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Harlow wasn’t sure what had awoken her, likely just her body informing her it was time to turn to another side or her back would make her regret it in the morning. She’d have to consider informing Atlas they needed a new mattress or some sort of spell to make her side a bit more firm. Her side. She couldn’t believe she was thinking like this. She was making plans, long-term ones, and it gave her a warmth that rivaled the cocoon of heat from inside the comforter. She turned ever so slowly from facing the edge of the bed to facing them.

They slept so deeply that even the laugh-lines on their face seemed to disappear. Their limbs were spread wide and covered most of the bed. Mahogany hair spread across the pillow every which way and even trespassed across to Harlow’s pillow. She brushed it aside so she could scoot her face closer, to look upon them a little while longer. The house was chilled and it had started raining after they fell asleep, as Harlow could see raindrops hitting the glass window. The curtains were left open and she could fully see the night sky. She considered that Atlas was closer to the window and the morning sun would shine directly in their face.

Moving as slowly as she possibly could, Harlow pulled back the blankets and slipped one leg out at a time while keeping her eyes plastered to her partner, seeing if they would stir at her movement. Once successfully out, she walked on the balls of her feet to the window to gaze out. It was so peaceful. How often had daydreams of a rainy night sleeping next to someone she loved tempted her? And it was happening now, right now. Harlow slowly closed the curtains, making sure they overlapped to not risk letting even a shred of daylight through.

She turned to survey the room as it was, everything grayscale as her eyes adjusted without the outside light’s influence. It was perfect and it was quiet. Atlas was so, so tired and now that she knew they slept like a rock in a crate full of feathers, she noticed she had a glaring opportunity. The vault.

Harlow could go right up to it at this very moment. House trusted her, it had shown that to her many times. If she told House she needed the button, it would believe her and Atlas wouldn’t be awake to intervene. The warmth she still had from snuggling in bed was quickly leaving and yet she still stood.

What if she didn’t get the button? What if she gave it all up and said no? Who needed a council seat when you could live here? And happily. Harlow began a new daydream. She began to play out different scenarios in her head.

She’d say no, she couldn’t find the vault. But then the Guild Master would send someone else. Would he find a way to remove her from her position? Would he tell Atlas she was a charlatan all along? No, how could she face them after that? The Guild Master never told her directly what she was after so she could bring anything from the vault. But that was yet another risk. What if he did know what it was and it was that old idea of being a test of loyalty? Then all the other consequences could come into play AND she’d be removed from the Thieves’ Guild. The only place that was as home as home could get for her. The only place that she had let define her over all these years.

Harlow toyed with the idea of just waking up Atlas right now. They’d sit up in bed and she’d snuggle close and tell them she had something that she’d been hiding. They’d listen and they’d understand, right? What if they didn’t? The chill of the room and the scenario were making her shiver. She crossed the room to grab her house robe and she pulled it tight around her. What if they didn’t understand at all, what if they got upset and sent her packing? Then she would have failed Atlas and the Guild. She’d have nowhere to go.

Her chest began to feel more and more tight. What was she doing? How did she think this would all end? That the Guild Master would be like “Oh, Harlow must have not found anything, all good then, guess I’ll move on?”

Come on, Harlow, she thought. When has any professional thief given up anything like that? Especially someone who is at a station to not even have to do it themselves. That brought her to a whole different part. If she told Kob she gave up and stayed here, he’d just send more people. At what point would she outlive her use and be expendable? Not worth her keep?

The Guild Master wanted it enough to have a top-tier rogue train as a wizard to infiltrate the home of a SPELLSAVEN. Copperkelly was already eliminated. Natural selection, she’d like to say, but it wasn’t that easy. At what point would it be easier for the Guild Master to just kill Atlas?

As if reading some sort of disturbance via their name thought in a horrible scenario, Atlas, still asleep, sucked in a foot that had been left out of the comforter. Harlow held her breath until Atlas settled fully. She’d like to think she was the best in the business, that no one could sneak up and harm Atlas. But that wouldn’t be true. The thing about aging, even only being in her thirties, was the realization that you were and maybe never would be the best. The best was fluid and always changing. There would always be someone, sooner or later, that could best you. Hells, that was what their culture was built upon: further learning.

Harlow began to spiral more and more as all the possibilities became a vast ocean sucking her into the depths where she could only look up and see the light fading or down into the darkness that was welcoming her with open arms.

She loved Atlas. Always would. How could she say that she loved them so when the first chance where she could figure out a way to protect them, she had given up? It was so effortlessly easy to love Atlas and to be loved by Atlas. They took her as she was and never asked her to change, just to be beside them. And that ask, Harlow realized now, might already be too much. Harlow craved to be pulled into Atlas’s endless warmth but to keep them and House safe, what would she do? Anything.

Harlow picked up her clothing from the plush, high-backed chair and tiptoed quietly out the door, moving as slow as possible as if that alone was a measurement of how loud she could be. Once the door closed, silently likely due to House, Harlow dressed in the hall. She balled up the maroon robe and crushed it against her chest.

She had to leave. She had to go back to the Thieves’ Guild. What would she tell them, damn it? The lies needed to be close enough to the truth. Something that could be believed by herself even. She couldn’t lie exactly about the button. Harlow could not risk that the Guild Master knew what it was. She’d have to go back and say she found it. And what? It was broken? He would want her to bring it to him regardless. Plenty of tinkers worked in the Thieves’ Guild, and there was likely a different Spellsaven connected as well that could verify. If they could reverse-engineer the button, that would be just as bad as giving it to them outright.

Harlow could say that Atlas moved it after the incident with Copperkelly. That they didn’t trust keeping it in the house. That would at least mean that they’d be forced to not kill Atlas. They would need the new location. Yes, that could work. But she’d have to know the new location or they’d send her right back to Atlas or… hell, someone else.

The only thing she could think of to save Atlas from more trouble was more deceit. Deceit upon deceit, and here it was exactly what she needed to do more of. It got her into this mess and now it would HAVE to get them out of it. Harlow recalled an enchanted alarm clock from her pockets. It took a few other reagents to cast a few more spells upon it. Layers of enchantments, ones that she knew Atlas wrote themself. When they were well woven on another and made no sense per se, she crushed the clock into a leather pleated coin purse. She reached in and flung a few parts away. As those pieces clattered about the room, she sloppily disenchanted two of those layers. Harlow would bring this to Kob, tell him that this was the device, and it was broken. Her fault. In her folly, she broke the one thing that would promise her the future she always told herself she wanted. He would have it looked at of course, and hopefully with the skills she learned here, it would be enough to resemble an item that messed with time in some way and had Atlas’s spell signature. It would have to be enough. Have to.

Harlow found herself in her room with her back pressed up against the door. House had turned on her side table lamp but only barely. Before her mind could catch up to what her hands were doing, she found herself packing her things. Feather. Dust. Feather. Dust. House must have opened her bedroom window because there were raindrops falling on her skin. As she gradually began to notice she could see less and less, Harlow realized it wasn’t raindrops but her own tears. She had found love and home and she knew she had to leave. And she had to do it now while she could barely overthink any more. If she hesitated even one moment, she couldn’t trust herself not to run all the way back to Atlas’ room and wake them up and just sob into their arms. If she gave herself one minute, she’d give up going back and just let events happen around her.

Harlow was so tired. Tired of reacting to these things happening to her. She had thought she was actively making change but it was just a fool’s lens. Part of her was dancing out parts of society’s scripted dance and the other was her casting delusion on herself making her think that if she thought of it first or if she could put her hands on it in a tactical fashion that she could sculpt results out of hard work. Like this whole charade. She was ordered to go into wizard training, so she fooled herself by committing herself fully to it. As if that would change that it was her, not some man with a power imbalance, telling her what to do. It was just like when she was a little girl and fellow foundlings turned to other professions, to other helpful programs, and when she was told the only way society worked is if you had something to trade, all the skills she had were formed on selfish thoughts that by choosing to be the best she could at that, it was like she was choosing that life for herself.

This time she could say no. Oh, she could shout NO from the rooftops. But, as she found out now, it would cost her. And the cost: love and happiness. Harlow used the sleeve of her robes to clear her eyesight and sucked in a sob from escaping. Fighting herself from crying made her chest ache even more but she pushed through. Giving up her chance at love and happiness would be worth it if her love could continue in their unbridled happiness. Harlow thought of the way they whipped around corners as if there was something unknown on the other side, the way they spent hours fashioning a flower crown to place on a child’s head that would only last half an hour before wilting, the way they looked at her when they were just about the sleep, switching peeking out of one eye at a time as if she’d disappear if they didn’t look.

Fuck. And now that’s what was happening. Harlow finished packing her things and twisted the doorknob. She pulled gently, hoping the door didn’t stick, but it mattered not. The door didn’t budge at all. She released the knob and used a swipe from each arm to clear her face and tried again. The door didn’t open.

“House… please,”

she chirped. Her voice cracked as it fought against holding back full force crying. “I need to go.”

The light next to her bed burned brighter. The wallpaper began to shift, turning into a pattern of green leaves. It even looked brand new. The sconces began to shift from tarnished bronze into polished gold. The House was making itself nicer.

“No… House… it’s not you. It’s not… any of you.”

Harlow cleared her throat and gestured around. “I shouldn’t be here… I don’t belong here, I never did.”

There was no change in the house.

Harlow took a deep breath and went back to the door and tried again. Nothing.

“I’m sorry, Daggerroot. I need to find a way to stop all this. I have to go, but my heart… will always lead back to you.”

Harlow released the doorknob with slumped shoulders, giving up. Her fingers flitted around to a side pocket and reached down inside, cupping her hand around what was inside.

“Goodbye.”

Her fingers traced the outline of the cookie’s shape before she hastily slammed her eyes shut. It snapped in two and she uttered, “Quarkosh.”

Her figure grew warm and one moment, one with the heaviest of hearts, she was in Daggerroot Manor and then next she was gone.