She lifts her arm. A piece of glass juts out of her forearm. “I figured it was best to leave it in.”
I take her wrist and make quick work of the mess, pulling the shard from the wound and clasping my hand over it. She flinches as my magic presses in, sewing the tissue and skin back together.
“Bleeding woods, that itches!” she says.
Finally, I pull my hand back and wipe away her blood with my sleeve, revealing pristine pale skin.
Gaven gives me a begrudging nod. “Fine. He can come.”
The bodyguard leads us down the hallway, away from the chaos of the dining room.
“Miss Harlow!” A man runs toward us, and I’m instantly ready to shove Harlow behind me. I need this alliance to look real.
“Relax, that’s Arthur,” Harlow says. “He was Aidia’s bodyguard before she married Rafe.”
Arthur closes the distance between us. “Kellan is wounded.”
Harlow takes off behind him with surprising speed. We tear down the corridor. I can’t help but notice Harlow walked right by the rest of her wounded family in the dining room, but now she’s sprinting to get to Kellan. That’s valuable information.
When she rounds the corner ahead, she draws up short and throws an arm out to stop Gaven and me.
“Arthur, stop!” she shouts. But it’s too late.
The guard is several feet ahead of her. He goes rigid, shakes for a few seconds, and then collapses to the floor. Harlow drags him back from the invisible boundary and presses her fingers to his neck. I shouldn’t be surprised how casual the motion is for her, but it makes me wonder how often she checks a body for a pulse—or a lack of one. I suppose it makes sense if murder is one of her pastimes.
“He’s alive.”
“What is it?” Gaven asks, glancing down the hallway.
Her gaze tracks over something I can’t see. “It looks like some sort of trap from someone with a malice blessing. Do the rebels have?—”
“Magic,” Gaven offers. “Yes, your brother warned me there had been a few magical disturbances of late.”
Harlow scowls at him. “And you didn’t think to mention that to me?”
The guard crosses his arms. “So you’d be aware when you sneak out?”
“So I can warn your common ass,” she counters.
This is exactly why I need Harlow. Much as I might loathe her, I need her insights into her family, their blessing, and her ability to see magic. We can’t fight the Carrenwells blind. You can’t stop what you can’t see coming. The sooner I get her to trust me, the sooner I can set to unraveling her family’s power over the city.
“Can you undo whatever the trap is?” I ask.
Harlow shakes her head. “I don’t have holy fire to burn it away. We’d need my father or one of my siblings.”
Everyone knows Able has holy fire because he’s the heir, but she’s suggesting one of her other siblings has it too, and I can’t tell if it’s a bluff.
“If the rebels did this, it seems they’re trying to corral us in the dining room,” I say.
She nods before meeting Gaven’s eye. “We need to find Kellan, which means we need to show Henry.”
Gaven sighs and bends to drag Arthur away. Harlow wordlessly crosses the hall and pauses in front of what looks like a normal wood-paneled wall. She glances both ways down the hall and then presses into the molding. A hidden door swings open, and she waves me inside. Gaven grunts as he drags Arthur inside and lays him on the ground. Harlow follows with a quick glance over her shoulder before she presses the door closed.
There’s a soft scratch, and a match flickers to life. Harlow lights a candle. The narrow passage brightens.
Gaven glances down at Arthur. “He’ll be confused when he wakes up, but he’ll figure it out once he gets his bearings.”
Harlow steps over Arthur and leads us down the long corridor. It grows narrower before it dead ends. She hands Gaven the candle and presses her ear to the solid wall. After a moment of silence, she whispers something I can’t hear. Before my eyes, the wall goes transparent and the hallway comes into focus.
