Nona

Nona
Nona from the Nona the Ninth book cover illustrated by Tommy Arnold.
Alias	No-No By Pyrrha Dve: Kiddie Junior Small Fry Cutie Pie Li’l Bits Small Cam Hairy Maclary Nums Nope None Sweet Nons Nona-Palona The Big No
Biography
Age	6 months
Title	Teacher's Aide
Status
Status	Complicated
Physical Description
Gender	Female
Eye Color	Golden
General Build	Long, black hair.

Nona is the person who wakes up in Harrowhark Nonagesimus's body almost six months before the start of Nona the Ninth.

Biography

Background

Nona is the name given to the amnesiac soul who inhabited the body of Harrowhark Nonagesimus following the attack of the seventh Resurrection Beast, and the attempted murder of the Emperor.

Some years before, Harrowhark had invaded the Locked Tomb and developed an obsession with the interred body of Alecto. Following the battle with a Resurrection Beast, Harrowhark’s soul fled back to the tomb; Alecto — soul of the dead planet Earth — flipped over to Harrowhark’s body, and awoke screaming “No no no no,” and went on to experience six months of life in the modern era under the name Nona.

Early Life

When Nona and Pyrrha Dve fall out of the River, Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus find them. Nona is badly hurt and Palamedes (still occupying the hand bones that Harrowhark created for him) uses necromancy to save her. They protect her when the Emperor launches an attack on Blood of Eden. The Edenites distrust Nona and Pyrrha, but We Suffer vouches for them and arranges for them to live on New Rho in the Building. Because of Nona’s body, everyone assumes that her soul belongs to either Harrowhark Nonagesimus or Gideon Nav, though Palamedes posits that Nona could be some Lyctoral combination of the two. Initially, Camilla and Palamedes suspect that Nona is suffering from the blue madness because she only wakes up for short periods and can’t speak properly, but eventually they realize that the Resurrection Beast has no adverse effects on her. Nona begins waking up for longer periods of time, though she later won’t be able to recall this period, nor does she remember any part of her past life or who she is. Around this point, Nona has her first tantrum, which reminds Pyrrha of something she hadn’t wanted to think about for a long time.

After Blood of Eden can no longer overtly support them because of infighting in the organization, Pyrrha gets a job in the city, while Camilla and Palamedes stay home to teach Nona. Set with the task of identifying Nona’s soul, Camilla and Palamedes record everything Nona does and says. In her younger days, Nona struggles with many things: she has to learn how to speak; she has trouble understanding abstract concepts; she lacks object permanence; and she struggles with fine motor skills. She absolutely despises eating and avoids it at all costs, forcing her companions to bribe, cajole, and force her into fueling her body, though she occasionally eats nonedible things like rocks and pencils. Once Nona learns how to do most basic tasks, Camilla and Palamedes begin to test her ability level with necromancy and swordsmanship, though Nona can do neither. Despite her lack of many basic skills, Nona is abnormally gifted in several areas. She is able to understand any language that is spoken to her, so long as she can see the person’s face. She can also speak any language by mimicking the way the speaker’s lips move. This uncanny ability also applies to body language, as Nona can often interpret a person’s intentions simply by observing the way they move. Additionally, her regenerative powers seem to be limitless; she heals much faster than even a Lyctor would.

Nona in the jellyfish infested waters of the harbour, illustrated by catalpa3

At some point, Nona has her second tantrum, likely temporarily damaging her own body in the process. Camilla ends the tantrum by swaddling Nona in a blanket, which calms her down. Worried that if Nona didn’t learn to control her anger someone would witness her regeneration, Palamedes and Camilla try to tame her anger by allowing her to swim in the ocean. It’s dangerous—if anyone sees Nona in the ocean, her cover would be blown. The water is teeming with deadly jellyfish, though they have little effect on Nona. For security, Nona is only allowed to swim at dusk, and Cam uses rocks to break all the lights on their part of the beach. The saltwater soothes Nona and prevents tantrums, so the beach is deemed worth the risk.

When Nona is four months old, a teacher catches her lingering outside a schoolyard. When Nona tells her that she does lessons at home, the teacher seems displeased and asks for Nona’s address. The teacher arrives at their apartment later to pitch the refuge school to Nona’s “parents,” but Nona laughs at the implication that Pyrrha is her father. The teacher grows suspicious, assuming that Pyrrha is Cam and Nona’s pimp. Desperate to help Nona, the teacher offers her a job as a Teacher’s Aide, despite Nona’s inability to read or write. After she leaves, Nona gets in trouble for giving out their address, and though she cries lavishly, Camilla and Pyrrha agree that school is out of the question.  Palamedes eventually convinces them to let Nona go, on the condition that she learns a cover story. She is forbidden from talking about zombies or necromancy, and Pyrrha and Camilla teach her to say her unusual household and broad knowledge of language is the result of a lot of resettlements.

At the school, Nona takes on the duties of cleaning whiteboards, escorting students to the bathroom, and looking after the science teacher’s dog, Noodle. She is completely uninterested in learning. After the first week, Nona is summoned by Hot Sauce, the oldest child at the school. Hot Sauce’s gang—composed of Honesty, Beautiful Ruby, Born in the Morning, and Kevin—considers Nona to be important because she lives in the Building and talks to the science teacher, whom they idolize and call the Angel. After accepting Nona into their gang, the children spend all their time together. As they play, they give certain reverence to things in the city, including the occasional motorcade of large military trucks which they dub the Convoy. Nona considers their friendship a privilege and talks about them often to anyone who will listen.

When Nona is five months old, Palamedes bribes her to eat with the promise of a trip to the beach. Camilla accompanies her, waiting on the beach with a book while Nona swims. By the time she’s done swimming, Nona is overjoyed, but she stops short at the scene on the beach. Camilla is surrounded by six armed figures wearing traditional Blood of Eden garb. As Camilla attempts to deescalate the situation, Nona creeps forward in the water until Camilla signals for her to stay put. Speaking in a language that Camilla cannot understand, the Edenites plan to shoot her. Nona surges out of the water, shouting a warning to Cam. One of the Edenites shoots Nona in the shoulder. She sinks to the bottom of the water, counting to twenty while sounds and lights flash above her. When she emerges, her bullet wound already healed, she sees Cam squatting on the beach, having killed the Edenites. When she reaches Cam, she realizes that this person is a combination of Camilla and Palamedes, each eye a different color. They comfort Nona, then revert back to just Cam at the insistent urging of a timer. Nona is horrified to realize that Cam is covered in blood sweat. Camilla weakly instructs Nona to drive them home on the Edenites’ motorbike. At the Building, Nona supports Cam on the way up to their apartment, then hovers worriedly while Pyrrha tends to Camilla. There is no more swimming after this ill-fated trip.

Harrow the Ninth

Six Months After the Murder of the Emperor

The Epilogue of Harrow the Ninth centers an unnamed character who lives with three other people: the person who goes to work for her, the person who teaches her, and the person who looks after her. In Nona the Ninth, these characters are revealed to be, respectively, Nona, Pyrrha Dve, Palamedes Sextus, and Camilla Hect.

They live in a loud, hot, war-torn city. At the hottest part of the day, they pin up the blackout curtains and Palamedes gives Nona bones, encouraging her to handle them in a way that feels natural to her. Once the temperature comes down, so do the blackout curtains, and Camilla has Nona exercise, then handle a sword in a way that feels natural to her. These lessons done, Camilla takes Nona to the corner store, and Nona recalls that they used to get takeout from a different place, but had to stop going there when the owner had noticed Nona having no reaction to eating dangerously hot food.

At night, to escape the heat and the gunfire outside their apartment, they lie on the cool ceramic tiles of the bathroom floor. Nona is comforted when she fondly looks at Camilla’s face. She says, “Have you worked out who I am yet?” which Camilla responds to in the negative.

Nona the Ninth

Day One (Five Days Until the Tomb Opens)

Nona starts the day as she starts every day: telling Camilla about her dream. In her dream she is being pushed under water by a person with a painted face who Nona doesn’t know. She enjoys the feeling of the water, and her hands, and the way her arms tighten around Nona. She doesn’t remember anything else. Camilla ends the recording, but continues writing notes as Nona gets dressed and does her morning stretches. Nona attempts to coax Cam into massaging her legs, but Camilla only sends Nona to help Pyrrha with breakfast.

Pyrrha has just finished making eggs, and she braids Nona’s hair while Nona very reluctantly eats. Camilla enters the room, but Nona quickly realizes that it’s not Cam, but Palamedes (in Camilla’s body). He asks Pyrrha for a word in the other room, which Nona listens to through the closed door while attempting to finish her eggs. Nona doesn’t entirely understand what they’re talking about, but they seem to be searching for something, and they disagree about how they should approach the fraught political climate of the refugee city they live in. A timer goes off, indicating that Palamedes needs to vacate Cam’s body. Camilla catches Nona eavesdropping, then they hurry through the rest of breakfast. Before they leave the apartment, Pyrrha drills Cam and Nona on their codewords and reviews their emergency plans for if the Resurrection Beast in the sky begins periscoping.

The trio walks alongside the other workers, and Pyrrha instructs them to walk through the park, where they pass the necromancer cages, which Nona doesn’t like looking at. Pyrrha peels off to go to her work site, and Camilla walks Nona the rest of the way to school. As Nona prepares the classroom for the school day, Hot Sauce informs her that she’s investigating a stranger who is watching the school from a building across the street. Nona ponders this during the lesson, until she is distracted by the Angel’s arrival. At lunch, Nona confides in the gang that the Angel looks particularly disheveled. This news is overshadowed by Honesty’s announcement that he has a job for the night. As the group breaks up, Hot Sauce warns Nona to stay on the grounds when she takes Noodle outside during the Hour of Science.

After Nona takes Noodle back inside and reports back to Hot Sauce—nothing suspicious—Cam picks her up. Back at the Building, as Nona practices with the forbidden bones, Palamedes and Nona exchange questions—Nona because of her inquisitive nature and Palamedes because he is collecting data about who Nona is. Cam reads to Nona while she bathes, and Nona admits that she’s keeping something from Cam, but doesn’t say what it is. While they lay in bed together, waiting for Pyrrha to get home from work, Cam tells Nona the story of how they met. Just as Nona drifts off to sleep, Pyrrha comes in to say good night.

Day Two (Four Days Until the Tomb Opens)

Nona recounts her dreams, though she’s disgruntled because Cam woke her up with a wet sponge. Her dreams featured her hands, the nice water, red eyes, and hunger, which is uncharacteristic for Nona, who hates eating. Pyrrha regales Nona with stories of her coworkers fighting more frequently due to tensions rising in the city. Palamedes comes in and bickers pleasantly with Pyrrha about money and the thing they’re searching for. On their way to school, Cam alarms Nona by saying that she’ll only get a birthday present for a full year, not six months. Nona feels a sense of urgency not shared by her caretakers, but Pyrrha still promises to get her a present.

Upon arriving at school, Nona is met with the sight of Joli, the nice lady teacher, tending to Honesty’s newly acquired black eye. The teacher leaves Nona in charge of applying an ice pack to Honesty’s eye. At lunch, Honestly explains that his job the night before had been to steal air-con units from megatrucks. The third truck they went for was a part of the Convoy, and the thief came back with a horror story of the truck being filled with people with no eyes, who all looked at him at the exact same time. The militia showed up and Honesty, already terrified of the Convoy, ran away, right into a pole, earning him a black eye. The gang promises to take care of Honesty, then the main teacher comes over to give Honesty a shelter pamphlet and remind Nona to take Noodle out. Hot Sauce reminds Nona that she’s still on lookout, and asks her to make a fake radio call while she’s outside. Nona does, pretending like she’s asking Crown to come visit her. When she goes back inside, Hot Sauce demands to know what she said, then informs Nona that after the fake radio call, the watcher took off. Hot Sauce says she needs to investigate further, but won’t say anything more.

After the Hour of Science, the class hears sustained gunfire nearby. They follow gunfire protocol, but people begin arriving to take the children home, including Cam. Nona, who’s feeling “very bitter about life,” tries to convince Cam to take her to the beach. Cam says no because of the rising tensions in the city, and she also vetoes Nona’s plea to go back to school. She claims Nona has a responsibility to keep herself safe. Nona, still crabby, says “it’s hard to feel responsible for the other two people I might be.” Unsympathetically, Cam takes Nona to pick up dinner instead.

Pyrrha arrives home, late and disheveled. She is covered in dust and blood, but she quickly explains that the blood is not hers. Pyrrha got caught in a clash between civilians and police. She explains that she tried to protect who she could without giving herself away as a zombie, and got a shrapnel wound to her arm for her troubles. Palamedes heals the wound, allowing Pyrrha’s lyctoral regeneration to kick in. While Nona is drawing a bath for Pyrrha, she overhears Pyrrha tell Palamedes that the rioters had found alleged necromancers to burn in the cages in the park. Palamedes is aghast, worried that they might be his people, and distraught that three innocent people would be killed. Pyrrha orders him to kill his sentiment and to keep Camilla from going to the park to save the alleged necromancers. After the argument, Nona sneaks back into the kitchen and asks Pyrrha if she can go out into the corridor. From there, Nona peels back the tape on a window and gazes lovingly at the blue sphere in the sky. Even though Varun is the cause of all the chaos in the city, Nona loves the Resurrection Beast because “She, and nobody else, could hear it sing.” After bidding Varun a good night, Nona tiptoes back into the apartment and tries to comfort a downtrodden Camilla, before bathing and going to sleep.

Day Three (Three Days Until the Tomb Opens)

Nona reveals that in her dream, she’s holding down the girl with the painted face. There are arms around her, and she demonstrates this embrace on Camilla. While Camilla and Palamedes shut themselves away to alternate talking into the recorder, Nona goes into the kitchen and immediately notices that Pyrrha hasn’t slept. Pyrrha confesses that she had been in the park during the night. She warns Nona that Hot Sauce had been there too and “was keeping some pretty ferocious company.” Nona gets upset at Pyrrha criticizing her friend and changes the subject, asking Pyrrha what she thinks is sexy. When Nona disagrees with Pyrrha’s assertion that redheads are sexy, Palamedes takes interest, hurriedly writing it down in Cam’s notebook.

Their breakfast is interrupted by the door bursting open, the sound of guns, and an order to put their heads down and hands up. Nona, Camilla, and Pyrrha immediately respond with practiced compliance. Blood of Eden pulls bags over their heads, restrains their arms, and searches them for weapons. The Edenites separate Pyrrha from Nona and Camilla, and then bundle them all into a big white car. During the ride, BOE scans their bodies and checks their temperature. Upon arriving at their destination, Nona and Camilla are taken to a waiting room in what is likely an old government building. When their tests come back clear, Crown enters the room and frees Nona from her restraints while Camilla frees herself. Despite Nona’s protests that she’s missing school, Crown tells them that We Suffer wants a private chat with them. Camilla puts on a pair of dark-tinted glasses before Crown leads them into a meeting room. Pyrrha is already there, locked into a chair designed to kill her if she makes any sudden movements. We Suffer is sitting at the table with a bodyguard behind her, each dressed to obscure their identity.

Camilla demands to know if Blood of Eden armed the rioters the day before. The bodyguard, through a voice modifier attached to their mask, accuses her of only caring about the three alleged necromancers, and not the other nineteen people shot. Crown comes to Camilla’s defense, challenging the bodyguard. We Suffer puts an end to this by announcing that a negotiator from the Nine Houses is in orbit, despite the risk of blue madness from the Resurrection Beast. As We Suffer loads an image of the negotiator’s small craft, Nona notices that Cam is acting unusually, and though she can’t confirm it, suspects that it’s actually Palamedes. The group establishes that the shuttle probably dropped through the River, suggesting an imminent lyctoral presence. Pyrrha asks how that would affect the due date, and everyone looks towards Nona, who feels uncomfortable under the scrutiny. We Suffer plainly states that Blood of Eden is thus far disappointed with the results of the Lyctor experiment, which she summarizes by saying, “The Lyctor experiment is going well in that the Lyctor now talks in full sentences but shows no signs of power.” Camilla/Palamedes ends the meeting by promising a Lyctor, or the equivalent.

The bodyguard hurries out of the meeting, explaining, “The package is late for work.” Nona surprises Crown by correctly identifying the bodyguard as Pash, despite her obscured identity. While Nona goes to the bathroom and steals toilet paper on Pyrrha’s orders, Camilla asks Crown if they can visit the Captain. Nona is scared by Judith Deuteros’s appearance—sickly and unconscious. At Nona’s entrance, the Captain opens her mouth and wheezes out a tirade, ending with: “you misused green thing—come back to us—take vengeance for us—we saw you—we see you—I see you.” After Palamedes uses necromancy to improve Judith’s health, she begins talking normally, railing against Blood of Eden until she devolves into hissing about the green thing and hunger again. Curious, Nona asks Crown and the recently-returned Camilla what the Captain meant by that. Camilla looks frightened, and Crown bewilderedly tells Nona that the Captain hadn’t said anything, she had only screamed.

On their way home, Crown instructs the driver to let her and Nona out near the school, and they walk the remaining distance together. The Angel, who’s just arrived, lets them in the building and briefly talks with Crown before handing Noodle off to Nona. Crown departs after cryptically telling Nona, “I know what you are, even if they refuse to see it.” Nona doesn’t dwell on this as she reunites with the gang, and Hot Sauce informs her solemnly that the Angel had been dropped off late in a car with a grille, which was unusual. After most of the kids leave at the lunch hour, Hot Sauce also delivers the news that there is going to be a public broadcast about necromancers. Nona tactfully asks Hot Sauce about being in the park, and Hot Sauce denies being a part of Blood of Eden, calling them “traitors” and “zombie lovers.” Hot Sauce tells Nona about her family who died fighting necromancers. Feeling particularly close to Hot Sauce in this moment, Nona confesses her Secret. Concerned, Hot Sauce tells Nona to look into the organ market or to visit the clinic where the Angel works some evenings, but Nona begs her to keep it a secret.

By the end of lunch, only Honesty, Born in the Morning, and Beautiful Ruby have returned, and they bring news about the broadcast, saying that there will be a screening of it in the square. The Angel asks them all to promise not to attend the screening, then she helps the children get out art materials. Nona asks the time, then gets worried when she realizes that Camilla is more than four hours late in picking her up. To calm her down, the Angel asks her to take Noodle out, and Hot Sauce volunteers to go with her. Once outside, Hot Sauce and Nona decide to go to the screening, leaving a note with Noodle so the Angel will know where they’ve gone.

Nona and Hot Sauce make it into the square, despite the militia turning kids away. To escape the crowd, the girls climb a traffic light and sit on the crossbar. At the start of the broadcast, Prince Ianthe Naberius (Ianthe the First occupying the corpse of Naberius Tern) outlines the terms and conditions of the Emperor’s revised agreement with the people of New Rho. Following this recitation, Ianthe indicates for the camera to zoom out, revealing Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia. The Emperor’s only daughter is lifeless, expressionless, uninterested, and doesn’t seem to be breathing or moving in any way. Nona recognizes her as the girl from her dreams.

After the broadcast ends, the militia orders the crowd to disperse. Many of the people in the square are angry or depressed, yelling and throwing things at the blank screen or fighting with other people. Faced with the horror of necromancers, Hot Sauce begins to have a panic attack. Nona helps calm her down, then leads them through the crowd. A shot rings out, sending the crowd into chaos, then Hot Sauce takes the lead. They run through an alley, where Nona cuts her hand on some trash. After they run for what Nona feels is a very long time, they hear the Angel calling to them from the passenger seat of a truck with a grille. After checking that the girls aren’t hurt, the Angel directs her masked driver away from the chaos. The Angel and her driver are incredulous when Nona tells them that she lives in the Building, but don’t ask any questions about it. The Angel checks on Nona again, since she’s covered in blood, but Nona hides her already-healed hand and lies about the source of the blood. At the Building, the truck is immediately allowed access to the parking garage, though Nona doesn’t question why. Leaving Hot Sauce and the Angel in the car, Nona treks up all thirty-three flights of stairs to her apartment. After hugging a very worried Cam, Nona asks where Pyrrha is. Horrified, Camilla tells Nona that Pyrrha had left to pick Nona up from school before lunch and had never come back.

Day Four (Two Days Until the Tomb Opens)

With Pyrrha gone, making breakfast falls to Cam, so she instructs Nona to record herself talking about her dreams. Nona pushes the wrong button on the recorder and plays an old conversation between Palamedes and Camilla about the possibility of Nona being a completed merger. The recording switches suddenly to a two-month old Nona struggling to talk. Embarrassed, Nona turns off the recorder. At breakfast, Cam announces that they’re going to look for Pyrrha, and Nona convinces her to make a stop by the school on the way. Before they leave, Nona sneaks a peek at the Resurrection Beast and asks for its help, then implores it not to do anything weird.

At school, Nona reunites excitedly with Honesty, Beautiful Ruby, and Kevin, quickly telling them not to let Cam know about her going to the broadcast. The Angel arrives, Hot Sauce in tow, and invites Cam upstairs with the children. With the city in an uproar, the school is likely closing, so the Angel tries to teach the kids how to stay safe. Nona surprises the group with her tactical knowledge, and the Angel looks curiously over at Camilla, who is furiously scribbling on a piece of paper and doesn’t seem to notice. When the electricity goes out and the old generator kicks in, the Angel announces that school is officially canceled. She sets the kids to various tasks before they go, and Nona helpfully gathers the drawings they had done the night before to give to the Angel. The gang gives each other a heartfelt goodbye, swearing to protect each other.

After the other children leave, the Angel sends Hot Sauce to turn off the generator. Nona tries to follow, but the Angel asks her to stay. At this, Camilla does something strange: she trips and catches herself on the Angel. Brushing this off, the Angel holds out Nona’s drawing from the day before and asks her where she had seen a cradle creature before, something that the Angel has only seen in rare photographs. Camilla takes off her sunglasses, and Nona realizes that it is actually Palamedes. He asks the Angel if she ever received some kind of necromantic implant. This terrifies the Angel and Noodle, who starts growling. The Angel, grabbing her big black bag on the way, pulls Noodle into the kitchen. She reappears a few seconds later, resolute and brave, though Nona can tell she’s still very scared. The lights turn out once more, and the Angel opens the blackout curtains. She attempts to send Nona out of the room, but Nona opts to stay with Palamedes and settles next to one of the open windows. Unsettled, the Angel asks Palamedes why he is unaffected by the blue madness. She knows that he used necromancy on her when he pretended to trip, and she accuses him of being a Lyctor. Hot Sauces enters the room, and Nona only has time to make eye contact with her before she hears a popping noise and everything goes black.

Nona wakes up on the floor in a huge pool of blood with the biggest headache she’s ever had. She can hear an unfamiliar voice yelling at an uncooperative Merv Wing to cancel the order and stay away from the school building. After the call ends, Nona hears the Angel talking to the unfamiliar voice, making plans to vacate the building. At the other person’s accusation that the Angel has been “playing teacher with the frigging Troia experiment,” the Angel frantically says that she hadn’t known, and she’d only realized that they lived in the safe house the night before.

Nona had been playing dead per Cam’s previous instructions, but when the person with the unfamiliar voice announces that they’re going to deadhead the two zombies, Nona sits up. Surprised, Pash, the owner of the unfamiliar voice, swears and shoots her, which infuriates Nona. Shaking free of the Angel, who orders Pash to hold her fire, Nona crawls over to Cam’s inert body. She reveals Camilla’s clear grey eyes and the two bullets in her hand, and Camilla calmly asks for an update. Nona wails, “Pash shot us! Palamedes was talking to the Angel and someone shot us through the window and now the carpet’s gross!” Pash explains that it was Merv Wing who shot them after the Angel called for a liquidation order. The Angel attempts to call off the liquidation order via radio, but Merv Wing declines. The Angel warns them if they come up the stairs, Pash will shoot them. Camilla and Pash begin arranging the room for combat, preparing to fight off the eleven members of the Merv Wing squad.

Nona suddenly remembers Hot Sauce, and begs to go to her, even though the Angel warns her that Hot Sauce saw her get shot. As they hear the liquidation squad creeping up the stairs, Cam gives Nona the order to run. She races to the generator room, where Pash had locked Hot Sauce in. The generator room smells of Hot Sauce’s vomit, and upon seeing Nona, she repeatedly asks, “I made it up?” Nona’s attempts at lying about her gunshot wound are interrupted by the sound of combat down the hall. The girls huddle together until it is silent again, and the Angel comes to collect them. While Cam and Nona hug each other tightly, Hot Sauce goes to examine the pool of blood where Nona had been lying earlier. Realizing that Nona actually had been shot, Hot Sauce angrily confronts her. Nona and the Angel both try to deescalate the situation, but before either of them can, Hot Sauce shoots Nona in the head.

When Nona regains her senses, she is alone, lying awkwardly across three chairs. Her hands and feet are restrained, and when Nona realizes this, she throws the third tantrum of her short life. Driven by her anger, Nona breaks free of her bonds. Her anger takes precedence to any pain she might feel, and she is relentless in her efforts to free herself. By the time she’s free, the chairs are unrecognizable, there’s blood everywhere, and she’s had to regrow several appendages. She uses one of the broken chairs to hit the locked door over and over again until it caves in. A group of Edenites is waiting for her, and they shoot her three more times, causing her to slip in a puddle of her blood and fall. When she stands back up, she screams and charges down the hallway, brandishing a broken piece of chair. Despite orders to disengage, one Edenite shoots her again. Her responding scream causes the soldier to drop their gun and clap their hands over their ears. As Nona moves to attack them, someone drops a bag over her head and pins her arms to her body, which has a calming effect on her. Nona realizes that what she had done “had used something up inside her, something enormous,” and she reprimands herself in a savage and cool voice: “Fool. You’re killing her."

Day Five (Twenty-Four Hours Until the Tomb Opens)

Palamedes is there to comfort Nona the next time she wakes up. She is embarrassed by the mess she made, and even more chagrined about not telling Palamedes and Cam that she recognized the girl in the broadcast. Palamedes is angry, and tells Nona: “If Cam and I didn’t love you as much as we do, we would take turns throttling you.” At this admission of love, Nona hurriedly confesses her Secret. When Palamedes learns that Nona is dying, he necromantically examines her and concludes that her soul is trying to leave her body. Relenting to Nona’s pleading to know more, Palamedes explains the two people that Nona might be. Given the fact that her body is rejecting the soul, he suspects that she is either Gideon or a true Lyctor—the mutual death of cavalier and necromancer to create something new. Palamedes promises to save Nona, then leaves Cam’s body.

We Suffer enters the room then, unmasked, and Nona chastises her for locking them up. The commander brushes it off, informing them that Palamedes’ necromancy and Nona’s escape attempt had both frightened and impressed the Edenites. In response, Blood of Eden placed We Suffer in charge of their next move, and she allows Crown to volunteer herself as a liaison to Ianthe Naberius. Camilla is vehemently opposed to the idea, believing that Corona is too susceptible to her sister’s influence. Over We Suffer’s radio, Nona can hear Crown arriving at the gate of the barracks and claiming to be seeking asylum. As Crown waits for the guards to get Ianthe, We Suffer, Nona, and Camilla wait with bated breath until Nona hears the voice of the person from the broadcast. Crown and Ianthe have a teary reunion, though Ianthe is disgusted to learn that Crown brought Judith Deuteros along with her. We Suffer, unaware that Judith had been removed from the facility, frantically radios down to the basement, where Judith is supposed to be. Ianthe comments for the second time on Crown’s earrings, and We Suffer tenses and orders someone to wait for the signal. Ianthe speaks directly into the audio device hidden in one of Crown’s earrings. She addressed Blood of Eden, demanding all House assets, including the Sixth House Oversight Body, Camilla Hect, and, most of all, Harrowhark Nonagesimus. We Suffer gives the order to line up the shot, but Camilla protests, saying that Crown is trying to communicate something. Nona hears a new voice over the radio, and though Ianthe introduces it as the Saint of Duty, Nona recognizes it as Pyrrha.

The audio cuts out and We Suffer throws down her earpiece in dismay. She feels cheated by Crown, who’d ordered the headshot for herself, should she be found out, but instead stole Judith Deuteros from Blood of Eden. And she feels doubly cheated by Pyrrha. Nona quickly explains that Pyrrha had used codewords to tell them to fall in and help her retrieve an important resource, though Nona misinterprets the second one to mean that Pyrrha has found a stash of cigarettes. Camilla tells We Suffer to check for another audio device, likely somewhere on Judith. While they wait for the techs to find a signal, Camilla hugs Nona, and cautiously compliments Nona’s stance from when she attacked the Blood of Eden guards. Nona chalks it up to their daily practise with the sword, but Camilla contradicts this, saying that they practise one-handed, but Nona’s grasp had been two-handed. When Camilla notices Nona’s nosebleed, she wants to talk to Palamedes, but they’re interrupted by We Suffer announcing that the second bug has been detected.

Palamedes reemerges, introducing himself to We Suffer, despite her disbelief. Brushing this off, Palamedes negotiates with We Suffer: offering to get her the key to the Locked Tomb in exchange for the Sixth House Oversight Body. When Palamedes’ time is up, Camilla comes back and drives a harder bargain than Palamedes did, asking for a shuttle as well. She is interrupted by Pyrrha and Crown’s voices coming from the radio. Pyrrha is talking oddly, and Nona and We Suffer don’t entirely understand, but after Ianthe calls Pyrrha and Crown away from the bug, Camilla explains. Pyrrha had been trying to hint that Nona is the only one who can get to the body of Gideon Nav.

Over the course of the next five hours, Camilla attempts to teach Nona to be Harrowhark Nonagesimus. The physical aspect is simple—she cuts Nona’s hair, puts her in black clothes, and dyes her eyes to look like the necromancers who blinded themselves to avoid the blue madness. But Nona struggles to act like Harrowhark. She doesn’t answer to Harrow’s name; she smiles and laughs too much; she slouches when she walks. Palamedes manages to coach her through some of Harrow’s deadlier expressions, and Cam instructs her to talk very little. Should all else fail, Nona is supposed to act like the Captain, consumed by the blue madness. Thus disguised, Nona and Camilla are delivered to the barracks by Pash and the Angel, whom all the Edenites call Aim. When they arrive, Camilla arms herself with her swords and knives, puts on her sunglasses, then the two of them walk past Crown’s abandoned car into the barracks. They enter a broad hall where Prince Ianthe is waiting for them, flanked by Pyrrha, Crown, and an army of corpses under her control.

Ianthe welcomes them, badgering Camilla and begrudging Harrow’s blindness and overall reticence. Nona manages to go unnoticed for most of the conversation, giving only yes or no answers, but eventually Ianthe grows suspicious at Harrow’s apparent apathy. Falling back on Cam’s advice, Nona shapes her mouth like the Captain’s and screams. The scream Nona produces is like nothing the Captain has ever done. The lights go out, and Nona pitches forward coughing up water. Pyrrha collapses and Ianthe staggers back. Once she recovers, Ianthe restrains Camilla and Nona with some of the corpses. Ianthe announces that they are leaving the planet immediately, though Pyrrha reports that the scream had taken out everyone with a necromantic body.

Ianthe’s immediate departure does not include the Sixth House or Camilla, who Ianthe intends to kill. Camilla challenges Ianthe to a duel, claiming right of reply from Naberius’s original challenge at Canaan House more than a year previously. Ianthe rejects the offer, and moves to kill Camilla, but is stopped by Crown holding a gun to her throat. Corona pleads with her sister, threatening to kill herself if Ianthe does not grant Camilla’s request for a duel. Exasperated, Ianthe accepts and they fight. Still restrained by Ianthe’s guards, Nona watches anxiously, wishing she could shield her eyes. The match ends when Ianthe drops Camilla to the floor and stabs her in the stomach. Despite her injury, Camilla grips Ianthe’s wrist and says “Match to the Sixth,” before Ianthe passes out.

Because all the corpses collapse with Ianthe, Nona is buried under her zombie guards. She watches as everyone rushes to Cam, and a wary Pyrrha suddenly recognizes Palamedes in the body of Ianthe Naberius. He sympathetically instructs Pyrrha to dig Nona out from under the corpses, which Nona is grateful for. Though his necromancy is severely limited in his new body, Palamedes locates Gideon Nav’s corpse. He sends Pyrrha and Nona to retrieve the body while he bandages Cam up. Helping Nona through the maze of the barracks, Pyrrha notices that she’s lightheaded. Nona obligingly confesses that she’s dying and is surprised to learn that Pyrrha had already known for a while. She explains that the soul longs for the body, and Nona’s soul doesn’t belong to her body. Her soul might belong to the body they’re looking for, which is hidden behind a blood ward.

Pyrrha uses Nona’s regeneration ability to wear down the ward. While Pyrrha works on detecting other wards, Nona goes into the room the body is being kept in. Upon seeing the corpse on the bed, Nona tries to touch her, but the corpse opens her golden eyes. Reading a “mute, helpless appeal” in the body’s eyes, Nona kisses her, but when the body trembles in shock and disbelief, Nona pulls back. She defends herself by saying “You looked like you wanted to be kissed, that’s all.” When Pyrrha enters the room, the corpse closes her eyes and returns her body to complete stillness. Nona quickly warns Pyrrha that the body can hear them and confesses to the kiss, to Pyrrha’s amusement. As Pyrrha carries the corpse back upstairs, Nona unsuccessfully tries to catch the corpse moving again. Palamedes and Camilla are surprised that Nona’s soul had no reaction to the body. Palamedes necromantically examines the body, but when he attempts to draw blood from the corpse, she moves suddenly to stop him and begins speaking.

Gideon confirms that she had only been playing dead: John brought her back as a revenant and renamed her Kiriona. Because of the Emperor’s necromancy, Kiriona is essentially indestructible and impossible to draw a blood sample from. She claims to want to go to the Ninth House with the group, despite their murderous intentions for the Emperor, though Nona reports that the Prince is lying about her reasoning. Kiriona responds with obvious dislike of Nona, and Nona is outraged by the way the Prince treats her and her friends. Despite this mutual antagonism, Nona is mesmerized by the way Kiriona moves. Every movement of her body is so laden with sadness that it makes Nona “nearly afraid to die.”

The group reconvenes with Commander We Suffer outside the barracks. Nona is relieved when We Suffer separates her from Kiriona, who is playing dead again. As they are driven away from the barracks in big trucks, We Suffer informs Palamedes that the Sixth House Oversight Body is being driven around the city in a group of large trucks, which Nona recognizes as the Convoy. Palamedes worries about the impossibility of finding a moving target in the city, but Nona interrupts, remembering Honesty’s botched job stealing from the Convoy. Doubting Honesty’s credibility, We Suffer confirms the story with Aim, then directs the trucks to Honesty’s home. He answers the door suspiciously, and asks Nona if she’s really a zombie. Nona pitifully admits it and manages to convince Honesty to open the door to reveal Hot Sauce. While Honesty writes down the location of the Convoy, Nona tearfully asks for readmittance into the gang and Hot Sauce’s forgiveness. Hot Sauce graciously agrees before sending Nona on her way.

While the trucks are en route to the Convoy, We Suffer gets notified that Varun the Resurrection Beast has begun sending heralds down to attack the planet. For the first time in her life, Nona sees Pyrrha afraid. Nona, feeling disconnected from her ailing body at this point, forces herself to stand. She pushes Pyrrha aside, and cuts Crown’s sword from its scabbard. Ignoring Palamedes asking her to stop, she sheathes the sword in her hip then climbs out of the window onto the top of the truck. She leaps onto the roof of the next truck and from there, bathed in the blue light of Varun, bellows at the sky: “You said you wouldn’t do anything weird!” Nona pulls her sword out of her body to confront the Captain, who appears on the roof of the other truck. Through Judith’s body, Varun claims to be seeking vengeance on Nona’s behalf. Nona sees the negative effect the Resurrection Beast is having on the Captain’s body, and she pleads for mercy on behalf of the Captain and all her other friends. Leaping haphazardly back to the other truck, Nona knocks Judith down and asks Varun to wait for her to be different. The falling heralds thin out, then the Captain opens her eyes and says “Harrowhark?” On the verge of passing out, Nona says, “No. And I never was.”

When Nona wakes up, she panics until Kiriona calms her down. They are alone in the back of a stationary truck in a deep tunnel. After looking at Nona for a long time, Kiriona asks where Harrow is. Nona can’t answer, and Kiriona continues to push but is interrupted by Pyrrha who came to collect Nona. Nona can no longer walk, so Pyrrha carries her. Pyrrha attempts to call Nona a different name, but Nona stops her, not wanting to remember. But it triggers something in her, and to her shame, Nona berates Pyrrha, then cuts herself off, claiming it would be better to just let her die. Pyrrha admits that as a possibility for all of them, then carries Nona where the Sixth House has gathered.

Standing beside Camilla in her wheelchair, Palamedes announces his plan to get to the Ninth House by dropping through the River, which Pyrrha refutes on account of Palamedes not being a Lyctor. Palamedes lightly claims that won’t be a problem. Pyrrha understands before Nona does, nearly dropping her in disbelief and grief. After Pyrrha sets Nona down next to Kiriona, she unsuccessfully begs Palamedes and Camilla not to do it. Inconsolably, Pyrrha returns to Nona, and doesn’t even notice when Nona takes her hand to comfort her. The three of them watch from the back of the truck as Palamedes feeds Camilla something white and powdery, then Camilla’s body erupts into flames. Nona considers it the worst thing she’s ever seen. As the flames die out, revealing a new person in Camilla’s body who is neither Palamedes nor Camilla, Nona realizes that they left her and wails out loud. The new person quickly offers her Ianthe Naberius’s lovely silk handkerchief, wishing Nona a happy birthday as they do so.

The new Lyctor readies the Sixth House Oversight Body to travel to the Ninth House in a BOE megatruck. After Pash and the Angel invite themselves onboard as well, Pyrrha and Nona walk to the cockpit, where Kiriona is waiting. Crown and the Captain join them, followed by the new Lyctor, who calls themself Paul. We Suffer gives her final orders to Troia cell before clearing them for flight. Paul directs the megatruck into the River, confident that their bubble will protect everyone inside from the water. Feeling like her body is not her, but something on top of her, Nona stands up and takes control of the vehicle. Despite Pyrrha’s protests, Paul relinquishes control and removes their necromantic barrier around the megatruck. The water doesn’t touch them, which Nona attributes to Varun’s reappearance in Judith’s body. When Nona speaks to Varun, Pyrrha and Paul flinch away, collapsing to the ground. In front of the megatruck, a huge stone structure towers out of the River. Nona doesn’t know what it is, but it terrifies the parts of herself that she’s trying to block out. To avoid the tower, Nona drives the megatruck directly into the waves of the River. As the pressure begins to crack the windshield, Paul struggles toward Nona, asking if she can get them to the Ninth House. Nona says she can, but she wonders if it would be better to just die here, to go as Nona. Paul reminds her: “Nona, Noodle’s in the back.” Frantic, Nona gets a surge of energy and drives the truck directly to the Ninth House shuttle field.

They disembark, and Kiriona strides ahead, suspicious of something she hears in the darkness. Paul decides to leave the Sixth House Oversight Body in the megatruck with Aim, Pash, Crown, and Judith. Pyrrha—carrying Nona’s failing body—and Paul quickly follow Kiriona. When they catch up, they find Kiriona with her sword drawn and bloody, surrounded by several bodies and an injured Crux. According to Kiriona, the bodies and Crux have been irreversibly infected with what the Emperor has labeled devils. Nona informs the group that there are more of the devil-ridden corpses in the archway of the room, and Pyrrha hustles the group onto the elevator and away from the creatures. Crux begrudgingly leads the group to the Anastasian Monument, where the survivors of the initial devil attack have gathered. Upon seeing Nona, the citizens of the Ninth welcome back their Reverend Daughter by kneeling reverently, to Nona’s horror. She gets a less than warm welcome from Aiglamene, who clearly blames her for Gideon’s death, though Kiriona is quick to say that Nona is not actually Harrow.

Noticing that Nona is cold, Pyrrha carries her inside the barricade to Paul, who’s treating Crux’s wound. Pyrrha notices a cut on Nona’s skin from catching on a zipper earlier, and Nona realizes it’s the first time her regeneration has not worked. As Paul attempts to slow Nona’s deterioration, Crux gently tries to remind Harrowhark of who she is. Nona explains that she’s not Harrow; she’s not even Nona. There’s a person in a box, and once the box is opened, Nona will remember everything and she'll be different.  She’ll be someone else. Pyrrha tries to comfort her, promising that they all loved her and they can learn to love the other version of her. Unconvinced, Nona whispers that Pyrrha hadn’t even gotten her a birthday present. Pyrrha contradicts this, describing her intended gift as a T-shirt advertising cheap moustache rides. Thus fortified, Nona promises to remember the shirt, then declares herself ready.

Aiglamene leads them to the entrance to the Tomb, where Ianthe (in her real body) is waiting for them. She immediately traps them in a concoction of bodily fluids. Kiriona and Ianthe are antagonistically friendly with one another, and Kiriona informs Ianthe that Crown and the Sixth House are waiting upstairs. Nona realizes suddenly that the two Princes are wearing matching friendship bracelets. Ianthe pulls Kiriona out of the muck. Thus freed, Kiriona announces that she’s there on the Emperor’s orders to kill Alecto. Realizing that she's been double-crossed, Ianthe yells that Kiriona will be unable to kill her, and Alecto will reunite with John, which is a disagreeable outcome. Ianthe’s admission that “John loves Alecto” dissolves the last barrier in Nona’s head between her current self and her soul—Alecto’s soul. With this realization, Nona’s body begins to fall apart.

Everything moves very fast after that. Pyrrha disables Ianthe with a Herald bullet, then she and Kiriona carry Nona into the antechamber of the Tomb, desperately holding her body together. To open the Tomb, they need the Emperor’s blood and a thanergy burst. Kiriona offers her blood frantically, and then kills the already-dying Crux to create fresh thanergy. Nona remembers how John had brought her here long ago. She steps into the water of the Tomb and walks toward the body. When she sees it, she remembers how John had made her ugly, then she sees the child within the body, asleep. She sees Anastasia's bones and she remembers Anastasia. Then she tumbles onto the Body of the Tomb, her soul reverts to her body, and she becomes Alecto.

Appearance

“When she looked in the mirror she had skin the colour of the egg carton, and eyes the colour of the egg mixture, and hair the colour of the burnt-out bottom of the pan. More to the point, Nona thought she was gorgeous.”

Nona resides in the body of Harrowhark Nonagesimus and has the same eyes as Gideon Nav.

She has a thin, complicated face with arched black eyebrows. She has nice white teeth, but her smile always looks sad, no matter how happy she actually is. Her eyes are a deep, warm gold colour and are framed by long, straight eyelashes. To hide its unnaturally quick growth, Nona’s black hair is kept long, often arranged into braids. She is very small, sometimes mistaken as a much younger person and/or incredibly malnourished.

Nona deeply values her looks, considering herself to be very beautiful. During Nona’s younger days, Camilla catches her kissing her own reflection. Nona’s school friends try to temper her vanity, telling her that she’s “nothing to write home about,” and that she has “the face of a rat and the body of a dead person.” These insults only serve to make Nona feel like she belongs.

Personality and Abilities

Nona, though in the body of a mature woman, had the intelligence and personality of a precocious child. She had an uncanny ability to read body language, knowing when a person was truth-telling or lying, and could read people’s manifestations of real or feigned sexual attraction at a glance. She could gain fluency in foreign languages within a few minutes of exposure, and sketch anatomically correct drawings of animals she had never seen from description and first principles.

As the soul-linked cavalier of the god-emperor, Nona had healing abilities beyond even those of Lyctors. She enjoyed swimming in jellyfish-infested waters, whose stings were little more than tickles, and even shrugged off some gunshots.

During the events of Nona the Ninth, she is having difficulty keeping down food (but sometimes she eats some inorganic food), and her health is gradually deteriorating, as her body rejects the foreign soul.

Relationships

Family

Nona lived with Camilla Hect, Palamades Sextus (sharing the body of Camilla), and Pyrrha Dve (inhabiting the body of her late partner, Gideon the First).

School

Though Nona was too old to be a student at the local school, she managed to find a place for herself as a teacher’s assistant for the science teacher known as The Angel. Her responsibilities included caring for The Angel’s dog, Noodle.

Nona was drawn in to a “gang” of classmates, consisting of Honesty, Born in the Morning, Beautiful Ruby, Kevin, and their leader, Hot Sauce.

Blood of Eden

The rebel organization Blood of Eden hoped that Harrowhark’s abilities would eventually manifest in Nona, giving them their own “pet Lyctor,”

Coronabeth Tridentarius, serving under the codename Crown, was one of Nona’s handlers. Nona was somewhat infatuated with Crown, who in turn cared for Nona but was unnerved by her ability to see through her pretenses.

Nona claimed to like the cell leader We Suffer, who takes Nona seriously. She has difficulty with We Suffer’s bodyguard Our Lady of the Passion, who distrusts Nona and believes the Lyctor Project should be terminated.

Trivia

• Editor Carl Engle-Laird describes Noodle as "a dog [Nona] knows."
• Cover artist Tommy Arnold confirms that Nona's hair is black and that her eyes are "bright gold."