40. Harlow
HARLOW
G uardian’s Crossing is so packed, I have to shove my way through three drunk old men doing a linked-arm line dance just to get to the bar.
Bea has a glass of whiskey waiting for me. I’d prefer wine, but I’ll settle for anything to take the edge off of seeing Aidia. She’s fine . At least as fine as she can be considering the circumstances, and yet I’m still full of nervous, churning energy.
I take a long gulp of the whiskey.
Bea clicks her tongue. “That’s good stuff. Don’t gulp it like it’s common swill. You’ve only been out with the wild mountain people a few Divine damn days.”
I lick my lips as I place the glass down on the bar and grin at her. Bea looks beautiful as always. Her short hair is twisted back from her face, a flower tucked behind her ear. No doubt it’s Josie’s touch. Bea has never been one to accessorize.
She pulls a few beers for the men on the stools beside me and grabs a rag to wipe down the bar. “I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon,” she says, rubbing at a nonexistent stain in front of me.
“I was summoned.”
She frowns but still doesn’t look at me. “They call. You come.”
“Not for long. ”
Finally, she meets my eyes. “Oh?”
I nod. “I think I finally have a way to get everything I want, but that’s a conversation for somewhere more private.”
She nods her head toward the back room, and I round the bar and follow her through the curtain into the dim stock room.
As soon as I step inside, I take off my coat and toss it onto her desk in the corner. Her face shifts from annoyance that I’ve disturbed her stacks of papers to appreciation for the gown.
She whistles. “Bleeding woods! Every time I think you can’t wear something less appropriate in public, you go and one-up yourself.”
I smooth my hands down the deep red silk. “Thank you for noticing. I’d been saving it for a special occasion. After being naked in front of all the magical families of Mountain Haven, I figured why not.”
“So it has nothing to do with your new husband?” Bea challenges.
I shrug a shoulder. “If Henry is agitated by my choice of dress, that’s merely an added bonus.”
Bea laughs, the sound a smooth, melodic alto that’s all at once familiar and foreign. I used to collect those laughs like precious coins, but we’ve laughed far too little these last few months.
“What’s your new deal?” Bea asks.
Bea doesn’t know everything about my family.
There are many things I can’t tell her for her safety.
It was a huge sticking point in our relationship.
She didn’t understand that my not telling her things wasn’t because I didn’t trust her, but because I didn’t trust them .
If they even suspected she knew things she wasn’t supposed to know, I wouldn’t put it above them to at the very least have Electra wipe all recent memories from her brain.
Something like that would be devastating to a woman who runs her bar from an accounting system that only makes sense to her and a list of merchants and favors she keeps in her head.
“I need to turn Henry against Rafe.”
“How do you plan to do that?” Bea asks.
I wave my hand down my scantily clad body. “With the gifts the Divine gave me…and my sparkling personality, of course.”
She laughs again. “Of course. It seemed like you were off to such a good start.” She takes a step closer. “He’s been good to you?”
“He’s been humbled. ”
Bea purses her lips. “As I knew he would be. But really? You’re doing well?”
I don’t take the offer to share. It’s hard enough for me to share things with anyone, but it’s far too strange to talk to a former lover about my new husband.
She seems to sense this new boundary between us. “And what will you buy with this one last favor?”
“Freedom once and for all.” I take a deep breath. “I’m leaving.”
“How?”
I understand her skepticism. I’ve threatened to leave so many times before. I’ve ranted and raged and said I was fed up, but I always stayed. It was impossible to leave without a clear escape route.
“My parents have agreed to grant me a favor when I do this one last thing. Once the deed is done, I’ll be gone and they won’t have any dominion over me anymore.”
“So you’ll stay at the fort?” she asks.
I’m tempted to just tell her about the tunnel, but I’m so close to escaping. Bea is one of the most secretive people I know—yet, still, I can’t risk word of its existence getting out before I make my final escape.
“No. I’m going beyond the mountain.”
Bea stares at me for a beat. “And what of your husband?”
I scoff. “He’ll be glad to be rid of me and have the resources our marriage granted him.”
She purses her lips like she wants to say more. I understand her doubt, but the thing that has shifted this time is that I’ve left the city walls. Before leaving, it was unimaginable to think of life outside this fishbowl. Now, this boundary has been crossed and freedom feels within my grasp.
She rubs the back of her neck. “What about the Poison Vixen?”
The guilt is swift. I take my responsibility to the women of Lunameade seriously, but the whole reason I started that work was because I couldn’t help Aidia.
There’s not a place in the city I could stash her that my parents couldn’t find her.
They’ve already shown they have no problem marrying a daughter off again if it suits them.
There’s no escaping them inside the city walls.
If we stay here, sooner or later, we’ll get sucked back into their games.
“I can’t surrender the only chance I’ll ever have to leave to be a one- woman vigilante against an army of abusers,” I say.
“I don’t want to let anyone down, but I thought about what you said about letting more women help.
It’s going to take a while for me to make formal plans.
I thought in the meantime we could brainstorm a way to develop our network and carry on the Vixen’s work. ”
Bea looks around the room, anywhere but at me.
“You were the one who tried to get me to quit so many times,” I say. “I can’t believe you’re mad now that I’m finally doing it.”
Bea swallows, and her dark eyes are full of grief. “I’m not mad. You were so stuck for so long. I’m relieved to see you healing, Low.”
I’m speechless—so moved that the person who knows my struggles best recognizes this massive shift in me. I’m not sure I even recognized it in myself until she said it. A lump forms in my throat.
Neither of us seems to know what to do with this unexpected emotional revelation.
Bea tugs at her sleeves and clears her throat again. “In that case, we have work to do. I’m assuming you’re here about the attack in North Hold and the women.”
I nod. “Who’s missing?”
“Francesca is the only one in our network missing. But several other women from the district have been taken as well, and that’s a concern. Especially because our favorite revolutionary, Rochelli, is spreading rumors that they’re not victims of an attack. He says they’re a tithe to the Drained.”
I stare at her. “I don’t understand. What do you mean? How do you know?”
Bea beckons me toward the curtain that leads to the bar. She draws it aside and nods toward a bearded man at the bar. He’s spinning his glass in a bubble of spilled ale.
“I know because that half-drunk, soon-to-be full-drunk fellow at the bar can’t stop running his mouth about it,” Bea says. “He slipped up and mentioned Rochelli, so I started filling his glass with the good stuff to keep him talking. He seems to think that it’s something your family agreed to.”
“They wouldn’t do that.” Defending them is a reflex in public settings, but less so with Bea. “There are a lot of lines my parents will cross, but our own citizens aren’t one of them. ”
What I can’t tell her is that was the entire reason I was drafted into this sham marriage. My father sacrificed the fort to protect the city. It makes no sense for him to change course now, especially when he knows the fort is back up and running.
“I realize how it sounds,” I say. “There are many things they would sacrifice, but all of those sacrifices have been for the sake of protecting the people inside these city walls.”
Bea holds up her hands in surrender. “I know there are things you can’t tell me, but the great thing about being your friend is that I don’t have to buy into your family’s bullshit.”
I sigh in frustration. “It has to be Rafe. This is the perfect kind of rumor to start a frenzy. There’s no way to prove it, but also no way to dis prove it, so it will just spread and spread and turn the tide of power in the city his way.”
Aidia’s face is still so fresh in my mind, and as much as I would like to tell my parents where they can shove their favors, as much as it’s their fault she’s in that situation to begin with, I only have bad options at the moment, and theirs is the only one that offers me what Aidia needs.
Bea leans back against the wall and tugs on the rolled sleeves of her button-down shirt. “Maybe it’s less that he’s effectively turning the tide toward him, and just that people are tired of your family’s manipulation. Just like you are.”
I glare at her. “You do realize Rafe is the other option, right? He was out there today like a king holding court.”
Bea wrinkles her nose. “That ghoul hasn’t shut up in weeks. He just feeds on the fear and misery. There’s no tragedy he can’t turn into a political opportunity. I’m sorry you had to listen to it.”
I shrug a shoulder. “You know more than anyone how much I’d love to stick it to my parents, but I need just one viable candidate who actually has the best interest of the city at heart.
Whatever is going on with these missing women is scary.
I—” I hesitate to tell her the full truth, but she deserves to know.
How else will we do what we set out to and keep the women of Lunameade safe?
As I tell her about the Breeders and the evolution of the Drained, her eyes get progressively wider. When I finish, she looks like she’s going to be sick .