35. Damon
Weather Talisman:
Carve into driftwood; storms bow to steady hearts.
Hearthlight Tavern is busy for a weeknight.
I find a parking spot on the street and kill the engine, taking in the warm glow of the windows, the muffled sound of conversation and clinking glasses spilling out onto the sidewalk.
The tavern looks the same as it always has—exposed brick, a hand-painted sign above the door, a planter box by the entrance that someone’s kept alive despite the storm.
“Popular place,” Silas says.
“Always has been. Gideon and Hunter bought it together about eight years ago. Before that, it was a hardware store.”
We walk inside. The warmth hits first, then the noise—a dozen conversations layered over each other, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen, someone playing something acoustic in the corner that I can’t quite place.
The bar runs along the back wall, bottles lined up on shelves behind it, and every stool is taken.
I scan the room and spot April behind the bar. She’s pouring a draft for a customer, her red hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smear of something on her apron. She’s been working at Hearthlight since before Gideon bought the place. She knows everyone in this town, and everyone knows her.
We weave through the tables and I catch her eye. She finishes the pour, hands off the glass, and walks over to where we’re standing at the end of the bar.
“Damon.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Heard you’ve been busy.”
“You could say that.”
“And you brought a friend.” Her gaze moves to Silas. Up and down, quick and assessing. “Council?”
“Former,” Silas says.
“Former?” She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t push. “What can I get you?”
“Actually, I’m looking for Gideon. Is he around?”
The smile fades. April reaches for a rag and starts wiping down the bar in front of us. “He’s not here tonight. He’s at home with Summer.”
Summer. Gideon’s kid. Seven years old, bright and fearless, with her father’s dark eyes and her mother’s stubborn chin. I’d nearly forgotten.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Fine. Just a family night.” She keeps wiping. “Why do you need him?”
“Town business. Nothing urgent.”
“Town business.” April sets the rag down and looks at me. “Damon. If something’s wrong, you’d tell me, right?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just need to ask him a few questions about the quarry. Old keeper stuff.”
She relaxes slightly. “That’s a blast from the past. Nobody’s talked about keeper business in years.”
“I know. That’s kind of the problem.”
She nods slowly, then seems to make a decision. “His father’s stuff is still in the back room. Gideon never got rid of it. Boxes, files, old maps of the quarry. He keeps meaning to sort through it, but you know how that goes.”
“Can I look at it?”
“I can’t give you permission. That’s Gideon’s call. But I won’t stop you if you happen to find your way back there while I’m busy.”
“Appreciate it, April.”
She leans across the bar and lowers her voice. “Gideon’s been through a lot. His dad dying the way he did. Raising Summer on his own. The tavern barely turning a profit some months. Whatever you’re digging up, be careful with it.”
“I will.”
“One more thing.” She glances at Silas, then back to me. “Gideon loved his father. Whatever you find in those boxes, remember that. He loved him.”
I nod, and she moves away to take another order. Silas and I exchange a look.
“Did you know Victor Ash died during a flare?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“I didn’t know how he died. Just that he was dead.”
“Car accident. On the road between the quarry and town. It was about fifteen years ago. I was young—maybe thirteen—but I remember the aftermath. My dad was sheriff then. He’s the one who responded to the call.”
I signal April for two waters. She brings them without a word.
“What happened?” Silas asks.
“It wasn’t a big flare—medium, maybe. Enough to make the lights flicker and the dogs start howling, but not the kind that shuts the town down.
Victor was out at the quarry doing his keeper rounds, same as always.
Sometime around midnight, he left. Drove back toward town on the old quarry road.
Halfway there, his car went off the road and into a tree. ”
“And the flare caused it?”
“That was the official explanation. The flares can mess with electronics, cause disorientation. My dad wrote it up as an accident—loss of control due to magical interference. Open and shut.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
I take a drink of my water. “Victor Ash drove that road every night for twenty years. He knew it blindfolded. Knew every curve, every pothole, every spot where the gravel got loose. For him to lose control on a stretch of road he could navigate in his sleep, during a flare that barely registered on the wards? It didn’t make sense to my dad. It didn’t make sense to me.”
“What did Gideon say?”
“Gideon was twenty-two when it happened. He’d just taken over the tavern with Hunter. He didn’t question the official report. I think he needed it to be an accident. The alternative was too much to deal with on top of losing his father.”
“That’s sad. I can’t imagine losing my parent like that.”
I swallow. “I can.”
He looks at me. “What do you mean?”
“Because I lost my father the very same way. A tragic car accident during a rift.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
Silas is quiet for a moment, turning his glass on the bar. “My mother died when I was ten.”
The vulnerability catches me off guard. I look at him, but he’s staring at his water like it holds something worth reading.
“How?” I ask.
He pauses. The pause stretches long enough that I start to feel uncomfortable.
“Silas. Forget I asked. That was—”
“I don’t remember.”
I frown. “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”
“I mean I don’t remember how she died. I know she died. I know I was ten. I know there was a funeral and my sister cried and my father didn’t. But the actual how—the cause of death, the circumstances—I can’t recall any of it. It’s like there’s a wall where the memory should be.”
“That’s not normal.”
“No. It’s not.” He finally looks at me. “I’ve never thought about it before. Never questioned it. When people asked, I’d say she was sick, and I believed it because that’s what felt true. But just now, when you were talking about Victor Ash and the official story and how it didn’t add up—
“You think someone altered your memory?”
“I think it’s possible. I think a lot of things are possible that I didn’t think were possible three days ago.”
I set my water down. “I’m sorry. I was being insensitive, bringing up your mom like that.”
“You weren’t. You were making conversation. And I’m the one who brought it up.” He finishes his water and stands. “Let’s check those boxes before April changes her mind.”
The back room of Hearthlight is cluttered with old furniture, spare kegs, and boxes of inventory. But in the far corner, behind a shelving unit stacked with napkins and coasters, there’s a stack of cardboard boxes that looks like it hasn’t been touched in years.
Dust coats the top ones. The tape on the flaps is yellow and brittle.
I pull the first box down and open it. Files. Manila folders stuffed with papers, diagrams, handwritten notes. Victor Ash’s handwriting—cramped, precise, slanting to the right.
I flip through them quickly. Quarantine maintenance logs. Ley line measurements. Ward schematics that look similar to the ones in Aunt Etta’s library but with subtle differences in the rune construction.
“Silas.”
He’s already beside me, pulling down another box. This one contains maps—old survey maps of the quarry, hand-drawn overlays showing the ley line paths, annotations in the margins that I can’t decipher.
“This rune style,” Silas says, holding up one of the schematics. “It’s the same as the secondary ward layer. The one underneath yours.”
“Victor Ash built those wards.”
“Victor Ash built wards that are feeding energy into the Rift instead of containing it. And he hid them underneath the legitimate ward structure so no one would find them.”
I stare at the schematic in his hand. Victor Ash. Gideon’s father. The last keeper of the quarry. A man everyone in this town described as dutiful, reliable, devoted to his work.
“April said Gideon loved him,” I say quietly.
“Love and loyalty don’t prevent someone from doing terrible things. Sometimes they’re the reason for it.”
I take the schematic from him and fold it carefully, tucking it into my jacket.
We go through three more boxes but find nothing else that connects directly to the secondary wards—just more maintenance logs, more measurements, more of the meticulous record-keeping that defined Victor Ash’s life as a keeper.
We leave the way we came, slipping past the bar while April is occupied with a group at the far end. She catches my eye as we reach the door and nods once. Acknowledgment. Complicity.
Whatever we found, she’s chosen not to know about it.
The drive back to Caroline’s is quiet. Silas stares out the passenger window, his reflection ghosted in the glass.
I keep my eyes on the road, but my mind is somewhere else entirely—turning over the schematic, the missing Ash family records, the wall in Silas’s memory where his mother’s death should be.
Too many pieces. Not enough puzzle.
When I pull up to Caroline’s house, the lights are on in the living room. Through the front window, I can see movement, shapes shifting on the couch. I recognize Griffin’s profile, the broad line of his shoulders. And tucked against him, smaller, wrapped in what looks like my flannel—Caroline.
Silas sees it too. Something shifts in his expression, there and gone, too fast for me to name.
We get out of the car and walk to the door. It’s unlocked—Griffin must have left it that way for us. We step inside, and the warmth of the house wraps around us, along with the smell of pizza and something else underneath. Honey and cinnamon, faint but present. Her scent, finally starting to fade.