( funnily enough, the other seven houses would agree with him — there was no house in any of the Emperor's retinue so thoroughly and unflinchingly goth as the Ninth, and they took it very seriously — and harrowhark, fervidly so. she knows that she stands out like a sore thumb (and one swathed in dense black fabric, lace, and human bone), but the attention of others was of no concern to her. there is only this building and the puzzle that it posed; she is convinced that solving it would grant her passage home, or at least some understanding of how to make the trek herself. )

Can you not swim?

( it's not as though the fall would kill him. though, this question is rather ironic: harrowhark, the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House of the Deathless Prince, could not swim. but she was also not concerned that she would fall. )

It is less accessible. The stores are not so ransacked. ( spoken with the assuredness of someone who had been over there already.

harrow isn't really the type to laugh (and if she did, there was usually something dreadfully wrong). she merely gives him a cryptic smile at the question, the vertical lines drawn across her lips in charcoal giving her the visage of a skull grinning in the gloom. )

How much does your curiosity cost? ( she needles further, ) If I could get you across, what would you offer?