Chapter Fifteen Saylor
Chapter Fifteen
Saylor
We step out into the gray afternoon, and I’m immediately struck by how different the town feels with Blue beside me. People
don’t just notice us, they acknowledge our movement with genuine warmth. An elderly woman spinning yarn on her porch gives
Blue a respectful nod. Three teenagers smoking behind the fountain wave cheerfully and call out greetings. A man walking a
dog the size of a small horse crosses toward us with a friendly smile and tips his hat.
“They really like you,” I observe.
“We look out for each other here,” Blue says simply.
“So about this party Duffy mentioned,” I say as we start walking. “Should I be concerned that I’m apparently the guest of
honor at an event I knew nothing about?”
Blue’s hands are tucked into his pockets, his stride unhurried as people go about their daily routines around us. “I host
them regularly. It’s better to control the narrative than let it write itself.”
“Control the narrative?”
“You’ve been in Grimlock for less than twenty-four hours and already people are curious about us.” Blue glances down at me,
his eyes wry. “By dinner tonight, that story will have grown into a full romance novel with elaborate backstories about how
we met.”
I can’t hold in the laugh. “So you’re putting me on display to satisfy their curiosity?”
“I’m introducing you to the community before they decide you’re either my next girlfriend or my secret accomplice.” He pauses
beside a shop window filled with clockwork contraptions that tick and whir in hypnotic patterns. “Grimlock is a community
of people with . . . complicated pasts. They need to know you’re one of them before they’ll truly accept you.”
“One of them? What does that mean?”
“You’ll see,” Blue says, his tone suggesting he has something specific in mind. “I have my ways of making things clear.”
“Why do you care if they accept me?”
The question seems to catch him off guard, and Blue goes very still beside me. For a moment, the only sounds are the mechanical
symphony from the clockmaker’s window and the soft murmur of conversation drifting from nearby shops.
“Because I want you to have the option to stay,” he says finally. “But that’s a conversation for after you’ve given this place
a real chance.”
His tone makes me look at him more carefully. There’s a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before, a tightness around
his eyes.
We continue walking, and I become aware of how seamlessly Blue navigates Grimlock’s maze-like streets. Where I would be completely
lost without Hans’s guided tour, Blue moves with the confidence of someone who knows every shortcut, every hidden alley, every
building’s history. When he nods to the woman tending a garden of black roses, she beams back like he’s just made her day.
When he raises a hand to the man repairing ornate ironwork outside a Victorian townhouse, the gesture is returned with obvious
respect.
“You really do know everyone here,” I observe.
“Small town. Everyone knows everyone eventually.” Blue steers us down a side street I haven’t seen before, this one lined
with workshops where the sounds of hammering and grinding drift through open doors. “Besides, most of the people who end up
in Grimlock are here for similar reasons.”
“Which are?”
“They needed somewhere that doesn’t ask too many questions about where they came from.”
The comment hangs between us as we pass a forge where sparks fly through the doorway and the smith inside waves a gloved hand
at Blue. Next door, a woman with silver hair braids leather into intricate patterns while humming something that sounds like
a lullaby written in a minor key.
“Including you?” I ask.
Blue grins. “Especially me.”
We turn another corner and emerge onto a street that looks designed by someone who collected postcards from European villages and decided to re-create them all in one place.
Narrow buildings with steep gables press against each other in a rainbow of weathered colors—sage green next to dusty rose next to deep amber.
Flower boxes overflow with herbs that perfume the air with scents I can’t identify, and hand-painted signs creak gently in the ocean breeze.
“This is the artisan quarter,” Blue explains as we pass studios where painters work at easels visible through tall windows
and a weaver’s shop displays tapestries that seem to tell stories in thread and color. “Most of Grimlock’s artists live and
work here.”
“It’s like a whole creative community,” I observe, watching a potter shape clay through her window.
“Painters, sculptors, musicians, writers. People who make beautiful things.” Blue pauses outside a studio where a man with
paint-stained fingers is working on a canvas that shows Grimlock’s harbor during a storm, the waves captured mid-crash with
such detail I can almost hear the thunder. “They come here because Grimlock doesn’t care if you’re successful by conventional
standards. It only cares if you’re authentic.”
The word authentic sits heavy between us. I think about my jazz singing, how it felt like the only genuine thing in my life before everything
went to hell. How performing at the White Note was the closest I ever came to feeling like myself.
“Is that why you came here? Because Grimlock accepts what you are?”
Blue considers the question while we watch the painter add another layer of storm clouds to his canvas. “I stayed because
Grimlock accepts what I am without expecting me to become something else.”
“And what are you?”
His laugh is dark. “That’s still under investigation.”
We continue through the artisan quarter, past a glassblower’s shop where rainbow light refracts through the windows and a pottery studio where clay figures seem to watch us from their shelves.
Blue points out details I would have missed—the way each building’s architectural style reflects its owner’s personality, how the studios are arranged to catch different qualities of light throughout the day, the reason certain shops cluster together while others stand alone.
“The silversmith and the jeweler share customers but compete on craftsmanship,” he explains as we pass two shops whose windows
display intricate metalwork and fancy necklaces. “The fiber artist and the dressmaker collaborate on custom pieces. The woodcarver
makes frames for the painters and sculptures for the gardeners.”
“It’s like a whole ecosystem.”
“Exactly.” Blue seems pleased that I understand. “Everyone here has something they need, and something they can offer. It
creates . . . balance.”
The way he says balance makes me think he’s talking about more than just commercial relationships. As if Grimlock itself is some kind of carefully
maintained equation where every element serves a purpose.
We emerge from the artisan quarter onto a broader street that leads uphill toward Grimlock’s residential area. The houses
here are larger, more ostentatious, set back from the street behind iron gates and gardens that look like they require full-time
maintenance. Gothic Revival mansions stand next to Victorian painted ladies, with the occasional Tudor cottage tucked between
them like punctuation marks.
“The old families live up here,” Blue says, following my gaze toward a particularly imposing mansion whose turrets and gargoyles
make it look like it belongs in a horror movie. “People whose great-grandparents founded Grimlock, or whose money built half
the town.”
“Do you qualify as old family or new money?”
“Neither. I’m useful family.” Blue’s tone is matter-of-fact. “I solve problems that the old families prefer not to acknowledge
and the new money isn’t equipped to handle.”
Before I can ask what kind of problems require Blue’s particular skill set, he guides us onto another side street.
We make our way back toward the town center, but Blue chooses yet another route, this one leading us past Grimlock’s cemetery.
The wrought-iron gates stand open, revealing rows of headstones and monuments that speak to the town’s long history.
Some of the graves are recent, marked with fresh flowers and polished stone.
Others are aged, their inscriptions worn smooth by weather and time.
In the distance, a figure moves between the headstones. A man with weathered features and dirt-stained clothes, methodically
digging a fresh grave with an actual shovel. The steady thunk of metal hitting earth carries across the quiet cemetery, punctuated
by the scrape of dirt being tossed aside. Even from here, I can make out the intricate tattoos covering his arms, symbols
I can’t quite make out but that definitely aren’t your typical tribal bands or barbed wire. Do people even use shovels anymore?
I think everything is done with machines these days. But this guy works like he’s done this a thousand times before, no rush,
just muscle memory.
“Grimlock takes its history seriously,” Blue observes as we pass the entrance. “Death is just another part of the community
here.”
“Cheerful.”
“Reality.” Blue glances at the cemetery with something that might be fondness. “People here understand that everything ends
eventually. It makes them appreciate what they have while they have it.”
The comment feels loaded with meaning, but before I can pursue it, we stop in front of a bakery. The building itself is narrow
and tall, wedged into a space that barely looks wide enough to hold it. The facade is painted in alternating stripes of deep
purple and gold, with windows outlined in white gingerbread trim that’s definitely not regulation. Above the door, a hand-painted
sign reads The Upper Crust in flowing script, surrounded by painted roses that seem to melt when you’re not looking directly
at them.
“This is where Wren sources her favorite desserts,” Blue explains as his hand presses against the small of my back. The touch
is light, automatic, but it sends heat racing up my spine. “The Cupp brothers took special requests for tonight’s party, and
I want to make sure Wren has her favorites.”