You told me, Sleep, I'll wake you in the morning.
I asked, What is morning? and you said,
When everyone who fucked with me is dead.
When everyone we loved has gone or fled,
That's morning. Empty's just another word for clean.
Let's put this first-draft dream of mine to bed.
In the appointed hour,
I'll pull up your sheets. I'll kill the light,
Lie down beside you; die; and sleep the night.
This time will be the time we get it right:
Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long;
Our graves will be less deep, our lies less true.
You held aloft the sword.
I still love y
We can tell that this is from the POV of Alecto (because of "I still love you") and the italics are John's quotes. He's putting her to sleep, cutting off her thought mid-sentence.
OK, so, pair this with the final line of the epilogue:
At which John awakened and said, Annabel, good morning.
ohhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
OK so, here's my theory as to what John is doing:
I don't think John told Gideon to let Alecto out because he doesn't care that he'll be mortal or that he has a death wish. I think he needs her out of the tomb because he's going to do what he did back on Earth again - kill and wipe out everything, commit resurrection and start over. "This time will be the time we get it right." This "first draft" of his dream has failed; all his friends have died or betrayed him ("everyone we love has gone or fled").
I think he's failed to kill the non-House humanity but is going to include them in it this time, wipe them out and use the opportunity or use the thanergy bloom to finally kill them and get his revenge. "Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long." He's been seeking revenge on them for a myriad for their abandoning Earth; this time he'll be able to let go of his anger and forgive more easily, but I dunno if that's because he's going to kill them all or finally actually walk away.
As for how he's going to do this: His first time, he gained his power by killing everyone on Earth, and then Earth itself, and then all of the other planets and people in the solar system, and the sun itself; He used that thanergy bloom to become god, eating the sun and the Earth's ghost to empower himself, then later went about resurrecting people. Well, the planets and sun are already dead, but he plans to "Lay down beside [Alecto]; die; and sleep the night." His
own death will create such a massive thanergy bloom that he, I believe, plans to harness to empower himself even farther. (We know his power, while cosmically enormous, is not infinite, because people can hide from him, lie to him, get the drop on him and tear him apart even if it didn't stick.) That's why he's letting Alecto out of the tomb now; he
wants to die, but keep in mind that it won't be "dying" in the normal sense; he doesn't plan on going away anywhere.