Page 44 of Claimed By the Mothman (Greymarket Towers #1)

T he tea kettle shrieked. Steam poured from the spout in thin, whining coils.

It hadn’t been turned on a moment ago.

Sig entered the kitchen a moment later, quiet as breath. His antennae swept low, skimming the air in agitated arcs.

The kettle wailed again, a sharp, aware sound.

Nell picked it up, hand trembling only slightly. The sound cut out. The steam faded.

Her eyes drifted to the drawer by the stove where she’d stashed the note from yesterday. Even from here, she could feel its weight.

The opal ring tightened. She rubbed a thumb against it, but the ring didn’t loosen. If anything, it tightened even further.

Sig moved closer and placed his hands on her shoulders. They didn’t speak. Didn’t name what they were both thinking.

There was no knock, just a sound—clean and wrong—as the apartment door clicked open.

Mr. Lyle stood in the doorway. Spine straight.

Today’s three-piece ensemble was the deep green of pine needles in moonlight.

His tie shimmered faintly at the edges. Gold cufflinks caught the low kitchen light and flashed like polished fangs.

A clipboard was in his hand. His smile was like a paper cut.

“Ms. Townsend,” he said evenly. “Mr. Samora. I see you’ve been busy.”

There was no judgment in his tone, only record-keeping.

“I need to speak with both of you,” he said. “In my office.”

Sig’s claws curled slightly. The floor beneath Nell’s feet didn’t tremble, exactly, but the grain of the wood shifted, as if reacting to some deeper command.

She nodded wordlessly and followed the apartment manager into the hallway. Sig came after, slow and deliberate, each footfall more a choice than a step.

The hallway was wrong, like someone had replaced the original with a replica made from memory. The sconces flickered eerily. The wallpaper pattern, always odd, now slanted subtly, pulling the eye toward Mr. Lyle’s back.

The further they walked, the longer the hallway stretched. Doors that hadn’t been there before appeared as they walked past. When they reached the door at the end of the hallway—clean white wood, no number, no label—it opened beneath Mr. Lyle’s touch.

Inside, the lights were already on. Mr. Lyle gestured toward the two chairs across from his desk.

Nell sat slowly. Sig remained standing. Lyle folded himself into his chair and placed his clasped hands on the desk. The apartment manager rolled his shoulders and looked up, his eyes catching and digging into Nell’s.

“Ms. Townsend, I received word this morning that the Lustrum is not yet appeased,” he said, voice calm and cool as summer rain.

Silenced filled the room, thick as incense.

Sig’s voice cut through it sharply. “You told me the bond would anchor her,” He said sharply. “That survival would be possible if she accepted.”

Mr. Lyle’s eyes flicked to him. “I said it would be possible, yes. But possibility is not certainty.”

He turned his cold eyes back to Nell. “The Lustrum selected you, Ms. Townsend, and you were meant to pass through. Mr. Samora rerouted that equation, and now the Lustrum wants resolution.”

Nell felt the word settle in her bones like frost. “What kind of resolution?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You must return and let the Lustrum make its choice,” the apartment manager said.

“No. ” The word ripped from Sig’s throat.

Nell didn’t flinch. She couldn’t, not when everything inside her had gone still. “Or what?” she whispered.

“Or the building fractures,” Lyle said. “And I am truly sorry, Ms. Townsend, but my responsibility is and always has been to the building itself.”

The opal ring flared on her finger.

“Please know that you are not being punished,” Lyle added. “Merely reoffered.”

Merely. As if he hadn’t just suggested she be fed back to the thing that had nearly unmade her.

“I can give you until tomorrow,” he said, rising smoothly to his feet. “After that, the situation will no longer be in my hands.”

He walked to the office door and opened it without ceremony. “I imagine you have things to discuss.”

Nell stepped into the hallway on legs she barely felt. Sig followed, silent.

Behind them, the office door shut with a sound like the closing of a vault.