Sunset ^beta

Chapter Text

Gideon arrived at the designated meeting place ten minutes before midnight. There were the usual crowds milling around the east entrance to The Mithraeum Hotel & Casino and Gideon found an empty bench and sat, her elbows propped on her knees and her eyes on her phone. She pulled up her text messages, double checked that she had the right time and the right place. It would be just her luck, wouldn’t it? A date with the most beautiful showgirl in the Gilded Halls of Ida and Gideon Nav was waiting at the wrong door and, oh hey, she was half an hour late too.

No, the time hadn’t changed since the last time she looked. The place was the same: I’m always out by 11:30. Meet me by the east entrance at midnight. I pick the spot. Don’t dress up 😘

After shoving her phone into Cam’s face and demanding a translation to the last bit (”It means don’t dress up”), Gideon did not dress up. The second time Gideon got dressed, she did not dress up. Cam had to work the night of the date, so Gideon staged a dress rehearsal before Cam had to leave. Camilla vetoed her jacket and then Dulcie both blushed at and then vetoed her vest. But the third time—Third time’s the charm and Gideon eventually found housemate approval with her second favorite pair of jeans, a brand new and very black tank, and a white shirt, untucked and unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She looked good. She hoped she looked good. She felt—fuck, her palms were really sweaty.

Gideon checked her watch. Midnight.

She leaned back against the bench, ran a sweaty hand through her hair and tried to calm her nerves. Her right leg was bouncing, a nervous jitter that drove everyone that knew her nuts. She stood and turned toward the door just as Coronabeth pushed her way out of the casino. Gideon let out a breath. The tension in her shoulders drained, just slightly.

After the whole ‘don’t dress up’ debacle, after Cam knocked her upside the head and convinced her she didn’t need to wear an entire suit, Gideon half expected Corona to show up in a dress and sky high heels, but no, Corona had not dressed up. Her hair was pulled back away from her face and her cheeks looked a little red, like she’d recently scrubbed them clean of makeup—which, yeah, of course she had. Not that—Corona was very obviously still wearing makeup, just not the stage makeup of the Hall.

Okay, another deep breath. The point was, Corona was wearing jeans and tennis shoes and Gideon was fine. She had permission to calm the fuck down. She licked her lips and tried a smile. Corona’s entire face lit up as she returned it, as she pulled Gideon into a perfumed embrace.

If only no one had told Gideon! This would just be a date with the hot girl she met in the employee lot. But no, turned out this was Coronabeth, the most talked about showgirl in the Gilded Halls of Ida.

“This seems like something you would have known,” Camilla pointed out days earlier on their long walk to the floor. “You’ve been working at the Mithraeum what? Six months now? The girls from Ida are plastered on every wall of this place and you’re you.”

It was absolutely something Gideon should have noticed, but when she mentioned it to Corona, when she said, “I had no idea who you were when I asked you out,” Corona laughed and said: “I know. I loved that. It’s why I said yes.” She looked Gideon up and down. “It’s part of why I said yes.”

Corona slipped her arm through Gideon’s as they walked. She kept close, as though they’d known each other for ages, as though they hadn’t bumped into each other a couple times in the employee parking lot, once literally, before Gideon asked her out on this date.

The thing was, Camilla was right. (Typical.) Coronabeth really was plastered all over the Mithraeum, Corona’s face and Corona’s jewel-covered tits. Her smile was the same and the shine of her eyes was the same, but beyond that the posters looked nothing like the Corona from the parking lot, nothing like the Corona that walked beside Gideon now.

“Where are you taking me?” Gideon asked, as though the date was all Corona’s idea from the very start. Maybe it was. Maybe she’d planned it all after that first encounter. That was a fun thought: Gideon Nav manipulated and pursued by the most gorgeous showgirl at the Mithraeum. Gideon fell right into her well-manicured hands.

Corona squeezed Gideon’s arm. She hummed in surprise and squeezed it again.

“Hot tonight,” Gideon noted, helplessly. She pulled at the collar of her already unbuttoned shirt.

“Mm,” Corona agreed. “We won’t be walking long. Where we’re going isn’t far and it won’t be too crowded. We can have a drink and we’ll be able to hear each other speak.”

Gideon was familiar with this area. She used to work not far from here before she got the job at the Erebos, before she met Cam and Palamedes and Dulcinea. Long before she started dealing tables at the Mithraeum. When Corona turned down the very street that housed Gideon’s former employer, Gideon felt a sudden chill in the air. It was the sort of chill that puffed up from cracks in the earth, around entrances to gaping caves. Deep earth chill. Gateway to hell cold. You’d think hell would be hot, right? It wasn’t. It was as cold as the fucking grave. Gideon racked her brain for every other possible destination that might require them to walk in this direction. By the time Corona stopped outside the discreet stone-grey door to The Locked Tomb, Gideon’s heart was in her stomach, but she wasn’t surprised. There was nowhere else it could have been.

“This is it,” Corona said. She reached for a button to the side of the door. The Locked Tomb fancied itself an exclusive speakeasy. In truth, it was a wannabe-goth cocktail bar in a basement that anyone could access if they just visited the website and wrote down the password on the splash page.

“This is it,” Gideon repeated. Corona turned toward her with a sly smile, and Gideon realized that she must think Gideon didn’t know there was a bar at this location. “No, I mean, I know it’s—I used to work here.” She worked there for years and she didn’t remember ever seeing Coronabeth, star showgirl, down in its depths.

Corona’s eyebrows went high. “Oh, small world! If you worked here, you must know my sister.”

“Harrow?”

Corona laughed and shoved at Gideon’s arm gently with her fingers. “Funny! I meant Ianthe, of course.”

That wasn’t a better response. That was—Gideon squinted. Corona stood back and held out her arms. She gestured to herself, her hand waving vaguely at the entire package of Coronabeth. Gideon shook her head, and Corona rolled her eyes and pressed the button for the intercom a second time. “Come on, you must have realized. We’re twins.”

No way. Gideon knew Ianthe, and Ianthe— “You look nothing alike.”

“We look very much alike. That’s how it works.”

It’d been years now since the last time Gideon saw Ianthe, but she was certain they were not identical. There was no way Gideon could mistake Ianthe Tridentarius for hottest-girl-at-the-Mithraeum Corona.

“No offense to your sister, but I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Gideon! I think I would know.” The speaker buzzed with static and Corona leaned in to state the password—”I pray that the Tomb is shut forever.”

The door clicked in response and they were greeted by a rush of cold air, by a dark and upsettingly familiar set of stairs. The gateway to hell. Gideon hesitated at the entrance a moment, watched Corona descend into the gloom. Corona paused at the landing, just before she faded into the dark.

“Gideon?”

Right.

Gideon pushed up her sleeves, took a deep fortifying breath, and followed Coronabeth down into hell.

Gideon startled awake at the slamming of a door. Her eyes snapped open and her body twitched toward the sound, ready to take on the sudden threat. And then the entire room began to tilt.

“Oh, fuck.” Gideon groaned as she fell back against her pillows and the sudden movement sent her head spinning. No, she was unfit to take on anyone or anything. She blinked, eyes watering, until the late afternoon light became bearable and the room slowly shifted into focus. Her bedroom door was shut. The house was quiet and unmoving.

Great. Perfect. Startled awake by her own dreams of slamming doors.

Gideon reached for her phone on the bedside table and her hand landed on a bottle of pills instead. The bottle fell. It rolled off the table and onto the floor.

“Shit, what time is it?”

No response from the empty room. Unsurprising. Gideon fished around on the floor for the pill bottle, found it and then stared at it blearily until she deciphered from the color of the label, then the words printed on the label, that it was ibuprofen. She took three, sucking them down with big gulps from the glass of water conveniently waiting on the table, undisturbed by her flailing hand. No phone to be found, but there was a folded sheet of paper on the table beside the glass, and on the paper someone had scrawled a ‘G,’ as though they’d started writing her name but stopped abruptly when they realized they didn’t know how to spell. The pen was there too. It was an awful pen, a pen that Gideon recognized instantly, black ink, black pen. The only adornments were a printed white skull beside a printed white key.

It was a calling card.

Gideon snatched up the paper. She unfolded it and, as was becoming a theme, stared at it uncomprehending for a very long time. As she stared at it, and then past it, other details of the room came into focus. The grey smears of paint on the pillows. The stretch of rumpled vacant space in the bed beside her. Her clothes from last night’s date discarded in an uncharacteristic heap on the floor.

Most damning, there was a shiny black metal band on the fourth finger of Gideon’s left hand.

Gideon returned her attention to the folded paper. It was a note written on a receipt from a wedding chapel. Gideon recognized the name, and knew it wasn’t far from The Mithraeum. The receipt was dated ten after eight that morning. She moaned, a low and pitifully drawn out “nooo.”

The note was written with a curt and aggravated hand, the letters tighter and tenser than Gideon had ever seen them before. The note was signed, but the signature was unnecessary. Gideon would recognize that handwriting anywhere.

We never speak of this again. Do not come find me. Do not call. — Harrow

Harrow.

Last night Gideon met Coronabeth Tridentarius for a date outside The Mithraeum. She had a date with Corona, that date led her right back down into The Locked Tomb, and now she was—

Gideon closed her eyes and tried to work back through the events of the evening. The sound Corona made when she squeezed Gideon’s arm. The soft press of her lips to Gideon’s cheek. Booming bass and the roar of a crowd. Harrow Nonagesimus smiling, her teeth bright and weirdly blue beneath a black light, every hair and speck of dust illuminated on her black shirt. Juniper on Gideon’s tongue and Harrow’s hot little hands digging into Gideon’s shoulders, Harrow pulling Gideon’s head down into a kiss.

Harrow’s hot little hands digging into Gideon’s shoulders, Harrow pulling Gideon’s head down into a kiss.

No, that was—This was the slamming of a door. It was a dream, a nightmare. Had to be. There was an alternate explanation for the note, for the paper, for the kissing. Harrow was just messing with her. That was what Harrow did. It was what she’d always done. Someone else got married and this was their receipt and if Gideon slipped the ring off her finger, she’d discover it was some cheap trinket from a tourist shop. That was why it was black—one of those awful ‘game over’ jokes men made when they married the women they supposedly loved. Black like the decorations for a fortieth birthday party. Black like life as Gideon knew it dead and gone.

Gideon slipped the ring off her finger. It was metal and heavy. Fuck, it was nice. There was no jokey inscription, no cheap tourist shop sticker. It felt good in her hand. It felt legit.

Okay, so maybe some of it was real. Gideon asked Harrow to go dancing after her date with Corona fizzled. That was a miscalculation and very uncharacteristic, but it should have been fine. It should have been fine, because Camilla was there.

Camilla was there.

Cam, Gideon’s very responsible and unflappable friend. Cam would never let a thing like this happen to Gideon on her watch, which meant she’d be able to explain, put the pieces together in a way that made sense and set Gideon’s life back on its correct course. Gideon would go to Camilla and Camilla would pull Gideon from her nightmare and set everything right.

**

Gideon did not have to go far to find Camilla. She didn’t have to wait long to discover that Cam couldn’t save her this time.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Gideon was standing in their living room in her tank and her boxer briefs—and imagine how thankful she was to throw back her sheets and find she was still wearing those!—with her arms folded across her chest and the note clutched tight in her hand.

“Well, you ditched me,” Camilla said, evenly, from her spot on the couch between Dulcinea and Dulcinea’s cat. “You asked me to get you a drink and when I turned back the two of you were gone.”

Dulcinea scrutinized Gideon, taking in all of her details. Dulcinea was so damn good with details. “You slept in that paint?”

Okay, she was starting off easy.

Gideon wiped her palm against her cheek and shrugged.

Dulcinea’s sleek black cat, Mia, eyed Gideon now too, taking in all the details Dulcinea might have missed. Mia turned up her white-striped nose and settled back into her nap, unconcerned with the state of Gideon Nav.

Fine, okay. Gideon turned her attention back to Camilla. “Why would I ditch you? I’ve never ditched you.”

Camilla mimicked Gideon’s earlier shrug. “You ditched me last night. I called you five times before you started sending me straight to voicemail. Palamedes called you and you sent him to voicemail. So I called Dulcie, woke her up, and then you sent her to voicemail too.”

Great, so on top of everything else, Gideon was an asshole to her friends too. Marriage to Harrow had already turned her into an asshole to her friends. Gideon groaned and it sounded pathetic even to her own ears. “Fuck, sorry.”

“What’s that?” Dulcinea asked, seemingly unfazed by Gideon snubbing her early morning check-in calls. She reached for Gideon’s hand. Gideon gave it to her without a fight and waited as Dulcinea examined the ring. She turned it on Gideon’s finger, then held Gideon’s hand up toward the light. “This is nice. Not for me, obviously, but it looks very nice on you. Handsome.”

“She gave you her ring?” Camilla asked. Dulcinea brought Gideon’s hand closer so that Camilla could get a better look. Gideon was fairly certain she reeked of last night’s booze and a casino full of cigarettes and should not be in close proximity to anyone, but she leaned in anyway, letting herself be yanked back and forth between the two.

“I think it’s my ring, actually.” Gideon pushed the note into Camilla’s hand.

Camilla’s face was neutral as she read it. “Okay.”

Dulcinea’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Gideon. You should have picked up your phone.”

“I really should have,” Gideon agreed. Dulcinea made a small surprised sound and pressed a hand to her mouth. “What are you doing? Are you—stop smiling! Cam, make her stop smiling. This is on the opposite side of the planet from cute and amusing. This is disastrous, it’s—”

Dulcinea was downright grinning. “You unexpectedly reunited with the girl you spent two entire years telling us you hated more than anyone else in this entire world, and then you married her.” She turned to Cam. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

“No,” Gideon said. “It’s not like that. I actually hate her more than anyone else in the world.” She snatched the paper back and crumpled it in her hand. Then she thrust it forward again to emphasize her point. “This is her. It’s what she does. I let Corona take me into The Locked Tomb and now this is Harrow being desperate, trying everything she can to drag me back down. I don’t know how yet, but she did something, planned this whole thing to bind me back to her and that damn bar.”

Cam frowned. “The note says she doesn’t want to see you or talk about it ever again.”

Gideon threw up her hands. “Exactly! This is how it starts.”

“Sometimes words mean exactly what they mean,” Cam reasoned.

“No.” Gideon shook her head, adamant. “You were right about Corona, but Harrow is an entirely different beast.”

“Maybe she’s changed,” Dulcinea suggested. Her face was bright, practically glowing. She was loving this. “After all, she’s only a very little beast.”

Gideon eyed the stack of novels on the table beside Dulcinea and then shook her head again. “Don’t romanticize this. It isn’t one of your books; it’s a nightmare.”

“If it helps, she didn’t seem completely nightmarish and evil this morning. She refused to sit with me for a cup of coffee—I don’t think she realized she might run into other people on her beeline toward the door—but she was nice about it. I assumed it was a bit of friendly hate sex and there I was interupting her walk of shame. She was more pleasant than I might have been in her shoes.” As Dulcinea spoke, she wriggled back against the cushions of the couch, leaning heavily against Cam’s side. Cam took the hint and slipped an arm behind Dulcie, pulling her closer. Cuddled up on the couch with her big bright blue eyes, it was hard to imagine anyone hating Dulcinea enough for hate sex to ever enter the equation.

Gideon snorted. “You’ve always been a terrible judge of character.”

Dulcinea looked pointedly at Gideon as she slowly set a proprietary hand on Camilla’s thigh. With her other hand she gestured back toward the bedroom she shared with Palamedes. “I’m an excellent judge of character, in fact, and you know it.”

“So what are you going to do?” Camilla asked, skipping ahead to the real questions.

Gideon was going to ask Palamedes for the name of one of his lawyer friends, but first: “You know what, fuck it, fuck her, fuck the note. I’m calling her. She can’t just do this and get away with it. Not anymore.”

**

We never speak of this again. Do not come find me. Do not call. As though Gideon could. She found her phone in the back pocket of her discarded jeans, but she’d deleted Harrow’s number as soon as she escaped the Tomb and knew she wouldn’t need to call any of her former ‘tomb mates’ to cover her shifts ever again. An internet search was no help, not even with a name as unique as Nonagesimus. Gideon was about to call the number for the bar, about to risk asking Ianthe or Ortus or, God forbid, Crux himself, when she remembered the pile of old phones she’d tossed in a box in her closet, the old phones she kept meaning to get rid of through the appropriate means and methods. The chargers should be in there too, which meant twenty minutes later she had an old phone with a busted screen plugged in and running long enough to find Harrow in her contacts. She was listed, very appropriately, as ‘The Cryptkeeper.’

Now, sitting on the floor of her bedroom surrounded by her personal museum of cellphone relics, Gideon held the newest least-banged-up model tight to her ear. Her entire body felt tense, ready to snap, and she pressed her elbows hard into the muscle above her knees. She bit at the skin around her thumbnail as the phone started to ring. One ring and Gideon’s heart was pounding. Two and she was sure she’d be sent to voicemail. Three and she was ready to hang up and shrug her shoulders; at least she’d tried. Four and—

Silence on the other side of the line, then faint breathing.

“Harrow? It’s Gideon.”

Another moment of nothing, and then finally: “I told you not to call.”

Harrow’s voice was hard, irritated, and Gideon felt herself relax just slightly at the tone of it. She shifted until her back was settled against the side of her bed and pushed a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I got your note, but I have questions and you’re the person with the answers.”

“What questions.”

Gideon shrugged to her empty room. “I don’t know, like, what the fuck, Harrow? Like, you never fucking change! You really think I’m going to fall for this shit?”

More silence. Gideon could hear a dog barking in the background. “Say something.”

“What’s there to say?” Harrow asked. “You’re right, Griddle. I planned the entire thing. I certainly had nothing better to do with the last two years of my life than to spend it thinking about you. It was so easy, pulling the strings, getting Coronabeth Tridentarius to bring you back to the Tomb. It was so easy, forcing drinks down your throat and convincing you we should go to that club. It was so fucking easy, I—”

The longer Harrow talked, the more Gideon felt herself relax. There was audible panic in Harrow’s voice, like actual barely concealed horror. Harrow didn’t plan shit. Harrow was in the same damn nightmare as Gideon.

Gideon waited until Harrow finished and then said: “So how much do you remember?”

Harrow took a deep breath, a loud rattling suck of air that she let out right into Gideon’s ear. “Some.”

“Cause I don’t remember much,” Gideon admitted. “I remember seeing you, obviously, and dancing, and um, I remember kissing, but most of the rest of the night is just gone.”

“Mm,” Harrow said on the other end of the line. Gideon didn’t need to see her to envision the face she was making. Tight. Pinched. “Well, we got married!”

“Yeah, I got that,” Gideon pushed herself up off the floor. She tucked the phone against her shoulder, paced to the door and then back, and found herself standing in front of the pile of her discarded clothes. “Did we—you and I—um, we didn’t make it official, did we?”

Harrow sighed heavily. “If that’s supposed to be a euphemism for sex, I think we passed out before we got that far.”

“Good,” Gideon said. She scratched at her ear and frowned at the layer of grease coating her skin. Her fingers came away black with paint caked underneath the nails.

Harrow lapsed back into silence. She stayed that way while Gideon left her bedroom and slipped into the bathroom across the hall. Gideon stared at her paint-smeared face in the mirror, at her disheveled hair and the tired red tinge to the whites of her eyes. She looked like a sad pathetic clown. Gideon turned on the shower and then leaned against the sink and said: “What now?”

Harrow made a sound that might have been a huff but was probably more like a scoff. “Nothing now. Lose my number, don’t come by. We don’t talk about it ever again.”

It was Gideon’s turn to make weird breathing noises into the speaker, and she did, an awkward combo of a sigh and a laugh. “But like, what if you want to marry someone else? Or I do? We’ll have to get divorced, or like—annulled? Is that a real thing?”

“Are you planning to get married soon?”

“No, but—”

“Email me when you’re engaged to the showgirl. We’ll deal with it then.” And with that, Harrow hung up the phone.

Chapter Text

With each step down the dark staircase Gideon’s mouth formed a desperate plea, a silent prayer, that none of her least favorite former coworkers were on that night. No Cryptkeeper’s Cryptkeeper Crux. No Ianthe Tridentarius. And most importantly, absolutely no sign of the Cryptkeeper herself, Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

Hell, if Gideon was really lucky, maybe Harrow didn’t even reside in the Tomb anymore. It’d been years. It’d been—eighteen months on the floor at the Erebos before Gideon got in at the Mithraeum, then another eight months. That was over two years since the last time Gideon saw Harrow. Maybe Harrow had taken her alchemy elsewhere, maybe she didn’t even live in the city anymore. Maybe Harrow was on the other side of the world. Maybe—

Gideon wasn’t lucky. If any of Gideon’s prayers and pleas were heard, they were heard by the Tomb and the Tomb alone. The Tomb spat them all back into a gooey heap at her feet.

Absolutely nothing had changed.

There, behind the dark wood of the bar, was Ianthe, looking tall and sickly, like a ghost that haunted this cursed pit, and beside her, Harrowhark Nonagesimus mixing a drink, her mouth turned down in a concentrated little frown. She looked exactly the same, all angles tightly wrapped in her own personal uniform of black: black trousers, pressed black shirt, black vest and a little black tie. She was wearing dark glasses—Gideon knew for a fact she didn’t need them—pushed up over her dark eyes. Her crow-black hair curled around her studded ears. Gideon looked at Harrow and she was thrown back behind that bar, the Tomb was shut forever, and Gideon would never escape again.

She should have worn a damn hoodie. She should have worn a hat and some shades. A hat, hoodie and shades were casual. They fit the dress code and anyway, Corona already knew how she looked underneath. Gideon should have refused to enter this place, should have insisted that they go somewhere else instead, but Corona was already dragging her toward the bar and it was hard not to follow where Corona led.

Ianthe looked up and her lip curled at their approach. She set down the glass she was holding and pressed the palms of her hands against the edge of the bar.

“Gideon Nav,” Ianthe said in a tone that completely gave the game away, assured Gideon she’d been nearly vibrating in anticipation of this moment all night. “I warned Harry to make sure she changed the locks after you left.”

Ianthe tilted her head toward Harrow as she spoke and Gideon couldn’t help but follow the arrow of the gesture with her eyes. She failed in her attempt to glance toward Harrow without actually looking at Harrow, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because regardless of how loudly Ianthe announced Gideon’s name—it was loud enough—Harrow did not turn to look. Her shoulders didn’t even tense in recognition.

Maybe Harrow had forgotten about her completely. Maybe she’d slipped down those stairs one day and knocked her head, effectively eliminating all thoughts and memories of Gideon Nav.

Good. Small blessings.

Gideon turned back toward Ianthe, feeling slightly bolstered by the failure of Ianthe’s obvious grab for Harrow’s attention. Still, Ianthe looked smug, like she was proud to be tucked behind a bar with Harrow, like she pitied Gideon for leaving and considered herself special for holding onto the shitty things that Gideon tossed aside.

Ianthe, now that she was standing in front of Gideon as a reference, looked like a watered down counterfeit copy of Corona, sad and smeared, every bit of her just slightly dripping. Ianthe kept her eyes on Gideon as Corona leaned across the bar to press her cheek to her sister’s. She tried to hold Gideon’s attention, but Ianthe’s spell was easily broken by the strain of Corona’s arms pressed to the dark wood of the bar, by the press of her breasts against the fabric of her shirt. Gideon relaxed and leaned in, rested her arm against the bar and returned her attention to her date instead of the Tomb’s bargain basement brand substitute.

“Tridentarius,” Gideon said, finally, without bothering to look at her again. “How’s the dark treating you?”

“Better than the sun is treating you, from the look of things,” Ianthe returned. “You’ve aged, Gonad.”

Gideon snorted. Gonad. She hadn’t heard that one in years. She’d never been sure if it was better or worse than the other nicknames she’d been christened with during her time in the Tomb. Gideon resisted the urge to look down the bar toward Harrow again—it was easier now that she’d leaned up against the wood, with her back turned toward the side of the bar where Harrow was busy mixing drinks. She kept her eyes firmly on Corona instead. It was a better view.

Ianthe wasn’t finished. “I say aged, but that brings to mind fine wine, doesn’t it. You’re more along the lines of shriveled up old fruit.”

“Ianthe,” Corona admonished. “If I knew you were going to be so callous toward my date, I wouldn’t have come.”

“It’s fine,” Gideon said, automatically. “We go way back.” She made the conscious decision not to mention any of her own nicknames for Ianthe, which—okay, so they were mostly just the classics, the occasional uninspired-yet-extremely-accurate ‘bitch’. Once she pulled out “Pathetic Lestat-looking knock-off,” but honestly, putting effort into nicknames for Ianthe was more than Ianthe deserved, which was why Gideon almost always stuck with ‘Tridentarius.’ She never liked the way Ianthe’s first name felt on her tongue.

“You see, Gollum says it’s fine,” Ianthe agreed, always ready to make everything worse. “Oh, all right. Here, I’ve prepared my customer service smile.” She held up her hand to showcase a truly upsetting smile. “What can I get you?”

Corona ordered a Garnet Crow. Gideon, who didn’t want Ianthe’s fingers near anything she intended to drink, ordered a bottle of beer with no glass.

“I wouldn’t have guessed this was your kind of place,” Gideon admitted, once they were safely tucked away in the back corner booth, drinks in hand. Gideon looked at Corona and she saw bright warmth and desert heat. At the very least, someplace with windows.

“Well, you’re right,” Corona admitted. She pressed the tips of her fingers to the edge of her glass—coupe glass, a bit of smoked coffee bean added to the chestnut colored drink for a potion-y effect—and continued: “Even a few years ago, it wouldn’t have been, but it’s nice to relax somewhere where I won’t be noticed. No one comes to The Locked Tomb expecting to mingle with Ida’s off-duty showgirls. And you can’t argue that cozying up with a date in a dark corner booth does have its appeal.”

“Hm,” Gideon said, suddenly flustered. The thing was, if Gideon managed to keep her brain online in the face of Corona’s flirting—the thing was, Corona wasn’t the first or only person to pinpoint the The Locked Tomb as a dark hideaway where everything and everyone went unnoticed. Corona had to know, even without the family connection, that this spot was frequented by the Mithraeum’s Fists, the Mithraeum’s Gestures.

Corona leaned forward, one elbow on the table and her chin propped on the back of her hand. “I could say the same about you, hidden away down here in the dark. It seems you’ve found your calling now though. I’ve heard the talk. You must man the most popular table in the entire Mithraeum. Don’t be modest.”

Gideon laughed. “I doubt that.”

Corona tilted her head, narrowed her eyes. “Liar. I know how it is. You’re swarmed by women of all ages just dying to play a hand you’ve dealt. Blackjack, sure, they love that; but they’ll play poker if that’s where you’re stationed, just to get close. They don’t even care about the money, not while they’re sitting there, watching you.” Corona paused to study Gideon, and then added: “When it comes down to it, we’re very similar, aren’t we?”

Gideon choked on her beer and coughed into the crook of her arm. “Hot?” she asked, and her voice was strained, higher than she liked, fucking embarassing.

Corona smiled. “Performers. Showgirls.”

“Oh.” Gideon took another sip of her beer in an attempt to ease the itch in her throat. She glanced past Corona toward the bar. Harrow was there, head down as she rubbed a slice of orange along the edge of a glass. She didn’t look up. Gideon cleared her throat. “You’re right.”

Corona’s smile was worth everything. “I know.”

Gideon set down her beer bottle and leaned in. “I do this thing where I push my sleeves up to my elbows and flex my forearm as I deal and then I—well, it’s hard to explain, but it drives them crazy.”

“Show me.”

Gideon pushed up her sleeves, her face set and serious as she mimed shuffling the deck of cards. She started with the wash, spreading the invisible cards across the table with a splayed hand, then picking them up again and squaring the deck. Next, she riffled the deck twice. The process was set by the Mithraeum, but this step, Gideon knew, gave the table time to admire the movement of the hands, the agility of the fingers. She boxed the invisible deck, riffled the cards again. Finally she cut the deck and began dealing to the imaginary crowd, her eyes catching Corona’s as she threw down the cards.

Corona watched, rapt, and then, just when Gideon thought this might turn out to be the best night of her life, Corona’s eyes shifted away from Gideon, toward the stairs. Her face went slightly slack, a little red.

Gideon expected the shift in focus meant a Fist had arrived in the Tomb, but when she managed to turn and get a look, she didn’t recognize the woman she found there at all. The woman was shorter than Gideon (taller than Harrow), brown skin, braided hair, and a tailored jacket that would never pass Dulcie and Cam’s casualwear examination. By the time Gideon turned back, Corona had recovered, her focus returned. She reached out to touch the back of Gideon’s hand, and Gideon felt the touch sizzle all the way up her arm, across her shoulder and down her chest.

“It’s the veins,” Corona concluded. She traced her finger up Gideon’s right arm. “This one here is especially lovely.”

Gideon swallowed. “What is it with women and arm veins anyway?”

“Strength, I suppose. It’s rugged, masculine, and combined with the rest of you it’s just, well. You’ve already admitted you know it’s irresistible.”

Gideon exhaled hard, out through her nose like an agitated horse. Incredibly irresistible of her, no doubt. She would know. Across the room and behind the bar, someone dropped a glass and Gideon ignored it. Broken glassware wasn’t her problem here anymore. Anyway, Corona’s hand was still on her arm. Corona squeezed it again, gently, like she had on their walk from the Mithraeum.

“Gideon Nav. Blessed with those John Gaius eyes and those biceps...they’re eleven out of ten.”

Everything froze for one scalding hot second and the sound of the bar melted away. It became nothing but a rush of static in Gideon’s ears. And then she broke. Gideon laughed, loud and abrupt, as she leaned back against the worn cushions of the booth and deflected: “Fuck you!”

Corona’s eyes went wide and bright. “I’m serious!” She stopped and then she slumped back against her own side of the bench. Her violet eyes—they had to be colored contacts, right? Were Ianthe’s eyes that crazy purple?—flickered over toward the bar again. “Oh, I’m trying too hard, aren’t I? I’m coming on too strong.”

“No,” Gideon said, though maybe she was. It didn’t matter. Gideon liked too strong. She understood intensity. She didn’t understand what ‘John Gaius eyes’ meant—the dude owned the Mithraeum and half the city, so she guessed it meant rich? Still—“I mean, you really don’t have to try at all. You’re—well, you’re you.”

“I’m sorry, I—” Corona glanced away again.

“A friend?” Gideon asked, unable to help herself. She understood the gravity of the bar; she’d felt it since they arrived.

“No,” Corona said a little too quickly. Then: “Sort of a friend. I haven’t seen Judith in years and now she’s here. Of all places, Jude’s here, and Ianthe must have...”

“Go on,” Gideon said with a tilt of her head. She wasn’t even upset at the implication that Ianthe might have tried to sabotage their date. Gideon was sitting there surrounded by the past too. It fit; it made sense. It was the godforsaken Tomb. “I’ll be here.”

Corona bit her lip. She looked from Gideon toward the woman at the bar and back again. Finally, she made her decision. She nodded and slid off the bench. When she reached out for Gideon’s hand. Gideon let her have it. She wasn’t sure what she expected—maybe Corona intended to pull Gideon up from the bench and lead her over toward the bar as well. That wasn’t it. Instead Corona leaned in and pressed her soft mouth to Gideon’s knuckles like she was a prince in a fairytale and Gideon was the princess seated on her—wait, no, Gideon could do better than that. Corona pressed her lips to Gideon’s knuckles like she was the sorceress in this book that Gideon once read and Gideon was an accomplished warrior being honored for battles fought and won.

“You’re a star, you know that?”

Gideon didn’t know that and wasn’t sure what to say to it, but it didn’t matter. Corona was already gone. She seemed to blink out of existence for a second—or maybe Gideon blacked out at the press of soft lips to her hand?—and then she appeared again, standing tall beside the woman named Judith, her fingers tapping carefully against Judith’s jacket-clad shoulder.

Gideon settled back, brought one knee up on the bench and stretched an arm out along the back. She sipped her beer and watched Judith pull Corona into a hug. Judith didn’t stand from her stool, not fully, so her cheek ended up pressed against the swell of Corona’s breasts. It was hard to look away after that, but Gideon did. She took in the decor of the place instead, the same shadowy old portraits of people no one knew, and the one portrait of people they sort of knew—Harrow’s late parents—placed right beside the stairs. Gideon took in the dim lighting and the dark wood of the booths and the tall bar tables set around the center of the floor. The walls that weren’t plastered with anonymous old desert folks were lined with cabinets where regulars could purchase a personal bottle of whiskey or gin. The bottles were illuminated by the low amber glow of some fancy lights Crux definitely didn’t choose himself. Gideon’s eyes slid from the cabinets toward the bar, and—

She froze, a deer in headlights.

Bottomless soul-sucking black hole headlights. Harrow’s big, black, lightless eyes staring right back at Gideon.

Gideon wasn’t sure what to do. It was too late to run, to spook and bolt on spindly deer legs. It was what she wanted, she thought—to stand up and leave, but she couldn’t just walk out. There was no way in hell Gideon was giving Harrowhark Nonagesimus the satisfaction of watching Gideon Nav turn tail and run stumbling up the stairs. Gideon really hated to run.

She tried to swallow, but her throat didn’t seem to work. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, like Harrow had sucked all the air from the room and Gideon was going to suffocate and die tucked away in the darkest corner booth. Harrow’s eyes were hard and shiny, obsidian, and her mouth was pinched, tight and sharp. She looked exactly the fucking same, like not even a single day had passed. Same hateful mouth, same awful glare. That glare bore into Gideon now, sizing Gideon up and picking her apart. Gideon’s heart was doing fucked up things, like it was trying to race up a hill and wasn’t going to make it, like it was about to just give up and stop entirely at any moment, collapsing onto the pavement with a pitiful gasp.

Gideon resisted the urge to pound a fist against her chest, to punch her heart back into submission. That wouldn’t do. She was a performer, right? A fucking showgirl, and now was showtime. Corona was right, and that—it actually helped. Gideon straightened her back, squared her shoulders. She was just about to twist her mouth into formation, about to present the very best go-to-hell face she had in her carefully curated arsenal of go-to-hell and fuck-you faces, when Harrow blinked and turned away.

Harrow made it seem like nothing, like Gideon was insignificant, miniscule. Like maybe Harrow didn’t even recognize her, really had fallen down the stairs and knocked the years of Gideon Nav from her head. Harrow’d just been staring into space contemplating the proportion of ingredients in one of the cocktails she kept locked up in her brain vault. Or if she did recognize Gideon—she obviously did. Gideon wasn’t so lucky that Harrow could have fallen down the stairs—it didn’t matter, because Harrow was entirely unaffected.

Fuck. Okay, whatever. Harrow could pretend all she wanted. The fact was, Harrow had looked away first. In the rules of staring contests, that meant that Gideon had won, despite appearances, and despite the fact that winning felt a lot like being completely fucked up over seeing the Cryptkeeper for the first time in two years.

At the other end of the bar, Gideon’s gorgeous date was smiling down at her sort-of friend with her hip cocked and her eyes bright. Gideon watched as Corona reached out to set a hand on Judith’s arm. She recognized the move, but she felt gratified that Corona’s eyebrows stayed at their current elevation, that her fingers didn’t come back for a confirmatory squeeze.

Gideon downed the rest of her beer. Corona’s glass was nearly empty and no longer spewing potion-y smoke.

Gideon wasn’t really the jealous sort, but she realized in that moment she felt a little jealous of Corona. They’d both been unexpectedly shoved into the path of the walking, talking past, and Corona faced hers head on. Gideon, in contrast, was tucked away in a dark booth patting herself on the back for winning a probably imaginary staring contest.

“Fuck,” Gideon said to no one, to the bar she hated and the people she’d hoped she’d never see again. She stood and grabbed her empty beer bottle. Was she really going to do this? Was she really going to face Harrow head on?

Her feet were moving, carrying her toward the bar, and her heart hadn’t given up yet. It appeared that the answer was yes.

Gideon stopped short at the sight of a smudged ink figure lurking in front of the notice board. The figure was on the short side, slight, and dressed head to toe in black despite the heat. Gideon would recognize the set of those narrow shoulders anywhere.

It was unmistakably Harrow, and Gideon realized three things in a rush:

1) This was only the second time Gideon had ever seen Harrow outside of The Locked Tomb.

2) It was the first time she’d ever seen Harrow in daylight (that she remembered. They apparently got married during daylight hours, but it wasn’t like Gideon could remember the sight of Harrow’s skin as it began to blister and burn beneath the light of the sun).

And 3) that was her awful little wife standing over there. Gideon’s wife, out in the afternoon heat and covered head-to-toe in black, while Gideon stood in the parking lot in a tank and board shorts, her keys held loose in one hand.

For one insane second, Gideon considered sauntering up to Harrow, positioning herself by Harrow’s side with her hands crossed over her chest and one knee slightly bent. She wondered what Harrow might notice first: Gideon’s sandaled feet? Her exposed knees, the pale hairs shining in the sun? Gideon would smile down at Harrow, shrug one shoulder, maybe open with a truly awful “Hey, wifey.” Harrow’s lips would purse and she would sneer. She’s probably tear Gideon into pieces right then and there, leave her strewn across the parking lot for the vultures to pick clean.

Didn’t matter, because Gideon, it turned out, couldn’t move.

She stood there, frozen in the parking lot of the Mithras Market, the sun hot on her exposed shoulders. She stood there and she watched while Harrow Nonagesimus, her fucking wife, perused some ads like that was a totally normal thing for Harrow to do. Eventually Harrow pulled a phone number tab off of a homemade sign. She didn’t linger once her business there was done. She looked over her shoulder as though worried she might be caught acting like an ordinary human being, and then she rushed away, her short legs moving quickly, efficiently.

Harrow’s movement broke Gideon’s paralysis. Gideon dove and nearly lost a flip-flop as she ducked down behind a row of cars. She waited, crouched there, until Harrow passed. Harrow didn’t see or sense Gideon. She kept moving across the lot toward the road, probably toward the bus stop. Gideon waited until Harrow made it to the sidewalk and then she cursed and stood up.

Fuck, that was dumb. She wasn’t committing any crimes. It was Gideon’s night to cook and she was there to pick up ingredients for a salad. She was allowed to live in the world. She couldn’t be expected to predict the places Harrow might appear. And anyway, the world above the Tomb—the world lit by real actual sunlight—that was Gideon’s and had been for two entire blissful years. Harrow lurked down below, down in the dark and the cold, a creature of the shadows. But now—now apparently Harrow emerged, just thought she could materialize places outside the Tomb and in total daylight. Gideon could be living her life as normal, doing exactly what she was told to do, and Harrow might just show up out of nowhere, like something out of a horror film.

Gideon resumed her walk toward the store that housed the ingredients she needed to make a super gourmet dinner of grilled chicken and caesar salad. She was really hoping to just dump the salad from a bag right into a bowl and call it a day

She made it across the parking lot and up onto the sidewalk. She walked past the notice board without looking at a single one of the posted signs. The automatic doors slid open to welcome her and a rush of cool air smacked Gideon in the face.

Gideon cursed and turned back, nearly knocking into an older man who narrowed his eyes, but allowed Gideon to pass. She shifted two steps to the side until she was standing in front of the notice board. There were several ads there. Ads for movers, housekeepers, dog walkers, afternoon tutors. They were all clustered together, and almost all of them had at least one tab missing. It was impossible to guess which number Harrow had plucked up.

Was she moving? Skipping town and ditching Gideon forever? That seemed unlikely. It wasn’t Harrow’s style. Harrow would never abandon the Tomb, for one thing, and Gideon had never been that lucky.

She probably didn’t need an afternoon tutor considering she was already a cocktail wizard and set for life, and also she was twenty-eight years old—not that that meant she wasn’t in school, but even if she was in school, there was no way Harrow was ever going to admit she needed help with anything ever. Afternoon math tutor was out of the running. That left housekeepers and dog walkers, and dammit, none of this mattered to Gideon! Who the fuck cared if Harrow was a slob and wanted to hire someone to take care of her mess? Gideon did not need to care about this. Gideon didn’t need to care about Harrow at all. She’d made it two years—two whole years!—of Harrow-free life, and now—

Her phone buzzed. Gideon spun around to face the parking lot, certain she was going to find Harrow out there glaring back, but it was all bright blue sky and sunshine, no storm clouds in sight, no tiny voids or angry gremlins ready to come at her with claws and teeth. No smoke or smell of burnt flesh. Gideon pulled her phone from the pocket of her shorts and looked down at her screen. She sucked in a breath at the name she saw there.

Smokin’ Hot Coronabeth.

**

I’ve made a huge mistake, Gideon typed. She cursed and shook her head, jabbed her finger on the back arrow: delete, delete, delete.

She’d tried. She’d really tried.

Gideon tried to pretend nothing had changed for a week. Most of a week. Five days. She took off the ring and shoved it into her bedside drawer. She went about the normal routine of her life. She went to the gym, walked Abigail and Magnus’s dogs, shared dinners with Camilla and Palamedes and Dulcinea when their schedules aligned. She went to work and came home. She played along with the regulars, smiled and laughed. When they flirted, she flirted back, just a little. Just enough to keep them loyal. Except that now when she did it, Corona’s words echoed back—showgirls—and she felt the phantom press of a ring on her finger and Harrow’s hands hot on her neck.

And then she saw Harrow in daylight and Coronabeth Tridentarius sent another text. It read: Can’t stop thinking about those arms. Hope you’re still thinking too. 🙏 Let’s reschedule?

Gideon sort of expected she’d never hear from Corona again. She sort of expected their next encounter in the employee lot at the Mithraeum to be super awkward and embarrassing, all hey, remember that date that fizzled just as it was getting good? But here she was, still thinking about Gideon’s arms apparently, and if it wasn’t for everything else that happened that night, this would have been up there with the best texts Gideon had ever received in her life. Gideon would still be thinking about Corona too.

She wasn’t thinking about Corona though, at least not much. All of her thoughts were Harrow, her entire body just a tortured anguished scream of “Harrow!!!” over and over and over again. Rescheduling their date hardly crossed Gideon’s mind, and she stared at the words on the screen for a long time, unsure how to respond. She typed I’ve made a huge mistake, a second time and then deleted it a second time, tried I’m a married woman now and then deleted that too. She didn’t add that she’d just returned home from spying on her wife at the grocery store. That was too much even for Gideon. Instead she tried: Sure, name the time and the place, I’ll be there with bells on. She stared at that for a super long time, before she finally muttered, “Stupid. I must be insane,” and left Corona’s text unanswered. Gideon stewed for another hour and then she traversed the hall and knocked on the door to Dulcinea’s room.

“What would Dulcinea do?” she asked by way of greeting. She pushed her phone into Dulcie’s hand and then waited as Dulcie read the message.

“Can’t stop thinking about those arms,” Dulcie repeated with a flutter of very blue eyes.

“Yeah,” Gideon shrugged. Under any other set of circumstances—eleven out of ten.

“It sounds very promising,” Dulcinea said, carefully. She paused, and when Gideon didn’t jump in, just pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes, Dulcie amended: “It sounds very promising except…”

Gideon groaned. She sat heavily down on the bed and ignored the cat’s glare, and then fell back and stared up at the ceiling. “Except I just saw Harrow outside Mithras—don’t do that bright-eyed surprised thing, it was weird and from a distance. We didn’t talk, but I feel... married. I don’t know. Like, I’m taken. Off the market. Something.”

“So tell her that,” Dulcinea suggested, carefully skirting the Harrow news. It was logical advice, probably, but Gideon wasn’t finished.

“It’s like I’m in limbo. Back in The Locked Tomb’s perpetual purgatory.” She paused. “Is that what you would do? You’d tell her that?”

Dulcinea considered the question. “It depends.”

Gideon waited, and when Dulcinea didn’t continue right away she waved a hand, desperate for Dulcie to go on. “It depends on what?”

“Well, if it were me—and it would never be me, for the record. And, of course, it would never be Pal or Cam either. This seems a very singular Gideon Nav sort of experience. I want you to know I love that—it would depend on where I planned to go with it all next.”

Gideon had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean. She was still stuck and a little offended over ‘singular Gideon Nav sort of experience’.

“For instance, if I really did not want to be married to the little beast, I would have spoken to a lawyer days ago instead of doing what she told me to do and floating in limbo for a week. If I was, perhaps, curious, because after all, I did choose to marry her and there must have been a reason, I’d tell the gorgeous dancer the truth and I’d take my chances in Locked Tomb limbo. Why did you marry her anyway? You still haven’t said.”

Gideon turned so that she was facedown on the bed. She groaned into the blankets. It wasn’t even a contest. Harrowhark Nonagesimus or Coronabeth Tridentarius. One was an evil conniving cave troll, the Cryptkeeper, and the other was Coronabeth.

The thing was—the thing was, it was the evil conniving cave troll she couldn’t stop thinking about. Why did she marry her?

“I need a lawyer,” Gideon concluded.

“Oh!” Dulcinea looked genuinely surprised, which made it all worse. “Well, if that’s what you’ve decided then you’re in luck. We have just the lawyer for you.”

**

The lawyer turned out to be Pal’s mother. She was exactly how Gideon imagined the mother of Palamedes Sextus might be, except hot, like really fucking hot. Like take all of Palamedes and rearrange him so he fits together correctly hot. Angular, but the angles all point in the right direction hot. Like Gideon was never going to let Palamedes hear the end of it hot. Like—

“Okay,” Cam cut in, because Gideon needed support and Palamedes worked during the day like a normal human, and Dulcie had a life or appointments or something, so the short straw went to Cam. “You made your point.”

“You all knew this,” Gideon accused, knee bouncing. “You were keeping it from me.”

“Yeah,” Cam agreed. “We kept it from you because the last thing Pal wanted was Gideon Nav dating his mother. Now you’re married, so…” Cam shrugged and set a hand on Gideon’s knee to still her. “You’re shaking the whole room.”

“Like the textbook definition of MILF,” Gideon continued in wonder. “A MILF and a LILF? Lawyer I’d like to—”

Camilla interrupted Gideon with a pained groan. “I wish he was here to suffer through this in my place.”

Pal’s mother—Juno Zeta, what a name!—explained the difference between uncontested divorce and contested divorce. When Gideon said she wasn’t sure which way this would go, Juno Zeta just nodded and went over the steps involved with each. The uncontested divorce process began with one party—that was Gideon—drafting the divorce documents. Then she and Harrow were supposed to review them together and agree to all of the terms. They’d been married for like a week. It wasn’t like they had a life and kids to split up. Gideon’s terms were simple; she just wanted it undone, so she could continue with her life as if it had never happened and maybe ask Coronabeth (or Juno Zeta) on a date again. Once Harrow agreed, a judge would review and approve. No real court stuff needed, total cost less than two thousand dollars. Expensive, sure, but it sounded relatively painless.

If the divorce was contested, then the process got more complicated. Gideon filed her papers and then she and Harrow had to try to negotiate a settlement (of what, Gideon had absolutely no idea). Then they went through the motions and a CMC, which stood for something or other. Juno Zeta fiddled with her glasses at that point and Gideon totally missed what she’d said. Cam would have to fill her in later. She was pretty sure she got the important stuff. With a contested divorce they went to court, they gathered and provided documents. There were witnesses involved and an actual trial and the judge decided the terms of the divorce.

There was also the annulment option. It sounded easier than a divorce. A little too easy. It made Gideon suspicious, like there was a loophole. Like they weren’t actually drunk enough or something, and they’d find out at the last minute that an annulment wouldn’t fly.

Pal’s mom, hottest divorce lawyer ever, recommended trying the annulment first. Gideon thought the uncontested route made more sense. Juno Zeta gave Gideon a form to fill out, in which Gideon was expected to know all kinds of things about Harrow like Harrow’s address and Harrow’s monthly income and Harrow’s freakin’ assets. There was a big note about how they lived in a community property state and therefore what was Gideon’s was Harrow’s and what was Harrow’s was Gideon’s, which was whatever. Gideon didn’t have anything anyway and she didn’t need anything of Harrow’s. Harrow had the Tomb, sort of, and the Tomb was the very last thing Gideon wanted in this world.

“Fill out what you can,” Juno suggested. “If it’s uncontested, your wife can fill out the rest. If you both agree to the terms, a judge reviews, we wrap it all up, and you’re single once more.”

Great. Gideon’s wife would fill out the rest, they would return the papers to Pal’s Hot Mom, and Gideon would wake up from this nightmare. All she needed to do was talk to Harrow.

Chapter Text

Gideon’s feet carried her across the room and then stopped her at the bar, right in front of Harrow Nonagesimus. She froze there for one terrifying moment, just long enough to reconsider the plan, the reckless stupidity of it all. Harrow hadn’t looked up yet. There was still time to turn back.

No. Come on. Reckless stupidity was practically the Nav M.O. Gideon was doing this.

She cleared her throat. Harrow ignored it. She was busy wiping circles into the top of the bar with a paper towel and for one hot awful second, Gideon thought that Harrow really might pretend not to see her, or worse (better?), that she really didn’t remember Gideon at all. And then Gideon’s mouth opened without her full permission. She tried to speak and nothing came out. She cleared her throat again and this time Harrow looked up, eyes black and so damn cold.

“Yes?”

Harrow didn’t wait for Gideon to respond. Her eyes slid back to the bar and she resumed wiping down the polished wood.

Gideon stared at Harrow like the idiot Harrow had always assumed she was, mouth open and kinda gaping. She searched for her old anchors, the places on Harrow’s face where Gideon could look and still feel a little grounded, but with Harrow’s head down and the glasses, those spots were hard to find. Which sounded weird, but—okay, so Harrow had two moles on the side of her nose and one on her cheek. They were the flat kind that looked like big freckles. One of them was on the bridge of her nose, right beside her right eye, and then a smaller one just below that. The one on her cheek was on the other side, below her left eye and closer to her nose than to her ear. They were like beauty marks or whatever, except Gideon didn’t like to use the words ‘beauty’ and ‘Harrow’ in the same sentence ever, thanks. And for some reason, when Gideon thought about Harrow--hardly ever, always awful—she thought specifically of those freckles on Harrow’s nose first. Gideon used to look at the marks on Harrow’s face when she needed to look at Harrow but couldn’t stand to look her in the eye.

Now the frame of Harrow’s prescriptionless glasses rested right over the mole on Harrow’s cheek. The bridge covered the one by her right eye and—no, okay. Okay, so the smallest one was there, nearly obscured by the glasses, but still visible, good enough. Gideon latched on, took comfort in that little partially exposed spot.

Harrow raised her eyebrows and the mark disappeared beneath the glasses with the others. Gideon blinked. “I know you didn’t forget how to talk, Griddle. No one’s that lucky.”

Ha, right, so everything really was exactly the same. Total bitch. Worse than Tridentarius.

Also, definitely hadn’t forgotten Gideon.

Gideon squared her shoulders. She was fine. She had this. “I need a Garnet Crow—” She paused. “—for my date, and a—” Gideon stopped just short of ordering another beer. The Locked Tomb had a list of intricate cocktails that were extremely tedious to make—for anyone other than Harrow anyway. Even so, why order another beer when she could make Harrow light springs of rosemary on fire to fill a glass with smoke?

“And a what?” Harrow prodded. That was exactly the same too. Harrow was still as impatient as ever.

Gideon reached for one of the drink menus placed along the bar. The Locked Tomb’s menu was always changing, always evolving, but when Gideon actually looked down at the printed list, she found that there was very little that was new. She could make almost every one of the drinks listed from memory, wouldn’t even need to glance at Harrow’s overly detailed instruction sheets. Gideon frowned down at the menu, checked to make sure there wasn’t another page she was missing. No, she wasn’t missing anything. That was it. Gideon slapped it back down onto the bar. ”What the fuck, Harrow. This menu has hardly changed since I left.”

Harrow shifted. “A Garnet Crow and a what?”

Right, well, now Gideon had no choice but to stall. She set down the menu and propped one arm on the bar, then took her time looking around the place, as though for the first time since she’d arrived.

“The lights have changed though. It’s darker down here than I remember,” Gideon said. Harrow nodded. “Less crowded.” Harrow nodded again, and Gideon tapped her fingers against the menu. “Okay, seriously, you’ve had nothing new to add to this thing in two years?”

Harrow stared hard at Gideon, hard enough that Gideon couldn’t just look away, couldn’t just focus on the moles or beauty marks or whatever on Harrow’s nose instead. “Are you going to order?” Harrow asked. “I am working. I’m busy. I don’t have time for this or for you.”

“Ouch,” Gideon said, even though the words failed to hit their intended mark. In fact, they hardly hurt at all. That was a nice change. “Okay, so make the Garnet Crow while I decide.”

Harrow’s glare was laced with sharp shards of glass and crazy sharp daggers, but Gideon somehow managed to dodge (like, emotionally) and they failed to cut. Fuck, that felt good. It felt really good to be free of the Tomb and immune to its Cryptkeeper.

Gideon held onto the menu, but she barely looked at it. She couldn’t help herself. She’d always liked to watch Harrow work. The thing was—the thing was, bartending wasn’t much different than dealing cards, and the way Corona told it, that wasn’t much different from being a star showgirl at the Mithraeum. Bartenders were performers too. A good bartender was comfortable starting a conversation, provided they weren’t busy. A good bartender knew how to throw in a smile and lean in close, make a patron feel like they were the favorite of the night, the only person in the entire place. Gideon had been good at that.

Harrow didn’t even try.

There was more to it though. There were the smiles, the lean, but there was also the confidence. Gideon was pretty good at feigning confidence, at least on the job. Not so much right now. Still, a bit of blatant innuendo, some lighthearted ribbing, a wink. Everyone loved a cocky bartender.

Harrow wasn’t that either.

Harrow was an alchemist. A mixologist. A mastermind. Harrow was the entire fucking menu of this place. Gideon couldn’t piss Harrow off by ordering a complicated drink, because those complicated drinks were Harrow’s children. She took them seriously, each and every one.

Gideon hadn’t been bad at this job. She earned her tips, hardly ever received a complaint, but she was always subpar to Harrow. Harrow took one straw-drawn sip of a drink Gideon mixed and immediately rattled off a list of every misstep, each imprecise measurement. She stood behind that bar with her back straight and her crisp little tie, with her pointless glasses pushed up on her nose. She rarely smiled at anyone. She was abysmal at small talk. She took the position seriously and she had no time for smiles or winks. That was Gideon’s realm.

Ianthe made her tips by being a nasty bitch—there were people who loved that, apparently—but for Harrow, success rested entirely on skill. And it wasn’t just technical skill. There was artistry there too. Harrow had devotees. They came and they sat at the bar and they requested something new, an off-menu creation. Dealer’s choice. Harrow asked a short list of essential questions about taste and allergies, and then Harrow performed. She created. And she wrote each step of every creation down in a small notebook she kept stashed in the pocket of her apron.

The part that had always confused Gideon, the part that never seemed to fit, was that Harrow didn’t even like the drinks she made. She tasted them all with the dip of a straw, her thumb over the end. A few drops on her tongue, an adjustment here or there. She did it impassively, and her face never twisted regardless of flavor or tone, but in the early hours of the morning, when the doors were locked and the lights were on, she admitted—just the once—that she’d never liked the taste of anything she’d ever made.

“Why do it the way that you do then?” Gideon asked, years ago. The level of attention Harrow bestowed on a drink wasn’t necessary. Most people who frequented The Locked Tomb weren’t looking for alchemy. They just wanted to get drunk and maybe get laid, same as any other bar in the city.

Harrow didn’t have a good answer for her then. Now Harrow slid Corona’s drink across the bar toward Gideon and said, “What else.”

Gideon leaned back to look down the length of the bar toward her date. Corona and Judith were still deep in conversation. It looked a lot friendlier than Gideon’s own trip down memory lane. She turned back toward Harrow and stared at the smallest spot on Harrow’s nose as she said, “Dealer’s choice.”

“What?”

“Dealer’s choice,” Gideon said. She gestured back toward the bottles behind the bar. Gideon was suddenly feeling very brave, and she shifted her gaze, looking Harrow right in the eyes. “You know, make me whatever you want.”

“No,” Harrow said, with a shake of her head. She didn’t look away, but she looked like she really wanted to. That was one way they were alike. Harrow also hated to run. “I don’t do that anymore.”

Weird, but that explained why the menu hadn’t changed. “Why the hell not? It was the only thing I actually liked about this place.” Gideon stopped short of adding, “You were good at it.” Harrow didn’t need her ego stroked.

“I just don’t,” Harrow said. She took off her glasses—there were all those missing marks!—wiped the lenses on her shirt and then put them back on her face. “Pick a standard or something off the menu.”

Gideon pressed her hands against the edge of the bar and leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Come on, Harrow. You used to love that shit.”

Harrow pushed her glasses up on her nose, pressed them back against her face with one finger as she closed her eyes. “You don’t know me, Griddle. You never did. Don’t pretend you know the first thing about what I love.”

Not true. Gideon knew that Harrow loved being a cold fucking bitch. Harrow loved knocking everyone around her down a peg or ten. Gideon knew that Harrow loved—

“And stop doing press ups against my bar. I hate it when you show off.”

Harrow loved reminding everyone that at the end of the day, The Locked Tomb was hers.

Gideon stopped doing press ups against Harrow’s bar as Harrow grabbed a glass and turned away.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making you a drink,” Harrow said, her voice low and irritated.

Dealer’s choice. Yeah, sure, Gideon didn’t know the first fucking thing! She watched as Harrow studied the rows of bottles lining the wall.

“Something with gin,” Gideon suggested, and then watched as Harrow pulled down a dark rum followed by a coconut rum instead. Okay, so full bartender’s choice then, no input. That was fine too. Gideon could do tropical and anyway—she really couldn’t believe her brain was thinking this, but—she actually trusted Harrow when it came to a mixed drink. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else. But a mixed drink? Yeah, she could trust Harrow with that.

Harrow added the coconut rum to the glass, picked up the dark rum and then put it back down. She was chewing her bottom lip in concentration. Probably because she started with coconut rum, of all things. Gideon remembered how Harrow used to chew her bottom lip red and raw on the difficult nights. There shouldn’t be anything difficult about this. This was Harrow’s zone, unless—Gideon considered that Harrow might be trying to make the drink bad, a sort of punishment for Gideon’s sudden appearance and her presumptuous request. Gideon was surprised to realize that that was okay with her too. It’d hurt Harrow more than it hurt Gideon.

“You said you were here with a date?” Harrow asked. Her eyes flicked up toward Gideon and then immediately back down again. “I’m surprised, Griddle.”

Gideon waited for the rest. Something like “So which is it, Griddle? Is she deaf or just shallow?” and then Gideon would say, “Why do you say shallow? You think I’m so hot, people might date me just for my looks?” And Harrow would get all flustered and Gideon would grin, as big and wide as her mouth would go. She might even wink just to really piss Harrow off.

“What’s wrong with your face? I’m just surprised you’re here bothering me while your date is all over someone else.”

Gideon wiped a hand down her face in an attempt to get her expressions under control, and then narrowed her eyes. “Nice try, Cryptkeeper.” She resisted the urge to check on Corona and kept watching Harrow instead. Harrow pushed aside the coconut rum and grabbed another glass. “She’s Ianthe’s sister, apparently.”

“No shit,” Harrow said, in a tone that made it difficult to guess whether Harrow was actually surprised. She moved her glassware and bottles to the counter opposite the bar and then pulled another bottle down from the wall. Gideon didn’t catch what it was, and when Harrow carefully obscured it with her body, Gideon understood where they were headed.

Harrow loved a lot of awful things, and one of the awful things Harrow loved was tests. She turned her head to look back at Gideon over her shoulder. “Ianthe’s sister picked the location?”

“Obviously,” Gideon agreed. “You know I never would have—” She suddenly felt a bit like she might get snapped at for slacking on the job, an eerie feeling, a ghost breathing down her neck. She checked over her shoulder and found no one there, just the bar and the portraits and Corona laughing at something Judith said. Gideon shivered. “No Crux today?”

“Haven’t seen him tonight.” Harrow grabbed for the coconut rum again.

“Not dead though,” Gideon guessed.

“No.”

That was good. The last thing The Locked Tomb needed was Crux haunting the place. “Shame.”

Harrow grunted. The drink came together quickly after that. Harrow gave it three shakes—always Gideon’s favorite part of the entire process, a mini arm workout that could be done on the job—and poured it into a tumbler. Next came Harrow’s taste test. She slipped a short straw into the drink and pressed her thumb to the top. Gideon watched as Harrow dripped the drink onto her tongue. Gideon felt a slight rush, her heart fluttered strangely, and she realized she was nervous again. After a moment of consideration, Harrow nodded. The glass she pushed toward Gideon looked pale and almost milky, like water so cold it was about to turn to ice.

“What is it?” Gideon asked, though she’d played this game often enough that she knew the question wouldn’t get her anywhere.

“Dealer’s Choice,” Harrow said, simply. “You tell me.”

Gideon sniffed the glass. She smelled the rum and—”Ginger beer or ginger ale.” Gideon sipped the drink, held it pooled on her tongue for just a moment. Huh, okay. When Harrow pulled down the rums Gideon expected something fruity, and there was a bit of fruit there, but just a hint. The rest was—”Shit, Harrow.”

“Well?”

“Coconut rum, dark rum—” (“Obviously.”) “—ginger beer.” Gideon took another sip. “Pineapple?”

Harrow nodded. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the back counter. The glasses really did finish off Harrow’s look of appraisal and superiority.

“And there’s something like—” Gideon sipped the drink again. It was actually really fucking good. Cold and surprisingly spicy, just a hint of licorice, which seemed like it shouldn’t work at all, but somehow— “Sambuca?”

“No.”

Gideon snapped her fingers. “Absinthe.”

“Hm,” Harrow said. She pulled her notebook from her apron and started scribbling. Gideon suddenly felt like no time had passed at all, like things had never been rotten, like she’d never left swearing up and down that she’d never set foot in this shithole again.

“This is…it’s okay.” A definite downplay. “It’s like what ice would taste like if ice was a little spicy and made with rum.”

“Spicy ice,” Harrow repeated. “Inspired as always, Nav, thanks.”

That was the moment Corona chose to return to Gideon’s side. “There you are,” Corona said, a little breathless. She pressed a hand to Gideon’s back and leaned in close toward Gideon’s ear. She smelled like cake, all sweet and vanilla. “I saw the booth empty and I thought—well, I thought I’d just royally fucked everything up.”

“No,” Gideon smiled, though she felt off kilter now, like she’d forgotten how to flirt and even her smile was somehow wrong and off. She looked over toward Harrow and found her still focused on scrawling out her notes on the spicy ice drink. Gideon picked up the Garnet Crow and presented it to Corona. “I got you another drink.”

“Oh!” Corona said. She lifted the drink she held in her hand, smiled a bit sheepishly, then downed it in one long gulp. Harrow made a pained sound at the sight of someone chugging one of her creations, thus confirming that she wasn’t actually as absorbed in her notes as she appeared. Corona ignored Harrow and tipped her empty glass toward Gideon before setting it down. “Thank you.”

The Corona that returned to Gideon didn’t seem like a Corona who had quenched the need to catch up with an old friend and was ready to return her focus to getting to know a first date. She seemed like a person who still had unfinished business and had been dragged away too soon. Gideon took a sip of her spicy ice drink and considered her options. They could push forward, both distracted, and see where they came out. But what they were doing now—Corona and Gideon, flanked by Harrow and Judith, with Ianthe Tridentarius watching it all play out—was a recipe for an awkward disaster, and Gideon had already faced enough awkward disaster for one night. If they recognized that now and took a loss, maybe they could salvage this later on.

“Listen,” Gideon said, certain she’d both lost her mind and was making the right choice. “This isn’t really fair, is it?”

Corona’s smile fell, just a fraction, the corners of her beautiful mouth drooping. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the way the night’s working out, it isn’t really giving us a fair shot. You’re distracted by your friend, I’m distracted by—” here Gideon waved a hand to encompass all of The Locked Tomb. She made sure she included Harrow in the gesture. “I’m not on my game here. I left my game back at the door.”

Corona took a deep breath. Her smile was back in full force and she shook her head, brow furrowed. “If this is Gideon Nav off her game, I’m not sure I could handle you on it.” That was very kind, but based on the snort that emanated from their audience, it was definitely trying too hard. Corona side-eyed Harrow in a way that confirmed she’d been here often enough that Harrow definitely already knew she was Ianthe’s sister. Finally, Corona gave in and sighed. “Of course, you’re right.”

“Go back to catching up with your friend,” Gideon suggested. “Really. I’ll escape the Tomb a second time, and then, if you still want to—”

“Of course. I want to,” Corona said this in a rush. She sounded serious, earnest. “We’ll reschedule, and I swear I’ll let you choose the location next time. Beforehand, no surprises.”

“That sounds good. With our luck, I pick the next place and it’s the one spot in town that still shows up in your nightmares.”

Corona seemed unsure what to really say to that other than a series of ‘ohs’ and ‘nos’ and Gideon wished that she could take it back, that her mouth didn’t move faster than her brain at exactly the wrong moments.

“No, it’s fine,” Gideon said. “I swear. Sorry, I’m… off my game.” So fucking lame.

“Me too,” Corona agreed. “And maybe that’s good too. I might be a mess tonight, but now I know you’re sweet, even off your game.” She pressed her drink into Gideon’s hand, and then pressed a kiss to the corner of Gideon’s mouth. “Thank you,” she said, low and intimate.

“You’re welcome,” Gideon returned, a little dumbstruck and a lot dazed. She sat there, unmoving, unable to even turn and watch Corona walk away. When she did turn, she turned toward Harrow.

“You’re welcome,” Harrow mimicked with a nasty twist to her mouth. Her face was all crumpled up like she was staring at an incomprehensible puzzle with pieces that were never designed to fit.

“What?”

“You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought you were.”

That broke Corona’s spell a little and Gideon felt her shoulders relax. She laughed. “Maybe,” she agreed, but she didn’t really think so.

Harrow wasn’t finished. She scoffed. “Off your game, Griddle? Come now. My dog has more game than you.”

“Yeah, okay, the thing is, you’ve never actually seen my game, have you? You might not know the first thing about it, but Corona knows. The Mithraeum knows. I’ve got game, Harrow. Think about that.”

“I don’t have the inclination or the time to waste thinking about you. I’ve seen more than enough.”

Gideon shrugged and took a slow sip of her drink. She tipped her glass toward Harrow, who stood there with an expression like a brewing storm. “What are you going to call this when you add it to the menu?” A Brewing Storm actually seemed like it might be fitting.

“Nothing,” Harrow said, too quickly. “The menu stays as is.”

Gideon shrugged again. “Turns out you’re a bigger idiot than I thought you were too.”

Gideon didn’t go straight from the office of Juno Zeta to the inconspicuous door leading down to the Tomb. She should have. She should have made Cam come with her. She should have gone right away and pushed the papers into Harrow’s hand. Instead, when Cam asked if Gideon wanted to ‘get this over with’ Gideon said, “It’s my night to make dinner.” And that was what she did. She went home with her papers and with Cam and she grilled some chicken and she tossed together a caesar salad from a couple bags. She cracked jokes about Pal’s mom and revelled in the way Dulcie lit up at the sight of his flushed face and stumbling responses.

And then three days later Gideon pressed her thumb to the buzzer beside the unmarked door, just a few blocks from the Mithraeum.

“I pray that the Tomb is shut forever.” The truth in those words!

The door clicked and Gideon rushed down the stairs.

It was early and the Tomb was quiet, just a few people at the bar and maybe half the booths occupied. Ortus was behind the bar, and he actually looked pretty relaxed, a testament to the late afternoon lull. There was no immediate sign of Harrow, no shadowy goblins lurking in the corners, and Gideon felt her body relax. She shifted the bag she’d slung over her shoulder, the divorce papers neatly placed in a folder within, then sighed and approached her old buddy Ortus.

“Hey,” Gideon said, sliding onto a stool. Ortus startled. His sad mouth twitched, and for a moment she thought he might actually smile at the sight of her. Ortus always looked like he took his job so seriously with his starched white shirt and his dark vest and tie, but in truth he was only there because his father had worked there back when Crux was merely a manager and Harrow’s parents ran the place. He was only there because it was a sure thing, a job that would pay the bills while Ortus puttered away at his masterpiece, some sprawling fantasy novel that did not include sorceresses kissing the knuckles of badass butch warriors in thanks for battles won, and therefore was of little interest to Gideon. “Harrow around?”

“Ianthe said you’d returned and I didn’t believe her,” Ortus said. He was staring at her now as though he’d seen a goddamn ghost. “And now here you are, alive and in the flesh.”

Gideon paused. “Ortus, did they tell you I died?”

She could picture it. She could picture Crux and Harrow calling a meeting, gathering everyone together before the bar opened. Blah blah, Nav is no longer with us, blah blah, a sacrifice for the Tomb. Weird solemn stuff acting as if Gideon had kicked it, like maybe they’d actually offed her just because she refused to work in this hellhole another second.

“Well, of course not literally,” Ortus clarified, “but with the circumstances surrounding your leaving, I never expected to see you again, and certainly not here.” As though Ortus knew a damn factual thing about the circumstances surrounding Gideon’s leaving.

“Yeah, it’s pretty unbelievable,” Gideon agreed, “but for once Tridentarius was telling the truth.”

“Why?” It was an unusually short and straightforward sentence coming from Ortus Nigenad.

“My wife works here,” Gideon said, because it was Ortus, and for some reason shrugging the whole thing off and acting like it was nothing in front of Ortus was easier than it would be in front of anyone else. Gideon thought about just leaving the folder of papers with Ortus. Unlike Ianthe, she actually kinda trusted that Ortus would give Harrow the folder without reading the contents first. “Harrow isn’t here today?”

“She’s in the back.” He glanced down at his watch. “She’ll return momentarily.”

Gideon nodded. She looked Ortus up and down, then she smiled. “Miss me?”

“Not in the slightest,” Ortus said, gravely.

Gideon couldn’t help herself. She laughed. She was still laughing when Harrow emerged from the back with three bottles of wine tucked tight beneath her arm.

Gideon wasn’t ready. She looked directly at Harrow, right in those dark dark eyes. She expected to feel a jolt, a poison jab. It didn’t come. Instead Harrow stumbled, her foot catching on a floor mat. The bottles slid beneath her arms and Gideon jumped up from her stool as one started to slip. Harrow swore and shifted, just barely caught hold of the bottles before they crashed to the floor. She recovered with a gasp, and the adrenaline of the moment had Gideon’s insides twitching, a strange giddy dance. It didn’t last long. Once recovered, Harrow immediately returned to her normal hard and angry state.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, after what felt like a myriad. “I told you not to come.”

“Yeah,” Gideon agreed. She was going for light, confident, and she hoped no one heard the slight waiver in her voice. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t have to do what you tell me to do anymore. Especially considering—” Harrow shook her head, too fast, desperate. She tilted her chin repeatedly toward Ortus. “—everything.”

Ortus cleared his throat.

“I might have already given that one away,” Gideon admitted. And: “Sorry.”

She wasn’t actually that sorry.

“So a moment ago,” Ortus started, carefully.

“No,” cut in Harrow, hard, fast, but Ortus continued anyway.

“You said that your wife worked here, and I dismissed this as a joke. Surely when you said wife, even joking, you didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, I meant Harrow.”

“Nav,” Harrow warned, aghast.

“Don’t Nav me, Harrow. I’m not going to pretend I understand how this happened, but it took both of us to get here.”

“Congratulations,” Ortus choked out. He looked all bound up, totally constipated and completely tying himself in knots trying to decide if he should be happy for them or horrified. Gideon understood his dilemma. But also, he should be horrified. The correct response was definitely horror.

Harrow set down the wine bottles and pressed a curled fist to her forehead. “How hard is it, Griddle? All you had to do was stay away. That’s it! That’s all I asked. We don’t speak of it, you don’t call, you don’t come find me. Just stay away and pretend none of it ever happened! And what do you do? You call, you come find me—” She marked off each infraction on her fingers and then gave up and waved a tense hand in Ortus’s direction. “And you speak of it! This is why you were an awful bartender, and it’s why you’re undoubtedly awful at dealing cards too. You can’t even be bothered to follow such simple instructions.”

Oh, it was on. “If I’m so awful at everything, why the fuck did you marry me? It doesn’t add up, Harrow. There’s obviously something you think I’m pretty damn good at. It’s not bartending, not dealing cards, so hm, wonder what it could possibly be!”

Harrow’s mouth snapped shut and her whole face flushed dark. It was almost worth it. It was almost worth shutting Harrow down, except in doing so she’d dealt damage against herself too. They both understood Gideon’s implication. They both remembered at least some of that night.

Harrow’s hot little hands digging into Gideon’s shoulders, Harrow pulling Gideon’s head down into a kiss.

Gideon wondered, suddenly, what might happen if Ortus wasn’t there. If there wasn’t a bar separating them and patrons trying to enjoy the relative quiet of the afternoon. If—No, nope! Sorry, no. Gideon refused. She refused to picture Harrow grabbing Gideon by the front of her shirt, or shoving Gideon back against the back counter, bottles shaking and threatening to fall. That way madness lies.

It was sad, anyway, unrealistic and badly characterized. It was laughable. Harrow wasn’t that strong! Now if Gideon was in this situation with Corona—

If she was in this situation with Corona, she imagined it all playing out much much differently.

Back in her awful married-to-Harrow reality, smoke was about to start streaming from Harrow’s ears and when she spoke her words were scary low and so tight with tension that Ortus actually flinched. “That took both of us too.”

Harrow was very close to snapping. If Gideon wasn’t careful, Harrow might actually come after her, might launch herself up and over the bar, her fingers wrapped tight around Gideon’s throat.

Harrow, Gideon noted, wasn’t wearing her ring either.

Gideon wasn’t in the mood to be careful. She shrugged. “Yeah, but who started it?” It was an actual question and Gideon really would like to know the answer. She knew who started it the first time, the very first time it happened, years ago, bottles shaking and threatening to fall. What she didn’t understand was, which of them was stupid enough to start it all again? The bits she remembered suggested it was Harrow, but there were still a lot of bits that felt very fuzzy.

Harrow glared at Gideon for one long drawn out moment, and then she turned and pointed to a man at the end of the bar, glass empty. “You. You need another drink.”

“Uh, sure,” the guy said. He slid his glass toward Harrow.

And that was that. Harrow buried herself in her work, the picture of a solemn and serious bartender, skilled and attentive. Just don’t expect a conversation.

On Gideon’s end of the bar, Ortus watched them both with big sad dog eyes. He had a towel slung over his shoulder and he adjusted it every time it threatened to slide off. They weren’t technically allowed to use cloth towels, something about bacteria build up, but Ortus always insisted on wearing it anyway. It was an important part of his aesthetic. In truth, Gideon understood the appeal and she’d even tried it a few times. The towel did nothing but get her in trouble. She couldn’t resist playfully snapping it at whoever she was working with that night. She aimed a little too well and hit Harrow’s flat ass exactly once and that was it. Banned from wearing the cool towel for life. No one in the Tomb was ever any fun.

There wasn’t much point in staying now.

She’d arrived with one purpose and immediately fucked it all up, foot shoved resolutely into her mouth. If she’d kept her trap shut, said nothing to Ortus and pulled Harrow aside at the first chance, Harrow might have appreciated the discretion. She might have been receptive to accepting the papers. They could have sat down in the corner booth, looking carefully anywhere except at each other while they read through it together. They could have finished it all then and there.

That wasn’t happening now. Harrow would take her to court before she sat down across a table from Gideon. Harrow would make sure Gideon never wriggled free. Gideon needed another plan. She needed—

“What the fuck did I ever see in you?” Gideon asked the air, louder than she meant to. Ortus responded by pushing a shot glass across the bar toward her. Gideon accepted it, raised the glass to Ortus, and threw it back. Free whiskey from Ortus, who recognized a sad sack when he saw one. Wonderful. A new low. Gideon seriously contemplated just being done with it all, just throwing the papers across the bar at Harrow and then dealing with the fallout.

But if she did that, she’d always wondered how they let it happen at all. She’d never know.

Okay, so, fine, Gideon could play this game too. Gideon could bide her time, wait for the right moment. She wanted to know how it all happened and why. She needed to know, so she’d wait. She’d wait, and when the moment was right, she’d bring up the divorce. They were so wrongly matched, it wouldn’t take long. Every moment was the right moment for divorce when it came to Gideon and Harrow. She just needed an in. She just needed—Gideon tapped her fingers against the bar, forehead furrowed as she went over everything she remembered of that night. Corona’s hand gripping her arm, Ianthe’s sneer, Harrow with her back toward Gideon, mixing a drink. Corona left with Judith and Gideon stayed—why the fuck did she stay—and when Harrow’s shift ended, she—

Shit, okay. That was it. That was why she found Harrow standing outside the Mithras Market staring at a notice board. Harrow, though almost definitely a slob, wasn’t looking for a housekeeper. Gideon stared hard at Harrow’s back and noted a clump of pale hair that clung to the shoulder of Harrow’s black shirt. Her eyes shifted to the shelf below the cash register where someone had stashed two lint rollers.

Gideon knew exactly what she needed to do.

Gideon bent down behind Palamedes, one hand propped on the edge of his desk as she read the words on the computer screen over his shoulder. He stroked his chin, considered the format and phrasing. Eventually he turned his head, nearly colliding with Gideon’s too-close face, and said, “Do you actually want another job?”

“Of course not,” Gideon scoffed. She stood up, stepped back to give Palamedes some space to breathe. “I just want to figure out the game Harrow’s playing.”

“Right,” Palamedes agreed. “And Harrow does have your phone number, correct?”

Probably. Unless she deleted it after Gideon’s last call. It hadn’t changed though, so yeah, Harrow could find her number easily enough. “Yeah, why?”

Palamedes nodded and resumed typing. Gideon crowded back in and when it came time to type Gideon’s phone number, the number that Palamedes typed was just slightly off. “No, that’s wrong.”

Palamedes looked over at her, obviously disappointed. It was the face he made when Gideon was missing something so blatantly obvious that even Dulcinea’s cat understood before Gideon caught up. Palamedes was a lot like Harrow that way. Just nicer about the fact that he was a fucking genius.

“It’s wrong so I don’t end up getting calls from the entire neighborhood,” Gideon translated, putting the pieces together. She stared at the sign, read through the advertisement, recreated almost word-for-word from a similar one she’d found via an internet search on her phone and pushed into Pal’s face, and then pointed toward her name. “Put ‘Griddle’ instead.”

“Griddle,” Palamedes repeated, slowly, as though trying to get used to the feel of the word.

“Yeah, I know it’s awful, but she’ll get it and she’ll know that it’s me.”

Pal replaced ‘Call Gideon’ with ‘Call Griddle.’ He sat back in the chair and it creaked dramatically beneath him. “I think that’s it then, except for one thing.”

“Nah, this looks great,” Gideon said. “It’s exactly what I was going for.”

“The one thing is a question,” Palamedes clarified. “Why are you trying to lure Harrowhark into calling you if you aren’t interested in continuing with the marriage? Why put me through the torture of visiting my mother if you aren’t going to follow through with the annulment?”

Now it was Gideon’s turn to look at Palamedes as though he was a complete moron. “Because I don’t get how we got here,” Gideon said.

“According to Camilla, you spent more than an hour on that dance floor with your tongue down Harrow’s throat,” Palamedes said. “I imagine that had something to do with it.”

“Okay, first, gross, and second, if it was just—” what had Dulcie called it? “—friendly hate sex or whatever, maybe that would make sense.” (It wouldn’t make sense.) “But we didn’t even have sex! We just went and got married.”

“And you think walking Harrow’s mystery dog is going to help you understand why you married her.”

“Maybe!” She’d never understand any of it if the only interaction they had was inside the Tomb. The Tomb raised defenses. It brought out the worst in everyone. Gideon needed to meet Harrow outside of that space, needed to meet Harrow away from Crux and Ianthe and Ortus, away from the portrait of her parents and the notebook of recipes. She needed to see Harrow in real daylight and real darkness.

Outside of the Tomb, Harrow had a dog. It was confirmation that Gideon didn’t know the first thing about the woman she married, the woman she’d worked alongside for six long years. A dog!

Palamedes accepted Gideon’s “Maybe!” with a sigh. He sent the document to his printer and handed Gideon a pair of scissors. She could tell that it bothered him that he didn’t know Harrow, that he didn’t know enough about the person Gideon had married to just offer stellar advice and be done with it. He couldn’t offer insight into Harrow’s character because he didn’t know the first thing about Harrow’s character. Maybe that’d be the next step. If the dog thing didn’t work, Gideon could deploy Palamedes Sextus. Just bring him to the unmarked door and set him loose down the stairs, see what he came back with. He’d have to go alone. Harrow would recognize Camilla, but it wouldn’t be all bad. Gideon could send him in armed, and frankly, Pal would absolutely love ordering mystery cocktails from Harrow and then deducing the ingredients. He’d guess everything exactly right the first time. He’d really piss Harrow off.

Something to consider. In the meantime, Gideon accepted the scissors and grabbed the printed sheet from Pal’s printer. She had a notice to post.

Gideon Nav, dog walker.

Chapter Text

If Gideon was smart, if she had any self preservation instincts at all, she would have escaped the Tomb as soon as she postponed her date with Corona. She would have rushed out of there and slammed the door and never looked back.

And Gideon was smart. She recognized the moment. She sat at the bar and she eyed the stairs that led to the door. She planned the entire thing, the bird she’d flip toward the portrait of Harrow’s parents, a placeholder for Crux and Harrow and Ianthe and everything else that came with this place and this past. She planned to take the stairs two at a time; she planned to go dance, to sweat the fucking Tomb out of her skin. And then she just...stayed. She stayed because the drink was good, because Corona was still there lost in conversation with an old friend, and because Ianthe slung an arm over Harrow’s shoulder in a way that seemed much more familiar than it had two years earlier. She stayed because Harrow looked relieved at the imminence of Gideon’s departure and because Gideon really hated to run. She stayed and she finished Corona’s abandoned drink, and she finished her own, and she ordered another, and then a shot after that.

When Harrow pushed the shot toward Gideon, Gideon held up the glass and tipped it back toward Harrow. “It’s almost the end of your shift, right? So come on. Let’s go, just like old times.”

Harrow nearly took it, but she paused at the last moment and pulled her hand back. She eyed Gideon suspiciously with those deep dark eyes. “You hated old times.”

And then Ianthe was there again. Fuck, Gideon had not missed Ianthe Tridentarius. Corona had left with Judith forty minutes earlier—and Gideon still didn’t get up to leave once they were gone—and since then Ianthe had been there, like a creepy stick that bowed in an absent wind, curving over Harrow and the bar and Gideon. Eerie and awful. “She’s right, Gremlin. You just spent the last hour telling us how very much you hated old times.

Oh, shut up, Tridentarius. Gideon tipped her glass toward Ianthe now instead. “You know which part I especially hated?”

“Crux,” Harrow said, immediately.

“Could it be Harry?” Ianthe guessed. There was a quirk to the corner of Ianthe’s mouth. She had one thin eyebrow raised and she leaned a bony hip back against the counter, a pale and awful stick bug. She reached out and set a long-fingered hand on Harrow’s shoulder.

“It’s Ianthe,” Harrow blurted out, finally catching on.

Gideon shot a finger gun at Harrow. “Bingo. I mean, don’t be jealous though. I especially hated all of you almost equally.”

Behind Harrow, Ianthe rolled her eyes. “Not true. We had fun! Not as much fun as Harry and I have together—we just fit, don’t we, Harry? But you and I, Gizzard. We had a certain je ne sais quoi. We were irresistible together.”

“Yeah,” Gideon agreed. “Well, people will pay good money for a chance to see two chicks covered in liquor wrestling each other to the death.”

Harrow frowned. “What?”

“It never happened,” Ianthe said, dismissively. “But the point is, it might have happened. We had a delicious tension, Giblet’s right about that. That was our spark. I hope you can rekindle that spark with my sister, I really do. I’m rooting for you both.”

“I’m hoping to kindle a different sort of spark with your sister,” Gideon said with a waggle of her eyebrows. She regretted it instantly. Ianthe and Harrow always brought out the worst in her.

Ianthe ignored the innuendo anyway. She brushed the backs of her fingers against Harrow’s arm, the sleeves of her shirt billowing around her wrists. “Go on, Harry. Have your little drink. I’ll give you a ride home.”

Oh, okay. Gideon hated that! Gideon was not the jealous sort, she really really wasn’t, but this. Somehow this was worse than Corona and her old friend Judith. This was Harrow and Ianthe, and Gideon thought she would have known if they were like this way back when. She didn’t remember them as friends, as friends that gave each other rides, or as people that knew a single thing about the other’s life outside the Tomb. Harrow wasn’t even supposed to have a life outside the Tomb! Harrow ceased to exist once you went up those stairs. She disappeared in a puff of noxious smoke as soon as she touched the sidewalk and then she rematerialized down below, cursed to remain within for all eternity. Her own fault. She deserved it. For Ianthe to suggest she could give Harrow a ride home suggested that Harrow had a home, that she didn’t just curl up in the back corner of the store room or something, hugging her safety apron and her stack of notebooks. For Ianthe to suggest she could give Harrow a ride home suggested that Harrow—

“Hold on,” Gideon said, suddenly. Her hand shook at the realization and the contents of her shot glass—gin, scotch, a twist of lime—sloshed onto her thumb. Gideon sucked it off and then waved her hand between the two women on the other side of the bar. “Are you two dating?”

“No,” Harrow said, immediately. She took a step away from Ianthe’s hand. Gideon, though she had no reason to notice or care, couldn’t help but both notice and care that taking a step away from Ianthe brought her a step closer to Gideon.

“Well, not officially,” Ianthe added.

“Not at all.” Harrow said and it was all starting to sound uncomfortably familiar to Gideon.

Ianthe merely shrugged, and then she was blessedly pulled away, flagged down by a patron in search of another drink.

Gideon raised the shot glass again, and this time she poured the contents into her mouth without making another attempt to convince Harrow. She would rather Harrow be sober enough to get herself home without the help of Ianthe Tridentarius, thanks. That whole exchange left her feeling a little creepy, like Ianthe had walked her little sticky stick bug legs all up and down her back. Gideon shivered at the mental image. In fact—

“Hey, when you’re done here, come back to the Mithraeum with me,” Gideon blurted. “There’s a club there that I always thought you’d like.” She wasn’t sure why she said it. It wasn’t like she spent a lot of time thinking about the things Harrow Nonagesimus might like, but this particular spot just screamed Harrow, right down to the ridiculous facepaint that glowed green beneath the black lights. Gideon could help Harrow get home later if Harrow needed help getting home. Fuck Ianthe. Gideon would gladly go dancing with Harrow if dancing with Harrow was a chance to spit in Ianthe’s drink.

“Club Nine,” Harrow guessed.

“What?” Gideon asked, and then caught up. “Yeah, you know it?”

“Of course I know it.”

“So you’re in?”

Harrow considered for a stretch and then she looked up at Gideon. She caught Gideon’s eye for just a second before Gideon adjusted and found the mole on Harrow’s nose instead. “Why are you asking?”

“Well, my date walked out with another woman and now I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

Harrow’s eyes shifted down to Gideon’s shirt. “All dressed up.”

Gideon adjusted her collar. “All dressed up casually.”

“Right.”

“Look, you said you aren’t dating Ianthe, so in the interest of not going home with Ianthe, I’m just offering you another option.”

“Ianthe can give me a ride home without requiring that I date her.”

“Yeah, but do you want her to?”

“Hm,” Harrow said. She stared at Gideon for what felt like an excessively long time before she said: “I can’t. I really do have to get home.”

Gideon shrugged, unsure if what she was feeling was disappointment or relief. Something deflated in her chest, a balloon with the mouth stretched so it whistled out its air in a pathetic little song. That had to be relief.

“I have a dog,” Harrow explained, quickly, as though Gideon cared, as though she’d asked Harrow for an explanation.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Your dog.” Gideon looked down into her drink, nearly empty now, the ice slowly melting away. “I hear he has more game than me.”

“She does,” Harrow agreed.

Gideon tapped her fingers against the bar. She glanced back up at Harrow, missed the mole, and found herself looking Harrow in the eye again. This time it was harder to look away. “I—um. I walk dogs. Well, I walk two dogs. And I have a—she’s not my cat. I just live with her. I have a cat roommate. She’s an absolute bitch and I like her so much.”

Harrow nodded. Awkward. Fuck.

And Gideon still didn’t stand up. She still didn’t take the stairs two at a time. She still didn’t leave. Instead she pulled out her phone and leaned in to show Harrow pictures of Mia, Dulcinea’s cat, small and sleek, black with bright yellow eyes and a little white stripe down her nose. Harrow, notably, did not reciprocate by showing Gideon pictures of her dog, but later—Yes, Gideon was still sitting there later—when last call had come and gone, when it was time to close, Harrow disappeared in the back and when she returned, she poured herself a shot of vodka, downed it, poured herself another, and then nodded toward Gideon.

“Okay,” Harrow said. She downed the second shot. “You’re still here, so let’s go.”

Gideon startled. “What about your dog?”

“I made arrangements,” Harrow explained, cryptic as ever. She didn’t wait for Gideon, just grabbed her things and started up the stairs.

Gideon rushed to follow.

**

“This is weird,” Gideon admitted once they were standing together on the surface, outside the Tomb with their feet planted firmly on the sidewalk.

Harrow, still solid and definitely not disintegrating into a cloud of noxious smoke, said, “You’re drunk.”

“You’ll catch up soon enough, Ms. Two-Shots-in-Tandem.” Harrow had always been a lightweight, and from the look of her, that probably hadn’t changed with age.

Harrow sighed. It was a sigh that clearly said I’m going to regret this, a sigh that shouted I’ve lost my mind! It was a sigh that Gideon understood deep in her gut, felt it in her very soul.

“You can change your mind,” Gideon offered.

“Have you changed your mind?”

Gideon considered the question. It felt really weird to be standing outside the Tomb beside Harrow Nonagesimus, but it didn’t feel bad, really, which was weird in itself. It should feel bad. It should be really awful, but it didn’t, and instead the whole thing was just…

“I haven’t changed my mind. I’m just saying it’s weird, you and me out here together.”

Gideon lost her mind. She lost her mind and she invited Harrow dancing and Harrow, inexplicably, said yes. Now, with each step they took back toward the Mithraeum, Gideon felt her brain come back online another increment. She was going to a club with Harrow. Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrow, who spent four years working alongside Gideon and then two years doing everything she could to sabotage Gideon, to keep her locked alongside Harrow down in the Tomb. Harrow, who refused to ever let anything go. Gideon tried to imagine it, the two of them together in the club, standing close so that they could hear each other over the crowd and the music, on the dance floor, moving together, maybe even touching—no, that was too far. It all went black, grey with pulsing static, then the bright blue screen of death.

Gideon felt strangely winded, like she’d just finished an inadvisable leg day, like she needed a lie-down. She was breathing heavily. She hoped Harrow couldn’t hear it and wouldn’t notice. Harrow was walking fast, too fast on her little legs.

“Hey, it’s a nice night,” Gideon said. “Slow down.”

Harrow, because she was Harrow, sped up instead. Gideon immediately regretted saying anything. It was stupid anyway. This wasn’t the walk to the Tomb, with Coronabeth Tridentarius hanging on her arm and making her blush. There was no reason to take this slow.

The rest of the walk was rushed and quiet. They were almost back to the spot where it all started, to the bench where Gideon sat, nervously checking her watch while she waited for Coronabeth. Gideon looked toward that bench, back to a beautiful beforetime where she never could have predicted closing out the night with Harrowhark, and her eyes caught on a familiar shape, a familiar face. She scanned the dark blunt haircut and the set of the shoulders, and her heart leapt.

“Camilla!” Gideon shouted without thought. Beside her, Harrow jumped, startled, and Gideon reached out to set a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Shit, sorry, hold on, that’s my housemate—Cam!”

Camilla turned back and walked over slowly, coming to stand in front of Gideon and Harrow. She looked at Gideon, then Harrow, then back at Gideon. Gideon realized her hand was still on Harrow’s shoulder and she pulled back. Harrow took a step away from her. Finally, Cam said: “Hey.”

“Hey,” Gideon said, breathless. “What are you doing?”

Camilla gestured toward herself in response to Gideon’s question. She’d been promoted to floor man a few months earlier, and her hours were just slightly offset from the usual swing shift eight to four. Cam was just off work, which was: “Perfect! Come to Club Nine.”

Cam held out her hand toward Harrow. “Hi, I’m Camilla,” she said.

It looked like it pained Harrow, but she accepted Camilla’s offered hand and said, “Harrowhark Nonagesimus.”

“Oh,” Camilla said. She looked back toward Gideon and Gideon shook her head, just slightly in an attempt to be discreet.

Gideon might die on the spot if Camilla said oh, I’ve heard so much about you or oh, wow. Gideon talks about you all the time. She might just collapse onto the sidewalk if Camilla even uttered, oh, of course! You used to work with Gideon, didn’t you? Gideon needed Harrow to understand that Gideon did not think about her at all in the two years since Gideon left the Tomb, not once. Even the truth, which was that she thought about Harrow often, but all her thoughts were derogatory, was too much. No, Gideon never mentioned Harrow to anyone, because as far as Gideon was concerned, Harrow ceased to exist.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Camilla finished, and Gideon could have kissed her. “You two are headed to Club Nine?”

You two. No more kisses for Camilla.

“Seems a good night for it,” Gideon lied. She could tell Cam about her stalled date with Coronabeth Tridentarius another time. She slung an arm over Camilla’s shoulder and planted a kiss on Camilla’s cheek. “Come on, baby. Let’s go dance.”

Harrow hesitated and Gideon pulled Harrow in with her other arm. She leaned in to kiss Harrow’s cheek, but Harrow put up a hand. “Don’t you dare.”

Harrow was stiff against Gideon’s side, but she didn’t use her kiss-blocking hand to push the rest of Gideon away. It almost felt like she leaned into it. Everything about the night had taken a turn toward the weird; Gideon had no choice but to stick with this thing she started, to really commit. She guided her little group toward the bright pearlescent doors of the Mithraeum.

**

Club Nine was like if Disney decided to operate a goth themed nightclub. It was a tourist trap in a casino located in a city that itself was one of the biggest tourist traps in the world. There was nothing authentic about any of it. Real goth clubs were rolling in their graves. It was a gaudy awful place, all draped velvet and black walls. The biggest selling point for Gideon, sometimes for Camilla, even more rarely for Palamedes and Dulcinea, was that it was so damn convenient. Get off work and walk right down the hall convenient. Escape The Locked Tomb and walk three blocks convenient. The whole place was screaming music, dark clothes and somewhat inexplicably, skull makeup. Gideon didn’t know who actually walked into a club and thought, wow, this is great! You know what would make it even better? Sweating through a thick layer of greasepaint!, but it apparently worked for someone, and that someone was bound to end up at Club Nine.

Beyond the great white doors, the club was crowded, but not so packed you couldn’t move or find a place to set down your drink.

“First round’s on me,” Gideon announced. Let Harrow think she was doing really well for herself. Distract her from the fact that Gideon lived with a throuple and their cat.

Harrow’s carefully neutral face suggested she was unimpressed by Gideon’s generosity. She ordered a vodka soda and then disappeared while Gideon was still flagging down a bartender.

“Where’d she go?” Gideon asked, her gin and tonic in one hand, Harrow’s vodka soda in the other.

“Bathroom,” Camilla said. Then, once they were stationed at a small table, close enough to the bar that Harrow could find them again: “So, you’ve had an interesting night?”

“It’s fine,” Gideon said. “Don’t make it into a big deal.”

“I’m not planning to make it into a big deal,” Camilla said. “I’m asking if you’re okay, or if you need me to intervene.”

“No,” Gideon said, maybe a little too quickly. “I’m good, Cam. I swear. I’m just, shit—where’d she go?”

“Still in the bathroom, probably. She’s cuter than I expected.”

“She’s awful,” Gideon said, scanning the crowd. “She’s Harrow. I mean, yeah, she’s fine. She’s cute, I guess. She’s also awful because she’s Harrow and Harrow’s a total bitch.”

“Got it,” Camilla said, smiling. Gideon shot her a look and hoped the look looked nice and dirty. Cam ignored it. “I’m on standby if you need me.” She sipped her drink and pulled her phone from her pocket, most likely to let Dulcinea know where she was. Cuddles are postponed tonight, love. Gideon needs a spotter. But cut half the words. More like: Cuddles cancelled. Gideon's an idiot.

Gideon regretted inviting Camilla, just a little. She didn’t need a spotter. She just needed to find Harrow.

Gideon looked out at the dance floor, at the sea of moving people intermingled with dancing skeleton heads. There were a lot of skeletons out there that night, and one in particular wasn’t dancing. It was just standing there, on the far end of the dance floor. It seemed to be looking their way. Gideon waved. The skeleton didn’t wave back, so Gideon ignored it, checked her watch and then pulled out her phone to check that too. By the time she looked up again, the creepy stalker skeleton was gone.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find the skeleton right fucking there.

Gideon nearly choked on her drink. Some of it sputtered out of her mouth and down her chin, and then she took a deep breath and sucked the rest right into her lungs. Shit, painful. Gideon coughed and wheezed.

“Jesus, Harrow!” She could see that it was Harrow now under the paint. It was so obviously Harrow. Gideon slapped a hand against her own chest in an attempt to kickstart liquid-logged lungs. She set her drink safely down on the table and then knocked Harrow’s arm. “You scared the shit out of me. Nearly killed me..”

“Is that all it would take?” Harrow picked up her drink from the table beside Gideon’s and sipped it. She didn’t apologize, just looked up at Gideon with big dark eyes in big dark painted sockets. It looked… up close it was kinda cool, actually. The white paint glowed green under the black lights. The paint made Harrow’s eyes seem enormous, and it rounded out her pointed chin. She wasn’t wearing her glasses anymore, had apparently stuffed them into her bag when she applied the paint. They must ruin the effect. The black at the edges of the white skull blended into the black of Harrow’s hair. The paint she’s spread over her neck blended into her clothes. She’d even painted bones along the backs of her hands, but she’d left the skin around them naked, wasn’t committed enough to cover those edges with the black as well. Gideon couldn’t stop staring at her. Harrow had this paint down. It was neatly done and detailed. She’d drawn teeth over her lips, and the black gaps between the bones of her nose. Harrow watched Gideon watching her.

“Not your first time,” Gideon guessed.

“No,” Harrow agreed. She sipped her drink and turned to scan the club. Gideon didn’t come to to this club often, but she’d been there enough, and she wondered suddenly if she’d ever been at the same time as Harrow before, if Harrow had watched her dance with Camilla and Palamedes, tucked away in a corner, hidden behind her painted mask.

Gideon swallowed. She ran a hand through her hair and swallowed again.

Shit, okay, she liked that thought way too much. It was the heat and the hour and however many drinks. Gideon was perfectly buzzed, at exactly that right level of intoxicated where everything just seemed so good. That was why the idea thrilled her so much. That was why the thought of Harrow watching her from a dark corner of the club ignited something low in her gut. Gideon was happy and drunk and desperate—no, not desperate, but she’d come out tonight with dating in mind, and nothing had happened the way she expected it to, but now here was Harrow with that damn paint and those big black eyes.

Gideon couldn’t help herself. She leaned in close to Harrow’s ear and said: “Do you want to dance?”

Harrow, she noticed, had put in earplugs. The scream and thump of the club was jarring after the relative quiet of the Tomb. Harrow still seemed to hear Gideon though. She shook her head with hardly a second of contemplation, no hesitation in that no at all, and Gideon felt the earlier thrill subside within her.

“Do you have more of that paint?” Gideon tried instead.

That worked.

Harrow turned to look up at Gideon with those eyes, and Gideon’s insides fluttered. Harrow’s eyes looked almost warm, nearly hot there in the lights of the club, despite the death mask that covered Harrow’s face.

“I do,” Harrow said. “Come on.”

Harrow’s fingers brushed Gideon’s hand and Gideon grabbed for them, slipped her hand around Harrow’s. Harrow didn’t shake her off. She led Gideon through the crowd, across the club toward the bathrooms.

**

“Stand there,” Harrow instructed. She pointed toward a mirror set in a dingy little alcove prior to the main part of the bathroom. There was a step in front of the mirror, and a narrow counter against the wall. One woman was there blinking blearily into the smudged glass and picking a clump from her mascara with her fingers. Gideon stood on the other end of the alcove and waited as Harrow stepped up onto the raised step before the mirror. She began rummaging in her bag until she found two thick sticks of makeup. Behind Gideon there was a line of women waiting for the toilet, some painted, some not, almost all of them commiserating about the places they were from. Not a single one of them said, “Born and raised right here.” Gideon and Harrow were just lucky that way. Born in the tackiest city in the world!

Harrow turned to face Gideon. The step brought her closer to Gideon’s height, and she waved Gideon in closer with an impatient hand. “Keep still.”

Gideon kept still. She kept still as Harrow reached out and touched her, a hand curled around the back of Gideon’s neck to hold her steady. Gideon shivered a little beneath Harrow’s fingers, but she pulled it together when Harrow sucked her teeth. Once Gideon was sufficiently still, Harrow’s other hand began pushing the stick of paint across Gideon’s cheek. Gideon kept still even as everything within her shook and rearranged. She lifted one foot to prop it on the edge of the step, thought it might help this seem more casual. It was a mistake. Her knee brushed up against Harrow’s leg, a reminder of how close they were standing.

Harrow hardly seemed to notice. Gideon recognized this focus. This was the expression Harrow had when she was choosing ingredients for a drink, except now it was centered entirely on Gideon. Gideon was the focal point, the nucleus, the center, and all of Harrow was honed in and locked on.

Gideon needed to say something, anything to break this moment, to distract from the inside of her knee brushing Harrow’s leg, but when she tried to open her mouth, Harrow was ready, fingers pressing up on Gideon’s chin to hold her mouth closed.

“Keep still.”

Gideon kept still. Harrow’s thumb brushed the spot behind Gideon’s ear and Gideon kept still. Harrow’s fingers traced paint over Gideon’s forehead and beneath Gideon’s eyes and Gideon kept still.

“Close your eyes,” Harrow ordered, and Gideon closed her eyes and felt Harrow carefully dabbing paint onto her eyelids. Then Harrow moved on to Gideon’s nose, long strokes down the length of it, then around the nostrils. The paint smelled nostalgic, like Halloween when she was a kid, but only the years she lived with Aiglamene. Aiglamene fucking loved Halloween. That was probably the last time someone had touched Gideon like this, confident fingers transforming her into someone else.

Gideon felt Harrow’s breath on her cheek and she opened her eyes. Had they ever been this close?

Yeah, of course they had, but that was so long ago. It didn’t feel real, and this—Gideon looked into the mirror behind Harrow and caught a glimpse of her partially finished face. She looked like an absolute douche, but that didn’t matter as soon as she stopped looking at herself and returned her eyes to Harrow instead. The spots on Harrow’s nose were completely obscured by paint. Gideon had no choice but to look elsewhere. Harrow’s eyes, which were steady and focused on the task at hand. Harrow’s mouth with its carefully drawn teeth, the pink of Harrow’s tongue sticking out just a little between her lips. Gideon could smell vodka on Harrow’s breath and for some reason her limbs tingled, and her knees felt weak.

And then her foot slipped off the edge of the step. Harrow’s paint stick jabbed her in the temple as she began to pitch forward. In front of her Harrow gasped, her eyes wide, and then Gideon couldn’t see Harrow’s eyes at all. Gideon’s eyes were closed, and Harrow’s fingers were back on her neck, and her mouth was on Harrow’s, and Harrow’s mouth was on hers.

By the time Harrow’s name appeared on Gideon’s phone screen, Gideon had already accepted that her grand plan had failed. She’d accepted that her plan had failed and she’d accepted comp tickets to Corona’s show. In fact, it was during the middle of that show, flanked by Cam and Pal and Dulcie, that Harrow finally decided to reach out to Griddle the Dogwalker. And when Harrow reached out, she did so adamantly. She reached out like she needed Gideon to cover Ortus’s shift, call after call until Gideon glanced away from the feathers and the kicking legs to discreetly check her screen to make sure Aiglamene was okay. And then Gideon waited, leg bouncing, barely absorbing the sight of long legs and bedazzled breasts until the curtain finally came down and the lights went up.

She stood, abrupt and still clapping, and apologized profusely as she climbed over Palamedes. She might have momentarily sat on his lap in her haste to escape to the aisle. She didn’t have time to think about that then. She’d come back for the jokes at a later date. She just hoped Dulcinea enjoyed the show.

Gideon found a relatively secluded corner outside of the theatre and leaned against the wall as she called Harrow back.

“You listed the wrong phone number on your ad,” Harrow said by way of greeting.

“Really?” Gideon asked, feigning ignorance.

“Your ad lists the second to last number as a six when it should be a nine.”

“Which two numbers?”

“Six instead of nine,” Harrow repeated.

Gideon was tempted to keep going. Could she get Harrow to say sixty-nine out loud? Probably, but not without really pissing Harrow off in the process, so instead she said: “I guess that explains why you’re the first to call. You want me to come walk your dog, pet your pooch?” Was that the euphemism? Or was she thinking of pet the dog? That one meant masturbation though. Innuendo was a lot harder than it would have been if Harrow just owned a cat instead.

“Do you have a resume?”

“Yeah,” Gideon snorted. “My resume is fuck you! My resume is you married me, bitch, so do you want me to help with your dog or not?”

Harrow didn’t respond right away. Gideon could hear low music and people talking in the background. The sounds of the Tomb. Finally, Harrow said: “Come by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay, give me a time and a place.”

“Meet me here at—”

“Nuh uh, not the Tomb. A real place.”

Another long pause. “Fine. Nine Drearburh Boulevard. One o’clock.”

Shit, okay, so they were actually doing this then. “It’s a date,” Gideon said, a little too brightly.

Harrow made an indecipherable noise. “It’s absolutely not a date. It’s a business meeting.”

“It’s a business date.”

“Nav, please don’t make me regret this.”

“It’s Mrs. Nonagesimus to you.” Gideon couldn’t seem to help herself. Worst case scenario, really laying it on thick might make Harrow more amenable to the stack of papers burning a hole in Gideon’s bag.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Harrow said. “Come alone.”

Harrow hung up. Harrow practically growled that last part: Come alone, and Gideon hated that even with the two drinks she had at dinner hours behind her, she still found that pretty hot.

She opened the map app on her phone and typed in the address. Nine Drearburh Boulevard. It was a residential neighborhood, close to the grocery store where Gideon had her first Harrow sighting. Harrow could have suggested anywhere that wasn’t the Tomb, a Starbucks, or a spot within the Mithraeum, but this—yeah, this had to be Harrow’s actual address.

Oh, they were actually actually doing this. Harrow was willing to meet with Gideon on neutral ground. She was inviting Gideon into her inner sanctum. They could sit down. They could discuss it all like the grown adults they were. Maybe Gideon would finally catch a glimpse of the Harrow she couldn’t help but marry, and then she’d understand, and she’d whip the papers from her bag. Harrow would be so fucking relieved, she’d sign right away. Maybe they’d even end up friendly by the end of it all!

Yeah, right. Still. It was a start. It was the definite start of something.

Gideon just had one problem. She’d already scheduled another date with Corona.

**

Gideon had miscalculated. She thought it would be easier, seeing Harrow outside the Tomb, sober, and in daylight. It wasn’t easier. It was weird and wrong and strangely intimate. It was the mess of dishes in Harrow’s sink and the fuzzed up dog bed tossed down on the worn carpet in the center of Harrow’s living room. It was Harrow standing in the middle of it all with her fists clenched at her sides, with her eyes big and wide, watching as her dog’s entire butt shook with excitement over Gideon’s presence.

The house was big and outdated. It looked like it hadn’t been updated since before Harrow was born. Everything was the browns and greens of an era long gone, and Harrow stood there in the middle dressed entirely in black. The dog though, the dog matched the decor. She was a golden retriever, the kind that looked more red than yellow, big and bright and ready for anything. The dog was the only thing that made it all bearable.

Gideon folded to her knees immediately, unable to resist the dog’s excitement at the arrival of company.

“What’s her name?” Gideon asked, her fingers buried in thick dog fur.

“Dog,” Harrow said immediately.

Ooh. An obvious lie. That was fine. Gideon could play along.

“Of course it is,” Gideon said to the dog Harrow had named Dog. “Of course Harrow named you Dog. That’s how she is, isn’t she? Dog Nonagesimus. She gave you a silly name, didn’t she?”

“Stop,” Harrow said, pained. Dog danced her way back toward Harrow, her butt shaking as she went. She sidled up to Harrow and Harrow, also unable to resist, ran a hand over Dog’s head. Dog, satisfied, rushed back toward Gideon, who welcomed her with a braced stance and arms spread wide.

“She wants me to stop talking to you, but you don’t want that, do you do, Dog? You like it, don’t you? Don’t you?”

“I hate you,” Harrow said.

“You hear that, Dog? Harrow hates me so much she spent an entire night sucking on my tongue and then at the end of it she put a ring on my finger! Funny how that works, isn’t it, Dog?”

“That isn’t how it happened.”

“I don’t know how it happened,” Gideon agreed. “I don’t remember. You should have come with us, Dog. You could have told us all about what went down.”

Gideon looked up at Harrow from her crouched position on the floor. That was a mistake, because Harrow didn’t actually look upset with Gideon anymore. Harrow looked—Gideon wasn’t sure how Harrow looked. All she knew was that she took one look at the way Harrow looked, and immediately imagined Harrow stepping forward, leaning down over Gideon and kissing Gideon down onto the floor.

Gideon had miscalculated.

She stood, unable to stay down there anymore now that her brain was having unauthorized thoughts. She stood and brushed dog hair from her shirt and then shoved her hands in her pockets. “So what then? You want me to walk her?”

“That’s why I called,” Harrow agreed.

Gideon nodded toward the door. “Okay, I’m ready. Show me the routine.”

**

Harrow showed Gideon the routine, where Dog’s leashes and poop bags were kept. And then she set them loose.

“You aren’t going to come with us?”

“Why would I?” Harrow asked as she shut the door in their faces. Luckily, Gideon had Harrow’s dog, so she felt slightly more confident that Harrow would open the door again upon their return. Dog seemed to like Harrow, and Harrow seemed to have a pretty big soft spot for Dog, as much as she was trying to hide it. Yeah, she’d let them back in.

She’d let Dog back in anyway.

Gideon tested Dog as they walked. She knew most of the usual commands. She walked well, didn’t pull. She understood heel and sit and stay, lie down and play dead, shake and speak. Gideon wondered if Harrow had used a trainer, or if she’d done the work herself. She wondered if Harrow would tell her if she asked.

Dog also knew how to take a big shit. She’d really perfected it, in fact. Dog took four big shits on their twenty minute walk, and Gideon was suddenly grateful for the ridiculous number of baggies that Harrow had shoved into Gideon’s hand on her way out the door.

When they rounded the corner back onto Harrow’s street, Dog began to pull a bit harder. She caught her leash in her mouth and led Gideon home, except instead of leading Gideon to Harrow’s front door, she brought them to a wooden gate at the side of the house that opened into the backyard. The gate was latched, but Harrow was outside, spraying water on what looked like a tiered herb garden. Dog sat down and barked once.

Harrow abandoned her bottle and her gloves to let them in.

“You garden?” Gideon asked.

“No.”

She unhooked Dog from her leash and then stood to survey the backyard. It was dry and brittle. There were a couple cactuses growing along the fence. The tiered garden looked out of place, bright and vibrant, greens and reds and yellows. “This looks like gardening.”

“They’re garnishes,” Harrow said. She paused and then said, “Do you want to try something? It’s a drink.”

Gideon raised her eyebrows, more surprised by this invitation that she had been by anything else since she arrived. The entire afternoon was going strangely better than Gideon expected. So what was the catch? “Yeah, sure, that sounds great.”

Harrow plucked a few leaves from a plant that Gideon didn’t recognize and then led them back into the house through a pair of sliding glass doors. She went straight to the kitchen and began pulling out ingredients. Two coupe glasses, filled with ice. She brought out a bottle of tequila from the cupboard. There were several peppers floating around inside the bottle. This was going to be good.

“Dog’s a great dog,” Gideon said, conversationally. She leaned a hip against Harrow’s counter and watched as Harrow measured tequila into each glass.

“I think so,” Harrow agreed, a little absently.

Gideon reached out and carefully turned the bottle of tequila. The peppers danced inside. “So, are you going to make me guess where you’re doing with this, or will you tell me if I ask?”

Harrow frowned down at the counter, but she said, “Thai chili infused tequila.” She touched another bottle. “Rhubarb liqueur.” Next Harrow lifted a jar she’d pulled from the freezer. “Prickly pear puree.” She pointed to two limes and the leaves she’d clipped out back. “Lime juice and Pineapple Sage.” Finally, Harrow looked up at Gideon. She was focused on the task at hand, but when she looked at Gideon, Gideon remembered how it felt to have that focus on her, how it felt to have Harrow’s hand on her neck and Harrow’s teeth on her lips.

Gideon knew better. She knew to shift her own focus, to look at the marks on Harrow’s face instead. She didn’t. Instead she looked right at Harrow and leaned in, just slightly.

Harrow ignored Gideon’s lean. She turned away and returned her focus to her bottles. “I’m calling it The End of the World.”

“Oh,” Gideon said, like a moron, like a fool. “It sounds more like a beginning than an end.”

It was, unsurprisingly, really fucking good. Spice and fruit and the bite of the tequila. “This is beautiful, Harrow,” Gideon said, and she meant it. “I mean it. This is—” Harrow frowned down at the drink. “—you don’t like it, do you.”

“It’s all right,” Harrow said, but she barely wet her lips with each sip she took.

“Listen, after I finish mine, I’ll gladly drink yours.” She waited for Harrow to respond, to continue or brush Gideon off. Something. When Harrow stayed silent, Gideon said: “So what next? When do you want me to come back?”

Harrow picked at the sage adorning her glass. “I thought you worked nights.”

“I do.”

“Then this isn’t going to work.”

Oh, okay. Gideon recognized that tone. They’d travelled back to navigable terrain, found the old familiar paths. “Then why did you call if you already knew I worked nights?”

“Why did you put up the ad, when you knew I’d be looking for someone who didn’t already work nights?” Harrow was standing beside her stove, and she was really starting to simmer now, her voice slowly working its way up toward shrill.

“To get you to talk to me.”

Harrow shook her head. “Why can’t you just let it go?”

Gideon wished they weren’t doing this while standing awkwardly in Harrow’s retro kitchen. She set her glass down on the counter. “I can’t let it go because we’re married, Harrow. You’re my partner, my spouse. You’re my wife, and fuck, that feels weird. I tried to do what you asked, I swear I really did, but I can’t just let it go, because I’m your wife, and I have no idea what that means or how it could have happened.” She wasn’t even sure if she liked the word wife. She was really starting from scratch here. Gideon had never been close enough to marriage to consider how she’d want to be called. And now she was married to Harrow, and wife just fell off her tongue.

Harrow’s fingers fiddled with the edge of the stove. “We fell and hit our heads,” she said. “When I woke up we were lying on the floor of a chapel, rings on our fingers, and Elvis was standing over us to see if we were okay.”

Harrow’s partner. Harrow’s spouse. Harrow’s wife—”Wait, really?”

“No, not really,” Harrow sighed. “I don’t know how it could have happened either.”

Gideon looked up at that. “Shouldn’t we figure that out?”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“Like this,” Gideon shrugged. She lifted her drink and took another sip, then she gestured around Harrow’s vintage home. “We spend some time together, just you and me. I come over and I walk Dog and then we just, you know, hang out with each other for a while back here in the late 70s slash early 80s, I guess? I’m not actually sure when this house is supposed to be set.”

Harrow thought this over. “The house is fine,” she said, “but I have terms.”

Harrow turned and walked deeper into her home, drink in hand. She settled down in an old armchair on the far side of the living room. The chair was white-ish, but you could barely tell, because it was absolutely covered in a pattern of flowers and dry tufts of grass, all brown and orange and yellow. Harrow settled her glass on the dark wood that emerged from the ends of each arm.

Gideon looked around and opted to sit on the matching orange sofa, blessedly free of flowers, and in surprisingly good shape considering it was probably somewhere in the vicinity of fifty years old. Gideon leaned forward, her elbows pressed to her knees. Dog completed the tableau and collapsed onto the carpet at Harrow’s feet.

“What are your terms?”

“We meet here. I don’t want an audience.”

“Sure,” Gideon shrugged. Her tongue prickled with the heat from the tequila.

“No physical advances.”

Gideon sat back. “Okay, hold on, I wasn’t—”

“From either side,” Harrow added and that cooled Gideon down a little, that...no, that didn’t cool Gideon down at all. That just left her to imagine a physical advance from Harrow, which was easy to imagine when all she had to do was remember Harrow’s hands pushing her up against the back counter of the Tomb, the sound of the bottles shaking. Harrow on the dance floor pulling her down into another paint-smeared kiss.

“Do we really want to take that off the table entirely?”

“Of course I do.”

“It’s one way we could start to understand each other,” Gideon reasoned, against her better judgement. “You know, like, a little friendly hate sex or whatever.” Yeah, that was pathetic, but bad past and concerning nuptials aside, it was the truth. And there wasn’t a world in which Gideon could imagine herself saying no. Would she hate herself afterward? Maybe. Would she do it anyway? Absolutely yes.

Harrow didn’t seem to think any of that deserved a response, which Gideon took to mean she was considering it. At least right up until Harrow took an actual real sip of her drink, grimaced as it slid down her throat, and in a tight voice said: “If that’s why you’re here, then we can end this now and you can leave.”

Gideon held up her hands, “No, of course that’s not why I’m here. What the fuck? It was just an alternate suggestion based on your suggestion.”

“I never suggested that.” Harrow squeezed her eyes shut and took another mouthful of her drink. “Just let me finish, Griddle.” Dog responded to Harrow’s frustration, standing and putting her big head in Harrow’s lap, her tail thumping against the dark wood of the coffee table.

Gideon settled back into the couch cushions. “Okay, forget it. No physical advances. What else?”

“We don’t say a word of this to anyone. Not a word about the marriage or these meetings.”

“What if I only mention it to people who already know?”

“Not Ortus,” Harrow clarified. “No one from the Tomb.”

“Deal,” Gideon said. She paused. “Except that I need to tell Coronabeth Tridentarius. Tomorrow.”

Harrow shook her head. “No. Out of the question.”

“I’m meeting her for lunch,” Gideon said. “I need to tell her it isn’t going to work and I don’t want to lie about why.”

“Why isn’t it going to work?”

“Harrow,” Gideon started. She was actually a little offended by the question. Dog, notably, ignored Gideon’s frustration. “I’m a married woman. Look, I actually like her, okay? But it’s important to me to figure out what’s going on with us first.”

“That’s silly,” Harrow said. “I’m not stopping you from anything. We don’t need to do this. Go date Corona. I’ve said this so many times now. Date her and leave me out of it and we can come back to this marriage problem in a year or two.”

Gideon groaned. She set down her drink and stood from Harrow’s sofa. She wanted to pace, but she resisted the urge, moved instead to stand by the sliding doors that faced the backyard. Harrow’s garnish garden was the only part of this entire place that looked well tended and modern. Dog came to stand beside Gideon, her wet nose pressed to the wet nose-streaked glass.

“I don’t understand why you’re so stuck on this,” Harrow continued, in a tone that made her sound like the voice of reason instead of a goth ostrich with her head buried in sand.

“I don’t understand how you can just pretend it’s nothing,” Gideon countered. “People don’t just up and marry their arch nemesis.”

Harrow laughed. “Oh, Griddle. Oh, that’s almost cute. You think you’re my arch nemesis? You think I care enough about you to consider you a nemesis?”

“Okay, you can stop that now,” Gideon snapped. “I’m not buying what you’re selling, Harrow! Not even Dog is buying it. Nobody marries someone they don’t think about at all. We see each other for the first time in two years, and like three hours later, we’re making out. That’s some weird pent up shit.”

Harrow got up from her chair and stood in front of Gideon, her drink still in her hand. She assessed Gideon, looked her up and down with volcanic glass eyes. She sneered at Gideon’s flip-flops, at her shorts and the stretch of her t-shirt over her arms. Finally she looked up at Gideon’s face. She sipped her drink. Gideon swallowed and stared resolutely at Harrow’s nose. No physical advances. Harrow had to be doing this on purpose.

“I’m surprised,” Harrow said, finally. “You always seem so good with people. That’s your thing, isn’t it? Surely you’ve talked to enough of them over the years to know that people who come here marry people they just met all the time, no weird pent up shit required. This town relies on it.”

Gideon pressed her back and her hands up against the glass. It felt sun-warmed, almost too hot beneath her palms. She shook her head. “Nice try, but we aren’t people who come here on vacation. We would never choose to come here.”

Probably not actually true. If Gideon grew up somewhere else, somewhere far away from the Mithraeum and The Locked Tomb, she might choose to come. She might choose to party a week away in this tacky desert oasis.

Gideon didn’t have another life lived in another place, just this one, and this definitely didn’t feel like a vacation.

Harrow set her drink down on the coffee table and stepped closer.

“You’re physically advancing,” Gideon accused in a rush.

Harrow paused. “I am not.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gideon waved a hand toward Harrow, a long swipe up and down to encompass all of her. “You’re practically stalking me, like you’re a cat and I’m—that was absolutely a physical advance.”

Harrow’s face twisted. She took a step back.

“Wait,” Gideon said, because she lost her damn mind weeks ago and it never fully returned. “Let’s reconsider the terms.”

She reached out and caught Harrow’s hand. Her touch was loose, a curl of fingers. It was enough. Harrow turned back fast, decision made. Harrow was back and she pressed Gideon’s hands to the glass of the door as she strained up to meet Gideon’s mouth in a crush of a kiss. Harrow’s touch felt sun-warmed too, too hot, and Gideon curved down to meet her, to taste the spice of the tequila on Harrow’s lips.

Harrow gasped as she broke away from Gideon. “Fine,” she said, still a little breathless. “No names.”

Gideon blinked. “Huh?”

“Tell Corona you went and got spontaneously married, but nothing that could point her toward me. I will never hear the end of this, Griddle. I’ve contained Ortus, but if this goes any further—”

“It won’t,” Gideon said. She pulled Harrow back in and kissed the side of her face, the shell of her ear. Harrow was going to pull away again. She was going to try to pretend she never kissed Gideon up against this sliding glass door, with her well-tended garnish garden as a backdrop, with spiced tequila on her tongue. Gideon was going to regret it too, but not now, not yet. Now, she kissed Harrow. Now, she agreed to Harrow’s terms, even the ones they’d already broken, the ones that didn’t make sense. She kissed Harrow again. “No one else will hear it from me.”

Chapter Text

A day after Harrow kissed Gideon up against the sliding glass door for the very first time, Gideon met Coronabeth Tridentarius for lunch and broke the news. Upon arrival at the restaurant—agreed upon before either of them arrived this time—Corona hugged Gideon a bit too long, a bit too close, and Gideon felt herself tense up. Corona noticed right away. She pulled back and sat down, brow furrowed.

“What’s happened?” Corona asked, leaning in toward Gideon across the table. “What is it?”

Gideon was glad they’d chosen a spot with outdoor seating. She felt grounded by the sun on her shoulders, and shielded by the glasses that covered her eyes.

“It’s not you,” Gideon started, and then winced at her choice of opening. She was always starting things out all wrong. “Sorry, that sounded—but it’s true, because this is all me. I’m not sure this is going to work. As much as I want it to.”

“Oh,” Corona said, surprised. She sat back in her seat and adjusted the brim of the straw visor she wore. Gideon thought it might look silly on anyone else. It looked as hot as anything on Coronabeth. “I thought we—”

Gideon squeezed her eyes shut. “I know, and you thought right, but the thing is, the night of our first date, I stayed out after you left and I, well—I’m married now.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m married. I’m not sure how yet, exactly, or why, but yeah. After you left, one thing led to another, and—” Here Gideon pulled out the chain she wore tucked into her shirt to show Corona the ring she’d hung there. It felt weird to put the ring back on, but after they made out against the sliding glass door of Harrow’s house, it felt weird not to wear it at all either. Gideon settled for the chain around her neck, like how cheerleaders wore their boyfriend’s class rings in high school if they were too big to just wrap a bunch of string around it. Something like that.

Corona was silent for two seconds and then she burst out with a laugh. “Oh! Oh, Gideon, you ridiculous sweetheart!”

Everyone always seemed to think it was so very funny. A waiter came by with two glasses of water. “Can you come back in a few minutes?” Gideon asked, pained, when Corona couldn’t seem to control herself long enough to speak. Corona managed to hold up a splayed hand to indicate she’d need at least five minutes.

It was probably like thirty seconds before she stopped, but it felt like an excruciating long time.

“Who?” Corona asked. She was still giggling a little, still had her hand partially covering her mouth.

Gideon shook her head. She was still holding out the ring and was starting to feel a little silly about it. She let it drop down to rest against her t-shirt. It fell right between her tits, which she tried not to think about, because then it also got pretty weird. The whole thing was still pretty weird, like should she take it off at the gym? She didn’t that morning, just tucked it into her bra, but then she caught herself thinking about it like, yeah, that was her wedding ring all right, the ring that symbolized her spontaneous marriage to Harrow, bouncing around in there, totally covered in her tit sweat? So yeah, then she showered with it on too. Also weird.

“How?” Corona asked, still sputtering, just a little.

Gideon stopped thinking about Harrow’s ring in relation to her tits and said: “It doesn’t matter.”

“Are you going to stay married to this mystery woman?” Corona asked. She paused. “I’m sorry if I—I’m just assuming you married a woman.”

“Yeah,” Gideon said. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be weird or a jerk about it, but I promised her I’d keep the details between us.”

Corona nodded. She used her straw to stir the slice of lemon in her water. The sound of the ice made Gideon think of how, after they shifted away from the sliding door, Harrow paused to take a cool sip of her drink and then she kissed Gideon with the taste of it on her mouth. It made her think of the press of Harrow’s chilled tongue between her lips. Gideon took a sip of her own water, swallowed it down a little too hard.

“Harrow has always been a very private individual,” Corona said, slowly, as though she was trying to tread lightly.

Gideon choked on her water. “No, it’s not—I’m sworn to secrecy. Legally. I can’t confirm or deny anything.”

Corona reached out to set a hand over Gideon’s. “I swear I won’t mention it to my sister. Not a word about any of it. That’s the concern, isn’t it?”

“Legally sworn to secrecy,” Gideon repeated, adamant.

They left it at that.

Peony infused gin, butterfly pea tea, lemon juice and prosecco. Brown butter fat washed bourbon, pineapple liqueur, meyer lemon juice, turbinado syrup and spicy bitters. Vanilla bean & cinnamon infused vodka with pear nectar, lemon juice and prosecco, finished with a chai tea sugar rim. Bourbon and cardamom bitters, apple cider, freshly squeezed lemon juice and a pomegranate/malbec float. Kafir lime leaf and lime zest infused tequila, bergamot liqueur and a cranberry black pepper scrub. Pear nectar, ginger liqueur and lemon juice with a cinnamon sugar rimmed glass.

They were the flavors of hours spent kissing in the dry afternoon heat. Harrow gave them names like Fallen Fruit and Fever Dream, like Closing Kiss and Morning Regrets.

“You could overhaul your entire menu with these,” Gideon pointed out as she sipped from a creation Harrow called Last Dance. They were sitting in two weathered chairs Gideon had pushed into the corner of Harrow’s yard, under a small amount of patchy shade cast by the neighbor’s Acacia tree. Dog sat in front of Gideon, attentive, patiently waiting for Gideon to lift the water gun she held in her left hand and spray a stream of cool water right into Dog’s waiting mouth. Dog kept trying to bite the water, her lips pulled back and her teeth bared as it dripped out the sides of her mouth and slipped off her tongue. She looked ridiculous and Gideon was obsessed.

Harrow shook her head and traced a finger through the sweat collecting on the outside of her glass. “They don’t fit the theme.”

“So change the theme,” Gideon reasoned, her finger pressing the trigger of the water pistol again. “It’s your place, right?”

“No, it isn’t."

That was a first. Excessive make out sessions must make Harrow more ready to admit the truths she usually skimmed past. Gideon didn’t really get the ins and outs of the ownership of the Tomb. She understood that Harrow’s parents owned it. She knew that they signed it all over to Crux before their death, and she understood that eventually, Crux was going to sign it back to Harrow, but when? Harrow wasn’t a child. She was fast approaching thirty! If anyone knew how to run a place like the Tomb, it was Harrow Nonagesimus. Hell, look at how she lived! She obviously wasn’t a frivolous spender.

Gideon chewed at a dry spot on her lip as she shifted so that she could see Harrow. She looked at her old favorite spots, the two marks on Harrow’s nose and the one on Harrow’s cheek. Harrow was wearing sunglasses, but they were a different shape than the prescriptionless pair of glasses she wore to look cool, and the marks were still visible. Gideon didn’t visit them as often now that she wasn’t as scared of the rest of Harrow’s face. Or at least, she didn’t visit them as often with her eyes. She pressed kisses to them instead, revelled in the absolutely embarrassing sound Harrow made the first time she pressed her lips to those spots, and then made sure to do it again and again.

She studied the angles of Harrow’s eyebrows and the industrial studs in her ears. Harrow’s lips looked dry and chapped, the result of too much kissing and not enough chapstick. Gideon carried a tube with her now, made sure to apply it liberally in the morning and then again after she parted ways with Harrow on their way to work in the evening. She doubted the thought ever occurred to Harrow, even after Gideon pressed a tube into the palm of Harrow’s hand.

Gideon took another sip of her drink and remembered back to the stagnant menu that sat on the bar within the Tomb. She’d thought that meant Harrow had simply stopped experimenting, but that was obviously not the case. She’d just moved all of her creative energy out of the Tomb and into her home instead.

“What if it was yours now? Would you change it?”

Harrow shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“We could just come up with spookier names,” Gideon offered. “This one’s Last Dance, right? But what if it was Death’s Dance? Dance of Death?”

Harrow stood from the chair. “Come inside,” she said. “It’s too hot out here.”

It was too hot because Harrow was wearing too many clothes, all of them black. Gideon followed Harrow, back into the house. The cool shaded interior made her sag a little with relief. Harrow waited for Gideon to settle onto the old orange couch before she physically advanced. Her lips brushed against Gideon’s and Gideon shivered.

“Devil’s Dance?” Gideon suggested just before Harrow’s proximity pushed her brain into automatic shut down.

“Let it go, Griddle.” That old hard edge was creeping back into Harrow’s voice.

Gideon let it go. She let it go even though, in her very humble opinion, drinks with names like Fallen Fruit and Fever Dream already fit the theme close enough.

She let a lot of things go. There was a lot they didn’t talk about anymore, like what they were doing, why it was happening, or where they were going. They also stopped pretending it wasn’t going to happen again. That part was refreshing. That part was new.

**

Most days, Gideon woke up in her own bed, late morning, sometimes early afternoon, and she walked Abigail and Magnus’s dogs. She went to the gym with Camilla. After the gym, more often than not, she went over to Harrow’s. She knew where Harrow hid the spare key now, in the pot of cilantro on the second tier of her garden. Gideon plucked it up from the dirt and she let herself in. If Harrow was still asleep, Gideon walked Dog. Sometimes she washed Harrow’s dishes and made Harrow breakfast. And then once Harrow was up and ready for the day, the kissing began.

Sometimes Harrow was up when Gideon arrived, sometimes she was already beside the glass doors, waiting as Gideon fiddled with the lock. Sometimes she pulled Gideon into the cool of the house and pressed Gideon’s back to the wall and kissed her in greeting.

They were making out like they were in high school and just discovered making out, except that Gideon didn’t make out with much of anyone in high school and if she had to place bets, she’d bet that Harrow didn’t either. Gideon had known Harrow what felt like forever, but in truth their shared history was full of big holes. They were never really friends, but they went to school together until Harrow moved into a different district at nine, and then again when Gideon’s mom skipped town for the thousandth time and Gideon moved in with Aiglamene at sixteen. Gideon was there at eighteen when Harrow’s parents died, and then Harrow was gone again and Gideon didn’t see her until she was twenty-two, until she arrived for her first day of work at The Locked Tomb. She didn’t realize then, didn’t make the connection between the bar that Harrow’s parents owned growing up and The Locked Tomb run by the cantankerous Crux. By twenty-two, it seemed to Gideon that Harrow had only ever existed within the Tomb. The childhood that came before seemed like a strange dream, impossible.

Now she saw Harrow almost every day again, spent afternoons in the cool confines of Harrow’s home, in that time capsule of a house where everything was a shade of yellow or orange or brown, even the dog—fuck, even Gideon. Harrow, dressed all in black with her dark hair and her dark eyes, was the only exception. But even then, Harrow’s kisses were red hot. Harrow’s kisses left embers that glowed, orange-yellow-red. They flickered and flared in Gideon’s gut; they lit her up and left her burning for more.

**

Warming to Harrow (or at least to Harrow’s drinks and Harrow’s orange-yellow-red kisses) did the trick of warming Gideon a little toward the always chilly Tomb again as well. She found herself talking up Harrow’s talent at a now rare dinner with Dulcinea, Palamedes and Camilla. They indulged her, let her go on about it for a long time. Dulcinea watched Gideon with a small smile playing at her lips and her face propped on one hand. The other hand was somewhere beneath the table, probably clutched tight to Pal’s. Gideon couldn’t even tell her to stop, because Gideon was smiling too.

“All I’m saying is, most of the people who work there are awful, like really heinous, but the drinks are actually good, worth going good, and I think you’d be impressed.”

“By Harrow,” Palamedes clarified.

“Look at her,” Dulcie said. “Our Gideon sitting here promoting the very bar she made us all swear we’d never ever patronize. You once told me Harrow was evil incarnate, an extremely nasty beast from hell, and now you’re—just look at her, Pal. She’s glowing. You all see her glowing, don’t you? True love.”

Gideon snorted. “That’s a stretch.”

Dulcinea tilted her head and regarded Gideon from a slightly different angle. “Is it?”

“Come on.”

“You’re allowed to love your wife,” Palamedes pointed out. “In fact, it’s generally recommended.”

Gideon pulled her napkin up from her lap and set it on the table beside her plate. She leaned back in her chair until the front legs lifted and the back began to creak. “You know that’s not how any of this is. I’m just saying she’s good at this. Like, really good.”

“She’s good at other things too though, isn’t she?” Dulcie asked, eyebrows high.

“We aren’t sleeping together,” Gideon said, perhaps a little too quickly.

“No one said you were,” Cam pointed out. Damn, even Cam was having a laugh at Gideon’s expense now.

Dulcinea nodded. “We just can’t help but notice that it seems you’ve purchased stock in lip balm over these last couple weeks. You dropped a stick in the living room and Mia’s been playing with it for days. There are two in the hall bathroom, and you’ve reapplied twice during dinner. Feeling a little...chapped?”

Gideon pressed her lips together and resisted the urge to tell them all to fuck off. “We’re just getting to know each other. And then we’re getting divorced, look—do you want to come to The Locked Tomb one night or not?”

“Not me,” Dulcinea said. “It’s obvious just from what you’ve said that they don’t have an elevator. I propose that you bring Harrow here, instead. I would love that. We’ll make dinner, Harrow makes the drinks?”

Gideon sucked at her teeth.

“That would be nice,” Palamedes agreed. “Until then—just promise you’ll be careful. Don’t get so caught up that you forget to watch out for you.”

“Yeah, of course,” Gideon said. She nodded, then shrugged. “We’re taking it really slow. I told you, we haven’t even—”

“What definition of slow are we using? You’re married,” Cam pointed out.

Gideon groaned, frustrated. “So which is it?” Gideon asked. “True love and I’m legally allowed to love my wife, or watch your back, Gideon, you’re being reckless and moving too fast? Can we pick a side here and then move on?”

Dulcinea was still smiling despite Gideon’s mounting frustration. “It’d be easier to pick a side if you brought her over for dinner.”

That wasn’t happening. Not yet and maybe not ever. Harrow would probably laugh in Gideon’s face if she even suggested it. Harrow would shut the whole thing down, shut herself down, and they’d end up with Juno Zeta’s stack of forms spread across the coffee table. And even then, Harrow would probably refuse to sign. Why let Gideon go with a clean break, when she could just kick her out, but keep her tied up in the marriage anyway instead?

Whatever the case, Gideon wasn’t ready to call it quits yet. She still didn’t understand what drove them to the altar. If she fucked this up now, she’d never know. She’d always wonder. They’d get there eventually anyway—no one was pretending divorce wasn’t inevitable. Or at least, Gideon wasn't pretending that divorce wasn't inevitable—but in the meantime Gideon was holding onto the afternoon heat, to Dog’s wagging tail and Harrow waiting by the glass doors to pull her in, to welcome her home with a red hot kiss.

Four A.M. was when things started to get pretty fuzzy. Gideon kissed Harrowhark Nonagesimus in the bathroom between the lady still obsessively picking at her mascara and a group of women who screeched and began to clap as Gideon fell into Harrow. Some spoiled sport shouted “Get a room!” but she was shushed by the less jaded drunk women in the bathroom line.

Gideon ignored them all. All that mattered was Harrow’s fingers on her neck and Harrow’s mouth hot on hers.

This wasn’t the first time she’d kissed Harrow. It wasn’t the first time Harrow kissed her. This had all happened already, once before, years ago when they were the only two in the Tomb, when the doors were shut and locked. A few hours before it happened the first time, Gideon was tossing glasses behind the bar like she was Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail. It was very impressive, a real crowd pleaser, until she missed one and it shattered at Harrow’s feet. That was when the night took a turn. Gideon was flustered and Harrow was pissed, and Crux made a stink about breaking a glass being the equivalent of Gideon stealing money from Harrow’s pockets and flushing it down the toilet, which seemed extreme for a fucking glass, but that was Crux for you. He made her give him the cost of the glass from her tips. Absolute shit manager, always and forever.

Things got a little better once Crux left Harrow and Gideon to close up for the night (or morning, really), but only a little better. Harrow started ordering Gideon around, reminding her to do things that were part of Gideon’s job, that she successfully managed to do every single night she worked and had been doing for like five years at that point, things that Gideon was obviously going to do, things that didn’t require Harrow’s reminders. That made Gideon feel petty, so she said something like, “You gonna make me, Pipsqueak?”

And Harrow said, “Don’t make me make you, Griddle.”

And Gideon countered with “Go ahead, Harrow. Make me make you.” She paused long enough to realize that didn’t quite add up. She added, “Make me.”

It was probably important to point out that they were already full grown adults at this point, like mid-twenties adults. So in hindsight Gideon understood why her response pushed Harrow over some ledge, caused her to shriek and come at Gideon with arms raised. She didn’t actually try to hit Gideon, just pressed her fists to Gideon’s chest with a frustrated cry. Gideon took a step back anyway, right into the back counter. The bottles shook, and Harrow advanced, pressing into Gideon, pushing her back harder.

Gideon didn’t understand what exactly about this exchange drove Harrow to follow up the fist-to-chest frustration with kissing, but it’s not like Gideon was complaining about it at the time. She was into it. She kissed Harrow back. They legit made out, no question. And then the next day Harrow acted like Gideon had run over a puppy, like she’d pissed in Harrow’s Cheerios, or kicked her in the shin. Everything was one thousand percent worse after that.

Everything would probably be worse after this too. Didn’t matter this time. Gideon didn’t care. She didn’t care because she was the perfect amount of drunk, because Harrow’s hands were on her face holding her close. She didn’t care because even if Harrow acted like this was all Gideon’s fault tomorrow, it wasn’t like Gideon was forced to see Harrow every day from then on anyway. They weren’t coworkers now. They weren’t tomb mates. Harrow definitely wasn’t Gideon’s boss anymore.

Gideon thought about kissing Harrow again pretty often after that first time, but the thoughts were never all that nice after Harrow’s kicked puppy response. It all centered around doing everything possible to make herself irresistible to Harrow, to drive Harrow back to that point where she had no choice but to admit it had happened the once and that she wanted it to happen again.

Except that Harrow didn’t want it to happen again. Apparently. Not even when Gideon lifted the bottom of her shirt to wipe nonexistent sweat from her face, or when Gideon did press ups against the bar, or when Gideon was really fucking nice and also great at her job and did everything she was supposed to do extra early before Harrow had time to note the things that still needed to be done. None of it mattered. Harrow wasn’t interested. Maybe Harrow only liked femmes or something. Maybe Harrow didn’t like anyone. Maybe Harrow just absolutely hated Gideon specifically.

Whatever the reason, it made an already not great situation way worse, and Gideon, who had started looking for work elsewhere well before that with no luck, decided to go to the Erebos instead, decided to learn to deal tables. And unlike all of the past jobs she’d applied to, this time she didn’t ask anyone in the Tomb for a character reference or a recommendation. This time she got in on the first try, and when that happened it really drove home how fucked up everything was, how Harrow would do anything to keep her around, and everything to keep her at arm’s length.

It didn’t matter now. None of that mattered now.

Now they were in the bathroom at Club Nine sucking face like they’d never stopped, except that the kiss they shared now was better than the kiss Gideon remembered in the Tomb (even though, again, she was pretty into the kiss then too).

This time, Gideon was going to make sure she really performed her best. This time Gideon was going to make sure it was a night Harrow wouldn’t want to erase, wouldn’t be able to wipe from her memory even if she wanted to. Gideon kissed Harrow with all she had, with all she’d learned about herself since that moment three years prior. She kissed Harrow with the reduced inhibitions that alcohol was renowned for, a magical confidence boost, a skill strengthening elixir.

Okay, yeah, that was absolutely the alcohol talking, and it was definitely telling some lies, but either way, it worked, because Harrow kissed Gideon back like she’d been starving, like Gideon was the first meal she’d had in three very long years. Like maybe she really hadn’t been smacking lips with Ianthe Tridentarius all this time after all.

Gideon didn’t remember leaving the bathroom, but they left it at some point, and before Gideon knew it they were dancing, bodies pressed close, nice and tight to each other. Harrow kept her eyes closed and Gideon guided them, moved Harrow with her, and then they were kissing again there on the dance floor, Gideon bending to meet Harrow’s lips and Harrow holding on tight. Another drink, another song, and they were on a bench, her body curved toward Harrow, Harrow’s curved in toward Gideon. Gideon sucked at Harrow’s teeth, pressed lips to Harrow’s jaw, tongue to the acrid paint on Harrow’s neck.

Cam was there for a while, quiet and discreet. Gideon let herself be pulled aside and she couldn’t follow everything they discussed, but she assured Cam that she knew what she was doing, that everything was fine, that Cam could just go home if she wanted to, go cuddle up to Dulcinea. Cam said, “Okay.” and then Cam was gone (but not gone gone, just went to the bar for another drink gone) and it was Gideon and Harrow and Harrow and Gideon. They were back on the dance floor, pressed together and moving, kissing, kissing, kissing, so close that it felt like the boundaries between them, layers of fabric and layers of skin, might just dissolve completely. It felt like if Harrow held Gideon any closer, Gideon might just melt into Harrow and disappear, and she’d feel nothing but relief. She might even feel complete.

The thought should have been frightening, the realization that in that moment, Gideon wanted nothing more than to be consumed by Harrow—Figuratively, obviously. This wasn’t that kind of horror movie—Still, it should have been frightening, and it wasn’t. It was thrilling. It was a long time coming. It was about fucking time.

At some point Gideon’s shirt came untucked, and Harrow’s fingers crept up beneath the fabric, hot fingertips pressed to Gideon’s torso and touching the skin along Gideon’s flanks, and all Gideon could think was I knew it. I fucking knew it. Harrow gave herself away. She remembered how hard Gideon tried all of those years ago, how Gideon wiped away that invisible sweat from her forehead with the bottom of her shirt. Gideon was certain that Harrow remembered now. She was certain that Harrow was into it.

Gideon’s stomach grumbled and Harrow pulled back, her hand slipping away from Gideon’s torso. She looked up at Gideon with a surprised blink.

Gideon laughed and kissed her, nice and slow. When she was finished, Harrow pushed up onto her tiptoes, grabbed Gideon by the neck and pulled Gideon down until she could get right up close to Gideon’s ear.

“Come on,” Harrow said. She had to shout to be heard over the music. It was a wonder she’d felt Gideon’s stomach growl in protest at all. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

I’ll buy you breakfast! What an absolutely insane thing for Harrow to say!

It was like Gideon had used her mouth to transform Harrow into someone who had feelings with a neutral pH, feelings that didn’t burn holes right through whatever she touched, and now Harrow was offering to buy Gideon breakfast. Harrow probably didn’t even eat breakfast, or if she did eat breakfast—because she clearly ate something to fuel her burning anger and hatred—she certainly didn’t like it. The offer was so remarkable, so unprecedented, that Gideon laughed and buried her face against Harrow’s painted neck, and Harrow didn’t even try to push her away!

Gideon’s stomach rumbled again. She lifted her head and the room spun for just a second. Gideon held on tight, refused to stumble. “Yes, okay. Breakfast is a fucking fantastic idea. Let’s do that.”

The beauty of a casino resort was they didn’t even have to go outside. They stumbled out of the club into the Mithraeum’s corridors and made it a total of five steps before Gideon actually did stumble. Harrow laughed and then they were kissing again, leaning against the wall in smeared skull paint under lights as bright as the afternoon sun. It was hard to say how long they were there. It could have been minutes. Gideon wouldn’t be that surprised to learn it was hours.

They were interrupted by the buzz of Gideon’s phone in her back pocket.

“Oh,” Harrow said. She pressed her hand over the phone. “Someone’s happy to see me.” Harrow’s other hand found Gideon’s other pocket, empty, phoneless. Harrow grabbed at it anyway, the press of her fingers firm over Gideon’s butt cheek.

Gideon froze, shocked by another insane response from Harrow, by this butt-grabbing move she just pulled. It was further proof that Harrow had been snatched away and replaced, some kind of soul-swapping incident, maybe. Body snatchers. Who was this woman and what had she done with Harrow Nonagesimus and why was it all so damn funny? It was the funniest thing Harrow had ever said to her, the most hilarious thing she’d ever done, and Gideon couldn’t stop laughing. She was laughing so damn hard she couldn’t breathe, and Harrow was looking at her with shiny black eyes, like she was seeing Gideon Nav for the very first time, like for the first time she looked at Gideon and absolutely loved everything she saw.

Fuck, Harrow was gorgeous like that. Gideon looked back at Harrow, at her missing marks, her painted cheeks and her paintless mouth, at her shining dark eyes. She saw Harrowhark Nonagesimus standing there, for probably the very first time, and she loved it. She loved absolutely everything she saw.

“Taste this,” Harrow said. She pushed a glass into Gideon’s hand while Gideon was still standing at the front door.

No welcome kisses today. Harrow called three times before noon, woke Gideon up and demanded that Gideon skip the gym and come over right away. Gideon assumed it meant the worst. She assumed it meant—okay, so Gideon never did tell Harrow that they were apparently so obvious that Corona guessed correctly right away. She also didn’t admit a thing to Corona. She held fast. She kept her word.

It was now three weeks since their lunch, and Harrow had not exploded at Gideon over it, which meant that Ianthe still did not know, which meant that Corona kept her word too, even from her twin sister. It meant Gideon was free to explore whatever was happening with Harrow, that she didn’t need to sweat at every text with Corona’s name attached. By the time they parted ways, Gideon thought they might even, eventually, be friends. After Gideon announced her marriage, Corona admitted that there’d always been something unspoken between her and Judith, and that now they were starting to speak about it. In the end, it was nice. Gideon hoped they really would end up friends.

But then she woke up to all these urgent early calls from Harrow demanding Gideon come over right away. What was she supposed to think? Of course she was going to assume the worst, so when Harrow opened the door, expression tight with determination, two glasses in her hands, Gideon fixed her eyes firmly on Harrow’s nose marks and took the glass that Harrow pushed into her palm.

“What happened?”

“Just taste it,” Harrow said, impatient.

The glass contained crushed ice, a wine-colored drink, and a sprig of mint. Gideon sipped it and then nodded. “It’s good.”

“Do you recognize it?”

“It’s fruity,” Gideon said. She mentally reviewed the list of Locked Tomb cocktails and then recognized the combination. “It’s the Raven’s Wing, right?”

Harrow nodded. “It is.” She grabbed the drink from Gideon’s hand, then thrust the second glass toward her.

Gideon squinted out toward the street. “Am I allowed in?”

Harrow stepped back to give Gideon room to step inside. That also gave Dog room to push up against Gideon’s legs, to lick up her right leg in two wet swipes. “There’s the greeting I was hoping for.”

Harrow rolled her eyes, but she leaned in and kissed Gideon firmly on the mouth. Harrow’s greeting wasn’t quite as slobbery as Dog’s. Harrow pulled back and nodded toward the glass in Gideon’s hand. “Okay, taste that one.”

“So this isn’t like—I didn’t somehow fuck up?”

Harrow frowned. “No, not yet. Why do you think you fucked up?”

“I don’t,” Gideon said. “But you called four times.”

“I know.” Harrow waved a hand toward the drink. “Taste. Please.”

Gideon tasted the drink and knew immediately that she was about to fail this test. “It’s another Raven’s Wing.”

Harrow waited, eyebrows high. Gideon took another sip and shrugged.

“That’s it?” Harrow asked.

Gideon shrugged again. “It’s good?”

Harrow pushed the first glass into Gideon’s empty hand and then grabbed her by the elbow and led her to the couch.

“Sit down.”

Gideon was still wearing her shoes. She was still wearing her bag. She had her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, and she stood there, awkward, the two drinks held in her hands.

Harrow huffed, and then reached out toward Gideon. She plucked the glasses from Gideon's head and discarded them on the coffee table. She navigated Gideon’s bag over Gideon's head and down her shoulder, while Gideon tried not to let the drinks spill on Harrow's carpet. Once Gideon's bag was extracted from Gideon's body, Harrow dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor.

Gideon sat down with a grunt, one drink in each hand. Harrow stayed standing. She looked down at Gideon, her arms folded over her chest. “Taste them both again.”

Gideon tasted them both again.

“Now tell me which one is better.”

“They taste the same. They’re the same drink.” The Raven’s Wing was made with a red blackcurrant liqueur combined with a raspberry lambic beer, poured over crushed ice and served with a sprig of mint. Usually the mint was sprayed black with a food coloring spray so it looked a little like a creepy bird wing stuck in your glass. It wasn’t Gideon’s favorite drink by any stretch, but these were fine. They were good.

“They aren’t the same,” Harrow said. “I need you to choose.”

Gideon took a deep breath. The afternoon was going to be severely lacking in lazy make out sessions based on Harrow’s current level of agitation. All Gideon could do was play along, do as she was told, and hope to be rewarded by the end.

She sipped the version in her right hand again. Cold. Tart. Pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you were someone who once had to know every drink on the menu.

She sipped the version in her left hand. Cold. Tart. Pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you were someone who once had to know every drink on the damn menu.

No, hold on. She sipped the one on her right again, then left. Harrow was right. They were slightly different. The one on the left was somehow warmer than the one on the left, but just barely. Not like temperature warm, they were both ice cold, but like...flavor palette warm. Fuck, Gideon was not the person Harrow should be playing this game with. Gideon was the only one there though (unless Harrow wanted to try to interrogate Dog), and Gideon wanted to stay, so she went with it. She held up the glass on the left. “This one.”

Harrow cursed. She turned and she cursed again. An entire string of fuck-words, followed by some truly adorable foot stomping.

Eventually Harrow turned back toward Gideon with a pointed finger. “Why?”

“It’s, like, just a tiny bit warmer?” Gideon offered, though they were really so similar that she felt like she was making it all up.

Harrow swore again. She grabbed both glasses from Gideon’s hand, ordered Gideon to stay put, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Gideon stayed put. She listened to the sound of Harrow shifting around bottles and glassware. She scratched Dog’s ears when Dog came to sit beside her. Dog settled her face on Gideon’s leg and Gideon stopped bouncing her knee in an attempt to make Dog more comfortable.

Eventually Harrow returned with two glasses that both very obviously contained a drink that was called The Conjuring on The Locked Tomb’s menu. This one, with its combination of coconut, chocolate, and licorice flavors, had always been a polarizing menu item. It was one of Gideon’s favorites.

It was easier to pick out which one of these was different. There were no new flavors involved, no hidden depths that Gideon had never delved before. The proportions were adjusted, just slightly from the menu, and the adjustment just worked to highlight everything Gideon already loved about the drink. She raised the glass on the right. “This one.”

Harrow cursed again, another adorable foot stomp.

“Can we pause now while you tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Gideon asked. She took another sip of the drink.

“Someone’s trying to fuck with me,” Harrow said. “He must work at the Languid Lounge, or maybe Bar Cotta. He sat there all night, just ordering drinks and critiquing them. It was infuriating, but worse than that, he followed each critique up with suggestions! Ortus had to hold me back." Harrow's fists clenched at her sides. "This guy was lucky Ortus was on, anyone else and he might never have left. Ianthe would have helped. I’ve never met anyone so—” Here Harrow just made a tight twisted knot of her hands and then an exaggerated growling sound. “Not even you, Griddle.”

Dog perked up at this compliment—was it a compliment?—and abandoned Gideon in favor of sitting at Harrow’s feet. Harrow ignored her. She was still staring at the drinks in Gideon’s hands.

“Could he have been sent over from Hazlewood? It doesn’t make sense. I’ve made no changes, there’s no reason—And I think he was hitting on me. Why?”

“Wow,” Gideon said, not because someone hitting on Harrow was unbelievable, but because it had to be really blatant flirting for Harrow to notice it at all. Gideon learned that one the hard way. Flirting aside, there was something in Harrow’s story that had Gideon’s spider senses tingling. “What did this guy look like?”

“He just looked like some man. Tall, a little unkempt, but in a way where it might have been on purpose. Brown, but his skin was lighter than yours. His eyes were really the only thing of note. They were a very clear grey. They seemed bright even though the lights were dim. Like how yours always seemed to catch what little light there was.”

“Oh. Shit, okay,” Gideon said. She set down her drinks and sat up a little straighter. “Grey eyes. Thin and pointy with thick glasses?”

Harrow frowned. “How did you know?”

“That might have been—okay, so you know I have housemates, right? You met Cam and I think you ran into Dulcinea, but there’s also Palamedes. I think maybe you’ve met him now too.”

Harrow blinked a few times in an apparent attempt to absorb this information. “Your housemates are spying on me?”

“Not spying,” Gideon clarified. “I mean, they’re my friends, so yeah, they want to make sure I’m not tangled up in something totally fucked up, but they trust me, and they’re all weird romantics even if they won’t admit it.” They mostly admitted it.

Harrow made a small horrified noise. It was a warning sound, an early alarm to let Gideon know she was once again going about this in entirely the wrong way.

Gideon stumbled on. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—okay, so a week ago I was talking you up over dinner, like you know, oh, you should taste some of the drinks Harrow makes, she’s really a genius at this blah, blah, blah, and I might have said they should go to the Tomb and try a few. I meant with me, and they all kinda brushed it off, but Palamedes must have been more curious about it than he let on at the time. Because at the time, they wanted you to come over for dinner instead, and I was like, well, that’s obviously not happening.”

Harrow looked up at that, a slight frown on her face. “Does he work at Hazlewood?”

“No.”

“Bar Cotta?”

“No, of course not.”

“So then what does he do?”

“Palamedes? Nothing, really. He’s getting his PhD in… something. History, maybe? Honestly, I love the guy, but I tune out every time it comes up.”

“Hm,” Harrow said. She chewed at her lip, her arms folded over her chest. Eventually she said, “When is your next night off?”

Gideon pulled her phone from her pocket and scanned her calendar. “Monday.”

Harrow nodded. “I can be available Monday. ”

“For what?”

“You just said your friends want me to come to dinner. I need to know the menu a minimum of three days in advance.”

“Yeah, but—” Gideon considered the best phrasing for what she needed to say next. “Should I also invite Ortus to hold you back from tackling Pal?”

Harrow actually let out a surprised laugh at that. “I think you can handle us, Griddle,” Harrow said. “Don’t you pride yourself on being built like a bouncer?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon countered. She shook out her arms, then presented a half-hearted flex. “Someone demanded I skip the gym today. I’m probably not up to par.” They were playing this as a joke now, but had Gideon ever really been able to handle Harrow? Gideon felt constantly overwhelmed, overpowered. Gideon had been in over her head with Harrow from the very beginning, always trying to stay afloat. Harrow could pull her under so damn easily.

Harrow didn’t pull her under.

Harrow studied her for a long time, long enough that Gideon’s skin began to prickle under the scrutiny. Long enough that Gideon itched to get up and move already. Gideon was about to do just that when Harrow suddenly announced that she intended to advance. Gideon’s heart leapt, and she settled back. She waited for Harrow to step into range, and when Harrow did, Gideon pulled Harrow down unceremoniously into her lap. Harrow yelped in surprise, and then flailed around until Gideon stilled her with a kiss. Harrow’s hands settled on Gideon’s arms, then slid up to grip Gideon’s shoulders, her fingers scratching over exposed skin.

They’d been doing this for weeks, kissing like teenagers, and neither of them had tried to advance things further than that. It felt, somehow, like a line they shouldn’t cross. It felt like it might make everything too real.

Gideon wondered where they’d be right now if they hadn’t walked down the aisle. How might the night have ended instead? Would they still be here, making out on Harrow’s couch? What if they’d booked a room, or stumbled back to Gideon’s place, and just hooked up instead like normal adults in their late twenties? They would have woken up tangled together the next morning, neither of them remembering much of the night before. A night of not-quite-friendly hate sex, unimpressive due to the alcohol, hardly remembered after a week and never spoken of again.

That would have been so much worse. Fuck, that would have sucked so bad. Gideon never would have gone back to the Tomb. She wouldn’t have posted the ad at Mithras Market. Harrow never would have broken her own rules or pressed Gideon up against her sliding glass door. They wouldn’t have any of this, and it wasn’t until that moment that Gideon realized, like really realized, how much she wanted this to continue, at least for a while. If she was lucky, this might last a long time. It might even last forever, if they could somehow keep it going like it was right now.

Forever seemed like an overwhelmingly long time. It seemed like insanity, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because Gideon had never been lucky.

Harrow shifted. Her foot landed on Gideon’s bag and knocked it over, sliding away from her in the process.

“Fuck,” Harrow said, breaking away from Gideon’s mouth, her hands releasing Gideon’s shoulders. “I forgot that was there.”

“Leave it,” Gideon said. She leaned in and kissed the mark on Harrow’s cheek. She kissed Harrow’s neck as Harrow continued to reach for the bag. Harrow pulled it up by the strap and then leaned down again to gather the contents that had spilled out. Gideon held Harrow’s arm to keep her balanced and used the opportunity to press kisses to the inside of Harrow’s wrist.

“What’s this?” Harrow asked.

Gideon nipped at the pad of Harrow’s thumb. “What?”

“Why do you have this?”

“What?” Gideon asked again. She pulled Harrow’s arm, bringing Harrow with it until Harrow was sitting back upright. Harrow came up holding a stack of papers in disarray. Gideon recognized it immediately as the paperwork from Juno Zeta’s office.

“Oh,” Gideon said. Harrow’s brow was furrowed, and her mouth was turned down in a confused little frown. Gideon shifted her focus to the safety of Harrow’s nose. “I’ve had that for weeks. Pal’s mom is a lawyer, so after, you know, we accidentally got hitched, I went to see her to figure out our options.”

“Our options,” Harrow repeated. She shook her hand free of Gideon’s and flipped the first page so that she could scan the second.

“Yeah,” Gideon said. “So if we both agree on everything, it’s pretty easy. It’s an uncontested divorce. If we don’t agree, then it gets trickier. There are court appearances and stuff.” There had to be more to it, but Gideon barely thought about those papers for weeks. She’d forgotten the details of everything she was told that afternoon as she sat beside Cam and admired Juno. Gideon shrugged. “I think that’s more for people who share kids, not so much people who get drunk and then get hitched on a whim.”

“If you’ve had this for weeks, why haven’t you said?” Harrow asked.

“I was going to. That’s why I came to see you after in the Tomb, but I told Ortus and fucked it up and you were really pissed, and I didn’t understand how we even ended up where we were. Like how did you and I end up married? And then from there—” Gideon waved a hand toward the glass door. “Now we’re here.”

Harrow stared down at the pages. She was still in Gideon’s lap, still awkwardly straddling Gideon with one knee up on the couch cushions by Gideon’s thigh and the other foot down on the floor. Gideon sat and waited for Harrow to do whatever Harrow was going to decide to do next.

“Do you want me to sign this?” Harrow asked eventually.

“I don’t know,” Gideon said. It was the truth, but maybe not the whole truth, because the whole truth would have included 'not yet'. “Do you want to sign it?”

Harrow looked up at Gideon. Gideon resisted the urge to look away. She held Harrow’s gaze, let Harrow look for as long as Harrow needed to, and made sure she was there and looking back.

“I don’t know.”

Chapter Text

Harrow arrived twenty minutes early and dressed for a funeral.

Okay, so she was dressed like she was always dressed—black jeans, long sleeves despite the fact they lived in the desert, black boots—but something about the bright lights of Dulcinea’s house and the frankly embarrassing irregularity of Gideon’s heartbeat made the attire seem even more out of place than it usually did.

At least she didn’t wear the glasses. The marks on Harrow’s nose were on full display. Gideon’s eyes caught on those marks and the world slowed down just enough for Gideon to get a fucking grip.

“You’re here,” she said, which was stupid, but at least it came out of her mouth in clear and fully formed words.

“Of course I’m here,” Harrow returned. She shifted and her whole body clinked like she was stuffed full of heavy glass bottles—which she was, sort of. Harrow had a big black bag slung over a shoulder and another hanging from her hand.

The bags jolted Gideon into action. She reached for the one in Harrow’s hand and Harrow let her take it. She let Gideon take the one from her back too. And when Gideon leaned in, Harrow let her press a kiss to the corner of Harrow’s mouth. As Gideon went to pull back, Harrow grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her close again, just long enough to say: “Don’t make this weird, Nav.”

“Yeah, no.” Gideon agreed. It seemed hard to breathe, but when she reached up to pull the collar of her shirt away from her neck, there was nothing there. The collar of her tank top was nowhere near her throat. There was nothing there but the chain around her neck, Harrow’s ring tucked away between her tits. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to...you know. Everyone.”

It was awkward. It was definitely weird. Gideon started to introduce Harrow as her co-worker, then her wife, and then her friend. She stumbled over all three. When Harrow pinched her wrist in a painful attempt to reel Gideon back in, Dulcinea thankfully intervened, except she went with, “Actually, we’ve all already met at one time or another. Welcome back, Harrow. I hope this time you’ll stay for a cup of coffee.” Dulcinea paused, and then her eyes went wide. “After dinner, of course. Though if you’re still here in the morning, please, stay then too!”

That got Harrow all clammed up, stiff as a board and awkward as fuck, so Gideon ushered her into the dining room, helped her set up her bottles, fetched her ice, and then stood back and let Harrow do her thing. This time Harrow’s thing turned out to be lavender infused gin, agave syrup, rosé, white grapefruit, cava brut, citric acid sugar rim, and a garnish of some pink flower sprig that Gideon recognized from Harrow’s back yard fixed to the lip of the glass. After that it was rosemary vodka, dry vermouth, vanilla bean, lavender simple syrup, lemon juice and a twist for garnish. Then spruce tip gin, honey, lemon, bee pollen sugar rim.

Dulcinea watched Harrow’s process from her chair at the table, her head propped in the palms of her hands. Palamedes was in charge of dinner, so he and Camilla watched from the kitchen. Gideon hovered nervously over Harrow’s shoulder, until she saw Harrow tense and knew that Harrow was holding back. If it was just the two of them, Harrow would have already snapped, told Gideon to sit the fuck down already and let her breathe. So Gideon said, “let me know if you need anything,” and then she sat the fuck down and let Harrow breathe.

Dulcinea leaned in toward Gideon. “I’m so into this,” she admitted. She’d beckoned Gideon closer as though it was a secret, but her words came out at normal volume so the whole house heard. Gideon wasn’t sure how to respond to that—Yeah, me too, obviously?—so she just nodded and focused on trying to control the nervous bounce of her knee instead.

Shortly before dinner, Gideon’s phone buzzed twice in quick succession. She pulled it from her pocket just as Harrow turned to Camilla, phone in hand, and said, “Could you remind me where to find the bathroom?”

Gideon looked down at her phone.

Show me your room.

And: Quickly.

Shit. That was—Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Gideon shoved the phone in her pocket and stood, a bit too fast, a bit too abrupt. Dulcinea jumped, startled, and gripped the arms of her wheelchair. “Sorry,” Gideon apologized. She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Be right back!”

The light was off in her room, but there was still enough light from the street coming in through the blinds to see Harrow pacing. She had her thumb in her mouth and was chewing on the nail. She tore off a bit of nail and spit it onto Gideon’s carpet. Okay, gross, but Gideon’s heart was racing! She reached for Harrow, ready for whatever Harrow had planned, whatever sort of physical—

“Sextus is infuriating,” Harrow said, her voice hushed, her arms tense beneath Gideon’s hands. “I kept waiting for him to make his little suggestions and then nothing!”

“That’s why we’re in here?” Gideon asked. “Because Palamedes Sextus didn’t try to alter your drinks? Harrow, I thought you wanted to make out!”

“Make out? Later, Griddle, I—I need to know. Did you tell him not to say anything this time?”

“Shit, Harrow, my freakin’ heart is racing. Feel this.” She took Harrow’s hand and pressed it to her chest, over her heart, over the ring tucked down into her bandeau. She wondered, suddenly, what Harrow had done with her own ring. She wondered if it matched. Most pressingly, she wondered if Harrow realized how much of an ass she looked by choosing that moment to roll her eyes. “Come on, do you feel that?”

“Yes,” Harrow said. “I feel it and it doesn’t seem healthy. You should see a doctor. Now what did you tell Sextus?”

Gideon released Harrow’s hand. Harrow kept it there for a moment longer, like maybe she didn’t realize Gideon was no longer holding her.

“I didn’t tell him not to do anything,” Gideon said, which jolted Harrow back to awareness. She pulled her hand away and began to massage her palm with the fingers of her other hand. Gideon continued: “Maybe there was nothing he thought you should change. There was nothing I thought you should change.”

“You’ll take anything I give you,” Harrow muttered, dismissive.

“Oh yeah? Fuck you,” Gideon said. Except, okay, yes, lately she would! She wanted whatever Harrow was willing to give her because, fuck, that was the point, wasn’t it? That was the only way they’d ever understand how they ended up there. “Actually, I can think of a few more things I’d like you to give me.”

Harrow chewed on her answer for a moment. She couldn’t seem to look at Gideon when she finally spoke.

“This is why we don’t talk, Griddle. It’s never been one of our strengths.”

Harrow was still staring past Gideon and Gideon twisted to look back over her shoulder to see whatever Harrow saw. What Harrow saw seemed to be Gideon’s bed, which was—well, obviously the place they spent the morning after their wedding, and also it was Gideon’s bed. Come the fuck on, Harrow!

“Do you like what you see?” Gideon asked. That got Harrow’s attention back on Gideon’s face. Gideon let out a breath and then folded her arms over her chest. She leaned in as she asked her next question. “What are our strengths, would you say?”

“Asking inappropriate and obvious questions is certainly one of yours.”

“Nice,” Gideon said, brightly. She leaned closer. “Okay, then. Next question. How long have you wanted to get with this bod? Seven weeks? Or are we going on eight years?” Gideon stood back and pinched her chin between her thumb and finger. “Or actually, we do have the option for even longer than that, don’t we...”

Harrow’s jaw looked so tight it might snap off and fall onto the floor. Maybe it’d land next to the bit of Harrow’s fingernail she spit onto Gideon’s carpet, though thinking about that still wasn’t making Gideon want to kiss Harrow any less.

Harrow snapped, but she didn’t do the one thing Gideon hoped she would do. Instead of grabbing for Gideon, she pushed past Gideon and left the room.

Gideon cursed and then called after her: “Harrow!” She cursed again. None of it brought Harrow back, so Gideon scrambled to pull out her phone again and opened her text messages. She typed: cool so based on ur response it’s been longer than 8 years. She followed this up with: 🔥🔥🔥

Gideon read the message back, and then added a 👅 and 💦 at the end, just to really drive Harrow nuts. She hit send and then followed Harrow back to the table where Palamedes was in the process of setting down their plates. Dinner was homemade pasta with some kind of creamy mushroom sauce. It was rich and delicious. Harrow, still in a mood, had no problem telling Palamedes that his mushroom sauce had ‘too much flavor’ and that next time he might ‘consider toning it down.’

“She might be right, Love,” Dulcinea said, politely.

“We’ll consider the suggestion,” Palamedes nodded. Camilla looked like she was trying not to smile. Palamedes refused to look at Cam, kept his eyes on Harrow instead. Gideon knocked her leg against Harrow’s like a petulant child, mad she wasn’t getting her way. Harrow kicked her in return, hard, right in the shin so that Gideon was forced to cough in an attempt to cover her grunt. She deserved that, probably.

All of that to say, dinner was going great!

Afterward, they settled into the living room, full of pasta and buzzed on Harrow’s drinks. Dulcinea, true to her word, had them washing everything down with sips of hot coffee. She and Cam were quick to lay claim to the only two chairs in the living room, which left Palamedes, Gideon and Harrow for the long sofa. Gideon let Harrow choose her location and was surprised when Harrow chose the middle. Once Palamedes shifted away from Dulcinea’s side, he settled to Harrow’s left. Gideon sat down to her right.

Still ramped up from their exchange in the bedroom, Gideon shifted, unsure what to do with herself. She was used to couches and Harrow, but couches and Harrow had associations now in Gideon’s head, and those associations had no place at a first-date-slash-meet-the-parents dinner (Pal and Dulcie were the parents here. Cam was too cool for that), even despite the whole bedroom interlude. Gideon stretched her arm across the back of the sofa, careful not to touch Harrow’s shoulders in the process. She cleared her throat. She took a sip of coffee. She looked across the room toward Camilla and found Camilla already looking back. Camilla raised her eyebrows. Gideon cleared her throat again and looked away. Camilla wasn't that cool.

The truth was, overall, everything really was going fine. Harrow was a little stiff, a little tense, a little Harrow, but overall everyone seemed to be getting along. Not a single attempted murder (beyond how long have you wanted this bod?, and maybe that too much flavor comment). Mostly, Gideon seemed to be the only one having issues with not making things weird. She was a fucking mess. A fucking mess of Harrow outside the Tomb and inside Gideon’s life. A fucking mess of seven weeks married and still no fucking clue how or why.

Gideon sat on the couch beside Harrow and she wondered what the fuck were they doing? How had it even lasted this long? How were they ever going to understand how they ended up married if every attempt ended with them at each others’—

Harrow startled, her entire body jolting just a little. “Oh!”

Mia had arrived on the scene. She glanced up at Harrow, bright green eyes and that little slash of white down her nose, and then she walked past their feet toward Dulcinea’s chair, her tail raised high in the air. Harrow turned toward Gideon and her hand came down to rest on Gideon’s leg. “That’s the cat you made me look at on your phone," she said, stating the obvious.

Gideon, who was finding it impossible to care about the cat she showed off on her phone when the hand of the woman she hated and married anyway was resting on her thigh said: “Unmf”

Mia took her time, but eventually she arrived at her destination (Dulcinea’s lap) and settled in with a little cry of ‘pet me, human slave!’ Dulcinea did as she was told, petting Mia exactly as Mia preferred to be petted. Back on the couch, Harrow left her hand there on Gideon’s leg, halfway up Gideon’s thigh, for a long time after that, in a way that was…well, it wasn't quite how Gideon preferred to be petted, but close enough!

Gideon, therefore, could not recall a single thing said by anyone after that. She recalled that Palamedes was tipsy and talkative. He talked to Harrow at length about something painfully boring, or at least far less interesting than the warmth of Harrow’s palm on Gideon’s thigh. She recalled that Camilla seemed relaxed, and she recalled that Dulcinea looked like she was watching an extremely entertaining romantic comedy, but beyond that, the specifics of the evening were completely lost to Harrow’s touch.

Eventually Harrow removed her hand, but it wasn’t that long before it found its way back again, like the removal was a mistake, like Gideon’s leg was its rightful place, and Gideon’s brain fizzled, short circuited right there on the spot. Harrow didn’t even seem to notice she was doing it, like they’d spent so many afternoons just wrapped up in each other that now Harrow’s hands just gravitated toward Gideon, just touched her like it was a normal Harrow thing to do instead of a hugely significant moment.

Harrow’s hand on Gideon’s thigh meant Gideon probably wouldn’t show up tomorrow to find Harrow standing there with a stack of signed papers. It meant Harrow wasn’t done with Gideon yet. It meant, if Gideon was entirely sober and rational about it, that Harrow probably wouldn't let Gideon go, even if it was what Gideon wanted. It meant that if Gideon decided she wanted to end it all tomorrow, if she told Harrow she did want Harrow to sign the divorce papers right away, Harrow would go to some pretty shitty lengths to make sure Gideon would never get her way.

Or maybe it just meant that Harrow had associations when it came to Gideon and couches now too, maybe she had associations with the sort of conflict they’d created in the bedroom, and those associations were hard to shake, even in polite company.

Maybe it meant absolutely nothing at all.

As the night came to an end, Gideon helped Harrow bag up her bottles, her tins of sugar, and her flowers and leaves, and then she walked Harrow to the front door.

"Hey," Gideon said, once they were standing there, just the two of them. "So have you signed the papers yet?"

Harrow, holding her clinking bags of liquor, looked up at Gideon confused, and then her face smoothed out and she said: "The divorce papers?"

"Yeah. I mean, no rush really, it's just that it's been a week now."

Harrow pressed her lips together as she considered her answer. "Should I sign the papers?"

The thing was—the thing was, Gideon would feel a whole lot better about everything if she knew for sure Harrow wasn't planning to do anything fucky when and if this kissing stuff went sour and came to an end. She'd be able to enjoy Harrow's hand resting on her thigh a whole lot more if she had signed divorce papers in her hands, physical proof that Harrow would let Gideon go without a fight.

"Would you sign the papers? It'd make everything easier when the time comes." Gideon paused. "Like later on. Once we've worked stuff out."

"Of course." Harrow's response sounded a little stiff, but it was an affirmative response, which was more than Gideon expected to get. "That makes sense."

"Okay," Gideon said. She relaxed her shoulders a little. "Cool. Thanks." And then, because divorce papers weren't all she was thinking about while Harrow's hand was on her thigh: “You could stay.” And: “I could show you my room again.”

Harrow shook her head. “Dog.”

“Right,” Gideon nodded. “Duh, of course.” She stumbled. “Um, then I could go back with you, maybe? I can carry your bags.” She reached out to take the one from Harrow’s hand again, but Harrow stepped back to escape her reach.

“Let’s not make things more complicated than they already are,” Harrow suggested. The words were chilly, almost slap-in-the-face cold, but her tone didn’t quite match the words’ temperature, not really. Harrow knew how to do cold, and when she did it, it was absolutely unmistakable.

“Yeah, no, I don’t want that either,” Gideon agreed. “Okay, so I’ll just...see you when I see you, I guess.”

“Tomorrow,” Harrow agreed, and then, a few awkward seconds later, Harrow was gone.

**

“She’s very intense,” Dulcinea observed once they’d finished cleaning up and everyone was settled back in the living room. “So serious. Did you see her at the counter with her bag of special ingredients? And then the way she watched as we tasted each drink. Extraordinary.”

“That’s just how I found her at her bar,” Palamedes agreed.

“It’s breathtaking.” And then Dulcinea shifted her gaze. She pinned Gideon with her eyes. “Imagine all of that passion and focus centered on a person! Imagine the dedication. Oh, don’t blush, Gideon.” (Gideon hadn’t realized she was.) “All I’m trying to say is that now I understand your dilemma completely. If that girl’s focus shifted to me after a few of those drinks, I’d walk her down the aisle too. No offense, my Loves.”

“None taken,” said Palamedes with a nod of his head.

Camilla simply shrugged. She seemed less convinced of Harrow’s allure, probably because she’d seen Harrow stumbling drunk, in badly smudged face paint, and with her tongue sloppily shoved into Gideon’s mouth. Gideon shifted closer to Camilla, sensing solid safety in a storm. Camilla understood the truth.

“I like her,” Palamedes announced, suddenly. “I trust her.”

Gideon laughed so hard she snorted. Hot. “You met Harrow exactly once before tonight and she was this close to actually murdering you.”

Palamedes smiled. “I know.”

“Well, I can’t fucking stand her.”

“Obviously.”

“I take back everything I said when you first came to us with this,” Dulcinea continued. She looked as though she hadn’t paid attention to anything Palamedes or Gideon just said. “This isn’t a particular Gideon Nav sort of situation at all! How could you ever be expected to resist? How did you even survive all of those years, locked together, working side-by-side?”

“The only person Harrow was focused on tonight was Pal. You’re exaggerating all of this,” Gideon said, but her voice caught in her throat when she said it, and she sounded less than sure. She should have walked out that door with Harrow, screw Harrow’s concerns about complications. That would have been less weird than this was becoming.

“I’m not,” Dulcinea shook her head. “There was one point where I swooned just thinking about it all. Cam had to catch me. Don’t get me wrong. I know you weren’t lying all of those years about her being a total bitch, that was obvious too, but the rest! When she summoned you to the bedroom, I was certain that was it. The dinner party had come to an end and we wouldn’t see either of you again until morning.”

Gideon pressed a hand to her forehead, squeezed her eyes shut. “No, we aren’t—this is a fucking mess.”

“No doubt,” Palamedes agreed.

**

Gideon eyed the papers on the coffee table as she absently scratched Dog's big head. Harrow was in the kitchen, busy making her special brand of magic, and Gideon was looking forward to tasting it on Harrow's lips, but until then—she eyed the stack of papers. Dog nudged her hand with a big wet nose and the papers eyed her back. They looked like they hadn't been touched at all since Gideon watched Harrow first set them down. It didn't look like the nose that nudged Gideon's hand had even bothered to investigate their appearance in her home and well within reach.

"What's wrong with you?" Gideon whispered to Dog. "I take you for you-know-whats. I scratch behind your ears. I shoot water into your mouth. All I need you to do in return is to remind Harrow that there are papers sitting right there that she needs to sign."

Dog stared up at her and panted a smile.

Gideon sighed and sat back on the couch. "I get it. You love being owned by Harrow. She's your best friend, right?"

Dog's response to that was a high-pitched little whine of a noise.

Gideon leaned forward again, folded down to hold Dog's head in her hands, to hold Dog back just far enough that she couldn't swipe her tongue over Gideon's mouth, but close enough that they could have a serious spouse-to-dog conversation.

"I'm into Harrow too, okay? I just need to know that Harrow will let me outside without a leash. I need her to let me run away if that's what I need to do. No, that's a bad—fuck, look at us. This isn't your job. You don't have to listen to this. You want a treat?"

Dog's fuzzy eyebrows shifted. Her tail wagged.

"Yeah, okay, let's go to the kitchen." Gideon stood from the couch, just as Harrow emerged with their drinks.

Harrow raised her eyebrows, a silent question, and an expression a bit reminiscent of the one Dog just made at the word treats, like that thing at the beginning of One Hundred and One Dalmatians where all of the people looked just like the dogs they were walking. Except Harrow looked nothing like Dog beyond the face she'd just made. If anyone looked like Dog in this house, it was...no, Gideon was not going to start comparing herself to Harrow's dog again.

Gideon responded to Harrow's unspoken question with a head tilt toward Dog. Harrow stepped aside so that Gideon and Dog could pass. It was the sort of wordless conversation they might have had years ago, in the narrow space behind the bar of the Tomb, the silent communication that took place between two people who were used to sliding past each other in close quarters, to working side by side. It was the sort of moment that Gideon forgot about when she looked back at her six years in the Tomb, because it was overshadowed by the glares and the rejections and the closed doors.

They weren't in the Tomb anymore. It all hit a little different now, standing together in Harrow's house.

The unsigned papers disagreed.

**

Another day and she was spread out on the couch, Harrow over her, Harrow's mouth dropping kisses onto her lips, Harrow's thighs pressed in tight against Gideon's sides. They couldn't last much longer like this. They were too close. The couch was too inviting. Harrow pressed her tongue between Gideon's lips, and Gideon pushed up to meet Harrow's kiss, her entire body thrumming with it. She pushed up with her foot that was still on the floor, desperate to get closer to Harrow. Too desperate. Too close. She reached for the belt around Harrow's waist and then she—

And then she remembered herself, remembered their rules, and she reeled herself back in, fell back against the cushions with a frustrated grunt. She pulled away from Harrow's kiss and shook her head.

"Okay," she said. "Sorry, I'm too—"

Harrow was off of Gideon before Gideon finished the thought. She was off of Gideon in seconds, and by the time Gideon pushed herself up into a sitting position, Harrow was across the room, curled up in the chair, her phone held in her hand. Harrow's mouth looked a little swollen; she was breathing heavy. Gideon watched the rise and fall of Harrow's chest.

The papers watched from the coffee table that separated them.

Seven weeks had passed. Seven weeks of technically married life and what had they learned?

It wasn't nothing. Gideon had learned a few things. Technically, Gideon now had intimate knowledge of Harrow’s mouth and Harrow’s life.

Well, of Harrow’s mouth. She still didn’t know all that much about Harrow’s life. Even the stuff that should be easy, like what were Harrow’s favorite movies? Her favorite books? What did Harrow even like other than the Tomb, concocting drinks, her dog, and maybe Crux, like in some weird paternal temporary-keeper-of-Harrow’s-legacy way?

Gideon ran a hand through her hair and glanced out toward the back yard. The garnish garden was bright and alive out there, rows of well-tended plants in their tiered pots. Okay, so she knew that Harrow liked gardening, apparently, though Harrow wouldn't admit it.

She turned away and blinked until her eyes adjusted back to the dim interior of the house, to the browns and oranges and weird muddy greens.

Harrow did not like interior decorating.

She had the kitchen of a serious alcoholic, except she never actually seemed to drink much of anything in there, just liked to have obscure ingredients on hand in case inspiration struck. As far as Gideon could tell, Harrow existed on potatoes she cooked in the microwave, plain pasta, pancakes with no syrup, oatmeal, pretzels, canned corn, and frozen bagels that honestly tasted like nothing. She had a cupboard full of matzo, even though when Gideon asked, she said she wasn’t Jewish. She just liked it, and she stocked up every spring.

So yeah, if Gideon got hungry while she was there, she ordered a pizza and Harrow very slowly ate one slice. Leftovers were still in the fridge the next day, albeit a few slices had little halfmoon bites missing from them. Gideon ordered pizza a lot, just because she loved seeing that Harrow nibbled the leftovers when she wasn’t there. She loved finishing Harrow’s nibbled slices, biting off those little crescents while she imagined Harrow standing in the dark, illuminated by the light from the fridge in the early hours of the morning, Dog’s tail wagging as she waited for a piece to fall.

Gideon wasn’t a total weirdo though. Yeah, she liked eating the pizza Harrow nibbled, but she also stocked Harrow’s fridge every once in a while. She stocked it with practical things like eggs (she was the only one who cooked them) and milk and fruit and vegetables.

And no, okay, so Gideon never saw Harrow turn on the television, but she spent a lot of time watching youtube on her phone. That was what she was doing now, scrunched up in her chair, her face carefully neutral, though her breathing still seemed a little fast.

Their daily kissing sessions sometimes started lazily, sometimes urgently, but they always ended like this; abruptly, with one of them pulling away, physically retreating, putting actual distance between them. Sometimes that space was only needed for a minute or two. Sometimes it lasted the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes it was like it was now, Harrow curled up in her chair watching youtube documentaries, usually about paranormal stuff, ghost sightings. Sometimes it was religious history or religious cults. Sometimes it was serial killers. When this started, Gideon usually turned her attention to Dog instead, wrestled around on the rug, retreated out back to play fetch, even though it was maybe three running strides for Dog to make it from the fence on one side of the yard to the other.

Occasionally, when they could stand to stay close to each other after the abrupt conclusion of a kissing sess, they watched Harrow’s videos together. This almost always put Gideon to sleep. Gideon pulled Harrow up against her, and it felt strangely familiar, strangely right, and she watched over Harrow’s shoulder, her eyes getting heavier by the second.

Harrow chewed at her fingernails while she watched. She spit little bits of fingernail onto the rug, on Gideon's leg, on anything in her path. That was gross, but it was Harrow. It was the kind of detail that Gideon didn’t know about Harrow before this started, and she revelled in it now, in the fact that Harrow was a gross little weirdo who spit nail detritus all over her own house (and Gideon’s that one time). What the fuck.

Gideon still hadn’t been anywhere in Harrow’s house other than the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and the back yard. Harrow kept all of the bedroom doors shut, including her own. That was probably good. It was probably good that Gideon’s mental image of Harrow’s home did not include beds. The long orange couch was hard enough to resist.

And there, on the table, were the divorce papers. Still untouched by Harrow, by Dog, by anyone. Gideon touched them now. She checked the last page, just to make sure. There was the scrawl of her name, the signature that made Gideon feel like she never really grew up. It looked the same as it had when Gideon was still in school, messy and childish. The line for Harrow's name was blank.

She sat back on the couch, adjusted her shorts, and tried to ignore the fact that she was still aroused. Thinking about pizza hadn't worked. Fingernails hadn't worked. The divorce papers hadn't worked either. She looked up and found Harrow watching her.

Gideon cleared her throat. It scratched and she wished she hadn't already drained her drink. "You haven't signed yet."

Harrow blinked. She looked down at the table, blinked again. Eventually she looked back up at Gideon. They'd known each other so long, sometimes Gideon thought she should be able to read every face Harrow made, every expression. She couldn't read this one. She looked at the spots on Harrow's nose, the one on her cheek.

"I still need to read through it all," said Harrow.

"Read through it all for what?" Gideon directed her question at Harrow's cheek.

"So that I understand the terms."

"Terms of what?" Gideon asked. She shifted back to Harrow's eyes. Harrow was still looking back. "We've been married less than two months. I don't have anything you would want, and I don't want anything that you have."

Harrow's mouth tightened. "I can think of a few things you want."

That wasn't fair. "You know what I mean."

Harrow seemed to deflate slightly. Her mouth softened. If she was closer, Gideon would have a hard time not kissing her. "I do know, but I need to read through it all to make sure. I haven't had time."

It was another excuse. Gideon let it go.

**

Later, in those early after-work hours of the morning, lying on her bed with Mia cuddled up against her arm, Gideon looked at her phone and saw her still unanswered text messages from the night of the dinner. She considered the screen for a long time, considered her own answer to the question she’d asked Harrow that day, and then typed: at least 3 years for me, since that night in the tomb.

That seemed correct, but it couldn’t actually be the truth, could it? She’d been so twisted up over Harrow for so damn long, but like twisted up (derogatory), not like, marry me, sexy. But then again—Gideon typed: probably longer. feels like i’ve been weird about u forever and then, because that felt too serious, she added: pipsqueak. She hoped Harrow remembered that that had been the tipping point way back when. It didn't fit otherwise, but she couldn't help herself.

She shouldn't send it at all, not until Harrow signed the damn papers. It wasn't like Gideon even wanted a divorce yet. She just wanted to know that Harrow would give it to her if she did.

She pulled the ring out from beneath her shirt, gripped it tight in the palm of her hand. Everything that followed that moment in the hallway at the Mirthraeum after they left Club Nine was a blur to Gideon. She tried to imagine how it might have gone, tried to imagine how the (frankly crazy) decision to get married was made. The last thing she could really remember with any clarity was kissing Harrow against the wall outside Club Nine, laughing at Harrow's response to the buzzing of the phone in Gideon's pocket.

They planned to get breakfast. It was still the middle of the night, but they were in the Mithraeum, in a city that tried its hardest to stay awake, and the buffet was definitely open.

Harrow sat across from Gideon, chin in her hands and stars in her eyes. Gideon wasn't doing anything, really. She was just eating her weight in breakfast food: pancakes and eggs, sausage and bacon and heaps of potatoes. She smiled at Harrow over her potato mountain and Harrow didn't glare or snap. Instead she smiled back. There was a bowl of oatmeal cooling on the table in front of Harrow, untouched, the surface beginning to form a crust.

It was the longest they'd gone since arriving at the Mithraeum without their lips locked in a kiss, and Gideon's eyes kept drifting down toward Harrow’s paint-smeared mouth, toward her jaw and her throat, toward the tie pulled loose around Harrow’s neck. Harrow studied Gideon in return. She watched Gideon’s mouth as she chewed, watched Gideon’s throat as she swallowed. It should have been weird, but somehow it wasn’t. Maybe because Gideon could still remember the taste of Harrow’s tongue, maybe because she remembered now that she preferred it to pancakes and eggs and a mountain of potatoes.

Harrow sat back in her seat. She cleared her throat, and then she laughed, reminding Gideon that this was the new Harrow. This was the Harrow that had blossomed underneath the black lights of Club Nine, watered by vodka and fed on Gideon’s kiss.

“I think the time has come,” Harrow said, suddenly, her voice a little high, her words just slightly slurred, “to tell you everything.”

Gideon swallowed a bite of potato. She barely tasted it. She was transfixed. "Shit," she breathed. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

Harrow took a deep breath, looked Gideon in the eye, and gave her everything:

“I think I loved you from the first moment you stepped into the Tomb,” Harrow said. Her words, even through the slight slur, sounded ridiculously heartfelt, a little dreamy. She paused, probably for dramatic effect, to really let her words sink in.

They were sinking in all right.

Gideon ate another bite of breakfast sausage. She swallowed it too soon and felt the lump as it slid down toward her stomach. She watched helplessly, her heart (or maybe just the sausage) in her throat, as Harrow slipped out from her side of the booth.

Harrow fell to her knees beside the bench where Gideon sat, still holding a link of sausage in the end of her fork. Gideon let the fork clatter down into her plate when Harrow reached for her hand. Harrow wrapped Gideon’s hand in hers, clasped their hands together tight, and continued: “The truth is, I love you with my whole rotten heart. Working beside you all of those years, keeping it all to myself—it drove me mad with wanting. The thought of losing you to Bar Cotta or The Languid Lounge was too much for me to bear. You are the best bartender The Locked Tomb has ever had, leagues above Ianthe, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret having driven you away. The truth, Gideon, is that I love you to the exclusion of aught else, even my beloved Crux, even my beloved Tomb. Losing you a second time will most certainly destroy me. Also, in case it wasn’t clear, I’m so very obviously attracted to—

No, that was awful!

Ridiculous and indulgent, terrible even as far as fantasies went. It was just garbage and—

The fact was, they left Club Nine intending to get breakfast and then the next thing Gideon knew, she was hung over and married, but there were hours there. Hours that they filled in one way or another. Hours that led them to A Lasting Memory Wedding Chapel, open 24/7!

If she brought Harrow back to the Mithraeum, maybe they’d find their answers there. If they went together to the Mithraeum, maybe they’d understand what the fuck happened that sent them straight from there to the chapel a few blocks away.

A Lasting Memory. It was actually pretty funny when she stopped to think about it.

If they went together back to the Mithraeum, if they figured out what happened, maybe Harrow would agree to let Gideon go. And maybe then Gideon wouldn't feel like she was insane for wanting to stay.

Harrow picked up her phone on the second ring. “I don’t want to talk, Griddle,” Harrow said and unlike that moment at the door after Dulcinea's dinner party, Harrow’s tone matched her words. Gideon wondered if Harrow had already fallen asleep. Then she stopped wondering, because wondering about Harrow sleeping set Gideon thinking about Harrow’s bedroom. Harrow continued: "The Tomb was packed. I’ve done enough talking tonight for at least another week.”

“Yeah,” Gideon said. “Me too, but I didn’t call to talk. I called because there’s something I think we should try.”

Gideon tried to picture Harrow on the other end of the call, outside of her inner bedroom sanctum. Harrow curled up in the corner of the orange couch with Dog’s fuzzy dog face resting on her ankles.

Harrow made a sound like she was sucking at her teeth. “This doesn’t sound promising. What’s the idea?—it better not be the friendly hate sex you keep coming back to.”

“That’s a good idea, actually, fuck you! We both obviously want it."

"Speak for yourself," Harrow said, and Gideon hoped that Harrow felt her dramatic eye roll through the phone.

"Okay, sure, anyway it’s not that. Will you—just hear me out. I think we should go to the Mithraeum and retrace our steps.”

Harrow was silent for a beat and then said: “You want to go dancing? Now?”

Gideon relaxed, just slightly. Harrow didn’t stomp on the idea immediately. It was a good sign. “No, not dancing, I mean the parts after that, the hard to remember parts. We went dancing and then we went to breakfast, right? I’m guessing we ended up at The White City Buffet.”

“We did,” Harrow agreed, words clipped. “I have the receipt.”

“So we start there, and we see what happens, right? Good call on the receipt, by the way. I didn’t think of that.”

“What do you think that’ll tell us? That you ate your weight in French toast and I ate a muffin?” Those details wouldn’t show on a buffet receipt, which meant Harrow definitely remembered more of the night than Gideon did. (Also meant Gideon’s fantasy reenactment was already way off the mark!)

“You ate a muffin?” Gideon repeated. She found this strangely endearing, but couldn’t quite explain why. She could picture it, Harrow nibbling at the top of a muffin, probably leaving the entire lower half untouched.

Harrow ignored the question and said, “Okay, when?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon said. She was unprepared for Harrow to give in so easily, she hadn’t thought out any of the specifics. “When’s your next night off? Or we could do it earlier, during the afternoon sometime this week.”

“I'll arrange my schedule around yours."

Shit, okay. Right. Of course, Harrow could arrange her own schedule. "I'm off Sunday."

“Midnight, then. We'll meet at the east entrance at midnight on Sunday.”

Chapter Text

Gideon arrived at the designated meeting place ten minutes before midnight. There were the usual crowds milling around the east entrance to The Mithraeum and Gideon found an empty bench and sat, her elbows propped on her knees and her eyes on her phone. She pulled up her text messages, double checked to make sure Harrow hadn’t changed her mind and cancelled on her since the last time she checked five minutes earlier.

No, no messages. Harrow would be there.

She guessed Harrow would arrive from the direction of the Tomb, so she kept her attention pointed toward the east. She still didn’t see Harrow until Harrow was practically standing directly in front of her. Harrow stuck out like a sore thumb in the parking lot of the Mithras Market, but she apparently knew how to blend in after dark.

Gideon settled in against the bench, stretched her arms wide along the back and crossed her legs at the ankles. She smiled up at Harrow. "Hey there, Midnight Muffin, long time no see."

If the bench was Harrow’s orange couch, there would have been a fifty-fifty chance Harrow might respond to that with a physical advance, followed by a whole lot of kissing, but they weren’t on Harrow’s orange couch and the chance of Harrow kissing her up now was close to zero. Based on the look on Harrow’s face—tight mouth, narrowed eyes—it was more like a negative fifty percent chance. No chance in hell.

Harrow shook her head. "No, Griddle. We aren’t doing that."

It took Gideon a beat to figure out what ‘that’ meant in this instance. Her head went right to the kissing before she eventually worked out that by ‘that’, Harrow meant the new nickname.

"I don’t think you get to poo-poo my nicknames, considering I’ve put up with Griddle for decades."

"Harrow is already a nickname," Harrow said, in a lame attempt at being overly literal. "I don’t need another one."

Gideon pressed her lips together and then nodded, considering. "What’s worse? Muffin or Harry?"

"Muffin," Harrow said immediately.

"Liar," Gideon said. "Muffin is fucking adorable." Harrow looked like she might gag, so Gideon stood from the bench and out of the splash zone. She clapped her hands together. "Okay, let’s eat some buffet breakfast!"

"This is the best night of my life," Gideon announced between bites of French toast. They were shoved into the same side of the booth, Harrow tucked in under Gideon’s arm. "This is like—we should have done this years ago, Harrow. This is—this is some top notch stuff, like, I’m just—" here she lifted her arms to mime her head exploding "—just completely, fuck. Just really damn good."

Harrow was quiet against her, and Gideon turned to check, to see if maybe Harrow had fallen asleep. Harrow wasn’t asleep. She was awake, though her eyes looked heavier than they usually did. She looked content, pretty drunk, kinda happy. Gideon’s phone buzzed against the table and Gideon set a hand on it to still its offensive hum without looking away from Harrow’s face. Harrow just looked absolutely gorgeous to Gideon in that moment, even with the fading paint, with sweat-damp hair stuck to her forehead. "You’re so fucking hot, you know that?"

Harrow rolled her heavy eyes and she shook her head, resolute with disagreement, but she was still smiling. She had a corn muffin in her hand and she picked at it, eating little chunks she pulled off the top and squished between her fingers. Her hands were smeared with their paint and when she squished the muffin, it went from a bright sunny yellow to a dingy greyish mustard. And then Harrow popped the squished up grey ball of muffin into her mouth. It was weird and a little gross and Gideon never wanted to look away.

"Why didn’t we do this years ago?" Gideon asked. Her phone was buzzing again. Again, she slapped it silent. "I wanted to."

Harrow snorted. "No, you didn’t."

Gideon reared back, offended. "Yes, I fucking did!"

Harrow pushed another ball of muffin into her mouth. "You hated me."

"Yeah, hello! Of course, I hated you! You were a crazy manipulative bitch!"

Harrow looked up at Gideon with her stupid gorgeous face and her big dark eyes. "I haven’t changed," she said.

Gideon let out a surprised laugh. "Neither have I." She wanted to kiss Harrow, so she leaned down and she kissed her. She kissed Harrow with her head bent down at an awkward angle, and then she took the muffin from Harrow’s hand, set it on the table, and kissed Harrow again, her hand curling around the back of Harrow’s neck. After a moment, Harrow twisted on the bench, pulling Gideon with her and kissing her deeper, kissing her with tongue. Fuck, they should have done this years ago.

Gideon’s phone was buzzing again and this time it was Harrow who reached for it. She glanced at the screen and then looked up at Gideon’s face. "It’s for you," she said, eyebrows high. She turned the screen to show Gideon, but Gideon ignored it, pushed the phone aside.

This seemed to surprise Harrow, but only for a second, because then Harrow’s hands were back, impatient on Gideon’s shoulders, on the skin of Gideon’s neck. "I hated you too," Harrow said, and she kissed Gideon again.

Gideon laughed against Harrow’s lips and let Harrow push her down against the bench of their booth.

Gideon just barely remembered eating at The White City with Harrow. In her time at the Mithraeum, she’d walked past the entrance many times, but never actually stepped inside. Now she stepped through the doors beside Harrow and took it all in. The buffet was designed to look like city streets, but not like their city. The White City was apparently some amalgamation of east coast cities, Boston and New York, Washington, Atlanta, Miami. It fit right in with everything else in the Mithraeum, in the entire city. In other words, it was tacky as all hell.

Also, one trip through the buffet was thirty dollars.

"You’re paying this time," Harrow said, immediately.

That was fine. Gideon would buy Harrow her fucking thirty dollar muffin in exchange for some answers.

"Do you remember where we sat?" Gideon asked, and was surprised when Harrow immediately pointed toward the back of the buffet.

They gathered their food, a heaping plate of French toast for Gideon and a corn muffin for Harrow. Gideon contemplated getting more food—she was really craving that heap of potatoes—or like some food actually worth the cost of the buffet, but she was committed to the exercise and restricted herself to only those items that Harrow remembered them eating.

Harrow led them to a booth toward the back of the restaurant and Gideon settled in on one side. Harrow slid in beside her, both of them sitting on the same side of the booth, and Gideon knew for a fact that Harrow hated seeing couples do that, hated watching couples squish together on one side of a booth leaving the entire other side empty. She stood and glared from behind her bar every time, rolled her eyes, turned her back and gagged a little. She reacted basically the same way she used to react to the sight of Gideon. Now Harrow sighed and slid in close, her body leaning right up against Gideon’s. Gideon felt too hot suddenly, like they’d jacked up the temperature in the place, shut off all the air. Not even Gideon’s fantasy version of this went so far as to place them both on one side of a booth. She’d been making out with Harrow for weeks, but this one night was set up to kill her: first Harrow’s hand on Gideon’s knee in full view of Gideon’s friends, now Harrow pressed tight to Gideon’s side in a booth at the Mithraeum, just a little after midnight.

Gideon, unmoving and completely unsure what to do next, cleared her throat. "Now what?"

"Now you eat your French toast," Harrow said with a touch of annoyance in her voice.

"Yeah, but like, what else do you remember?"

Harrow shrugged against her and picked off a chunk of her corn muffin. She began to roll it between the tips of her fingers. The oil of the muffin made her skin shine and Gideon remembered watching Harrow do this before, remembered how the paint dulled the muffin to a sad sick greyish hue. The bit of muffin remained bright sunny yellow this time around.

"You tried to feed me bites of your breakfast like I was a child," Harrow said. They were both watching the bit of muffin as it smoothed into a ball beneath Harrow’s fingertips. "You tried to do that fucking airplane thing when I refused."

Gideon snorted. "And you still married me. Nice."

Harrow ignored the comment. She ate the bite of muffin and then pulled off another piece. "Your phone kept ringing and you were ignoring it. Your sex friend tried to call you for a late night hookup. You ignored their call too."

"Hold on. My who called?"

"Your sex friend," Harrow said. "You had them in your phone as sex friend."

Gideon shook her head. "No. I mean, I wish I had a sex—Oh, no, n-o. Not sex friend, Harrow. It said Sex Pal. That was Palamedes."

Harrow twisted in the seat so that she could see Gideon’s face, and Gideon realized that that was maybe the worst person she could have said, the very last name Harrow wanted to hear in connection to an area where Harrow had (sort of, but not really) laid her claim. Gideon set down her fork and then held up her hands. "He’s not my sex pal. That’s just his name. Palamedes Sextus, Sextus comma Palamedes. Sex Pal."

"That’s idiotic."

Harrow had an awful lot of opinions about Gideon’s nicknames today. "Says the woman who came up with Griddle."

Harrow settled back against Gideon’s side. "I don’t remember more than that," she announced.

They sat in silence for a while, Gideon eating her breakfast and Harrow picking at her corn muffin. Gideon wasn't particularly hungry and found herself drawn back to watching Harrow roll bits of muffin instead. Harrow carefully pushed them past her lips and into her mouth. Eventually Gideon sat back and said: "Remember the year I decided to start smoking because it was the only way Crux would let me take a routine fucking break?"

She wasn’t sure what made her think of that, of her and Harrow standing outside in the dark, the night air perfumed by a mix of cigarette smoke and jasmine and trash. It had to be at least four years back at this point, maybe five.

"Was that why?" Harrow asked. She squished another bit of the corn muffin between her fingers. "Crux?" Harrow had been smoking since before Gideon started at the Tomb, but she stopped shortly after Gideon started, and within a year Gideon was done with it too.

"Yeah," Gideon said. "Why did you think?"

Harrow shrugged. "I thought you were obsessed with me."

"Fuck you. You want to talk about who was obsessed with who?"

"Oh, admit it, Griddle! You started smoking because you thought it meant we could take breaks together and then when you realized we couldn’t leave the entire bar unattended, you quit smoking."

Gideon threw her head back and blew air out through her teeth. "Fuck off!" Except—Fuck, Harrow was actually kind of right.

It happened for the same reason that Gideon thought about it now. It was the bits of muffin and the fingernails Harrow spit on Gideon’s rug. They reminded Gideon of that other time, years ago, when Gideon found the things Harrow did with her mouth weird and a little gross, when she found that despite it all, she couldn’t look away. Sometimes, if she arrived at work a few minutes early, she’d find Harrow in the alley behind the Tomb, lurking near the dumpsters with a lit cigarette hanging from her lips. Gideon would stare at the cigarette, at the way the damp paper seemed to stick and pull at Harrow’s top lip, the way it rested on her bottom lip and never ever fell. She caught herself thinking about it hours later, and then she—

Gideon did think they could take their breaks together and it did all lose a lot of its appeal when she realized she couldn’t stand out there with Harrow, staring at the cigarette that clung to Harrow’s lips for dear life. She still held on for a year, because it gave her a break from Ianthe and Crux and Harrow on the nights she was especially Harrow, and because she was nothing if not stubborn, but half the time she just stood out there and let the cigarette burn, placed it to her lips only once, just so she’d remember how it felt. She stood out there and she sucked in the night air, that mix of cigarette smoke and jasmine and trash, all by herself.

It just wasn’t really her thing.

"So why did you quit?" Gideon asked.

"Seeing you tucking an unlit cigarette in your ugly mouth and rushing toward the back door made me realize that I probably looked like a giant dick too," Harrow said.

"Nice," Gideon laughed. "Wait, I know how to translate this! Gideon, you looked so unbearably hot, I couldn’t put another cigarette to my lips without thinking of you, and I had to stop because smoking now reminded me of you and I kept getting all hot and bothered at work."

Harrow grunted.

"So really, I saved your life," Gideon concluded. "Your lungs’ life. You’re welcome."

Harrow tore off another piece of muffin.

Gideon leaned in and took the muffin from Harrow’s hand. "Hold on. You still think my mouth is ugly?"

"Yes," Harrow said, but her hands were on Gideon’s face before the word had left her lips, Harrow’s fingers tight to Gideon’s jaw as she pulled Gideon down into a kiss.

They were just settling into it—their first relatively sober PDA kiss!—when someone cleared their throat with a scratchy hacking sound.

They broke apart at the sudden sound of a loud bang against their table. Gideon pulled away from Harrow and looked up to find their waiter glaring down at them. His face was lined. He looked tired, and Gideon wondered, suddenly, what time it was. Her mouth felt red and raw, like maybe they’d been kissing like that for a long time, like maybe it had been hours. She pushed herself back up into a sitting position and the room felt unsteady, like Harrow’s mouth had thrown the entire world off its axis, like she’d set the whole room spinning with a kiss or fifty.

"Hi," Gideon managed.

The waiter shook his head. "This might be a hotel, but this isn’t a hotel room." He pointed at the check he’d slapped down on the table. "When you’re ready," he said, in a tone that translated to Now.

"Ass," Harrow said, her tone high, but the volume low, as though she wouldn’t have reacted that exact same way and probably far sooner if the booth was in The Locked Tomb and they were behind the bar watching not!Harrow and not!Gideon shoving tongues in each other’s mouths and wriggling them around.

Gideon laughed. She pushed at Harrow’s shoulder. "Pay up, sugar baby."

"Sugar baby," Harrow repeated, affronted. "You ate this place out of French toast. I think that earns me the title of sugar daddy, at the very least."

"Sugar God," Gideon suggested, each word punctuated with a kiss pressed to the side of Harrow’s face. "Sugar." Kiss. "Monster."

"This still isn’t a hotel room and if you come back and try it again, I’ll make sure it’s the last time you come back," the waiter said now, standing over them.

"Oh, shit," Gideon said, because this was obviously the same waiter, the same poor schmuck who had to deal with Gideon and Harrow so smashed and apparently into each other that they got married and couldn’t remember any of it. "You remember us."

"Hard to forget that kind of public display," the guy said.

"What kind?" Harrow asked, affronted.

"The having sex in public kind," the waiter returned.

Gideon laughed. Harrow’s voice went high as she said, "We absolutely were not!"

The waiter just shrugged, unmoved by her denial. He was a big broad white guy with short brown hair and a twisted line of a mouth. He looked more like a bouncer than a waiter, which put a little more weight behind his threat to make sure they didn’t come back. Gideon checked his nametag and then wondered if she could take Colum in a fight. It was a little tempting. After this exchange, Harrow probably wouldn’t kiss her in public again for like ten thousand years. Column really fucked that up for her just now. Then again, getting into a fight with a waiter at The White City buffet probably wouldn’t earn her any kisses from Harrow either, so instead she caught Colum’s eye and said, "Did we seem like we’d just decided to get married to you?"

Colum shook his head. "Don’t know, don’t care."

"But like if you had to guess," Gideon said. "Like if guessing meant, I don’t know, a better tip maybe." She smiled what she hoped was an extremely winning smile. Harrow, who was watching her, huffed and looked away.

Colum, for his part, grunted. He did not seem impressed. "You looked like you planned to skip the marriage and go straight to the honeymoon. You looked like you’d just decided to spend the night in jail if it meant getting off with an audience watching."

Harrow made a sound of horrified protest and Gideon held up her hands. "All right, thank you for that! Could we get our check please?"

**

"I think I could take Colum," Gideon announced once they were back in the corridor.

Harrow was radiating with embarrassed frustration. She walked a little further away from Gideon on their way out of the buffet, but that didn't matter. Gideon could still feel the angry heat coming off of her.

"I think you might be able to take Colum right now too."

"What's next?" Harrow asked, her words clipped. She stopped walking and turned sharp eyes on Gideon.

Gideon stopped beside Harrow and shrugged. "How the hell should I know? You were the soberish one. What's next?"

Harrow sighed and looked up and down the corridor. "I was hardly sober. You really think we'd be in this mess if I was sober?"

"Maybe," Gideon said. It was the truth. There was a history there, so yeah, maybe. The response earned her another sharp look from the Ol' Ball and Chain. "Wait, what's worse? Midnight Muffin or My Ol' Ball and Chain."

Harrow didn't seem to think that deserved a response. "I purchased your ring, but that was more than an hour after we paid at The White City. I don't have any receipts to fill in the space between."

Gideon pulled up her bank app and checked her own card, scrolling back through pizza delivery orders and numerous trips to the Mithras Market to stock Harrow's fridge. Eventually she made it back to the night they took the plunge. There were her charges at The Locked Tomb, the drinks at Club Nine, and —"I've got nothing. Not even—" Gideon pressed a hand to the ring tucked down in her bandeau. "Did you buy both of our rings?"

"No," Harrow said. "I have a receipt for one ring."

"But you have one too," Gideon clarified.

"I do," Harrow agreed. She didn't elaborate as to its whereabouts.

"Well, it's not on here," Gideon said, scrolling through one more time to check. She closed her banking app and then opened the app for her credit card. "No, I've still got nothing."

"Well, you didn't steal it."

Gideon looked up, caught Harrow's eye and said: "You don't know that. Maybe I did steal it."

Harrow narrowed her eyes. "You did not marry me with a stolen ring."

"How the hell should I know?" Gideon asked. "Who lets trashed people into a jewelry store in the first place? Anything could happen!" She didn't really think she stole a damn wedding ring. They never would have made it out of the building if she had, but she liked seeing Harrow agitated at the thought of starting their married life with a jewelry heist. Gideon started to move in closer while Harrow stewed. She had big plans to get right up next to Harrow, smile good and slow, and then—if Harrow let her—kiss the agitation off that sweet-and-sour face. She was just about there when she had a thought. She stood up straight and reached for her wallet. "No, hold on. Nothing might be something."

Harrow, still agitated and unkissed, said: "Translation?"

"We didn't dip into our bank accounts, but there are a few things we could have done without generating a receipt." She dug through her wallet and pulled out a Mithraeum card. "This card's had fifty dollars sitting on it for two years, untouched. It used to be in the back of my wallet and now it's right up front."

"And?"

"And if we were looking to stay smashed, it's free drinks on the floor, baby!"

**

Gideon slipped on her sunglasses as they stepped onto the floor.

"What are you doing?" Harrow asked, and Gideon gestured for Harrow to keep her voice low.

"I don’t know if you knew this," Gideon said, leaning in toward Harrow’s ear, "but you married something of a celebrity."

Harrow snorted like a hot little agitated pony. "You’re delusional."

Because they were blocks away from the Tomb and apparently someone in the Mithraeum was on her side tonight, at exactly the same moment that Harrow declared Gideon delusional, a voice behind them said, "Oh, Gideon, is that you? Are you working this morning, honey? Please tell me you are, I'll rearrange all my plans."

Gideon felt an unsolicited hand on her arm and turned to find Cytherea, one of her regulars. Cytherea was pale and tiny, all hands, and she had the stamina to spend an entire night throwing away her money in the name of watching Gideon deal cards.

"Not until eight tonight," Gideon said with a smile. "Your plans are safe."

Cytherea pouted and even her nose seemed to delicately twitch with it. "Tonight then," she said, and moments later she was gone.

Gideon returned her attention to Harrow. "You see? Celebrity."

"Mm," Harrow said, unimpressed. "You know she's a Fist though, right?"

"What?" Gideon asked, craning her neck to try to find Cytherea again in the crowd. "No, she isn't. I've seen the Fists. I can recognize them on sight." There was the old grey smoker guy and the sour Gillian Anderson lady with the pinkish hair. There was the guy who reminded her a lot of Seal and the sexy no-nonsense woman that always looked like she was ready to reach for a gun on her hip. Cytherea though, Cytherea was—

"She's been to the Tomb with the others," Harrow said. "Definitely a Fist."

"Shit. Well, okay. Good to know, I guess." The way Cytherea lingered at her table suddenly seemed a lot less flattering. Was she keeping an eye on Gideon for some reason? Should Gideon bring it up to Camilla?

Though really, the more Gideon thought about it, the more it actually made sense. None of the Fists looked like they were people who worked under a title like Fist. At least none of them except the sexy no-nonsense lady with the invisible gun at her hip. Cytherea was the last person anyone would guess might be a Fist of the Mithraeum, so yeah, fine. Point for Harrow.

Gideon's eyes caught on Protesilaus, walking down an aisle of tables. "Come on," she said, and then didn't wait for Harrow as she made her way over toward Pro.

"Hey, man," she said, leading him a few steps back from the tables with a curl of her hand

"What is it?" Pro asked. His tone was the same tone he used when Gideon was there with a warning that there was likely to be a problem at her table, a patron too intoxicated and sloppy, a player that was losing and quickly becoming irate.

"No, nothing," Gideon said quickly, "it's just a question. Two months ago, you were on and I was here—off-duty like now—with a woman." She gestured toward Harrow. "This woman, actually. Anyway, some stuff went down that night and now we're trying to piece it together. Do you remember anything?" She gestured toward her face. "We looked like douchebags, had the whole Club Nine getup going."

Protesilaus softened a little and tipped his head toward Harrow in greeting. "Hey, Harrow."

"Hello," Harrow returned with the ghost of a smile.

Gideon paused, looked between them. "What?"

"My partner works with Harrow," Protesilaus said.

"Ortus," Harrow said, answering Gideon's next question.

"No shit," Gideon said surprised. She looked Protesilaus up and down, actually looked at him for maybe the very first time. "Good for Ortus." She turned to Harrow. "Do you know everyone that works here?"

"No," Harrow said, and then, sick of being sidetracked, she addressed Protesilaus directly: "Have you seen us together here before tonight, Pro?"

Protesilaus shrugged, noncommittal. "No, I didn't know you knew each other until now. Never saw you."

Damn. Okay, new direction. "Have you seen Isaac tonight?"

Pro brushed them off in the general direction of the bar, which Gideon really could have figured out herself. They found Isaac on his way back to the floor with a bottle of beer and a rum and coke on his tray.

"Gideon," Isaac said, surprised. "And… not Corona."

"Harrow," Gideon corrected.

"Right," Isaac said. He waved at Harrow with his free hand. "Hi again."

Harrow actually said hi back, which was unusually cordial of her. Gideon didn't have time to get caught on that though, because Isaac remembered Harrow, and Gideon was pretty sure it wasn't because Harrow was secretly a regular gambler.

"Let's cut right to the chase. Did you see us here two months-ish ago? Me and Harrow, Club Nine makeup?"

"Trashed and all over each other?" Isaac asked. "Yeah, I saw you. You don't remember?"

Gideon glanced toward Harrow. Harrow responded with a stiff shrug of tight shoulders. Gideon turned back to Isaac. "There's a lot we don't remember from that night. Like, when you say all over each other…"

Gideon leaned back against Harrow as she waved down the cocktail waiter. As the waiter approached and he came into focus, Gideon lit up. "Isaac! Isaac, my favorite cocktail cockatoo in the entire Mithraeum!"

Isaac didn’t seem to recognize her at first. Probably the paint and the clothes and the fact that she was sitting on the lap of Harrowhark Nonagesimus. She didn't remember quite how she ended up there, didn't remember if she was invited (probably not), if she'd invited herself (more likely), or if it'd started out as a fight for the chair that Harrow claimed she won and Gideon set out to show her otherwise (yeah, that was it). All she knew was Harrow wasn't pushing her off, despite the size difference, and she'd been there for a while, pulling the lever on the slot machine before Harrow could reach around her to press the button, occasionally leaning back to press kisses to the side of Harrow's face. Now, distracted by Isaac's approach, Harrow did take the opportunity to shove Gideon off, and Gideon stumbled to her feet with a laugh. She reached out and set a hand on Isaac's shoulder for support, just as Isaac's face brightened with recognition.

"I’m telling Jeannemary you said that. You’re not working?" His voice was a little shaky, still a little unsure of what he was walking into.

Gideon shook her head and then slung her arm over Isaac’s shoulder. "Night off. Had a date with Coronabeth."

Isaac whistled. "No shit." He glanced past Gideon toward Harrow, still seated at the machine. Gideon turned to follow his eyes. Harrow, for her part, ignored them both. She seemed absorbed in pressing the button on the slot machine as many times as she could now that her reach was unobstructed by Gideon’s bulk.

"She looks different without makeup," Gideon clarified, then realized it was a stupid thing to say about someone with a face coated in smeared paint. "With the makeup. Different makeup." Isaac’s entire forehead rolled up into a series of tight ridges at that. Gideon shook him beneath her arm, and he scrambled to get a better hold on his tray. “Just kidding, that’s not Corona.”

"No shit," Isaac said again. "What happened to your faces?"

Gideon shrugged. "Club Nine."

Isaac nodded. "Right, okay. Well, you know how it goes. What can I get you?"

"Gin and tonic and a vodka soda. And don’t you dare give us short pours."

Isaac winced. "Keep your voice down! Pro’s Floor Man over here this morning and that gray-haired Fist has been prowling all night."

Gideon was fairly certain the ‘grey-haired Fist’ was named Augustine. He looked like an accountant or a salesman. He found a spot on the floor and he sat there all night, smoking cigarette after cigarette, playing round after round. He rarely moved, but he didn’t need to. He looked like a bird and seemed to have the eyes of one too.

Gideon kept her voice down. She didn’t need Pro or the Mithraeum’s Fists on her case. "No short pours!"

"Yeah," Isaac stage whispered back. "You don't really seem like you'll be able to tell the difference."

"I can always tell," Gideon said, gravely. "Harrow can absolutely always tell. She's a professional, a specialist."

"Fine," Isaac said. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."

"I knew you were my favorite for a reason."

"Telling her that too," Isaac said as he walked away.

Gideon turned and climbed back onto Harrow's lap. When Harrow poked her in the side, Gideon shifted, pushed back against Harrow and stretched her arms. Harrow bit her shoulder, actually kind of hard, but she followed that up by pressing a kiss to the back of Gideon's neck, like she thought Gideon might get distracted by the pinch of teeth and wouldn't notice the press of lips. Gideon noticed.

Gideon leaned over to tap the guy at the machine next to them. "Most comfortable seats in the city," she said with a wink. He might have laughed for half a second before he decided to move to another machine.

Gideon turned back to the machine and clapped her hands together. "All right, let's win some money!"

"I returned just as you jumped up and shouted, you know, like 'Winner winner chicken dinner!' and you—" Here Isaac nodded toward Harrow. "—were like 'That's a lot of chicken dinners,' something like that, and then you" (this time directed at Gideon) "turned around and you started macking on each other, like really into it. I had to hit your arm to get your attention. You two were like—"

"Okay," Harrow cut it. Her arms were folded tight across her chest. She was standing close to Gideon though, hadn't tried to distance herself. Gideon decided to take that as a good sign. Harrow unclenched her arm long enough to knock her bony wrist against Gideon's forearm. "So that must be it. You won some money and while we were still riding that high, you proposed to me."

Gideon snorted. "I did not." She glanced toward Issac, whose eyebrows had shot so high they practically met his bleached hairline. It was only once she saw Isaac’s expression that she realized what Harrow just admitted. In public, in front of people she barely knew. "Wait, repeat that?"

"I said, then you asked me to marry you."

Gideon shook her head, but she couldn’t help the smile pulling at the edges of her mouth. "That doesn’t sound like me."

"Well, it certainly doesn’t sound like me!" Harrow said.

"It does sound like you," Gideon countered. "It sounds exactly like you. You act like you can’t fucking stand me, and then you do everything you can to keep me around."

"Ookay," Isaac said. He started to back away. "Good to see you, Gideon. Nice to meet you, Harrow. I’ve got to get back to—"

"You are the one who insisted we get to know each other," Harrow said, so laser focused on Gideon now that she probably hadn't even noticed Isaac was talking. "You are the one that created a fake ad. You’re the one that called me and then showed up at my place of employment after I told you not to seek me out."

"Not to seek—" Gideon looked to Isaac for support, all can you believe this chick?. Isaac merely shrugged. "We were married, Harrow! I sought you out to end it!"

"You've done a great job of that!" Harrow snapped.

"Is that my fault or yours?" Gideon asked.

"Yours! You were hiding divorce papers in your bag for weeks!"

"Like you were ever going to sign them," Gideon countered. "You didn't even want to talk about it! It's not like you were ever just going to let me go."

Harrow's mouth snapped shut on whatever she planned to say next. Instead she said nothing, just stood there and simmered.

"Have you signed them yet, Harrow?" Gideon asked, and then she stopped, held up her hands and shook her head. "Look, I've had too much to drink plenty of times and this was the only time I ended up married. Worst thing that ever happened before this was a date with a woman who made me try on all of the highest heels in Shoe Palace, like weird foot fetish territory, but not marriage. There’s no way it was me."

"You proposed," Harrow insisted. She squeezed her eyes shut. "We won something here and then we were in a—"

"You talked to Jeanne," Isaac said in a rush. "After me, you saw Jeanne." He nodded in the general direction of the bingo hall. "Out there."

Harrow words stumbled back to a halt. Gideon said, "Is Jeannemary here?"

"Yeah," Isaac said. "Yeah, she was just over by the bar."

**

Jeannemary was still over by the bar.

"'Course I saw you," Jeannemary said, her voice shaking just a little. Gideon knew for a fact that Jeannemary was not that nervous around other people, but she was always nervous around Gideon. Gideon chalked it up to a funny sort of hero worship, maybe a crush. She'd struck out in front of Harrow earlier with Cytherea, but the waiver in Jeannemary's voice would put her back on solid footing. Yeah, Gideon was something of a celebrity, even if just with the cocktail kids (Jeannemary was like mid-twenties, not a kid, but still). Except, the thing was, now Harrow was agitated and Gideon was tense, and no one really cared if anyone thought Gideon was hot shit anymore. "It was Gaius’s bingo night, and they had me at the door."

Right. Gaius’s fucking bingo night. Gideon never understood that.

There were one hundred and forty-four casinos in the city, not including "Teacher," a taxi driver who ran a semi-regular craps game behind Dominicus Wholesale Liquors on Friday nights. Of those one hundred and forty-four casinos, John Gaius owned forty-five of them. John Gaius owned the Mithras Market chain. He owned Dominicus Wholesale Liquors. Gaius did not, at least as far as Gideon knew, own "Teacher."

Why the fuck did a guy like that insist on running a monthly bingo night? In person!

"So we… played bingo?" Gideon guessed. She turned toward Harrow, but Harrow didn't seem to be paying attention. She was staring out toward the corridor, toward the bingo hall, and when Gideon reached out to touch her arm, Harrow took a step away.

"No," Jeanne said. "You didn't go in. You were trying to find somewhere where you could be alone and I was like 'uh, well, there's the hotel,' and you tried to be like 'no, not that kind of alone,' even though it seemed very obvious that that was the kind of alone you meant."

Right, well, probably a good thing Harrow had stepped away.

"Where did we go?"

Jeanne paused. She took a step away from the bar and gestured for Gideon to follow her. Gideon followed her away from the bar and leaned in close. When Jeannemary spoke again her voice was low. "Um, so you didn't have your employee pass on you, but you are an employee, so I let you in through the door beside the bingo hall. I don't know where you went after that. Did you get in trouble?"

"No," Gideon said. She watched as Harrow stepped out of the bar and into the hall. Okay, time to follow. Gideon smiled at Jeanne and shrugged one shoulder. "Well, a sort of trouble. I got married."

**

She found Harrow standing outside the closed door of the bingo hall. Beside the door was a black and white photo of John Gaius with one eye shut in a cheesy wink (gross), a glint in his open eye, and a big crooked smile on his face. Beside that was a poster of Coronabeth flanked by the girls from Ida. Corona's poster was an explosion of color. She was also winking, also smiling, blinding and bright.

Harrow stood in front of the posters, her back to Gideon, eyes on Gaius or Corona. It was hard to say which, though Gideon could guess.

"Harrow?" Gideon asked. She reached out and set a hand on Harrow's shoulder. She was going to have to apologize for what she'd said in front of Isaac. It was all true, but it was a lot. It had to be a lot for someone who insisted no one could ever know they were married until just a few hours ago. "Harrow."

"Leave me alone, Griddle," Harrow said. Her voice sounded strained, like she really had to push to get the words out of her throat. "I can't do this right now."

"It's a lot," Gideon agreed. She moved to stand on the other side of Harrow, pressed her back to the wall between John Gaius and Coronabeth. "It's a lot, I get it, but it's just Isaac and Jeannemary. I can pretty much guarantee they don't know anyone at the Tomb."

Harrow stared at Gideon for a long time, her eyes hard and shiny, her face unreadable. She stared at Gideon, then the poster to Gideon's left, the poster to Gideon's right, back to Gideon, and this time Gideon shifted her own gaze. She looked at the mark on Harrow's nose, couldn't handle Harrow's sharp eyes.

"I can’t breathe," Harrow said. "I have to go."

"Shit," Gideon cursed. She pushed herself away from the wall and followed Harrow, rushing to keep up, even with her height advantage. Harrow was so fast on those little legs.

Harrow went straight back to the east entrance, pushed her way out of the building. She didn't stop until she was off the grounds and across the street—Gideon shouted as Harrow ran right into the fucking road. A car squealed to a stop and honked its horn, and Harrow hardly seemed to notice. She made it across the street in one piece. Once there Harrow pressed her fists into the concrete wall of the adjacent building, pressed her forehead to her fists and let out an awful cry.

Shit, okay. Shit, shit, shit.

Gideon was right behind Harrow and had absolutely no fucking clue what she was supposed to do next.

"Come on," she said. She pulled Harrow away from the wall and put herself in the wall's place. She wrapped Harrow tight in her arms and held her close. Harrow shook her head and said, "I'm done. I'm done with this. I'm done with you," but she didn't fight, and Gideon replied, helpless, "okay, okay, okay."

What was it? The waiter at The White City? Was it Isaac? Jeannemary? Was it their argument over the proposal? Or was it the poster of Coronabeth? That seemed like it had to be it, but Harrow never seemed like she cared about Coronabeth. Not once in all of it did she give a shit about Coronabeth.

"Was it Corona?" Gideon asked.

Harrow stiffened and then pushed at Gideon. Gideon released her and took a step back. Harrow’s eyes met hers in a dark glance.

"I don’t give a fuck about Coronabeth Tridentarius," Harrow said, her voice scary low. She sat down on the sidewalk with her back against the concrete.

Okay. They were apparently just sitting on the ground now. Gideon followed Harrow down onto the concrete. She tried not to think about all of the drunk people who probably pissed against that wall over the years. She couldn't smell it, so it couldn't be too too bad, right?

Harrow leaned her head back against the wall and looked up at the Mithraeum. "You know the worst part?" She asked. She didn't wait for Gideon's answer. "We did it all in broad daylight. Every night we see people stumble out of my bar or away from your table, going off to make their next stupid mistake, but at least they’re doing it on vacation. At least they’re doing it in the dark hours when anything is supposed to happen. We stumbled into that chapel at eight, Griddle. Eight AM. The time was stamped right on the receipt."

"We’re nocturnal," Gideon reasoned. "Eight AM is like doing it at Eight PM. Anyway, time doesn’t apply here, you know that."

Harrow sighed. "I’ve bested my parents."

"Thanks," Gideon said, because she couldn't help it. The words hurt. "That’s really great to hear. Your parents got mixed up in the meat grinder that is the Mithraeum. Yeah, we’re in it, but that had nothing to do with what we did. That was just alcohol, stupidity, and something."

"And something," Harrow agreed. She pressed her fingers to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. "I was nine and I made a mistake. I was seventeen and I made a mistake. I’m twenty-eight and I just keep—"

"Look, I’m sitting right here. Can we at least pretend you don’t think marrying me is worse than getting mixed up with the Fists of the Mithraeum until after I leave? Anyway, maybe it’s not a mistake. Maybe marrying me is the best thing that will ever happen to you. I’m great fucking wife material." Gideon wasn’t sure what it even meant to be great fucking wife material, but whatever it meant, she could be that for Harrow. She could—Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her place. Was she actually arguing that they should view their drunk marriage as a good thing?

No, she was! Harrow shouldn’t beat herself up like she was. Not over this. "It isn't so bad, is it? You aren't messed up with the Fists. You didn’t accidentally marry Ianthe. Things could be so much worse."

"Who says I’m not mixed up with the Fists?" Harrow asked then. She tipped her head to look at Gideon with those big dark eyes. "Who says?"

Gideon froze. "What?" The word caught in her throat. It came out patchy and strange. She tried again. "What do you mean?"

Harrow shook her head. She gestured toward Gideon and then back to herself. "You want to know why this happened? I’ll tell you why it happened for me."

"Wait," Gideon said. She shifted against the wall, moved closer to Harrow. "No, I need to know—what the fuck are you saying? Are you messed up with the Fists?"

Harrow’s mouth twisted up into a knot for a moment, and then she was talking again, words just falling out of her mouth in a cascade: "I married you because when my entire life felt dark and closed in, you were there, and you were so bright. I married you because you’re right and I’ve been weird about you forever. I married you because my entire life I’ve meticulously planned every single step I took, every choice, and each and every one of them turned out wrong. One wrong decision after another. Mistake after mistake after mistake."

"Harrow—"

"No, let me finish, Griddle. I don’t want to spend weeks with you puzzling over every angle of why we did it or whether it was the right decision. I just knew in that moment that I wanted you, and when you offered yourself, I said yes, consequences be damned. That’s why it happened. Because I desperately needed a distraction and you were right there. Because the alcohol made it easy to just stop and because you made it easy to want. So I did what I always do. I made another mistake. That’s all there is to it. That’s it. You’re just the next link in a chain. You’re just part of the pattern."

Gideon had no idea how to respond to that. She couldn’t process it, couldn’t get past Harrow looking over at her and saying, "Who says?"

What the fuck was going on?

Harrow pushed herself up from the ground and brushed off her pants.

"You can stay here and keep going through the steps if you want to. Figure out why you asked me to marry you, if that’s what you need. I can’t help you with that. I’m done. I’m so fucking done with this, and with you, and with that." She gestured back toward the Mithraeum. She took a deep shaking breath, then another, and then she looked away from Gideon, squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands against them. "I need a break from your face, Gideon. I need a break from your eyes. Don’t follow me."

Harrow walked away.

And Gideon didn’t follow. She sat there, a bit dazed, staring at the bright facade of the Mithraeum, at the gold lights and the silver doors, at the fountain lit a brilliant blue.