Page 87 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
“If I were different, if I hadn’t fucked up with the whole Petra thing, and everything else, would you still feel this way?”
“Yes. It’s not about you, or because of you. This is all me.”
“Okay,” he said.
Harlow got up. “We should get in there.”
He caught her hand. “Harls.” She looked back down the line of her arm, where her hand rested in his, raising her eyes to meet his gaze. “We’re still in this together, right?”
She nodded, something choking her voice. It felt wrong to walk away, but she knew that before she could move on with Finn, she had to remember that night with Mark and figure out what was affecting her emotions so strangely. Then she had to let it all go, find some way to be free. As much as she wanted that to be something they could do together, she wasn’t capable of that now and he deserved better than what she could give him after everything his family put him through.
Finn’s lips pressed into her palm. “I’ll wait as long as it takes, Harlow.”
She nodded once, tearing her eyes away from him so she could walk away. He followed her into the kitchen, where Thea had a series of printed photos spread on the table. Everyone was squeezed into the large alcove, which could barely fit the eleven immortals. Cian got up and they and Finn pulled the two chairs from in front of the hearth to the table.
Finn lit the fire to stave off the chill of the evening, which had, as expected, blown in a massive thunderstorm. Thea was explaining that they could eat after she showed them what she’d found in her facsimile of the Scroll of Akatei.
“Hey,” she said when she saw Harlow.
Riley smiled up at her, tucked into the curve of Enzo’s arm. Harlow looked around the table, her gaze finally lighting on Petra, who was still dressed in her UNT sweatshirt and leggings. “Hey, everybody.”
The maters both smiled. They’d been worried about her isolation, and about the feeling she’d had that she was being watched, but had allowed her to make her own choices about where to stay. She was glad they were here now.
The back door flew open and everyone startled. Two tall figures stepped inside, pushing back their hoods as they closed the back door. Finn pressed a hand to Harlow’s shoulder—she hadn’t realized he was standing so close to her. “It’s just Nox and Arebos.”
With their hoods back, the Wraiths proved to be less than the gruesome creatures Harlow worried they might be. In fact, they had an ethereal beauty that couldn’t be denied. They were tall and sturdily built, with skin the color of burnished amber, dark hair, and eyes that glistened with acute focus. The taller of the two had their long dark hair pulled half-up and the other’s hair was cut short, with the sides shaved, but otherwise they shared many of the same sharply defined features. Clearly they were siblings, though Harlow didn’t think they were twins.
“Hi,” the shorter one said. “We ran the perimeter twice. The wards are good. No one is getting in.” She made eye contact with Harlow momentarily. “I’m Nox,” she said. “And this is my brother, Arebos.”
“You can call me Ari,” her brother said, making eye contact only briefly, his gaze lighting on Meline, who’d looked up from her phone. Ari grinned at Meli and she blushed prettily at him.
Nox rolled her eyes. “He’s an incorrigible flirt. Beware.”
Indigo looked up at the sound of Nox’s sarcastic tone, her eyes immediately appraising the Wraith, and Harlow shook her head. The sillies had always been attracted to their direct opposites, and here were two people who couldn’t be more unlike the two of them: the Wraiths could make themselves invisible, and the twins couldn’t possibly be more visible. Indigo sat up a bit straighter, and her sweater fell off her shoulder in slow motion. Harlow was sure she’d practiced the move numerous times. Apparently it had the desired effect, because Nox was staring at her, mouth slightly ajar as she pushed a hand through her short hair.
“Gods help us,” Harlow muttered to Thea.
Thea’s dark head shook as she muttered, “What did you expect? They’ve been waiting all season to find people dangerous enough to make Mama mad and we just served two of them right up.”
Indeed, Selene glared at Arebos as he leaned against the alcove, conducting a soft conversation with Meline, who was whispering so quietly that Harlow couldn’t keep up. Clearly Arebos could, because he laughed as she smiled up at him through her long lashes. He crouched down, tapping his phone to hers. They were already exchanging numbers?
Harlow sighed. “Before they get engaged, start talking.”
Thea suppressed a laugh, then cleared her throat, getting everyone’s attention. “Right. Let’s talk about what Alaric and I found when we examined the place in the scroll where the triptych should be.”
Thea pointed to a section of the printouts on the table that depicted a white ash tree, with an Argent curled into its roots, asleep. “In the chronology of the scroll, Alaric and I believe whatever the triptych represents comes before the firedrake, which as we can see, wakes and joins the other Heraldic creatures in the next phase.”
Larkin leaned forward, pointing to some faded swirls of color winding around the tree. “Do you think this is the same representation of aether we saw in the triptych?”
Alaric nodded at Larkin. “Yes, we think the triptych is the catalyst to all of what happens in the rest of the scroll.”
“What do these represent?” Harlow asked, looking closely at the humanoid forms pictured inside small bubbles in the branches, similar to the ones Thea had restored in the first of the triptych images. Some of the bubbles were shown as cracked and the small forms floated above the tree.
Alaric grinned. “That’s the exciting part. We think they might be humans. If we could figure out what happens in the triptych, Thea and I believe we’d unlock the secret to what is happening with these cracked bubbles.”
“It looks like the humans are being released somehow,” Riley added, squinting at the images. “But if that is the case, what would the purpose of the bubbles be?”
Thea answered, but Harlow didn’t hear what she’d said. She looked at Finn, who was turning towards her, as though he’d wondered the same thing she had. Finn held up a hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Thea. But originally, you said you thought the triptych might have something to do with what happened when a Strider and Knight… er…. Joined forces, right?”
