Chapter Text
Gideon and Harrow had a lot to thank Pyrrha for. It was her influence that had secured the lot of them the house on the intimate, unincorporated moon as far from the Dominicus system as they could get. She’d built their furniture and their porch swing. She’d gone around and made nice with the locals on their behalf, smoothing the transition before they’d arrived. She’d even stocked the kitchen so the four of them would have something to eat on day one.
It was kind. It was thoughtful. It was far more than she’d had to do.
That didn’t mean they didn’t both fucking despise her.
Their visceral dislike wasn’t subtle, either. They both grew visibly tight-jawed and ornery in her presence, head and shoulders wilting in tandem like a pair of heavy-headed allium in the Ninth House frost.
Harrow, who already struggled with eye contact, rarely lifted her chin up when the ex-lyctor was present. When she did, her dark eyes gazed off into no man’s land, and she spoke confidently to the air as if addressing a swathe of unseen spirits. She gripped the edges of tables. She tracked the movement of shadows on the ground. If you watched her carefully, you could see her mapping the location of every potential exit in the vicinity.
Gideon, who spoke her mind with impunity among her housemates (often to her own detriment), only mumbled and muttered under her breath when Pyrrha was about… except when she bubbled over, mouthed off viciously, and stalked off in shame. Somehow, she always found an excuse to put space between herself and the myriad-old woman—an insurance policy against the sort of affectionate touching Pyrrha shared with Cam and Sex Pal.
Neither could get comfortable around her, even in their own home, and they were already uncomfortable in their changed and alien bodies. They spent every visit shifting and writhing, chafing in their skin like they had prepared for Pyrrha’s arrival by rolling in a nettle patch.
Someone in that body had hurt them both very badly. Could they be blamed for bristling in her presence?
Naturally, the two had never discussed their shared ire. They knew, individually, that their feelings were justified. It seemed impossible that the other would disagree.
Granted, they rarely discussed much else, either. Even weeks into their tenure on their odd new moon, things were a bit strained and awkward between the two. Now that Pal had procured a second weighted blanket and Harrow started sleeping too much, they spent their nights in separate beds, in separate bedrooms, pretending they didn’t hear the amorous animal keening emanating from Camilla and Palamedes’ shared quarters.
In the light of day, they were congenial and occasionally shy, discussing the weather or the quality of their sleep—but on rare occasions, one would set the other off, and they’d start bickering like they were children.
It was oddly comfortable and familiar, laying into one another like hungry beasts, but they were older now than they’d been even a year ago. They’d both died, in a way, and had been reborn into worse, less capable bodies. As they inevitably grew tired, the screaming morphed into loud talking, which steadily morphed into something resembling normal conversation. On one atypical occasion, the conversation had dissolved into exhausted, unhinged giggles.
(Cam had walked into the room, observed for a moment, said, “Okay,” and walked right back out.)
Nearly half a year into their new life, they still hadn’t found a route to joy that didn’t begin with rage. They did not yet understand how to be with one another in this mundane, workaday world without titles or necromancy. The saltwater lessons of Canaan House felt like they’d happened in a story about two strange little girls. In a way, it had.
Palamedes and Camilla did not have that problem.
The two had shed their original House arithmonyms like two sets of damp, gray robes, both taking “Paul” as a shared surname. They both had jobs and contacts in the community. Sometimes they had plans that didn’t involve Harrow and Gideon at all - though they did not yet have any plans that did not involve each other. It would be hard to say they were doing well, but they were certainly faking it beautifully.
Palamedes had posited that, just maybe, that’s all adulthood was.
Alas for Harrow and Gideon, that meant their prescient housemates occasionally had the stamina to look beyond themselves and take note of the walking disasters in their midst. Thus, Gideon and Harrow were very often the topic of Camilla and Palamedes’ late-night conversation.
“It’s not your place, Warden,” Cam said dispassionately, staring up at her ceiling as she slowly curled and uncurled one set of toes, then the other. “Isn’t it, though? If Harrow starves to death while we’re in the next room, we’re complicit.”
Cam swallowed hard, silently. Pyrrha and Palamedes both kept reminding her that she was off duty. They insisted she’d earned her retirement and that there were no mandatory missions or projects here. She didn’t need to be The Person Who Took Care of Anybody. All she had to be was Camilla, whoever that was.
Cam wore her lapsed cavalierhood like a phantom limb. She was a working dog with nothing to herd. Yes, she wanted to rest, but so much of who she was had become that way through muscle memory. She still hadn’t learned how to let go with anything resembling grace.
“She isn’t Nona,” Cam said simply.
“No. I know that. Of course, I know that. That’s the point, isn’t it?” Palamedes went on, running his mouth to catch his brain. “She isn’t burning a soul. She doesn’t even have necromancy eating away at her tissue. After all that she’s endured, keeling over from malnutrition in her own home would be a damned stupid way to die. Nona was dying, and it’s no crime to die, but Harrow is killing herself, and that I can’t abide.”
Cam swallowed and said nothing.
“Thoughts?” he prompted.
What she wanted to say is ‘You and I don’t get to tell people not to kill themselves. We don’t have the right.’
Instead, she said, “Talk to her again. Tell her what you just told me.” She missed when there had only been one mind between them. Communication had been so much easier.
“You know Harrow. She gets defensive. We won’t see her for a week, and that would be worse.”
“Have Nav talk to her.”
“She’d get worse than defensive. She’d get violent. Besides, Gideon isn’t looking well, either. I know you’ve noticed. I don’t think she’s realized how much she was relying on divinity to maintain her muscle mass on the Ninth. They can both use an intervention, frankly, but Harrow is my priority.”
“Well, she won’t listen to me.”
“No,” Palamedes sighed, “She very likely won’t. The problem is that nothing scares her, including death, which makes it damned near impossible to change her mind.”
It was silent for only a moment before Camilla turned her head on the pillow, looked him in the eye, and said, “That’s not true.”
“What?”
“That nothing scares her.”
“Right. What?”
“Not what. Who.”
As the realization dawned on him, Palamedes grinned, drawing Cam close and kissing her square on her lips (and only bumping her a bit with his nose).
“Cam, have I told you recently that you’re brilliant?”
And that was how they’d decided to get the band back together—or, more specifically, why Pyrrha Dve was currently standing in their tiny and practical kitchen while Harrow and Gideon stared holes into the surface of the dining table.
“Right,” Pyrrha said, wiping her broad, brown hands on her apron, “Cooking lesson starts now, kids. I’ll find something you can both choke down if it kills me.”
“Palamedes and Camilla were presumptuous,” Harrow replied primly, “I already know how to cook.” Her spine was like a cold, metal rod, pinning her to the dining chair.
“Like hell you do,” Pyrrha and Gideon snarked back in tandem, which made Pyrrha laugh, and made Gideon shake and bristle with a silent lust for violence.
“Don’t forget, kiddie, I’ve tasted your soup, in a manner of speaking,” Pyrrha was quick to remind her, patting her stomach, “The old gut’s never quite been the same.”
“That is not my name,” Harrow retorted instantly, her voice like acid.
“Right,” Pyrrha said just as quickly, lips thinning tersely, “Old habits, you know.”
Gideon glanced up just long enough to detect a fathomless well of sadness behind Pyrrha’s eyes. Gideon wasn’t an idiot. She knew exactly what she was looking at. She’d seen it in Cam and Pal’s eyes, too. What she didn’t know was how anyone could miss the body-snatching hussy that had taken up residence in Harrow’s vacant meat chassis. Her Divine Strumpet, Our Lady of Being a Presumptuous Moron, was no longer in the picture. Why couldn’t everybody get over it?
“Why do I have to be here for this?” Gideon asked, “I’m not her cav, I’m not her keeper, and I eat well enough, so if you’ll excuse me—”
“Oh, I’ve heard about how you eat,” Pyrrha smirked, though she didn’t move to stop Gideon as she stood, the legs of her chair scraping against the floor, “Think Pal called it ‘foraging.’ Back where I come from, we called it stealing, but what do I know? Straight nutrient paste, “borrowed” leftovers, and pilfered bell peppers from my garden do not a diet make.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Griddle,” Harrow intoned, “She’ll eat anything you put in front of her.”
“Yeah,” Gideon agreed, “Leave me alone. Worry about Harrow.”
“What? That is not at all what I meant.”
“It’s not like you have to tell us to worry about you, dumbass. You look like a corpse. No, you look like if Sex Pal’s dead girlfriend went on a diet.”
“I do not. But you, Griddle, look like if a cadaver decided to—”
“How’s this? You both look like shit,” Pyrrha contributed mildly but firmly, throwing her hands up, her declaration bringing the mean-spirited bickering to a full and complete stop. Before they realized what they were doing, both Gideon and Harrow turned to look at her, jaws hanging open just a touch.
“You look shitty enough that your friends are worried sick about you. Harrow, you’re losing weight, which shouldn’t be possible since you didn’t have any to begin with. Kid, you’re dropping muscle like it’s going out of style, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m willing to bet you’d get a kick out of tasting your food every once in a while.”
In tandem, both girls self-consciously crossed their arms over their midsections, as if the gesture could hide not only what everyone else had seen for weeks but what they both already knew. Harrow was no longer an immortal deity for whom eating was optional. Gideon was no longer a divine, unkillable soldier. They needed to feed themselves, and that required a degree of self-love, self-care, and self-preservation that they both sorely lacked.
It was just another chore, and there were already so many chores in adulthood. This one wasn’t like missing a day of laundry, however. You could wear dirty socks twice or walk on a dusty floor, but these were the bodies they would die in—their final homes before they moved on to the river for good.
Neglecting this chore had consequences.
“Listen. I am here as a favor to my friends because you’re both scaring them shitless,” Pyrrha went on, wiry arms crossed over her chest. “It’s your unlucky day, because I’m not in the habit of letting my friends down. You can hate me all you like, and you can be mad at me, but you’re not getting rid of me until you can make up your own plates and clear them. So, you wanna grab a knife or what?”
After five full seconds of ashamed, bated silence, they both moved to the counter for their first knife skills lesson.
By the end of the first day, they’d made a gorgeous, colorful garden salad, mostly in silence. While they’d mixed up a dressing, Pyrrha had prepared the protein that rounded out the meal.
What they hadn’t realized was that they weren’t engaging in a practical didactic exercise for a mark. They were making supper—meaning they were cooking for Pyrrha, Camilla, and Palamedes, too.
Oh, and themselves.
While Gideon had no reservations about gobbling her portion of salad down (with a fork this time, thank you), Harrow laboriously ate her undressed lettuce one leaf at a time. She could feel Camilla’s eyes on her, doing some abstract computations about nutrition and energy, no doubt. The more their gazes burned into her, the more she yearned to prove everyone wrong. By the end of the meal, she’d even nibbled on a bit of carrot, which she had to admit wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
In thanks, Camilla and Palamedes had volunteered to wash the dishes, once again leaving Harrow and Gideon alone with Pyrrha in the sitting room.
“Now, for extra credit, tell me what you liked.”
“I don’t need the extra credit,” Gideon remarked, stretched out on the sofa, secretly enjoying the feeling of a full belly and a job well done, “I think I did alright.”
“Humor me,” Pyrrha insisted, “Your mum wouldn’tve given up credit for anything.”
“I don’t know,” Gideon mused with a one-shouldered shrug, bristling silently, “I liked it.”
“How can you tell?” Harrow asked from where she sat gripping her knees, “You swallowed it all in a single gulp.”
“Why were you watching me eat? Pervert.”
“It was like observing a massacre, Griddle. I could not have looked away.”
“Could say the same about you, taking bites out of one leaf of lettuce like you couldn’t fit it all in your big mouth.”
“At least I could taste it.”
“And that’s the point, actually,” Pyrrha cut in, “Eating is part of cooking, believe it or not. Knife skills are great, but you’re never going to use them if you don’t develop your palates.”
“Really?” Gideon shot back, her sudden flare of ire surprisingly violent and disarming, though it had been bubbling since she’d heard the word ‘mum.’ “It always has to be ‘Pick on Gideon’ hour when you’re around, huh? Fuck, I can’t even eat the right way? I like food wrong? Go ahead. What else have I fucked up because you couldn’t be assed to teach me when I was a kid? What else did my mum do better than I could?” she shouted, rising to her feet.
“Whoa,” Pyrrha said, “Come on, kid. That’s not what I was saying.”
“Too late,” Gideon snapped, heading toward the front door, “Should have thought about that before you pushed me out an airlock. You don’t get to walk into my home and teach me these things now.” She slammed the screen door roughly behind her as she breezed through and down the road, leaving Harrow virtually alone with Pyrrha.
“Well, shit,” Pyrrha said, sitting down, running her rough, scarred palms over her barely-there russet hair, watching Gideon go. Her body was alert, clearly torn between going after her and staying put. She didn’t know if Gideon was the type of kid who wanted to be followed.
Maybe she didn’t know Gideon at all.
As Pyrrha deliberated, Harrow stood, slowly and silently creeping backward toward the kitchen to be closer to her remaining housemates.
When Pyrrha turned around, she was entirely alone.
—
Gideon did skulk home eventually, after many agonizing hours spent wandering around in self-deprecating misery. By the time she made her grand return, it was pitch dark outside, the night insects singing their romantic ballads in the starlight.
She’d waited until she spotted the shadowy figure of Pyrrha making the brief trek back toward her place, cigarette glowing red-hot in the darkness. She didn’t dare approach the house until she could no longer see that smoldering orange cherry in the distance. The air smelled like smoke and bright, alien petrichor, and Gideon smelled just as fresh from her unplanned romp. She was pink cheeked and mussed, every muscle in her body taught and poised to snap.
Stepping inside, Gideon shut the screen door as quietly as she could and paused in the foyer. She looked around at the dim, empty sitting room. Every shadow seemed suspect. Something about standing there felt wrong. Why was her heart racing? Why was her first impulse to reach for her sword?
After a moment of contemplation, she realized it was the first time in her memory that she’d run away from home and Harrow hadn’t come after her. Never before had she run and returned of her own accord. She was anticipating some kind of admonishment—a whipping, a lecture, a fight—but nobody even seemed to care.
At least they’d left the porch light on.
Feeling cold, aimless, and a bit bereft, she walked straight to Harrow’s bedroom, where she was faced with the sight of a closed door. It was a familiar sight lately. Harrow typically went to bed before the insects started screwing and stayed there until late in the afternoon. Gideon almost walked away, but something in her gut told her to try the knob.
It gave in her hands and, unceremoniously, she let herself right in. It was almost too easy to be satisfying. There were no wards anymore, and there would never be wards again.
Luckily or unluckily, the emaciated ex-nunlet was decent, curled up under her black weighted blanket. She was lying on her side, knees drawn up toward her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection—and unquestionably awake.
Gideon had known Harrow for her entire childhood. In this odd, intimate moment, she couldn’t help thinking that she looked very much like a little girl. That wasn’t necessarily a reflection of her innocence, however. Harrow, after all, had been the very scary, weird sort of little girl who you didn’t want to accidentally run into in the middle of the night. Her whole vibe was a bit sad and uncanny.
“What,” Harrow said to the wall.
“Missed you, too.”
“Where did you even go?”
“Nowhere. I took a walk.”
“Fascinating, Griddle. Thank you for waking me to tell me that riveting story.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a dipshit?”
“Has anyone ever taught you the concept of a closed door?”
Apparently, the answer to that question was an implied but emphatic “no.” Harrow felt her bed shift as Gideon sat atop her mattress with a bounce, perching on the very edge. She was still bracing for something. If she returned to her own room, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead, she studied the creepy lump of Harrow, who seemed perfectly snug in her chrysalis.
“You really like that weird, heavy blanket, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Does it really do what Sex Pal said it does? Calm you down and stuff?”
“Yes.” There was a long, awkward pause before Harrow added, quite charitably, “You can try it if you like.”
Gideon—who had already taken off her shoes and left them by the front door because she was a good girl who didn’t track dirt into the house, unlike Harrow, who was a mud-loving swamp gremlin—crawled right in. She lay on her back, letting the even weight settle into her limbs. She unclenched about a dozen muscles in her neck and shoulders, which must have all turned somersaults when she wasn’t looking. She exhaled, long and loud, and the beating of her new heart slowed perceptibly, the fight-or-flight chemicals draining away like soap suds down the sink.
For an entire minute, she basked in blissful silence, her breathing evening out. Just when Harrow assumed she’d fallen asleep, she said to the ceiling, quite bluntly, “I completely fucking hate her.”
She did not need to elaborate on the who.
“She seems to think we are cordial on the level of diminutives,” Harrow agreed, “There is no basis for such familiarity. It’s disconcerting.”
“She never calls me by my name, either. I mean, I know why, but it’s not my fault I’m named after her dead boyfriend.”
“And her choices are not particularly inspired. Kid and Kiddie. Given a myriad, you’d think she could think of something a mite more original.”
“At least she’s not calling me Ortus.”
“Shut up.”
With a massive smirk, Gideon turned her head to glance at Harrow, who was still hugging her middle with a pout. Unfortunately, she knew every variation of her stupid, dainty facial expressions, with or without paint, and she saw more there than Harrow likely wanted to reveal. Her smirk fell away, replaced by a furrowed brow.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You are in my bed, keeping me awake by mocking me.”
“But really.”
“I have a stomachache,” she said, “I often have a stomachache.”
“Oh.”
“Things hurt in my body, and I can’t do anything about them. My only recourse is to hurt and be hurt. I’ve been neutered. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah, no, you’re right,” Gideon shot back, “I wouldn’t understand having power and suddenly losing it. Certainly couldn’t understand pain. Nope. Sorry. I can’t relate to that at all.”
“That is not what I meant,” Harrow said, her tone surprisingly restrained.
“Besides, you’re probably just hungry,” Gideon suggested, which was both the worst and truest thing she could have said at that moment. Predictably, it set Harrow off like a spring. She uncurled her shrimp body, sitting up, looming over Gideon’s prostrate form like a big, old creep.
“I ate dinner,” Harrow snapped, “You watched me eat dinner, as you very generously pointed out before throwing a tantrum like a petulant, maladjusted toddler.”
“Hey, hey. Relax,” Gideon urged, pushing her back down like she was a stray hair that had gotten in the way, “It’s not a judgment. I’m starving, too.” She took the initiative and removed herself from beneath the blanket, “Sit tight. I’ll grab us something.”
“You are going to get crumbs in my bed.”
“If we asked anyone we know which of us is more likely to have crumbs in her bed, we both know what they’d say,” she said, “Might as well prove them right. Be right back.”
Gideon missed the heat and weight of the blanket, but she padded to the kitchen without incident. There, she was immediately met with a tantalizing and unexpected sight: a nearly full dish of fluffy, decadent-looking muffins, glistening slightly. Each one was studded with bright, sweet-looking berries, which stained the surrounding cake a pleasant and peculiar purple. As she gazed at the appetizing dish, something other than hunger began squirming in her gut.
Palamedes was “burning water” levels of hopeless in the kitchen, and Cam tended to be pretty egalitarian when it came to feeding herself—she was vocal about the fact that, while she could cook, there were about one hundred things she’d rather do first, many of which could fairly be described as torture. Very occasionally, on her good days, Cam waxed poetic about the street food back on New Rho, speaking reverently of spicy fish and sausage rolls—not because of its quality, but because she hadn’t needed to cook them herself. It was probably why she and Sex Pal ate dinner at Pyrrha’s about six nights a week.
That was all well and good, but it did lead Gideon to an unfortunate conclusion: Pyrrha had likely prepared this midnight ambrosia during her absence and left it behind for the nerds.
The question was this: Was she too proud to steal and consume a muffin made by the enemy on the same day that she’d called her out on doing just that?
At the sound of her stomach’s mighty roar, she decided she wasn’t and snatched a pair of them to bring back for Harrow and herself. She dashed across the house, throwing herself back on the mattress with finesse, sending Harrow’s entire crumpled form bouncing, then crawled back under the covers without an explicit invitation.
“For you, my gaunt sovereign,” she grinned, proferring one of the muffins. She scarcely waited for Harrow to take it before tearing into her own.
Harrow tentatively and very skeptically tapped the surface of the little cake with the tip of her tiny, pink tongue. She winced.
“It is very sweet,” she observed, sighing profoundly, shoulders rising and falling. She stared at it as if it was a challenge that someone had set to best her. Her brows were drawn, and her lips were tight. She might have fought that silent battle forever, attempting to win the unwinnable staring contest, but some sixth sense convinced her to look up. It was only then that she became aware of Gideon, now sans muffin, staring at her.
“Would you like this?” Harrow asked, resigned.
“I want you to eat it.”
“I told you that it’s too sweet.”
“Too bad,” Gideon said.
“What?”
“What?” Gideon mocked, voice high and shrill, throwing herself back on the pillows, “I didn’t wanna admit it, but, you know, Pyrrha wasn’t completely wrong.”
“Yes, you do gobble down everything you consume like you haven’t yet developed object permanence.”
“About you,” Gideon pushed, “You’re scaring the shit out of us. Not just Cam and Sex Pal, but me, too. You wander around like a revenant, you look at food but don’t eat it, you crawl under your blanket before the sun even goes down—”
“We came here to rest.”
“Right. Rest. Not sleep for twenty hours a day and starve ourselves the rest of the time.”
Harrow said nothing, so Gideon went on.
“What would it take?” she pleaded, “Do you want me to get on the next shuttle to the Ninth and bring back as many snow leeks as I can carry? We’ve got nutrient paste. I’ll plate it for you with a tacky garnish and everything. I’ll light candles. You said you know how to cook. I’ll be your sous chef, or Cam can, or somebody. There has to be something that isn’t too sweet, too salty, too hot, too cold.”
“I have consumed enough,” she said between clenched teeth, “I have consumed too much. It is not your job to feed me. It never was.”
“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”
“Again, you apologize for what I did to you, for what the empire did to you.”
“What the hell am I supposed to say, Harrow?”
“Nothing. You should despise me. You should shun me. You should not want to keep company with me. I have thought about leaving, giving you space—”
“Nobody wants that, idiot.”
“Because you are kind, and I am not worthy of that kindness. It says everything about you and nothing about me.”
“Listen,” Gideon said, sitting up in the bed to look Harrow in the eye properly, “You can hit me for this if you want, but we both know you’re only saying that because you’re fucking starving and it’s making you emotional and stupid. I’m not saying another word to you until you eat the dumb muffin. After that, we can fight about whatever you want, but if it’s not gonna be a fair fight, there’s no point.”
“Why does everyone seem to believe that food will solve my every problem?”
“Why don’t you humor us and find out?”
“No.”
“Alright, then,” Gideon said simply, “Three seconds.”
She counted to three in her head and then launched herself bodily on top of Harrow, holding her squirming body in place with her elbows and her bulk. “Eat the muffin, or I kick your ass. No third option. Let’s go, Nonagesimus.”
“Get off of me, Nav!”
“Are you going to eat it? Yes or no?”
“I told you—”
“Yes. Or. No.”
Gideon pressed her elbow a bit deeper into Harrow’s waning gut. She could feel bones and organs, and she was weirdly warm. Gross.
“You are a child.”
“Me? I’m a child? Which one of us is grumpy from her nap and throwing a fit over a baked good?”
“FINE,” Harrow snapped.
“Fine?” Gideon echoed, ginger brows jumping upward, brow crinkling, “Fine meaning what?”
“Fine meaning I will deign to eat it if you get off me.”
—
They were equals now in so many ways, but Gideon could still overpower Harrow so easily, even in her changed, much larger, stitched-together body. Oddly, Harrow felt there was something comforting about that. It felt like permission to give up, to make herself pliable in a way she’d never been before. She was powerless, and there was freedom in that.
After all she’d been through, it was also the single thing she feared the most.
As Gideon released her, Harrow inhaled sharply through her nose, steeling herself before daintily ripping off a piece of the muffin. She chose a segment that didn’t have a bright pop of berry wedged into it. With delicate, trembling fingers, she put the soft little morsel into her mouth and chewed. The entire time, she had a look on her face like she was being tortured in a cruel and unusual manner.
She refused to show weakness. She was fighting for her life.
She swallowed, then repeated the process, hunting down the second least offensive bit, her scowl stuck firmly in place. The muffin made her molars hurt, but she was a bit offended by how easy the soft pastry was to get down. She managed her magic trick one more time before she ran into trouble: the berry-to-pastry density was beginning to pose a challenge. She could no longer pick around them.
Harrow knew that if she was to shut Gideon up, she’d have to consume the berry part, which was slimy and wet, creating an offensive textural contrast. She could imagine the way it would feel in her mouth, and her stomach lurched painfully in anticipation.
To her credit, she made a very brave attempt, but after a few terribly slow, labored chewing motions, she froze. Gagging, she shoved the remainder of the muffin back at Gideon, breathing through her nose to calm her gut as she forced the abomination down her throat.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus, once the greatest necromancer of all time, the ninth saint to serve the Emperor, who could raise ancient armies from the soil and murder planets with a touch, had been defeated by a blueberry.
“You did alright,” Gideon offered uselessly. Her pursed, quivering lips suggested that she was fighting mightily against the urge to burst out laughing. She set the remainder of the cursed muffin aside. “Three whole bites. That’s a start, right? Go, Harrow.”
Harrow said nothing.
“Do you want me to get you something else?”
“No.”
“Well, will you eat breakfast tomorrow?”
“I will not eat a muffin.”
Gideon sighed.
“You know I don’t have any emotional attachment to the muffin, right? I don’t care if you eat the muffin. You can eat sand, for all I care.”
“I would sooner die.”
“Then maybe you could eat, I don’t know, some toast? I’ll leave some bread in a drawer for you. Nobody has to know.”
“It is not that easy.”
“It is, actually. You put it in your mouth and chew.”
Harrow had nothing to say to that. She wished that eating was purely mechanical and not wrapped up in a million other neuroses—God’s sharp ginger biscuits, myriad old soup recipes with special ingredients, false memories of unashamed cannibalism on a destroyed First House, the offensive lemony scent of divine magic in her sinuses. If only she could eat a single meal without imagining the mealy give of a human heart between her teeth.
She wished she could relish food the way Gideon seemed to relish food. Would consumption always be the beginning and the end of all her problems?
She must have looked as pathetic as she felt because Gideon shifted on the bed, scooting over just enough so that the very edge of their knees touched beneath the blanket.
“Forget breakfast. How about this?” Gideon offered softly, “Let’s do another cooking lesson. We’ll keep the Pauls off our back until we figure out how to ditch Pyrrha, and you’ll get at least one good meal tomorrow. If it sucks, we hit the bricks. Deal?”
“You would spend more time with Pyrrha for me?”
“You’re making it sound like there’s nothing in it for me. I want to learn. Being good at cooking is a major turn-on.”
“For who?”
“Girls, Harrow. Girls who eat food. In other words, every single girl in the universe but you.”
“Will you promise me not to leave me alone with her again?” Harrow asked, the set of her jaw severe.
Gideon paused. For a second, Harrow thought she might refused, but then her face softened, and those maddening forehead wrinkles appeared, and she said, “Yeah, of course. And if she tries anything, I’ll kick her ass, alright? Or we can skip it, but then I’m gonna have to kick Cam’s ass, and that could go a lot of different ways if I’m being honest.”
“I would like it if you accompanied me.”
“I won’t leave you two alone, tomorrow or ever. Promise.”
“Tomorrow, then,” Harrow said with a shudder of a sigh, feeling dread and a sense of resignation in equal measure, “Goodnight, Griddle.”
With a big, stupid grin, Gideon extracted herself from Harrow’s bed for the final time that evening, strutting triumphantly toward the door. Before she passed through the threshold, she paused and turned around, shifting uncomfortably on her heels. In that moment of hesitation, any facade of bravado or cockiness had fallen away, leaving behind a small and self-conscious approval-seeking shadow.
“Hey, what Pyrrha said about my—you know,” she started, running her hands over what were once her lean, sculpted abs, “Do I really look—?” She was watching Harrow’s face intently for any glimpse of the truth. All these years later, her opinion still held so much weight. Too much, Harrow thought.
“You look like a thousand dead rats decomposing in a sausage casing.”
“That bad?” Gideon said, smiling sadly, a ridge of ripples revealing themselves on her forehead.
“No, I—no. Let me look at you.”
As a courtesy, Harrow paused, though she didn’t really need to think about her real answer. It was difficult to see Gideon properly in the dark, but she didn’t need to look, either. Her former cavalier resided in the periphery of her vision, where she had always been.
“You’re softer,” Harrowed offered, “Warmer.”
“Alright,” Gideon said, listening intently, waiting for a ‘but.’
All Harrow added was, “You look well. I like it.”
“Oh,” Gideon said with a nod, giving her gut a little affectionate pat, “Great. Yeah. Thanks.” Satisfied, she shut the door behind her, leaving Harrow ensconced snugly in her blanket, breathing in the sickly sweet scent of cooked blueberries.