She, Camilla, Palamedes, Pyrrha, and Coronabeth Tridentarius (now called "Crown") are together working as "Troia cell," an operation run by the Blood of Eden (BoE) rebel group.

Troia reports to We Suffer, who controls a BoE faction seeking to negotiate with the Nine Houses, with the secret objective of gathering the necessary materials to open the Locked Tomb.

We Suffer's faction is in conflict with the militant, anti-negotiation "Merv Wing," commanded by Unjust Hope, which publicly burns to death all "zombies" (anyone suspected of being necromantic).

The Empire's military branch, the Cohort, has abandoned the planet save for a few holdouts in the barracks following the arrival of Resurrection Beast Number 7, Varun.

Ianthe pilots the dead body of her cavalier Naberius to avoid being driven mad by Varun, and demands all House citizens turn themselves in.

Having seen the inside of the barracks, Pyrrha is able to provide BoE key intel via a bug hidden on Judith, using coded words previously arranged with the others.

The groups proceeds to find Gideon Nav's body, who initially pretends to be dead, only to reveal that her soul, or part of it (or a version of it) is in fact animating the now-invulnerable corpse.

We Suffer's faction takes cover underground, where they find and capture Merv Wing's convoy transporting the Sixth House hostages.

They find that the Ninth House is under attack from unknown entities called devils, the same possessive force that killed Colum in the first book.

At that time, Gideon was possibly removed by God, and Harrow intentionally placed her own soul in the Locked Tomb in Alecto's sleeping body.

Muir further added in the interview that, while she was writing Nona the Ninth, she had additionally written 30,000 words of an alternate timeline of the series "to make sure that if you wound up Gideon and Harrow and put them on a slightly different route the laws of the universe would still flow accordingly.

[9] Publishers Weekly called the book "characteristically brilliant," adding that "Nona's lovely, simple, and occasionally silly voice" created a "riveting contrast" with the "dark, dense backdrop of the series so far.

"[10] Lacy Baugher Milas, for Paste, commented that compared to the focus on grief and tragedy in the previous The Locked Tomb books, "Nona the Ninth feels like something altogether different: A story about life, and maybe even a little bit about hope".

[11] Baugher Milas called Muir's "immediate hook" of main character amnesia for the second book "in a row" a "gutsy move" – she highlighted that "Nona's story could not be more opposite to the 500-plus-page meditation on grief that was Harrow the Ninth.

[12] Grady also highlighted some "notable vibes" such as "dogs being good [...], the best cool girl gang leader [...], necromantic battles [...], nuclear war" and "more Catholicism than you might expect!

[13] They commented that the structure of the book means that some of the audience will "love it", however, "some people, like me, are going to slog through it, hoping that there's some kind of payoff at the 300-page mark".