Chapter 17
Working at the Court of Chains bar was never pleasant, but that night was especially dreadful. Court was closed, meaning only its members were around, and Maya’s section was dead as a result.
Mostly. She had one patron. A patron who was trying to be nice, which wasn’t exactly in her wheelhouse.
“Natalya won’t stop singing your praises.” Angela turned her vodka-soda between her fingers. Her drink of choice and she had yet to take a single sip of it. “It’s rare that she uses the word ‘impressive’ about someone. And I’ve heard her use it twice.”
“Lucky me.” Maya kept her eyes on her current pointless task: cleaning already clean glasses.
A few tense seconds passed before Angela cleared her throat. “Aren’t you going to ask why she keeps bringing you up?”
“Not interested.”
“You should be. Getting on Natalya’s radar is either great or deadly. Since you’re still standing, congratulations might be in order. She must have liked whatever you did in St. Louis.”
It wasn’t the first time Angela had brought that up. It had been three godawful days since Maya had come back to Chicago, and every one of those days Angela had stopped by the bar and forced the topic into conversation.
If Maya had thought her capable of it, she would have suspected Angela was just being cruel.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Maya said.
“That’s a worrying trend. You’ve barely spoken since you got back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. The only person you talk to around here is me, unless you and Diana have patched things up. Which I’m guessing you haven’t, based on how curt you’re being.”
Maya sneered. She and Diana hadn’t talked in weeks, and Diana didn’t seem interested in breaking that streak. She had even requested a transfer from the bar, preferring boring busywork over them even sharing a floor.
“Don’t you have some arcane doodles to get back to?”
“If I have to remind you that they’re incantations instead of doodles again, we’re going to have a problem.
” Angela fidgeted in her seat. “Besides. Visiting you has become an evening ritual. One I’ve been missing for a while, so forgive me for being talkative.
With everything that happened in St. Louis, I just—”
Maya set down the glass she was ‘cleaning’ so hard it was lucky it didn’t break.
“I don’t want to talk. And neither do you. I don’t need your attention or your pity, so stop wasting your time and leave me the hell alone.”
Angela frowned, looking more surprised than hurt at the stern tone. Maya had never raised her voice at her, or even gotten close, but it clearly didn’t matter. Hard problems had never discouraged the witch of Chains. In fact, those were her preference.
“Something happened with Harper. Didn’t it?”
Maya stiffened. “How did you—” She stopped herself. Asking Angela how she knew something was pointless. Angela knew fucking everything.
“You weren’t subtle,” Angela said flatly. “I could only read so many texts about how funny, charming, and interesting Harper is before I caught the hint. You’re into her, and all this brooding is a super mature way of handling it, too.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Oh, shut up,” Angela said with a scowl. “You’re afraid of the results, so you’ve given up without trying. Based on plentiful written evidence, Harper won’t even care what people are saying. You told me yourself that she doesn’t scare easily.”
Maya’s jaw clenched. She started stacking the glasses. “She should be scared.”
Angela scoffed. “Oh, here we go.”
“I’m serious. You don’t know what happened. You don’t know what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking. If you did, you’d see that being scared is a perfectly reasonable reaction.”
Angela’s expression didn’t change. She looked as irritated as before, even elevating the emotion by sipping on her drink.
“You should talk to Aleksander about that.”
Maya rolled her eyes. Other than when she first joined the Court, she hadn’t had a single conversation with the vampiric King of Chains. Partly because she was so low in the Court hierarchy that he had no reason to talk to her, but she had also avoided him. Same as with every other Chains vampire.
“I don’t want to talk to Aleksander.”
“And I don’t want to deal with your moping, yet here I am. You might be one of a kind, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone. If you talk to him, he could help.”
Help was the last thing Maya wanted. That would involve accepting that her current state of being was permanent, and just the thought made her nauseous.
She hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t chosen it, and if she had any kind of agency in this situation, she would shed every characteristic that made her so dreadfully unique.
Angela wouldn’t get it, exceptional as she was, but there was nothing Maya wouldn’t do to be just another face in the crowd. To be normal again.
Maya was about to tell Angela just that, except in far terser terms, when her attention shifted.
It didn’t happen consciously, or as a response to a strange noise or movement in her periphery.
Instead, it was as though her gaze was pulled by magnets.
An invisible force making her turn her head, looking through the crowd.
Harper. Standing just a few feet away, leaning over the bar, and with her platinum blonde hair turned colorful by the strobe lights. She was wearing tight, dark jeans and an oversized graphic t-shirt that had been turned into a cropped tee seemingly by attacking it with scissors.
She said something to the bartender, and he turned his head to hear her better over the music. He tensed, looking away as he pointed towards the end of the bar, and as Harper followed the gesture, her eyes found Maya’s.
The world stopped. The music dulled, the crowd froze, and the entire room faded away. All of it was reduced to less than background noise as Maya’s focus locked onto Harper’s beautiful face.
It had been days since she saw it last, at the Lotus, but it might as well have been seconds. Every piece of nuance had burned into her mind as Harper had gone from furious to shocked to holding back tears.
All of that uncertainty was gone. Now, she looked more determined than anything. Lips tensing and with a slight furrow forming between her brows, Harper pushed off the bar and started maneuvering towards Maya.
“Hellooo.” Angela waved her hand in front of Maya’s face. She flinched, turning back towards the witch she’d just forgotten existed.
Angela snorted. “Yeah, you definitely need to talk to Aleksander.” She gave Maya’s hand a squeeze. “Relax. Just be yourself. She won’t be able to resist that.”
Angela took a final sip of her drink before hopping off her stool and walking away from the bar. The crowd split, letting the witch of Chains pass by untouched and unbothered.
Maya wasn’t the only one around Court with a fearsome reputation, but Angela’s was self-imposed. She was wearing so many defensive charms that there wasn’t a supernatural creature alive who could harm her. That was why she had never had a problem with Maya. Angela had no reason to be afraid.
Unlike Harper. Harper, who had every reason to keep her distance. After everything she had seen and heard these past few days, Harper had countless reasons to be terrified.
But despite that, she showed no apprehension as she broke free from the crowd. She glanced in the direction Angela had vanished, eyes narrowed. Then she walked towards Maya, climbed onto a barstool, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“We need to talk.”
This was the last thing Maya had expected.
She had assumed, had accepted, that the only way she would ever see Harper again would be from afar.
That the conversation they’d had at the Lotus, if you could even call it that, would be their last. That the kiss she had stolen just a few days before would be the last time they touched.
But Harper was right there. Sitting with her back straight, eyes hard, and staring at Maya as though she’d shown up with a plan that involved both cursing and shouting. With no one in tow, either.
“You came here alone?”
Surprise briefly softened Harper’s hard gaze. “Yeah. Why?”
Maya almost asked her that same question. Harper would have been told everything by now. Every shade of darkness that made up the world she’d been thrown into.
Knowing all that, she should have stayed away. Or at least brought someone along, for safety.
She should be scared. Instead, she just seemed confused.
“I just… I figured you’d be…” Maya shook her head. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
It seemed like Harper was about to insist on the opposite. But she’d clearly come over there with an itinerary and seemed keen on forging ahead with it.
She straightened her spine and jutted out her chin. “I’ve learned a lot since coming here, and despite everything I’ve been told, there’s still a lot I don’t understand. A lot that pisses me off the more I think about it. You knew Evie was alive, the whole time, and you didn’t say anything.”
“I couldn’t.” Maya eyed the dance floor. People were looking in their direction. Listening.
“I had orders,” she continued, voice low. “I almost told you. If I thought you’d believe me, I would have, but there were… I wasn’t—”
“You weren’t allowed to tell me. I know. Evie mentioned. She told me about your orders, which involved getting me safely to Chicago, no matter the cost. Something I would be far more okay with if it hadn’t involved seducing me into trusting you.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
“Then what was your intention? You vanished without a word right after we got here, as though you couldn’t wait to get away from me. If I was never anything more than a job to you, making me care about you was a cold fucking tactic.”
Maya’s heart sank. Into a pit of needles, going by the pain piercing through it.
“You really think that was a tactic?”
The anger in Harper’s eyes faded, hurt showing beneath it. “I don’t know what to think. I was hoping you might help with that.”