“Divine deliver me,” I grumble under my breath.

“What’s in there?” she asks.

“Farms grown by sunstone. Small rooms for families. We spent a year fully underground and then slowly took back the fort level by level.”

She doesn’t tease me about that. For all of her terrible qualities, a lack of compassion isn’t one of them. It’s possible she just feels guilty that it’s her family’s fault we have to rebuild in the first place.

Still, I saw it when we first rode into the fort and she stared at the scar in the wall. I see it again now as she peers into the dim tunnel and listens. She respects our grief.

I feel exposed. Being here reminds me of the literal and figurative darkest moments of my life—of too much time spent in bed, my body strange and sick and restless at the same time. I can’t think about that time without feeling the same stomach-plunging sadness I felt when I first woke up and found out that Holly was gone.

There are many things I’ve elected to share with Harlow for the sake of building trust, but this wasn’t one of them.

She steps out of the doorway, brushing her finger over my chest as she strides back into the sunlight and swings the door closed.

“Don’t look so grumpy, Henry. It’s a bodyguard’s job to know the ways in and out and any evacuation possibilities. If he couldn’t get the information on his own, he would have already made it your problem.” She nods to the trail. “Come on, let’s go. Gaven will worry if I don’t check in when he’s expecting.”

“Does Gaven normally keep up with you?”

She grins as she starts down the trail, again at an all-out sprint. “Yes, and he hates every moment of it, but he must be the healthiest fifty-something man in Lunameade. We’ve been doing this since I was young.”

I’d assumed her constant whining about running was just to get under my skin or to see as much of the fort as possible. And while I do think those are added benefits to her, she really does seem happy now that she’s moving. This is a part of her routine that I can grant her here—probably the only part.

We cut down the narrow trail, keeping the fort wall to our right and the houses and businesses to our left as we descend to the next level through the perimeter gate.

“Are there gates like this on both walls of the fort?” Harlow hardly even sounds winded.

“Yes,” I gasp. “These smaller gates stay open during the day, but they’re locked up at night to funnel everyone through the central path.”

“So you don’t need as much guard coverage,” she says.

“Yes. But these doors can be opened during a breach, depending on where and how many people we need to move, and the final fallback is the caves. There’s a heavy, reinforced door on the inside that gets locked in place once everyone is safely inside,” I explain.

I’m grateful she doesn’t say anything else, not just because I don’t want to think about my time in the caves, but also because I’m embarrassingly winded.

We pass several off-duty guards jogging in the opposite direction. They ignore Harlow and nod at me. That’s not a good sign, but Harlow continues on, unbothered.

“Interesting that you let the trees grow within the perimeter of the fort. Don’t you worry it will provide cover if the Drained get in?” she asks as she leaps over a large rock.

“It’s not always practical to go beyond the fort walls for wood, and people miss nature. We tried to keep it as present inside the walls as it is outside. Everyone who lives here deserves to enjoy the wild without the fear of being attacked.”

She bounds through the narrow gate to the next level, seemingly satisfied with my explanation.

We run through the next two levels in silence, nothing to distract me from my panting but the sight of her fine ass in those tight pants and the desire to beat her in this race for no reason other than pride.

Harlow casts a glance over her shoulder at me. “Have I ever told you your aura is different?”

The question is so out of the blue and so unnerving that I stop breathing for a second. “Different how?”

“Well, all auras are unique, but yours is—” She stops and glances at me again.

The longer it takes her to describe me, the more afraid I am of what she’ll say. I knew she could see magic, but I didn’t realize the level of detail and the way it could ruin all of my well-laid plans.

“It almost looks like a burnt purple. Most people have auras that float around them and are most concentrated a few inches from their skin. But yours is such a dark, warm purple, and it’s very concentrated in a ball at the center of you.”

As we finally come to the bottom of the fort trail, Harlow slows to let me pass. I turn left and lead the way through the busy cobbled street toward the center route back up through the fort.

The first level is mostly community gardens and farming because it’s the only level that isn’t completely shadowed by the mountain in the afternoon. This is the least populated level of the fort, since it’s most susceptible to breach due to the expanses of agricultural land. Most of the people who work those plots of land are unblessed, but there are a few interspersed magical families who help with growing crops and distributing sunlight, as well as those who have protection blessings from Vardek to help with our defenses. A healthy smattering of newer guards is stationed in the barracks near the opposite fort wall.

Harlow looks at me expectantly. She’s waiting for me to respond to her comments about my aura.

“What does yours look like?” I ask.

She picks up speed to match my stride. “Like a golden cookie-cutter outline of my body. Like I could be one of the Divine myself.”

I bite my lip to keep from smiling at her casual blasphemy. I’ve been so focused on what she’s saying that I only now notice the eyes on us. And not just some of them. All of them.

Harlow smiles brightly and wishes them a pleasant morning as we pass, but all the warmth and teasing evaporates from her face as she notices just how many people are focused on us. Her eyes return to their usual intense vigilance, rapidly darting from side to side to search for incoming danger.

We continue up through the second, third, and fourth levels, met by a similarly cold reception. The people just continue to gawk at the two of us. Worse are the not-so-quiet murmured slurs. Maybe they aren’t loud enough for Harlow to hear, but it takes a lot of self-control for me to not react.

As we finally pass through the gates to level five, she cocks her head and smiles playfully at me. “I guess I was right about the rumor mill working as hard here in the fort as it does back at home.”

She hurtles up the steepest incline into level six and circles the manor with me on her heels.

Gaven leans against the solarium doors, his arms crossed like he’s on sentry duty. His face relaxes when he sees Harlow and she gives him a mocking salute.

“You were right,” she says. “The caves were exactly where you said.” She turns to me and jerks her thumb toward the trail. “Ready for round two? I’ll race you.”

I don’t know how she’s so unbothered. She had to have heard their words, though it’s possible this is what she anticipated from the start and it’s a relief their behavior finally matches her expectations.

Gaven lifts a hand. “You’re off pace. Is Henry slowing you down?”

I glare at the bodyguard. I can’t believe I didn’t realize he had magic. I sense something else strange about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. I don’t think I have the full picture yet, but I’d really like to before I try to kill him and am met with some unpleasant magical surprise.

“Gaven, start us off,” Harlow calls.

She’s bouncing on her toes beside me, the most energized and perky I’ve ever seen her—and, loath as I am to admit it, it’s actually very cute. If she weren’t such an unbelievable pain in my ass, she would actually fit in here. She has the right competitive spirit underneath all the snark.