Twenty-Six
Awoman possessed. That’s what Goldie felt like as she tore through her apartment. She skittered from the kitchen junk drawer to her overflowing craft basket, gathering supplies with the frantic energy of a squirrel preparing for a very weird, very morbid winter.
Index cards. A rainbow of sticky notes. A fistful of multicolored retractable Sharpies, each one clicking open with a little burst of promise.
She scurried past the living room in search of her notebook and peeked in.Splice sat, crosslegged and ramrod straight, on her floral rug that sparkled with faerie lights. Maeve was draped across one of his knees, while Oberon was attempting to burrow his entire body into the crook of Splice’s elbow, purring loud enough to vibrate the floorboards.
Splice, for his part, was trying to pet them, his face a mixture of gentle terror and resignation. His long, elegant fingers moved in stiff, uncertain strokes. It wasn’t a caress so much as a series of formal, awkward blessings bestowed upon a very enthusiastic, fluffy congregation.
Something warm bloomed in Goldie’s chest at the sight. Not just the throb of lust, anyway, though that was very much still there, but something softer, more treacherous.
Splice shifted, murmuring something low and soft to Oberon. The cat responded by headbutting his chin. Splice’s lips quirked in a fleeting smile, and Goldie’s body helpfully lit up like a pinball machine, every nerve ending screaming,yes, he’s adorable, let’s make a plant baby right now.
She abandoned the hunt for her notebook with a decisive huff. Who needed it anyway? She gathered her supplies to her chest and marched into the living room with all the authority of a general leading a charge. She surveyed the wall beside her bookshelf, then glanced up hopefully.
"I don't suppose you could grow me a whiteboard right now?" she asked the building sweetly.
The walls gave a gentle, undulating shimmer that somehow managed to convey polite regret.
"Okay, fine." Goldie sighed dramatically. "Guess we're doing this old school."
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to turn away from the deeply distracting sight of Splice being accosted by her cats.Focus, Flynn. Murder first, lusting after the cryptid later.
“Okay. Here’s what we know. One: Marlow Truckenham was killed.”
She slapped a bright yellow note in the center of the wall and wrote:MARLOW TRUCKENHAM.
“Two: he was a resident of Greymarket Towers about thirty years ago.” A second sticky note joined the first:GREYMARKET – 30 YEARS AGO.
“And the building didn’t like him,” Splice added dryly from the couch, settling in as if for a long lecture.
“Mr. Lyle said something about his ‘trajectory’ being the reason he left. So yesterday, I dug into when Truckenham reallystarted climbing in Bellwether politics.” She tapped the note for emphasis. “Guess when? Approximately thirty years ago.”
“Right when he was ejected,” Splice said, nodding as Goldie scrawledRISE TO POWERand stuck it under the Greymarket note.
Soon the wall bloomed with more color:MNEMONIC BEAD. GREEN HOLDINGS. ASHENVALE VENTURES.
Goldie paused, tapping her Sharpie against her teeth. “Mycor.” She grabbed another sticky note and wroteTHORNFATHER. “He wakes seven months ago, right around the same time Truckenham amends his will. But why? Being written into somebody’s will doesn’t seem like enough to rouse a sleeping god.”
She tapped the pen against her lip, muttering, “I mean, should we test it? Are there any other gods around here napping? I could update my will. Or, you know, actually write one?—”
“Goldie.” Splice’s voice was low, a warning.
She glanced back at him with a quick, sparkly smile. “Sorry, got excited.”
Turning back to the wall, her gaze lingered on the clustered notes. “Here’s the thing: when I cross-referenced dates, I noticed the Grove Core’s destabilization really ramped up seven months ago too. Right after Samhain. And it’s only gotten worse since.”
Splice’s eyes narrowed. “So the destabilization could be related to Truckenham’s will, or to Mycor’s waking. Or both.”
“It’s a hypothesis,” Goldie said quickly. “Could also just be a coincidence.”
“Do they know the exact time of Truckenham’s death?”
“I don’t,” Goldie admitted. “Just that it was before I found him. That was around seven-thirty in the morning, I think.”
Something hard flickered behind Splice’s expression. “The night before you found him, Mycor doubled over in pain.Something hit him, and me, with enough force to knock us out for hours. I didn’t wake until shortly before I found you in the Grove Core.”
Goldie’s Sharpie hovered in mid-air. “The time of death might have been right then. Which means the clause in his will wasn’t just legal paperwork. It was magical.”
