Chapter 10
CASSIAN
The coin.
The copper spiral.
The etiquette of the gift.
Somebody is trying to be noticed from the other side, or through a hole in the wall of reality, or, hell, by virtue of very strange sleepwalking.
My money is on the first one.
Or close enough.
Liza's money is on "let's not call it yet," as if naming a thing cements it. We both know the minute I put words to it, the evidence will start getting weirder.
I photograph the scene and sketch the setup with my pen.
It might look like overkill, but I can tell Liza appreciates the compulsive neatness, the way it brings the moment down from the surreal to something almost workaday.
She hovers by the counter, cradling Gomez in the crook of her arm, watching me as if I'm about to interview the cheese danish.
"Did you ever see that show about the haunted bakery?" she asks, her voice too bright. "I'm just saying, the pastry delivery has precedent."
"The one with the spectral sourdough starter that gets passed down through three generations until the ghost shows up to claim her doughnut recipe? I did. I made a note to ban TV in the department for a week."
"Do you think it's safe to eat?"
She's joking, but she's also exactly the type to build a theory based on the aftertaste.
"We're not eating evidence," I say, tucking the tulip and the danish into separate evidence bags. "At least not until Enoch checks for hexes. Or arsenic. Or both."
She nods but looks disappointed, like she was hoping for a ghost breakfast.
She's always been the bravest person I know in the morning, when the rest of the world is wallowing in dread and caffeine jitters.
Liza Morales can face a parade permit disaster, a demon mayor's meltdown, or mysterious pastry with the same stubborn optimism.
I finish collecting my samples, wash my hands, and brace myself to deliver the news.
"We're going to City Hall tomorrow. Enoch says there's a development."
She snorts. "Let me guess. The handwriting matches a distant ancestor of someone on the Town Council. Or the coins are part of Zadok's historic bribes collection."
I almost smile.
Almost.
"Could be. But it's worth a trip. Enoch sounded... excited."
"That's a warning if I ever heard one," she says, but she doesn't look worried.
We call it a night after I do two more perimeter checks and set a warding circle of salt around her bedroom door.
Mostly for show.
A little for me.
I take first watch on the couch because Liza insists on "not having a six-foot-eight werewolf looming in her doorway like a sleep paralysis demon."
She does leave the door open, though.
The half-light catches the curve of her shoulder in a way that makes my chest tight.
I stare at the ceiling and count the hours until sunrise.
Enoch arrives at City Hall just after seven, looking like he hasn't slept in a decade.
He's got a box of files under one arm, a laptop under the other, and what appears to be a bottle of coconut water.
No one can explain Enoch's liquid diet.
Not even Enoch.
But I suspect it's a leftover from his time running the occult crime bureau in San Francisco.
"Chief. Liza."
He sets down the crate, pulls out a spiral-bound notebook, and starts paging through it without so much as a preamble.
"I cross-referenced the script from your incident last night with the previous two. The hand is identical. By identical, I mean there's no sign of fatigue, no variation, no deviation in the pressure or slant. Hyperconsistent. Not human."
Liza raises her hand.
"Not even calligrapher-consistent?"
Enoch glances up, pale eyes sparking.
"Not unless the calligrapher was a printing press. It's uncanny. And the language—did you see the words? Dearest. Most beloved. I ran it through a linguistics database. The syntax lines up with late Victorian English, US variant, mid- to upper-class. Circa 1890s."
Liza's eyebrow goes up, then back down.
"So we have a time traveler."
Enoch doesn't even blink.
"Or a resident spirit with an unusually articulate sense of nostalgia."
She leans in, only half joking.
"I'm starting to like this guy. He has a strong gifting ethic."
I try to keep my face even.
"Where does this get us, Enoch?"
He's back to the notebook, fingers drumming.
"Here's where it gets twisty. The copper spiral? Not just a spiral. If you flatten it out, it's a section of an old-fashioned hairpin. Victorian, again. In that period, copper was sometimes used in mourning jewelry. Lovers, family, the very recently passed."
"Okay," I say slowly. "So someone is cosplaying as a nineteenth-century boyfriend and leaving Liza presents."
Even as I say it, I know it's not that simple.
But my mind is already lining up precautions.
Options.
Fallback plans.
Liza speaks before Enoch can.
"I mean, it's the most romantic haunting I've ever heard of. If he shows up in a top hat and quotes Byron, I'll buy him a drink."
I catch her eye a half second longer than I mean to, and the joke lands differently than she intends.
"Don't encourage him," I say, and my voice comes out rougher than usual.
She tilts her head, amused.
"You're not jealous of my spectral admirer, are you, Chief?"
Before I can muster a reply, there's a commotion in the outer office.
Paper shuffling.
A whiff of sulfur.
The unmistakable bass of Mayor Zadok Infernalis losing a battle with his own cup of espresso.
The demon himself lumbers into the conference room, eyes dark, horns perfectly polished, suit only slightly singed at the lapel.
"Morning, team! Sorry, the coffee machine attempted a mutiny. Liza, you're a vision as always. Chief, lovely to see you vertical."
Zadok pins Enoch with a look.
"You have something for us?"
The next ten minutes are a blur of evidence, timelines, and Zadok's distracted doodling on the whiteboard.
He draws a surprisingly good likeness of Liza as a Victorian ghost bride, complete with flowing veil.
By the time the meeting winds down, it's generally agreed: the apartment haunting is either a very methodical poltergeist, an obsessed ghost, or, faintly possible, a living human with more time on their hands than the town's entire population combined.
Zadok is the first to stand.
"Well, if the gifts continue, I'm expecting a full wedding invite. Good work, team. Keep me posted."
He winks at Liza, then vanishes in the direction of the break room, a sulfurous trail lingering behind him.
Enoch collects his files, then leans in, voice pitched lower.
"If you want my real read, off the record? I think it's a tethered entity. Maybe attached to the building. Maybe attached to an object inside it."
He looks at Liza, then at me.
"Protect her, Chief. Some of these cases go sideways fast."
I thank him, then escort Liza out the side door.
She's uncharacteristically quiet on the walk back, bundled in her blazer, arms crossed loosely.
I want to say something comforting, but I don't kid myself.
She doesn't need comforting.
She needs facts.
And a sense that someone else is in the trenches with her.
"Are you okay?" I finally ask, falling into step.
The air is fog-heavy, the streetlights fuzzy in the gloom.
She bumps my shoulder just enough to break the tension.
"You're doing the thing again. The wolf thing. Protective and broody."
I let her words sit.
The truth is, I haven't slept properly since the first incident.
"It's my job."
She laughs, short and bright.
"It's not your job to babysit my dating life, even if it's gone paranormal."
For a second, her lips curve in a way that makes my pulse thrum.
"But thank you. I mean it."
I don't know what to say to that, so I walk her home and do another sweep of the building, superstitiously counting the windows.
The whole place feels different now.
Charged.
Like a snowstorm about to break.
Or a heart that knows it's about to be broken.
That feeling doesn't go away when we get upstairs.
If anything, it's worse.
Liza's apartment is bright with morning light but cold as stone.
The plate is where I left it, untouched except for a note tucked beneath the edge.
She picks up the note and reads it aloud.
"Please accept this trifling token and remember me—always yours, in absence and longing."
"No signature?" I ask.
She flips the paper over.
"Nope. But look. It's the same paper stock as the last two. Expensive. Heavy."
She passes it to me, and I catch a scent.
Faint.
Herbal.
Definitely not from this century.
While she's occupied, I do a subtle circuit of the windows, checking for scratches, new marks, anything.
There's nothing.
Whoever—or whatever—is getting in, it isn't using doors.
I scan the apartment for another hour, then set up motion capture on the fire escape for good measure.
Liza makes me coffee and then, because neither of us can pretend it's a normal day, puts on music and sings along, off-key, to a playlist she built for "emergencies and Mondays."
I watch her.
And for the first time in a very long time, I wish I believed in happily-ever-afters.
Or at least Blackthorn Bay's version of one.
Midafternoon, I get a call from Enoch.
"You need to come in. Both of you."
We drive over.
Liza cracks jokes about ghostly dinner dates and The Bachelor: Afterlife the whole way, each one a little more desperate than the last.
I want to say something.
To put a hand over hers and tell her it's going to work out.
But I don't.
When we walk into the office, Enoch looks up from behind a mountain of old files.
"I pulled the original registry logs for your apartment complex. Look what I found."
He slides a yellowed, crumbling page across the desk.
Under layers of dust and a century of questionable filing practices, one name stands out.
Theodore Whitmore.
Liza leans forward.
"Theodore."
Enoch nods.
"Your building was originally a boarding house. Theodore Whitmore owned it in the late nineteenth century. He lived there until his death."
I study the name.
It's the first real lead we've had.
Not a coin.
Not a flower.
Not a cryptic note.
A person.
Liza traces a finger beneath the faded ink.
"Theodore," she says again.
The room feels strangely quiet.
Like we've finally found the edge of something.
Not an answer.
Just a direction.
Enoch flips through another file.
"There are scattered reports over the years. Flowers. Coins. Small gifts. Nothing violent."
"Nobody got hurt?" I ask.
"Not according to the records."
Beside me, Liza's shoulders loosen slightly.
Not much.
Just enough.
Enoch notices.
"So if you're imagining a murderous phantom, I wouldn't start there."
"Good," Liza says. "Because that would really complicate my week."
We leave with copies of the documents and more questions than answers.
The fog has rolled in by the time we step outside.
The entire town is wrapped in silver mist.
For a while, neither of us says anything.
Then—
"Theodore."
I glance over.
Liza has her hands shoved into the pockets of her coat.
"That's such a Teddy name."
The laugh slips out before I can stop it.
A real one.
Short.
Unexpected.
Liza immediately brightens.
"There he is."
"What?"
"The real Cassian."
I groan.
"Don't start."
"You laughed."
"It happens."
"Twice a year?"
"On special occasions."
She grins.
And suddenly I forget what we were talking about.
Theodore.
The investigation.
The ghost.
All of it.
For one suspended moment, it's just her.
The fog curls around us.
Streetlights glow overhead.
Liza's smile softens.
My pulse kicks once.
Hard.
The conversation slows.
The space between us narrows.
She must feel it too.
Because the teasing fades from her eyes.
Neither of us moves.
Neither of us looks away.
The world goes strangely quiet.
Then my phone rings.
Loud.
Shrill.
Absolutely determined to ruin my life.
We both jump.
I pull the phone from my pocket.
Alaric.
Of course it's Alaric.
Liza starts laughing.
I close my eyes.
"Don't answer it."
"I'm legally required to."
"Tell him you're busy."
"I am busy."
"Exactly."
Still smiling, she starts toward her building.
I answer the call.
Alaric doesn't even bother with hello.
"So."
"No."
"You almost kissed her, didn't you?"
I hang up.
Behind me, Liza's laughter follows us all the way home.