“I never joke about ceremonial fire. Everyone who’s ever met you adores you. It’s time the wider community saw what we already know.”
Goldie exhaled. “Yes. Of course. I’d be honored.”
“Wonderful.” Tamsin’s tone brightened like candlelight as she untied the ribbon and revealed a leather-bound folder, its seal gleaming. Inside lay a neat stack of vellum pages.
“These are the preliminary Solstice briefs,” she said, sliding the papers forward. “Excerpts from last year’s Herald address, eyewitness notes on the torch procession, and the council’s rulings on ritual warding.”
Her smile tilted, conspiratorial. “Here’s the best part: as Herald, you’ll have clearance to the city archives. Think of it as an extra key for your research collection.” She laughed lightly, the sound bright as glass.
The phoenix trilled in approval as Goldie lifted the folder, the faint warmth of its wards brushing her fingertips.
Tamsin smoothed the hem of her caftan and leaned on the desk. “I’d like you to join the final Beltane planning session next Thursday at two. Call it a late lunch, committee theatrics included free of charge. You’ll meet the key players and absorb the civic melodrama that keeps our fire burning. I’ll also see you get the keys you’ll need for the city archives.”
“Spectacle and spice! I’m intrigued,” Goldie replied, her laugh tinkling even as her pulse quickened.
Tamsin’s smile softened. “And you’re precisely the woman to give it. I see very big things ahead for you, Goldie Flynn.”
Goldie’s smile glittered as she rose. “Thank you, Tamsin. Truly.”
In the hush of the candlelit corridor, she pressed the folder to her chest. The sconces glowed warmer, as if endorsing Tamsin’s prophecy.
Herald of the Solstice Flame.The words shimmered through her like a promise.
This year was going to burn bright, and it would have her name on the torch.
Chapter
Two
Goldie began her trek home to Greymarket Towers, the thrill of Tamsin’s offer still fizzing at her fingertips as she cradled the folder in the crook of her arm.
She walked in silence, letting the city bloom softly around her. Bellwether was lovely in the evenings—always strange, yes, but always lovely.
She passed a building whose windows were open, the sound of a haunted waltz on loop drifting into the balmy air. Another building was illuminated by candles that gently orbited a white cat sleeping on the fire escape.
After less than a block, the performative Goldie—the public Goldie—began to thaw into something looser and more genuine. Her hips still swayed when she walked, but her shoulders dropped a fraction, her pace softened, and her boots struck the pavement in an easy, unhurried cadence.
She always had to be “on.” She didn’t quite know when it started. Maybe in high school, when charm had been her currency, her armor, her easiest ticket out of uncomfortable silences. By college, it had become a tic. By her twenties, a routine. By the time she hit thirty, it was an art form.
She laughed loud. Loved hard. Broke up harder. She sparkled her way through life, and the more uncertain she felt, the brighter she shined. But solitude offered a different kind of sparkle: time to spiral down rabbit holes of research, to lose herself in lousy movies, to bask in the quiet company of her thoughts.
She loved people, but she also craved the kind of stillness that let her heart settle and her curiosity roam.
But in that hush, a filament of worry always hummed beneath the calm.
Would anyone still continue to choose her if the glitter stayed packed away? Was the quieter, earnest Goldie, the one who sometimes ached for silence, truly enough on her own?
She wasn’t entirely sure which version of herself Greymarket Towers had chosen. All she knew was that it happened months ago, after her best friend, Nell Townsend, and Nell’s impossibly devoted mothman mate, Sig Samora, moved upstairs to the seventeenth floor where the building had grown them a brand-new apartment. Goldie had watched them fall in love through chaos and catastrophe, and if anyone had earned a happy ending, it was those two.
The day the last boxes were carried out, Goldie showed up with a smudge stick, a bundle of dried sage, and three backup lighters. Nell brought too much wine. Sig, in his cryptid wisdom, chose to remain upstairs.
Nell and Goldie had lit candles, chanted irreverently, and knocked on the walls with a bell. At one point, between giggles, Nell had slipped while gesturing dramatically and fallen spread-eagle across the kitchen floor, squeaking,“This kitchen is clean!”in a very poor imitation of Zelda Rubinstein inPoltergeist.
Goldie had collapsed beside her friend, laughing and slurring half-finished spells through happy tears. It felt both silly andsacred: two friends weaving a welcome for whatever magic might wander in.
Eventually, Sig had come to collect Nell, who was mid-recitation of a protection spell she was definitely making up as she went. He’d swooped her up in his clawed hands as Nell babbled something incoherent and curled into his shoulder. Sig, ever polite, asked Goldie if she would get home safely. Goldie had waved him off with dramatic flair and assured him she’d get a cab.
Sig had left with Nell cradled in his arms, and Goldie had stayed, sitting in the hush, the last candle flickering at her side. After a moment, she’d gently cleared her throat and glanced at the scuffed baseboards and an old water ring on the windowsill.
