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When someone was forward enough to ask why she rented what felt like the most dingy and cramped rooms in the city, Harrowhark Nonagesimus was in the habit of telling them that it was because being a private detective was not the most profitable business and then giving them a stare that sent them scuttling back whence they came (or was supposed to, at least.) This was somehow preferable to the more honest alternative, which involved explaining that she was a creature of darkness and study and that light made her skin itch and her eyes water. Something like that, at least.
Or maybe professing studiousness was the more dignified explanation, and lack of funds the more common excuse. She wasn't sure. That didn't really matter, though, because it wasn't as if people were something she interacted with very often anyway.
At first glance, the above statement may appear in danger of being incorrect. After careful analysis, though, Harrow had decided that this was assuredly not the case. She interacted with cases, not people. Cases were an Art. Cases were a Science. People were the props who more often than not appeared in them, invariably to Harrow's distaste.
However, this may not be the best way to describe Harrow and her relationship to her occupation, because she would never spend three paragraphs introducing herself when a simple cold shoulder would do.
To get on with it all, then: The day everything started going to hell was the day her competitor arrived in the rooms upstairs. The fact that the beginning of the end involved a Person (in fact, a very specific one) was in hindsight perfectly predictable, but when considered in the present the incident was utterly horrifying nonetheless.
Harrow was in the habit of rising horrifically early each morning to resume her work if she had some or her contemplation if she didn't (which was often). This meant that she was fully alert and in the middle of an intriguing bit of chemistry—arsenic, what a delightfully nasty thing—when she first heard the footsteps on the stair.
Adding arsenious oxide to sodium carbonate to produce the required sodium arsenite solution for her purposes involved very slowly stirring in the oxide and then doing rather a lot of mixing. Despite this process being in progress, she froze, ceased all movement, and listened.
Perhaps 'footsteps' was labeling these noises with a dignity they did not deserve. They were not graceful, or even purposeful, but instead clomped along in manner that could only be described as lackadaisical, a quality Harrow could only consider to be a cardinal sin. They made their way up the stairs, to Harrow's wincing distaste, and then paraded around the rooms above, to Harrow's disgust.
She had hardly had the time to process these events, however, when the footsteps descended again. Harrow was on the verge of feeling relieved—perhaps this person would go away and then not come back—when someone knocked on her door.
Harrow looked at her vat of partially dissolved sodium arsenite solution, and then at the door, and then back again. Fortunately for the person on the other side, she made the decision that a murder charge really wouldn't do. It wasn't that she had any particular moral qualms about the matter, and a dank prison wasn't an altogether terrible prospect, but she would be highly offended if deprived of her books and chemistry materials.
And so she went to answer the door, tossing a veil over her face nearly too dense to see through as she went.
The first quality of the person waiting for Harrow that drew her attention was that they were wearing the most revolting plaid waistcoat she had seen in her life (which was saying something; plaid was inherently revolting). The only small favor was that it was partially covered by a dark brown coat that would have been mostly passable, except that it had too many holes and other suspicious marks on it.
The sight of the waistcoat was worsened by the shockingly clashing explosion of red hair the person's head was held captive by. The head itself was probably fine, or would have been had it not clearly been in the habit of making terrible choices.
Harrow, being a quick thinker, had time to think through all these derogatory thoughts before opening with, "What is it that you want?"
"I was planning on introducing myself to you," said the person, "but it doesn't appear that you're very interested in that idea. But I'm here, so I'll do it anyway." She stuck out a hand for Harrow to shake. "Gideon Nav, private detective."
"But that's my job," snapped Harrow, before being disgusted with how shrill her voice sounded.
"So I heard," said Gideon, taking this amiably enough. "It's also my job. Two or more people can follow similar careers, by the way, if this is simply a matter of you lacking that information."
"I don't suppose I could pay you enough to go away."
Gideon took a long look over Harrow's shoulder at her combination parlor, outer office, and library. Harrow's decorating style tended toward high quality, but astoundingly ancient (and not in the costly antique way) so that she could afford it. "I don't think you could," said Gideon. "To be clear, I'm sure I would be happy to go away if you could indeed pay me, but I don't think you can pay me."
Harrow considered shutting the door in her visitor's face, but that would leave with a problem left unsolved that had the nerve to be moving in above her.
"I'm getting the impression," said Gideon, "that you would rather pretend I don't exist. That's fine. I'm not going to move, though, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm shortly going to start becoming more popular. I can't imagine that your bedside manner with clients is any good at all. Mine... well, I think I have a tendency to overwhelm people, but it's preferable to frigidness so intense it could starve the very fires of hell."
It was at that point that Harrow did, in fact, shut the door in her visitor's face, and also began to reconsider the arsenic.
Harrow found the body mostly uninteresting—it was very dead, the cause of its state of being very dead was clear, and said cause was all gore and no style—until the police inspector mentioned something about how, "It was a possible ritual killing."
"Well, that's slightly less obscenely dull," Harrow drawled. "And what drew your thick little head to that conclusion?"
This was one of the police inspectors who had the utter nerve to tolerate Harrow, and so she actually answered. "There's all sorts of interesting reading material around the house. I say interesting, but what I really mean is bizarre. There was this one open on the desk—" The inspector picked up a hefty, leather-bound volume with an embossed spine. "—that was rattling on about death energy and life energy and using them to manipulate human matter. Needless to say, I didn't get very far with it. That'll be a job for whichever desk sergeant whose lucky day it is not."
"In other words, someone was a little eccentric. That's all that tells me."
The inspector shrugged. "The books are fit for a death cult. Maybe it is one. Death cults do tend to involve, well, death."
"And here I thought you wouldn't be prone to sensationalist gossip."
"Are you telling me that up until a few sentences ago you held an opinion of me that wasn't completely negative?" The inspector laughed wryly. "I didn't think such a thing was possible. I'm glad I've ruined it."
"Such a thing has never been possible," snapped Harrow, before promptly wishing she hadn't dignified such a remark with an answer at all.
Just then, someone began to knock enthusiastically on the house's door. The blows had no particular rhythm to them, but what they lacked in structure they more than made up for in intensity, and Harrow was startled out of her disgruntled detachment into something more grouchy still.
"I can't imagine who that could be," said the inspector, as she moved out of the room to answer the door anyway. Harrow rather wished she wouldn't answer it, given her recent experience with door-answering.
Someone else might have described Gideon Nav's morning as quite the morning. She really wouldn't have, simply because she didn't care. Life was suddenly an adventure. That was all that mattered.
She had been very careful to temper her expectations for her first day setting up shop as a private detective. She didn't want to expect any clients to show up immediately, and the day would likely include quite a lot of sitting around. Gideon was very bad at sitting around, but she tried not to think of that too much. This turned out to be a surprisingly easy task, because there was very little sitting to do—someone knocked on her door at about half past nine.
She answered it, mind alive with possibilities—could it be a client? A client already?—and was sorely disappointed to find no one waiting on the other side of the door at all.
"Bloody hell," she grumbled. And then she repeated, "BLOODY HELL," but really loudly, in hopes of making herself an annoyance to her downstairs neighbor, the one who had been so rude the preceding day.
Thus, it took her a few seconds to notice that she wasn't entirely alone in her little doorway at the top of the stairs. Her visitor was a folded piece of paper, not a person, but it was there nonetheless. The paper looked to have been placed very precisely, perfectly perpendicular to the floorboards, rather than allowed to drift down and find its own way to the floor.
Gideon, of course, promptly bent down to pick it up and then began to eagerly unfold it. She paused after disposing of one fold, once her mind caught up to the fact that this was, perhaps, a very mysterious happening indeed. She figured some might find it prudent to exercise a degree of caution.
People who were prudent, though, also had a habit of being horrifically dull, and so Gideon continued her unfolding apace anyway. The paper revealed a message laid out in perfectly neat, consistent cursive. It got straight to the point.
Come to 221 Canaan Street immediately. What you find there should interest you.
Gideon had not the foggiest idea where this "221 Canaan Street" was, and she thought it would have been polite if this mysterious note-writer had left a coin for the cab if she was going to be summoned somewhere on short notice. If they had been truly polite, though, they would have waited to explain all this to her, rather than rushing away, so she supposed that their behavior was at least consistent.
She thought about disobeying the apparent summons. It would, perhaps, be the logical thing to do. There was no name attached to the note and no hint of payment for her services. Then again, no paying clients had appeared at her door yet, and if she were being completely honest she did not think any were likely to arrive in the very near future.
But God, she hated being told what to do.
But what if this was something fascinating that she would be missing out on? Mysterious summons did not arrive every day, of course.
Maybe they did if you were a private detective. Maybe this was all par for the course. Maybe she'd be drowned in mysterious summons and maybe a few of them would include the money she needed to pay her bills.
Really, though, there was no question of turning down the note's request. She'd have to do as it said, no matter how much she resented it, because it would eat her alive for the rest of the morning and into the following day if she didn't. Perhaps even longer. Maybe she'd never get even the sight of other work again, and would be left a forgotten old maid, whispering, "If only I'd done as that note said..."
And so it was that she stepped back inside her rooms to ready herself, slamming the door behind her (again, with the intention of annoying a particular person downstairs). She'd find out what this was all about. Or she'd try to, at least.
The house that the cab deposited Gideon in front of, which was purportedly the mysterious 221 Canaan Street, was an exceedingly unremarkable brick rowhouse in an exceedingly unremarkable neighborhood. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps whoever had written the note had chosen to lead her to a location that was very ordinary, with the intention of disguising any extraordinary happenings indoors.
Gideon resisted the urge to pet the cab's horses on her way out. She was supposed to be a private detective now, and that required decorum and a sense of unswerving purpose. She was well aware she lacked both, but she would at least put in an effort, and said effort did not involve crooning, "Who's a good horsie-horse?"
It was then that she noticed the bobby standing in front of the door, pacing back and forth and kicking at nothing to keep himself occupied. At this, Gideon said, "Well, shit," newfound dignity completely forgotten.
There was nothing to do but continue, though. The note hadn't provided any helpful pointers about whether to approach the policeman and ask for entry or if she should try to find a back entrance of the less-than-legal variety. She decided that it really wouldn't do to find herself arrested on her first day of any job, let alone in her new role as a detective, and so she strolled up to the door with as much nonchalance as she could muster, which turned out to be quite a lot.
"Good morning," Gideon said the policeman, in a tone that she at least thought was suitably friendly and disarming.
The man sort of blinked at her. "Excuse me, you really should—"
"I completely agree!" said Gideon. "I really should fuck off. I'm not going to, though. I'm a detective and I was told to come here."
The policeman continued to blink slowly and started to squint. Gideon was unsure of whether it was her, er, unconventional end to his sentence or her declaration of her new title that he found the most improbable or unladylike. "I suppose... you're a detective, you say?"
"I am," said Gideon, very decisively, before stepping past him altogether. It occurred to her at the last minute that she was about to try to burst into what was probably a private house, and so it really was more polite to knock first. She did so with gusto, because why ever not.
The door swung aside to reveal another member of the police force—this one looking somewhat more important than the one Gideon had just sidestepped. The inspector arched an exceedingly dubious eyebrow. "Who might you be? This is the scene of a crime, I'll have you know."
"Really?" said Gideon, because this was still somewhat news to her. "Fascinating." She remembered that it probably do her well to actually answer the question. "I'm a detective. The private kind, not the police kind. I was told to come here."
"Headquarters want someone else here?"
Gideon nodded, because of course, she had most definitely been sent by police headquarters. It would be ludicrous to think otherwise.
The inspector sighed. "Maybe they're finally listening to the lot of us and moving along the demented little slip of a thing that's usually inflicted upon us when we require a second opinion... pardon me. I'm sure we'll all be able to build a good working relationship. In any event, do me a favor and be brilliant at your job."
"I will do my best."
The inspector waved her indoors. The house was done up in dark wood, which lent an expensive, albeit cramped, air to the interior. The carpet, too, had clearly cost someone some money. The pattern was intricate enough that it took Gideon several seconds to realize what else was at her feet.
"Er, that red streak there," she said, pointing. "Is that—"
"As far as we can determine, yes. Watch where you step. We'll be following it back to the study."
The study had a lot of disapproving portraits—of course, Gideon couldn't say for sure that their subjects were disapproving, but they certainly looked that way. Old people in uncomfortable-looking collars generally had very low opinions of Gideon, though, and so it wasn't much of a stretch. There were also a lot of books. Books couldn't technically look at you in a judging way, but those like the aforementioned old people with their collars had previously tried to have Gideon consume more improving reading material than her favored risqué adventure novels (to little success), and so there was a strong association between the two.
That said, none of these features were as notable as the body.
Gideon noted that the trail of blood did indeed lead back to it. This shouldn't have been surprising, much less to a soon-to-be-seasoned detective, but somehow it was anyway. People weren't supposed to find themselves stabbed to death on the floor of their own homes. It was all very strange.
Gideon estimated that the person, or what a person had left behind, that lay at her feet was relatively young—in their early twenties, perhaps. She somehow had the sense that this was someone who would have considered themselves very handsome, and that there would have been plenty willing to confirm this opinion. His hair looked perfectly coiffed even in death, a fact that was almost more disturbing than the sword sticking out of his chest.
And then Gideon's thoughts were entirely interrupted by a voice demanding, "Who let you in here?"
This was absurd, thought Harrowhark. Here she had spent years cultivating a relationship with the police to get herself in on the more interesting cases—more murder, less infidelity—and now this absolute whippersnapper of a person had somehow managed to waltz themselves in on what Harrow could only surmise to be their first day on the job.
"Headquarters sent her," said the inspector.
"Miss Nav," hissed Harrow, "has managed to ingratiate herself with headquarters on—"
"It seems so," said the inspector, dryly. "You might try it sometime. I think you'd like the results."
"Anyway," said the horrible little—well, rather big—person, seeming eager to move away from the topic, "would anyone care to tell me what's going on here? Especially since you, Miss Nonagesimus, are so clearly the expert while I am the uncultured bumpkin."
The sarcasm dripped so clearly that Harrow almost considered it too ridiculous to take offense at, but the circumstances were sufficiently egregious that she very much did anyway. "The inexperienced should be seen and not heard, yes—or dare I say not seen, either. To indulge your whims and your playacting this once, though... the victim is one Naberius Tern, aged twenty-three. His body was found this morning when the gardener he had engaged tried to find him, failed to, and then circled behind the block and then spotted the corpse through a window. The cause of death is evident. The motive, much less so."
Nav said, "You? Admitting you don't know something? I'm shocked."
"You know nothing of me," Harrow sniffed.
The inspector intervened, to Harrow's simultaneous anger and relief. "The circumstances are certainly very strange. In addition to the mode of killing—poison is so much more fashionable these days—the trail of blood seems to defy natural logic. It's so long and perfectly precise. I can't imagine someone having the ability to form it even by very carefully pouring a thin stream of blood from a container. And then there's the matter of the books."
"Many people have hobbies," said Harrow. "They're usually not connected to their deaths, unless they're the absurd building-a-flying-machine types."
The inspector's gaze lived up to her job title. "Are you suggesting that death magic is a perfectly ordinary hobby? Might it be one of yours? That might explain why you're such a ghastly little personage."
The true ghastly personage in the room, Harrow's new colleague, had the utter nerve to laugh at this. Harrow glared at them both. This was ridiculous.
"I might suggest," the inspector said, "that the two of you take some time to review the reading material that looks the most well-thumbed. There may be clues—names, interested organizations, hints as to the choice of the sword, and so on. Additionally, you will likely be working together for the foreseeable future, and I've always found research to be an effective activity for getting to know another person."
Harrow had to agree with the previous statement. She had indeed gotten to know Gideon further, which was to say that she now knew her to be a horrible, undisciplined slob. She picked up books at random, read a few pages, and then tossed them aside—sometimes literally. There wasn't even a trace of Science to her method. More annoying still, this method had gathered a number of useful facts, while Harrow was mired in deep technical details contained in individual volumes.
Gideon coughed, which Harrow assumed was to catch her attention, but she stubbornly refused to give it. Gideon continued anyway. "To summarize: There's something called thalergy, and that's life energy, and then there's something else called thanergy, and that's death energy. If you're necromantic you can do all kinds of mad shit with it."
"How enlightening, Nav."
"Thank you!"
"Are you as unaware of sarcasm as you are of proper research techniques?"
Gideon laughed. "Teach me your mysterious ways, oh mistress mine of the arts most dark and evil, most accursed among them... sarcasm."
Harrow pointedly buried her gaze once more in her reading material.
"Oh, come along now," chided Gideon. "What have you come up with? You've been staring daggers at me for being insufficiently systematic or something like that, but you won't even contribute what you very professional research skills have found. Don't you want to show me for a fool?"
Finally, a statement Harrow could agree with. She hefted a particularly ragged volume and showed its spine to Nav. The leather binding was cracked and the gilt lettering along it barely legible, but Gideon made it out well enough to read aloud anyway: "Exercises in Necromantic Practice. Fascinating. The perfect book for you, really—if anyone needs exercise it's you."
"I am... spatially efficient," Harrow corrected. "But in any case, that's entirely beside the point. This book purports to instruct us in the ways of the arts most dark and evil, to borrow your wording. Of course, I think if you look at a single corpse and immediately jump to "dark and evil," your perspective is too narrow for words, but—"
"We're investigating a murder."
"People can be dead for all kinds of reasons, Nav, and many of them are very interesting. That said..." Harrow sighed. "I cannot guide a hopeless mind where it does not want to be guided."
"To doing grave-robbing or whatever it is you do instead of sleeping, you mean."
Harrow very detachedly observed as a little spike of something unenjoyable bounced its way around her chest. "Do not stoop to base accusations. To return to the topic at hand: This book is worth investigating further. I dare say we should try a few of the elementary exercises. I can't imagine we will see any results, but they may serve to strengthen our understanding of the mindsets of the victim and his murderer or murderers."
"Never thought you'd be one to like getting inside people's heads."
"I do not. It is, however, a part of casework that sometimes becomes necessary—unfortunately."
Gideon smirked—actually, truly, smirked. Harrow wanted to slap it off her face but did not fancy her odds. "You're just making an exception here because you're a morbid little shit."
Harrow did her best to channel her inner schoolmistress. "Your language is appalling."
"Inviting me into your home," said Gideon. "Scandalous." The real scandal was, of course, Harrow's complete lack of taste in decorations, but Gideon sometimes opted to limit herself to one snide remark at a time. Otherwise, she risked diluting her impact.
"Don't be ridiculous. This is my office—and in any case, I am a lady, as are you. We will both behave as such."
"Hmm, enchanting. Next, is this the part wherein you tell me how you feel your only true friends have been skeletons, because—" Gideon gestured around the room.
The room was dark to the point of being dingy—whether by soot, design, or both. The features providing the greatest contrast to this backdrop were, unfortunately, bones. There were far more bones than any one person should own, although Gideon had to admit that her threshold might have been set a little unfairly low (none.) An articulated, full human skeleton occupied one corner. A spine was laid out on one table, each vertebra carefully labeled in handwriting so cramped it was nearly illegible. Bones of a miscellaneous variety (anatomy was not Gideon's forte) made a towering pile on one shelf. And all that wasn't even beginning to touch the other items in the room—ancient books and alchemical instruments—that looked ready to cook up some deadly poisons of Harrow's own.
"My entire collection has been legally purchased from medical suppliers for my own scientific use. I spend my free hours improving my knowledge of the natural world, including humanity—what do you do with yourself?"
"I read novels of a scandalous nature, mostly." Gideon was dedicated to being factual whenever possible—and particularly now that she thought it might produce another reaction of utter distaste from her new colleague.
Harrow sniffed. "Typical. Shall we begin?"
Gideon brushed a heap of papers off a chair and sprawled across the space she had cleared. "Certainly, my lady."
"Please refrain from speaking to me like that."
"And here I thought you were recently proclaiming our shared status as ladies."
Harrow's lip curled to an extent that was nearly cartoonish. "I meant your disrespectful tone, Nav."
Gideon shrugged. "I have no regrets there, my lady."
Harrow opened the book and began to read. "First exercise in necromantic instruction:"
"You mean, first exercise in, I don't know, humoring your bizarrely morbid colleague who insists on playing with scary magic when we could be, I once again don't know, investigating, maybe."
"I will brook no further commentary."
"As you wish."
Harrow returned to reading, scowling all the while. "Begin by locating a bone for use. This bone should be human, if possible. Ribs are ideal, given their proximity to the thalergenic center of the body, but any bone can be made to work. Once a specimen has been secured, shave off a small fragment using a sharp knife." Harrow looked at Gideon. "Get on it. You might as well make yourself useful for something."
"Oh, I'm the maidservant here, am I? Aren't you the one who's all hot and bothered to try this? Besides, how am I supposed to know which bone you want to me use? You've got heaps of them, literally."
"Is your listening comprehension truly that poor? A human rib, the book recommends."
Gideon, puttering around, found many fitting that description. "I repeat my question: which?"
"Any," said Harrow, crossly. "They're all functionally equivalent. It's not as if I give them all pet names or something."
Gideon turned to look her in the eyes. "Are you completely sure you don't?"
"Get on with it," Harrow hissed, teeth gritted.
Gideon followed instructions and picked a rib at random before digging around in her pockets for the small knife she always carried. She scraped its blade along the surface of the rib, trying to create the perfect curled shave.
"You keep a knife with you," noted Harrow.
"I do. I never know when someone might be in need of being stabbed."
"Are you threatening me?"
Gideon shrugged. "That really depends."
At this, Harrow pulled a knife of her own from her pocket and unsheathed it. Gideon was horrified to note that it was a few centimeters longer than her own. That just wasn't fair. She returned to her task, placing the shaving in the center of the table with the most cleared space.
"At last," said Harrow, accompanied by a sigh that was truly melodramatic.
"Please refrain from telling me to do something and then criticizing me—"
Harrow's voice rose over Gideon's to the edge of being shrill. "To continue: Be still and quiet for many moments and focus on the shaving. I assume that will be difficult for you, Nav, but please make an attempt. Necromantic sense may take some time and effort to achieve, but once awoken, it will become progressively more sensitive as the diligent student practices. Many, of course, will not prove necromantic at all, but such things must be tested before they can be known.
If successful, you will be able to detect an aura of sorts around the shaving. You will feel the heat and the pull of its thanergetic energy. It will send currents in all directions; you will attempt to grasp them as if they were strings. You will pull, and you will attempt to stretch the shaving. The small amount of oss used for this exercise is intended to allow you to manipulate it without having the ability to exert large amounts of necromantic force yet."
"Such nonsense," said Gideon. "Humorous, though."
"Indeed," said Harrow, although she still sounded curiously fascinated.
"If you're enjoying yourself so much, what are you waiting for?"
"I am waiting," said Harrow, primly, "for you to silence yourself."
Gideon squeezed her lips shut with one hand and pointed to them with the other.
"At last. I would thank you, but you don't deserve it."
Gideon mimed unsealing her lips—she couldn't let such comments go completely unaddressed—but Harrow studiously ignored her, and without an audience she gave up.
Gideon was already well-acquainted with Harrow's signature Hard Stare, but she found herself impressed nonetheless. She half-expected the tablecloth to curl up into flame beneath the shaving. Harrow fell short in many areas, but intensity was not one of them. Her eyebrows were so furrowed Gideon grew concerned they would tangle and trap themselves that way, and her eyes were each white-hot coals of hellfire itself.
A few minutes in, Gideon remembered that this was an exercise that she was supposed to be partaking in, too. She decided it was worth an honest effort, if for no other reason than that it was something to do while Harrow was busy with... whatever it was she was doing. Gideon did opt for a more laid-back approach. If the necromancy wanted to find her, it would find her. She relaxed into her chair, letting her eyes bore in on the shaving.
It remained just a little piece of bone, nothing more. Perhaps if she stared at it for long enough, though, it would cease looking like a shaving and become something more cryptic, like how words lost their meaning when you repeated them too often. Maybe she could pretend she understood what this necromantic nonsense was all about.
If she could fool Harrow, that would be hilarious. She couldn't make the bone stretch hands-free, of course, but she could rattle on at length about auras and strings and necromantic force and whatever else she could spin up. Maybe she could even fool the little monster. It would make her day more interesting—it was already quite interesting, to be fair, but it could use some comic relief.
She was about to exclaim something like, "Oh my God! I see it!" when the bone began to stretch, and it was Harrow who cried, "I see it! I'm doing it! Look, Nav!"
The piece of bone, as small as it was, was visibly managing to elongate itself. It was more subtle at first—the shaving uncurling—but then it picked up speed, turning into a strip on the table and then a length of threadlike material that swept off each end of the table and continued on the floor. Harrow seemed to then shift her focus to only one end of the material, sending it up the wall behind Gideon's chair and then, to Gideon's horror, around the front of the chair, encircling her.
"There," said Harrow, with deep satisfaction. "I can make you sit still."
"You're mad!" Gideon nearly yelled, breaking the filament into shards with a single sweep of her hand. "You expect me to believe this party trick? Are you this desperate to feel special, Nonagesimus?"
"You think I'm trying to fool you."
"I do. I was about to do the same to you, just for fun, to break up the tedium. How am I to know you haven't done the same?"
Harrow continued to grow the filament and it began to sweep around Gideon's chair again.
"As you can clearly see, Nav—if you ever bothered to use your senses, such as sight, as opposed to following your muddled little emotions—I am manipulating this material without touching it."
Gideon picked at the material, letting it crumble in her fingers. She supposed it was possible it was actually bone. Harrow's look of concentration was also quite well done, if artificial—it looked like the process was genuinely draining to her. She was going cross-eyed and her eyebrows did in fact seem stuck together.
After a long moment, through gritted teeth, Harrow said: "And if I am forging this, Nav, what is this?" She pointed to her own nose, and as she did so, a little rivulet of blood began to bloom from her nose. It dripped over her mouth and began to fall to the floor.
Nonagesimus herself soon followed, her legs seeming to lose all stability before Gideon had a chance to even try to catch her.
Of all her secret dreams of finding herself alone in another girl's bedroom, none of them quite looked like this. The room that Gideon had considered most likely to be Harrow's bedroom was as packed with paper and morbid minutiae (another skull, a taxidermied egret, insects of all kinds perfectly preserved under glass) as her office had been. Gideon, who hated chores of all kinds, was busy fighting a nearly overwhelming urge to dust.
Picking up Harrow to take her to bed had seemed like the considerate thing to do, and Gideon was also of the opinion that, if she were all a fakery, she probably wouldn't have had the wherewithal to avoid some cutting remark upon the horror that was Gideon touching her. Of course, Gideon really wasn't touching her—her dark wool skirt and blouse seemed to consist of more yards of clothing than should have been possible—but still. If this was all an act, Harrow was extremely committed to it.
Gideon supposed she could go and find herself some tea, or whatever ungodly substance it was that Harrow consumed, and that would be fair enough payment for services rendered. She didn't, though. Instead, she found herself staring at the figure in the bed.
Harrow's features did not completely relax, even in a swoon, but they had softened nonetheless. She looked like a person capable of perhaps one snide comment per hour, instead of an infinite resource of them. Her hair was cropped unfashionably short (when Gideon did something, it was Fashion; when Harrow did something, it was further evidence of her status as a bizarre little creature). It almost looked as if it had been burnt off at the ends—Gideon had yet to ask for the story there, but surely there was one. It made her hopeful that her future job prospects would be exciting. The face her hair framed wasn't the worst one Gideon had ever seen, either, maker of snide comments and all. She was... determined. There was something to be said for that.
Of course, Gideon thought, this whole train of thought was completely pointless. The issue to be considered was not, "Is Harrow a complete monstrosity or does she have redeeming qualities?" but "Did Harrow just do, you know, death magic?"
It was undeniable that Harrow at least thought and felt that her actions were real. And if she wasn't intentionally going the way of every spirit medium out there, it wasn't as if bone could manipulate itself. She didn't think bones were themselves sentient. It would be horribly frightening if they were, of course, so she decided very firmly that that could not be the case.
Which left... Gideon wasn't sure what. It couldn't be that magic was a thing that had existed underneath their own noses all this time, could it?
And of course, she thought wryly, of course it was that when magic turned out to be a thing you could in fact perform, it was necromancy. Not visits from the fairies or the ability to levitate or anything else enjoyable. No, all they had were bones—and flesh, and spirits, if the books from Tern's study were to be believed. Gideon could not have previously imagined a scenario in which bones were the preferable option, and yet here she was.
The color had been slowly returning to Harrow's face, and then her eyes popped open. Gideon was about to say something like, "Gee, you fainted, sorry about that," but Harrow beat her to it.
"Nav, what are you doing here?" She shouldn't have yet had the wherewithal to sound so contrary, but somehow she did.
"Would you have preferred I left you in a pile of your own blood on the floor?"
"Yes," she sniffed. "I would have." She pulled herself into a sitting position. "And now, back to work."
"I don't think so," said Gideon, holding up a hand to block her. "You had blood coming out of your nose. You were sweating the stuff. In addition to being disgusting, it was scary. I struggle to imagine a scenario in which it would be wise for you to go and do this to yourself all over again without enough rest in between."
"Are you concerned for me, Nav? Well, you don't need to be. I can imagine plenty of scenarios in which my dedication to my research is the most important factor, including this one."
Gideon, feeling low on options, tried honesty. "I am concerned, you nitwit. What am I supposed to do, let you die in a puddle of your own blood? I'm investigating a murder, not involving myself in another death altogether. We can work more on this tomorrow. In the meantime, I will very politely ask you to stay the hell in bed."
"Are you going to set yourself up as my nursemaid?"
"No," snapped Gideon. "I am going back to my own rooms, where there is peace and quiet and color and adequate heating and absolutely nothing in the way of necromancy, real or fraudulent."
Harrow had long ago chosen to submit her mortal life entirely to the pursuit of scientific discovery. By now, her plans were laid out; her experiments underway; her anonymous publications drafted. But a new discipline had now appeared on the horizon. She noted, with characteristic detachment, that an obsession was likely to take hold in her mind. One had after events far less spectacular and far more predictable than the sudden discovery of necromancy.
That wasn't an accurate way to phrase it, though. It was her personal discovery of her gift, but many must have come before her. The practice book seemed decades old, at a minimum. Someone had written it, someone had typeset its pages and bound them together, and then many hands had thumbed through it. The house where Tern's corpse had been found had contained a multitude of other volumes on similar subjects.
Some part of her brain whispered that this must be a secret society, and Harrow had to admit that this was a very attractive prospect indeed.
Others might have found Harrow's sudden discovery to be an earth-shattering moment. Harrow did have to acknowledge it as such in an objective sense, but on a personal level, it all just seemed to fit. She had always existed as one apart from others. That a kind of knowledge would come to her and not to the population at large was simply the natural order of things. She noted her own lack of surprise in finding herself somehow chosen, but in the end decided that it was perfectly logical indeed.
The universe had a natural order to it: thanergy and thalergy. Harrow could exist in such a world, and not only that, but she was damn well going to brilliant at it. Anatomy, chemistry, biology—all had been simply preparatory work.
And now the real business of it began.
Three months later...
"Harrow," said Gideon, idly, "how is it that I am once again sitting in your parlor and having an entire conversation with you? If you're not careful, I might begin to have the impression that you don't mind my presence as much these days."
"Your presence is atrocious, Nav, as always. I simply have new properties of necromancy that I should introduce you to. I don't know what it is about you—you take strictly professional business and act like it has to be taken as personal."
"You just want to have someone to show off to—an appreciative audience. Fine. I'm willing to be one."
And somehow, Gideon really was. Necromancy was ghastly stuff, of course, but with Harrow it became its own kind of highly focused mental discipline. Gideon preferred for herself something more natural and wholesome, such as fencing, but it was undeniable that necromancy did something similar for Harrow. It was interesting to watch, in a purely objective sense, of course.
"I am not showing off. I am merely demonstrating—"
"—How not to solve a case, Nonagesimus. Necromancy was supposed to be the side track, you know—simply an avenue to explore, and a bizarre one at that. We're no closer to solving the case than we were three months ago. Our seeming lack of attentiveness is putting your reputation as a consulting detective at risk and preventing mine from even beginning to form."
This was well-trodden ground. Gideon judged it worth a try anyway.
"I've been telling you, Nav: The case is going to take care of itself. If I immerse myself deeply enough in necromantic practice, the answers will come and find me. I know they will."
"Me, me, me..." mocked Gideon. "And what about me? Gideon Nav? I need something to do with myself that isn't mopping up your blood sweat."
Harrow looked her up and down with an appraising eye. "You will have a role. I know you will. You merely need to be patient and be ready to fulfill it."
As it turned out, neither of them had long to wait. Another note appeared at Gideon’s door with instructions as terse as those from the last one:
Bring your necromancer to 221 Canaan Street at midnight tonight. We wish to speak with you both.
Gideon's eyes caught on a few of the words. So Harrow was her necromancer now, was she? That needed drowning in some kind of a strong drink. And there was a we—perhaps all of Harrow's ramblings about secret societies had not been misplaced...
She'd had time, over the preceding months, to think about the first note that had arrived. Someone had wanted her involved with the case. She couldn't figure out why—she had no necromantic capabilities to speak of, and even after three months of a working relationship, Harrow was still impressively prickly in her presence. They barely got along, but somehow Harrow was hers.
Gideon considered that such a thought should probably make her want to vomit, but it didn't, not quite.
And now it was time for another conversation over dinner, in which Gideon would be forced to apply copious amounts of seasoning to her food while Harrow ate around any bits that could be considered to have even the slightest touch of flavor.
"We're being summoned!" said Harrow, with more excitement than Gideon had ever seen from her. Her eyes, usually frighteningly intense, were positively aglow.
"You do realize," said Gideon, baffled as always to find herself to be the normal one in a conversation, "that there is a solid chance that we're about to meet the person or persons who killed Naberius Tern. We're supposed to put them in jail, not join their morbid little club."
"You have no imagination, Nav. We can—"
Gideon had to laugh. "I lack many things, but an imagination is far from one of them—"
"Shut up, Nav. We can join their society and then put them in jail. In fact, I assume we'll need to join the society to begin with in order to learn enough to bring the killers to justice."
"You're just finding excuses to make more morbid little friends."
"And you lack the spirit of discovery. You're incredibly lucky to have had me along on this case."
"Incredibly cursed, you mean," Gideon muttered. "And besides, if I'm so useless, why did they put me on the case? Clearly they did, and now they've communicated with me again, not with you. You can remove yourself from your very high horse and join the rest of us commoners."
"Hmm," said Harrow, suddenly thoughtful. "I should attempt to create and animate a horse skeleton. That would make a fine mount—"
"You're atrocious."
"I will not disagree."
Forty-five minutes remained before midnight when the pair left for what they had come to call the Canaan House. They had opted to walk in order to avoid drawing any attention to themselves. Harrow, freezing in what was now a stiff November wind, steadfastly refused Gideon's offer of her coat nonetheless. It simply wouldn't do to make Nav think there was any connection between them beyond the strictly professional.
Something had been niggling at Harrow for the entire course of their walk. "Why are you carrying a sword?"
"I might need to stab someone," said Gideon. "I might want to stab someone. I might even want to stab you. In all seriousness, though, I'm not sure. I just know that the other side has swords, and we’re about to break into an abandoned crime scene to see them in the middle of the night."
"I didn't know you had a sword."
"I most certainly have a sword. I fence. I'm very good at it, actually."
Harrow was startled. "Once again, I did not know that."
"Right," said Gideon, drawing out the word. "You didn't know, because you never asked, because you don't give a shit about what I like to do when I'm not chasing you around and watching you do ungodly crimes against nature."
"I detect bitterness in your tone." This was intended as a neutral observation, but Harrow could quickly see that Gideon did not take it as such.
"Oh my goodness, Lady Harrowhark, I wonder why that might be? It's not as if you're a snide sack of bones and spite that has attached itself to my life and inflicted its own obsession on me without caring what came of it. I absolutely cannot imagine the circumstances that might make me not like you very much."
Harrow, grasping for anything she could use as a bludgeon, said, "If you detest me so strongly, why are you here?"
"Because I'm the biggest goddamn fool on this earth. You are very welcome."
"I'm not going to thank you for it," said Harrow, feathers still very ruffled.
"I wouldn't expect any different from you, Nonagesimus."
Their destination was drawing near. Canaan Street was a quiet thoroughfare, with homes comfortably lit from within by a light or two in the study of someone working late. The house at 221 was completely dark.
"Shouldn't we go around to the back and try to do this more subtly?" asked Gideon.
Harrow stuck out her exceedingly pointy chin. "No. We're going to go up to the front door and knock. Hardly anyone is out and about, and besides, I think we should be on our best behavior for our introduction to a mysterious organization."
"Got tired of saying 'secret society' so many times and needed synonyms, did you?"
"Quiet," said Harrow, crisply.
"I am going to have to decline that request."
By now, though, they had reached the house's door. Harrow quickly maneuvered herself in front of Gideon—she remembered Gideon's prior entrance to the house very well, even now, and did not care for a repeat performance. Two short knocks would do.
Before she could even raise her hand to knock, though, the door swung open. Harrow jumped, startled, and was disgusted with herself for it.
The person on the other side was quite tall (Harrow was suddenly conscious of how much she was not). Her posture was languid—bored, even—and her hair was the color of skin with all the blood and life pulled from it.
"Do come in," the door-opener drawled. "And make it quick. I hate having door duty—that's a servant's job—but I'm the new one, so of course it's 'Ianthe, won't you be so kind as to greet our new guests?' The first tidbit you all need to know is that I am not kind."
Harrow experienced this little monologue as a small flood of words that swirled around her without ever making much sense.
"Ianthe," said another voice from within the house, mildly, "your objections have been noted. Please allow our guests to enter without further fanfare."
At this, Ianthe did step aside, and so Harrow followed instructions, Gideon behind her. She found the interior of the house rather transformed. Previously, it had been clearly a place of habitation, but one decorated in ways that were nothing more than average (aside from all the necromantic books, of course.) Now, though...
There was an intricate design that now wound its way across the majority of one wall, sweeping and turning into patterns nearly dizzying. The room was lit only by a few candles, and so the darkness quickly encroached and stole color away, but Harrow was nonetheless sure that the pattern was composed entirely of blood. In a few places, dark liquid dripped away from the design, trickling down the wall and toward the floor.
"A blood ward," said Harrow, to no one in particular. And a massive one, at that.
Someone else, whose tone of deep disinterest was reminiscent of Ianthe's, spoke. "The necromantic baby can identify a blood ward. Fascinating!! Now, can someone please explain to me why I am supposed to care about this tiny idiot baby?"
"If we're not welcome," said Gideon, from somewhere behind Harrow, "we'll leave."
"We will not," said Harrow.
"Really?" said Gideon. "Because I would goddamn love to. You can enjoy yourself with your bizarre new friends, without me."
"Oh, but we need you!" said Ianthe, now summoning a tenth of an iota of interest. "Or Harrow does, at least. Do stay."
And Gideon did, for reasons that Harrow did not truly understand, but found herself grateful for anyway.
Three figures stood at the end of the entrance hall. One, the one who had had the nerve to call Harrow a baby, stood with her arms crossed and her lips pursed so severely it was visible even in the gloom. She wore a mourning gown that was too long for her and so puddled on the floor at her feet. Despite this, Harrow couldn't imagine her properly mourning anyone or anything.
The second was a fully articulated skeleton, standing at attention. It was the sort of thing, Harrow noted with some satisfaction, that she had grown very good at creating and manipulating over the preceding months. It was perfectly still, a neutral observer of the proceedings.
The third was a man of the exceedingly average variety, shoulders slightly slumped and hands clasped together in front of him as if in an ineffectual plea for order and sanity. He mostly just looked tired and slightly exasperated, which made it all the more jarring when Ianthe turned to him and said, "Will God, the King Undying, please get on with things?"
At this, God, the King Undying, merely shrugged. "Of course," he said, before gesturing for Harrow and Gideon to follow him.
He led them back to the room where Naberius Tern had been found dead. The blood on the floor seemed to have vanished entirely, and Harrow wondered whether this was due to necromancy or some tireless cleaning skills. She hadn't been back to the scene of the crime since the early days of the police investigation, and so gave the room a careful examination. Again, there was little to see—apparently God and his friends were allergic to adequate lighting—but what was visible seemed to have changed little since Harrow had last been in the room. This, she realized, could have been indicative in and of itself. She skimmed a tabletop with one precise finger, and found it yielded something less than three months of dust. Who knew how long the group had been continuing to use the house for their purposes under the very noses of the police?
"So," said Gideon, suddenly, "you are a lot of death cultists, aren't you. Care to tell us literally anything about how that happened or why we're here?"
God shrugged. "I'll start with the second question. The first can come later, once the process is complete."
"You've forgotten to introduce us," said the woman in the mourning gown, sounding aggrieved.
God coughed. "I have indeed. To rectify this apparently egregious mistake: Meet Mercymorn the First, Saint of Joy, and the Second Saint to Serve the King Undying."
"Where's the first?" asked Gideon.
God seemed full of noncommittal little gestures. "He decided not to attend today."
"He is still not speaking to me," snapped Mercymorn. "Neither is the Third. They're both such nasty little people. You would think that Lyctorhood would give them an ounce of dignity, but no, not them."
"Not you either, apparently," trilled Ianthe.
"We are not giving our guests an adequate welcome," said God, sounding concerned. "To continue: My other companion this evening is Ianthe the First, Saint of Awe, and the Eighth Saint to Serve the King Undying."
"And you're God?" asked Gideon.
"Yes," said God.
"And you don't die."
"Well, yes."
It was at this point that Gideon began to laugh outrageously, and Harrow felt cold fury starting to bubble within her. Necromancy was powerful—that much was clear. It was worth giving these people a chance, and she was not going to let Gideon muck up what could be her only chance at being truly Great.
She elbowed Gideon, hard. Gideon kept laughing. Harrow kept jabbing at her.
“Enough,” said God, finally sounding as if he held some authority. "It is time we began."
He moved to the door, closed it, and locked it. The sharp click alarmed Harrow—it sounded so decisive, like they were being deliberately sealed in for some momentous event. She had, of course, arrived anticipating some Momentous Event, and would be rather disappointed if nothing of the sort occurred, but… this was strange.
Everyone remained standing, which somehow added another layer of tension. There were only a pair of armchairs, in addition to a couple of tables, but the fact that no one was trying to settle in at all made it seem like everyone was taut with anticipation, not just Harrow. She noticed that Gideon’s hand was lightly resting on her sword, in a way that suggested extreme care was being taken to make the gesture look as casual as possible.
"You have carefully perused the reading material we left for you," said God. This was a statement, not a question.
"Yes," said Harrow.
"I’ll cut to the chase, then. What do you think of Lyctorhood?"
Harrow made clinical notes: Her blood was running hot, and then cold. She could reach for the table beside her to steady herself, but she would not show weakness. She would answer the question.
Gideon thought this was all really fucking bizarre, and had been congratulating herself internally for having avoided saying so out loud thus far. It was bad enough that she’d allowed Harrow to drag her to a derelict crime scene in the middle of the night, and now they were locked inside the aforementioned crime scene. Someone was claiming to be God and to be immortal.
She had accepted necromancy as fact, and so could no longer consider herself a fully rational person, but this was all just a step too far. And now this God person was asking about something called Lyctorhood. Gideon didn’t have the foggiest idea of what that meant, but clearly Harrow did.
Harrow had devoted herself to long hours of study, and it was true that Gideon often did not know the contents of those sessions. To put it simply, she did not care. Harrow had taken to necromancy like a fish to water. Gideon suspected that even if she herself were necromantically capable, she would still be far less enthused about its prospects.
This Lyctorhood thing was clearly something big, though, judging by Harrow’s expression, and so Gideon found herself wishing she had paid more attention to some of Harrow’s highly technical rambles and perhaps had done some independent research of her own.
"I understand the principles of Lyctorhood," said Harrow, in a precisely measured tone.
"And yet you have not attempted them," said God.
"Of course she has not," Mercymorn interjected. "She’s a baby, and not a very intelligent one, either. I’ve been watching her. I would know."
Gideon couldn’t imagine this Mercymorn woman ever being able to make herself sufficiently unnoticeable to perform effective surveillance, but if she said so… Gideon shivered. They had all taken leave of their senses, clearly, and Gideon only hoped she wouldn’t join them.
"I am sure that I would be capable of executing them," said Harrow, crossly.
Ianthe snickered. "Executing them, you say…"
Everyone was looking at Gideon, now, and not like how they would look at a person. What exactly in their faces made the difference was unclear, but they were looking at her as if she were a useful tool.
Gideon really wasn’t liking this now.
"We would encourage you to move along the path toward becoming a Lyctor," said God. "You would need to do a series of individual exercises to ready yourself for the process, as I’m sure you have realized by now. The necromantic abilities you have been exploring under our observation have made it obvious that you have, in fact, acquired a general sense of how the process is done." This last bit was said with a pointed look toward Mercymorn.
"You’ve become a Lyctor," said Harrow, suddenly, turning to Ianthe.
"I have."
"I do not believe I am willing to pay the price." Harrow’s voice was quieter than usual, but as firm as ever.
God smiled in a sad sort of way. "It is a heavy burden indeed. I hope you realize, however, that it would be everything you’ve ever wanted. You cannot find the answers you seek with ordinary science, as I’m sure some part of your soul is aware. You are ahead of your time. You do not have the technological tools you need to find the answers you desire, and so would only work in increasing frustration for the rest of your days. Necromancy, however… necromancy can be a new window into the world for you. Lyctorhood would be the gift of the power and the answers you seek."
"I don’t want power," said Harrow, but her voice was unsteady.
"Of course you want power." This was from Ianthe. "Everyone does. Only a few, though, are given the means to achieve it. We—you—are among them."
"We would train you," said God, before Harrow could respond again. "You could become the greatest necromancer of your time. I have spied you at your work, and I have liked what I have seen. You have talent. It would be the greatest shame for you to not use it to its fullest potential."
"I am not willing to pay the price," repeated Harrow, and her voice no longer wavered.
"Do not think of it as a price," said God. "Think of it as a gift you will be given."
Gideon still did not have the slightest idea about what was going on, and decided that the proceedings had continued long enough for her taste. "What are you all on about? Would any of you care to elaborate?"
God looked at her, and there was that expression again—like Gideon was merely a means to an end. "Lyctorhood is the merging of two souls into one body," he said.
Gideon had barely begun to wrap her mind around whatever the hell that was when Harrow interjected, "No!" It was abrupt, and seemed to shatter something that had been building in the room.
"What do you mean, Harrowhark?" asked God.
"It’s not the merging of two souls," Harrow said, and she sounded furious. "It’s the consumption of one soul for the benefit of the other."
Gideon, still lost, at least could follow along well enough to realize she did not like the sound of any of this. "Naberius…" she said, and that’s where her speech found itself stuck, her mind still swirling with all manner of awful possibilities.
"Fuels my Lyctorhood, yes," said Ianthe. "As you will fuel Harrowhark’s."
"Now, don’t put it that way," said God. "We shouldn’t misrepresent the process. It’s the greatest honor, to be chosen as two become one. It is the grandest fate the universe could supply. It is the greatest gift you could give. You can give Harrowhark everything she has ever wanted, Gideon, and in doing so become the best you can be. Do you understand?"
Gideon thought about running to the door, but of course she knew that it was locked. She could probably break a window and make it out that way. She would, if it came to it, but for now… she wasn’t going to run away. Gideon Nav did many things, but fleeing in terror was not one of them, for better or for worse.
"You are making one grave miscalculation," she said.
God raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I completely fucking hate her," said Gideon, succinctly.
"To put it more politely," said Harrow, surprisingly willing to contribute, "Gideon would never want me to have everything I have ever wanted. She wants me to go to hell, and enjoys telling me so. I am comfortable with this arrangement."
At this God seemed to find he had no choice but to laugh. "I will give you the room," he said, "for ten minutes. You can discuss and make your decision. I do not believe I am misjudging the nature of your relationship to the extent to which you believe."
God wasted no time in exiting the room, his two Lyctors trailing behind him. Mercymorn, the last one out, gave a little wave before shutting the door behind her. The lock clicked into place.
"Harrow," said Gideon, "you are completely correct in your assessment of my opinion of you. I will this once, and only this once, acknowledge your opinion as well-founded. However, I find myself at a loss. You are being given an opportunity to kill me and you aren’t doing it? I mean, I’m appreciative, but…"
"I may yet change my mind," snapped Harrow, "if you don’t shut your mouth. I need to think." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "We need to get away from here."
Gideon was still aghast, and it was made worse by the fact that she wasn’t sure at what. There were death cultists who thought it would be helpful to the universe if she died and Harrow lived, which was of course completely fucking backwards. Harrow wasn’t behaving like herself. Nothing made any sense.
An escape plan, though, she could do. She could figure that out. She’d leave all the messy pieces about how exactly Harrow felt about her for later, when they could have a good screaming match in private and perhaps still kill each other, but at least it would be on their own terms.
Gideon moved quickly to the window. The sash was, surprisingly, not locked into place. It seemed too easy. "Keep talking," she whispered to Harrow.
Harrow obliged, and the sound helped to cover Gideon’s efforts to open the window without detection. "I cannot wait to become a Lyctor," said Harrow. "You are, as always, my completely devoted servant, and I look forward to condemning you to an even lower state in perpetuity. You would do anything for me, as you should, and so are very eager to allow me to pierce your heart with my sword and to consume your soul with my own."
Gideon, eager for this fresh torment to cease, became perhaps less careful and more efficient in her attempt to quietly open the window.
When the job was done, she gestured Harrow over and began to practically push her through the window. She wanted this whole business to be done, and the sooner the better. The ten minutes were ticking away. She wanted to live to see the sun rise again, and she supposed that that was a good feeling to have.
Harrow dropped to the ground, a few twigs cracking under her feet. Gideon followed. Her sword was difficult to maneuver through the tight opening, but she was not going to leave her only means of defense behind. The ground felt delightfully springy under her feet. She was out. With any luck, she would stay out.
That was when she heard the shout and the first bone began to rip out of the ground and spiral around her legs.
There were two men who had been hidden out of sight behind the house. Gideon would wonder, later, whether they were the two missing Saints, and whether she and Harrow had been deliberately misled about their absence, but for now there was no time. She kicked outwards, freeing herself desperately, and grabbed Harrow’s hand to run.
Harrow yanked her hand away, which Gideon supposed was fair enough. Her purpose became clearer, though, once she dug in her pockets and produced some chips of bone. Some she threw to the ground, where they formed arms with oversized hands and began to wrestle with the tendrils of bone that continued to sprout from the ground. Others she tossed into the air, where they expanded into great sheets that blocked the two men’s view.
The bone shield was quickly shattering, pieces vanishing as if they had never existed at all. Gideon had marveled at Harrow’s own necromantic prowess (not that she would ever admit it), but it was clear after only a few seconds that she would be no match for one of these men, let alone both. Harrow was shaking with the effort of it. The bone tendrils were beginning to free themselves from their opponents and would soon be entrapping Harrow and Gideon once more.
But Harrow’s efforts had one them precious seconds. Gideon could only hope it would be enough.
Harrow was a hopeless runner on the best of days, and so Gideon didn’t hesitate to sweep her up and toss her over one shoulder. She would hear no end of it later, she was sure. But she would be alive to hear no end of it, and that was really what mattered.
She ran. She sprinted off down a darkened alleyway, praying she wouldn’t trip over the battered cobblestones. She didn’t know if anyone was following. She dared not look.
She was on a proper street, now, although it wasn’t Canaan Street. She could hear no commotion and the houses around her remained peacefully sleeping. She felt exposed, though—anyone could see her. She ducked off into another alley and kept running.
She continued until she was both hopelessly lost and thoroughly exhausted. Harrow made no protest the entire time, which Gideon found surprising until she realized that the necromancer was simply unconscious. Managing the arms and the shield simultaneously must have taken an enormous amount out of her. Gideon had never seen her attempt the like before, let alone when caught off guard.
She collapsed into the dingiest corner she could find. It was a little passageway that led to some stone steps, but from the accumulation of leaves and dust it was clear they had not been traversed in some time. She had no idea where she was or what she was going to do.
Gideon laid Harrow out gently beside her, making sure her head was cushioned by some leaves. After a moment, she took off her coat and spread it out over Harrow’s still-unconscious form. She couldn’t refuse the goddamn coat now. Life really was better when Harrow couldn’t talk back.
Gideon, overwhelmed by relief, soon found herself also overwhelmed by tiredness. Some part of her mind was desperately turning over the night’s events, trying to find any measure of meaning in them, but that part could wait. For now…
She slept.
One month later…
They had argued at length about which train to take. Gideon had suggested they try the French countryside; they were trying to wander quietly for a while, after all, and they had so little money with them. On that eventful night, they had decided against returning to the rooms they had rented: This had perhaps kept them away from God and his disciples, but it had also left them with so little resources for their subsequent journeys. Harrow, on the other hand, wanted to visit Paris. She said this was because they would fit in best with a crowd. Gideon accused her of simply wanting to explore the catacombs under the city, with their miles and miles of bones.
The latter was, of course, very true, but Gideon had eventually given in. There were worse things than wandering around corridors of moldering bones with an overenthusiastic necromancer; said necromancer had not consumed her soul, after all, and Gideon was still very grateful for this.
They had purchased the cheapest train tickets that they could. The result was that they were crammed together on an incredibly uncomfortable wooden bench, with an older couple who were intent on holding a very loud and involved conversation seated opposite them. For once, Gideon was relieved to have little by way of luggage.
"I’m glad I didn’t kill you," said Harrow, suddenly.
Gideon had to laugh. "Are we suddenly going to decide to talk about this now?"
They really hadn’t, not yet. There had been something unspoken between them—something that let them huddle together on cold nights, something that sometimes led Gideon’s hand to snake its way into Harrow’s grasp. Something that gave Gideon a strange sort of peace, even as they were wandering with so little money and even less of a plan for what to do next. She didn’t know what was coming, but she knew that she would have Harrow with her, and at some point in the months since Naberius Tern’s killing, that had turned out to be enough.
Of course, she would happily let Harrow stab her before she would admit any of this.
Harrow seemed to be thinking along similar lines. "No, we’re not," she said, very decisively. "I just thought you should know."
"Thank you," said Gideon, completely unsure of what else, if anything, there was to say.
She decided she couldn’t quite leave things there, though, and settled for letting an arm drape itself very lightly around Harrow’s shoulders.
It was at this point that she (not for the first time) had a sudden urge to press her lips to the top of Harrow’s horrifying head, and perhaps to other areas of Harrow, too. Not that she would ever do this, of course. They were in a public setting, and besides…
Perhaps one day she could, though, and perhaps one day soon. She predicted it would happen at approximately the same time as the two of them learned how to have proper, genuine conversations.
For now, though… for now she could more than live with this limbo. They would be all right, one way or another.