Page 15

Checking the post had never been an exciting time for Harlow.

Throughout her life she didn’t send letters let alone receive any. Reflecting now, she understood that she wasn’t meant to have anyone close in her life. That she built a wall. One only tall enough to look over, communicate, give people a glimpse of you but never the full view. It was a wall without a gate.

With age came clarification... usually of your own behaviors, and this was no exception.

Those times she thought others were pushing her away...

it was her.

She’d look for a fault in a relationship or any reason to distrust and then take off.

Although Atlas gave her no such sign, Harlow didn’t allow the chance to see it.

This way she could selfishly live forever with them and Daggerroot Manor in her head where nothing bad ever happened.

Where communication was free and easy.

Where there was no pending fallout of being a charlatan between the sheets.

Until the letters came.

Every week, there’d be another addressed to her from Atlas.

And every week she pocked them and refused to read them.

The penmanship on the outside became more ragged...

less elegant and more chaotic.

Sometimes there would be whole words missing but by this time, the post people knew the general sense of the letter.

She couldn’t stomach the feeling of disappointment, of the anxiety building on what was inside that letter.

What did they have to say to her exactly? How angry they would be...

how disappointed and most importantly, to Harlow, how brokenhearted? There was a possibility that the letter was positive, understanding, and saying “no worries, Harlow.

I’ll wait for you, I’m thinking of becoming a rogue myself,”

and then in that moment, with the letter unopened, there was still hope.

To open the letter was to acknowledge.

So instead, she sided with living together with high anxiety for the rest of her life.

She’d hide when the postman was near, peeking between curtains or refusing to answer visits to her quarters; they’d just leave it with someone.

Borne from that anxiety, her health also slipped and reflected in an equal pattern to the mess of script on her letters.

Her stomach always ached, she couldn’t find an appetite, she didn’t want to venture out in public any longer; home was safer.

Occasionally she’d get a letter not from Daggerroot but from Bethal.

Who seemed to refuse to acknowledge the griffin in the room and instead discussed plant life or hacks she learned at gardening club (Magdalanous signed her up for a local community class and she was enjoying spreading her knowledge to the point she was entertaining taking on an apprentice).

She’d inquire about Harlow’s Bleeding Heart (always capitalized as if to ensure that she was not asking about her love life) which Bethal had sent few weeks after she left and freshly pruned to boot.

Now it sat on a ledge in her bedroom, full and branching out.

It was a Bonafede plant, and it was the only reason she found the energy to get up in the morning.

First Weekday was spritzing, Second Weekday was aerating the soil, another was checking for bugs and applying neem oil if need, the other was rotation day and so forth.

However, neither of the two would visit her.

Not to say Harlow did not have visitors.

There was a particular charismatic sorcerer who would stop by...

usually with a bag of food for them to share and encroach on her tiny studio.

So, a nuisance, not a visitor.

Lithon had brought up Atlas and how Magdalanous and he visited often now.

Not because the Dragonkin Spellsaven wished for more of their company but because Atlas was SO DEPRESSED.

He said this bit with a sigh and melted onto an understuffed chair, pointedly not taking the much more comfortable couch which Harlow may or may not have been sleeping on just so she could put off washing her bedsheets a few more days.

Harlow couldn’t bring herself to respond; she took it in and Lithon would watch her through lidded eyes, almost pretending to be almost asleep.

Cunning as he was, she could tell when he was asleep versus not.

(His biggest giveaway was loud snoring, a boon granted by whatever deity gave him the gift of being able to go into deep sleep in an instant.

Harlow would give up all her magic spells just for THAT ability.) So, Harlow was forced to practice a more deadpan face.

The lack of expression became easier when one learned to check out just enough to hear what the other person was saying but not allow yourself to process any of it.

There would be some visits where Lithon would say nothing.

Those were almost even more awkward as Harlow couldn’t fathom why he would want her company.

But he persisted, through rain, shine, and even sleet season.

Harlow wondered if the Librarian knew he was here that often if it was an assignment.

Or did Magdalanous have such private business in the Library that even her apprentice wasn’t privy?

She would write back to Bethal, slow updates on her plant, sometimes inquire about other issues.

And even a few letters out of pure panic when Harlow had orchestrated the plant’s revival out of its winter slumber extremely early and then a cold snap in the room began to revert the process.

Lithon delivered those directly.

But now Lithon’s visits were even more frequent as now was the week of the council voting.

Any foothold she had from the years of her work had been undone in an instant.

The moment she arrived back without the device working, she had been finished.

She had been summoned to the Guild Master once and when she arrived, he read her clean.

She didn’t even have to say anything, Harlow just spilled the contents of the bag out in her open palms and showed him.

He had such a hopeful look when she stepped into the room but once giving her that quick look over, he knew enough.

His face dropped with such disappointment, one she hadn’t seen ever on his face even when she was a child, and he just shooed her off like she was a bother.

They hadn’t communicated since.

The next day, he was pasting posters up of another candidate.

She didn’t even know who it was, but it didn’t matter.

How easily she had been picked over and for what? This new candidate didn’t produce the relic either and yet she had been cast so far down. Better this way, better to be removed from it all.

Lithon had been visiting every day that week.

He had no vote to give but had been reprimanded for spreading gossip that Harlow’s campaign removal had been a breach of their democracy, a manipulation by someone who had too much power, which their whole council was created to avoid.

Nothing came of it.

Except now Lithon was invited to slightly fewer parties.

This didn’t seem to bother him much, as Harlow noticed that Lithon seemed to be more tired lately as well.

Perhaps she was rubbing off on him.

Today was voting day...

well, it would be speeches first and then voting day tomorrow, but it was an event that was celebrated so hard that it acted like one long bender.

Lithon had convinced her to leave the house, stating she needed to get out of the “visual display of her sadness.”

That she had more supporters than she might even realize. That didn’t matter to Harlow. What support when?

To what end? Lithon even went as far as to say that they should go out of spite to the voting parties.

To let the Guild Master and new candidate see her.

This sparked, admittedly, a little flame in her belly.

Something of an old saying demanding that “if you would not be there to nurture the fire, you’d learn to fear the flame in me.”

Lithon must have noticed her weakness, the slightly lowered defense of her armor, and before she knew it, she was being pulled by one hand out the door and into the streets.

She had just enough time to cast a door locking spell with only one hand.

The weather was decent earlier but now the cold drizzle that would slush instead of build into snow trickled from the sky.

Once under the skies, everyone and everything was coated in a shine of wetness.

Harlow hated it but it seemed fitting.

It also seemed fitting in that spiteful way where you might see someone trip one person in front of you only for them to get splashed by someone driving a large carriage through a puddle the next.

A redemption of instant karma balancing.

They were far, far from Daggerroot Manor.

The capital was several days, other than a port of course, of travel away but distance did NOT make the heart grow fonder.

Instead, it put a constant ache that reeked of despair upon her.

Perhaps it was because there was an intention of coming back.

The phrase “out of sight, out of mind”

was something else Harlow felt was incredibly incorrect.

If anything, she always thought about it.

She’d go to disassociate from, well, everything only to be pulled back to the only things she couldn’t see.

How many times had she not noticed her pencils right in front of her, looking everywhere else and then finding them right in front of her nose? More than not!

Lithon led the way and she followed like a sulking shadow.

When she dared to look up, she would occasionally find a pair of eyes that met hers, and like the celebratory happiness in the people around her, they’d offer a quick smirk, a look that read to her as “hang in there, it can’t be all bad”

without having to say a word.

She found herself offering that quick smirk back if anything to be polite.

Lithon made an excuse to pull to the side and say that he had to go instead, post her letter to Bethal and then gather a few more things for their adventures later.

Likely more reagents for the communicable sorcerer smoke that they found an excuse for every celebration whether it was their guild or not.

Harlow chose to wait outside, to wrap her thick felt cape around her.

She could cast a spell, but with the realization they were closer to the Thieves’ Guild than she would have liked but still enough she could slightly relax, now even that was upended as she was surrounded by magical casters.

Wizards, mages, and sorcerers.

She didn’t know who did it, but it didn’t matter in the end; someone had released to the whole web of wizards that she was just a thief and not a good one apparently as she had been dropped by the guild (untrue but socially the same).

Earlier grins were now flowing into recognizable grimaces and raised lips of disgust.

She avoided them and from outside, lazily looked through the window.

The common area where anyone could technically go of the Wizards’ Guild.

A lot of wizards did business in this large foyer (its size reminded Harlow more of a bank, cold and lacking personality).

Harlow did respect that business was done out in the open, something thieves rarely agreed to, but yet that was the reason.

There were several witnesses and always another person available to listen in.

From her gaze from outside, she looked for Lithon’s cerulean iridescent cape and didn’t spot it.

Something else had caught her attention.

It was Kob, standing almost facing her direction.

He had ceremony ribbons placed on his epaulets and his eyes were SO LARGE he was shocked, surprised about something.

A rare feat.

But he was talking to someone, facing away from her, in an incredibly busy patterned yet dusty set of robes.

It struck Harlow as amazing that you could memorize someone’s face by looking at it so much, thinking about them all the time, but that also made it easy to spot the back of their head.

She hadn’t particularly remembered memorizing their noggin from the rear but there they were.

Atlas stood with slightly hunched-over posture, too close to Kob than she would suggest, holding something between them, cupped in their hands.

Harlow rubbed her eyes, clearing the sleep from their corners before looking again in disbelief.

They were here.

One moment she wanted to yell out for them, bursting with all the words left unsaid.

The next moment, her knees ached as they wished to dip down from the window.

They were here and their stop was Kob… not her? She disgusted herself a bit that she cared about that, it was rich coming from her when she had refused to reply to a letter, to demand their attention when she’d been dodging it the whole time.

Atlas reached out and for just a moment, the Guild Master was about to take it from them.

But they raised their hands slightly, palms facing up, Atlas and looked around nervously.

They said something she couldn’t hear.

For all the public display of business transactions in the wizarding guild, their windows were incredibly soundproof.

Atlas nodded slowly and followed the Guild Master further back into one of the hallways of the Wizards’ Guild.

Before her denouncement, Harlow knew that hallway.

Private offices and meeting rooms.

Places for consults with citizens who wanted privacy or just needed a rest from the long trek into the depth of Quarkosh.

Wizards would also use the rooms to arrange further travel from this port.

So, anyone who used an open room was often never bothered.

You simply unlocked the room and left the door open when you were done. Automatons would come by routinely to cast ritual cleaning.

But these halls were endless.

And something didn’t sit right.

Anxiety and depression left her with such low energy but this was a tug at the string.

She had done it all to keep Atlas from the clutches of the Guild Master, no matter her conflicted feelings on the man who had also raised her.

Harlow drew her robes around her more.

She was sidestepping exiting people left and right as she fought with just how best to go about looking for them and only observing, she promised herself.

Her “targets” were both people who were perfectly capable of spotting her personally and professionally.

Could they detect either of her set of skills? Most likely.

And this location where the trading of secrets, services, spells and so forth was its entire purpose meant it was exceptionally warded.

If she cast anything, it would be noticed.

If she attempted any of her usual subterfuge, it would also be picked up. She was already headed down that hall when she had to do this as cleanly as possible, with little evidence of anything to draw back upon.

But, damn, they moved quickly.

Harlow followed that tug early enough to still see them slip into a large meeting room, a little much for what it looked like they were prepared for in the foyer.

She wasn’t fast enough, however, to catch the door or be able to go in after them so this was a time where Harlow was bested by a door.

Many people found themselves in a similar situation; a door being so simple that the possibility of just OPENEING it was too much.

What would she say even if it was unlocked? “Hello there, just dropping in to see the two people I have hurt and disappointed because...

I don’t trust what’s happening?”

What was there to say?

Business must have wrapped up quickly for the door opened minutes...

hours...

no, minutes, later and Harlow, still dripping from the slush outside although once the water hit the ground, it disappeared with a permacleaning spell cast on the floors for safety.

She was right in the middle of the fucking doorway with a hand up as if gripping a ghostly doorknob.

Face to face with Spellsaven Daggerroot of Daggerroot Manor.

Their eyes widened in surprise and their mouth fell slightly open.

Gods, that mouth, she missed it so much. from the taste of it to the words and wonderful noises that spilled from it.

“Har-Ms.

Hedgewater...

what are you doing here?”

they stammered.

“A GREAT question indeed,”

Kob bellowed from behind.

“I’m sorry... I just... I saw...”

The corners of Atlas’s eyes pulled down as the sadness on their face was so heavily mixed with happiness. One she was sure she must be reflecting. “I’m sorry... I should go.”

She shook her head nervously and took a step back further into the hallway.

She was confused and there was nothing like when a bully finds someone who’s confused, when someone with power senses a moment of weakness. Kob stretched his bulking arm over Atlas’s shoulder from behind them, grasped onto the front of her robes and pulled her forward towards them with a mighty yank.

Having never been accosted like this by him, Harlow had no composure to accept it. She flew forward into Atlas and Atlas quickly wrapped their arms around her, protecting her from the moment and possibly losing their footing.

Kob now had his back against the closed door and his chest heaved with deep, intense breathing. “What. Did. You. See. Harlow?”

Atlas righted her and hastily looked her over, making sure she was able to stand firmly on her own two feet before releasing their arms from around her. They looked away as if embarrassed by this reaction.

Harlow, still a bit shocked, pulled through. “I don’t know what I saw... just a normal business transaction in the wizards’ foyer. Perfectly normal and unalarming.”

“No, don’t act stupid, girl,” he said.

Girl? The power move of someone othering another through infantilization was something that easily got on her nerves. Here she was her age and still fucking up royally, still making mistakes she thought she was long past. Growing older did come with learning but your learning never stopped. There was no secret age that you met and you stopped fucking up. And that also counted for people who attempted to make people feel like children just to have something over them. No matter how close or how much a part they were of her own foundling family.

She ignored him, turned just to face Atlas. The satisfaction of a response for further rise would not be a gift she wrapped for that man. Atlas was her only concern. What could a Spellsaven, specifically the Spellsaven Daggerroot, possibly need with just the Guild Master?