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He chuckled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know, I know.” She smiled faintly and looked off again, taking in what she could see of the tightly packed buildings in the heart of London.
“I’m just worried about you.”
“I think everybody is. You, Gideon, Rinaldo, Ally…”
“Who?”
“Oh. Rinaldo has a partner named Sister Ally. She’s a demoness in a wheelchair.” Maggie snickered. “It’s been a fucked-up week.”
“No shit.” Harry huffed. “Demon in a wheelchair?”
She laughed. “She made a comment about how everybody is fixated on her being in a wheelchair and not the fact that she’s a nun. Or whatever she is. She wasn’t wrong. They’re…not bad people. They’re trying to do the right thing. I just—when I saw what the church did to my father, I had to stop it. I had to leave. I knew if I wasn’t careful, I was going to be trapped down there like a vaguely useful curiosity in a library of oddities right alongside him.”
“Gideon was the one who made him like that.”
“I know. I know. But they didn’t have to leave him in the dark, all alone like that. They could have set him free.”
“No. They couldn’t have.” Harry sighed and shifted in his chair. “I don’t know how you did it, Mags. But—like—smashing us up doesn’t do anything. I’m the same thing he was, and I’ve stepped in front of trains before. You can lose bits of yourself and still be stuck.”
“What are you, really?”
“A revenant. I’m just…bits of a corpse, stuck in energy.” He looked down at where their hands were linked and held them up. “The illusion that makes me look human is the edges of the energy. Like, my soul, I guess.”
“So, you’re a…spiritual jelly mold with a skeleton stuck in it?” She wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”
“Not quite accurate, but a decent simple summary, sure.” Gideon said from behind them.
Harry jerked in surprise. Maggie joined him. Neither of them had heard the necromancer approach.
Gideon smirked, reached down, and plucked the silver cigarette case from Harry’s hands. He flicked it open, frowned at the state of it, before placing one of the thin, brown cigars between his lips and clicking it back shut.
Harry scowled up at the necromancer before looking away. Now that his fun was ruined, it was clear the cigarillo in his hand was no longer entertaining. He jammed it out on the cushion of the furniture, putting a small, dark burn mark on the fabric, and, balling up the rest of the cigarillo in his hand, tossed it away.
Gideon rolled his eyes as he stuck a match against the side case and lit his own. “No need to be childish, Hero. Really.”
“You know smoking is bad for you,” she teased. “Might kill you someday.”
Gideon chuckled and walked to a third chair across from them and sat down, crossing his ankle over his knee. “How funny would that be?”
The question from her dream echoed in her mind again. “Gideon?”
“Hm?”
“When I first saw Algernon, I smashed him with a book, and he’s fine. Harry says he can’t be destroyed like that. So…how did I destroy my father?”
Silence. Silver eyes considered her for a long time, and then he shook his head. That was a question he wouldn’t answer.
She sighed in frustration and sat back, pulling her knee up to her chest. “Another clue. How fun.”
“I’m sorry, Marguerite. I truly am.”
“I know.” She shook her head and got up from the chair. “You boys have fun. I’m going to read as much as I can on Henri the Second. And maybe see if I can pirate a copy of Faust.”
The necromancer chuckled. “I have a copy in my library. I’ll put it on the desk for you.”
“Thanks.” With a shake of her head, she walked inside. She left Harry and Gideon to sit there and glower at each other or argue about what was best for her.
