CHAPTER 31
BLANCHETTE
Ifound myself standing outside a modest brick walk-up on the east side of the city.
Maybe I just needed someone who remembered me before everything had gone wrong.
My grandmother was gone. Jonathan had left.
I felt alone. I had Megan, of course. And while I knew she’d come running if I needed help…
right now, I needed a calm presence. A steady one.
Someone who wouldn’t bring their fiery elven temper and charge to the nearest witch’s residence for an “Ex Hex,” but someone instead who would quietly listen.
The answer was clear who I wanted. Who I needed.
The front buzzer didn’t work, so I pushed through the propped door and climbed the stairs. Bernie’s apartment was on the third floor, the hallway smelling faintly of dust and cinnamon. I knocked twice before I heard shuffling, then the soft scrape of a lock turning.
Bernie opened the door in corduroy slacks and a tidy cardigan, still put together with the kind of quiet care that said he hadn’t given up on being seen, even if most days no one did. His face lit up when he saw me, then dimmed just as quickly, like he already sensed that something was wrong.
“I’m glad you were able to find time for a visit,” he said quietly.
“Thanks for having me,” I said, my voice small. “I hope I didn’t disturb you—I know it’s getting a little late.”
He gave a soft huff. “Nonsense. One of your visits is always a pleasure. Always good to have good company.”
“I said we wouldn’t be strangers,” I answered. I tried to smile. It didn’t hold.
He stepped aside to let me in. The apartment was small but warm. A single lamp glowed in the corner beside stacks of paper, unopened mail, and a chess board mid-game with no opponent. I wondered who he played against—himself or someone long gone?
“Tea?” he offered. “Earl Grey with cream. Just like the lady likes it.”
The words struck something deep. Of course he remembered.
Grandma used to make me Earl Grey with cream. Moonlit nights in Everwick, steam on winter windows, her soft humming in the kitchen. My throat tightened.
“Thank you,” I replied, easing into the wooden chair when he disappeared into the small kitchen. It felt like such a small grace to accept, but Bernie had always known how to lift my spirits, sometimes with a peppermint on my desk, sometimes with a quiet supportive word. Tonight, with tea.
“As much as I love having you visit,” Bernie started, coming back into the living room with two steaming cups a moment later, “I know a distracted mind when I see one. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
His gaze lingered, like he could tell I was holding something back. We sat at his small dining table, chairs facing each other.
“I guess I could never hide anything from you,” I replied, wrapping my hand around the warm mug.
It had an illustrated design of a towering purple rock formation, and it read Violet Valley.
It was one of the Protected Parks to the east. Bernie and his wife, Eunice, had taken a road trip out there during summer a couple years before she’d passed.
He’d brought me back a jar of cerulean-colored honey, made from a rare species of bees, and a plushie of a famous boulder that I still kept on my desk. It was a perfect stress ball too, when Erik pissed me off.
“Megan’s my best friend, but sometimes she can be a lot,” I admitted quietly. “Right now, I just…need things to be calmer. Quieter, so I can get my mind right.”
His expression softened and he nodded slowly, as if he knew.
“How have you been?” I asked, reaching over to pat his hand briefly. “Have you…have you decided what you’re going to do?”
It had only been a few days since he’d been fired from Skoll. All the other layoffs had been jarring, but Bernie’s felt like a chunk had been torn from our department, the edges still frayed and jagged. It was so much quieter in the office now, like people were afraid to speak.
“I’ll figure it out. I always do,” he replied. “But I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me what’s wrong, dear.”
My eyes filled with tears that I tried valiantly to blink away. Bernie was always so caring. He reminded me of my grandmother in a lot of ways.
He folded his hands, waiting. I took a sip of my tea to loosen the tightness in my throat and then took in a deep breath.
I didn’t know how to start, so the words tumbled out awkwardly.
I started from the beginning…I told him everything.
The way my life felt unrecognizable, the ever-increasing stress at Skoll, going back to Everwick, the Hollow, how Jonathan had looked at me like a stranger.
I didn’t say his name at first. But eventually it came out anyway.
“Jonathan Wolfe,” I whispered at last. “That’s who I’ve been seeing. I never said his name to you before…but Erik’s already used it against me.”
Bernie went still. I watched his face carefully, afraid I’d said too much.
“And I think I might be falling in love with him,” I confessed, surprising myself as much as him.
“But then Erik put something in his head, and now he thinks I betrayed him. He…the way he looked at me, Bernie. It was like I was a stranger. And all the while, I couldn’t believe he would think I was capable of something like that.
He believed Erik over me. About some…some project that Skoll is working on, and he thought Erik sent me to spy on him. Can you believe that?”
I shook my head, feeling the saddened disbelief rising all over again. I took a sip of my tea, which was getting colder by the minute. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been talking, but Bernie hadn’t interrupted me once.
“I was hurt,” I confessed. “Then I was angry. But now…now I just feel defeated. And I miss him. I want to see him, but then I don’t.
Because how could he think I’d do something like that?
It’s insulting. It shows me he doesn’t trust me.
It’s just so, so jumbled in my head, and I don’t know what to do. ”
Bernie’s expression shifted into quiet concern. “This isn’t your typical lovers’ quarrel,” he said. “It’s more complicated than that.”
I sighed. I knew why Jonathan couldn’t let me in fully, though.
“When someone’s been hurt the way that he has and then a man like Erik steps in…
it becomes about more than feelings,” I said carefully.
“It’s about survival. He doesn’t trust very easily because he’s been betrayed before.
Deeply. By so many people. It’s marked him. ”
He met my eyes. “You can’t talk someone out of a fear…” A pause. “You can only show them the truth.” He looked down at his hands then, shoulders lowering. “Blanche…I didn’t want to involve you. Not after everything you’ve already been through.”
“Involve me in what?” I asked, frowning. I straightened in my chair. “Do you…do you know something about this?”
Bernie closed his eyes for a brief moment, his shoulders sagging. When they opened, he looked directly at me, but there was trepidation in his expression.
“Foley Wolfe’s son,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.
My brow creased in confusion. I nearly jolted at the familiar name. “Yes. You…you know him?” I asked.
A silence stretched before he continued.
“You matter a great deal to me, Blanche…I don’t know if I’d forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
My chest pulled tight. “Bernie, if you’re afraid of telling me something…that alone tells me I need to know. How did you know Foley?”
Another stretch of silence and then he exhaled again. For the first time I truly saw how tired he was. Not just from losing his job, but from carrying something dark that was deeply hidden.
“Please, Bernie,” I said softly.
“When Eldritch was still in charge,” he began, voice soft, “Skoll felt normal. Not perfect—gods, no—no company ever is, but it was mostly moral. When Erik took over and began his purge…everything shifted. More than you know. Internal things. The changes didn’t start on the office floor.”
He stared down at his hands, as if the ink of old signatures still stained them. “I signed off on things I barely understood. Approvals. Transfers. Legal language buried deep in audits.” His mouth tightened. “I was supposed to oversee compliance. Instead, I saw…far more.”
The air between us sharpened.
“Polaris Equity?” I blurted, instinct moving faster than sense. “Do you know that name?”
Bernie’s expression went cold, knowing. He barely nodded.
“Polaris Equity,” he said slowly, “is one. Skoll owns dozens of companies—shells, proxies, conservation trusts, LLCs that barely exist on paper. They’ve been buying land for years…
quietly but aggressively. Parcels no one would notice on their own.
But together?” He looked up at me, eyes shadowed.
“They form a path. And Foley Wolfe’s land sits at the heart of it.
Critical. Without it, the city can’t move forward on a redevelopment initiative no one is supposed to know exists. ”
Realization hit me, keeping in time with my thundering heartbeat.
“You were going to whistleblow…”
Bernie nodded, eyes lowered in shame. “But Erik got to me first.”
His voice shook, then he stared at his hands like they were the crime.
“I had the files open—screens pulled up, downloads in progress. I suddenly felt time was running out. Every instinct told me run. But I had nowhere to take the truth. No one I trusted enough to give it to, except you. But I didn’t want to involve you. So, I did the only thing I could.”
He swallowed, hard.
“I buried it. Erik and Fang walked in thirty seconds later.”
My heart thudded. “Buried it? Where?”
“Inside the Skoll servers…where only someone who knows where to look could ever find them.” His gentle hand hovered slightly over mine, trembling. “Blanche, listen to me…if Erik ties you to this, he won’t just break your career, he’ll break who you are. Everything is riding on this for him.”
My breath shook. “He already made Jonathan believe I’d betrayed him. I have to get the truth or else…”