Page 18 of Claimed By the Mothman (Greymarket Towers #1)

“I see that.” Mrs. Kephra nodded once and returned to the tome in her hands, as if prophecy and punctuality were part of the same administrative task.

Goldie stepped forward. “Suzahni, my darling, I know it’s not a work day, but Nell’s vibing weird and we need to do some reconnaissance research, pronto. Permission to run wild?”

Mrs. Kephra nodded gravely. “Of course.” She placed two fingers lightly to her lips, then to her temple, then extended them toward Nell in a gesture that felt both sacred and unsettling. “Be well.”

“Bless you,” Goldie said, already grabbing Nell’s hand and tugging her gently away.

—

The upper stacks of the Center were quieter than church and twice as reverent.

Rows of old wooden shelves stretched into cool shadow, interrupted only by the occasional wrought iron lamp or velvet-draped reading nook.

The air smelled of paper, cedar, and something faintly spicy.

Every so often, Nell caught the sound of a page turning where no reader sat, or a whisper that might have been a draft… except there was no draft.

They passed the Archivist’s Alcove, currently occupied by a skeletal figure in a knit shawl taking notes with an ink-dipped feather, and continued past the Cryptobotanical Registry, where a vine had escaped its terrarium and was carefully re-shelving a fallen book with one tendril.

Finally, they reached the Harmonics Wing—or at least, the hallway where the Harmonics Wing usually was. Today, it had grown a different door. Runes crawled across its surface in slow pulses of light, shifting slightly as Nell approached.

“Has this always been here?” Nell asked uncertainly.

Goldie’s grin widened, her eyes sparkling with delight. “Nope. Oh, it’s our lucky day. Looks like the Special Collections Room wants in on the action.” She gripped the handle and turned. The door opened without a sound, like the building had heard them and decided: yes.

Drawing a deep breath, Nell stepped inside, ignoring Goldie’s dramatic bow as she ushered her in with a flourish.

The Special Collections Room was round, softly lit with an ambient glow that made the shadows feel both intentional and friendly.

The walls were lined with curved shelves that didn’t follow architectural logic.

Some bowed inward like gravity was heavier here, others slanted and warped as if under the pressure of knowledge.

A few shelves were roped off with silken cords, as if sections of the room were choosing to remain private.

Nell hesitated on the threshold. Goldie, naturally, did not. She placed both hands on Nell’s shoulders and steered her inside with the energy of someone fueled by too much caffeine and the desire to reorganize someone else's entire emotional filing system.

“Okay!” she said brightly, pointing decisively toward a row of shelves lined with titles that glowed faintly under the ambient light.

“Here’s what we’re doing. I’ll start with this section: cryptid taxonomy, post-contact cultural analysis, courtship behavior if we’re lucky.

You,” she continued, gesturing Nell toward the opposite curve, “start there: resonance theory, hybrid metaphysics, and anything that hums when you touch it.”

“That’s not a comforting instruction,” Nell said weakly. She turned toward the long reading table in the center of the aisle and, after a brief hesitation, set Mr. Lyle’s black folder down.

“You’re fine,” Goldie said, already moving. “I can tell the shelves like you.”

Nell took a cautious step forward. The floorboards creaked in greeting.

She drifted toward the first row, running her fingers lightly along the spines.

She passed a thick, cloth-bound tome that let out a deep, satisfied sigh when she brushed it.

Another shifted to the side on its own, making room for her hand.

One refused to be pulled, and when she tried, it hissed, the leather of its spine growing spikes.

She moved on.

There was a book titled The Frequencies of Affection that glimmered slightly when she looked at it. Another— Of Dust and Velvet —was so soft to the touch it almost felt like skin. She wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t .

A leather-bound volume labeled Echoes of the Broodhaven tugged at her attention without explanation. She pulled it gently, and her opal pulsed.

It was enough to remind her that she was not the only one doing the reading in this room.

—

The first several hours passed like a dream.

Goldie had set up in a sprawl of cushions by the oversized globe with a few books she’d pulled from the shelves. She was now flipping through Cryptid Consorts and Their Favorite Weapons, exclaiming with delighted horror at “delicious” intervals.

Nell, meanwhile, had fallen into a rhythm, rifling through the books with a practiced ease. The tomes felt warm in her hands, like they’d held on to the energy of their previous readers.

The first book in her pile was a slim volume in dull gray leather with the title On Sympathetic Frequencies and the Shape of Fate. The text inside was dense and rambling. Sentences looped into themselves. Every so often, a phrase would cut through with terrifying clarity.

Resonance is not just harmony; it is prediction. When two entities hum together, the future bends to accommodate them.

Some materials act as conduit enhancers, particularly opal, aurichalcum, and jet. Objects passed between entities may retain emotional frequency, which may occur unconsciously or with intent.

Nell looked down at the ring on her finger. The opal shimmered faintly and then settled, as if it knew it had been noticed. Is that why it’s been pulsing? she thought. Because of the claim? Because of him?

She flipped through the remaining pages, fingers quick, scanning for another mention of opal, of emotional artifacts, of anything that might confirm or deny the thought clawing its way through her chest. But there was nothing except stubborn, paper-thin silence.

The next book she opened was Echoes of the Broodhaven .

The leather was worn to softness, the gold embossing flaking slightly along the spine.

It opened beneath her fingers to a page already dog-eared, halfway through a chapter titled “Harbingers and Bonding Collapse: Caste Theory in Post-Bond Dynamics.”

Instinctual bonding carries risk, as acceptance of a bond is not compelled and must be accepted by the other party. Should the chosen bondmate refuse or remain unable to accept the bond, the resulting dissonance can lead to profound destabilization.

While outcomes vary by individual, recorded cases include episodes of acute psychological fragmentation, resonance collapse, and, in rare circumstances, systemic failure resulting in death.

Nell gasped.

Goldie looked up sharply from her pillow. “What?” She closed her book and got up to peer over Nell’s shoulder. “What did you find?

Nell swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She pointed to the final sentence with a finger that trembled slightly. “It says that if the bond isn’t accepted, death can result.” She looked up at Goldie, a rising panic growing in her chest. “So—does this mean— oh shit— ”

“Nope.” Goldie’s voice snapped into urgency. “Deep breath, hon. You know how these things are. You read one bad outcome and suddenly everyone’s doomed. We don’t have enough data.”

She strode towards the shelves, fingers fluttering out along the spines as if she was willing a counterexample into existence. “Academic writing loves worst-case scenarios. Give me five minutes and we’ll find five alternate scenarios without breaking a sweat.”

Nell stared down at the page before her. Her eyes couldn’t stop landing on the word death , no matter how many times she tried to move on. Her stomach dropped, a sickening lurch like stepping off a curb in the dark.

Within the stacks, Goldie let out a low whistle. But not her usual theatrical one—this was quieter; surprise laced with caution.

“Honey,” she said softly, “I know this isn’t the counterexample I promised, but…I think you need to see this.”

Nell looked up, pushing her rising fury to the back of her mind and looking over at Goldie, who was staring down at a heavy, leather-bound volume.

Her fingers curled just above the page like she wasn’t sure if touching it again was a good idea.

By the time Nell crossed the room and leaned in beside her, she could already smell the thing.

The book— Structures That Should Not Exist —reeked of old ash and cedar.

Goldie didn’t look away from the page. “It snapped at me when I tried to pull it off the shelf. I thought it was being dramatic, but then I opened it and…” She tapped the page with a single, deliberate finger. “Just read.”

The pages were uneven, with cramped, narrow columns of text. The margins were riddled with cryptic notations, many of them scratched out or overwritten in a second hand. One section bore a jagged tear through its center, as if a reader before them had panicked and tried to erase what they'd seen.

The Lustrum is not a place. It is a threshold. A mirror. A hunger. It reflects what you fear to know and amplifies what already sings inside you. What answers the call may not be what was called, and not all returns are refusals. Some simply remain.

Nell’s stomach dropped.

Goldie frowned, a sharp crease forming between her brows as she glowered at the book like it had personally offended her. Without a word, and marched back to the table, dropping it with a solid thud that made nearby chairs flinch.

Nell followed, the sick feeling in her gut coiling tighter. She looked down at the folder Mr. Lyle had given her, still closed, still heavy. Slowly, she flipped it open. The note was still there—plain paper, typed words, no signature.

Some are born to survive the Lustrum.

Some are born to become it.

If you are reading this, you already know which you are.