Chapter 29
A Strictly Professional Proposition
HARPER
I wake to a hand through my hair, my feet tucked snugly under someone’s calves. White light streams through the blinds behind me, and the air stings with rubbing alcohol.
‘Hey, love.’ Tia caresses my head, and I lean into her touch on instinct.
I open my mouth to reply, but thirst scalds hot and raw down my throat. It’s only when I reach for the cup by my bed that I notice my hand is bandaged and trembling.
‘We caught Maria,’ Niko says from the corner of the room, and I crane my neck to find them leaning against the white walls of the hospital room. They pocket their phone and walk over to pat me lightly on the shoulder, a small smile on their face. ‘You took a good number of blows. Get some rest.’
Tia holds out a cup and a moonstone supplement. She’s also in the medbay’s signature pink gown, her hair tangled down her back, her lips pale.
Niko watches us from the foot of my bed with a soft smile on their face, their hands clasped behind their back, their gaze skipping between us. Something occurs to them – I see it the second their smile fades. ‘Girls, this is very nice, but I need to talk to you about the moonstones.’
I slip my leg under Tia’s as I fold my arms. ‘Yeah?’ With water, my throat eases back into some semblance of utility.
‘So Kiran and I recovered the moonstone locations from Maria. They were in a couple of suspected Fox holding spaces, but we have the passwords.’ Niko runs a hand through their hair. ‘I have some bad news. We can’t find a quarter of it, and Maria won’t crack.’
‘And Kevin?’ Tia asks.
Niko shakes their head. ‘I’ve asked our lawyers, but we don’t have enough evidence. As far as anyone knows, Maria was behind it all. I don’t think we can even interrogate Kevin.’
I frown. ‘Then where are the moonstones now?’
‘About two warehouses worth, with us. The missing quarter . . . we think Maria might have sold it off to civilians.’
‘What?’ Tia and I say at the same time. Which civilians would want moonstones? And why?
‘It’s not a negligible amount, and we’re going to press her for details so we can trace each one down.
’ Niko nods as they speak, like they’re trying to assure themselves as much as they assure us.
‘Thing is, between that, and our deal with the Nagas, and the fact that I don’t trust the government with two warehouses of these unstable moonstones—’
‘They’d just give it to Ferrix, wouldn’t they?’ Tia’s face is weary. ‘We stole the bomb blueprints from them, but it obviously won’t be enough to stop them.’
‘Unfortunately, yes. And because Lain and the Sentinels have been controlling the research and storage of the moonstones, I thought we’d be able to have a say in what to do with this cache, but the government isn’t letting me do anything.
After everything we’ve done, we’re still just descendants working for their benefit.
’ Niko raises their gaze to look at me, and the solution comes to me right as it leaves their mouth.
‘So I have a favour to ask of you. As Raven.’
‘You trust the Foxes enough for us to keep them?’
‘I trust you. I know there’s an Elder hierarchy system in your clan, and I’d like your help to ask them for support.
I’ll need contractual confirmation that the Foxes wouldn’t use the moonstones, but, otherwise, I want the moonstones with your clan.
I’ll put all my tech and our manpower to helping you keep it safe.
I just need a place that isn’t somewhere related to the Sentinels, or it would risk the government finding it.
As far as they know, these moonstones are missing.
’ Niko passes me a stack of papers, dense with written words and marked out with ‘SIGN HERE’ tabs.
They turn to Tia. ‘I’m leaving this role soon, and you’re stepping up.
This whole time, I’ve taught you to comply with the law because we needed to earn the government’s trust to operate as Sentinels.
And all your instructions came from me, because I make decisions on who we trust, and when we trust them.
Now, I need you to figure out who you want to benefit.
And if it involves breaking the law, or rebelling against authority, then maybe so be it.
’ They glance at me. ‘You have a good teacher for that.’
I roll my eyes, but I smile. ‘I’ll get these to the Elders.’
Niko stalks over and holds a hand out. ‘Thank you, Fox clan leader.’
I grin and shake their hand.
TIA
‘If this is a ploy to murder me, there’s already a queue, sweetheart.’ The blindfold only emphasizes the smirk on Harper’s face as she leans back in the car seat, stark black over pale skin.
I roll my eyes. ‘You’re insufferable.’ I turn into a corner, easing my foot off the accelerator as we enter a small lane. We’ve been driving for twenty minutes with Harper’s eyes blindfolded all the way, and my girlfriend genuinely never shuts up.
Honestly, I’m just surprised she hasn’t made a BDSM joke about the blindfold, and then I internally slap myself. Pre-Harper, I would never even have thought of it.
Well, pre-Harper me wouldn’t have done a lot of things. Pre-Harper, I was a bit of a coward.
But Harper hasn’t changed me so much as she’s nudged me to change myself, like how she’s taught me that mistakes made are just a story done better.
Mistakes make us good, Harper whispered to me one night, fingers tracing circles over my shoulders. Then, with a grin, she said, Technically, you were my biggest mistake.
I shoved her off the bed. But the point stands: mistakes made us stronger. A healed scar becomes another scribbled flower over our skin, and I’m tired of trying to be perfect.
Secretly, knowing Harper won’t be able to see it, I allow myself a tiny smile at the BDSM joke as I pull into the car park. ‘We’re here, kit.’
I don’t remove Harper’s blindfold as I lead her out of the car park, gravel crunching underfoot.
It occurs to me that she must recognize the acrid undertone of incense in the air, because her footing over the steps at the gate has a surety born only from habit, and, for once, her smart mouth falls silent.
The world quietens for us as ancestors watch, shattered hearts and splintered dreams rolling under our feet, ash grit scratching between our soles and the faded orange tiles.
I wait until we’ve reached the main foyer before I ask Harper to take the blindfold off.
She knows. Because, unlike when I had unveiled Harper’s suit, there’s no excitement to this. It takes a full second for her to slip it off, fingers slow, almost reverent, hands reaching up as if about to make an offering to a god. She opens her eyes and her gaze roams.
I follow it, drinking in the grimy yellow ceiling of the columbarium with her, tracing the elaborate carvings of Chinese deities on the pillars, dragons twisted in wood, scales brown with dust, Guan Yin’s gentle smile from a paint-cracked wall.
Joss sticks jut from the sandy dirt of the grubby red censer, burned down to crimson nubs, hundreds of prayers made, thousands of tears shed.
From the table in front of the censer, flush against the wall, Buddha’s round, wooden face grins down at us.
‘I . . . How?’ Harper says, and confusion muddies her expression. ‘How’d you know my parents were here?’
‘I asked Niko.’ I shrug it off, heart thudding. I’d expected Harper to be a lot more excited, but now I’m not sure. Am I stepping on some sort of boundary? What if Harper doesn’t want to see her parents? What if she hadn’t wanted me to meet her parents? Oh, God—
Harper shuffles forward to take three joss sticks from an open plastic bag on the censer table. She rolls them around in her hands for a bit, staring down at them wistfully, before turning to me. ‘You want some?’
‘It would be my pleasure.’ It’s a weekday morning, so no one is here. In the dead silence of the columbarium even our whispers explode into the air, prod uncomfortably against the sombre veil of the dead, so I keep my voice low, controlled.
We light the joss sticks with the huge, twisted candle of melted wax and pray for entrance into the columbarium. Once we’re done, we stick the candle into the censer, our hands marked red with the joss sticks, looking blood-kissed by a sacred blessing.
‘Why’d you bring me here?’ Harper asks when we’re done. She tears her gaze away from the statue to look up at me.
‘I have, um, a question for you.’ I reach out for her hands, toying with her fingers as I speak. It calms some of my nerves. ‘And it’s kind of important. I know your parents meant a lot, so I thought, well . . . I thought maybe this would mean something.’
I try to read the expression on Harper’s face. Sadness tinges the downturn of her brow, but it’s the only emotion I can parse.
She opens her mouth, and I brace myself. She’s going to hate you. She won’t do that. But what if she does?
‘I really want to kiss you, actually,’ she says.
Oh. I grin, relieved, and nudge Harper with my shoulder. ‘We are in front of a whole lot of dead people.’
With a dramatic sigh and an eye-roll, she turns away. ‘Oh, yeah, a whole lot.’
‘Many, many ancient homophobic ancestors.’
‘Oh, no.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘The Foxes are cool with that. They were originally shapeshifters, so sexuality and gender are hard to keep straight.’
‘I don’t know how to tell you the columbarium isn’t just made of your family—’
‘We can go see them . . .’ Harper’s suggestion is abrupt, but uncharacteristically uncertain. I suppress the urge to hold her, tell her I would never pass up a chance to know her better, to see all of her, because it’s time for Harper to stop thinking she has to keep everything to herself.
Instead, I say, ‘Of course. Lead the way.’
We go up a spiral staircase, down off-white arched hallways, passing squares and squares of marble carved with crimson names and clan titles. Ancestors stare down at us, paired with their lovers, plastic flowers wilted in metal tubes in between.