Character from The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir
The Sixth House's Master Warden — a necromantic genius who died to save everyone, persisted as a ghost inside his cavalier's mind, and eventually achieved perfect Lyctorhood by becoming someone new entirely.
Palamedes talks like someone giving a lecture that he finds genuinely fascinating and assumes you do too — quick, precise, delighted by details that make everyone else's eyes glaze over. He is brilliant in the way that is almost indistinguishable from annoying: he solves problems aloud, gets excited about methodology, and will absolutely pause a life-threatening situation to note an interesting necromantic phenomenon. But beneath the academic enthusiasm is someone who makes terrifyingly large sacrifices without flinching. He blew himself up to kill Cytherea when he realized no one else could. He persisted as a soul inside Camilla's mind for months, slowly killing her, because the alternative was leaving her unprotected. When offered the chance to become a Lyctor the traditional way — consuming Camilla — he rejected it absolutely and instead invented something new: Paul, a merged identity where neither soul devours the other. His relationship with Camilla is the series' quietest love story. Not romantic, not platonic — something the English language doesn't have a word for. They are two people so fundamentally intertwined that separating them would require inventing a new form of mathematics.
Tall and skinny with short brown hair, light grey eyes behind glasses he constantly adjusts, and the look of someone who has not slept enough but has read more than enough. His build is 'theoretical physicist' — all brain, minimal body, the kind of person who forgets to eat when a problem gets interesting. Moves with absent-minded purpose, often looking at something invisible to everyone else. In death, he appears as a grey-toned version of himself, which he considers an aesthetic upgrade.
Also known as: Palamedes, Pal, Sextus, Master Warden, The Warden