Page 92 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
Harlow shook her head. She didn’t remember any of that. Just waking up at home, in the attic, in her old bed next to Thea’s the next morning, with puffy eyes. She hadn’t been injured.
“You really don’t remember?”
Harlow shook her head. “Tell me.”
Thea crouched in front of her, looking up at her with luminous eyes. “I asked you how you got hurt and you said you fell down the stairs on your way out. You said you were crying too hard and you tripped. I asked why you were pounding on the door, but you were in so much distress that I couldn’t understand you.” Thea sighed, as though the memory was physically painful for her to recall. “I took you to a healer right away. Kylar Bane. You don’t remember?”
“No,” Harlow said. “Wait, Kylar Bane? The healer they found in the river last winter?”
Thea nodded. “Yes. Are you saying you don’t remember seeing her? I left you alone with her for a while, because you kept trying to talk to me about what had happened and you were so upset she couldn’t treat your wounds.”
Harlow shook her head. “I don’t remember any of that. Just waking up the next day.”
“Shit,” Thea swore. “I never thought to ask you… But it is strange that she was killed so shortly after treating you, isn’t it? At the time, I thought it was because she was helping humans to have unplanned children, but now…”
Harlow nodded. “It’s too much of a coincidence. We should look into it as a part of all this. I’ll talk to Finn about it tomorrow. We just need to try to get through tonight first.”
Her sister’s arms wrapped around her. “Did Mark hurt you, Harlow? I’m sorry, I know I should have asked sooner. But did he?”
Harlow looked at the floor. “He didn’t hit me ever. But he broke things that were important to me. It wasn’t like he was flying off the handle and throwing a random glass, or anything like that. He chose things that were special to me, and broke them.”
Thea’s grip on her hand tightened.
“And once I woke him after a night he’d spent out with other women. He was supposed to be at a meeting with his father. He was going to be late. So I tried to wake him up, but he wouldn’t rouse. I shook him, I was worried something was wrong with him. So I dumped a glass of water on him and he woke up.”
“You don’t have to talk about it, if it’s too hard.”
Harlow shook her head. “I want to say it. He woke up fast, so fast I don’t even really know how it happened. One second he was dead to the world, and the next he was awake, and he had me pinned to the wall, his hands around my neck. He was calling me a bitch, and there was justnothing therein his eyes. I think he was still drunk, or maybe on drugs, I don’t really know. But I got out of his grip and locked myself in the bathroom with Axel. I stayed in there for hours until he left.”
“How did he explain that?”
It was a logical enough question to ask, Harlow supposed, but it just proved that no one had ever treated Thea that way. Harlow was equally glad that her sister had no frame of reference, and consumed with envy. Thea had spent the majority of her adult life being cherished by one man who was utterlygood, despite his parents and his upbringing. Alaric would never think to pull Thea apart over and over, just for the pleasure of seeing her wounded.
How wonderful it must be to be so unmarred, she thought wistfully.
“Nothing. He pretended it didn’t happen when I asked him what happened. The other times, when he broke my things, he’d apologize, but that time he acted like I made it all up.”
“Oh, Harlow.” The pity in Thea’s voice was unbearable. “When was that?”
Harlow’s eyes drifted back to the floor. “About a month before he kicked me out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or the maters?”
Harlow laughed, finally making eye contact with her sister. “Because every time I told him I would tell someone, he said, ‘Tell them what?’ and then he’d remind me that everyone who’d ever loved me left me, that he was the only one who stayed. He reminded me for days on end, until I stopped pushing back.”
Thea’s body tensed, hearing the things coming out of Harlow’s mouth, things she was sure Thea thought didn’t happen to girls like the Kranes, with families who loved them and happy childhoods. She had to end this conversation. She had to stop thinking about all this and play her part in the terrible evening ahead.
“I didn’t think anyone would understand when I was in it. It’s taken me months to sort this all out for myself. But I am fine now.” Harlow stood, smoothing her robe. “I’m going to get dressed. Could you give me a minute?”
Thea looked like she wanted to say something else, but she just nodded and left the room. Harlow slipped out of her robe and into the dress Enzo had so lovingly made for her. It was the deepest shade of sapphire blue, so dark it was almost black, with a neckline that plunged between her breasts. It was simple in every way, but for the sleeves that trailed off her shoulders and would drag on the ground behind her, draping beautifully in a cascade of weightless feathers. When she’d first seen it, she’d loved it. Tonight, she couldn’t wait to have it off and be snuggled in bed with Axel.
She was struggling with the zipper when Thea returned. “Oh, thank goodness you’re back, I can’t quite—” She looked back over her shoulder to find Finn, in just his trousers and tuxedo shirt, untucked and unbuttoned.
“Thea asked me to come help you.” His voice was rough and she saw the awe burning in his eyes. “Are you trying to kill me with this dress?”
Harlow was so exhausted from her afternoon of memory that she barely had the energy to feel. She definitely had no energy for banter, so she smiled weakly. “You’re immortal. You’d be harder to kill than I’d like.”
“Harls,” he said, his knuckles brushing her cheek. “Thea said…”
