Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
The printers in the Greymarket Towers business center sighed and leaked ink the color of twilight. The computers hummed in a low, three-part harmony, and the Wi-Fi was only reliable if you offered the router a piece of gossip. It was a space that tolerated commerce, but did not always respect it.
Splice found it adequate. He sat at a heavy oak table, a stack of rezoning ordinances and land-use proposals spread before him. His fingers traced the lines as though they might rearrange into sense if he stared long enough.
It had been three days since the mnemonic bead’s shattering, since Mycor’s collapse, since Goldie’s hand on his wrist.
He had not seen her since. He did not want to. And yet, he did.
Frowning, Splice bent over the papers. Searching. For what, he wasn’t certain. A clue. A pattern. Anything that might explain why a will had been rewritten to bind a god. Or why Marlow Truckenham had held a lease at Greymarket thirty years ago.
Why Goldie’s pulse still thrummed behind his ribs, beating in time with roots and rivers.
A cough, prim and oddly theatrical, sliced through the quiet hum of the room. Splice looked up. It was the mousy woman from the meeting. She wore a name badge on her lapel: Karen Vesuvius.
She stood framed in the doorway. Her hair was lacquered into a helmet, her cardigan buttoned so tight it could have been a carapace. She clutched a bulging accordion file against her chest.
He was surprised the building had let her pass.
As the thought crossed his mind, a sconce overhead spat twice and went dark.
“Assistant,” she said, each syllable carefully enunciated as though she were taking minutes. Her gaze swept over the paperwork spread across the table. “I was told I would find you here. Very industrious. Very civic-minded.”
She adjusted her grip on the file, then added, with a prim smile, “And very much in need of a deputy.”
This was unexpected. Splice inclined his head once, noncommittal.
Karen pressed on, emboldened. “You see, I was Councilman Truckenham’s deputy. For years. Keeper of ordinances, custodian of precedent, et cetera. And now…”
She gestured vaguely toward the table. “Well. You are, technically, the Land Trust majority holder. And such a position requires—oh, what’s the phrase?—continuity of governance. Support staff. An experienced hand to help you navigate the paperwork.”
“And what makes you think I’m in need of a deputy, Ms. Vesuvius?” Splice asked, his voice steady as stone. “What makes you think I cannot handle this?”
Karen tittered, the sound sharp and birdlike.
“Oh, of course, you could handle it, sir. But you don’t know the internal politics of City Hall. It’s an underbelly. A mess of ordinances and loopholes. And, frankly, you don’t need to know them.”
She leaned a little closer, her voice dropping conspiratorially. “That’s what I’m here for. I thrive in the muck.”
Splice tilted his head, uncertain if this was meant as reassurance or threat.
Karen straightened her posture with a proud sniff. “Truckenham never truly took advantage of everything I had to offer. All that… expertise, wasted. I have plenty of experience in things he never even thought to ask me for.”
Her eyes flicked up and down his form, a little too lingering, and Splice felt the strangest prickle of disquiet. Was she… attempting seduction? Or merely boasting of her own power? Either way, the attention sat wrong against his skin.
The woman’s lips pursed. “I could ensure everything proceeds smoothly. The Trust, those dreary negotiations with Ashenvale. All in order. All in compliance. I would be… indispensable.”
Karen set the accordion file down and nudged it across the table.
The faint shimmer of compliance wards clung to its edges.
Inside were not just bonds and deeds but notarized minutes, draft charters, even a set of blank contracts already stamped with council seals.
Tools of governance, smuggled into his lap, a bribe disguised as bureaucracy.
The gesture was so presumptuous, so oily, that Splice’s chest constricted with a cold, unfamiliar fury. He opened his mouth to answer, but the building answered first.
The lights flickered violently, plunging the room into strobing twilight. The oak table buckled, its legs groaning as they twisted inward. The printer shrieked and began spitting out pages of solid black ink, the sheets piling on the floor like fallen shadows.
Karen yelped as the carpet heaved beneath her feet, driving her backward toward the door. “This is unacceptable! A violation of Bellwether tenant-guest ordinances! I have rights! Rights of continuity—”
The walls pressed inward, and the air grew thick and heavy, tasting of mold and old grudges. At the last possible moment, the door flung itself open, and the building expelled her into the hallway with a definitive thump.
Silence settled again, broken only by the printer’s last wheezing sigh.
Splice watched the woman flee, the cold anger receding, replaced by the familiar, humming presence of Greymarket’s sentience. He laid a hand flat on the table, a silent thanks. The wood warmed slightly beneath his palm.
“Having fun scaring off the civil servants?”
Splice turned. Goldie Flynn stood in the doorway, a mostly-eaten cinnamon roll in one hand.
She wore a flowing dress of purple velvet, earrings shaped like cat heads, and a pair of gold heels with embroidered moons that dared anyone to call them practical.
Her copper hair was piled into an artful chaos that suggested both intention and disaster.
“She offended the building.” Splice’s voice came out flatter than he felt.
Goldie’s mouth quirked. She crossed the room and plunked down beside him without asking, her skirts rustling like mischief itself. “Well, she is a bit of a bitch. Basically said I was a nuisance."
She popped the rest of the roll into her mouth and rolled her eyes. “I’m only a nuisance when I want to be,” she said, the words muffled by cinnamon and sugar.
A nuisance? And a flare of heat surged through him, sharp enough to startle. Splice almost wished the building would drag Karen back in, just so it could expel her again for daring to call Goldie such a thing.
“Yes,” he said, the words clipped but certain. “She is a bitch.”
The printer gave a final, satisfied whirr, as if seconding the verdict.
Goldie winked at him and licked a smear of icing off her thumb. “So. After our little hallway conversation with Mr. Lyle—don’t roll your eyes, you were totally about to roll your eyes—”
He was not planning on rolling his eyes. His eyes were firmly, helplessly fixed on the thumb she had just licked clean of icing. The motion was utterly human, and it did something perilous inside him.
“—I did some digging.” Goldie leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping confidentially. “You know how Greymarket is. It doesn’t let just anyone in. And once you're in, it doesn’t like to let go.”
Splice’s fingers twitched against the table. “But Truckenham left.”
“Yes. The question is, why? I would ask Mr. Lyle, but you know him. He won't tell us. So that means we have to find someone who might remember him.”
She glanced at Splice, and for the first time since she’d sat down, her energy wavered. “Are you okay?”
He started to nod, but the motion stalled. The answer should have been simple—yes, of course, he was fine—but the earnestness of the question struck something tender and unguarded in him. His mouth opened, then closed again, the words dissolving before they reached air.
“Has something changed with Mycor?” Goldie asked quietly. Her hand came to rest on his arm, fingers tracing a slow, careful caress, like she was afraid he might vanish if she pressed too hard. “Did you have to give him any more of yourself?”
For an instant, Splice forgot how to breathe. She worried for his god, yes—but also, impossibly, for him.
She was still watching him, her brow drawn in a small, worried crease. The urge to reach up and smooth it away rose unbidden, strong enough to startle him. He curled his fingers into his palm instead.
“He hasn’t changed,” Splice managed at last, his voice low and rough-edged. “Not since you saw him.”
A flicker of relief crossed her face, and she squeezed his arm gently. “Well,” she said, her mouth curving into something like a smile, “at least he hasn’t gotten any worse. I’ll take that as a small mercy.”
Then she winked, the familiar spark flaring back to life. When she stood, her bracelets jingled like tiny applause, bright against the hush that had settled between them.
“Come on, partner,” she said, her grin widening into something determined as she held out her hand. “If Mycor’s stable for the moment, let’s solve ourselves a mystery. Mr. Caracas has been here forever—and if anyone remembers when Truckenham lived here, it’s him. And I know just where to find him.”
The community room was bathed in the soft, flickering light of the television, casting long, dancing shadows over the mismatched furniture and the few quiet residents within.
In a cracked orange velvet armchair that groaned with the weight of ages sat Mr. Caracas.
His massive, shelled back was to the door, his full attention on a rerun of Murder, She Wrote.
Onscreen, Jessica Fletcher was looking suspiciously at a scone.
Goldie took a steadying breath, then glided forward as though she were stepping onto a stage, hips swaying, her velvet skirt trailing a beat behind like living applause. Splice’s breath stuttered at the sight. He followed a few paces back, a shadow drawn along in her glittering wake.
She approached the armchair without a word. Mr. Caracas didn’t turn, but a low grunt rumbled from deep in his chest.
“It’s you,” he grumbled. “The sparkly one. What do you want? I’m busy.”
A thousand-watt smile bloomed on Goldie’s face. She leaned over the arm of his chair, her voice pure honey. “Too busy for me, my favorite ancient grump?”