Page 28 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
And just like that, I’m awake.
I shuffle to the counter, grab a mug, and pour stale coffee like it’s a defense mechanism. “You mean besides your impromptu death seizure and dramatic rooftop monologue?”
He ignores the jab. “The man who hired me—he called himself Greaves. Paid in sovereigns laced with warding spells. Told me to transport a sealed box. No opening it, no questions.”
“Sounds above board.”
“I was desperate,” Elias says. “I needed the coin. My ship—she—was falling apart. The crew hadn’t been paid in two runs.”
“So you agreed to play magical FedEx for a stranger with cursed gold.”
He shrugs. “I’ve made worse choices.”
I take a sip and wince. “Yeah, well, I’ve dated worse. So who is this Greaves?”
He goes quiet. Looks past me like he’s trying to see through time. “He wore gloves. Always. Spoke like he was bored of being in the same room as everyone else. But what I remember most…”
“What?”
“His eyes,” Elias says. “They weren’t human.”
I freeze.
“You sure?”
“I know what I saw, Sienna. He blinked sideways.”
I swallow. “Well, that’s officially the worst sentence I’ve heard today.”
I grab my father’s journal from the table and slap it open to a flagged page. It’s filled with half-sentences, maps, and coffee rings—his usual chaos. But there, scrawled in the margins in his hurried chicken-scratch, is a name:
Greaves.
Underlined. Twice.
And beneath it: “eyes like glass—do not trust.”
My breath catches.
“Son of a bitch,” I whisper. “He knew.”
Elias leans over my shoulder. He’s close enough that I can feel the air bend between us, like gravity’s been replaced with tension and half-whispered truths.
“That’s your father’s writing?”
“Yeah. He played dumb for years, but he was always looking. Always chasing the next relic, the next riddle.” I slam the book shut. “Guess now I know why he was always three steps away from unraveling.”
Elias stands. “Then we have something. A name. A connection. We follow it.”
“And go where? Greaves doesn’t exactly have a LinkedIn.”
“There’s a place,” he says, eyes darkening. “An old tavern by the cliffs. It used to be neutral ground. Black market trades. Magical smuggling. The kind of place that knew everyone and told nothing.”
I arch a brow. “And you think this place still exists?”
Elias nods. “If Greaves is still working relics through this coast, that’s where we’ll find a whisper of him.”
I grab my bag, the map, the journal, and more backup charms than I’d admit to.
