Chapter Text
It wasn’t that Gideon Nav had anything against books. Obviously. She’d be in the wrong major if she did. But there’s a difference between good books and the books languishing on the shelves at the university library, which seemed to be mostly textbooks written by professors and old battered copies of classic literature that they never had the budget to replace. Gideon had rarely seen fit to grace the place with her presence and did not feel much deprived; you could find most things online anyway, if you knew where to look.
Unfortunately, what she couldn’t seem to find despite some very specific googling (with Boolean terms and everything!) was the stupid, pretentious little textbook that stupid, pretentious Professor Quinque wrote. The one required for her Shakespeare class. Really required, too, not just dropped into the syllabus in the hope some poor chumps bought it. Bastard. Like he’s the prevailing expert in Shakespeare or whatever.
So, cue the Canaan University campus library, the only place she could find a copy that didn’t involve her shelling out for it on Amazon and that sure as shit wasn’t going to happen.
The building was surprisingly modern given the abandoned-construction-site-chic the rest of the campus adhered to. They’d been in the process of remodeling when Gideon had been a freshman and it had finally opened for business late last semester. The big glass front wall glowed a tarnished gold with the sunset and the atrium was wide and airy, tastefully decorated with local art projects or historical displays or posters from various clubs. Once you took a few steps into the building, though, the broad avenues of light shrunk to dead-end alleys broken by tall shelves and shadows, like there was a physical wall between the outside world and this sanctum of musty academia. By the time Gideon reached the staff desk, the atmosphere was the same cold, dim gray of the concrete block student housing, by which she meant, that of a tomb with whitewashed walls and charming faux-wood accents.
And to complete the illusion, a skeleton was sitting behind the desk.
Okay, maybe that was a little mean. It was actually just some twiggy goth girl Gideon didn’t recognize, but between the fluorescents in the ceiling doing a shit job, the illumination of her computer screen, and the dark makeup around the girl’s eyes and mouth, Gideon had momentarily thought the library was run by the moldering corpse of some underpaid student employee like some hamfisted commentary on the future of print books. The girl’s face was pale and mostly put together of mean little angles that did genuinely conjure thoughts of sharp-edged cheekbone and mandible.
The girl looked up at her with ink black eyes and her thin mouth twisted in a faint sneer. “Can I help you?”
And Gideon was just staring like an idiot. It was understandable, of course, since she had just been frightened by a skeletal apparition, but still. Not very cool.
“Uh, yeah,” Gideon said, with all the grace and verbosity her English major brain could supply her. “I’m looking for a book.”
The girl raised her eyebrows like she was cocking a gun.
“Right, obviously,” Gideon continued. “A particular book, in fact. Romance and Tragedy in Shakespearean Tradition. By Augustine Quinque. He’s a professor here.” She added, as though that made it less lame and not incalculably more so. “Do you guys have a copy?”
The girl turned to her computer and typed something with quick, precise strokes. “Shakespearean tradition,” she scoffed as she did so. “A preeminent Shakespeare scholar right here at Canaan. I’m sure whatever he has to say is groundbreaking.”
“I know, right!” Gideon propped her elbows against the desk. “He acts like he’s Malone come again, but I swear all he talks about is Twelfth Night. Like, we get it, dude. You’re gay.”
The girl looked surprised, before her expression collapsed into something that gave Gideon vivid flashbacks of Aiglamene catching her crawling through her window in the dead of night. They had the same air of cool disdain, the same ability to make Gideon feel about two feet tall. No mean feat, considering this girl looked maybe five foot nothing with boots on. Gideon pushed away from the desk and straightened up to her full height to parry the blow.
With no change in the quality of her glare, the girl scribbled a call number down onto a scrap of paper and slid it across the desk. “The system says there’s one copy left. Better hurry.”
Then she turned away with the kind of confident dismissal that most people needed a couple of weeks of Gideon-exposure to work up to. Impressive.
“Uh, right.” Gideon took the paper. “Thanks?”
“It’s my job,” the girl said.
“All right. Cool. Thanks,” she said again, turning away toward the maze of bookshelves. Definitely a very normal interaction. Good job, Gideon.
She set to searching for the book, inexplicably nervous about returning to the desk to check it out when she found it. Once it became clear she was not going to find the book, she was even more nervous to go back and ask for more help. Which was stupid. The girl had even said so: this was her job. She didn’t have any reason to be an asshole to Gideon. Not when Gideon hadn’t been an asshole first and, for once in her life, she really hadn’t. And the book really wasn’t there, so it’s not like Gideon had much of a choice. Actually, fuck her, Gideon decided, as she stormed back to the front desk.
“Ready to check out?” the girl said, all easy-breezy-beautiful like she’d already forgotten Gideon existed.
“The book’s not there,” Gideon snapped. “You sure you gave me the right number?”
The girl’s face darkened in an instant and Gideon felt a ridiculous thrill of triumph.
She didn’t even check. “I’m sure.”
And the girl remained sure all through emerging from behind the desk and venturing into the stacks, Gideon half a step behind, and she was still sure when the two of them reached the place on the shelf the book should be. And it still wasn’t there.
“Still sure, O all-knowing library goddess?”
The girl tensed. Gideon swore she could hear her molars cracking under the strain. “It’s missing, clearly. Some moron probably stole it.” On the word moron, she shot Gideon a poisonous look out of the corner of her eye.
“Oh.” That sucked all the wind out of her righteous indignation. Shit. Gideon really needed that book. “I really need that book.”
“Very unfortunate for you.” The girl started to walk away.
“Hey, wait!” Without thinking, Gideon reached out to grab her shoulder. The girl flinched away so hard that Gideon was worried she might have pulled something. An apology was halfway out of her mouth when the girl rounded on her, eyes burning, face tinged faintly pink beneath the makeup.
“What?” she snarled.
“I—” Gideon swallowed. Now she felt like the asshole. But she refused to be daunted by this tiny library gremlin. “Look, can I just leave my contact information with you? In case you find the book?”
“Why don’t you just buy it?”
“And give Quinque the satisfaction?” Not to mention the price.
“This isn’t a service we provide.”
“Please?”
The girl narrowed her eyes. Gideon felt her ears go hot. She wasn’t sure how this counterculture gnome had reduced her to pleading so quickly.
After an eternity, the girl sighed. “Fine.” She took a pen from behind her ear, because of course she did, and shoved it at Gideon. “Write your name down. No promises.”
Gideon scribbled her name and a contact number down on the scrap of paper, against the upright side of a shelf, and handed it back. “Hey, thanks,” she said, and meant it. “I really appreciate it.”
The girl took the paper stiffly. “I wouldn’t expect any miracles.” She looked down at Gideon’s hurried scrawl. “Griddle.”
Gideon blinked. “Um. Gideon?”
The girl looked back down at the paper. “Your handwriting’s atrocious.”
“That’s not the only atrocity these hands are capable of,” Gideon’s mouth said without consulting her brain.
The girl only stared at her, her eyebrows climbing toward her crop of dark hair.
“Okay.” Gideon was definitely blushing now. She had to stop herself from anxiously cracking her knuckles. “That was supposed to be a sex joke but instead sounded like a murder thing. So! I’m going to go now!”
“That would probably be best,” the girl said.
Gideon probably imagined the quirk of her lips. She spun around and didn’t look back to double-check, making for the front door like rabid ghosts were pursuing her. She didn’t slow down until she was back outside, the sunset turning her skin bronze and setting her hair aflame. She stopped on the sidewalk to get her bearings. Took stock of (and hurriedly discarded) the way her heart was racing.
“What the fuck.”
-
Gideon didn’t realize until after dinner, sitting in bed with a comic in her lap, that she had basically given the little library witch her number.
“Shit,” she said into the silence.
-
A couple days later, she was sitting down in the basement that doubled as her bedroom, playing video games, when the girl from the library just waltzed down the stairs. Gideon’s hands froze on the controller. She was instantly killed by an opportunistic sniper.
Once she managed to close her mouth, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
The girl walked over and settled herself on Gideon’s bed. Much closer than seemed appropriate, considering they’d met exactly once. The girl tucked her legs up underneath her and leaned against Gideon’s side. “I had to let myself in. You play your idiotic games too loud.”
“Uh,” Gideon said intelligently.
“Did you swallow your tongue, Griddle?” the girl said into Gideon’s ear.
Gideon felt narrow fingers under her chin as the girl turned Gideon to face her. Her eyes were still black as pits, but warm somehow, a welcoming darkness, and Gideon liked her miniscule smirk a lot better than her sneer. And in spite of popular consensus, Gideon wasn’t a total idiot. She could read a room.
“Want to check for me?” Gideon asked.
The girl rolled her eyes and, still smiling, leaned in—
Gideon’s phone alarm blared in her ear and she jerked awake, slapping at the screen until the sound stopped. Then she lay there, twisted in her sheets, the dream still warm at the fuzzy edges of her memory.
She threw an arm over her eyes. “Fuck,” she groaned.
-
“Cam, you ever use the campus library?” Gideon said over her plate of scrambled eggs at breakfast the next morning. Camilla had dragged her ass out of bed to go for a run before the sun had even risen, as she had every weekend since Gideon moved in, because she was some kind of monster.
Camilla piled food onto her plate, leaving some for Palamedes, who could not be roused before nine o’clock by even the wrath of Camilla Hect. Gideon always made enough breakfast for him anyway, just in case.
“I do not. Do I look like some kind of nerd?”
“Yes, absolutely you do.”
“Notwithstanding.” Camilla dropped into the rickety seat next to her. “Palamedes says their collection is terrible. (“See. Nerd,” Gideon said.) Did you go to the library?”
“Yeah.”
“And why would you do that?”
“To get a book, Camilla.”
Cam slowly placed a forkful of eggs in her mouth, her eyes never leaving Gideon, waiting. Gideon knew from experience she could go an upsettingly long time without blinking.
“There was just this girl there. Goth. Kind of a bitch. I was wondering if you knew her.”
“I’m obviously big into the goth subculture. Why? What are you going to do to her?”
“Nothing! It’s not like that.” Gideon tapped her fork against the edge of her plate, food untouched. She should have known better than that. Cam was too observant, knew her too well.
“Then what—” Camilla watched Gideon’s fidgeting with a surgeon’s eye and came to a conclusion. “Really, Nav? Didn’t you just break up with your girlfriend?”
“We didn’t break up!”
“You know that’s worse, right—”
“We weren’t together. Not really. So it isn’t breaking up.” Gideon didn’t really want to talk about this. She also didn’t really want to keep talking about the library girl and was regretting bringing it up. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.”
She pushed back her chair to stand and almost ate shit when Camilla hooked her ankle with one foot. She grabbed the table to steady herself. “What the hell?”
“What’s her name?”
“What?”
“The library goth. You’re not giving me a lot to go on.”
“Oh. Um.”
Camilla sighed and dropped her head into her hand, rubbing her forehead like she could soothe away a headache named Gideon Nav.
-
Gideon burst through the library doors that afternoon. As luck would have it, the girl was sitting behind the front desk again, decked out in funereal colors and silver-white jewelry. She startled up from a tome that looked like the girl needed a pulley system to lift it. Their eyes met; the girl’s narrowed in suspicion, but before she could open her mouth, Gideon jumped in and seized the advantage.
“Hey!” The tasteful cream tile of the entryway amplified her voice. She imagined a host of offended nerds throughout the library popping up their heads like prairie dogs. “What’s your name?”
There was a long moment where Gideon thought she wouldn’t answer, which would have foiled Gideon’s very well-thought-out plan. But then the girl called back, half a question: “Harrowhark?”
“Damn, really?” Gideon said. The girl’s—Harrowhark’s—lemon-pucker face soured even further. “I mean, cool! Thanks!”
Then she fled, leaving Harrowhark staring after her.
-
Gideon returned home triumphant. She threw open the front door, arms spread wide, and stepped from sunlight into the perpetual gray gloom that was Cam and Pal’s natural habitat. The door bounced off the wall, where Camilla had long since installed a guard to stop her punching holes in the plaster.
Camilla and Palamedes were both stretched out in the living room. Cam was using Pal’s bony shins as a table for her laptop and the rest of his ridiculously long, spindly body was draped over the rest of the couch. He had his glasses dangling from one hand and his head tipped back over the armrest, almost upside down, like he was trying to think extra hard by forcing more blood into his brain. Neither of them flinched at Gideon’s entrance, which spoke either to their supreme tolerance or the benefits of exposure therapy.
“Her name is Harrowhark,” Gideon announced as she kicked the door closed behind her.
And it was that, for some reason, that had both pairs of gray eyes snapping to her, one dark like fallow earth, the other luminously bright. Gideon froze.
“Harrowhark?” Camilla asked.
“Harrowhark Nonagesimus?” Palamedes clarified, settling his glasses back on his nose.
Gideon barked a laugh. “Her name’s bigger than she is.”
Neither of them even cracked a smile.
“What?” Gideon asked. “You guys know her?”
The two of them exchanged a look that was probably equivalent to several days’ worth of debate for normal people. Gideon didn’t feel left out—this wasn’t unusual—but she was starting to be a little worried.
“She’s in some of my classes,” Pal finally said.
“The fact you think I would buy that as the whole story is insulting. Spill.” Gideon knocked Cam’s feet off the coffee table and sat on top of it, settling her elbows on her knees. “What, is she crazy or something?”
“No,” Pal said, at the same time Cam said, “Debatable.”
Palamades glared at Camilla over his glasses. She shrugged. Pal went on. “No, she’s not. She can just be...difficult.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Real bitch to me for no reason when I went looking for a book.”
Pal leaned forward and flopped his long arms over the armrest. He gave Gideon a patented Palamedes Look, clear and even, that made it seem like he believed everything you said was of the utmost importance. It would probably make him a very good doctor, one day. In the meantime, Gideon squirmed on the low table and considered her escape routes.
“So you’re interested?” he asked.
“What, is that my type? Bitches?”
Camilla eloquently raised her eyebrows.
“I don’t know. She seems—” The word nice died in Gideon’s mouth. “She was kind of funny, you know?” Gideon folded her hands in her lap, popping her knuckles while she thought. She didn’t want to tell either of them about the weird dream and how she kept touching the fading memory of it, the memory of remembering it, with delicate fingers. About how it made something annoyingly warm and aching dig its way out from behind her ribs. It wouldn’t be good enough for Palamedes. Bad evidence. Not evidence of anything, really, except maybe something deficient in Gideon herself.
Palamedes opened his mouth again, to keep arguing probably, but Camilla flicked him hard on the knee. He glanced at her, then back at Gideon. He shrugged and dropped back down against the couch, waving a hand dismissively. “Follow your heart.”
Gideon rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m proposing,” she said.
“Yet,” Cam said.
“Microaggression. I have never proposed on a first date.”
Cam was still watching her. She was good at making herself unreadable when she wanted to be, but there was a crack in the carved stone of her face. A narrow sliver of concern. She was a woman of few words and Gideon could see she was in the process of sifting through the right ones, trying to decide how much to say. In the end, though, all she offered was, “Just be careful.”
Gideon felt a little prickle of unease. But she wouldn’t get any more out of them, even while they read her like one of her trashy magazines. They could be remarkably stubborn. So she smiled instead. “I think I can take her. Actually, I might have maybe threatened to murder her last time. On accident!” she said in response to another Camilla-and-Palamedes Significant Look.
“Well. You’ll probably be fine, then,” Camilla said flatly.
Gideon snorted and shoved at Cam’s knee. Her phone buzzed on the table next to her, so she snatched it and stood up, extricating herself from the aftermath of that weird conversation. As she opened the door to the basement, she said, “Figure out what you guys want for dinner.”
“Why don’t you ever have to figure it out?” Pal said.
“Because I’ll eat anything!” she called, closing the door behind her. She heard Camilla groan through the wood and grinned. Then she looked down at her phone.
Unknown Number: Do you plan on explaining yourself?
The smile dripped off Gideon’s face.
Gideon: uh who is this
Unknown Number: Who do you think it is, Griddle?
Gideon felt a punch of heat below her ribs, and it flared up her spine and fanned across her shoulders like trailing fingers. Huh. She started to type a response, deleted it, and started typing again before she realized Harrowhark would be able to see her doing it. She bit her cheek and fired back a text.
Gideon: are we at the nickname stage of our relationship already
Unknown Number: Hardly, considering we weren’t at the first name stage until this afternoon.
Unknown Number: What possessed you to cause a scene at my place of business?
Gideon snorted. Place of business, like she was some big shot lawyer or something not a student employee being paid pennies.
Gideon: mostly wanted to know your name. also kinda wanted to see the look on your face
The next message came through too quickly, like Harrowhark had already been halfway through typing it.
Unknown Number: If you were attempting to embarrass me, you failed. You only embarrassed yourself.
Gideon: not feeling super embarrassed here sunshine
Instantly—
Unknown Number: No.
Gideon: youre right that doesn’t fit. how about dark mistress?
Gideon: dismal duchess?
Gideon: querulous queen?
Gideon: cantankerous commander?
Gideon waited for Harrowhark to come back with some insult, to her intelligence or otherwise, but she didn’t. Her face grew warmer while the space beneath her increasingly stupid messages stayed blank and silent. She felt a little like she had walked off a cliff and hadn’t noticed the drop until she looked down.
Gideon: or how about harrow to keep things simple
Unknown Number: I don’t have time for this nonsense. Do not contact me again.
Gideon’s shoulders bunched like the words were a flail falling across her back. Her face felt very hot now and her hands were cold and she was typing out a response before she had a chance to think better of it.
Gideon: you contacted ME
Good one. Really got her.
There were plenty of other things Gideon wanted to say, like what’s your problem? or maybe I don’t have time for YOUR nonsense or hey, I’m sorry, I was just joking or even what about my fucking book? But none of them sounded good and all of them would, in fact, be contacting her and Gideon wasn’t about to push at someone who clearly wasn’t interested. Not like it had gotten her anywhere before, anyway.
She threw her phone on the bedspread, wrestled skinny little goth bitches to the back of her mind, and went to wash up for dinner.
-
Just past three in the morning, Gideon’s phone lit up with a notification.
Unknown Number: Harrow is acceptable.
Later, when the first beams of sunlight crept in through the one tiny window, Gideon blinked awake. She reached blindly for her phone to check the time and stopped. Peered at the message with bleary eyes. Then she wheezed a laugh, shook her head, and rolled over. She dropped back into sleep with a smile on her face.
-
Gideon might have to reverse her opinion on the campus library, given the number of times she’d been there in the past week. Given that she was there yet again, like a dog with bone, walking up to the circulation desk. Maybe the library just needed better PR. Come for the books, stay for the infuriating goth chicks. There, they could have that one for free.
Though, maybe Gideon should hold off on the advertising campaign until she saw how this worked out.
Harrow was not at the desk. No one was. It was possible she wasn’t in yet, or that she’d already been in, or that she just didn’t work today. It wasn’t like Gideon had checked. She had just decided to drop in, because she was very cool and smooth and because it had worked before. She leaned forward and drummed her fingers against the counter, wondering if it was worth it to wait, or if that just made her creepy. Probably creepy. Plus, she had class soon.
Gideon blew out a long sigh. This was stupid. She didn’t even know if Harrow was interested. Probably she wasn’t. Probably what Gideon needed was for Harrow to turn her down, so Gideon could shrug her shoulders and say she had given it the ol’ college try. Better to know one way or the other than let herself dangle in the middle.
There was a rustle in the stacks. Gideon abruptly remembered there were other parts of the library and, likely, there were other duties for would-be librarians than sitting and staring out into space. Gideon checked her phone, decided she had enough time to really cement the “creepy” angle, and went to go peek down the aisles.
Lo and behold, there was Harrowhark Nonagesimus in all her monochrome glory, black jeans, black jacket, and tall black boots that probably accounted for a quarter of her body weight. She was shelving a cart of books like they had personally offended her and didn’t hear Gideon approach. Okay, easy. Ask her out, get rejected, get a pity burrito on the way home. Like ripping off a bandaid. Still, Gideon had standards and she took the opportunity to lean against the shelf, arms crossed, one foot kicked behind the other, before she said, “Hey, Harrow.”
Harrow dropped the book she was holding. She twisted around to face her attacker, murder in her eyes, but Gideon barely registered that before autopilot kicked in and she stooped to pick up the book. She was grinning when she rose, which didn’t assauge the murder-vision as much as one might think. “Sorry,” she said.
Harrow scoffed and wrenched the book out of Gideon’s hands. “I still don’t have your book.”
“I know. Shockingly, I have a totally separate question.”
“I’m sure it will be riveting.” Harrow wedged the book onto a too-full shelf, leaving an inch of spine sticking out between two thicker volumes, and turned back to Gideon. “Get on with it.”
“Oh, uh.” This was exactly how she’d thought the conversation would go. She should have been prepared. In her defense, it was surprisingly difficult to string words together under the full weight of Harrowhark Nonagesimus’s glare. “I was wondering if you, uh, wanted to go out some time, maybe?”
Nailed it.
Gideon braced herself for cool rejection, or mockery, or any of the other typical responses. She could commiserate with Palamedes after class and treat the library like a glowing nuclear wasteland and get on with her life. What she hadn’t counted on Harrow’s was face freezing into an unblinking death mask or the hollow, airless quality to her voice when she asked, “Why.”
“I mean. Like, you know, a date?” Shit, was Harrow not gay? Harrow had to be gay. Gideon hadn’t whiffed that hard in a while. “We could get coffee or something? Get to know each other. You can rag on Shakespeare some more.”
Harrow’s cheeks colored. “I don’t appreciate being mocked.”
“I’m not making fun,” Gideon said, frowning. “Like if you don’t want to, that’s cool, whatever. But I’m serious.”
“Oh.” Harrow’s hands curled into desperate fists at her sides. Her eyes rounded. A little crease tucked itself between them, which almost distracted Gideon from what she said next. “Oh, that’s so much worse.”
Gideon’s brow furrowed. “What—”
There was a massive, reverberating bang from the front of the library, like someone had managed to throw both of the heavy double doors open wide enough to bounce off the glass-paned walls. A physically impossible gust of wind whistled down the aisles, plastering Gideon’s hair to her head and rustling the pages of the unshelved books. Gideon whirled around, flinging out an arm to keep Harrow behind her.
Before Harrow could offer any explanation, a deep, sonorous voice boomed through the building. Gideon took a step back as it rolled down the aisles like a wave and crashed over her. She swore she felt the floor rumble. There were going to be so many noise complaints.
“Let whoever speaks such folly ready themself for the voluble wrath of Ortus Nigenad!”
What? The fuck?
“Shit,” Harrow hissed. One second she was safe behind Gideon and the next she was ducking under Gideon’s arm and hurrying out of the dubious cover of the stacks. She cast a near-panicked look toward the entrance. Then she realized Gideon hadn’t moved. “Come on! Before he sees you.”
“Who? What’s going on?” Gideon trailed after her, poking her head around the edge of the shelves.
“Nothing you need concern yourself with.” Harrow grabbed Gideon’s arm; her hands were furnace hot and her scratchy little nails dug painfully into Gideon’s skin. She was trying to move her by force, and failing. “Just—get—out of here.”
“And just leave you here by yourself?” Gideon didn’t know what was going on, but from the sound of that entrance, a dragon had just stormed into the library. She wasn’t just going to run.
“He isn’t here for me.
Gideon’s next question was answered before she could ask it. A man stepped into view. A very large man, tall and broad and heavy, marching toward them in black boots and long black robes. He had a hood pulled up to shade half his face, but Gideon could make out a crisp deathshead mask in white and black paint. He stopped in the middle of a little cluster of study tables, threw the hood back with a flourish, and leveled one accusing finger at them.
“Gideon Nav!” he declaimed in that same powerful voice.
“Uh,” Gideon said. She bent to Harrow’s ear. “Is he from the theater department?”
“Yes,” Harrow sighed. “He is, actually.”
But the man wasn’t done—
“Behold, contender for my lady’s hand; a champion arises from the dust of ages past.
Hark, wretch, as I lay this honorable challenge before thee, and bid thee prepare for swift defeat.”
Gideon blinked, looking into the man’s round, sad face and said, “What the fuck are you even saying to me right now?”
He frowned a little and looked at Harrow.
Harrow groaned, fingertips pressed to one temple so hard it must have hurt. If looks could kill, the man would have been a smoking crater by now and Gideon herself dead of shrapnel wounds. “Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “This isn’t supposed to be happening.”
“Still not clear on what this is,” Gideon said.
“Nav, just—just go.”
“My lady, I—” the man protested.
“Shut up, Ortus.”
Gideon snorted. “‘My lady’? What is this, 2009? You forget your fedora at home?”
Harrow made a sound like a dying animal. Ortus straightened his spine and turned back to Gideon. He spoke very slowly and every word hit like a blow. “Do you intend to pursue my lady Harrowhark?”
“Why is that any of your business?”
“I am—”
“Ortus, I swear to God—” Harrow snarled.
“—her ex. And on those grounds, I challenge you to a trial by combat. Prove your worth, Gideon Nav.”