Page 59 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
“Are you a Strider?” Finn asked, his eyes wide with wonder.
“How do you know what that is?” she asked, voice sharper than she’d like.
Finn shook his head. “I don’t know much, just that the Striders were legendary witches, a force against the Illuminated during the War of the Orders. My people are deeply afraid of them.”
Her heart clenched, but she felt her magic respond. It was encouraging her, winding around her arms and fingers, soft and pleased. It liked him; it wanted to mingle with the light again.
“What about you? Are you afraid?”
A grin spread across his face. “No, I know I should be, but that was nothing like what I was taught to fear.”
“What you were taught to fear?”
He nodded. “Yes, all Illuminated children hear tales of the Striders, who will extinguish our light with their never-ending darkness.” Harlow’s smile was faint. The Orders were full of such tales, primarily meant to scare children. For the sorcière it was the incubus, who would steal their hearts and their magic—shifters told tales of the Trickster deity, Voltos, stealing their ability to change forms. “I honestly thought those were stories to convince us to behave. But that… That was…”
“Mind-blowing?” she breathed.
He laughed, amazed as she was. “Yeah, it really was. And I feel stronger too.”
“Stronger?” she asked.
“Yeah, watch this.”
And without a word, they were standing on the rocky cliffs that looked over the ocean, far above Nuva Troi, both of them naked in the pouring rain. Harlow laughed as she spun. Usually portaling came with a sense of being pulled, sometimes nausea, but this had been like taking a step. “That was effortless.”
“You try,” he laughed.
She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them, they were both fully clothed, dry and standing under an enormous umbrella that Finn held above their heads. She felt her shadows sing in her blood, her fingers stained with inky, beautiful magic.
“That is amazing,” Finn said, stepping close to her, winding his arm around her waist. They stared out at the ocean for a few moments, listening to the rain hit the umbrella.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I have to believe it has something to do with what my parents want from us, don’t you?”
Fear lanced through her, cold and clammy as a dead hand gripping her heart. “I imagine it does.”
“Then the stakes are higher now. Whatever it is they want, it isn’t that, Harls. Or at least not that version of your magic. That was nothing my parents would want anything to do with. They want a baby, some creature more powerful than what the Illuminated can produce on their own, not for either ofusto be stronger.”
They stood together watching the rain for a long time, both of them teeming with thoughts, she assumed. Her mind was racing and she wished Thea had been able to restore more of the Merkhov facsimile. Rain thudded harder on the umbrella now, and waves crashed on the rocks below. She snuggled further into Finn’s arms, grateful for his warmth.
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “Harlow, what do you think would happen if I Claimed you while whatever that was happened?”
Something wonderful. Something terrible. Harlow didn't know which. She took a sharp breath in, watching the rain. She couldn’t keep the Merkhov text from him any longer. “I need to show you something. Can you take us to the Monas?”
He nodded and took her in his arms, and moments later they were in the alley behind the courtyard. This time she felt a tiny wave of nausea. “Oof,” she groaned. “It wears off.”
Finn stroked her arm. “You all right?”
She nodded. “Let’s go inside.”
He followed her, still holding the umbrella she’d made. She was pleased to find they were also still dressed. So her magic wouldn’t wear off. She felt the shadows sigh indignantly, almost as though they were saying,of course not, silly.
It wasn’t that they communicated exactly, but that she was so in touch with her magic that it was easy to feel the semi-sentient pulse of its will. She’d known magic was a force all its own before, but now she understood intimately.
When they stepped inside the house, Aurelia was waiting in the mudroom, arms folded tightly around her narrow frame, a worried expression on her face. They’d obviously tripped one of her wards when they arrived, and she’d watched them walk in. “You told him?”
How did she always know everything? As children, the Krane girls had never gotten away with anything. Selene and Aurelia both seemed to have a seventh sense precisely tuned to predicting their daughters’ impulses. Harlow laughed at the way things never changed, and then shrugged. “Not exactly… He… saw?”
