And though I wasn’t about to say so, I couldn’t deny a certain level of personal fascination. I’d never witnessed a true Avramov séance, which they kept locked down to members of their close-knit clan, and those who were willing to pay steeply for the privilege. And the thought of seeing Talia in her element, like she’d been that night in the Witch Woods, held its own glimmering appeal.
“Fuck yes!” Talia had hissed, pounding a fist onto the table. “You and me, then, Harlow. It’s gonna be bomb.”
Now that I was here, I wasn’t sure what I’d even thought her bedroom would be like. A macabre chic aesthetic, maybe, heavy on skulls, melted candles, and flocked wallpaper in the obligatory shades of black and red. Possibly a snake or two. Instead, Talia’s suite was elegant and pretty, not a reptile in sight, and smelled distractingly like a distillation of her perfume. The bed was huge—which did actually track with my expectations—with a spindrift mass of pillows and comforters, and a button-tufted velvet headboard in a lovely shade of teal. A stunning chandelier hung above it from the coffered ceiling, like a more bafflingly intricate version of those birdcage lighting fixtures you saw at Restoration Hardware and knew you could never afford.
Talia smiled when she saw me craning my neck to admire it. “Micah made that for me,” she said, naming her little brother, the second-to-youngest Avramov. “Without magic, imagine that. Kid is surprisingly good with his hands.”
I wandered over to admire one of the haunting watercolors that hung on the gray walls. They were all of nightscapes, a fine balance between dark and bright; deep dusk edged with the ruffles of aurora borealis, or shimmering spills of galaxies like cosmic treasure chests. Each was lightly infused with magic, just enough to stir the stars into a slow, hypnotic sea of motion. Leaning in for a closer look, I could just make out Talia’s name in the corner in a jagged scrawl.
“You painted these?” I asked, glancing at her over my shoulder with eyebrows raised. “How many secret talents do you even have?”
“I’m trying to parcel them out slow, for maximum effect,” she said, leaning against the wall with one foot up, a smirk tugging at her mouth. “But now does feel like the time to tell you I can also whistle like a fucking nightingale.”
“See, that’s just not fair,” I complained. “No one person needs baking and painting and whistling, not to mention necromancy. Really gilding the lily over there.”
“What can I say?” She gestured showily at herself. “I’m extraordinarily well rounded.”
We lapsed into a silence that quickly grew velvety and dense, both of us intensely aware of the proximity of Talia’s foamy bed. Or at least one of us was intensely aware of it; images from our interrupted night seared through my brain like a meteor shower.
Talia cleared her throat and looked away, a smile twitching at her lips. “Speaking of necromancy, it’s almost time. We need to pull the trigger at seven minutes past midnight.”
“That’s . . . specific,” I said, trying to wrest my head back in the game. “The witching hour, I get, but why the seven minutes after?”
“Secrets of the trade, Harlow. You know how it goes. I could tell you, but then . . .” She clawed her hands, miming monsters bursting through soil. “Strigoi.”
Rolling my eyes, I followed Talia to an ornate floor-length mirror hanging on one of the walls, clearly not part of her chosen decor. The glass was so heavily foxed it looked hazed with smoke, and two needle-tipped spires rose up on either side of the gold frame. The rest of it was worked into a flower-and-ivy trellis, wolves’ faces and coiling snakes peering from behind dainty lilies and leaves.
“The Avramov scrying mirror,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice. “All of us get to use it, but as the scion, it’s my heirloom to keep. It’s been in the family for almost five hundred years.”
“Holy shit,” I marveled, shaking my head. “Half a millennium. I don’t think the Harlow family tree even goes that far back.”
We sank down in front of the mirror to sit with crossed legs, me following Talia’s lead. There was a makeshift altar set up at the mirrors’ base, a heavy wooden serving tray holding an assortment of curiosities. Seven red candles and a scattering of crystals: blue lace agate, white quartz, and amethyst. A tarnished silver samovar, and two teacups of china so thin they looked like they might snap if you breathed on them wrong. A slice of black forest cake topped with cherries and chocolate shavings, next to a bowl of fresh-cut hellebore heads.