Harley Merlin 4: Harley Merlin and the First Ritual

by Forrest, Bella

  “You—”

  “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. He seemed mad, and I didn’t want him upsetting you. Little did I know I’d get that gem—that he’s your dad. I suppose I should’ve guessed, considering how close the two of you are. He wouldn’t bring just anyone back to life three times.”

  “I’m sorry,” I wheezed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m sorry I… I’m sorry I looked at the footage. But you have to know why I did it, right? I kept asking where you were, and you wouldn’t answer me.”

  “This is what I mean about trust. You don’t need to know my every movement—that’s not right, or healthy.”

  “Then why was the footage doctored?” I couldn’t help myself. “It was doctored during the Bestiary explosion and when we were stuck in the Crypt.”

  He shook his head. “That first time, during the blast, I’d gone to try and visit Finch. I got to the reception of Purgatory before I turned back and changed my mind. I guess the spy must have found the change I made to the system and used it to frame me.” He looked me dead in the eyes. “The second time, when you were all stuck in the Crypt, I tried to visit Finch again. I didn’t turn back that time. When we spoke about him—you and I—it made me realize I had to swallow my fears and talk to him, to find closure or something. At the time, that was something I needed to keep from Alton, for obvious reasons, but it had nothing to do with Katherine or Quetzi, not directly.”

  “You… you went to see Finch?” If that was the case, then I could understand his reason for not wanting to let on about it, on either occasion. My father would have had a field day with that information, using it to smear Garrett’s character even more, to cover his own tracks. That explains why one loop was longer than the other, at least.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Why?”

  He frowned. “You going to accuse me of siding with him?”

  “No, I’m just interested,” I said. “I want to know.”

  “I just wanted to speak with him, that’s all. See if he knew anything about these rituals.”

  “Did he?”

  “No, I didn’t get anything out of him, otherwise I’d have had to say something,” he replied bluntly. “Anyway, since I didn’t find anything out, I didn’t want Alton to know in case it gave him more reason to suspect me. Now the spy’s been caught, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Either way, it doesn’t change what you did,” he muttered. “I thought you were different. I know people say that all the time to folks they care about, but I really thought you were something special. You’ve got no idea how much it kills me, to know you’re just the same.”

  I bit my lip. “That’s not fair. I care about you. I did trust you; I just needed to know where you were during the time Quetzi was taken and the time we were stuck. If you’d said you were with Finch, I’d have understood, given Alton’s track record with you. All you needed to do was explain. I needed to rule you out, that was all.”

  “Well, you can.”

  “What?”

  “Rule me out,” he said coldly. “I’m done with this.”

  “Done with what?” I could barely utter the sentence.

  “With whatever this might have been.” He gestured to me.

  “Please, don’t be like this. You have to understand my reasoning. It’s common sense, surely?” I felt foolish. What few people were around had started to stare.

  He laughed bitterly. “You should have thought about that before you lied to me, and called me a traitor to my face. Even if you’d apologized, I might’ve forgiven you, but you’re so caught up in this place and Alton that it’s not worth it for me anymore.”

  “Please, please don’t do this. Just see it from my perspective.” Panic spread through me like ice.

  “I’m sorry, Astrid.”

  “You have to understand… if people knew I was his daughter, they’d treat me differently.”

  “Then you’d know what it feels like to be a Shapeshifter.”

  Tears trickled down my cheeks. His expression shifted for the briefest of moments, the edges softening slightly, before they hardened right back up again. His eyes were steely and blank, his mouth set in a line.

  I scraped back my chair and stood, unable to look at him. Wiping the tears away, I turned around and exited the library. My first foray into romance had ended in a tragedy of my own creation, but what did people always say about more fish? I didn’t want to hook one, but it was easier to tell myself that there were more.

  Mom will know what to do, I told myself, as I walked quicker, tears blurring my vision again. Waterfront Park beckoned—my only sanctuary, away from this place and everything bad inside it.

  * * *

  I burst into Cabot’s, trying not to appear like a teary waif who’d strayed in from outside, and sought my mom out. She was busy helping a customer, but she noticed me as I frantically waved and hurried through to the back of the store. My hands shook as I fixed a cup of tea and sat down at the small table beside a window that looked out on the park. Children were playing on the jungle-gym, but I could find no joy in watching them. Instead, I envied them. Being an adult was filled with pitfalls and humiliations I couldn’t have comprehended back then, when everything was simple and the worst injury was a grazed knee. I’d have taken a thousand of those over a bruised heart.

  My mom came in a few minutes later, looking suitably worried. I’d never been an emotional kind of girl, and tears were a clear warning sign.

  “Astrid? Is everything okay?” She sat down and took my hand.

  I shook my head. “It’s Garrett.” Alton’s betrayal weighed heavily on my mind too, but I didn’t want to tell my mom that. Not right now.

  “Do I need to roast some ass?” She tried to coax a smile out of me, but I couldn’t muster one.

  “No, I think we were both at fault,” I replied solemnly. “We had an argument. I didn’t trust him when he told me he wasn’t the spy, and I didn’t apologize when I found out he wasn’t. I checked up on him, Mom. I shouldn’t have done it, I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. And then, he told me he knew about me and Dad, and he was upset that I hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him about it.”

  Fresh tears fell, which was strange, considering I’d thought I’d squeezed them all out. I realized I’d called Alton “Dad” for the first time in a long time, which only made matters worse. Maybe Garrett was right. Maybe I would always side with Alton, because I felt I owed him my loyalty. Even after he’d made that deal with Katherine, I still couldn’t bring myself to hate him.

  “Oh, my sweet, sweet girl.”

  “I really liked him, and now he wants nothing to do with me,” I sobbed. My mom wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. She rocked me like a child, smoothing down my springy curls. “I should’ve trusted him. I should’ve known better than to meddle.” I should have seen what my dad was up to. I should’ve stopped him. Both men had broken my heart today.

  “Why didn’t you trust him?” she asked softly, into my hair.

  “I asked him where he was when Quetzi got taken, and he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Okay, so it sounds like you had reason to doubt him. Did he tell you where he was, after the spy was discovered?”

  “He did just before, when we argued.”

  “So, he had secrets too. He has every right to feel hurt, but he can’t play innocent if he wasn’t clear with you earlier, either,” she said. “You might have been at fault, but so was he. I’m sure he’s just angry right now. Once that subsides, you may find you can have a more mature conversation about things. We often let our emotions get the better of us, and I imagine his wounded feelings have played a part in this. Give him time, and give yourself time, and see what happens.”

  “He won’t speak to me ever again,” I muttered.

  “He will, if the boy has any sense.”

  “I should’ve trusted him! I’m so
mad at myself.”

  She held my cheeks and pulled away, looking straight into my eyes. “Astrid, trust is a very fragile thing and, once it’s broken, it can be very hard to repair. However, if you care enough about each other to try, then it’s not impossible. Plus, trust goes both ways. He lied to you; you lied to him. That makes the reparation all the easier, if you choose to do it, because neither of you is the innocent party. In that way, you can fix it together, instead of one of you doing all the picking up of the pieces.”

  “What if it can’t be fixed?” I blinked away the last of my tears. I was thinking of Alton, too. A big part of me wanted to tell her about what he’d done, but I didn’t know what to say. Where did I even start?

  “Then it wasn’t worth putting back together again.” She smiled, and brushed the streaks from my cheeks. “If it’s something that can be saved, you’ll find a way to resolve your issues.”

  I was about to ask her how, when my phone pinged in my pocket. Terrified it was the Rag Team, ready to go out into the field and wondering where I’d gone, I plucked it out and looked at the screen. Instead, I found a series of message alerts from Smartie, which had been rerouted to my phone. They’d come from the technological setups I had implemented across San Diego, which notified me of any unusual social media or newsfeeds. Each alert showed a number of weather anomalies, popping up all over the place.

  “It’s him,” I whispered.

  My mom frowned. “Who?”

  “Quetzi.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Harley

  At two o’clock, I met the rest of the Rag Team in the Banquet Hall to get ready to head out. Astrid wasn’t here yet, but I figured she’d be on her way. Garrett, on the other hand, was standing around with a grim expression on his face. There was clearly a lot on his mind. I wondered if something had happened between them, after the dispute in the interview room. Then again, they’d seemed fine in the Escher Room, when he’d put his arms around her.

  Couples, huh? Who’d be in one? I cast a shy glance at Wade, who was busy circling places on the map where we still had to look for Quetzi.

  “So, turns out Louella’s quite the historical sleuth,” I announced to the distracted group.

  “The Devereaux girl?” Tatyana asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I caught her in the Forbidden Section. She’s found quite a lot of stuff that we missed in the old books.”

  “Like what?” Raffe said, leaning forward over the table.

  I gave them a quick debrief of what Louella had told me, from the texts she’d gathered and the essay Remington had written. They watched me in silent awe as I regaled them with her findings. There were a few confused looks, too, but I got that—I’d looked at Louella the same way, through most of what she’d told me. As I finished up my tale, Dylan let out a low whistle.

  “So, this Librarian chick is still alive?”

  “Looks like it,” I replied.

  “Might as well be dead, for all the good she’ll do us. If she’s with Katherine Shipton, she’s out of our reach,” Garrett muttered.

  “Loving that uplifting attitude, Kyteler,” I shot back. “Wanna flash some pom-poms while you’re at it?”

  He scowled. “I’m just telling it like it is. No point going after the Librarian if Katherine’s got her. We tried that already with the kids, and it took rummaging through a criminal’s belongings to get them back. What do we have to do to get the Librarian, huh? Send a fruit basket and a harem to Purgatory to get one of those scumbags to talk?”

  “Who pissed on your cornflakes?” Santana asked, arching an eyebrow.

  He sighed. “Forget it. Long day.”

  “Listen, we need to view this as a positive,” Wade chimed in. “If the Librarian is still alive, then there’s a slim chance we can rescue her. Slim, yes, but not impossible. If we can do that, we could find out how these rituals work, thanks to all the information she’s gathered over the years, through her souped-up Clairvoyance abilities. Louella’s information is good too, but it’s all from books and old texts—we can’t be sure what’s real and what’s fiction. Facts would be better, and the Librarian knows those facts. At least, that’s the theory.”

  “You don’t think it could be reality masked as fiction?” I replied.

  He shrugged. “We need something clearer than a myth. Either that, or we need proof that she’s on the right track.”

  “Well, thanks for taking the wind out of my sails.” I cast him a teasing smile. He was right, of course he was, but I wasn’t about to give up on Louella’s theories. If I could add some facts from Remington, then maybe it’d be enough to bolster the evidence that she was onto something.

  “It’s not that; I just think we should focus on one thing at a time. First order of business: Quetzi.”

  “Then myths?”

  He smiled. “Then myths.”

  “Harley, can I speak to you over here for a moment?” Tatyana asked unexpectedly. She was standing close to the table, perfectly poised as ever.

  “Sure.” I followed her a few steps away from the group. “What’s up?”

  “What we were talking about just then—all these myths and legends—it reminded me that I needed to talk to you. I’ve been preoccupied lately, with everything that’s been going on. Anyway, I spoke to my parents about your family, as I said I would,” she explained, her voice low. “I was waiting until I’d compiled all the information before I said anything to you, but I think I have everything now.”

  My eyes widened. “What did you find out?”

  “There have been some new developments regarding your more-ancient past,” she went on. “According to my parents, it is believed that your family—both sides—were thought to be some of the first magicals born on this Earth.”

  “The Primus Anglicus, right?”

  She seemed surprised. “Yes, exactly. You already knew that?”

  “Spoilers.” I gave her an apologetic smile.

  “Well, then, you must know that they were responsible for many good and bad things over the course of time. There doesn’t seem to be an in-between—either they were exemplary magicals, or they were into some dark and unsettling endeavors. Leaders and criminals, in an almost even split.”

  I grimaced. “The Dark and the Light?”

  “In most cases. You must know that not all Light magicals are good, though, yes? Same as not all Dark magicals are bad. I mean, I lean towards Darkness and I’m nice most of the time.” She cast me a smile.

  “Yeah, it’s just hard to wrap my head around.”

  “I mean, there was a case a couple of years ago about an extraordinarily powerful Light magical called Giverny le Fay, who launched an attack on the annual meeting of the European covens, in an attempt to overthrow the regime and take over,” she said. “She succeeded in killing several leaders, but was stopped by the Angels before she could murder them all. She’s rotting in Purgatory now, for her crimes.”

  “Angels?”

  “The secret security services in charge of protecting the European covens.”

  “Like the CIA?”

  She nodded. “But with added magic.”

  “Do we have a group like that?” We could really have done with some Angels right about now.

  “Sadly not. The United Covens of America decided against having a secret service, preferring to keep things in-house.”

  I frowned. “Wait… did you say le Fay? As in Morgan le Fay?”

  “She is descended from her, yes.”

  “And she’s a Light magical?”

  “Yes. Are you listening to anything I’m saying?”

  I laughed nervously. “Just making sure I’ve got my facts straight.” If this Light magical was as powerful as Tatyana made out, then she might be exactly the kind of person I needed for the Light side of the Sanguine spell. Getting to her would be the hard part, but I’d navigated Purgatory before. Maybe I’d get lucky, like I had with my visit to Finch.

  “Anyway, what I’m saying is,
Light can mean destruction, too,” she continued. “Some of the Light side of your family have been involved in terrible things, while some of the Dark have done a great deal of good.”

  “Nice to know.”

  “As for your mother and father, and Katherine’s involvement,” she said, “my mom said that the real troubles began when your mother invited Hiram for Christmas at the Shipton household. Now, it’s not exactly clear, but it appears that Katherine was asked not to attend if she was going to cause a fuss. Apparently, she showed up and tried to rekindle her previous relationship with your father at the Christmas party, and he exposed her seduction efforts to the entire family.”

  “Sounds about the right shade of messed-up.”

  “Naturally, Hester was furious and told her to leave. Katherine had expected the support of her family, but the rest of the Shiptons agreed it would be better for everyone if Katherine spent the festive season elsewhere. The coven obviously heard what had happened when Hester and Hiram returned. With Hiram and Hester considered the golden couple back then, Katherine lost her potential position on the board, she lost the man she wanted, and she lost the respect of her family, all at once.”

  Anger burned in my veins. “So, she killed them?”

  “She killed them all at the Christmas party she’d been cast out from the previous year—everyone but Hester. As you know, she left her to… well, we don’t need to go over that.”

  “Yeah, that psychopath wanted my dad to kill my mom—she wanted to force him to do it, so she could have that sick, twisted satisfaction. I know that bit,” I said through gritted teeth. “Was there anything else?”

  “Well, apparently Katherine was a favorite of their grandfather—Drake Shipton—who was always suspected of being evilly inclined. He died shortly before the wedding of your mother and father, and she was banned from attending the funeral. It appears that he was the one who first gave Katherine the idea of how to defeat or use your parents to her benefit.”