I KNOW HOW THE DEVILS GOT TO THE NINTH
Y’all know that theory that devils are souls that have been used to fuel a resurrection? John saying Harrow’s parents committed a resurrection, Cytherea calling herself the vengeance of the ten billion, Teacher saying there are ten billion angry ghosts in the facility.
The devils attacking the Ninth are not the ten billion. They’re the two hundred. The children whose souls Priamhark and Pelleamena used to fuel Harrow's conception.
Now, you may have noticed Harrow’s parents committed their resurrection nineteen years ago, and as of yet nobody in the Ninth House has sprouted long black tongues and eyelids with teeth. So why now?
In Harrow the Ninth, as Varun approaches the Mithraeum, the River empties of ghosts. Augustine says that ghosts flee before a Resurrection Beast. “Poor bastards are terrified.” And the Ninth House has a Resurrection Beast in the basement.
But then she leaves.
Alecto leaves the Tomb, leaves her body behind, and rides her connection to Harrow into Harrow’s body. And now there’s no slumbering planetary revenant to ward off the devils, so back they come. The very next time some Ninth geezer keels over, the devils take the wheel and it begins.
The devils didn’t come to the Ninth. They were already there. They were born there, and they died there. Priamhark and Pelleamena slaughtered two hundred children to save their House, and in so doing damned it.
