23.

The lights vanish, and the second they do—an impulse more than anything, there is no conscious thought to it—Indy reaches out for Percy.

She grabs nothing. Percy isn't there.

"Percy? Percy!"

There is a muffled groan from somewhere near her and it sounds like Percy's voice. She drops to her knees, pats around until she finds his shoulder in the dark. The smooth fabric of his suit is now bunched and tense, as the muscles are in his arms. "Perce," she says. She can't see him beyond the shape of an obscure silhouette, but she can hear him, the quick, shallow breaths he's taking, the warbled speech that sounds like a cry. It unnerves her for a second, makes her pause. She can't remember ever seeing him like this, and she wishes she did; she wishes she knew what to do. "Perce, hey. It's okay. You're safe. I'm sure it's just some faulty electric line, and the lights will be back on in no time."

"I know," he murmurs. "I...I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Indy says, appalled that he would even apologize for something like this. She reins herself in, forcing herself to soften her voice. "Percy, you're fine. Everything's fine."

The seconds tick by without any restored power, and as they do the auction's crowd begins to grow ever more restless. A hubbub of apprehensive voices rises up towards the chandeliers, which glitter dully in the faded starlight now like dripping black stalactites. Percy's breath quickens, and his hand closes around Indy's arm, tight enough that she winces at the brink of pain.

Indy takes in a deep breath. She closes her hand over Percy's. "We're leaving, Percy."

"Leaving?" he repeats. His voice sounds so hollow, so faraway, so un-Percy. "Where are we going?"

"Outside," she answers. She's already standing, dragging Percy with her, though his shoulders are still buckled, as if cowering, hiding from a predator about to pounce. "Away from here. Are you with me?"

She still can't see his face, but she feels his palm press tighter into her skin as he squeezes her arm once in confirmation. His voice is unsteady, but his steps are sure. "I'm with you."

Indy has to run into a wall or a corner at least twice before she realizes the mistake in her plan: she is several years removed from her former familiarity of this house, and now she has to navigate it in the thick, impenetrable darkness of settled night. The voices in the foyer are behind her, at least, and lessening in volume. She turns another corner, hugging it too tightly, nearly clipping her temple. A rectangle of green-blue light greets her up ahead, glowing faintly like a specter.

She tells Percy, "Almost there."

The door clicks open like an inhale, and the two of them stumble out beneath the stars, unfettered now, shining palely onto the grass. The night air is frigid, so much so Indy fears if she stays out here shivering she will soon forget what it is to be warm at all. But then she looks at Percy, heaving a long breath, eyes glassy and large and trained at the sky. He looks like a kid again, young and in awe of the fact he simply exists. Young and in awe and also afraid.

"I didn't know," Indy says, just to say something, even though it doesn't feel like the right thing to say at all. "I didn't know you were—"

"There a lot of things you don't know," Percy says. He doesn't say it viciously. He just sounds tired. "I think—I don't know. I think I've figured out that it's better that way."

The silence in its own way is deafening, an entirely different world to the one they just left behind in the foyer. Indy tries to sit with it, but finds herself suffocating. "I'm sorry," she starts, her eyes down at her shoes, fake glitter sandals quickly collecting mud. "About this morning, I mean. I know you were just trying to warn me."

Percy sighs. "I don't want to talk about this morning."

Indy waits a moment. Processing. A beetle crawls over her shoe, and she lets it. "What do you want to do?"

His gaze shifts, fixing straight ahead. The forest is just as eldritch as it was this morning, obscured this time by deep shadow and not deep fog. She expects him to say Get away. She expects him to run—there is something in his stance, in his expression, already primed for escape.

Behind them, the side door opens. Sylvia and Gatz come pouring out, and at first Indy is relieved, until she sees the rest of the Mitchells not far behind, Tina looking particularly distressed.

Percy's turned away from the forest. He brushes her shoulder. "Please don't say anything," he murmurs, and then he leaves, going to meet his family where they stand.

The power does not return until some six hours later, in the middle of the night while everyone left there at the Mitchell house once the party has dispersed lay pretending to sleep. The following morning they are all red-eyed and the house has become something eerie and altered, even the creak of the wood beneath Indy's feet whispering inauspicious words.

Indy nurses a lukewarm cup of coffee at the breakfast table and only half-listens to the tense discussion unfolding around her.

"Was anything stolen?" Harvey asks. His curly hair is frizzy, an undefined stain at the collar of his sweatshirt.

Lawrence glowers silently at the wall from behind his smudged glasses.

Tina answers with a sigh, "Two of the paintings were, yes. And some of my jewelry."

"It had to be a guest at the auction, then," says Harvey. "Who else knew what was going on?"

"Nice thought, but you're not thinking deeply enough, Sherlock," says Percy. Whenever he speaks, Indy averts her eyes, as if not looking at the sickly color to his skin or the leftover tremors in his hands will somehow evaporate the problem entirely. "Plenty of people knew. Mom put this auction on blast everywhere. It was a major publicity event for Dad. The whole point was for people to know about it, Harvey."

"I knew this wasn't a good idea," Lawrence says. "I knew it when you suggested it, Tina—"

Tina's voice rises several octaves. "Are you trying to blame this on me, then?"

"No, honey, of course not. I'm just saying if you had thought this through—"

A clang makes Indy jump. Percy's tossed his stirring spoon down on the counter and gotten up, leaving the room without a word. Tina and Lawrence don't notice, but Harvey gives Indy a look, a nonverbal plea.

Responding to that plea is the very last thing she wants to do. She gets up anyway.

Out in the hall, she bumps into Sylvia first, in silk pajamas, her hair still wrapped beneath a pink satin turban. When she sees Indy, she stops in her tracks. "Oh God," she says. "I can tell by the look on your face it's just as much of a shit show as I feared. I knew I should've stayed in bed."

"It's Percy."

"Isn't it always?"

"I'm worried about him," Indy says. The words taste bland in her mouth, like she's said them a million times before, licked all the meaning from them already. When has she ever had the space not to worry? "Last night, he...I don't know. When the lights went out, he wasn't doing well. I'd never seen him like that."

There's a soft creak; the girls turn their heads, looking towards Gatz, who's frozen there on the staircase like they've just been caught at the scene of a crime. There is no need to fill them in; a wave of realization crosses their face, and whatever cheerful mirth may have hidden in their expression evaporates.

"Gatz?" Indy doesn't know why she asks. It's not like she wants to know. "Do you know something?"

"Not enough." Gatz steps onto the main floor, sock feet soft and soundless. "Never enough. But I know there's something about this place—something about this house—that keeps eating at him. Why else would he not have mentioned this auction?"

"Maybe I didn't mention it because I knew Indy would do exactly what she did."

It's Percy, reappearing at the end of the hallway, his jaw and shoulders both set as if they were carved from something as stolid as stone. The tone of his voice jars Indy so much she forgets to hear what he actually said, and has to process it again.

"What?" Indy says. She's thinking of him a few hours ago, cowering in the dark, barely able to speak to her. How did that harden so quickly into this? Where had this ice come from? "Percy, what are you talking about?"

"Cornering that poor woman, digging up all those questions about her family members. It's like none of my warnings even matter to you, do they?" Percy snaps, approaching the throng of them now gathered at the base of the stairs. "The Dobbs family has enough to deal with now thanks to this botched auction, which was only made worse by your—I don't know. Investigation."

"God." Indy rolls her eyes. "This again?"

"I'm just saying—"

"I've heard what you've said, Percy, every fucking time you said it. You just wanna give up on Lamar Pine and you're just accusing me of all this to make yourself feel better," Indy shoots back. It is too early, too tender, a morning for this. Her temples are beginning to throb and pulse like the ebb of the sea. "You're scared, Percy. You are. You always have been."

"Indy," Gatz warns. Indy catches them shoot a worried glance at Percy, like they don't trust him not to explode.

But Percy is quiet, cool, the only betrayal of emotion in his face at all the slightest twitch to his lip. "At least I'm not invisible. Don't act like you're so noble; all you want is to be seen for once. Tell me, Indy. Is any of this shit working for you? Do you feel important?"

The words are physical, a sharp, needle-like pang in the middle of her ribs. She can't breathe around it. She can't speak.

"Percy, that's enough," Sylvia snaps. "All of us are on edge after last night. I think we all just need to go home and clear our heads."

"That's a good idea," Gatz volunteers. "I second that idea."

The pressure within Indy's head, within her chest, too, is enough that her skin is crawling, prickling, about to burst. She can't stand there any longer, so she doesn't: just brushes past Gatz and towards the stairs.

"Indy," Sylvia says. "Where are you going?"

"Home," Indy answers. "It's not too far a walk from here. I'll get my parents to take me back to Proudley."

Gatz starts, "Indy—"

"Take the advice you gave to Jude, Percy," Indy says, not slowing her pace up the stairs. "If you're not serious about this, don't bother. You're the one who has always needed me, remember? Not the other way around."

There is a breath: a harsh exhale, a release. His footsteps fade down the hall. Hers fade up and up and away.