind them. Camilla immediately attacks, proving herself a formidable and agile opponent. Palamedes ends the fight, separating the cavaliers with a necromantic shield. Inferring that Gideon is looking for Harrow, he informs her that he last saw Harrow there at The Facility and doesn't believe her to have left. Panicking, Gideon tries to get through the locked hatch door and breaks her vow of silence to demand that Palamedes help her. When Palamedes decides to help, Camilla tosses him the keys and follows them into the Facility. He leads her to a room called the sanitiser, where Harrow has created a restorative bone cocoon. Palamedes and Camilla do a brief medical assessment and diagnose Harrow with dehydration and exhaustion before releasing her to Gideon. As they are leaving, Palamedes warns Gideon and Harrow it is too dangerous to continue splitting their forces. Gideon earns a small amount of Camilla's respect by thanking them for their help.
Camilla attends the dinner party with Palamedes, but her movements during the night are not remarked upon.
Act III[]
Camilla assists Palamedes with his necromantic investigation of the scene of Abigail and Magnus's murder. She disarms the distraught Fourth House, sketches out the crime scene, and provides Palamedes with tools and water. When Teacher arrives and asks them to bring the bodies up, she claims that they are "safe down here [in the Facility,]" but Teacher refutes her saying she is "absolutely wrong."[3] Upstairs, Camilla shadows and supports Palamedes. When asked who has a key to the Facility, he and Camilla instantly respond in the affirmative, but do not interfere with the following argument between Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth. It is only when Isaac Tettares suggests hunting the supposed monster, that Palamedes steps in. He, with the support of Camilla and Coronabeth, announces that they will proceed scientifically and cooperate enough to warn each other if they notice anything unusual in the Facility.
At some point after the conference, Dulcinea approaches Sixth House about completing the avulsion chamber and they decline on account of the high likelihood of Camilla sustaining permanent brain damage.
After Gideon and Harrow have been to the avulsion chamber, Camilla is sent to examine Gideon. When she arrives, she is surprised to find a battered, but live cavalier. Camilla performs a thorough examination of Gideon, pronouncing her healthy, and invites her to breakfast. In the dining hall, they come across Coronabeth attempting to convince Teacher to give her a Facility hatch key. Palamedes offers to escort Coronabeth to the Facility himself, and Coronabeth blatantly bribes to help her win the same keys as her sister. Camilla is dismayed when Palamedes offers to escort Coronabeth to the Facility himself, but otherwise remains quiet throughout the conversation.
After their meal, Camilla and Gideon accompany Palamedes to the freezer serving as a mortuary. Second House is just leaving, angry because they have not found Fifth's key ring. Judith asks Palamedes to join her and help put an end to the competition, but he rejects her outright. She asks how many keys he has, and he refuses to answer except for "fewer than you think."[4] The conversation nearly ends in a duel, but Judith calls off Marta and they pass. Inside, Palamedes and Camilla take Magnus' ring and a section of his pocket in order to locate his key ring through psychometry. Camilla seems reluctant to share information with Gideon, but Palamedes believes there is no value in staying silent anymore. He is partway through an explanation of the Fifth's mortal injuries when they are interrupted by a noise behind them, and the sound of Fourth House running away.
The next day, Palamedes joins the other necromancers in attempting to learn all they can from the remains found in the incinerator. He is perplexed by the dating of the ashes--placing them weeks before anyone arrived at Canaan House. Ianthe points out that the remains have two separate signatures, two separate people, despite Palamedes' read of the time of death being consistent across the remains. When Silas returns with Dulcinea's keys, Palamedes is horrified. Judith attempts to take control of the situation, but when Silas refuses to hand over Dulcinea's keys; she decides to rule by force and demand that Palamedes hand over his own keys. He refuses, and Marta throws down a glove in official challenge. Chaos breaks out and Coronabeth attempts to end the duel, but is stopped by her sister. Palamedes, tired of Judith's stupidity and posturing, snaps and accepts the challenge for Camilla.
Camilla readies herself and steps onto the table to fight. Judith sets the rules as "hyoid down," an unsportsman-like ruling that allows Marta to "do more of less anything to my cavalier [Camilla], all in the name of making me [Palamedes] cry uncle." [2] Camilla asks how he wants her to play it, and he instructs her to "go loud,"[2] showcasing the full force of her power and skill. She beats her quickly, dislocating Marta's arm and kicking her feet out from under her, but is stabbed in the forearm in the struggle. Judith calls mercy, and Palamedes immediately re-locates Marta's arm. Furious, he demands Judith's keys in return. With no laboratory keys, he takes her facility key and lectures her harshly on how stupid and careless her actions are, how she's unnecessarily hurt two cavaliers, and how it is now her fault that the competition has descended to dirty tricks.
Palamedes turns to care for Camilla's wound, when Naberius Tern issues her another challenge. Camilla readies herself, but Ninth House steps in to represent her in the duel. Jeannemary quickly follows, issuing another challenge to Naberius. The challenges are withdrawn and the conference collapses, Second, Third, and Eighth house leaving in disgust. When they've gone, Palamedes remarks that there is only one key left unaccounted for. He has completed all the challenges (save the avulsion room) and tracked each key to it's respective owner, and only one key still eludes him. They discuss how the challenges seem to be informative and hypothesize that they combine into one "megatheorem." Palamedes organizes the remaining postulants into teams, and sends Gideon, Jeannemary, and Isaac into the Facility to look for Protesilaus, and takes Harrow and Camilla with him to watch to Dulcinea.
Act IV[]
Camilla assists in removing the bodies of Jeannemary Chatur and Isaac Tettares and bringing them to the morgue. Gideon and Harrowhark continue to team up with Sixth House, meeting in Palamedes and Camilla's rooms to negotiate a trade of information: Harrow will give Palamedes her map of Canaan House and helps him pick a lock, and he will give her all his notes from the Lyctoral studies. As they walk to the lock, the two cavaliers trade information-- Camilla learning that Gideon is uncomfortable with Palamedes due to their mutual crush on Dulcinea, and Gideon learning that Camilla usually fights with two identical swords. The lock is jammed with regenerating ash, and Harrow must siphon Gideon to undo it. Still lacking the key, Palamedes and Camilla leave.
When Gideon shows up with the decapitated head of Protesilaus, Camilla is sent to find Harrow. She returns, handcuffed to Harrow, and the necromancers decide to gather everyone in Dulcinea's room. Palamedes proposes that Protesilaus has been dead the whole time and has been reanimated by flesh magic called the beguiling corpse-- which Dulcinea confirms easily. She claims her house intended to send her with a living Protesilaus, but that he had had an accident and died. Colum interrupts to ask about the bodies in the incinerator. Harrow tries to claim carrion rights over Protesilaus' body, which would allow her to scrutinize the bones without an audience, but is denied. Dulcinea's illness flares, and Palamedes and Camilla help tend to her and get her comfortable again.
The next day, the group goes to a Lyctor study that neither of them have the key for, and Harrow uses Palamedes psychometric perception of the key to build a copy out of bone. Inside, Harrow goes for the theorem notes, but Palamedes and Camilla take their time examining the other objects in the study. Camilla discovers a binder full of photos, including one of Teacher. Their investigation is cut short by the fire alarm. All leave immediately, finding broken skeleton servants slumped in the hall. They check on Dulcinea and find one of the priests who were serving her broken as well. She tells them Teacher went to close a door and hasn't yet returned. They find a pile-up of bones leading into a room that contains Judith Deuteros and the bodies of Teacher and Marta Dyas. She describes a fight with Teacher over access to the communication devices gone wrong, but confirms that she got off an SOS. Palamedes informs her that he cannot save her, and she asks to be left where she is with a sword.
The group returns to find Eighth House waiting outside Dulcinea's rooms. He reports that Third House has defiled the corpse of Abigail. They investigate the body and Palamedes discovers that a key was hidden inside of Abigail, which Third House now has in their possession. Together, Ninth, Sixth, and Eighth House set out to the room that would now be open. They reach the Lyctor study to discover Coronabeth sobbing, Naberius dead, and Ianthe a newly-born Lyctor. She does not deny her actions and triumphantly explains that she has reverse engineered the entire Lyctoral process from the tests in the Facility. Harrow is horrified to realize that Palamedes theory of a megatheorem is true. Silas takes great moral offense to her actions and sentences Ianthe to death.Camilla does not engage in the fight and, afterward, they leave Coronabeth with the corpses of Naberius, Silas, and Colum. In the hall, they realize they've lost Palamedes. Camilla finally reveals Palamedes history with Dulcinea and Gideon is crushed with guilt. Gideon asks Harrow to fetch her double-handed sword and Camilla to watch after Harrow, and then runs after him.
When they catch up with Gideon, Cytherea is about to attack Gideon. Camilla throws herself into the fight, attacking fiercely and driving Cytherea back. Cytherea only barely manages the onslaught, before Harrow appears and buries her in bone. Cytherea summons the construct that killed Isaac Tettares, and the first turns necromantic. Gideon and Harrow launch into battle as a team, Harrow clearing the way for Gideon to smash through the construct with her sword. Camilla fights around them, darting in and out of sight. Harrow is is winding up for a powerful attack when Cytherea, healed, attacks Gideon directly. Gideon fights her back and she disappears again. Harrow topples the construct, and tells Gideon she needs to use her perceptions again. They meld and Harrow directs her strikes, and after each she plugs the hole with perpetual bone. Exhausted, Harrowhark passes out.
Camilla makes her way towards Cytherea, and gets a knife to her throat but it is stopped by Cytherea's magic. She sends a tentacle of bone to spear Camilla, but Gideon's warning gives her enough time to move and Camilla is only wounded. Cytherea is about to finish Camilla, when Ianthe stabs her in the abdomen. As they fight, Gideon carries Harrow over to Camilla, and frees the Sixth from the bone impaling her. As the room crumbles, the three of them stumble outside. As Ianthe and Cytherea fight, Cytherea's wounds return and Ianthe adds to them. She seems on the point of victory when Cytherea grabs at her throat and siphons her, healing completely. Cytherea steps on Ianthe right arm and cuts it off. Camilla throws one her knives, spearing Cytherea in a lump on her back. Cytherea removes it, siphons from Ianthe again, and turns to Gideon. Gideon and Cytherea fight, but it is hopeless. Even with a direct hit, Gideon can't wound her. Harrow comes to and sends skeletons after Cytherea, who in turns summons the construct. Harrow builds a shield of bone around the three of them, but she can't hold it.
Gideon begs her to siphon, but after Colum's death she refuses. Harrow explains a plan, but Gideon refuses outright as it results in Harrow's death. They share a tender moment, and Gideon makes her decision. She turns, and falls on the spikes of the fence, killing herself and offering her soul to make Harrow a Lyctor capable of defeating Cytherea.
As Yet Unsent[]
Prior to his death, Camilla Hect and her necromancer, Palamedes Sextus, discussed a plan in which he would anchor his revenant soul to his skeleton.
When the situation at Canaan House goes awry and Palamedes explodes himself in attempt to kill Cytherea the First, Camilla gathers as many pieces of his skull as she can manage before Blood of Eden (BOE) captures her and two other survivors: Coronabeth Tridentarius and Judith Deuteros. Camilla convinces BOE to take the body of Gideon Nav as well, then the Edenites and their captives manage to escape the First House without drawing the attention of the Emperor. Camilla also intervenes on behalf of Captain Deuteros, guiding BOE to use Judith’s necromantic power during the medical procedures to replace her intestines.
Refusing to cooperate beyond this with their captors, Camilla remains nonverbal for the first four weeks of captivity. During this time, she successfully reconstructs about three inches of her necromancer’s skull, painstakingly piecing and gluing ninety-six shards of bone together. The prisoners are brought into Commander We Suffer’s jurisdiction, and she reasons with Camilla by offering her anecdotal evidence of BOE’s involvement with the Sixth House. Judith dismisses this as propaganda, but Camilla confirms that, though outdated, We Suffer’s information is accurate to the inner workings of the Sixth House. With this trust established with the BOE commander, Camilla even goes so far as discussing the break clause, which would allow the Sixth House to secede from the Nine Houses. As a reward for her cooperation Camilla is removed from confinement and fitted with an electric security anklet. BOE uses the anklet to administer a non-fatal shock to Camilla when they discover her “wizard bones”[5] and she refuses to hand them over. The shock hospitalizes Camilla for a week.
Camilla maintains her stoicism throughout her captivity. She makes dogged attempts to nurse Judith, despite her patient’s ill temper; she ignores Coronabeth’s flirtations; she is even unmoved when Blood of Eden puts a gun to her head during their interrogation of Captain Deuteros. She is adamant in protecting the remains of her necromancer, despite the Edenites’ wrath. When We Suffer and Coronabeth’s repeated requests for Camilla to stop carrying the bones fail, Judith tries a different tactic. While Camilla is treating her bed sores, Judith tells her about how she got paired with her cavalier, Marta Dyas. After describing her initial hero worship of Marta, Judith reveals that in the beginning of their partnership she misinterpreted the love between them. Cam guesses what happened next: Judith propositioned Marta, and she was turned down. Judith says that “it was the best and kindest, most honorable thing Marta could have done.”[6] She explains that a necromancer-cavalier relationship should be complementary, not codependent. At Camilla’s prompting, Judith testifies that Camilla’s obsession with the Warden’s bones will kill her. After composing herself, Camilla cuts off Judith’s explanation of Camilla’s wrongdoing, thanks her, and leaves the room. Soon after this incident, Camilla is banned from attending to Judith, though she instructs Coronabeth to look for antibiotics in Judith’s room.
The final entries in Captain Deuteros’s prisoner log depict Judith being healed by a traitorous Lyctor and BOE being gifted a stele-capable ship, which will allow them to travel great distances quickly. With this newfound mobility, Camilla, Judith, and Corona prepare to leave the makeshift BOE camp on a thalergetic planet. At this point, Camilla is able to put the second part of her plan into motion: finding Harrowhark Nonagesimus and confirming that Palamedes’ soul is still attached to his bones.
Harrow the Ninth[]
Two Months Before the Emperor's Murder[]
Camilla is finally able to make contact with Harrow when Mercymorn deposits Harrow on an uninhabited planet to perform her first solo planet killing. Camilla follows Harrow through the thick forests for almost an hour before Harrow finally stops and waits for her to approach. Harrow remarks that she should be dead, begins bleeding from her ear and nose, and hands Camilla a letter addressed to her—presumably explaining how Harrow has altered her memory and providing the correct words to assure Harrow would provide her aid. Harrow sends a skeleton construct toward her and Camilla disables it despite knowing Harrow is much more powerful than she. Harrow explains that she needs to know Camilla is real, but Camilla does not submit to her and advises her to make no sudden moves. When Harrow relents, Camilla approaches and inspects her injuries which she judges to be an intercranial haemorrhage.
Camilla produces the reconstructed skull fragment of Palamedes Sextus and asks Harrow to verify that Palamedes's revenant is attached to this bone fragment—explaining that the Cohort has hidden away the rest of his body and she will need to go find it if he is not attached to this piece. Despite Harrow's insistence that this is nigh-impossible necromancy, Camilla remains firm. Eventually, Harrow relents, collapses her bone constructs, and wades into the River. While she is under, Camilla moves Harrow's body to a blanket in the clearing by her shuttle and informs her companions of the contents of her letter. When she comes through, Harrow sits up suddenly and confirms that Palamedes is in the fragment. Camilla collapses gratefully into the grass. Harrow mends the skull and transforms it into a skeletal hand.
Before Camilla can stop her, she walks around the shuttle and encounters Coronabeth and Judith. Harrow reads two of her letters, and uses necromancy to seal the jaws of both Corona and Judith before Camilla steps in. She tries to diffuse the situation, but Judith gets up and attempts to speak through her stuck jaw. Harrow frees her jaw, but she only gets out part of a warning before Corona covers her mouth and manhandles her back into the shuttle. Camilla, confronted with Harrow's self-inflicted amnesia, decides her group must leave and invokes the Locked Tomb to ensure Harrow allows her to leave and promises to tell no one they were there. Harrow asks who she is with, and Camilla tells her "Blood of Eden."
Epilogue[]
Camilla lives in a war-torn city with Palamedes, Pyrrha and Nona, who has no memory of her identity. Camilla and her companions house and protect her as they attempt to figure out her identity. Palamedes has Nona hold and arrange bones when the windows are covered with blackout curtains, and Camilla has her exercise and do sword work when they are not—both people instructing her to do whatever feels natural. Camilla and Pyrrha occasionally take her down to the street to get food from the vendors, but have to start going to a different place when one of the vendors realizes Nona has not been burned by the hot food. One night, as they lay in the bathroom to shelter from gunfire, Nona notes that Camilla's eyes are "great lambent eyes, the iris so skillfully and gently blent that it seemed there was no tint or shade in that clear and beautiful grey."[7]
Nona the Ninth[]
Before Day One[]
One day, Camilla took Nona swimming for the last time. While Nona is in the water, Camilla is approached and threatened by a group of men from Blood of Eden's Merv Wing. After one of them shoots Nona, Camilla attacks and kills them all, momentarily merging with Palamedes to heal her wounds. This results in her having one "pale, pearlescent grey" eye and one "deep, cool stone colour"[8]. After Nona comes out of the water, Camilla quickly regains control of her body, though weakened, and returns home with Nona.
Day One[]
Camilla, who is now sharing her body with Palamedes, lives in a war-torn city with Pyrrha and Nona. Every morning, she records Nona's dreams and attempts to remember her true identity. Camilla and Pyrrha, when not taking care of Nona, work for Blood of Eden under We Suffer, as part of the Troia cell.
After Nona starts going to school, Camilla becomes responsible for escorting her to and from the schoolhouse.
Day Five[]
Camilla participates in the plan to break into the necromancer barrack with Crown.
She challenges Ianthe (in Naberius' body) to a duel using an unreplied challenge from their time in Canaan House; Crown forces Ianthe to accept the challenge. Though Ianthe knocks Camilla down and stabs her through the chest, Camilla, holding onto Ianthe Naberius's wrist, is able to get Palamedes into Naberius' body. Palamedes forces Ianthe out of the body and it promptly collapses, leading to a victory for the Sixth.
After Pyrrha brings Kiriona Gaia's body from the basement, Camilla assists Palamedes with drawing blood from the body, only for it to wake up. Kiriona allows Camilla to try to draw blood anyways, only for the needle to snap against Kiriona's skin.
After meeting up with We Suffer and Pash with Kiriona, who is feigning death, in tow, Camilla participates in an operation to retrieve the surviving members of the Sixth House, who are in a convoy circling the underground tunnels of the city.
After reuniting with the Sixth House, Camilla and Palamedes begin the Lyctorhood ritual. Palamedes affirms they had the "perfect friendship, the perfect love"[9]; Camilla, overcome with emotion, bursts into tears of relief. After consuming something powdery from Palamedes (presumably his skull fragment) along with her own blood, Camilla's body erupts into flames, and after the fire dies, the Lyctor that emerges from the flames is neither Camilla or Palamedes, but a new person named Paul.
Appearance and Personality[]
Gideon first describes Camilla as thus:
"Standing next to him [Palamedes] holding a big wedge of broken sculpture and the flashlight was a tall, equally grey wrapped figure with a scabbard outlined at her hip. She had hair of an indeterminate darkness, cut blunt at her chin. She was restless as a bird, stepping from one foot to the other, quirking her elbows, rocking from the balls of her feet to the heel."
and almost immediate continues into her fighting style:
"Here was a warrior, not just a cavalier. [...] Blow after lightning blow rattled her defenses, each one coming down like an industrial crush press, the short offhand knife targeting the guard of Gideon's blade." [10]
Camilla the Sixth, despite her demure appearance, is an intelligent and witty personality. With a penchant for dry and wry humor, she slips easily under most people's radar (having correctly guessed that it may be in her best interests to conceal her true aptitude). Beneath the lighthearted rapport she keeps with her friends, Camilla holds a razor-sharp intellect, keenly watchful eyes, and a deadly weapons expertise. She is known to have a certain unflappability, rarely registering surprise or indecision.
Relationships[]
Palamedes Sextus[]
Camilla's relationship to Palamedes is especially strong, even as compared to other cavalier primaries. The two rarely require words to communicate, and when they do, the often settle for only a few broken fragments.
“Not at all,” said the Warden. “But I know what happened now.” [...]
I said, “I don’t.”
“Don’t you, Cam?” said the Warden.
I demurred, “Well, not the why.” [11]
Camilla seems to know her scion's needs intuitively, and often reacts before he can even ask. Though Palamedes is regarded as a genius among his peers and Camilla prefers to keep her talents quiet, she quite his match. Even just a year into her position, he trusted her judgement without question. Likewise, she takes her cues from him without argument.
"Palamedes remembers everything: that was his problem. I always remember him. That's mine." [11]
After Palamedes' death, she keeps a fragment of his skull and asks Harrow for assistance in recovering his revenant, showing her undying loyalty to him.
When the time comes for them to achieve Lyctorhood, Camilla becomes emotional and bursts into tears of relief. She willingly gives her life to Palamedes, stating that "life is too short and love is too long"[9].
Harrowhark Nonagesimus[]
[]
On first impressions, Camilla is put off by Gideon's complete incompetence. As someone who takes great pride in her own work, she doesn't understand how Gideon, a sworn cavalier primary, can allow Harrow to wander a dangerous building by herself at all hours of the night. To her, the Ninth's relationship is a mockery of the bond that she hold very dear.
"'...but I'm fine. H-- My necromancer overreacted.' (This at least, seemed to strike a chord with Camilla, whose glance softened with the understanding of someone whose necromancer was also prone to gross overreaction.)" [12]
Upon becoming acquainted, Camilla warms to Gideon and enjoys the dry banter they share. Camilla rather regards Gideon as a hopeless, rather idiotic, but genuine cavalier who she is rather fond of. A shared approach to weapons and fighting certainly doesn't hurt, either.
Coronabeth Tridentarius[]
Judith Deuteros[]
Dulcinea Septimus[]
"Are you two friends?"
The look in response wasn't quite withering, but it would suck all the moisture out of anyone it was aimed at. Camilla said, "Lady Septimus and I have never met. Look, you should eat." [12]
Camilla and Dulcinea's relationship is rather difficult to pin down. During the events of Gideon the Ninth, Camilla seems to hold resentment towards Dulcinea, though it is unclear if these feelings are long standing, or if they are caused by the dissonance between the Dulcinea they knew through their prior communication, and the act put on by Cytherea, in which she ignored the sixth house entirely. It is possible that Camilla felt frustration or even jealousy at Palamedes' infatuation with her.
However, in her final scene with Palamedes before ascending to become Paul, Camilla asks "Warden - will she know who we are, in the River?"
While this statment is vague, if she is talking about Dulcinea, it implies a depth to their relationship we had not previously seen.
Trivia[]
- Camilla's name was picked so that the "am" fragment would resonate with Palamedes "in a way that other necromancer-cavalier pairs who love each other very much do in the book." [13]
References[]
- ↑ tazmuir, Tumblr.com.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Gideon the Ninth," Act III, Ch. 23
- ↑ "Gideon the Ninth," Act III, Ch. 17
- ↑ "Gideon the Ninth," Act III, Ch. 21
- ↑ As Yet Unsent, Entry: Camilla Hect
- ↑ As Yet Unsent, Untitled Entry (6)
- ↑ "Harrow the Ninth," Epilogue
- ↑ "Nona the Ninth", Day Two, Ch. 9
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Nona the Ninth", Day Five, Ch. 28
- ↑ "Gideon the Ninth," Act II, Ch. 12
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Gideon the Ninth," Act III, Ch. 21
- ↑ "Gideon the Ninth," A Little Explanation of Naming Systems