“That is what the lawyers said,” Splice reminded her, voice flat.
“Right, but they didn’t knowwhenit would hit. The land started shifting as soon as he signed it, but it was waiting for him to die before it fully activated.”
She scribbledDEAD MAN’S SWITCHon a bright pink note and underlined it. Twice. Then a third time, because it felt that important.
“Now,” she muttered, writing again. “The mnemonic bead.”
Her gaze flicked toward Splice. “You said it stores ritual memory. Does that mean there was literally a ritual?”
“Not always,” Splice said slowly. “But the images we saw—the salt, the blade, the screaming—it certainly looked like one.”
Goldie pursed her lips. “There was blood. And Mycor kept talking about a wound. Okay, let’s chase that. Let’s assume there was a ritual, and that bead is a record of it. Which brings us to the real question: why was it in the Grove Core?”
She clicked the retractable Sharpie several times, eyes unfocused as the memory replayed. “It rolled over to me while I was looking at the body. I picked it up and shoved it in my pocket without thinking.”
Splice’s brow furrowed. “So the Grove Core… gave it to you?”
“I guess?” Goldie rocked back on her heels. “I mean, it could’ve just been there. Coincidence. Maybe it had nothing to do with the murder at all.”
Splice’s straightened, leaning forward slightly. The air between them seemed to sharpen. “The coincidence is toocoincidental,” he said quietly. “Why would the Grove single you out? Why would it push the bead toward you at all, unless it wanted you to see it?”
He shook his head once, firm. “No. The simplest path is that it arrived with someone.”
Goldie’s grip tightened around the marker. “So either Truckenham must have had it,” she said slowly, “or the killer had it.”
Splice nodded, the motion small but certain. “Which would mean that at least one of them was involved in the ritual itself.”
Goldie’s eyes lit up. “Okay. Talk me through that, plant-man.”
A small smile touched Splice’s lips. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
Splice tilted his head, patient as a professor with a difficult pupil. “Marigold. A mnemonic bead is an artifact of participation. Its magic is contingent on presence. To possess the bead is to possess the memory of the event it recorded. Therefore, if either the killer or Marlow Truckenham had it, one of them was present at the ritual. Like saying: if a man is wet, it has likely rained upon him.”
Goldie blinked at him. “Thank you for mansplaining magic to me,” she said sweetly.
His expression didn’t change, but one brow twitched. “You asked.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, a flash of playful defiance before her expression turned serious again. He was right, damn it. She grabbed another sticky note and scribbledSLEEPWALKING.
“And then there’s this,” she said, slapping the note onto the wall with decisive force. “I’m sleepwalking to the scene of the crime. And according to the police surveillance footage, it looks like I’m performing some kind of ritual.”
She stepped back, tapping the Sharpie against her lips as memory rose. The hedge. The scratch. The rush of hot blood soaking into green wood. She could almost feel the vine dragging over her skin again, that flash of contact that felt more like intention than accident.
Her fingers drifted to her forearm. “I think… something happened when it scratched me.” The words came out slowly, as if she were hearing them for the first time as she spoke them. “It felt like it was… tasting me. And now maybe it’s attuned to me? Maybe it’s calling me backbecauseof the bead?”
Splice’s eyes narrowed, assessing. “And you say Greymarket is allowing this to happen?”
“I asked it to stop me, but it said it wanted me to go back.”
Splice tilted his head. “The building spoke to you?”
She made a helpless gesture. “It’s a whole door-based communication system. Takes forever to explain. Anyway, I asked if finding the body in the Grove Core mattered. It said yes. Asked if it wanted me to go back, same answer. Which means…”
Goldie jabbed the marker toward the wall, her energy reigniting. “All of this is connected! And sure, maybe that’s a thin thread, but come on. Coincidences, especially where murder’s involved, almost never are.”
Her lips quirked. “Picked that up from watching British detective procedurals with Mr. Caracas. PBS is basically continuing education if you pay attention.”
