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Gideon turned off the alarm three seconds before it would have sounded, and burrowed back into the warmth of the bed.
Harrowhark, still sound asleep, sighed and nestled further into Gideon’s arms. Instead of going back to sleep, Gideon watched her, barely visible in the grey glow just before sunrise. Unpainted, unveiled, ungloved, and utterly unstrung by sleep, her usual hard-clenched tension gone without a trace. Gideon didn’t know how to describe how it felt to see her like that, to feel the trusting weight and warmth of her. To brush her fingers, and then her lips, against Harrow’s face, and feel Harrow turn thoughtlessly toward the touch. She didn’t know the words for the hot feeling in her chest, the ache that made her eyes sting.
Yes, she did.
“Harrow. Hey, Harrow.”
Harrow’s brow furrowed. “Hm?”
Sudden panic clogged Gideon’s throat. “…Nothing.”
Harrow opened her eyes a crack and frowned at her. “You woke me up for ‘nothing’?”
Gideon swallowed. “Well. I. I thought I—wanted to tell you something. But I don’t.”
Harrow groaned, rolled her eyes. “Just say it, Griddle.”
“Ugh, fine,” Gideon said. “I was just going to… say I love you,” she finished in a rush. “That’s all.”
Silence for a moment, in the dark. “You woke me up to say that?”
Gideon pulled away, her voice coming out loud and defensive and exasperated. “Whatever, it’s not like I care whether you love me back, forget I said anything—”
Harrow flung the blanket back and pounced on her, straddling Gideon to pin her down.
“Gideon Nav,” she growled, glaring down at her, “how dare you impugn the honor of my house by even implying that I don’t love you back?”
Gideon stared, stunned.
“Now get out of bed, it’s almost dawn,” Harrow said, flouncing off her onto the floor. “You turned off the alarm again, didn’t you?”
“Um,” Gideon managed. “Yeah.”
She was still in the middle of sitting up when Harrow turned around, grabbed her face in both hands, and kissed her more tenderly than she’d ever been touched in her life. Gideon rose into it, drawing her closer, tangling them together as thoroughly as she could. She felt like she might be crumbling into pieces. That was all right; Harrow would hold her together.
“Gideon,” Harrow said at last, a little out of breath. “Don’t ever insult me like that again.”
Gideon smiled crookedly, the movement dopey and drugged. “I won’t,” she said, and kissed Harrow again. “I won’t.”