The Spiral
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PEOPLE STARTED NOTICING Lyra's behavior.
She showed up at the market looking either impossibly beautiful or disturbingly haggard, no in-between. Her mood swings were erratic, charming one moment, furious the next.
She'd gotten into a screaming match with a merchant over pricing. Used weather magic to create a localized rainstorm over someone's stall after a perceived slight and was escorted out of a tea house for causing a scene.
"She's getting worse," Sara told Wren during one of their tea visits at the elevated farm. "Everyone's talking about it. Some people think she's losing her mind."
"Or losing control of something," Wren said quietly. She'd been thinking about Lyra's behavior and the erratic mood swings, the increasingly desperate quality to her anger. Something was wrong beyond just jealousy. It looked familiar, something she’d seen in another life.
Zhao Lin had been watching too. She had a gift for reading people—enhanced intuition, body language, micro-expressions—and she'd been observing Lyra carefully at town events.
"There's more going on than romantic disappointment," she told her family over dinner one evening. Wren had been invited, and she came to family dinners regularly now. "The woman is hiding something. Using something."
"Using what?" Mei-Lin asked.
"I'm not certain yet. But I've seen those signs before. Desperation. Addiction. The way she panics when her cosmetics aren't perfect." Lin's expression was thoughtful. "I'm going to make some inquiries."
"Mother, you're not a detective," Jin said, though his tone was more resigned than disapproving.
"No, but I'm a woman who's lived in this town her entire life and knows how to ask the right questions." Lin sipped her tea. "Someone knows what Lyra's hiding. I just need to find them."