'Ghosts and you might die' is my middle name.

Everything after that was hazy. Including, thank the Undying King, the pain of a grim and broken shaft of cold metal spearing her straight through the heart. Harrow would act quickly, she knew – she counted on it, planned for it. Even in a state of total shock, the Reverend Daughter would do what had to be done, would use Gideon's sacrifice to shore up her own reserves of thanergy and thalergy, to speak the Eightfold Word, that great mystery which had now so violently unfolded itself before them, Palamedes' megatheorem come to shocking resolution. It's not as though Gideon wanted to die, but seeing as it looked like she was going to die anyway, why not make use of it? Why not set Harrow, however unwillingly, on the path to sainthood?

She found some smug satisfaction in that. Maybe she'd be gone, but Harrow would live for another ten thousand years, give or take, and Cytherea would die the ignominious death she so richly deserves for the cold-blooded executions of the Fifth and Fourth. Perhaps Harrow would see fit to have some portraits painted; perhaps those portraits would show Gideon reclining amidst a sea of enthusiastic and buxom devotees. Perhaps –

– But something had gone wrong, weirdly so. Harrow had pinned her soul; Harrow had acquired it. Her life force was now burning, an eternal battery, in Harrow's cells. She and Harrow had intertwined at the molecular level, a prospect which only a few short months before would have filled her with such horror she'd have committed suicide via boredom by asking Ortus Nigenad to recite his favorite sections of The Noniad at her. All this was as it should be, so why was she still conscious? Her soul was pinned, acquired, but not eaten; Harrow the precise, Harrow the surgeon, Harrow the genius had neglected the most important step. And before Gideon could figure out a way to shake Harrow from inside her adept's own body, she was summarily shoved aside and through, sent careening over the River like a stone skipping on water, only to find herself, finally, in a place she never thought she'd see again. The end of the universe burning outside, the forest a smudged shadow full of mystery.

And none of it anything she can interact with, even to make the lights flicker or knock over a cup; annoying, seeing as she might as well enjoy some of the perks of being a ghost if she's being forced to become one. 

Harrow! she yells, beating impotently at the blank wall where the door should be. You can't do this halfway!

But Harrow isn't there to hear, and when had she ever listened to Gideon, anyway?

 When Gideon wakes up for the second time today, she's ravenous. And sore. And thirsty. And –

There's a skeleton nearby, proffering a tray: no drawer bread this time, apparently. Maybe Harrow really did mean what she said about being nice. It hurts to sit up; it hurts to reach for the food; everything hurts and she's already sick to death of it, because aside from how she feels like Crux has just kicked her down every single flight of stairs on the Ninth, she's totally fine!

Tired. Ow all over. But fine. She makes a face at the note Harrow had provided along with the food (REST, it orders. She'd underlined it twice.) and tucks in.

There's no Camilla Hect at the door this time once Gideon's pushed herself up and staggered her way over there, and there's no Harrow anywhere to be seen, either. She goes to the bathroom and makes a hideous face at herself in the mirror: the one time she tried to do something more than the bare minimum for sacramental paint and half of it ends up on Harrow's pillow...

Which is a thought that, for some reason, she strangles in a panic and mentally drops off a cliff of so it can go nope nope nope all the way down. Redoing the whole damn thing sounds exhausting, but she does at least do her best to fix it up. Best not to give Harrow a reason to take back...anything that's happened over the last twenty-four hours back, right?

It takes her longer than she'd like to admit to get back downstairs, but she makes it without falling over and feels inordinately proud about it. 

She'd stubbornly shouldered the longsword when she left the room, but now she takes a moment to sit in one of the comfy chairs near the fire and catch her breath. 

It'll be fine. She's fine. 

She just needs a minute.