Page 90 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
Harlow looked around, watching as her mothers pulled pans of lasagna and garlic bread out of the fridge and preheated the oven. Her family was safe. She wasn’t too worried about the Knights, not after seeing Finn and Alaric decimate the vampires who’d stalked her, but anxiety plagued her all the same.What would happen when they truly made their move? When they’d gathered all the information they could and made a decision about action?As she sat down to eat at Finn’s kitchen table, surrounded by her family, she wondered just how many evenings they’d have left together.
ChapterThirty-Four
The next morning, Harlow sat cocooned in a blanket with Axel in the kitchen alcove drinking tea and waiting for everyone to return home. Persistent rain pelted the kitchen windows and she’d queued up a playlist of gentle piano music to play on the house speakers in the kitchen to soothe herself. Petra had texted her late into the night, saying that the Knights were headed to Haven to get the human survivors settled and not to wait up. Harlow hadn’t been able to follow that advice, despite everyone else going to bed shortly after midnight.
Axel rolled onto his back, snoring loudly, as she scrolled through the news and gossips. News outlets reported on the House of Remiel fire as though it were an unprovoked attack on the vampires, justifying their actions. She looked up, blinking tears into her dry eyes. She’d been staring at her phone for too long. The little ironstone lamp on the kitchen counter cast a golden glow of light into the gloom. Harlow pulled a bit of magic through the threads surrounding her to reheat her tea and watched the rain.
It wasn’t surprising that the Illuminated were working with the vampires to suppress the truth of what happened, but Harlow was disappointed nonetheless. At some point, this tactic of covering things up would backfire. Too many humans would see the violence being perpetrated by the Immortal Orders and they would resist. Harlow feared the consequences the Illuminated would rain down on all of them when that happened.
If they could just prepare a little more before things went that far, maybe they could prevent massive amounts of bloodshed. She’d downloaded three books about the War of the Orders onto Finn’s e-reader and had been skimming through them all night, trying to get a better idea of how things had happened then. The trouble was, they were all written from the Illuminated’s perspective. Harlow needed better histories, better accounts of those who had resisted the Illuminated in the past. She wondered briefly if the Knights’ vault in Nea Sterlis had records that might help her.
Harlow had double majored in history and literature at UNT, and when things settled down she’d always planned to get a graduate degree in one of the two. In her heart, she was a researcher, curious to a fault at times. All that had died in her when she was with Mark, and she felt it coming back to her now, the deep need to know more—to tease out the threads of history and story to understand where the narrative would go next.
Axel’s head popped up and he jumped into the windowsill, hearing something she could not. She peeked out the window, but saw nothing until Petra and Alaric portaled into the backyard with Nox and Arebos. All four were clean, wearing different clothes than they had been the night before, but looked exhausted.
She ran to meet them outside, hugging each of them before asking, “Where’s Finn and Cian?”
Ari explained that they’d stayed at Haven, with Riley and the humans, and that though they’d saved nearly a dozen of the protestors from the vampires, the ones who’d been saved were deeply traumatized from the attack. Finn had stayed to help get them settled. When Ari was done explaining, his hand clapped her shoulder in comfort, and she saw deep empathy in the charismatic shifter’s dark eyes before he walked into the house. Nox nodded solemnly, as though she understood Harlow’s silence, as she followed Petra and Alaric, who both appeared completely drained, inside.
Harlow thought about texting Finn to ask if he was all right, but his people had to be hungry and tired, so she focused on figuring out breakfast and getting them all to bed instead. A voice inside her reasoned it’s what he would have done first, and the thought warmed her. Finally, she was helping with something real, something honest. Her shadows danced inside her as she went back into the house that was beginning to feel like home, despite the dull ache in her heart.
* * *
The following days passed quickly,as everyone had work to do, both to help the surviving humans disappear from Nuva Troi, and to prepare for whatever came next. The twins jumped easily into the action, learning to use their digital networking skills for darker, more secretive purposes from Nox, who was apparently also one of Alaric’s most talented hackers. Everyone agreed that knowing what both the House of Remiel and the Illuminated were up to was of the highest importance, and the twins were such a quick study Harlow wondered if they’d been traversing the dark web on their own for quite some time.
The Kranes opted to stay at Finn’s for the time being, at least until the Solstice Gala was over. The twins created a ruse about a poltergeist problem in the Monas, which would explain their absence and the shop’s closure until after the gala. Dealing with violent ghosts was a well-known pain in the ass.
“That way we’ll have some time to get our information sorted and figure out how we’re going to proceed,” Indigo explained.
Finn agreed. The Knights had worked for the past few years on small subversive projects, but never anything as serious as the treasonous activities they were contemplating now. Moving slowly, gathering as much information as they could, and feeling out who in the lower Orders could be trusted was of utmost importance.
Arebos and Larkin formed an unexpected friendship, with Ari training Larkin in various hand to hand combat techniques and Larkin teaching him to play chess. The maters were in and out, feeling out the elders’ of the Order of Mysteries loyalties and talking about strategy with Finn and Cian, late into every evening. Thea locked herself in the library most days to try and understand why she could not restore the missing images in the facsimile of the Scroll of Akatei.
Riley Quinn was strangely absent, and though Harlow asked Enzo for more information, he’d gently refused to share what he knew about the Rogue Order’s involvement in the attack, as well as their help with the rescue. Harlow understood when Enzo had opted to leave Finn’s to join Riley; her only question had been if he felt safe. When he’d answered yes and hugged her, she didn’t argue further. He still hadn’t heard anything from Riley’s parents about the residue of anger he’d found in her, but he promised he’d call immediately when he knew more. It was all they could do on that front.
Finn and Harlow slept separately and she noticed he made a point never to be alone with her, though she caught him watching her from time to time, and she knew Axel still slept with him sometimes, splitting his time between them. They’d forgone the rest of the season’s events, planting rumors that they were too busy planning bonding celebrations with Alaric and Thea to bother with cocktail parties. The gossips ate it up, speculating about where the ceremony would take place, and whether Enzo would design the dress.
Harlow had asked Cian if the Knights had any less-biased records of the War of Orders, and they’d gotten her everything they had in Nuva Troi, promising to get her the translated diaries of the Knights’ commanders from the vault in Nea Sterlis after the Solstice. On the morning of the Solstice Gala, she’d been sorting through a very dry text on the physiology of Heraldic shifters for nearly two hours, and was beginning to feel as though her eyes might fall out of her head.
“Hey, are you listening to me?” Meline asked, snapping her fingers in Harlow’s face.
Harlow looked up. Her body was antsy, but her mind had focused too hard and she felt pulled in a dozen directions. “No, sorry.”
Meline sighed. “I said I think Finn should look into these three human-run tech companies, it’s possible they’re run by members of the Rogue Order and…”
Her sister’s words became a blur.When had Indi and Meli become such grownups?They were twenty, after all, but she certainly hadn’t been this smart when she was twenty. She smiled warmly at her sister; it was foolish to keep calling them sillies, they were anything but. “Meli, I have no clue what you’re talking about. Maybe you should discuss this with Finn?”
“Discuss what with me?” he asked from the doorway to the library.
Meline glanced at the intense look he was giving Harlow, the little velvet box in his hand and shook her head. “Nope. Not touching this right now. I’m sure Ari’s about somewhere.”
Harlow rolled her eyes as her sister left the room. “Should I be worried about those two?”
Finn shook his head. “Arebos and Nox are great. Both your sisters are in good hands. Even if it’s just a fling. I don’t work with people who treat their partners like shit.”
Harlow’s lips curled in a small smile. “What have you got there?”
Finn blushed. “I figured I’d better show this to you before tonight. Let you try it on to make sure it fits.”
