“Sorry if we were too much,” she murmured to the room. “You were very patient.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her palm to the wall. The words came without planning. “You’ve made Nell so happy. She deserves that so much. So…thank you for helping her find that.”
Then, quieter still, the rest had slipped free. “I wish I had something like this,” she confessed, unguarded and unperformed. “Something that didn’t make me feel like I had to earn my place by being the loudest, the brightest, the most… everything. Something that made me okay to be just me.”
She lingered there, the wall cool beneath her palm. Then, just barely, it warmed.
The next morning, Mr. Lyle called.
“Ms. Flynn,” he said in his peculiar, antique drawl. “Your application for residency at Greymarket Towers has been approved. Shall we say Wednesday for the paperwork?”
Goldie hadn’t filled out a residency application. She went anyway.
And, well… Greymarket Towers had made its choice.
Nell, practical as always, had convinced Goldie not to sell her house outright.
“Just rent it,” she’d chirped after screaming loud enough to startle the houseplants, swinging Goldie around in a giddy circle, and insisting they get the most expensive sushi takeout in town to celebrate. “Worst case, you move back after a hiatus. Best case, you get good tenants and make a little money.”
A very nice couple had moved into Goldie’s small house. One gardened exclusively at night, while the other volunteered at the wellness center downtown. They paid ahead of time, kept the yard wild but not feral, and left offerings on the backyard altar.
Goldie paid her rent at Greymarket without stress, lit her windowsill candles every night, and whispered thank-yous into the baseboards.
During those brief, shining moments, it felt like both versions of herself had found the same address.
Chapter
Three
Greymarket Towers stood like it always had: half-forgotten, half-watching, as a lump of architectural weirdness wedged between two trendy vegan co-ops and a metaphysical bookstore that doubled as a notary public.
Goldie slipped through the brass-trimmed front doors and barely had time to inhale the familiar scent of lamp oil, damp stone, and the distinct metallic tang of something eldritch, before a blur of oversized hoodie, glitter, and gangly limbs launched itself at her from the stairwell.
“GOLDIE!” Theo shrieked, all elbows and joy as he slammed into her. “Can I come up and see your cats? I made them little hats. Maeve told me she likes herringbone best!”
Goldie gently patted Theo’s spine in a show of surrender. “Hey, superstar. Can we rain check? I love you, but my eyeballs are held open by a thread.”
The nocturnal, nine-year-old cryptid pulled back, blinking his too-large eyes with solemn disappointment. Theo—a Bellwether-born bogeychild—was Greymarket’s resident chaos agent. He ran on sugar, cartoons, and whatever idea he got into his head at 3 a.m.
“But they’re nocturnal. Like me.”
Goldie huffed a laugh. “I know, babe. But even nocturnal felines need their beauty sleep. Tell you what. Come by tomorrow, and you can brush them. Maeve’s shedding like it’s her job.”
Theo’s face lit up like a disco ball. “Can I keep her fur? I’m making a wig.”
“Of course you can,” Goldie said gravely. “You’d be doing me a service. We’ll even put it in a thrice-blessed moon jar. Deal?”
Theo gasped with delight, kissed her on the cheek, and took off down the hallway at top speed, yelling “BYE, GOLDIE!” over his shoulder.
At the mailroom door, Goldie nearly collided with a ripple of silk and resonance.
Sorelle hummed a minor seventh that vibrated the lock box doors and set one of the wall sconces flickering. She moved like an underwater ballroom dancer, all slow turns and glinting shadow.
Most people in Bellwether knew her as one half of Hearthsong Reversal, the cryptid-folk duo that performed at community festivals and—when the moon aligned just right—at the Greymarket potluck. Sorelle was the cryptid half, obviously: her eyes held the kind of shimmer that made you forget what question you were about to ask.
“Darling Goldie,” she purred, stepping back. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. Picking up fan mail?”
Goldie grinned. “Just bills dressed as fan mail. You know how it is.”
