Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris (Harley Merlin, #6)

He put his hand on my shoulder and rested the tip of the blade against my chest, between two ribs. I tried to cry out as he leaned in, the full weight of his body pushing pressure against the blade as he moved to embrace me, but I couldn’t breathe a word.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered in my ear, the blade lodged in my chest. “This will all be over soon.”

I woke up with a start, blinking up at the ceiling overhead. My body was drenched in sweat, my lungs clawing for breath as I looked around. I didn’t recognize anything, prompting panic to make my heart race even faster. Why wasn’t I in my room at the SDC? Where was I? What was going on?

You’re in the Cult of Eris. Relax. I sat up sharply and noticed that multiple objects were hovering in the room: a lampshade, a clock, a potted plant, and a couple of cushions. I glanced at the bed opposite and saw Finch sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at me as if I’d just grown snakes for hair. He wasn’t saying anything, which was even more unnerving. It wasn’t like him to be silent.

“It’s my Telekinesis,” I said sheepishly, as I brought the objects back down. “It acts up sometimes when I’m sleeping.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You’re lucky I got rid of those spying hexes.”

“I know.” I shook off the last of the tension in my muscles and tried to relax. “It usually happens if I’m having a nightmare. I can’t stop it.”

He nodded. “When did it start?”

“After my Suppressor broke.”

“Figures. All that power inside you needs a way to manifest, balance or not.” He smiled. “You’ve got a doozy of a heritage from Hester and Hiram. No wonder you’re having… floating issues.” A note of bitterness lingered in his voice.

“I could say the same about you, with Hiram and Katherine, but I don’t see you making things hover in your sleep.” I cast him a wry smile, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood for jokes.

“I was destined to go down a dark path. It’s in my blood to be bad. You got lucky with your goody-two-shoes parents. Seriously, you’ve got no idea what it’s like, trying to fight your own nature.”

I thought about the pills that he had to take for his psychosis and wondered if that was part of what he meant. He thought those issues had stemmed from a hex, after all. Katherine had used his mental health struggles against him, just adding to the vast list of terrible things she’d done. I wanted to reassure him that his psychosis didn’t mean he was bad, by any means, because it was as much a part of him as the blood in his veins. It wasn’t put there. It had always been in him, which wasn’t easy to live with, or to come to terms with.

I held his saddened gaze. “Goody-two-shoes? Come on, Hiram and Hester weren’t perfect at all. You know that as well as I do,” I said. “At the end of the day, it’s got nothing to do with how good or evil your family is. If you check the family tree close enough, you’ll see there’s a bunch of both—good, bad, and everything in between. It’s not about blood; it’s about what you do with your abilities, when you’re called upon to use them. It’s your choice, not your bloodline’s. You make your fate, not them.”

“Nice after-school special there, Harley,” he replied, with a cold laugh.

“I mean it.”

“You can say that because you know our dad was hexed, so he wasn’t really that bad, and your mother was a saint. They were like a celebrity couple, your parents.” He paused. “Do you remember anything about our father?”

I nodded slowly. “Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well… I’ve got a couple of memories of him, but I’ve only ever remembered them in weird, dream-like situations. I was little in both of them, probably around two or three. He was throwing me up into the air in one of them, and he was smiling. In the other, he was watching me sleep and talking about how he was going to protect me.” I dropped my chin to my chest. “He sacrificed himself for me. And, someday, I’ll clear his name.”

Finch gave a wry smile. “Nice guy, huh?”

“Yeah. I was trying to catch these silver fish in this stream, and he was helping me. He kept laughing each time I missed, and it was infectious.” I closed my eyes to try and remember my Euphoria dream more clearly. I’d clung to it ever since it had come to me, and I’d vowed never to let it go. It was all I had of him, other than the first dream, where he’d stood with Isadora, discussing how they could save me.

“And… he loved you?” The desperate tone of his voice made my heart break.

“He really did. At least, I think he did. From what Isadora has told me, he didn’t want to let go of me, but he knew he had to. I think he would’ve been happy to run with me for the rest of my life, but he couldn’t risk Katherine catching up and killing us both. Even if it was just to make amends for what he did to my mother. I suppose, in a way, he gave everything so that I could live.” Sudden tears filled my eyes, and I tried to wipe them away as discreetly as possible. My feelings surrounding Hiram were always in conflict. I’d seen him with me on that riverbank, and I’d had his note with me for as long as I could remember, before I gave it to Marie Laveau, both of those things reminding me that he’d loved me. But that could never fully blot out the knowledge that he’d killed my mother—curse or no curse.

“What did he look like?”

I glanced at him. “His hair was black, but we’ve got his eyes. You have his nose, and if you turn in a certain light, you’ve got the same jawline. He was tall, too. I guess that might’ve been my perspective as a kid, but he seemed like a giant to me.”

“I wonder what he’d think of the way we turned out,” he said quietly.

“I think he’d be impressed we’re in the same room together. I think he’d be grateful that you’re watching out for me. And I think he’d be happy that I was watching out for you, too. He abandoned us both, in a way, but I don’t know if he would have done that if he hadn’t been cursed, or if he’d thought he could fight Katherine. I suppose I’ll never know for sure, but I always try and convince myself that he wouldn’t.” I paused, not knowing whether to continue. “He’d probably have fought for you, too, if he thought he could win.”

“You think?” His tone brightened slightly.

I nodded. “I’m pretty sure that was the kind of guy he was. He made mistakes, sure, but he also understood that there were consequences for his actions. He’d have been in your life if Katherine had let him.”

“I wish I’d known him.” He sighed heavily. “Even just an hour alone in a room with him. It’s weird not to know what your father even sounds like.”

“He had a deep, comforting voice. I’d play it to you if I had a recording.” If I could’ve reached into my head and plucked out the memory for him, I would’ve. “Did Katherine ever tell you anything about him?”

He snorted. “She told me everything she wanted me to hear. She definitely never described him the way you just did.”

“What did she tell you?”

He shrugged. “That he was a selfish, cruel, cold man who didn’t give a damn about me or her. She told me he’d demanded she get rid of me when he found out she was pregnant. I believed every word. All my life, I thought he was this evil figure in Katherine’s past who’d destroyed her life in every way he could. It made things easier to handle, I suppose, when I found out he’d been killed.”

I thought of all the things he’d said about Hiram after the gargoyle attack and during my visits to Purgatory. His hatred of Hiram had been palpable, as if he loathed our dad with every fiber of his being. Now, it sort of made sense. He’d been fed poison by his mother to make her own evil seem less horrifying.

“He wasn’t like that,” I said, shocked. “He’d never have asked Katherine to do that. He’d have cared, if he’d been given the chance.”

“I’m starting to think you might be right.”

A knock at the door made us both jump out of our skin. I was already in Volla’s form, and Finch quickly shifted into Pieter Mazinov as the door handle turned. It opened a moment later, revealing Naima and Tess. They didn’t need to speak; we knew why they were here.

Dawn had arrived, and the third trial awaited us.





Twenty-Four





Finch