Harvest sometimes forget the power in simplicity, in feelings laid bare in sparse, direct language, in familiar movements and actions.
Ronan’s Aunt Moira reminds Harvest of this, as she hugs her tightly. When Aunt Moira pulls back, she looks pointedly down at Harvest’s wrist and runs a calloused finger over the thin pale scar. There is a knowing glint in her eyes and Harvest notices a similar scar across Aunt Moira’s tanned skin, white lines across the tops of her wrists, a jagged pink around her arm, a thin chain of scarring around her neck.
And yet, Aunt Moira has always worn the weight of the dead well. She stands tall, just a little taller than Harvest, and cups her cheek with a cool hand. “We’ll get you right as rain. Don’t you worry about it, darling.”
She’s glad Ronan talked her and Hazel into spending a night at his family’s home before their trip to Ilton tomorrow. She has held onto her guilt for so long that it has become a physical thing, rotting and writhing beneath her sternum.
She is ready to let it go.
It’s a simple spell, if a bit gruesome. She’s not entirely sure what the liquid is, but it tastes bitter like wormwood and stings like moonshine. She chokes it down, the whole bottle, and some of it spills over her chin but she pays it no mind.
The liquid doesn’t stay down for long.
She hasn’t eaten, so it’s all bile that comes, acrid in her nostrils, and it makes her eyes water. She’s glad it’s just Aunt Moira and Hazel here to witness this. She’s sure she looks awful, vomiting the contents of her stomach up onto the small patch of dirt, wriggling with worms. Hazel holds her hair back and whispers assurances, telling her it will be okay, that she forgives her. Harvest thinks she says something back, something akin to “I’m sorry.”
She’s been saying those words to Hazel a lot, so much so that Hazel has become slightly annoyed with the frequency. Harvest tells her she’s okay with that because an annoyed sister is always better than a missing one.
Later, they sit in the grass with bare feet and eat blackberries and drink orange juice Aunt Moira squeezed that morning. The air is brisk with the promise of frost, but it will still be some weeks before that wish comes true.
There is a howl in the distance and Harvest knows it is Ronan. The full moon made her appearance a few hours ago. The howl is soon joined by others in a chorus that echoes around them. Mims, where Aunt Moira lives, is a small rural town, populated mostly by the small pack of werewolves and the Appleton Coven next door. Harvest can feel the magic in the soil. It’s not quite the same as Ilton, which feels like a product of mischief, but it’s just as strong. Magic has been practiced and borrowed for so long on these lands, that it has seeped into the earth.
There is a sudden prickling sensation on Harvest’s skin, the warmth of someone’s stare. She turns but sees only dark trees.
“I had a plan,” Hazel says quietly, suddenly, drawing Harvest’s attention away from the woods. “I was changing the seeds. They still worked, but I added some symbols. To take away a little bit of his strength each time. The more he used, the weaker he would get.”
“And then what?”
“I would leave. I would get Amy out of there and leave.”
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The silence stretches and Harvest can hear her breath in the night, shaky and uncertain.“You were never planning on coming back.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to. I did. Harv, I missed you so much. We both made mistakes, but I still love you. I always will. But I wanted to get Amy out of there. You only know Locke and Ozias by reputation. You didn’t see what they did. What they are capable of. How they treated her. She deserved more.”
Harvest doesn’t say anything. She’s not sure there are any words to say. Instead, she reaches over and squeezes Hazel’s hand. Hazel squeezes back and they lean against each other, watching as the horizon turns pale pink with morning light.
----------------------------------------
Dominic and Quinn sit on the balcony of the lighthouse tower, feet dangling off the edge, glasses of blood consumed in between bottles of beer, as the waves below break against the shore. The full moon is high in the sky, but not for much longer. Quinn can feel the night slipping as morning colors appear in the sky.
“Where is it?” asks Quinn.
Dominic looks like he wants to play dumb for a brief moment. “Back in the steamer trunk.”
“Locked?”
“Always.”
Quinn nods and takes a sip of beer. “Wouldn’t want it escaping again, would we.”
“I didn’t go there to use it,” says Dominic quietly. “I mean, I had a feeling I would need it, but I didn’t mean to…”
Quinn waits but it quickly becomes obvious that his friend isn’t going to continue. So, Quinn does the thing neither of them wants to do and says, “And yet you used it to kill Roderick.”
If Dominic needed to breathe, he probably would have let out a long sigh of relief. Instead, he nods. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“You did save me the trouble of having to do it myself.” A pause. “It was you, right?”
Another nod.
Quinn continues. “Because the dagger has a tendency to…”
He doesn’t need to say the rest of the sentence. They are both aware of the dangers of fae-forged blades in the hands of those with no fae heritage. Neither Quinn nor Dominic can properly sense the curse inside of the metal, a curse placed so long ago with words whispered between bleeding lips against the steel, but they are highly susceptible to it just the same.
“I’m fine,” says Dominic. “I didn’t complicate anything for you, did I? With the Bureau?”
“No, the official report is that Ozias killed Roderick before leaving. Hazel confirmed it.”
“Smart one, that,” he says, at the mention of Hazel. He takes a sip of beer. “The sister is cute,” he adds casually.
“I suppose so.”
“Have you told her about the ring yet?”
Quinn looks down at the gold metal that is not a handcuff but might as well be. “No, and I have no intention of telling her.”
“Fine,” says Dominic, taking a sip of blood. “But you know secrets don’t stay silent for long. It’d be better if she heard it from you.”
Quinn pretends he hasn’t heard. “Amy’s funeral is tomorrow. Are you going?”
Dominic shakes his head. “I don’t think I’d be welcome. I’ve never met her parents and I’m sure they see me as the unsavory vampire who corrupted their daughter.”
“I think they see Ozias as that, more so than you.”
He shrugs. “Maybe. Any word on where he is?”
“None. Hazel gave us a list of places, but so far they’ve all been abandoned.”
“I’ll keep an ear out. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.” He motions toward Quinn’s empty bottle. “Another one?”
Quinn nods and Dominic leaves to fetch more drinks from the fridge. The sky is quickly gaining light, pink overtaking blue. Quinn watches the ocean, struck by the notion that it looks the same as it does every century.
The same sounds, a soft rumble in the background.
The same colors, blues, greens, and purples. He doesn’t know the proper names for the colors, though. Harvest would know, he thinks. She wouldn’t say blue, she’d say cerulean or something silly, like stone-heavy sapphire.
In contrast to the singularity of the ocean, he is still marvelously mutable from century to century. Even now, he finds that he is not the same vampire he was fifty years ago.
He takes comfort in that fact. He has not always been Agent Julian Quinn. He has answered to many different names over the centuries, some he barely remembers and many more he is sure he has forgotten. Dagvulf, his first name. Quintus Domitius Julianus Gothulus, the one that will always own him, in his heart. Julian the Blind, a moniker assumed during a wild, brief moment of madness. Jareth, during the 80s, because, well, it was the 80s.
He has used the name Julian Quinn frequently throughout it all; it’s the name he signed on his Bureau employment contract, just over two hundred years ago at this point.
It’s starting to grow on him.