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It is one of those strange twists of fate common in all small social groups that Illarion had somehow yet to meet Harrowhark Nonagesimus in person. He knew of her, even spoken to her in passing on the network--but not yet face-to-face.

His Omen recognizes the young Saint well, from time spent haunting the Emperor's house while her Sleeper was missing; she is thin and sharp-boned in that way humans called elfin and generous elves sometimes granted them. (Thin, sharp-boned, clad in black and bones--she'd make a better shrike than sparrow, to her credit.) Better, Iskierka was also fond of the young woman's Omen, who'd been her co-conspirator more than once during that same absent time.

Never Mind's got a bounty on meeting someone new, and Illarion could do far worse than someone he's already inclined to like (insomuch as he likes people, through memory and habit more than emotion). So when he's already at the Archives for such a purpose, and his Omen spots that familiar figure through the stacks (literally through--it's not a part of the Archives with a fourth dimension of its own), the shrike takes it as a pointed gift from the month's Patron to a faithful Disciple. He leaves off considering the other Sleepers nearby, crossing to where Harrow's at work, and stops at a respectful distance to wait for an opportune moment.

"You are the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, are you not?"

It's a centuries-old habit by now to have someone's styling and name correct before ever greeting them. Few were the cultures where proper protocol demanded less.

Of course shrouded darkness with a number of eyes profoundly higher than two—Harrow is not going to stop to count them—is completely normal for Trench's Archives, and would come up to her while she was reading Roethke's Sequence, Sometimes Metaphysical. Everything about this is utterly unremarkable.

(Who knows whether or not it actually is. Harrow's mind is on-and-off, with Gideon in a cocoon that she is not permitted to stay with every hour of every day. She is forced to do other things sometimes. She is forced to sleep sometimes. Her Omen is under the table licking her boot.)

"I am," Harrowhark Nonagesimus confirms, choosing one eye in particular to make polite contact with.

Illarion nods, satisfied he's gotten it right. The gesture's more grand where it ripples to his out-self, ruffling feathers like shards of starless void.

"We have spoken before over the Omnis, under the aegis of House Atreides. I am the one they are having trouble giving a name to." Having, ongoing, though they'd begun discussing a common use-name for him months ago--for he'd been somewhat less under the aegis of House Atreides in the intervening months, and stayed away from their discussions out of respect, and so didn't know whether that had ever resolved.

Certainly no one had told it had, but that was, perhaps, his own fault. "The foreign necromancer who is very interested in how you practice the art among the Nine Houses. Might we speak?"

Stasya makes whuffling sounds against Harrow's feet under the table, for all that they may be addressed at Ilarion or Iskierka. She is there, yes, hello. Harrow is pretending to ignore her in totality, but is ignoring her in action.

"Oh," she says, maybe a little surprised around all that. But with the impressiveness of his physical display, what could truly be a surprise? "Yes, of course. Do have a seat, if you like." Harrow says this instead of can you not give a name to yourself? because that would be rude.

"Thank you," he says, and does take a seat across from her at a suitable remove around the table.

"I am realizing, that while I have spoken to the--what is the term you use, the bone adept--I have not heard much of the woman. Nor of your House. The Ninth is among the smallest, yes? But no less in honor for it?"

Iskierka, released from acting as his eyes, promptly dives through the table with a high and maybe-even-cheerful gurgle to land beside Stasya. hello. she thinks in the other Omen's direction, not even in a word but an intimation of something like a greeting. Hello, her friend!

Harrow doesn't smile, really, because that would be beyond unusual and potentially uncomfortable—but she does look pleased, at such mentions of her House. "Correct," she says with a nod, putting a phalange into Roethke and closing the book. "We are the smallest in size and in number, both."

That is still true, even with five hundred new souls—five hundred new people—who she has never and likely will never meet.

"The woman is naught but her House, and proud to be such."

He notes, in passing, the bookmark; dead bone among pages of dead tree. It's an odd little juxtaposition to catch on--his own people would find the former unremarkable and the latter uncomfortable, over bound vellum.

Thinking of Palamedes among paper when they first met, he wonders if she might also find the book the much stranger object. He puts a pin in that question for later. For now, her House seems the topic to pursue.

"Will you tell me more of them? I confess, of all the Nine Houses I have heard tell of, the Ninth is reminding me most of my own people." While he's not in his gorgeous, grotesque costume as Warlord today, the Hunter leathers he's got on are worked here and there with bone buttons and bone motifs--a pattern most familiar--, and it's to this he gestures as emphasis. "I am wondering, how deep the similarities may go."

The hihihihihihi from Stasya began while Harrow was talking, or maybe while Ilarion was, and it has finally begun to taper off as she rolls on her side and invites warm belly-space if Iskierka wants to have a nice puppy cuddle. Harrowhark needs them so often, after all.

"I admit an uncertainty of where to start," Harrow confesses. "We are the House of the Sewn Tongue; we keep secrets."

That's a good enough beginning. The emotion behind her eyes has warped from uncertainty to a cool satisfaction. "We are the best of the bone adepts, the producers of construct adepts of the Cohort," until about six years ago, "and most importantly the keepers of the Locked Tomb."

Properly, the Tombkeeper is she, heiress of the Tombkeeper line. But in some ways they are all Tombkeepers.

As a--sort of--living being, Iskierka gets a great deal more out of cuddles than her Sleeper. (Or so he'd say.) She's not shy at all about taking Stasya up on the offer, snuggling herself up in a tiny loaf of wingscale and feather at the larger Omen's side. Then she begins singing (quietly) her friend's praise in a continuous, contented gurgle. This is lovely!

"The Locked Tomb," Illarion echoes, rolling so portentous a name around his fangs. "And how came your House to this charge?"

He is, of course, also curious about what resides in the tomb, and why it must be locked, but that seems fraught to ask of someone whose House epithet revolves around secrets. The shrikes, too, have their veil of secrecy.

A good call, that, whether or not Harrow would offer anything up about the resident of the Tomb; it would be far, far less than she knew, either way. More likely that she would say nothing at all. She is already struggling not to look at the adorable going on underneath the table, as Stasya starts to softly lick a mothwing.

Social grooming would never be one of Harrowhark's skills, either.

"We were founded for it," she explains, instead of acknowledging the Omens. "Once there is a Tomb, there is a House to provide its guard. And so there has remained."

The Omens are being disgustingly adorable under the table. Illarion's not paying any more attention to it than Harrowhark is--in some small part, he'd admit (if forced to it) because he doesn't know what to make of Iskierka taking so much of her own initiative. It had long seemed like they'd only one soul and one attention span between them, and now... She's off preening Stasya without any direction from him.

A mystery for another time.

"What has such a charge made of your people? I have gathered you are admirably faithful, but I know little else of your customs or attitudes. Is the Ninth honored for your service?"

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early September, the Archives, a blob of eyes,

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