Chapter 20
My head was pounding by the time we got out to the street, and a tendril of panic snaked up to curl around my chest. The curse, was it breaking through Liam’s spell?
That, though, was not the thing that was most upsetting.
In the moment of the negotiations, I’d not let myself truly feel the loss of the bracelet.
Just breathe.
The bracelet is just a thing, and things don’t mean anything. Relationships do. Opie loves you. Even if she’s pissed at you right now.
But in a matter of mere minutes, I’d handily damaged two of my relationships. One that meant everything – Opie, if she ever found out about the bracelet. And one that I didn’t fully understand – Calypso. A weird-ass relationship that was half help, half hell. But she’d thought we were friends?
I bent at the waist and sucked in deep lungfuls of air that somehow didn’t seem to reach my brain. The panic was coming faster now, taking advantage of me when I was already down like a real asshole.
“Harlow.” Liam laid a gentle hand on my back, rubbing in slow, warm, circles.
“I know that was hard, but there was not much choice in the matter. And if Fable is right, and the Jinn is too, there’s a good chance the Grym Dunaras and the coin are both in the basement.
Seems exactly the type of thing the Snatchlings would be after.
That’d be huge for us. Two birds, one stone. ”
I kept my breath steady, counting in and out.
“It is. I know that, but Opie . . .”
“If Opie was here, she would have told you to do exactly what you did.” His hand paused on my lower back, his fingers pressing, one of them twitching as if he’d like to have his hand elsewhere. “She would, she will understand, you know that.”
I straightened and let out a harsh laugh. “If Opie was here, she would have kicked me right in the shin and told me what an asshole I was for leaving her behind at Neverthorn. For saying that the bracelet was worthless when it’s the thing that means the most to me.”
Liam stared at me, never interrupting as I unloaded my fears, letting them out in the open as if a tap had been turned on.
“You know how awful it is for a kid to feel that out of place, that unwanted, and to finally feel like you might have a chance of belonging somewhere? Only to realize that the belonging was a false belief, too? I was her safe space, and I betrayed her. And not for the first time, at least in her eyes. No matter how sorry I am, or how much she might say she forgives me – and I can only hope she will – I’ll have left a scar on her, Liam, just like her shitty family.
Even if she can’t see it, she’ll carry it. And I did it with my eyes open.”
I knew, because I had several of those kinds of scars all my own. I pressed a hand to my chest and rubbed at the familiar ache tightening there. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else the way Typhon had hurt me, but here I was, betraying people left and right.
My whirling thoughts drifted to Calypso and I frowned.
Why did I even care that a siren who didn’t care if I lived or died was pissed at me?
But the fact remained, I cared. A lot more than I probably should have.
The last thing I wanted was to go back to Heathermoor right now and run into Typhon, or Zeed . . . and especially not Fable. She’d know instantly that I wasn’t okay if she saw me messed up like this. And when she started probing, I’d pop open like a water balloon and spill my sadness everywhere.
Just like I’d done with Liam. One confession a night, that was my new rule.
A sign in the distance caught my eye, and I made a grab for Liam’s wrist.
“Come on,” I said, tugging him down the street.
“Where are we going?”
“To Nana’s Spirits and Shrubberies,” I said firmly. “I need a drink.”
He shook off my grasp and slowed to a stop, a few doors away from our destination.
“Well, you can’t go in there looking like that.”
“If you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but don’t try to talk me out of it. I can’t go back to Heathermoor yet. I just can’t. If you want to, that’s fine. I’ll find my way back in an hour or so.” I started off without him, hurt that he wouldn’t come with me.
“No, no. Of course I’m going to go with you. I’m just saying you can’t go in there looking like that. I can’t be seen drinking with a student on the off chance we run into someone from Heathermoor.”
That would not help us, he was right.
“No problem.” I took a quick glance around to make sure there was no one watching.
When the street was clear, I tugged off the pendant and tucked it into my hip bag with my stones and other goodies.
As long as the entire thing, chain and pendant, weren’t touching any part of my skin, Liam had said the glamor would come off.
It was a weird sensation as my face morphed back from Hannah to Harlow – subtle, but I felt it more than when I’d gone from Harlow to Hannah.
I looked up at him and managed a smile. “Let’s get those drinks, then.”
By the time I’d gotten to the pub door, Liam was right behind me.
My emotions were still all over the place, and I didn’t trust myself to make good decisions, but that didn’t stop me from ordering more than I should’ve – part of me knew that Liam had my back. Part of me hoped I would pass out and sleep through the night with no dreams.
Three shots and a pint of Guinness later, the blooming panic had fallen away, and my entire body felt loose as I slumped over the scarred and slightly sticky bar.
“This is exactly what I needed,” I said, taking another long pull of my pint, letting the sweet bitterness curl around my tongue. “Being at Heathermoor has allowed me to see that maybe institutions like this – where they teach magic – are all bad. Even if they look good.”
I set the glass down with a sigh, then stuck my pinky inside and traced shapes into the creamy foam. I squinted up at Liam, realizing I’d been pretty much talking to myself. “You’ve gotten really quiet on that stool.”
“The thing about Opie still bothering you, or something else specific to Heathermoor?”
Rolling my shoulders I wobbled in my seat.
“Nothing and everything, I guess. Opie for sure. But there’s other stuff too.
” I pushed a finger toward him, missing and hitting his shoulder.
Then crooking the same finger to draw him close and whisper.
Even this gone under the drink, I knew there were some things I should keep quiet.
“Sometimes I think about what our kind is, and the things we’ve done.
He treats people like tools to get what he wants, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m not so different from him.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it. ”
Rambling? You bet. I wasn’t even sure Liam would be able to follow my words, that I was referencing Nocta. He stared straight ahead, studying the jewel-colored decanters that ran along the back of the bar like they held the answers to the universe.
He finally turned his eyes to me. Sad, he was sad and I was a sucker for a strong, sad guy.
“In life some of us are called to sacrifice for the greater good. And sometimes it really fucking hurts, Harlow. We don’t all get the happily ever after that we deserve.
” His hand caught one of mine, then he cupped my face with the other, gently pulling our heads together until our noses touched.
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I swiped them away furiously. I didn’t really want to think about endings, I was too drunk and this felt more intense than I wanted when I was trying to avoid all the feelings. “I . . . bathroom. Order me something to eat, please?”
“Can do.” His tone was gentle, kind, as he let my fingers slip from his.
I shoved myself off the stool and held on to the bar top to steady myself for a moment.
I made my way carefully, passing a group, each of them holding a book – same book by the looks of it.
The bathroom was blessedly empty, a cool breeze coming through a cracked window helping with the flush in my cheeks. I took a second to lean against the sink and stared at myself in the mirror.
Being someone else took a lot out of a person. The pendant did the heavy lifting, but holding the magic in place was like a low-level drain, just as Liam had said. I hadn’t realized it until now . . .
I tucked the thought away to discuss with the others tomorrow.
We needed to be at our strongest. Maybe we needed to purposely schedule in breaks where we were all together – or alone – so we could lock ourselves away as our true selves and let our bodies rest. The only reason I hadn’t done it myself was because part of me was afraid someone might walk in at any moment.
But all the secrets and hiding weighed on me. And the only way to make it better was by unloading the heaviest bit.
Like the fact that Nocta was my father.
I bit my lip hard and dropped my head, resting it against the mirror above the sink.
The second we weren’t in the middle of one crisis or another, I’d bite the proverbial bullet. I’d tell my housemates the truth – that Nocta was my father, and that I’d kept it hidden from them for months.
Once, that thought would have sent me into a tailspin. But now? All I felt was relief at the prospect.
We’d have all our cards on the table, and I’d be able to be honest with them – because that’s what family did even if it was terrifying.
I bent low and splashed cold water on my face before drying it on a paper towel. I still needed to fix the Calypso thing too, while I was solving problems. And then once we had everything we came to Heathermoor to find, I’d go back to Neverthorn.
And get Opie out of there.
Things weren’t perfect. But at least I was in a better frame of mind and ready to eat.
I headed out of the bathroom and back to the bar, but when I turned the corner I stopped in my tracks.
A burst of fear-based adrenaline shot through me.
Liam was still seated where I’d left him. But instead of returning to an empty seat beside him, I found him surrounded by three women, one who looked very familiar.
Bryony McCabe. The transmutation professor from Heathermoor. She had a book cupped in her hands like the others, and currently had her head tossed back, laughing at something Liam was saying.
I couldn’t go over there.
And while she probably wouldn’t recognize me as Harlow, the fact that I was wearing almost the same outfit I’d worn in her classroom the day before and bore a pretty strong resemblance to her student Hannah? It wasn’t a chance I was willing to take.
Liam leaned in and patted her shoulder and risked a glance my way.
Get out of here, his eyes said.
I didn’t need to be told twice.