Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Goldie’s footsteps sank into the velvety hush of the corridor as the elevator doors slid closed behind her.
Here on the seventeenth floor, the familiar sheen of Greymarket Towers gave way to something altogether more peculiar.
The overhead lights bloomed in muted greens and purples, as though filtered through stained glass long since shattered.
Recessed windows beside each doorway offered only mirrors of the corridor itself, no view of the outside world.
Goldie pressed her palm to the cool glass of one, willing it to show something real: the city lights, the street below, anything.
But it remained opaque, reflecting back only her wide-eyed face.
She was here to see a cryptid about sleepwalking. Two cryptids, if she wanted to really get technical. And this place, with its shifting patterns and whispered lullabies, seemed to understand.
She knocked on the door of 17R—a designation no other floor of Greymarket possessed; an apartment that had sprouted into being just last year. Inside, the muffled thud of footsteps hurried toward the door, and Goldie hugged herself, feeling her shoulders drop away from her ears in obvious relief.
When the door swung open, it revealed a very tall, unmistakably not-human figure.
His eyes glowed a deep, burnished red that seemed to pulse in the dim hallway light, and he wore a frilly apron that bore the declaration LIVE LAUGH BAKE in cheerful script.
As he tilted his head, a series of short clicks emerged from his thorax, and the folded wings at his back rustled softly.
“Hello, Goldie,” Sig Samora said gravely. “It is always pleasing to see you. Enter, if you will.”
Goldie inhaled sharply. “Hello, Sig. It smells delicious in here. What are you cooking?”
Sig let the door close behind her and stepped aside, antennae twitching in what passed for a curious nod.
“I am preparing stuffed pork chops for my beloved and roasted firefly larvae for myself.” He politely ushered her into the warm glow of the apartment.
“There is plenty. Would you care to remain for dinner?”
“Plenty of yours, or plenty of Nell’s?”
“Both,” Sig replied, and produced the soft chuffing-churring sound she had come to know as his laughter.
Goldie forced a grin, but her glitter was wearing thin. “Thanks, Sig. I… I don’t want to intrude. Sorry, I should have realized you hadn’t eaten yet. I can come up later this evening if you guys don’t have anything, or you can just have Nell text me when she gets home—”
Sig clicked sharply as his antennae twitched. “You are performing politeness, but your voice carries strain. I detect tightness in your chest.”
His red eyes flared a touch brighter. Another soft click, more concerned than sharp this time. “You are in pain. You are pretending not to be. Why?”
Goldie blinked up at him and, horrifyingly, her eyes began to well with tears.
Sig emitted a low, sympathetic thrum, and stepped forward. Without hesitation, he wrapped his arms and wings around her.
The moment she felt the cocoon of soft fuzz and chitin close around her, Goldie folded like wet parchment. She buried her face in his chest and bit her lip hard, trying to keep the sob from escaping. It didn’t work.
Sig stroked her back with deliberate, gentle pressure. “Hush now, sparkly one,” he murmured. “Your grief may bloom here without judgment. But tell me, what has harmed you?”
“I don’t know, Sig,” Goldie sobbed. “I went to the police station—and they said I was sleepwalking—and I don’t remember—and everything’s been weird since I found the body—and—and—”
Sig hummed and tightened his embrace just slightly. “You will sit,” he said, patting her back with a gentle claw. “I will bring you tea. Possibly cake. Then we will speak.”
He leaned back just enough to look down at her, red eyes steady and unblinking. “You are safe here. I will not allow harm to touch you, not even the kind woven through the threads.”
Goldie sniffed and delicately wiped her nose. “Thanks, Sig.”
He made a comforting sound—probably something like of course in moth-speak—and gently guided her toward a seat.
The chair looked like it had once belonged in a Gothic reading nook, all velvet and brass scrollwork, but a crochet throw depicting a constellation map had been draped across the back to soften the vibe.
“Remain,” Sig said firmly as he rustled towards the kitchen with a purposeful swish of wings.
Goldie sniffed again and looked around. The apartment was, as always, disorientingly serene.
Bookshelves stretched up the far wall. Some were crammed with vintage occult volumes, and others were sparsely filled with curated objects: a nest of thimbles, an antique tarot deck in a locked glass box, a moth sculpture made of scrap metal and beads.
Gods and goddesses, she needed to get a grip. She pressed her palms to her knees.
“I am grounded, I am safe, I am not going to lose it on my best friend’s nice vintage chair,” she muttered under her breath, half-mantra, half-threat.
But the images from the police station flashed through her mind.
That awful, uncanny footage. Her own body, drifting barefoot through the Grove Core.
Eyes open, but not seeing. Hands brushing branches that leaned toward her.
A slow, dreadful smile blooming on her lips, like something else was wearing her face.
Footsteps approached, soft and deliberate. Goldie straightened as Sig reappeared, carrying an enormous, goblet-adjacent glass that was filled nearly to the brim with pale gold liquid.
“We have no cake,” he announced solemnly, “but we do have the wine that lives in a box that you consume in volumes inadvisable to humans. I determined it would serve better than tea.”
Goldie gave him a limp glare with no real heat behind it. “Hey,” she mumbled, accepting the glass. “Don’t judge my vices, mothboy.”
“I do not judge.” Sig tilted his head. "White wine is filed under comfort. Red wine is filed under grief. Nell prefers the latter, but I do not serve it when someone is unraveling. It makes humans feel too much, and then they cry in loops that never quite end.”
Goldie blinked at him, then took a long, bracing sip. Boxed sauvignon blanc. Two ice cubes. He remembered. The kindness made more tears spring into her eyes.
Sig settled into the chair across from her, folding into stillness like a statue that had chosen a new pose. He could be still better than anyone she knew. Better even than furniture.
Goldie cradled her wine glass in both hands. She took another sip, then stared into the pale liquid as if it might hold a reflection that made sense.
After a long silence, Sig spoke in a soft, unhurried voice.
“You do not have to speak if you do not wish. But you did not come to our home without cause.” He cocked his head, and his antennae shifted faintly. “Something has affected you. Deeply. I do not know its name. Still, I will help you find the shape of it, if I can.”
Goldie took a deep, steadying breath. “I really don’t know what’s going on, Sig,” she said slowly. “Everything’s been fucky since that day I went to set things up for Beltane.”
She paused and held up her forearm, where the skin looked angry and surprisingly vivid for what had only been a shallow scrape.
“I got scratched by the hedge, and then I laid the offerings, even though the whole scene felt weird. And then I found the body. And then the Thornfather’s Assistant found me. ” She cleared her throat. “And… uh…”
Goldie stared into the middle distance. The wine glass rotated between her hands like a charm she wasn’t sure she wanted to activate.
“I mean, he’s… it’s not like I planned to…” She twitched. Winced. “It’s just that everything got all overwhelming, and I’m sure that I’m emotionally compromised and projecting, but now, everything’s…”
A strangled sound escaped her throat. “Gods, I’m sorry. You’re my best friend’s partner, and you have wings and insight, and probably know more about primal attachment than most therapists, but I also don’t want to be gross and inappropriate.”
She took a huge gulp of wine. “Please tell me if this is gross and inappropriate.”
Sig regarded her with solemn intensity. “I do not know what you are even attempting to say right now,” he said, utterly serious.
Goldie barked a sharp, helpless laugh. “Neither do I,” she wheezed.
The front door opened with a jingle of keys and a burst of early-evening air. Sig straightened. His antennae twitched once.
“Beloved,” he said simply.
A patter of footsteps activated an energy shift, and then Nell Townsend, librarian, Dyad-half, wearer of soft cardigans and thrifted sundresses and accidental power, stepped into view. She dropped her keys and her purse the moment she saw Goldie.
“Sweetie? What’s wrong?”
Goldie took one look at her best friend and burst into tears.
Without a word, Nell rushed across the room and crouched beside the chair, flinging her arms around Goldie. Goldie hugged her like a lifeline.
“Nell! I’m sleepwalking, and the police saw, and I bled into the Grove Core, and I’m super horny, and everything is all fucked up, and I don’t know what to dooooooo—”
Her voice cracked into a wail as she hiccuped into Nell’s shoulder. Without missing a beat, Nell stroked Goldie’s hair and started humming gently in a soothing rhythm.
“I have invited her to stay for dinner,” Sig said helpfully.
“Thank you, honey. I appreciate that so much,” Nell replied. “But maybe you can go to the rooftop garden for a bit? Or head down to watch Inspector Alleyn with Mr. Caracas?”
“Dinner will be ready shortly,” he offered.
“Sweetheart,” Nell said gently, “I love you with all my being. But we’re going to order pizza tonight, okay? Put the pork chops in the fridge. Do you want pizza, or are you going to eat your larvae?”
Sig paused. “The larvae are marinating,” he said finally. “I will consume them cold later when it is convenient.”