Harrow and Palamedes entirely one sided bitter rivalry is actually one of my favourite parts of this book. She goes the entire time stressing about not falling behind him or showing a hint of weakness that he can pounce on because heās her most concerning competition. Sheās terrified of slipping up around him because obviously heās judging her entire house as inferior and beneath him and she canāt even contend with him, sheās so far behind and he must be gloating so hard.
Then for a decent portion of the book every time someone dies she thinks he killed them.
Every time he talks to her sheās so paranoid about him trying to manipulate her into giving something away or otherwise screw her over, she never accepts that heād want to work together for anything other than sinister reasons.
Meanwhile Palamedes is casually telling anyone who will listen that he thinks sheās an incredibly cool genius who is objectively terrifying because sheās so amazing at everything she does but also heād trust her with her life because sheās honourable like that.
And heād really like to be her friend but itās no problem if she doesnāt want to call it that and would prefer to hiss at him from the corner like an angry cat. Theyāll get past this stage eventually and then he can be nerd friends with the cool and definitely traumatised autistic girl.
