Chapter 22
KNOLAN
Ididn’t intend to walk into a woman.
I wanted to be very clear about that. I had a system: I walked on the right side of the sidewalk.
I kept the phone at an angle that allowed peripheral vision.
I’d been doing this for years, mostly without incident.
Sure, I had the occasional run-in with a bush or tree branch, but this was the first time I walked into a person.
She came out of nowhere.
Okay, so I wasn’t watching like I should have been.
I was reading a photograph of a document from the Driftwood Pointe Public Library’s restricted archives, something that Declan had flagged in the metadata of an old council ledger.
A discrepancy was in the original charter dates, and the bookstore was right there.
I was nearly at the door, and then, wham, there was a person.
A very specific person.
Strawberry-blond hair held back in a loose braid, the breeze played with the escaped pieces that fell around her face.
Green eyes, the kind with gold at the center, fixed on me with an expression that was somewhere between amused and braced for impact.
Full pink lips. Her runner’s build was encased in worn jeans and faded long-sleeved T.
She looked like someone who could disappear if she chose to and had been thinking about it recently.
I felt her before I saw her. That’s the part I don’t say out loud.
I felt everyone to varying degrees; it’s been that way since I was sixteen, when my abilities started sharpening past what my father called manageable.
Different species felt different. Take humans, they felt like static.
Background noise. The occasional flare of something strong: grief, desire, or rage that I had to consciously tune out, like static on an old radio. She definitely did not feel human.
She felt confusing. Like a frequency I hadn’t heard before, and I thought I’d heard them all.
Not loud. Nothing about her was loud, but the way a single note was clear in a quiet room. Something complex underneath, layered. And then, just as distinctly, a low, careful suppression, like someone with their hand pressed over a leak, trying to hold something in that wouldn’t be contained.
I opened the door and followed her into the bookstore, which I’d intended to visit anyway.
She was ahead of me, trailing her fingers along a shelf labeled History with the casual reverence of someone who grew up in libraries or wished she had.
The owner was halfway up a rolling ladder with a book tucked under her arm.
Her I could feel. She felt like a witch.
Like an irritated witch judging by the feeling of static electricity currently jumping around on my skin.
I got a clear read on her. She had been interrupted too many times already today and was currently deciding how she felt about it.
She glanced down at us both with eyes that saw a great deal more than she let on.
“Two of you today,” she said, not quite a question. “Unusual for a Tuesday. My name’s Mercy, I own this place. What can I help you find?”
“Sorry to intrude,” I said. “I was hoping you might have some older texts on council records, historical documents on paranormal governance, or anything pre-twentieth century.”
Mercy looked at me like she was looking into my soul, sifting through my life to see if I was worthy.
“Hm, about time someone did something about it. And you?” She looked at the woman beside me.
“I’m looking for anything on bond weavers,” she said. Her voice was careful. Measured. The words cost something. “Old texts. Mythology. Anything, really.”
The quiet that followed was brief but textured.
Mercy climbed down the ladder slowly and deliberately, the way people do when they’re making a decision. She looked at us both in turn, and I got the distinct impression that she wasn’t seeing our faces so much as something beneath them.
“Come with me,” she said.