Beneath the alabaster sp.., p.22
Beneath the Alabaster Spire, page 22
Kate pulled a hanky from her pocket and wiped Harlow’s face off. “You’re all puffy,” she said, smiling as though she thought it was cute. “All I meant is that he was so obviously an asshole, and you deserve better. Finn is a good man.”
Kate hugged her again, and she smelled familiar, like sunshine, wood sage and salt air. Long ago, this would have ended with their clothes off, but now—now Harlow was just grateful Kate was here. She’d forgotten how the best part of them had been their easy friendship. The rest was fleeting, but maybe that could last.
She let her arms go around Kate too. “I missed you,” Harlow mumbled into Kate’s shoulder. “I missed you so much.”
When they let go, Kate said, “I missed you too. Can things be better with us now? Could we try to be friends at least?”
Harlow shook her head. “We don’t have to try. I think we’re already there.” She smiled through her tears as Kate’s face lit up.
Harlow felt the joke coming before it came out of Kate’s mouth. “Really? That is so good, because Petra hates Pretty Little Firestarters and the final season is about to start.”
It was her way of smoothing things over. Of making intense emotions easier to digest, and Harlow didn’t mind it a bit. It felt good to laugh. “The Illuminated have terrible taste in television. Finn doesn’t like it either.”
Kate fished another hanky out of the console for Harlow and started the car again. They chatted about their shared love for the nighttime soap opera the rest of the way home. It felt like a new start, made more poignant by the fact that the rain let up and the sky cleared. When they pulled into the villa’s half-moon driveway, Petra was sitting on the front steps, staring at her phone.
As they got out of the car, she looked up. “Did the two of you finally make up?”
Kate nodded, grinning, but Harlow saw the caution in Petra’s eyes. “What is it?”
Petra glanced away from them, cheeks flushing slightly. “Section Seven.”
Kate took the phone from Petra’s outstretched hand, swearing at it. “Those fucking assholes. It wasn’t like that, babe.”
“I know it wasn’t,” Petra said simply. “They’re obsessed with breaking Finn and Harlow up.”
“Do I even want to see?” Harlow asked as she took Petra’s phone from Kate. The question was rhetorical, of course; she was already reading. Photos of Kate fixing her seatbelt certainly looked like they were getting intimate in front of Riley’s building, and the ones at the beach overlook were even worse. The headline read, “Finn McKay is gone for mere days and Harlow’s replaced him.”
“Their headlines aren’t even clever anymore,” she said. How were they getting all these photos taken and out so quickly? They had to be using more of the invisible drones. But why weren’t they publishing the footage of the fight at the beach then? Inside her bag, she felt her phone vibrate. She glanced at it, then took Petra’s hand. “Are we okay?”
Petra surprised her, pulling her into a hug so tight that Harlow could barely breathe. “Yes,” Petra said into her hair. “Of course we are.”
Harlow hugged Petra back. In so many ways, she was the easiest person Harlow knew. If she were mad, or worried, she would say.
Petra let her go and grinned at both Harlow and Kate. “Besides, you’re the ugliest crier I’ve ever met. Your face is all splotchy. You and I both know you wouldn’t have been sobbing if you’d been doing what Section Seven said you were.”
Kate protested. “Hey, I’ve made girls cry because it was so good.”
Petra bit her lip, taking Kate’s hand. “Prove it.”
Harlow groaned. “I don’t need to hear that.”
Kate dragged Petra to her side, glancing back at Harlow. “You gonna be okay? We could stay?”
Harlow’s phone buzzed again, several times in a row. “No, I’m fine. Have a good time.”
She watched as they drove off, then sat on the steps herself. She had no idea if Larkin and Thea were home, but she didn’t want to do this in front of them. Her phone vibrated yet again as she opened it. Several texts from Finn awaited her.
Not ignoring you. At brunch.
Everything okay?
What’s going on with you and Kate?
Are you ignoring ME?
Harlow waited for her read receipt to show up and took a few breaths before responding. Nothing’s going on with Kate. Section Seven’s just being Section Seven.
She watched as he read her message and then began to write his own. He was obviously writing and rewriting, because it took a while for him to respond. Okay. They’re jerks.
Harlow’s chest tightened. This was hard. She could feel him wanting to say more to comfort her, and her intense desire to be comforted, but they couldn’t do that. Not if they wanted this to work. So she asked what they’d agreed would be one of their code questions: Yeah. Any good properties?, which meant, “How are things going with your parents?”
The answer was quick this time. At least one good lead, but it won’t be on the market for another few weeks.
Harlow’s heart beat faster. So the game had truly begun. His parents were buying what was happening. They’d agreed to be subtle at first. Want to call and talk it over?
His answer was immediate. Not a good time. We can talk when I get home.
And that was that, the code was over, he was back to being dismissive. All part of the plan, she reminded herself. Harlow locked her phone and closed her eyes. I can do this, she thought as she breathed deep.
“Are you sitting on the porch because Section Seven is at it again?” Thea asked.
Harlow glanced over her shoulder. Thea and Larkin were standing in the doorway.
“Yeah,” she said, getting up. “I could really use a cup of tea.”
Larkin came around to help her up. “No shortage of those here.”
Thea hugged her as the three of them walked into the villa together, closing the door on the outside world.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next week brought rain, and not much else, as Thea tried to break the binding on the Merkhov text. They didn’t see much of their friends, and Harlow wondered if maybe her behavior at brunch and the Section Seven onslaught had gotten to them. Every text she sent was met with friendly responses, and on the surface it seemed like they were busy, but she couldn’t stop going over things in her mind. Had she given too much away? Did they suspect she was lying? She knew she was probably being paranoid, but worrying over every little thing she said was an old habit that she couldn’t quite shake.
It wasn’t as though there weren’t plenty of other things to hold her attention. She helped Thea with extra research on breaking complicated binding spells and used the Vault’s resources to find a whole host of training exercises that had names like “Lucid Dreaming for the Intermediate” and “Astral Projection for the Advanced Practitioner.” She and Larkin watched them together in Cian’s office, since it had a big screen television, and laughed at the retro-vibes of the videos that had been digitized from videotapes.
The videos weren’t entirely pointless, vintage as they were. The principles were solid, and Harlow and Larkin worked together nearly every day to improve Larkin’s control over herself when dreaming. Harlow secretly hoped that she was helping herself as well. She could use some increased control over her mind, and the tutorials seemed to focus on that idea a lot.
“I’m just like the heroine in Meli’s sci-fi romance book,” Larkin quipped one morning over iced coffee and toaster waffles.
The two of them had just finished the seventh installment in “Astral Projection for the Advanced Practitioner.” They sat at Cian’s desk in the Vault, which faced the big screen TV. Axel had taken the opportunity to stretch out in front of them, sure he was the main event, rather than the instructional videos.
“I thought it was a monster romance,” Harlow said as she put the video back in its case, searching for another. There were two or three more in the series, but they seemed to have misplaced the next one.
“Oh, there’s that one too, but it’s a trilogy about three psychics who fall in love with different creatures—this one is about a dream walker and she falls in love with a mafia enforcer,” Larkin explained.
Harlow turned. “And you… liked this book? The one with the cat-people was super spicy.”
Axel rolled onto his back, purring at Larkin, who rubbed his belly as she laughed. “Would you believe it if I said I liked the story?”
“Whatever turns your key,” Harlow said, laughing along with her sister. “I don’t think that’s why everyone else is reading them though.” She found the missing video and set it up.
Larkin popped the last bite of her waffle in her mouth, shrugging. “We can all appreciate different things about romances, Harlow. This one’s got great found family vibes.”
Harlow plopped back in the chair next to Larkin, giving Axel’s ears a scratch as she settled in. “So how are you like the main character? I haven’t read that one.”
“She walks into people’s dreams and solves their deepest mysteries,” Larkin explained.
“And you’re going to do that?” Harlow asked, not quite seeing the connection, since Larkin wasn’t exactly going into a dream world, but astral projecting into a real place, albeit in her sleep.
Larkin shook her head, taking a long drink of her iced coffee, draining it of the last precious drops. Then she grabbed Harlow’s, right out of her hands. Harlow rolled her eyes, letting her sister jack herself up on caffeine if she wanted to. For whatever reason, it had the opposite effect on Larkin than it had on most people; it seemed to calm her more than anything.
“No, see, she and the love interest form a connection in the dream world, one they can’t seem to make in the waking world, on account of the fact that they’re both so damaged and broody, of course.”
“Of course,” Harlow agreed, snickering as she snatched her coffee back. The days of iced coffee were coming to a close, and she didn’t want to miss one scrap of them, even if they were locked deep underground in the Vault.
“Well, I can connect with Ash in the real limen, and hopefully I can solve the mystery of where you can find him, since that’s what Rakul said you had to do.” She smiled smugly, raising her eyebrows and kicking her feet up on Cian’s desk. “And then I’ll be the hero of the story, just like the girl from the book.”
Harlow smiled. “I would love that so much. It seems like everything keeps going just a little wrong, you know?”
Larkin nodded. “It feels like that sometimes. Things are really complex, you know? Maybe we’re making more progress than we think.”
It was a nice way to think about things. Harlow kissed Larkin’s cheek, dragging her sister into a one-armed hug. “There’s like three more of these astral projection videos. Guess if you’re gonna be the big hero, we’d better watch them, huh?”
Larkin sighed in mock-exasperation. “Every hero has their training montage. This is mine.”
They cackled hard as the credits started rolling. Cian’s computer flashed a notification. “Keep watching,” Harlow ordered, pointing to the screen. “I don’t want you to miss any part of your big montage moment.”
Larkin stuck out her tongue as Harlow scooted closer to Cian’s computer in her rolling chair. The notification was from Cian, so Harlow clicked into it. It was a message for her, sent over the secure line from Haven in Nuva Troi: I see you’re watching movies in my office. Clean up after yourselves and get that cat off my desk.
Harlow stuck her tongue out at the camera she knew was placed above the TV and rubbed Axel’s belly before reading on.
While Finn’s been off looking at brownstones and brunching, I’ve been doing some digging in the Order of Masks’ archives. Merhart Locklear approved me for some of our more classified material last week, and I found this. It appears to be a crypt from about two hundred years ago.
Look closely at the inscription.
Hope you’re well.
C
Harlow clicked on the attached image. It was an engraving of a cemetery, full of beautiful headstones, statuary, and large gated crypts all in a row. There was an inscription on the most prominent of the crypts: “The world between worlds waits just beyond knowledge. Beware what lies—” Harlow couldn’t read the rest, as the inscription seemed to wrap around the crypt.
The first line was familiar somehow though. She opened up the private search engine that Nox built for the Vault’s digitized archives and typed it in, leaving the unfinished line out. Larkin paused the instructional video to read over her shoulder. “That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, I’m searching.” The search engine that Nox built for the Vault’s archives showed it was ninety percent through its scan. One answer came up, in a rather common prayer book published by the Sistren of Akatei.
Larkin and Harlow both leaned in, right as Axel sat up, directly in front of the computer screen, blocking their view. Larkin dragged him off the desk and into her lap, where he grumbled before crawling into her hoodie, which she held open for him.
“You’ll spoil him,” Harlow said absentmindedly.
“Good,” Larkin replied as the scan of the prayer book flashed onto the screen.
There it was, the inscription to the book, right after the ornate title page.
The world between worlds
waits just beyond knowledge.
“I mean, that’s an obvious reference to the limen,” Larkin said. “Which I guess makes sense. Akatei is supposed to govern it, after all.”
Harlow nodded. “So you’re the one who was obsessed with the nekropoleis as a kid. What do you think this means?”
Larkin thought for a moment. “Well, lots of crypts are entrances to the catacombs beneath them and operate as family altars. It was a popular way to build them about six or seven hundred years ago, but kind of went out of style during Grandmama’s time, because there were a series of cave-ins that made the catacombs in Nytra unsafe.”
“Okay,” Harlow replied as she chewed on the thought. “So could there be some sort of entrance to limenal space in a catacomb?” She thought of the Pyriphle, and the strong feeling she’d had that it connected directly to the world between worlds. It made sense. Maybe this was how they’d find Ashbourne.
Apparently, Larkin thought so as well. “It could. What else is there for us to look at?”
“There’s nothing else. It was just on this random crypt, and here in this prayer book.” Harlow said. “I don’t even know how we’re supposed to know if this is even in Nea Sterlis.”
Larkin pointed to a figure in the drawing. At first Harlow thought it was a leopard, or other big cat, but as she looked closer, it looked more like a dog. “Is that a dog?”
“Either that or a panther,” Larkin said. “Doesn’t really matter. I’ve seen it before.”
“Where?” Harlow asked.
Larkin made a face, shaking her head as she chuckled. There was one historical site in Nea Sterlis that Harlow had refused to visit all summer. She hated going anywhere where the unquiet dead tended to congregate. Unlike most sorcière, she did not find communing with the dead to be peaceful, or even helpful. It was mostly just creepy, and Nea Sterlis’ nekropoleis was one of the most haunted in Nytra.
“No,” Harlow whined, drawing the word out to several syllables. It was terribly obvious, of course, but she didn’t have to like it.
“I guess we know what we’re doing tomorrow,” Larkin said, looking at her phone. “It’s too late to go today. The ghasts will be out in an hour.”
Harlow grimaced. Nobody went to the nekropoleis after dark. Ghasts weren’t fundamentally dangerous, but unlike most other spirits, they could touch you. Most people, even those that enjoyed chatting with dead people, found them disconcerting. Luckily, they only came out at night. “Let’s leave early tomorrow, this could take a while.”
Larkin nodded. “See if Thea will take a break. She could use some sun.” She gestured towards the television. “I’m gonna finish watching this, but I could use a snack.”
Harlow let out a bark of laughter and messaged Cian back with their plans, then went upstairs to make her spoiled sister a snack and convince Thea to go with them to the City of the Dead.
“Well, at least it’s not raining,” Thea said, smiling cheerily. The air was crisp, and she wore a dress that made her look like she stepped out of a murder mystery set in Nea Sterlis about seventy years ago. As many of them had been filmed in this very nekropoleis, it was fitting.
The City of the Dead was pretty enough in the daytime, but even now there were spirits lurking everywhere. The spirit of a human woman, wearing a tattered gown that trailed the ground, passed by them screaming noiselessly and then disappeared as she walked straight through a wall. It wasn’t raining, but that didn’t make Harlow any happier to be “skulking around the cemetery,” as she’d put it at breakfast.
They’d asked Enzo and Petra to come along, but neither had been available. Harlow was starting to worry that they all might be mad at her. She brushed the thought aside and took a quick selfie with her sisters to calm her nerves. There was a hedge of late-blooming lantana camara, and the riot of crimson flowers was too pretty to miss.
She posted the photo onto her socials, with the caption “Sister day!” and a little skull emoji. It felt disrespectful to the spirits, but she was trying to get someone’s attention, after all. Paparazzi were absolutely forbidden from entering the nekropoleis, so there was no danger of being followed today. Besides, they were all back on the rabbit shifter love story again. As much as she hated it, she had to keep them interested in her, so posting a photo some place they were expressly forbidden from entering was sure to get them interested.
“Should we split up?” Larkin asked when Harlow was finished on her phone. “It might make things go faster.”
She hadn’t been able to remember exactly where she’d seen the dog-panther-leopard statue, so they were set to spend the day here. Harlow dreaded the idea of searching through the nekropoleis alone, but it made sense.
