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Gideon was headed back to her blanket nest for a sulk and a snooze when four totally meat-free hands shot out of the shadows and hurled her across the room. There she had been, feeling abandoned and frustrated at the way Harrow kept disappearing while all the other cavs’ necros treated them nicely. Mostly nicely, anyway. Funny how that happened. One minute you were greatly peeved, and the next you were in midair.
To anyone else this would have been a disconcerting start to their day. For Gideon? It made Canaan House feel like home.
Harrowhark stepped out of the shadows flanked by her two skeletons. Their red eyes glowed in the low light.
“Griddle. Imagine my surprise at hearing someone come in through the door just now, someone coming in from talking to other houses, when I’ve explicitly told the only other person who stays in this room to keep her mouth shut. I was concerned we had an intruder.”
Wherever this was going—and it never went anywhere good—Gideon was too busy moaning and clutching her head to engage with this bullshit. She squeezed one eye open just enough to glower at Harrow, who stood in the doorway idly twirling her knuckle bone rosary around like she was just waiting for Gideon to brush it off.
“Fuck off, Harrow.”
“You’ve been hanging around the others again.”
“Not like I have anything better to do.” How long had it been since she’d last seen Harrowhark, even? Days? Months? Years? “The other necros actually need their cavaliers to do things,” well, duel their frenemies’ cavs, at least, “I don’t know why you even brought me if you’re such a friggin’ superior solo artist.” She could have been off fighting intergalactic injustice. Having hot grateful ladies discretely stroke her biceps while they pinned medals of valor on her jacket. Hell, even cramming into a ship full of other meatheads would be better than being dragged across the universe just so Harrow could ignore her more.
Harrow had never given a shit about her, anyway.
Harrow did a complicated twirl of her wrist and bones sprouted up from the floor, locking together in deeply uncomfortable ways to a form what had to be the ugliest chair in the whole ugly house. Gideon could practically hear Dulcinea again, saying not my aesthetic with just that slightest hint of derision in her voice. It was kind of cute when Dulcinea did derision. It wasn’t cute when Harrow did derision, it was just depressingly normal.
Maybe it would have been a little cute, if Gideon weren’t so totally immune to it by now.
Harrowhark sat in the chair and stroked her long fingers along the outward curved row of ribs that formed its arm rests. Gideon’s skin broke out in goosebumps. The skeletons clinked to either side of the chair, red eyes glowing. How could someone so small command so much attention?
“I told you not to talk to anyone.”
This again. Gideon groaned and dropped her head to the floor, but this time it was less out of pain and more in response to Harrowhark’s general existence. Someone so tiny and evil shouldn’t have the power to launch big, buff, good looking people across the floor via skeleton, just to issue the same old boring lecture afterward. It was a fundamental injustice. She had read a lot of magazines and the good guy in a comic or a story always got something more exciting than a freaking lecture.
Just how exciting depended on the kind of magazine, obviously.
Harrow tossed her hood back, eyes bright with fury in her pristine skullface paint. It figured she could spend days on end skulking around like a true Ninth weirdo (did she even sleep?) and still have her cheekbones look so high and sharp and perfectly limned in stark black and white. Little asshole.
Gideon licked her lips.
“What’s your problem, anyway? You’ve literally never cared what I do before.” The only foolproof way to get even a fragment of her attention was an escape attempt. You were either provoking war with Harrowhark, or you didn’t exist to her. Even if you were basically the only sapient lifeforms on the planet.
Until now. Harrowhark and both skeletons were totally, intently, focused on Gideon.
“Of course I care what you do.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.” Harrow had barely bothered to notice her until they were surrounded by other people. Until Gideon maybe had something better to do than play their stupid cat-and-mouse game of heroic escapee and evil jailer. Until—wait for it—something like an impending sneeze was happening between her ears—was this what a Dramatic Realization felt like?
“I care that you represent the Ninth well,” Harrow had dropped her gaze to examine her black, taloned nails, “which obviously means that—”
“Harrowhark.” Holy skelebones. “Are you jealous?”
Harrowhark’s gaze snapped back up. Her skeletons loomed. “Why would I be—”
Gideon grinned ear to ear. She wasn’t familiar with this smug, eager feeling surging through her like sudden-onset arthritis through the bones of anyone who so much as thought about the Ninth House, but she liked it. Harrowhark was jealous. Over her.
“Ooh, you don’t like me spending time with the others—with Dulcinea—because—”
“Shut your mouth, Griddle.”
“You’re so totes jelly—”
“You sound idiotic—”
“You only want me to pay attention to youuu—”
“We are not having this conversation!”
Harrow threw out her hand and a skeletal hand leaped from the chair, straight at Gideon’s mouth. She shrieked and tried to pry its cold, calcium-rich fingers from around her jaw, shouting jealous, jealous as loudly as she could through the muzzle of its metacarpals. Gideon lunged at Harrow.
“Get off me!”
“You totally care!” It didn’t even matter that shouting through a skeletal hand clamped around your jaw was a real pain. Harrow obviously got the gist of it. Her nostrils flared, wrinkling the perfect paint. She tried to climb over the back of her chair as Gideon grabbed her around the waist. One of the skeletons tore at Gideon’s hands.
The other grabbed Harrow under the arms and lifted her out of Gideon’s grasp, or tried to.
“Let go of me!” Harrow kicked and shouted. She was a wriggling fit of overlaid robes and capes and shawls, and so tiny inside them that Gideon’s hands nearly fit all the way around her waist.
Up she went, hoisted into the air by her skeleton. Gideon dodged a flying kick and came away with a diaphanous black cape in hand.
“Don’t try to deny it!” Gideon shook the cape in a victory dance. Her brain was on fire with the implications. Bone Buddy #2 snatched the cape and tried to pull it away; she tugged hard and let go. “I see through all your nasty little layers, Harrow!
Smash, crash, there went Bone Buddy #2 into the wall. “You want to be the only person! The only person I pay attention to!” What a totally completely absolutely buckwild sentence to come out of her mouth. It tasted bright and shocking and delicious.
“That’s not true.” Harrow shook a dainty fist from her high-up perch in Bone Buddy #1’s arms. Gideon vaulted the bone throne and tackled Bone Buddy #1 with Harrow in its arms. The force of her jump threw them backwards. Gideon clutched Harrow to her chest and laughed like an idiot.
Smash, crash, encore. Gideon pushed herself up on her hands and knees above Harrow, still laughing.
“I will end you,” Harrow growled from the floor. Her black vestments were flung out across the stone like the accretion disk of a black hole, ringed around with the scattered remnants of the skeleton she’d converted back to dust and bone fragment. “I will make your mouth a maw tooth by pulled tooth, I will flay you alive and shred you tendon by tendon, I’ll splinter your bones into tiny fragments and reconstitute you just to make you choke on them.”
“Okay, weirdo,” said Gideon. She flopped down on her side next to Harrow. Harrow had something going on with her eyes.
“You’re right, I don’t care what you do,” Harrow was saying. “Why should I care what you do?”
“Hey, Harrow?”
“So go ahead, flirt with whoever you want—”
“So it’s definitely flirting we’re jealous about now, huh?”
“You’ve always wanted to be rid of me anyway—”
“Harrow, your eyes are leaking.”
Harrow’s mouth clammed up like a tomb. She looked over at Gideon in abject terror. Yeah, that was definitely an eye leak. Welling up sparkly like a little fleck of quartz in stone. Harrow convulsed in the general direction of a sideways turn so that she faced away from Gideon, and there was a distinct wipe-sleeve-over-face motion. She didn’t turn back.
“The Ninth is fucking awful, okay? I know it’s like, your deadly duty to be the most morbid bone lady in necromantic history or whatevs, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Or represent it well.”
“You agreed to be my cavalier, Griddle.”
“Yeah, your cavalier. I agreed to do this with you, not for the glory of the Ninth.” She kind of super regretted how mushy that sounded as soon as the words left her mouth. “Not in a weird way, obviously. Just in like, a normal personal way.” Nope, that was worse. “I assumed you might actually need me at some point,” she finished.
Harrow sniffled into the silence. Harrow. Sniffling. Could the day get any stranger?
“You’re leaving the moment I’m done here. This is just another escape route.”
“I’d write to you.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Honest to god-the-emperor, I always sort of figured I’d send you letters from the front. About how hot and strategically important and heroic I am, obviously.”
Harrow sniffled again, considering.
“Look, I’m jealous of the way the other necromancers act around their cavaliers. I know we have—baggage between us—but the way the Sixth house is, or the Fifth? Even the awful shitty teens? They’re a team. I don’t mean you have to want me on your team, that’s fine, I get it. I’ll have people once I get to the front lines and I can wait for that. I just. Kind of wish you could at least try? That’s what I’m jealous of.”
“I’m not jealous of anyone. I’ve had to put up with your immature, imbecile attentions my whole life.”
“You wish I paid that much attention to you.”
Wait. Shit. Maybe she really did? This dramatic revelation stuff was going to give Gideon a headache. “You’ve only ever paid attention to me when I’m trying to escape. That’s rude, Harrow.” She waited for a response, frowned, and then suddenly blushed in terror. “Sorry, what was that?”
Harrow mumbled again.
“Louder, Nonagesimus.”
“I said, I’ve always watched you.”
“Way to make it weird,” she joked, or tried to joke, but there was something going on in her throat and chest that made the words come out strained and breathless.
“Um. That’s cool. You mean...”
Yeah, this shit always came out way more suave in the magazines.
“I brought you here because I need you; I know the way you move, the way you think; I’ve seen you training and practicing and studying and even fighting me and Ortus could have never—no one else could ever—I wouldn’t ever want anyone else to—it had to be you, Gideon. Even if you hate me.”
It was Gideon’s turn to mumble. Harrow froze in the act of drawing a sleeve back over her face. She flipped over looking murderously intent, like Gideon had just transformed into the most exquisitely forbidden tome of necromantic theory ever published, like Gideon had just uttered the key to unlock all the mysteries of Canaan House. Nothing in the world between them but a lifetime of frustration and six inches of air.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Gideon mumbled. Her heart felt like it might go supernova in her chest. Harrow’s face was streaked and smeared and damp around the corners of her eyes; gray paint coated coated the innermost tight-buttoned sleeve on her narrow wrist.
“What. Did. You. Say.”
This was it. She was going to die here. Harrow was going to kill her.
“I don’t hate you,” Gideon whispered. The worst part was that as the words came out, she knew they were true. She hated the way Harrow treated her. She hated the way the Ninth House and Canaan House made Harrow act. But no matter how badly she wanted to, how hard she tried, and how satisfying it would be, she didn’t hate
Harrow.
“You should hate me,” Harrow whispered. Click click click, went her skeletal hands cleaning up the room. “There are things you should hate me for, Gideon
“You said my name again.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
Gideon surged forwards and kissed her.
It wasn’t a great kiss.
It was a chest-thumping, hip-rocking, press her back into the floor and the folds of her clothes, teeth-knocking kind of kiss, all pressure and inexperience that became all teeth and desperation and inexperience before either of them realized what they were doing, or what it would mean. Trying to express in words the source of all their mutual antipathy was too hard. The words dropped out all wrong and lost their meaning in translation somewhere in the space between them. Direct transmission was better.
Gideon’s hips pinned Harrow to the floor. Harrow’s hand snaked around Gideon’s torso and fisted in her hair. They clung together in frantic desperation, hands scrabbling for purchase around each other’s robes, bodies pressed tight.
Harrow gasped for air. “There are things—” She didn’t finish her sentence. Gideon pressed her mouth harder to Harrow’s, tongue raking Harrow’s teeth before slipping between them. Harrow moaned into the kiss, head rising to meet Gideon with equal force. For once Gideon didn’t take the opportunity to make a crack about Harrow’s nonexistent muscles. She dropped down, elbows on either side of Harrow, and cradled the other girl’s head in her hand.
Harrow wrapped her arms around Gideon and scrabbled for purchase on her robes. She gripped handfuls of fabric, then threw her hands up in disgust, pushing instead at Gideon’s chest even as she pushed back at Gideon’s tongue. Gideon broke off the kiss, panting.
“Sit up,” Harrow gasped. Gideon lurched back, aware in every nerve of her body that her left knee had landed between Harrow’s legs. “Not all the way up, stupid.” Harrow fumbled with the clasp on Gideon’s robe and hissed in frustration. Skeletal arms sprouted out of the floor and tore Gideon’s outer robe off, tossing it by Harrow’s cape.
“That seems fair,” was all Gideon managed before desire and Harrow’s hands pulled her back down. She bit down on Harrow’s lower lip, not quite breaking the skin, reveling in the way Harrow moaned and rocked against her. Harrow wrapped her arms around Gideon, fingers digging into the back of her shirt with shocking strength. Gideon slid one hand back under Harrow’s head and traced the fine bones of the girl’s face with the other.
Her fingers trailed paint and sweat around Harrow’s temple, the sharp peak of her cheekbone and the corner of her mouth, the curl of an ear, the long elegant sweep of her neck before it disappeared under its high black silk collar. She tore herself from Harrow’s mouth and followed the trail of her fingers, kissing Harrow’s jaw, lathing Harrow’s bare neck with her tongue.
“There are things you should know,” Harrow’s last word vanished in a moan. She raked her fingers down Gideon’s back and up her spine again, along her arms, digging into the muscles. Gideon flexed for Harrow’s benefit, loving the pressure of her necromancer’s hands.
“What if I don’t care?” She nipped at Harrow’s neck and tried, one-handed, to undo the tiny bones buttoning down the collar. Harrow kneed her in the stomach, or tried to. Gideon laughed into Harrow’s neck and shifted, trapping Harrow’s leg between her thighs. Harrow cried out in frustration and grabbed Gideon’s face, pulling her up so they were locked eye to eye.
“Gideon.”
“Three times!” Gideon forced Harrow’s hands down and kissed her nose. “You’ve said my name three times. How could it possibly be worse than anything I already know?” She took in Harrow’s expression and sat back up, then pulled Harrow up with her. Harrow closed her eyes and tried to straighten her clothes out. Gideon made a little pleading noise before she could stop herself.
“It’s bad.”
“Then it can join the fucking club, Harrow. Nothing good has ever happened to either of us.” Except possibly in the last five minutes, but she wasn’t going to mention that in case five minutes was all she got. Harrow’s eyes were wide and tearless, her jaw was set. “You look like you’re thinking hard about something.” Please, please let it be how totally awesome that five minutes was.
“You should try it sometime.” Harrow snarked back on autopilot.
“If you’ll let me be your cavalier—I mean really, not like you’ve been doing—then I don’t care. We’ve seen some shit. We’ll see some more. And then I’ll absolutely destroy it it.” She flexed again just in case that helped sell her case. Harrow shut her eyes in Harrow-typical disgust that was weirdly, deeply cute, and Gideon leaned in for another kiss.
This time was slower and softer, although that lasted about as long as their attempt at serious conversation had. Slow and soft had never been the preferred tempo of their relationship.
“You’re sure?” Harrow’s voice was small but velvety as she climbed into Gideon’s lap.
“Positively, my little morbid weirdo.” Gideon’s fingers tangled again at the tiny buttons and this time Harrow’s hands rose up to help her.
She grabbed Harrow’s face in her hands and deepened the kiss, then moved back along Harrow’s neck as the collar came off. Harrow’s bare brown skin radiated heat under the intricate layers of her bone necklaces. Gideon nosed a fringe of phalanges aside and bit into Harrow’s shoulder. Harrow cried out, arched her back, gripped Gideon’s hair in one hand and tried to pull her shirt open with the other.
“Yours first,” Gideon ordered into her shoulder, and for once in her life Harrow did exactly what Gideon wanted. The filmy black blouse slid off and joined the growing pile of all her other layers. Harrow’s narrow shoulders, the small high rise of her breasts just peeking behind the ragged lace on her camisole, the sharp lines of her collarbones under the pile of necklaces, were perfect. And also a wild turn on.
Gideon palmed a strap off Harrow’s shoulder and pulled the other girl deeper into her lap, until their stomachs were pressed together and Harrow’s hipbones ground into her. Fuck. So they were really going to--so this was how it felt.
She pulled the camisole over Harrow’s head and ran her hands up Harrow’s bare back. Harrow wrapped her legs around Gideon’s waist and kissed her hard, bit her lip and drew blood as Gideon finally managed to undo the stupid clasp on her bra. She wanted to keep undressing Harrow, but instead Harrow grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back, kissing her throat.
Skeletal hands yanked Gideon’s shirt up her back. No time for buttons; she pulled the shirt open and struggled free to wrap her bare arms around Harrow’s torso. Harrow’s bra slid down between them and Gideon threw it aside. She could fit Harrow’s breasts into the palms of her hands, and did. Harrow’s nipples were stiff and dark against her hands. When she rolled one between her fingers and tugged, the noise Harrow made did amazing things for the heat in the pit of her stomach. She wanted Harrow so badly it hurt.
She wrapped an arm under Harrow’s ass and rocked forwards, managed to get up on one knee. Harrow ground against her thigh. One of the skeletons pulled Gideon to her feet and hovered around like Harrow might fall.
“I don’t need a spotter, Harrow.” She squeezed Harrow’s ass with one hand.
“Don’t you dare drop me!” If all of Harrow’s orders were going to sound this sexy from here on out, they were going to have a problem. She dropped Harrow hard onto the big crumbling four-poster. Harrow swore, or tried to. Gideon raked her tongue over Harrow’s teeth and thrust it into her mouth, pinning Harrow’s shoulders into the mattress.
“Do you want me?” Her voice was ragged with arousal. Harrow’s hands traced across her abdomen.
“Can you stop flexing for two minutes?”
“That sounds like a yes.”
Harrow swore again, arching her back as Gideon kissed her way back down the long neck, taking time at the sweet spot on her shoulder, pressing Harrow’s tiny tits in her hands. Harrow’s hands clenched and unclenched in the bedsheets.
“Could you take any longer?” Yeah, so everything Harrow said was going to be that hot from now on. Okay.
“Always a critic.” As slowly as she possibly could, Gideon ran her tongue across Harrow’s nipple. Harrow groaned and pressed up against Gideon’s mouth, hips bucking as Gideon’s hand slid down. She tucked her fingers under the waist of Harrow’s trousers and sucked hard, pulling her knee up sharply between Harrow’s legs. Harrow’s hips bucked under her hand.
“Could you just do what I want for once—”
Gideon abandoned the breast with one last lick and kissed her way down Harrow’s stomach. Her hands found the buttons—always too many buttons—at Harrow’s waistband.
“And what would that be?” She pressed her knee into Harrow and was rewarded with another groan. Now for the stupid tiny buttons.
“Don’t ruin my trousers,” Harrow ordered, or tried to; she cried out again as Gideon cupped her through the trousers and rubbed her thumb down the fly.
“So bossy,” she murmured. One button down, two. She peeled Harrow’s trousers down, kissing each hipbone as Harrow wriggled up the bed and tried to kick her legs free. One of the skeletons pulled on the hem of her trousers and stepped back into the shadows with them.
Gideon folded one of Harrow’s legs up and kissed her way down, licked the hollow of her thigh. She slid her hand under Harrow’s black underclothes. Harrow was wet with arousal, crying out some wordless demand. Gideon couldn’t have teased her then if she’d tried.
She got Harrow’s underwear off without realizing it, pressed her fingers into Harrow. God, the way she smelled, the way her skin felt. The way she rocked against Gideon’s hand.
Gideon ran her tongue over the path her fingers had traced and was rewarded with a sobbing cry. Fingers found purchase in her hair, pressing her deeper in. Harrow tasted like she smelled, all salt and skin and heat. Gideon swirled her tongue slowly and gave up on any attempt to hold back; she raked her tongue again and again over Harrow’s clit, one finger slipping inside her, thrusting in time with the frantic rhythm of Harrow’s hips. Harrow cried out, back arched. Her thighs clenched around Gideon’s skull so tightly that Gideon’s ears rang when the other girl finally relaxed beneath her, although that could just be the cumulative effect of the entire afternoon finally getting to her.
Slowly, Gideon ran her tongue back over Harrow, listening to the way she panted and half-sobbed Gideon’s name.
“No more Griddle?” She climbed back up over Harrow and settled in on her side against the other girl. Harrow, pupils blown, breath ragged, made a gratifying attempt to grope Gideon, and after a moment’s work Gideon shucked off her own trousers and guided Harrow’s hands through the motions.
“I’d spend way less time with the others if we can do this instead,” Gideon mumbled into Harrow’s ears.
“Glad we found a better use for your mouth.” A bony hand shot out of the headboard and swatted Gideon’s hand away when she tried to smack Harrow. Grumbling, she pulled Harrow against her chest instead. Harrow folded herself in, bone necklaces clinking, and closed her eyes.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Harrow yawned, “I have things to do, I’m so close…” Gideon snorted into her hair and laced her fingers through Harrow’s hand.
“Is this not enough exploration for one day?”
Harrow’s response was too languid and mumbled to make sense, and Gideon settled back onto the pillow. Four red eyes glowed in the growing shadows at the foot of the bed, silent and watchful.
“Hey Harrow, did you forget to dissemble the skeletons or are you into someone watching?” An exhibitionist was the last thing she would’ve figured Harrow for.
Harrow’s only response was a gentle, convenient snore. The skeletons were perfectly still. It was, considering everything else that had just happened, the least weird part of the day. Gideon tucked Harrow under her chin and fell asleep.