so there I was, reading Harrow the Ninth for the umpteenth time, when I reached the planning of dios apate, minor and several descriptions caught my attention:
“The Saint of Patience was bent over a mirror above a wooden washstand, wearing a suit of antique make beneath his robe. You were grudgingly impressed by the sight of a historical artefact actually being worn: black trousers, black jacket, a plain white shirt with a high white collar, very starched. Augustine had combed his hair into a flat cap against his skull, faultless and shiny, with not a strand out of place. Within the collar sat a funny little black tie that was cut in a curve, and he was knotting it into a fat bow. ”
and
“Mercymorn wore a long slip of peach-coloured silk, and her white Canaanite robe was tucked over her forearms and had slipped entirely off her slender, aggrieved shoulders. She had scraped her hair into a merciless and shining coil at the back of her head, and she had no eyes for either of you.”
‘What does this remind me of?’ I wondered. Two very classy, aloof adults, dressed to the nines for a fancy dinner party…
and then it hit me:
Tamsyn Muir, ma’am, necroauthor prime, did you look at this Leyendecker painting and go, ‘Yes, perfect, exactly how two near-immortals who loathe each other would dress for a formal meal with their god, their third sibling immortal, and two infant immortals’?
