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Chapter Text

Sally Jackson had been in the Montauk precinct holding cell for approximately ten hours and seventeen minutes, and in that time, she’d learned three things:

1—The metal bench was built by sadists.
2—Officer Delaney’s mustache looked like it was trying to earn a badge of its own.
3—And Cinnamon—real name Jessica, two kids, one ex, one persistent UTI—was surprisingly good company.

They were mid-debate about whether sugar daddies counted as a viable retirement plan when the sound of someone sprinting broke the lull.

Sally sat straighter. A beat later, a blur careened around the corner—

“Mom!”

—and slammed directly into the cell bars.

It was Percy. Very much Percy. Red-faced, panting, curls sticking up like he’d wrestled a hedge and lost. One sleeve was half-off. His left shoe was missing. And in his hands—oh gods—was a giant ring of actual jail keys.

He bounced off the bars like a rubber duck, blinked once, then sprang right back at the lock with the fervor of a squirrel trying to reassemble a blender.

“Hold still, I’ve almost—wait, not that one—janitor closet, janitor closet, broom cupboard—AHA!”

“Percy Jackson,” Sally hissed. “Are those real keys?! Where did you even—how—are you—what?!”
He flashed her a grin like a victorious bandit.

“Borrowed!” he said, like that settled the matter.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Then, from the bench behind her:“Is that your kid?” Cinnamon asked.

Sally, still blinking, nodded slowly. Like if she moved too fast, the universe might double down.

Click.

Sally just stared. At the keys. At the now open door. At her seven-year-old son standing in a police station looking very proud of his felony.

“Wish mine were half as resourceful,” Cinnamon added, completely deadpan.

Sally made a noise that might’ve been agreement—or disbelief—or a small prayer to the father of her child. Probably something profane. Because surely, surely, this part of Percy had to come from his side of the family.

Her brain was still sprinting to catch up, dragging behind like a parent in flip-flops chasing a sugar-high toddler across hot pavement, muttering curses at the sea the whole way.

The cell door creaked—

Then flew open with a bang as Percy barreled through like a pint-sized cannonball and tackled Sally with the kind of ferocious love usually reserved for returning war heroes and limited-edition Pokémon cards.

“Oof—Percy!”

He clung to her like a barnacle, squeezing the breath out of her ribs. Then, just as fast, he peeled back, grabbed both her hands, and yanked.

“Come on! We have to go. Now. Like, right now-right now.. There’s a window—well, there was a window—but it’s fine! We’ve got like two, maybe three minutes before Officer Mustache realizes the taser’s missing—oh, and we need to steal another car—because the first one’s... Hope we don’t—wait, no, it’s fine, you’re with us now, you can drive this time! Then we book it to the marina—steal a dinghy—”

He stopped just long enough to gasp like a fish out of water, eyes wide, curls askew, one hand still fisted in hers like a mission-critical tether.

Sally opened her mouth, ready to demand literally any explanation—

“—and if there aren’t any dinghies,” Percy plowed on, “we just swim! Or hitch a ride on a sea turtle, I don’t know, I’m open to improvisation—but we have to go before Chrysaor finds out we tried a jailbreak without him—”

“Percy!” Sally gasped, still half-draped over the metal bench. “Did you say another car?!”

“Technically the first one doesn’t count,” Percy said, tugging urgently at her arm. “The owner left the keys in the ignition. The problem is we can’t use it anymore because it—uh—you’ll see.”

He tugged like he could physically drag her into his jailbreak scheme with sheer enthusiasm. His curls were plastered to his forehead with sweat, his shirt was stained with something suspiciously red, and he looked elated.

Cinnamon gave a low whistle, shaking her head with the slow, seasoned weight of a woman who’d seen some things and wasn’t easy to impress.

“He’s precocious,” she said, eyeing Percy like one might regard a particularly clever raccoon. “Don’t worry, hon. With a mind like that, he’ll do just fine in juvie.”

She paused. “Might even run the place by Tuesday.”

Juvie?

Over her dead body!

Sally shook her head, teeth clenched, and pushed to her feet. Percy stumbled a little, not expecting the sudden shift in weight, but recovered quickly.

She glanced back at Cinnamon, who just waved a hand and lounged deeper against the bench like this was her third matinee of the week.

“Don’t mind me,” Cinnamon said airily. “I’m just here because Officer Delaney’s badge ain’t the only thing he likes to flash.”

She paused—eyes flicking to Percy—then added smoothly, “Man asked for a very specific kind of back massage, and got real offended when I mentioned a price. Guess he thought the badge came with a discount.”

She winked. “Suddenly, I’m resisting arrest.”

Sally opened her mouth—maybe to object, maybe to commiserate—but Cinnamon waved her off with a perfectly manicured hand.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s part of the job. Delaney tries that every few months when he’s short on cash and the missus is icing him out.”

She leaned back against the bench with a sigh, like this was just another day.

“I’ll stew here for a few hours, let him feel important, then negotiate it down to a chatty kneecap inspection. Be home in time to make the kids waffles.”

Percy paused mid-tug, popped his head around Sally’s side, and gave Cinnamon a polite, earnest wave.

“Sorry, miss, but we really need to go now. Bye!”

Then he resumed yanking her arm with renewed urgency.

This time, Sally followed—half-running, half-dragged—chasing her lunatic son down the fluorescent-lit corridors of the Montauk precinct, heels echoing like warning bells behind them.

They rounded the second corner at full tilt—

And Sally nearly tripped over her own feet.

A policewoman lay sprawled on the linoleum, one leg twitching intermittently like a malfunctioning marionette. Her right arm was mottled with red indentations—like teeth. Her uniform was torn at the shoulder, her name tag hanging by a single thread. Blood streaked down from one nostril, already swelling, and her baton lay a few feet away.

Sally’s eyes flicked from the bloody baton to the gnawed forearm to Percy.

He offered a sheepish little smile. “She tried to stop me from stealing her keys.”

Sally stared at him. Then stared a little longer.

“You bit a police officer?”

“She wouldn’t let go!” he hissed, scandalized.

“And the baton?”

“She grabbed me! After the taser!”

“You used a taser?!”

“She was still moving!”

Sally squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled slowly through her nose like she could breathe in enough patience to counteract divine genetics.

“Percy,” she said, voice low and fierce, “violence is not the answer.”

He blinked. “But it worked with Gabe!”

Something in her chest twisted.

She didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t. Her breath caught halfway between outrage and heartbreak. The fluorescent lights above them buzzed, indifferent.

“That’s not the point,” she said finally, quietly. “It’s okay to defend yourself. But that wasn’t defending. That was—” she gestured vaguely toward the crumpled officer with her free hand.

Percy’s mouth opened. Closed. He looked down at their joined hands, fingers still locked tight from the jailbreak, and gave a tiny, shamefaced shrug.

“…She wanted to stop me from freeing you.”

Sally shook her head, not at him, but at everything that had brought them to this moment.

She squeezed his hand tighter. “Not anymore, baby. Not if I can help it.”

They took off again. Percy ran—reckless, determined, still clinging to her hand like a lifeline—and Sally followed because what else could she do? Her heels clacked against the linoleum, heart pounding somewhere in the back of her throat.

They were almost at the stairwell when a voice rasped out behind them:

“You little shit,” the officer snarled, voice thick with blood and rage. “When I get my hands on you, I’m gonna break every bone in your spoiled little—”

Sally stopped.

Cold.

Percy stumbled at the sudden halt and made a confused noise.

Sally didn’t think.

She whirled around and stormed back down the corridor like retribution in clearance flats. The officer was trying to sit up. Sally didn’t let her. She planted her foot—square, solid, decades of pent-up rage behind it—right in the woman’s face.

Her jaw snapped sideways and she slumped flat again.

Silence.

Sally exhaled, shook out her ankle, and turned.

Percy gawked at her like she’d sprouted wings and torched the precinct. “Wow, Mom. I thought violence wasn’t the answer!”

“Violence is not the answer,” she said tightly. “Unless someone threatens my kid.”

Percy blinked. “So it’s okay if you do the kicking?”

Sally grabbed his hand again. “Parental privilege. Don’t push it.”

And they ran up the stairs.

They burst out of the stairwell—

And straight into a war zone.

The front lobby of the precinct had been obliterated.

Chrysaor’s golden Chrysler sat dead center, halfway through the front windows and still steaming. One door hung open like a dislocated limb. Shards of glass sparkled across the lobby tiles, catching the pulsing red-blue light from the squad cars outside. A potted plant had been decapitated. A printer lay on its side like it had fainted from shock.

Somehow, impossibly, the car itself looked immaculate—gleaming, smug, and entirely unrepentant.

Outside, flashing red and blue lights painted the chaos in urgent bursts. Sirens wailed. A firetruck’s ladder had been raised for some reason Sally didn’t want to contemplate.

Inside, it was bedlam.

The acrid stench of smoke and overheated engine filled the air. A fire alarm blared. Sprinklers dripped. An officer staggered past clutching a coffee pot like it was the only thing holding him together. Another was applying pressure to his partner’s forehead with a towel. The Chief was directing people out of the building, shouting over the radio for paramedics, the body cam footage, and someone named DeMarco ’who better not be hiding in the bathroom again!’.

And in the middle of the chaos were three hysterical women.

One of them—wild curls tangled with pine needles, lipstick smeared across her cheek—was stumbling in circles, shrieking at the top of her lungs as two officers tried to calm her down. “He tried to grab us!” she wailed. “He followed us out of the water—”

Another was crouched on the tile, arms wrapped around a steaming mug like a lifeline. Her lavender hair was tangled with debris and clinging damply to her cheeks, and her long sleeves were soaked and streaked with dirt. Her hands trembled so badly she could barely hold onto the cup.

“I didn’t mean to hit the mailbox,” she said, voice shaking. “Or the fountain. Or the—oh gods, the statue of the dog—”

The third sat ramrod straight against the wall, hands folded in her lap like a debutante at a funeral. Her skin was dusted in delicate blue petals—everywhere, like she'd run through a hailstorm of hydrangeas and never stopped. Her perfectly coiled hair had half unraveled down her shoulders in limp, glossy ringlets the color of sunburnt rose.

“He said if we screamed,” she whispered hoarsely, “he’d make sure no one ever found us.”

The officers surrounding them looked paralyzed—caught somewhere between attempting first aid and preparing handcuffs. One kept glancing between his notepad and the Chrysler like it might confess. Another was clearly just trying not to cry.

The curly-haired one gasped like she’d just remembered something vital. She whirled on the nearest officer, eyes wide with fresh terror. “And he had a weapon! Maybe it was a sword? It glinted!” She threw an arm over her face, stumbling backward. “I was too busy crying to tell!”

One of the officers reached for her elbow.

She recoiled like he’d drawn a knife.

Sally could only stare.

They looked like three extras from a Greek tragedy who had absolutely committed to method acting.

The lavender-haired one wailed from the floor, her head now between her knees. “I didn’t even know what a brake was!” she sobbed. “I just kept pressing things! One of them made it go faster!”

“We were trying to escape!” said the blue-petaled one, with brittle composure. “He was distracted by the foghorn—we ran for it. The car was just there! Thankfully the keys were in the ignition.”

Percy skidded to a stop beside Sally, panting, curls wild and cheeks flushed. “Okay,” he said, breathless but smug, “they managed to buy us time.”

Sally blinked.

Took in the car. The smoke. The wailing. The press of bodies, the barking orders, the radio static, the utter pandemonium that had become the Montauk precinct.

And all she could think was:

What the hell had Chrysaor done to her mostly-behaved son to turn him into a criminal mastermind?

The thought had barely finished forming when a voice bellowed, booming through the precinct.

“PERCY JACKSON!”

Her son squeaked. “Oh no.”

Sally turned just in time to see a furious Chrysaor shove past two very startled officers. His mask gleamed under the fluorescent lights, catching on every edge like a blade unsheathed.

As if on cue, all three women turned toward the entrance with uncanny synchronicity.

They pointed—arms shaking, fingers outstretched—and wailed in one tragic, trembling chorus:

“It’s HIM!”

Every officer in the lobby jolted. Hands flew to holsters. Safeties clicked off. Batons were raised. One particularly nervous recruit pulled out pepper spray and aimed it directly at his own face.

Chrysaor stopped mid-stride.

And then, very slowly, his right hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.

Sally could feel the room tense—every breath held, every muscle drawn tight, every officer’s finger hovering on a trigger or taser or whatever they thought would help against what they didn’t know was a literal immortal with a bad temper and a blade older than America.

Then—

FWEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

A shrill whistle exploded through the air from the mezzanine above, high and piercing and impossibly loud.

Sally dropped like she’d been shot, hands clamped over her ears. Around her, the entire room crumpled—officers, civilians, her son’s three accomplices—everyone but Chrysaor and Percy hit the floor with a yelp. Radios shrieked static. Coffee cups shattered.

Sally looked up through the ringing in her skull just in time to see Chrysaor twist toward the source.

He stared upward. Froze.

His hand fell from his sword. His whole posture faltered.

Then, loud and utterly dumbfounded, he blurted:

“Callirrhoe?!”

Chapter Text

A few days ago....

Sally had always loved Montauk.

Not the postcards or the tourists or the glossy summer brochures—but the real Montauk. The crooked fences. The wind-chapped porches. Where sand that got into your socks no matter what shoes you wore. Where salt that stuck to your skin and stayed in your clothes, no matter how many times you washed them.

The Montauk where the seagulls swore like dockworkers, and the shutters creaked all night in the wind. Where winter didn't bother with charm, just rolled in off the water with wet breath and no apologies.

She used to come here on the bus, back when she still believed a weekend could change a life. A battered paperback in her lap. A bag that smelled like coffee grounds and laundromat soap. Twenty dollars in her pocket. She was young. In love. Hopeful enough to ignore the warning signs, and naive enough to pretend she wasn’t scared.

It had been the site of her happiest days. And her hardest. Joy and heartbreak pressed into the same sand, indistinguishable now—like footprints washed out by the tide.

It was the place where she first said yes to something impossible.

The place where she let herself believe she could have more.

The place that gave her Percy.

Later, it became the place she came back to with a stroller and swollen eyes, pushing through damp sand and broken shells with a laugh that was half-mad from sleep deprivation. Percy would squeal when the wind tousled his curls, pudgy fists full of seaweed, and for a few seconds at a time, she’d believe they might actually make it.

She never brought Gabe.

Some places didn’t deserve to be ruined.

Montauk never gave her answers. Just space.

Space to grieve, to love, to rebuild.

A pause between storms.

And now—years later, with her life cracked open again in new and terrifying ways—this was where her feet had carried her.

Back to the edge.

To start again.

To see, maybe, if there was still something left in her of the girl who once believed the sea could love her back.

She sat cross-legged in the sand, boots half-buried in a tangle of dunegrass and wind-dried seaweed, one hand stuffed in her coat pocket, the other clutching a styrofoam cup of gas station coffee gone cold.

Her thighs were already going numb from the damp. The wind gnawed at her face, crept down her collar, stung her ears. She hadn’t brought a hat. Her breath fogged faintly in the air, then disappeared like it had second thoughts.

In front of her: the Atlantic, slate-colored and endless.

Nothing romantic about it this time of year. Just a flat gray mass, glassy and pitiless, stretching out toward nothing.

Behind her: the cabin.

Blue shutters sun-bleached to gray. White clapboard siding faded and salt-scuffed where the wind hit hardest. It crouched low between two dunes, squat and stubborn, like it had weathered one storm too many and was daring the next to try.

Its porch opened straight onto sand. No fence. No sidewalk. No polite barrier between living room and ocean—just a sagging plank walkway, a few tufts of dunegrass, and the sound of the surf dragging itself up and down the beach like it was too tired to care anymore.

The real estate agent’s car had vanished around the bend fifteen minutes ago, tires crunching down the gravel road and fading to silence. The man had been friendly. Talked too much. Kept mentioning low investment potential and “rising sea levels” like he was trying to sell her on her own drowning.

The cabin wasn’t big. Or modern.

And it was only affordable because every coastal erosion map predicted the whole lot would be underwater in twenty years. Maybe ten.

Sally took a sip of her cold coffee, winced, and let the bitterness sit on her tongue like penance.

She knew what the maps said. She’d read the reports. Heard the forecasts.

But she also had a vague idea of who to call if the ocean started getting ideas.

(Not that he picked up. Not anymore. But still—she didn’t think he’d be cruel enough to swallow his son’s home.)

She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees, chin resting just above the zipper of her coat. Somewhere behind her, a gull gave a long, rasping cry like it was warning the sky not to get too close. The tide rolled in a little farther, cold foam licking at the edge of her boots, and she didn’t move.

There was nowhere else she wanted to be.

It needed work. The porch railing had a lean to it, and she’d bet anything the plumbing groaned in the winter. But the windows faced the sunrise. The kitchen had real tile. The upstairs nook was just wide enough for a twin bed under the eaves—perfect for a boy who liked forts and the sound of rain on the roof.

She could see it, if she let herself.

Percy, stick in hand, chasing gulls across the beach like a tiny maniac. Complaining about sand in his socks. Drawing sea monsters in fogged-up windows while she made breakfast. His sneakers dumped by the door, his laughter echoing off the walls, the whole place cluttered with damp towels and loud stories.

There’d be wind. And dishes to scrub. She’d knock on the glass when it was time for Percy’s chores. He’d ignore her. She’d yell. He’d yell back. She’d pretend to be mad.

But there’d be mountains of cookies, too. Blue, of course. Fortified with too much food coloring and a questionable amount of baking soda. Percy would insist on helping and somehow get flour in the light fixtures. They’d argue about bedtime, and then he’d fall asleep on the couch with his head in her lap, sticky fingers curled in the hem of her shirt.

She’d write again, maybe.

Not anything publishable. Just letters she’d never send. Grocery lists. Jokes Percy told her at breakfast. Fragments of dreams. Little things. A life, tracked in ink.

Maybe she’d remember what it felt like to want something and believe she could have it.

And Percy—

Percy would have a home. One with waves instead of walls closing in. One that didn’t reek of beer or fear or settling.

One where he could grow wild and unafraid.

A boy who didn’t flinch at slammed doors.

A boy who laughed more than he cried.

A boy with salt in his hair and a god’s blood in his veins, and a home that wouldn’t apologize for either.

She let the vision go, slow and quiet, like setting something precious back on a high shelf. It folded back into the cold and the wind and the coffee gone bitter in her cup.

She closed her eyes, let the sound of the sea fill the hollow space behind her ribs.

Then—

“Well now,” said a voice behind her, bright and birdlike. “You’re sitting like someone who just met a real estate agent.”

Sally turned, blinking against the wind.

The woman standing behind her couldn’t have been less threatening if she tried.

Small and round, wrapped in layers of knitwear that ranged in shade from oatmeal to earnest, she looked like a tea cozy had been given sentience and a driver’s license. Her white hair frizzed out from beneath a bobbled hat, and her mittens were connected by a cord that looped through the sleeves of her coat like she’d lost them one too many times and decided not to risk it.

She smiled, the kind of smile that came with hard candy in a dish and unsolicited but strangely accurate advice.

“Oh don’t mind me,” the woman chirped. “I saw you out here and thought, ’now there’s someone in need of a warm beverage and a second opinion’.”

Sally blinked again, trying to recalibrate from the emotional cliff she’d just been teetering on.

“Uh,” she managed. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” said the woman. “Mabel. I run the bed-and-breakfast just next door.” She gestured vaguely behind her, toward the larger house tucked back into the dunes.

“I saw the sign in the cabin’s window go down earlier. Figured someone finally got a look inside.” She gave Sally a knowing nod. “Let me guess. You’re in love, it’s slightly out of budget, and you’re pretending that twenty years of erosion forecasts are just a suggestion.”

Sally made a sound that might’ve been a laugh or a cough. “That transparent, huh?”

“Only to someone who did the same thing five years ago with a worse roof and a bat colony in the attic.”

She stepped forward, carefully navigating a patch of icy sand, and held out a gloved hand. “You’ve got the look of someone who needs a hot drink and no judgment. Lucky for you, I’m excellent at both.”

Sally took the offered hand, still off-balance from the emotional whiplash. “Sally.”

Mabel beamed. “Lovely name.” Her eyes drifted toward the cabin, then back again. “Are you planning to live here with your…”

She paused—hesitating.

“…husband?”

Sally blinked. “My—”

She turned.

A few feet behind her, doing an objectively terrible job of hiding behind the spotty mailbox, was the beluga-headed sailor Chrysaor had saddled her with.

He was crouched like he thought that made him less noticeable, which was impressive for a creature built like a refrigerator with fins. His tiny woolen beanie clung to the top of his smooth, domed head by some mysterious defiance of physics. The rest of him was swallowed in a massive woolen sweater—bright red, offensively festive, and covered in knit sea creatures wearing Santa hats.

He waved. Then gave an encouraging double thumbs-up.

Sally turned back to Mabel. “Oh, he’s not my husband,” she said, too fast. “He’s… my brother.”

Her brain caught up a beat late.

Her brother? Really?

What the hell, Sally.

But Mabel just blinked—and smiled a bit too brightly, as if that had been the expected answer all along.

“Lovely,” she said, entirely unbothered. “Family’s important.”

She gave the sailor another glance—curious, not judgmental—and added, “He’s got kind eyes, your brother. Bit odd in the forehead, but that happens. You should’ve seen my Harold when his sinuses acted up.”

Sally offered a polite, slightly strained smile, wondering what the Mist might be showing her.

The wind kicked up again. Mabel tucked her mittened hands into her sleeves with the casual efficiency of someone who’d done this dance with December more times than she could count.

“So,” she said, almost idly, “did the place steal your heart, or are you still pretending you can walk away from it?”

Sally hesitated. “That… depends.”

“On money, housing, employment, and whether or not you can handle local gossip?”

“Something like that.”

“Well.” Mabel adjusted her scarf with a brisk tug. “You’ll need a place to stay while you think it over. I have a room open, and I make a very forgiving kind of tea. Come on, before your legs freeze off. That sand is wet murder this time of year.”

Sally hesitated. She wasn’t in the habit of trusting strangers in cardigans who talked like ex-nuns and smelled faintly of cinnamon and furniture polish.

But she was cold. And tired. And the wind had started to creep through the seams of her coat like it had been waiting its turn.

“…Alright,” she said finally. “Just for the night.”

Mabel smiled wider. “That’s what they all say.”

They left the beach behind, following a narrow path half-swallowed by sea grass and gravel. The wind quieted slightly once they ducked behind the dune, muffled by the slope and the spine of gnarled beach pine rising like bent ribs along the ridge.

“I bought it about five years ago,” Mabel said, nodding toward the sloping Victorian house nestled into the dunes like a relic left behind by a gentler century. Its eaves wore frost like lace. The windowpanes glowed faintly with lamplight, soft and golden, like the promise of a storybook.

“Fell in love the moment I saw it—though the shingles were hanging like wet laundry and the porch steps tried to eat my ankle on day one.”

Sally glanced at her. “And you bought it anyway?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Mabel adjusted her cardigan, voice bright. “It was all rot and bad wiring and something living in the chimney. But it felt like it was waiting for someone. And I was tired of waiting, too.”

She gave a cheerful shrug. “Took me two years and most of my savings to make it livable. The chimneys still throw tantrums every time the wind changes, but I’ve had worse roommates.”

They reached the gate—a tall, weathered arch of brickwork and iron lattice, flanked by two posts that leaned slightly inward, like they were bowing to greet newcomers. Ivy curled around one post like a shawl someone had forgotten to take in for winter. Mabel nudged it open with the toe of her boot, and it swung wide with a soft creak.

“Everyone said I was mad. Said I should’ve taken up knitting or card games or ballroom dancing. Something age-appropriate.”

Sally looked at her sideways. “And instead you… started a bed-and-breakfast?”

“Oh, yes,” Mabel chirped. “Terrible decision. Absolutely awful. The roof was an embarrassment, the wallpaper was held up by prayer, and the plumbing had opinions about everything.”

She paused to tuck a strand of hair back under her hat, eyes twinkling.

“But I figured—why not?” she said, like it was that simple. “If you’re going to upend your life, might as well do it loudly and with breakfast included.”

Sally smiled despite herself. “So it was a midlife crisis?”

Mabel huffed. “Hardly. A crisis is when you panic. I was deliberate.” She gave a crisp nod, mittens swinging. “And please—I passed midlife two acts ago. This is the part where I steal the show in a fabulous hat and refuse to die quietly.”

They stepped onto the porch. The floorboards creaked under their weight like they were waking up from a nap. A ceramic duck wearing a scarf watched from beside the door, as if it had been left to guard the place and took the job very seriously.

“Anyway,” Mabel added breezily, “the house was lonely. And so was I. We made a deal.”

She opened the front door with a firm twist of the knob. It swung inward with the tired sigh of old hinges and a rush of warm air that smelled like cinnamon, chamomile, and something buttery just past baking. A brass bell above the door gave a single, cheerful jingle.

The heat hugged her, settling into her bones like a sigh. The entryway was narrow and welcoming, filled with books stacked in corners, pictures hung too close together, and the soft glow of mismatched lamps. There were boot trays by the door and hooks with real coats hanging from them.

“Welcome in,” Mabel said, like she meant it. “The radiators complain, but the walls don’t judge.”

And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Sally felt herself exhale without meaning to. Just a little.

Not safe. Not yet.

But… close.

Chapter Text

The inside of the B&B was cozy in the way old quilts are: slightly faded, a little frayed at the corners, but somehow warmer for it—like the space itself had softened over time and grown into its welcome.

The foyer smelled like pine cleaner and cinnamon, sharp and sweet at once. It reminded her of a kitchen radio playing too loud, her mom’s hands covered in flour, and the warmth of rising dough on a winter morning. A memory from before the phone call that changed everything.

A battered umbrella stand leaned companionably against the wall, and above it, the wallpaper bloomed with faded roses—pink and gold, their edges curling like old stationery. A coat rack shaped like a seahorse stood sentinel by the door, its wrought-iron horns weighed down by a tangle of hand-knitted scarves and one ominously large sunhat.

Sally stepped over the threshold and let the warmth hit her in the face. She hadn’t realized how cold her fingers were until they started to sting.

Behind her came the sound of someone significantly larger than a doorframe realizing it a second too late.

Her bodyguard-slash-fake-brother had attempted to duck through the entry. He had miscalculated. His beluga-sized forehead had connected solidly with the top of the frame, producing a reverberating thwok that made the coat rack shiver slightly in sympathy.

He had frozen on impact, crouched like a startled thief mid-crime, shoulders hunched, both hands pressed to his dome as though sheer embarrassment might compress him into invisibility.

Mabel, twenty feet ahead and already halfway down the hall, didn’t even look back. “Mind the lintel, dear,” she called, calm as a cat in church. “It’s old and vengeful.”

The sailor gave Sally a thumbs-up, clearly trying to pretend his eyes weren’t watering. His beanie had slid back and now perched at a precarious angle, like a squirrel mid-slide on a frozen birdbath. Between the sweater and the hat and the slightly dazed squint, he looked like a mime who’d failed clown school and still wasn’t over it.

A laugh escaped before she could stop it—small, surprised, and half-swallowed by the room’s warmth. It startled her more than the sailor’s run-in with the doorframe. Shoulders slightly shaking with her giggles, she stepped further in, boots creaking against the time-softened floorboards.

“Parlor’s to the left,” Mabel said, gesturing with a mittened hand. “Bathroom’s up the stairs, first door on the right—ignore the humming, it’s just the pipes. If you hear groaning, assume they’re gossiping about you and carry on.”

“I’ll put the kettle on,” she added, disappearing toward what smelled like the beating heart of the house—warm citrus, something yeasty, and the quiet clatter of ceramic mugs.

Sally exhaled and let her coat fall open. For the first time in days, the knot between her shoulders eased half an inch.

The parlor was a riot of florals and crocheted comfort. The wallpaper was a gentle yellow, peeling a little at the seams, and the armchairs sagged with the sort of generosity that invited you to stay longer than you meant to. A cast-iron stove purred in the corner, its fire crackling softly.

Sally hovered in the doorway for a second, letting the warmth soak into her frozen skin, before stepping inside and settling onto a love seat with cabbage roses and doilies draped like lace collars.

Her muscles ached—tired, not from the walk, but from years of holding herself taut against the world.

The sailor followed her in. After a moment of silent calculation, he selected the daintiest chair in the vicinity—a delicate thing with needlepoint cushions and spindly legs— and lowered himself with exaggerated care.

The chair let out a noise of protest that was somewhere between a creak and a deathbed sigh.

Sally winced.

The sailor gave a hopeful smile, adjusted his massive sweater, and tried to look smaller. It did not work. His knees were practically at his chin, his arms tucked in like an apologetic afterthought.

She frowned, not unkindly.

“…I don’t even know your name,” she said, more to herself than to him.

He perked up immediately, eyes bright, and let out a friendly string of dolphin trills.

She blinked.

Right. Dolphin-head meant dolphin vocal cords.

That was going to be a problem.

Claiming someone as your brother was one thing. Realizing you didn’t know his name and couldn’t even ask was… less than ideal. Especially if this charade was going to last longer than, say, five minutes.

He trilled again, helpfully.

With a sigh, Sally rummaged through her bag, and emerged victorious with a battered notepad and a promotional pen from a dentist’s office she hadn’t visited in three years. She handed both across the coffee table.

He accepted them with both hands, hunched like a kid at a school desk, and wrote something carefully. Then flipped the pad around.

Δαμοστράτης

Sally stared.

It took a second for her brain to engage—rusty Greek vowels knocking around in the dusty attic of her abandoned college education. The name clicked into meaning on a delay, somewhere between “Hey, I used to be good at this” and “Right. You dropped out after one semester because you were nineteen, pregnant, and broke.”

“Damostrates,” she read, with the deep uncertainty of someone unearthing old homework and praying for partial credit.

He nodded, beaming.

Then, he struck a neat line through the second half of the name.

Δαμος

“Damos,” she repeated.

Now that she could work with.

“Less of a mouthful,” she muttered to herself.

Bless him. This was her life now, apparently. Creating a backstory for her beluga-headed bodyguard.

Her fingers toyed with the corner of the notepad, absently smoothing the edge. Once upon a time, she’d wanted to be a writer. Nothing grand. Nothing bestselling. Just… someone who got to tell stories and share them with people who cared enough to listen.

Maybe a little bookstore signing, she used to dream. Maybe a weekend reading group. Paperbacks with cracked spines and notes in the margins. A quiet life where words mattered more than worry.

Her creative writing professor, a kind-eyed man with ink-stained sleeves and permanent coffee breath, used to say, “You have to know your character before you put them on the page, or they’ll mutiny halfway through chapter three.”

Sally glanced at the notepad again.

Well. Too late for that. This one had probably led a mutiny once.

Sally sighed. “Okay, big guy,” she muttered. “Let’s write you into the script.”

Then, louder, “Right. You’re my brother now. You’re mute—tragic accident, still too fresh, we don’t talk about it. We reconnected after I finally left my ex. You decided to come with me to Montauk because you’re overprotective and terrible with boundaries.”

Sally exhaled through her nose. “Perfect. That’s the story. Try to look tragic and devoted.”

Damos nodded so hard his beanie nearly launched itself across the room. Then he threw in a double thumbs-up for good measure.

He beamed.

She stared. “...Close enough.”

She reclined into the loveseat with a sigh, the kind that untangled itself from deep in her chest. The fire crackled, the teapot clinked in the distance, and even without Percy around, her life remained a bottomless well of absurdity.

“Gods,” she muttered, half-amused. “What is my life?”

Damos, the helpful gentleman, noticed her shiver and leaned forward to offer her a floral throw blanket. He presented it like a knight offering up a relic—head tilted, arms outstretched, pure pageantry.

She took it with a wry smile—just as something slid loose behind it.

There was a soft clatter, followed by a crack of splintering glass. Sally jerked upright.

A frame had fallen from the pillow’s hiding place and struck the coffee table at an angle. The glass had fractured in a spiderweb across the surface, but not enough to obscure the image.

Sally leaned in to retrieve it.

It was a photo—faded at the corners, the colors soft with age. A younger Mabel sat upright in a hospital bed, hair darker and face round with youth and exhaustion, cradling a newborn to her chest. The baby’s skin was blotchy and pink, wrapped in a striped hospital blanket. Mabel wasn’t smiling at the camera; she was looking down at the infant like the rest of the world had fallen away.

Sally’s breath caught. She set the frame carefully on the table, like gentleness could undo the crack.

When Mabel reappeared a moment later, balancing three mismatched mugs and a plate of neatly sliced tea cakes on a wooden tray painted with forget-me-nots, Sally began to stammer an apology.

But Mabel simply set the tray down, lifted the fallen frame, and—without looking at it—walked it to a corner sideboard. She set it down face-down behind a potted fern, where it promptly disappeared from sight.

Then she turned back with a pleasant smile and offered Sally a cup.

“Tea,” she said. “Best taken with a slice of cake and no unnecessary guilt.”

Sally took the mug with both hands, fingers curling around the warmth. For a moment, the only sounds were the soft tick of a wall clock and the fire’s quiet crackle.

Mabel eased into the nearest armchair, her own mug balanced on one knee.

The plate of cakes looked like it belonged in a five-star restaurant. There were dense squares of gingerbread with molasses-dark edges, crumbly oatcakes studded with blackcurrant and clove, and small shortbread moons dusted with powdered sugar and a whisper of lavender.

Sally said something about the cakes being heavenly, and that was all the invitation Mabel needed. The next few minutes slid easily into a back-and-forth on flour ratios, butter brands, and whether baking soda ever truly forgave you for forgetting the vinegar.

Damos, perched delicately on his undersized chair, gave his best mute brother performance—nodding sagely, offering heartfelt thumbs-up, and pantomiming such profound appreciation for each bite that he could’ve won an award for “Silent Supportive Sibling: Dessert Division.”

The fire crackled, the clock ticked, and for a few gentle beats, it was a pleasant afternoon.

“The trick with shortbread is cold butter and colder hands,” Mabel said conversationally. “Otherwise it spreads too wide, goes flat at the edges—makes a mess of the tin. I used to keep a marble slab in the fridge just for kneading dough, back when—Was it your brother who put those bruises on you, dear? Or did you get them walking into a door?”

Sally choked mid-sip.

A cough seized her lungs as tea went the wrong way—scalding her throat, making her eyes water. She grabbed for a napkin, barely catching the mug before it slipped, and only just managed to avoid baptizing Mabel’s tray in cinnamon brew.

Across from her, Mabel didn’t flinch. Just sipped her tea with mild interest, as if she’d asked about the weather.

Sally followed her gaze—down to the yellowing bruise curling across her wrist, just above the edge of her sleeve. Her fingers stiffened around the mug.

It came back too quickly: the kitchen light too bright overhead, the way the linoleum had dug into her hip when she’d hit the floor, the meaty sound of Gabe’s voice barking—

Mabel’s voice, still sweet as sugared lemon peel, cut clean through the memory.

“I hit a lot of doors in my youth too, dear. For years, actually.”

Sally looked up. Mabel wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at Damos—beaming with the serene, grandmotherly delight of someone watching a particularly fat squirrel discover birdseed.

“One day, though,” Mabel went on, gently taking a bite of her scone, “my hand slipped. And my poor Rupert had a tragic allergic reaction to the dessert I made him for our anniversary.”

Damos froze mid-sip. His eyes darted to Sally, then back to Mabel.

“You would not believe,” Mabel added cheerfully, “how much my spatial awareness improved after that.”

She smiled at Damos.

Damos, who had just managed to wedge an entire fruit tart on a fork, made a noise somewhere between a honk and a squeal. The tea in his mouth went down the wrong pipe, back up the wrong pipe, and then forward into his mug in a tidy arc. He stared at the cake slice in his hand like it might spontaneously sprout a walnut and kill him too.

Then, very carefully, he set it down.

Mabel patted his knee. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I only poison the lemon tarts on Tuesdays.”

Damos let out a breathy sigh of relief—then promptly took a bite of his cake, like a man who’d narrowly escaped execution and decided to celebrate with dessert.

Today was Friday.

Sally didn’t know whether to laugh or confiscate the plate.

Mabel, naturally, just smiled. Sweet as cake.

“Oh—no!” Sally blurted as her brain tripped over itself in a full-body panic, nearly sloshing tea onto her lap. “No, Damos didn’t—he would never—he’s…”

She flailed a hand vaguely in his direction.

Damos was seated primly on the dainty chair like the most precious debutante to ever grace a tea party. His knees were crossed, posture perfect, his oversized mug held delicately in both hands—pinky finger arched with such elegance it could’ve been sculpted. His eyes were wide, watery, and glistening with all the heartbreak of a soap opera finale.

Sally knew that look. She’d been emotionally blackmailed by smaller, deadlier versions of it. Percy had weaponized those eyes from the age of two.

“He’s about as dangerous as a golden retriever in a Christmas sweater,” she finished lamely.

Damos gave a muffled mwrrph? of protest around a mouthful of cake, which didn’t exactly help.

“I tripped,” Sally said quickly.

The lie was automatic. A reflex.

But the second the words left her mouth, something shifted. Not in Mabel—who only sipped her tea with that same patient calm—but in Sally herself. The excuse hung there, hollow, and for the first time… it felt unnecessary.

Gabe was gone. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. There was no one listening for her answers with a fist behind the question.

She didn’t have to lie.

The realization settled with dizzying clarity, like air rushing into a sealed room. Lightness bloomed in her chest—strange, uncertain, but real.

“No,” she said softly. “That’s not true. You’re right. I didn’t trip.”

She traced the rim of her mug with one finger. “They’re from my ex. He—he wasn’t a good man. But I left. I got out.” A breath. “That’s why I’m here. Montauk. I’m trying to start over.”

Mabel’s expression didn’t change much—still that same pleasant smile—but now it reached all the way to her eyes. It softened the edges of her face, made her look younger somehow, or perhaps just less carefully arranged.

“Welcome to freedom, dear,” she said gently. “I promise—it’s less scary than it looks.”

Chapter Text

Sally woke to the slow creak of floorboards expanding in the morning warmth and the soft weight of too many blankets.

Sunlight spilled through the angled windows in golden shafts, catching on pale wood beams and worn stone like an old photograph come to life. The bed beneath her was absurdly comfortable—like sleeping in a slice of warm toast wrapped in wool and good intentions. A fortress of layered quilts, linen sheets and a knitted throw that felt like someone’s grandmother had wished protection into every loop. The mattress cradled her, like it meant to learn all her hopes and dreams.

There was a lingering knot in her neck, but the bed itself was heaven. She’d never slept so well in her life.

Mabel had shown her to the room with a wink and an antique brass key. No talk of payment, no forms to sign. Just a firm pat on the shoulder and a “You’ll take the blue room. It suits you.”

She hadn’t noticed the silence at first, but now that she did, it was astonishing.

She didn’t remember the last time she’d woken up without flinching from a car horn or the sound of someone dragging their trash cans up the sidewalk like they had a vendetta.

Sally stretched beneath the covers and stared at the morning light playing on the opposite wall, blinking back the fog of sleep.

The room was large, but not in a chain hotel way. Big like a library with too many stories. Big like a hug.

There were sloped walls and thick beams like tired shoulders, windows tucked in odd corners as if the house had grown them by accident while reaching for the sea. The bed sat squarely in the center, framed by tall corner posts, facing a stone fireplace that looked perfectly capable of keeping even ghosts cozy. Two mismatched chairs flanked the hearth like they’d been bickering there for years. A painted chest sat at the foot of the bed, its blue faded to the color of old postcards.

Last night came back in warm flashes: tea and firelight, gingerbread and stories neither of them had quite meant to tell.

They’d talked for hours—curled in armchairs, feet tucked beneath crocheted blankets. Two women orbiting one another’s memories with the care of people who knew the weight of being seen.

Mabel spoke of travels and losses, of old names and stranger cities, dropping each anecdote like a sugar cube into tea—melting slowly, altering the taste by degrees. Sally found herself answering in kind, not with big revelations, but with little truths that had nowhere else to go: a failed manuscript, a forgotten dream, a recipe her mother used to make.

By the time the lemony roast chicken was gone and the chocolate tart half-demolished, Sally still couldn’t tell which parts of Mabel were real and which were narrative garnish—but she’d offered up pieces of herself too, and somehow, that felt like enough.

She still didn’t know how to describe Mabel though.

The woman was a mystery in a cardigan. A patchwork quilt of other people’s lives stitched together with uncanny calm and lemon zest. The kind of woman who kept spare umbrellas, excellent whiskey, and at least three escape plans at all times. Sally had spent hours with her and still felt like she’d only read the prologue.

And the strangest part? Sally liked her.

She liked the way Mabel poured tea with the same precision she delivered threats. That she could spot a bruise and offer both sympathy and plausible deniability. That she could bake like a friendly grandma, and still carry the quiet weight of a woman who had done what needed doing.

Sally exhaled. The room felt warm. Safe.

Which was still an unfamiliar sensation. But not unwelcome.

She rolled onto her side, tucked the blanket under her chin, and let herself be absurdly cozy for one more minute.

Somewhere out there was chaos—Percy and gods and whatever flaming wreck of a plan had brought her here. But for the moment, she was just a woman in a beautiful room, wrapped in sunlight and silence.

What a novel sensation.

Thinking of Percy tugged at the corner of her peace, like a child trying to get her attention with sticky fingers. A pinch of guilt bloomed low in her chest—how dare she feel this good while away from her baby? She pictured him now, bright-eyed and bouncing through some wholesome nautical adventure under Chrysaor’s watchful eye. Maybe he was learning to tie sailor knots, making new fish friends, and practicing how to use his powers responsibly.

She smiled softly, then sighed.

Surely, whatever mischief Percy got into, Chrysaor would keep him safe.

Eventually, guilt gave way to practicality. She might’ve liked to spend the entire day nestled in blankets like a content burrito, but her bladder had more ambitious plans.

Sally peeled herself from the blankets with regret, shuffled across the room on socked feet, and made for the bathroom tucked behind a crooked blue door.

A clawfoot tub sat proudly in the middle like it had once bathed queens. The tiles were glazed in soft periwinkle, the fixtures charmingly vintage, and the little window above the sink framed a patch of ocean like a postcard. The sink taps were shaped like seahorses, and just crooked enough that they looked like they might be winking at her. She found it oddly charming.

She stepped into the shower stall—curtains faded with age and embroidered with tiny, inexplicably furious-looking lobsters—and turned the knobs.

For a glorious three minutes, the water was perfect.

Steam billowed, her shoulders unclenched, and she let out a sigh that felt like it had been steeping in her spine since 1999. The water pressure was excellent. The kind that could sandblast regret off your soul.

She lathered her hair with something lavender-scented.

And then—

Thunk.

The pipes groaned like a dying whale and the water turned to ice.

Sally shrieked and slammed into the shower wall like a startled cat. Her shampoo-frothed hair stood up like a crown of sudsy betrayal.

The cold was aggressive. Personal. Like Poseidon had finally upgraded from emotional cold shoulders to rerouting it straight through the pipes.

She jabbed at the taps, elbowed the wall, pleaded with the plumbing. Nothing. The water kept spraying like the ghost of a Viking glacier had been summoned to take revenge on all land-dwellers.

“Okay,” she hissed through chattering teeth, trying to rinse off before hypothermia could file a claim. “You’ve survived worse. Public restrooms. Labor. Gabe’s honeymoon playlist.”

She slipped, caught herself on the soap dish—which promptly gave up and fell off the wall with a plonk, and emerged two minutes later looking like a drowned librarian mid-exorcism.

Dripping, offended, and still half-foamy.

The seahorse tap was still winking.

She gave it the finger.

Sally wrangled a towel from the heated rack like it owed her money and scrubbed herself down with enough force to exile the cold.

She didn’t bother with makeup. Just a brush through her damp hair and a clean shirt.

Then, with the composure of someone entirely in control of her day, she opened the door—

—and walked face-first into a wall of wool and blubber.

Specifically: her beluga-headed bodyguard, who had apparently stationed himself outside her room like a cetacean gargoyle in a Christmas sweater.

Sally staggered back a step. “Damos!”

He blinked his tiny black eyes at her with gentle concern, then offered a slow, apologetic wave.

“I—Were you just standing there all night?” she asked, baffled.

He shrugged. The sort of shrug that implied ’Yes, but I’m fine with it’, and ’That’s my actual job’, and maybe also ’Please don’t be mad at me, I’m very squishy and trying my best’.

A very expressive shrug. Color her impressed. Maybe the communication would be better than she expected.

“It’s sweet,” Sally said, “but also not remotely inconspicuous. Or necessary. What exactly do you think is going to happen to me here? I’m staying in a seaside dollhouse run by a sweet old woman who knits her own potholders.”

Damos gave her a look. Not just a look—a full-bodied, ’are you joking right now?’ expression of scandalized disbelief.

Then came the trills. Sharp and indignant, like a tea kettle trying to report a crime.

Before she could respond, he launched into a mimed performance worthy of an Emmy: clutching his throat and staggering like a poisoned Victorian heiress; then dramatically collapsing into the doorframe with a wheeze; then rising, arm outstretched, finger shaking in righteous accusation toward an invisible Mabel, who presumably had just served dessert with murderous intent.

He finished with a sorrowful tap to his chest and a firm shake of the head, as if to say: ’Never. Not on my watch’.

Sally blinked. “Come on,” she said. “We’re not rooming with ’Murder, She Baked’.”

She glanced toward the stairs. “And even if we were, I doubt we’d make the shortlist. You’re a sweetheart, and I’m barely interesting enough to murder.”

Damos looked scandalized on her behalf. She patted his arm. In return, he offered her a sweet from a pocket she definitely hadn’t seen before.

She took it. “If this is lemon,” she said cheekily, “we’re having a very different conversation.”

Damos froze, eyes wide with alarm, already halfway through snatching it back.

Sally burst into a laugh and clutched the sweet protectively to her chest. “I’m kidding,” she giggled. “You’re such a sweetheart. Who would ever want to hurt you?”

Damos gave her a deeply wounded look, then puffed up like a pufferfish trying to look intimidating in a mirror.

She was still chuckling as the scent hit her, halfway down the stairs—maple syrup, caramelized something, and the unmistakable crisp edge of frying bacon. It was enough to make her stomach growl .

By the time Sally reached the kitchen threshold, she was prepared for breakfast.

She was NOT prepared for performance art.

Mabel was twirling between stovetop and counter in a flurry of floral apron, house slippers, and wild-eyed fervor. A spatula served as her microphone. One hand tossed blueberries into a batter bowl like she was playing jazz with fruit.

And she was singing.

No—wailing. Belting out a tune Sally didn’t recognize, but that had the tempo of a breakdown and the soul of a confession. The words echoed off the tile in joyful desperation.

“It doesn't take a killer to murder. It only takes a reason to kill.”

It sounded like cabaret met a philosophy textbook in a dark alley, got existential, and decided to throw a kitchen concert.

Sally blinked.

Damos, beside her, clutched a chair like it was the only thing keeping him from fainting.

The kitchen was glorious chaos. Bowls of batter. Pots simmering. Scones on cooling racks like golden promises. A tower of croissants balanced precariously between an ominously sharp cheese knife and a bowl of violet jelly. The radio played backup, trailing a piano line like a musical nervous breakdown while Mabel launched into the next verse with unholy glee.

She spun, slid a tray of scones into the oven with a hip-bump that would’ve made Tina Turner proud, and launched into the chorus at full volume:

“AM I BAD, AM I BAD, AM I BAD, AM I REALLY THAT BAD?”

Mabel spotted them mid-spin, beamed like sunrise on espresso, and pointed her spatula like a conductor summoning an encore.

“There you are! Sit, sit—eat something. Nobody is allowed to be famished in my house! I went a little overboard but I so like having people over. ”

She punctuated it with a wink and a flourish that sent a pancake flipping behind her back—somehow landing perfectly on a plate without her looking.

Sally exchanged a slow blink with Damos.

The table was covered like a hotel buffet had collided with a bake sale and then been lovingly curated by someone’s wildly ambitious grandmother.

Mabel twirled back to the stove, spatula aloft, launching into the next verse with the kind of gusto most people couldn’t summon without caffeine, a pep rally, and a spotlight.

It was 8 a.m.

Sally sat. And ate.

Chapter Text

Breakfast was, no pun intended, divine.

Sally took her first bite of a warm scone—flaky, sweet, and generously buttered—and nearly teared up. What a quiet, miraculous thing it was, to eat without anyone commenting on her appetite.

Damos, after a brief moment of staring at his plate like it might try to poison him, had apparently come to the conclusion that if death by muffin was his fate, it was at least going to be delicious. He ate with cautious delight, his massive hands moving with surprising delicacy as he tried not to crush a croissant.

Mabel chatted as she bustled about the kitchen, all breezy energy and half-told stories—something about an escaped goose, a disastrous poetry club meeting, and a batch of raspberry jam that had sparked a lifelong feud at the farmer’s market.

Sally listened, smiled, and let herself enjoy the rare luxury of being fed and fussed over without having to earn it.

At some point, between the fourth scone and the third refill of tea, she mentioned the shower.

Her rendition of the cold-water ambush earned her a startled snort from Mabel, followed by a guilty hand to the mouth. “Oh stars, I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you,” she said. “You’ve just got a way of telling things, dearie. It’s a gift.”

Sally shrugged. “I try.”

Or she did, more accurately. Until her audience dwindled like a book club reading Moby-Dick and it was just Percy left, beaming like she’d invented laughter.

“Well,” Mabel said, shaking her head with affectionate exasperation, “I can’t pretend I’m surprised. The plumbing’s always had ideas above its station.”

She waved her spatula vaguely in the air, as if that explained everything. “I keep meaning to call someone, but you know how it is. I patch things up, tell myself it’s fine, and then something else comes up.”

“Like breakfast concerts?” Sally offered.

Mabel winked. “Exactly.”

She poured more tea into Sally’s mug with one hand and slid a plate of sliced pears toward Damos with the other. He blinked, delighted, and tucked in like he’d just been handed the Holy Grail in fruit form.

Sally traced a fingertip through the last of her scone crumbs, then leaned back in her chair—full of tea, sugar, and the peculiar warmth of being welcome in someone else’s chaos.

“Well,” she said, setting her mug down with a soft clink, “if you don’t mind, I could take a look at those pipes.”

Mabel tilted her head.

“I lived in decrepit buildings long enough to know that calling the super doesn’t mean he shows up. And Gabe—” her voice caught for half a breath, but she pushed through with a wry smile, “—thought owning a wrench was a personality trait. Actually using it? Not so much.”

She didn’t look up, but her hand tightened slightly on the mug.

“I got good at fixing things. Pipes. Radiators. Car battery once, in January. You learn, when the alternative is freezing or waiting on a man who’ll blame you for the leak.”

—With his fists, she finished in her mind, a little breathless from the daring of saying most of it out loud.

Silence settled for a moment. Mabel didn’t fill it.

Sally looked up at last and added, lightly, “Anyway. I brought it up because I like you. And because I haven’t met a pipe I couldn’t intimidate with a stare and some duct tape.”

Mabel’s lips twitched. “Well then,” she said, rising, “let’s go test your glare.”

Mabel led her through a crooked door near the pantry, down a few narrow steps that creaked like they were narrating the descent.

The basement was small and irregular, more root cellar than workspace, with thick beams overhead and a floor of uneven flagstone. A rack of tools leaned against the wall.

“This is where the magic doesn’t happen,” Mabel said, flicking on a bare bulb that buzzed faintly overhead. “Pipes are back here. They’ve got performance anxiety, poor dears.”

Sally snorted and rolled up her sleeves. “Right. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

She tugged the panel fully open—and was met with a symphony of drips, a suspicious bulge in the insulation, and something that hissed like it resented being perceived.

She exhaled through her nose. “Okay. That’s not ominous at all.”

She thunked a pipe gently with the wrench, listening to the echo. The metal rang back like a church bell full of bad omens.

Mabel crouched beside her, eyes wide with admiration and zero mechanical expertise. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t,” Sally said cheerfully, tapping a second pipe with confident cluelessness.

It made a hollow clang.

Plumbers in movies always did that. Surely it had some purpose.

“But I act like I do—which is half the battle.”

By some stroke of luck, she spotted the leak quickly: a steady weep from a crooked joint held together by what looked suspiciously like electrical tape and—

“Is that… a hairpin holding this bracket in place?”

“Don’t judge her,” Mabel said airily. “She’s doing her best.”

Sally snorted and rolled up her sleeves.

She tried the obvious first—tightening the joint. No dice. The pipe only made a guttural noise.

Sally froze mid-tighten. Tried wrapping it with fresh tape. The leak laughed at her in drips. Mabel handed her back the wrench like a stage assistant offering props.

The metal groaned again as the tool approached it—long, low, and frankly vindictive.

“How do you live with this thing?” she asked, twisting slightly to glance back at Mabel. “Do you ever wonder if the house is haunted?”

“Oh, not at all, dearie,” Mabel said brightly, “I rather like it. Keeps me company in the off-season.”

“Off-season?” Sally asked, nudging the pipe again.

“The long months when the tourists leave and it’s just me and the sea and this darling old house creaking like it’s got opinions.” Mabel smiled fondly. “After a while, it’s like living with a cranky neighbor.”

“Right,” Sally said slowly, like she wasn’t sure if that was charming or a red flag. “Company that hisses at you through the plumbing.”

Mabel smiled, utterly unbothered. “Trust me, dearie, I’ve had way worse neighbors over the years.”

“I’m pretty sure I got you beat there,” she said, bracing her foot against the panel. “I lived in New York.”

From behind her, Mabel spoke with a little too much delight. “I lived next to a taxidermist for six years.”

She shivered. “…I’ve got to hand it to you, you’re already up to a creepy start.”

“He was the sweetest boy,” Mabel contined, disturbingly fond, as Sally wedged a towel around the pipe and prayed it would give her enough grip to tighten the joint. “Bit shy. Always smelled like varnish. Took care of a mouse problem for me when I moved in. Left me these little shadowboxes afterwards—tiny vignettes. Looked like Victorian dollhouses, but with… taxidermied mice in waiscoats and bonnets. Didn’t even charge a thing.”

Yes. The jury was out. It was one hundred per cent creepy. Sally was certain there were horror stories starting the same way.

“But business for hunting trophy was slow,” Mabel went on, utterly unfazed, “so he decided to diversify. Got it in his head that pet memorabilia was an untapped market.”

Sally paused her plumbing, too busy reevaluating her entire scale for weird. “Please tell me he didn’t—”

“Oh, he did,” Mabel’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial purr. “It all came to a head when the screechy cheerleader down the street recognized her angora in the display window, posed like a baroness on a chaise lounge. Pink ribbon and all.”

“No!” Sally covered her mouth, pipes forgotten now.

“Bit of a scandal,” Mabel sighed . “Protests, police, an unfortunate incident with a bottle of glue. He’s in some correctional arts program now. Making papier-mâché possums, last I heard.”

She beamed. “But I still have the mouse tea party.”

Sally made a face. “I take it back, I’m not sure I’m going to win this one.”

Mabel leaned in conspiratorially. “Your turn.”

Sally hesitated. The wrench slipped with a wet squeal, sending a spray of insultingly cold droplets into her face.

She wiped her cheek on her sleeve. “Okay. My weirdest neighbor was in New York. A plumber, funnny enough. Nicest guy alive—‟

Why was it always the nice ones? Did Sally had to start worrying about people smiling at her now?

Being a woman was such a hazard.

“—always smiling. Helped me move furniture once or twice. Left casseroles outside our door, even babysat for me last minute and refused to take payment.”

“And?”

“And,” Sally muttered, tightening another bolt, “One day, he tried to kill me and my son.”

Mabel was silent for exactly one beat. “Did he, now?”

Sally nodded. “Came at us with a club and a look like he wanted to add us to his toolbelt.”

She left out the part where he was a Cyclops. Or that he’d probably would have tried to eat them first before any killing happened.

Mabel hummed, and for a fleeting second, Sally was eight years old again—wrapped in arms that smelled like vanilla and safety, where every scraped knee and monster-under-the-bed fear could be hugged away.

“That’s the problem with big cities,” Mabel said, nodding with confidence. “Too much anonymity. You never know if your handyman’s a murderer or just terminally awkward.”

Another threatening pop echoed from the pipes. Sally squinted at them, seriously debating the nuclear option.

Mabel patted her arm. “Don’t let it rattle you, dearie. You’ve got it surrounded.”

Sally raised the wrench like it was Excalibur. “Let’s hope it got the memo.”

Come on, Jackson! She’d handled worse. Leaky pipes? Please. She’d lived in a rent-controlled shoebox where the landlord thought duct tape was a lifestyle. She’d fixed showers with a butter knife and prayer. She once unclogged a sink while holding a toddler and arguing with Gabe about why diapers weren’t a valid form of insulation.

She tried one last adjustment—tightening the joint with an angle that felt deeply inadvisable.

The drip stopped.

Sally blinked. Waited. No hiss. No sputter. No insult from the pipes.

She sat back on her heels, blinking dropelets of water from her lashes, feeling absurdly proud.

“Hey,” she called over her shoulder, trying not to sound smug. “I think I actually fixed it.”

Mabel peeked around the corner like a raccoon considering a dinner invitation. “You did?”

Sally nodded. “Drip’s gone. Pressure’s holding. I mean, I’m not saying I’m a goddess of plumbing—”

But she was.

She was capable. She was competent. She was a one-woman maintenance department with excellent forearms and a vendetta against overpriced plumbing services.

The pipe groaned.

They both froze.

Then—a snap. A wheeze. A shunk.

And the pipe burst.

Okay. So maybe she was overconfident and licensed professionals were not as overrated as she pretended.

Freezing water shot out like a vengeful geyser, soaking Sally square in the chest.

“Ah! Coldcoldcold—towel! Towel, towel, towel!”

Mabel shrieked and flailed for the nearest linen like she was mid-laundry exorcism. Sally tried to cover the spray with her hands, which predictably did absolutely nothing.

Another pipe gave a low moan.

“Oh no,” Sally whispered.

The second pipe exploded. A fine mist of glacial spite hit them both in the face.

“This is fine!” Mabel yelled over the chaos, pressing a sopping doily to a leak with the resolve of a woman at war.

“It’s not fine!” Sally shrieked, halfway twisted under the sink, one foot braced against the wall, one arm wrestling a dishrag into a joint.

A third leak sprang to life.

“I think it’s evolving!” Mabel gasped.

Before Sally could respond, the geyser expanded with a new hiss-snap. Even more cold water pelted the walls, the ceiling, and Sally’s increasingly drowned pride.

She yelped and lunged sideways, slamming her knee into the cabinet door and twisting into what might generously be described as the Wrench-Wirlding Waterfall Pose. One arm jammed a tea towel against the joint. Her other hand reached blindly for a second leak—only to find she needed a fifth limb.

“Hold, hold—nope!” she gasped, shifting her weight and nearly tipping into Burst Pipe Bridge: hips on a toolbox, foot against the panel, neck bent like she was was trying to commune with the copper.

Behind her, Mabel was flailing through the basement like a headless chicken in a house fire, shrieking “TOWELS! WHERE ARE THE TOWELS?” as if she thought volume might manifest terrycloths from the ether.

“I’m out of limbs!” Sally cried, contorting into Shiva’s Faucet—biting down on a roll of duct tape while blindly reaching for two of the leaks.

Somewhere behind her, previously unflappable Mabel tripped over a bucket and let out a noise that sounded like a goose being mugged.

Sally gritted her teeth. Domestic Mayday Yoga, she thought grimly. A sacred art form passed down from broke single mothers and cursed homeowners alike. Some were better at reaching the right mindset than others.

She angled her shoulder into Dripping Lotus of Regret to do some much-needed breath exercise, one arm up, one down, one knee soaked, and her dignity long gone.

“Mabel!” she instructed over the rushing water. “We need to cut the waterline!”

The pipe above her gave a death rattle. A jet of freezing water slammed down, drenching her spine. She shrieked, flipped, and landed in an unintentional Sobbing Cobra.

“TURN OFF THE MAIN VALVE!” she howled, all pretences of calm abandoned.

“WHERE IS IT?”

“I DON’T KNOW, IT’S YOUR HOUSE!”

They staggered and slipped, towels flying, hair dripping, every inch of them soaked and indignant. Finally, Mabel wrenched the valve with a desperate twist—and silence fell.

They stood in the soggy wreckage of their pride and sanity, gasping and dripping.

That’s when the kitchen door slammed open.

Damos burst in like a panicked lifeguard, eyes wide, brandishing a mop like it was a trident. He slipped instantly on the soaked floor, pinwheeled, and managed to steady himself against a nearby shelf—sending an avalanche of tin cans cascading dramatically to the ground.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

Then Sally snorted.

Mabel giggled.

They burst into helpless, hiccuping laughter, leaning on each other like old friends at the end of a bar fight.

Damos blinked at them, soaked, bedraggled, and laughing. His gaze darted to the pipes, then to the carnage of wet linens and floor puddles, and back to them again, like he couldn’t decide if he should cry, clean, or call for backup.

Sally gave him a trembling thumbs-up. Her tear tracks—equal parts stress and laughter—were mercifully indistinguishable from the rest of the water streaming down her face.

“Well,” She finally wheezed after an absurdly long minute, “I think—I think… You should probably call a plumber.”

Mabel wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and nodded. “I’ll even let them criticize my trusty hairpin emergency patchwork.”

“Such generosity,” Sally gasped all over again, overbalanced from laughing like a hysterical hyena.

“Oh hush,” Mabel grinned. “Come on, dearie. Let’s go dry off and bribe the universe with cookies.”

Behind them, Damos mimed taking a long, exaggerated swig from a bottle and tilted his head in clear question.

“—and rum,” Mabel added, cheerfully misinterpreting. “Your brother has the right idea!”

Sally caught the exact moment Damos’ expression went from worried query to stricken regret, realizing too late that his pantomime had been taken as a suggestion.

She laughed harder.

And together with Mabel, drenched and—not so—victorious, they climbed the stairs.

Chapter Text

Sally stood barefoot on a towel, sleeves rolled, hair damp and curling wildly. Mabel was at her elbow, humming as she measured out brown sugar, her cardigan clinging to her shoulders and dripping steadily on the tiles.

Somewhere above them, Damos was rummaging through every upstairs room and crashing the linen closets with the energy of a fretful Jane Austen mother deeply convinced they might die of consumption if not dried promptly.

He appeared every few minutes in the doorway, arms stacked with increasingly mismatched towels, delivering each pile with a mournful trill and dramatic patting motions.

“Thank you, darling,” Mabel said, not unkindly. “But any more towels and we’ll drown in those instead.”

And wouldn’t that be ironic?

Sally shook her head, biting back a smile as Damos let out a wounded trill, clutched his latest tower of towels like a betrayed governess, and flounced off from the room.

“You’d think, as a sailor, he’d be less offended by humidity,” Sally said, tipping vanilla into the bowl.

Mabel huffed a laugh. “It’s almost endearing, isn’t it? All that fussing. I never would’ve expected it from someone of his stature.”

“It’s the tattoos, isn’t it?” Sally smirked, flicking a dollop of batter off the spoon.

“They don’t exactly scream overbearing aunt convinced we’ll catch our death if we step on a damp tile.”

They locked eyes—then both burst out laughing.

“Gods,” Sally said, wiping her hand on a dish towel. “He’s going to wrap us in a duvet and demand we sip broth next.”

They fell into a rhythm. Bowls were scraped. Chocolate chips stirred in. Dough was scooped. And finally, cookies were shaped—imperfect, generous, and a little lopsided, like all the best ones are.

Damos, now towelless, hovered so close he was practically a second apron. Every time they so much as glanced at the oven, he surged in with the mitts—ready to intercept hot trays, confiscate anything heavier than a wooden spoon, and gently forbid any task he deemed too strenuous.

By the time the second batch was in and the first tray cooling on the counter, the worst of the water was mopped, their skin was flushed from oven heat, and the aftermath of disaster had started to smell like vanilla.

“Come on,” Mabel said, pressing a warm cookie into Sally’s hand. “Let’s go dry off properly before he starts bubble-wrapping the cabinet corners out of caution.”

The parlor was warm with firelight by the time they settled in. Damos had clearly prepared the room like a particularly anxious lady’s maid laying out the drawing room for a convalescent heiress: armchairs angled just-so, footrests positioned for optimal dainty repose, a mountain of blankets folded with faintly accusatory precisionand the fireplace blazing with a pyramid of logs stacked like a devotional offering.

He hovered long enough to fuss over Mabel’s shawl and rearrange Sally’s blanket twice—then, apparently satisfied that death by cold wouldn’t take them on his watch, slunk to a low stool by the window. From his coat pocket emerged a sketchpad and pencil. He flipped it open, and disappeared into quiet scribbling.

Sally took a breath. Cookie still warm in one hand, blanket tucked under her chin.

Across from her, Mabel poured a generous splash of rum into a chipped porcelain cup. The smell curled through the warm air—dark, spiced, just sharp enough to make Sally’s throat tighten.

“Want one?”Mabel asked, tilting the bottle her way.

Sally shook her head. “No. Thank you.”

The fire crackled. She watched it peel curls from the edge of the log, felt the heat start to thaw her fingers. She didn’t move to speak, not yet. Just stared at the glow until the words came loose.

“I don’t drink anymore,” she said, quieter than she meant to. “Made a promise to myself.”

Mabel only hummed low in her throat. No questions. No oh? or why not? Just a sip from her cup and the soft sound of patience.

Sally exhaled.

“It was after a long day,” she said. The words dropped out, heavy and steady. “I’d barely slept. Percy was… maybe three? I was tired and angry and just—done.”

She ran her thumb along the edge of her cookie. Soft. A little underbaked. She hadn’t taken a bite.

“So I poured myself a glass. Not much. Barely anything. Just something to soften the edges.” She stared into the fire. “And he came in for a hug and stopped short.”

Her jaw clenched. “It wasn’t a big thing. Just a flicker. Something in his face. Like—like he didn’t recognize me. Or didn’t want to.”

A breath. A silence.

Then Mabel’s hand slipped into hers.

Her skin was soft and thin, cool at the tips, warm in the palm. Sally didn’t look down. Just blinked, once. The hand stayed. Gentle. Solid. Undramatic.

“I swore right then. Never again. Not even a sip. I wasn’t going to be one more thing he flinched from.”

Mabel didn’t answer right away. Just kept her hand there. Then:

“Promises to yourself,” she said, “are the only kind worth not breaking.”

Sally looked up. Mabel’s face was calm—neither solemn nor sorry.

“People love to talk about duty and vows and what you owe everyone else,” she said. “But the ones you whisper to yourself when no one’s listening? Those are the ones that shape you.”

She swirled her rum once, watching the ripple.

“I made a promise once. Swore I’d never let anyone else decide the shape of my life again. Not after—”

A pause.

Then she smiled—crooked, not unkind, but nowhere near happy.

“I was supposed to be a mother once,” she said. “Someone else’s choice made sure that didn’t happen.”

Sally’s breath caught.

The photo. The one she’d seen in the hallway the day before—Mabel, younger, with wild hair and a smile like a dare, cradling a swaddled newborn whose face was turned just out of frame. She’d assumed it was a niece. A friend’s baby. Something borrowed, not broken.

But now…

“I never stopped wondering what she would’ve been like,” Mabel murmured. “My girl. If I’d had her. Would she have liked stories? Would she have hated my cooking? Would she have been angry—angrier than I ever let myself be?”

A log cracked sharply in the grate. From the corner, the scratch of Damos’s pencil kept rhythm with the silence.

“They told me it was for the best,” Mabel went on. “That I wasn’t ready. Maybe they were right. But it was never their choice to make. And after that… ”

Her voice didn’t waver.

“I decided I’d rather be wrong on my own terms than right on someone else’s.”

She tipped her glass toward the fire. The rum caught the light.

“I’ve made a fool of myself more times than I can count. Burned bridges. Lost friends. Lived through things that would raise a proper lady’s hair from her scalp.” A huff of breath. Not quite a laugh. “But every single mess—I got there myself. That’s a kind of freedom, too.”

Sally didn’t realize she was crying until the weight of a handkerchief landed in her lap—soft cotton, embroidered with tiny mice in bonnets. Of course it was.

She gave a wet, ungraceful snort and pressed it to her cheek.

“Sorry,” she murmured. It came out smaller than she meant. “I don’t know why—”

But she did. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was the warmth. The rum in the air. The steadiness of a stranger’s hand when she didn’t have to explain herself. Maybe it was the fact that no one had offered her comfort in years without asking something in return.

Sally blinked. The room blurred.

She didn’t answer. Just gripped the handkerchief tighter and let herself be seen, just for a little while longer.

They talked for hours—about Sally’s plans, mostly. The idea of taking a walk into Montauk proper—just to see which shops might be hiring—began to root itself in Sally’s mind.

Damos ensured the sugar supply never once dwindled. They’d eaten so many cookies between them that lunchtime came and went unnoticed—skipped with the giddy recklessness of children left home alone for the first time.

At some point, Mabel’s voice slowed. Her cup sat forgotten on the side table, the rum long gone. Her shawl had slipped down to her elbows, hands resting lightly in her lap. She didn’t so much fall asleep as ease into it—one blink slower than the last, one breath deeper—until her chin dipped and she stilled completely, wrapped in firelight and quiet.

Sally crossed quietly to the window, where Damos still sat on his low stool, pencil moving across the sketchpad balanced on his knee. She lowered herself beside him.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “For taking such good care of us.”

The light from the fire caught the soft gleam of his pale skin—and the unmistakable flush blooming just beneath it. He gave a bashful trill and ducked his head, the edge of his mouth twitching upward.

He tilted the sketchpad just enough for her to see.

A pup seal blinked up from the page—round, fluffy, and unabashedly adorable, with eyes far too big for its head and a crooked crown of pearls sliding down one ear. A trail of cookie crumbs led to its flippers.

Sally let out a quiet laugh.

“Is that Percy?”

Sally shook her head, grinning. “You’re really talented. That’s exactly the face he makes when he’s already decided to do something dumb and wants you to love him through it.”

Damos gave a proud trill.

Sally leaned closer, eyes dancing as he turned another page—this one showing the seal pup trying (and failing) to look innocent under a toppled tower of books.

“Oh gods,” she murmured, then cleared her throat and slipped into a dramatic, storybook lilt:

“Pearly the Little Seal had one mission today: cause precisely one too many problems and get away with none of them.”

Damos let out an excited puff and flipped to a new page, revealing Pearly tangled in yarn, mid-roll, looking utterly unrepentant.

Sally kept going.

“He tried to be sneaky. He tried to be smooth. He even tried the Big Blinky Eyes.” She gestured at the sketch. “But alas—the cookie evidence clung to his whiskers.”

Damos giggled—a high, hiccuping trill—and quickly sketched a few crumbs around the pup’s snout for effect.

Sally gave him a conspiratorial nudge. “And so, Pearly was caught. Sentenced to three minutes of dramatic sulking before plotting his next sugary heist.”

They both dissolved into quiet laughter, the fire crackling behind them. Sally glanced at Mabel, still asleep, peaceful in her chair—and felt, for just a breath, like the world might still have room for joy in strange places.

They left Mabel to her nap and stepped into the brittle air—bellies full of cookies and just enough mischief between them to brave the cold.

Montauk in December had always been a study in contradictions—blue sky sharp as glass, wind stiff with salt, sunlight pretending at warmth but never committing. Sally tugged her coat tighter and stepped off the curb with purpose, boots crunching over a dusting of grit and frost.

Damos kept a full two paces back and to the right—like a very focused Secret Service agent, eyes sweeping every closed café and sleepy storefront as though one might lunge at her with ill intent.

Sally let him have it for a block.

Then she slowed.

Slowed again.

And finally stopped outright in front of a shuttered fudge shop with a faded ’Seasonal Hours’ sign, its peppermint-striped awning snapping in the wind.

Damos halted at once. He tilted his head.

Sally looked over her shoulder. “You planning to tail me like that all afternoon?”

A confused trill.

She turned fully, smiled faintly—and offered her arm.

It took a beat. Then another.

And then the entire line of his spine relaxed. Damos stepped forward and let her loop her arm through his with the hesitant grace of someone unaccustomed to being invited.

The last time she’d walked this street, Percy had been barely two—chubby cheeks and stormy eyes, clinging to her leg and humming to himself like the ocean lived in his throat. Raindrops had pattered against the windows in time with his song. With Poseidon’s chilling words still fresh in her mind—if Olympus ever discovered the boy, he would not survive their curiosity—she’d booked it out of Montauk before the tide could turn.

Never came back. Never let Percy near a coastline and watched every drop of water like it might whisper his name to the wrong eyes.

Funny, wasn’t it?

All those years of sidestepping puddles like they might betray them. Of redirecting Percy from fountains and lakes and school pools with a smile stretched too tight. She’d flinched at bathtime, prayed through thunderstorms, and once had a near-panic attack when he tried to sing to the kitchen faucet.

And yet somehow, the aquarium field trip had slipped right under her radar.

She huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been a sigh. Leave it to her to survive years of paranoïa only to be undone by a laminated permission slip and a tank full of sharks.

They meandered down the narrow sidewalk arm in arm, past shuttered porches and winter-barren trees. Sally kept one eye on storefronts—half-hoping to spot a help wanted sign not yellowed by time—and the other on the town itself, the ghost of her younger self skipping just a few steps ahead.

Damos kept glancing at the shop windows—not admiring the displays, but watching the reflections. Once, he leaned just slightly, as if trying to catch a better angle down a side street.

Sally frowned. “Looking for something?”

He didn’t answer. Just offered a faint trill and took her arm a little tighter just as she was distracted by a familiar red-brick townhouse with peeling shutters.

“See that stoop?” she murmured, nostalgic. “I used to sit there in July, with a stolen freezer pop and fireworks in my pocket. I’d wait for the neighborhood groochs to pass by, then chuck a snap-pop under their feet and play innocent.”

Damos gasped like she’d confessed to high treason.

She grinned. “Don’t look at me like that. I was twelve. And very committed to chaos.”

They passed an alley that led to the back of the town library.

“I once got locked in there overnight. Thought I could hide in the nonfiction section and read romance novels without anyone judging me.” A pause. “I was very, very wrong. But I found a cat, and we shared a granola bar. It was a good night.”

Damos gave her an approving chirp, then mimed cuddling the invisible cat.

“You’re such a sap,” Sally muttered, smiling. “I wish I’d known you back then.”

Damos gave a gentle trill, more hum than sound, and patted her hand with his thumb.

“I miss her sometimes. The girl who jumped off piers for dares. Who danced barefoot on diner counters. Who swore the moon winked at her once and never shut up about it.”

Sally let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. The cold bit her cheeks; the gulls shrieked like kids on a dare. Frost rimmed the sidewalk, brittle beneath her heels.

Damos made a sharp, incredulous trill—offended, almost—and jerked to a stop.

She turned, surprised, just as he squared up beside her with all the indignant righteousness of a Regency aunt discovering someone had insulted her favorite niece.

He pointed at her chest. Then down the road toward the old pier. Then—decisively—right back at her. His face was serious. Deeply affronted.

Sally blinked. “Are you… arguing with me?”

Damos huffed. Loudly. Then pantomimed a wild little spin, kicked off an invisible shoe, threw ghostly glitter in the air, and struck a pose with one arm overhead, grinning like the memory of her was standing there in the flesh.

It was ridiculous.

And somehow—exactly right.

Sally barked a laugh—sharp and surprised and real.

“Alright, alright,” she said, tugging him gently back into motion. “Message received.”

He gave a proud, satisfied chirp.

“You’re right,” she added, softer now. “She’s still in there.”

Her arm curled tighter around his.

“I think she’s just… waiting to be invited back.”

By the time they reached the edge of Montauk’s small town center, Sally’s cheeks were flushed from the cold—and from the effort of charming store clerks despite knowing most weren’t hiring until spring. She’d stopped into half a dozen shops anyway, asking gently, warmly, offering her number on napkins and scratch paper when they said no. A florist with frostbitten hands promised to keep her in mind. A secondhand bookstore offered to ask around. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Hope came in scraps sometimes. You just had to stitch them together.

She was mid-sentence—telling Damos about the seafood place that might need extra help around the end of the month for New Year—then, without warning, he stilled.

Gone was the affectionate shadow who sketched seals and worried about damp shawls. In his place stood something colder. Sharper. The gleam in his eyes had narrowed to a hard, watchful glint, and his arm tightened around hers.

Sally stumbled a half-step before catching herself. “Damos?”

He didn’t answer. Just inclined his head the slightest bit—then began guiding her faster, his pace brisk, movements fluid.

“Damos,” she said again, lower now. “What is it?”

He didn’t speak. Just jerked his chin toward a side street.

Sally turned her head casually, heart beginning to stutter—

A large figure. Distant. Just far enough to be unclear, but unmistakably tracking their steps.

Her breath caught. “Have they been following us?”

Damos nodded once, grim.

“Do you… do you know if it’s human?” she asked. “Or—”

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Damos shrugged.

That was somehow worse.

They walked faster. The town’s shops thinned as they neared the street where Mabel’s B&B perched above the shore. Sally’s breath misted in the air. She could hear her pulse in her ears.

“Why me?” she whispered, mostly to herself. “Who would even…?”

But the question didn’t go away when she said it aloud. It just nested deeper, feathering out with unease.

It didn’t make sense. Percy wasn’t with her—so mythological nonsense couldn’t be the reason. And Sally herself…

The only person who came to mind was Gabe.

But he was out of commission. Out of her life. And even if he weren’t, she’d never told him about Montauk. He wouldn’t have known where to look.

Still, the thought made her stomach curl.

She tightened her grip on Damos’s arm. His presence was solid as stone, a quiet fortress at her side. Earlier, when Chrysaor had insisted she needed a bodyguard, she’d nearly laughed in his face. Overkill, she’d thought.

But now… now she was grateful. Fiercely so.

A shiver rippled up her spine, instinctive and cold. She imagined retreating to her room at the B&B, curling under the covers, hiding beneath the illusion of safety. Just until the world made sense again.

But no.

No.

She’d spent too many years like that—shrinking, flinching, second-guessing every breath.

She was done being afraid.

She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. Whoever that figure was—monster or man—they would not send her back into hiding.

Not again.

Not ever.

She was finally, finally ready to live.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Sally woke to the smell of coffee, the sound of gulls, and the distinct rustle of ambition.

The coffee was Mabel’s doing. The gulls were inevitable in Montauk. And the ambition—well, that was brand new.

She stretched, slow and sore in the good kind of way, like her bones had finally remembered how to rest. Somewhere down the hall, she heard the ancient landline slam down and Mabel’s voice crowing something about “marketable skills” and “a work ethic so clean you could eat off it.”

Apparently, yesterday’s cookie therapy had given way to full-blown career matchmaking.

By the time she padded into the kitchen, Mabel was halfway through a victory lap, cardigan askew and smug as a cat with cream. “Three interviews,” she declared, handing Sally a steaming mug and a folded list. “Today.”

Sally blinked. “Today?”

“I strike while the iron is hot,” Mabel said. “And yours is piping.”

Sally looked down at the list:
— Café Dune (11:00 a.m.)
— Knots & Purls Yarn Boutique (1:00 p.m.)
— Wickett’s Fishing Supplies (3:00 p.m.) ← underlined twice

She smiled. “You really think I’ve got a shot?”

Mabel scoffed. “You’ve got better than a shot. You’ve got me as your unpaid reference and a very large sailor as your emotional support. If they don’t hire you, it’s their loss.”

From the hallway, Damos made a chirp of agreement.

Sally glanced at the list again. Three names, three chances.

Mabel leaned over her shoulder and tapped the bottom one. “That’s your best bet—Wickett’s Fishing Supplies.”

Sally raised an eyebrow. “Not the café?”

“Oh, Dune?” Mabel scoffed. “The owner lives for gossip. She’s frothing at the mouth to be the first to meet Montauk’s newest permanent resident.” She wiggled her fingers dramatically. “She lives for gossip. I mentioned you might be sticking around, and she nearly sprained something lunging for her phone. She’ll interview you just to hear the full story, but winter is really not her best season.”

Sally blinked. “What story?”

“Exactly,” Mabel said, as if that explained everything. “As for the yarn shop—they owe me. I keep their lights on every time I decide I’m absolutely not buying more wool, then come home with a colorway called 'melancholy dusk.' They’ll give you a trial out of sheer customer loyalty. But, how many people do you realistically need to swindle little old ladies like me out of their hard-earned savings?”

Sally was relatively certain that if there was any swindling going around, it was more Mabel’s doing than any knit-peddling twenty-something behind the counter.

Still, she laughed. “So that’s two job interviews handed over on a silver platter because you’re Montauk’s most charming menace.”

Mabel beamed. “Exactly. Which is why Wickett’s your best bet—he doesn’t owe me favors, he needs help. His wife used to run the front of the shop.” Her voice dipped just slightly, a sudden quiet amid the usual flourish. “But that’s still raw. Better not to talk about.”

Sally nodded, instinctively gentling. A bad divorce, maybe.

“I won’t mention anything,” she said quietly.

She wanted to ask—of course she did. Curiosity flickered behind her ribs like it always did when something was left unsaid, when a silence carried weight. But she wasn’t about to prod a potential new boss on his sore points on a first meeting.

Mabel nodded once, brisk again. “Good girl. Now let’s find you something to wear that says competent but non-threatening, and yes I can lift that crate without dislocating anything.”

She swept toward the hallway like a commander leading a charge.

Sally blinked. “Wait—we’re doing that now?”

Mabel didn’t answer—just flung open the door to her bedroom, crossed the floral carpet like a woman possessed, and threw open her wardrobe with all the fanfare of a Broadway overture.

Sally stared.

Inside was not the beige, grandmotherly selection she’d expected. It was… vast.

Not just in size—though the thing had clearly eaten at least two guest bedrooms in its time—but in sheer chronology.

Shoulder pads jostled for space with flowing chiffon, leather boots stood in formation beside 1970s denim, and a frankly concerning number of sequins. An actual feather boa coiled lazily around a leopard print coat that radiated divorced in Vegas energy. One hanger even held a military jacket that looked suspiciously like it had survived a revolution.

“You’ve… kept all your clothes?” Sally asked, half-awed, half-afraid.

“Of course,” Mabel said, already elbow-deep in the racks. “A woman should never throw away a version of herself. You never know when you’ll need her again.”

Sally snorted, watching in awe as entire decades slid out of the wardrobe like sedimentary layers. She half expected a disco ball and a corset to fall out next.

Then—click.

Mabel pressed play on a battered stereo by the window.
A chaotic piano riff burst to life. Then the voice erupted through the speakers like a caffeinated psychiatrist having an existential crisis.

‟What is “is?” What is not? What is “what?””

“What is this?” Sally laughed.

Mabel grinned and grabbed a hanger with a jumpsuit that had no business being that cool. “Every girl deserves a makeover montage. That’s a universal truth.”

‟What’s up, party people? What?
What I wonder? Why I’m not “whatever”—”

Then:

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Mabel screamed along at full volume, fist raised in the air like she was summoning a riot.

Sally jolted so hard she dropped the blouse she was holding. “Holy shit, Mabel—”

Mabel doubled over, cackling. “Sorry, sorry! I love that part. It always gets me.”

Sally tried to collect her heartbeat from the ceiling.

Mabel wiped a tear from her eye, still giggling. “Blame jail.”

Jail?

JAIL?!

Sally blinked. That was... not on the bingo card.

Mabel was already rifling through hangers like nothing had happened. ‟My cellmate was obsessed with this guy. Played him constantly. At first I wanted to kill her. But eventually… well. It was either become a fan or slowly lose my mind.”

Sally stared, a thousand questions tripping over each other in her head. Jail. What had Mabel done? Something mild? Something very much not mild? Had she started a bakery smuggling ring? Murdered a man for insulting her knitting?

She opened her mouth—then closed it.

Nope. Not asking. Not now. Not while Mabel was pairing combat boots with a seafoam blouse and muttering about power statements.

Instead, she settled for, “I feel like I’m doing both.”

“Exactly! That’s the Will Wood experience.”

Or more like the Mabel experience. Sally felt dizzy.

Mabel finally shoved a pair of high-waisted corduroy pants into her arms. “Try this with the blouse. You’ll look like a woman who could gut a fish but also great with receipts, and who does it fashionably.”

The music swung into another verse as Sally ducked behind a curtain and started wriggling into her new identity.

Outside, the wind rattled the windows. But inside, there was laughter. Music. A woman rediscovering the shape of her reflection. And another woman—older, wilder, unbothered—howling along to a mad piano song about reality, identity, and what the fuck any of it meant.

It was the best morning Sally had had in years.

The first interview, at Café Dune, was exactly the gossip-fueled experience Mabel had promised.

The owner—a woman in her fifties with perfectly curled hair and an expression like she knew everyone's secrets and wasn’t afraid to use them—ushered Sally in with wide eyes and an eager handshake.

“Oh, you're her,” she breathed. “Mabel’s mystery tenant.”

The questions ranged from reasonable (“How’s your barista experience?”) to wildly speculative (“So, just between us, are you running from a love triangle or a scandal?”). Sally smiled, gave vague answers, and made a mental note tto steer clear of Café Dune from now on. The owner’s hunger for her life story had felt a little too carnivorous. She preferred her caffeine without a side of rabid curiosity.

Stepping back into the cold, Sally let the wind clear her head. Damos fell into step beside her without a word, his quiet presence a balm.

While mildly unsettling, the café interview had been exactly what she expected The yarn shop however, nearly broke her brain.

She walked into Knots & Purls bracing for floral aprons, gentle lo-fi, maybe someone named Agnes offering peppermint tea.

Instead, she got Bram.

Six-foot-five. Shoulders like a linebacker. Black polo tucked into slacks with unsettling precision. A jawline that could chisel marble. He looked like he belonged on the cover of Tactical Beard Monthly, not flanked by skeins of ethically sourced wool.

She now understood why Mabel was their best client.

“You must be Sally,” he said, voice deep enough to rattle yarn labels.

“I—yes?” she managed, already regretting every decision that had led her here without lip gloss.

He nodded once. “We’re not hiring right now. But you’re not leaving without knowing how to throw a knit stitch and recognize a proper tension swatch.”

“I—what?”

“Grab a seat,” he said, already moving with military efficiency. “We’ll start with a cast-on and garter stitch.”

Before she could object, she was seated, and handed a pair of bamboo needles and a ball of lilac yarn.

It wasn’t an interview. It was a surprise fiber arts boot camp, led by a McDreamy instructor wearing a sticker on his chest that read: KNIT FAST, DIE WARM.

Bram adjusted her wrist position exactly once, with a touch so brief and impersonal it shouldn’t have flustered her—and yet her ears were warm for ten straight minutes.

Half an hour later, she left with slightly sore wrists, a small but decent coaster, and absolutely no idea what had just happened.

She didn’t know if she was more impressed, confused, or mildly smitten.

But she was definitely coming back.

For practice. Obviously. Not for Bram’s biceps. Or the way he said “purl” like it was classified information.

Obviously.

She stepped outside, blinking into the afternoon sun like she’d just emerged from a very cozy cult. Her fingers were still curled in phantom stitches. Her dignity, at least, was intact—if slightly entangled in lilac yarn and confusion. She took a breath, found Damos waiting faithfully at the curb, and gave him a nod that said: Don’t ask.

She’d survived two interviews, learned more about wool than she’d ever planned to, and successfully avoided spilling her life story to the café owner with sharklike curiosity.

Two down. One to go.

Sally tugged her coat tighter as the wind picked up, sea-air sharp in her lungs. Damos walked beside her in silence, hands politely tucked behind his back, the perfect picture of stoic escort.

The shop loomed at the very end of the dock, past the clapboard shops and tourist stands that had mostly shuttered for the season. Squat and weathered, its paint was peeling like sunburnt skin and the faded sign read “Wickett’s Fishing Supplies” in chipped block letters. A rusted bell hung above the door, swaying slightly in the breeze. It looked… real. Not quaint or curated like the café. Not whimsically rebranded like the yarn shop. Just a place that had never once cared what anyone thought of it.

Fishing wasn’t exactly in her wheelhouse. Her idea of angling stopped at goldfish crackers. Still, it stayed open year-round. If this panned out, she might finally have something resembling stability.

Steady work, she reminded herself. Predictable.

She was overdue for both.

She clutched her folder a little tighter and gave a wan smile to Damos as he sent her a thumbs-up and moved to perch on a piling just outside, his sketchbook already out like he planned to wait as long as it took.

She could do this.

She wanted to do this.

Still, as she stepped through the doorway, the confidence wavered. The shop smelled like salt and rubber and something vaguely fishy, with a chemical undertone that stuck to the roof of her mouth. Rows of lures hung like Christmas ornaments—tiny, spiked, and alien. Hooks gleamed under fluorescent lights. Heavy-duty rods lined the walls like strange metal spears. Nets, tackle boxes, boots the size of toddlers.

Sally glanced around, trying to orient herself, but the more she looked, the less she understood. It was like walking into a shrine for a religion she’d never practiced. All utility, no poetry.

She felt prickle at the base of her neck. The sense of being seen before anyone had spoken a word.

She pushed it aside. Probably just nerves. And maybe hunger. And maybe the fact that everything in here looked sharp or barbed or knotted in ways she didn’t yet know how to untangle.

She reached for her best customer-service smile.

Third time’s the charm.

A muffled thump echoed from the back room, followed by the unmistakable sound of a chair scraping across linoleum.

Sally straightened instinctively. Folder in hand. Spine aligned.

A moment later, a man emerged through a beaded curtain that did not, in her opinion, belong in any establishment involving hooks.

He was in his mid-fifties, maybe older, with a paunch that strained the hem of a faded “Montauk Strong” t-shirt and a beard that looked less intentional than overgrown. His skin was ruddy in the way that came from sun, wind, and not enough sunscreen. Something in his eyes—sharp, calculating, a little too quick to flick down her body and back up—made her pulse skip.

He smiled.

It did not help.

“You must be Mabel’s girl.”

Sally forced a polite nod. “Sally Jackson. It’s nice to meet you.”

He didn’t offer a hand, just gave a grunt that might’ve been a greeting and wandered behind the counter. It was stacked high with tackle catalogs, open peanut shells, and what looked suspiciously like a half-finished crossword in Field & Stream.

“Wasn’t expecting you so soon,” he said, slumping onto a stool that wheezed under him. “Didn’t figure you for punctual.”

Sally blinked. “The interview was at three.”

“Uh-huh.” He scratched at his chest absently through the fabric. “You work retail before?”

“Yes. Mostly front-of-house. I’m comfortable with registers, inventory systems, stocking—”

He waved a hand like she’d opened a textbook in church. “Yeah, yeah. That’s good.”

There was a pause. Not a natural one—an engineered one. The kind you could feel expanding between two people like someone had deliberately hollowed out the space to see what might fill it.

She offered, carefully: “I’m happy to learn whatever systems you use here. I’ve always picked things up quickly.”

He watched her over the rim of a chipped Styrofoam cup. She couldn’t tell if it was coffee or bait water.

“You’re a pretty little thing,” he said.

Chapter Text

“You’re a pretty little thing,” he said.

Everything stopped.

Sound. Thought. The rhythm of the room. Like a dropped reel. Snapped line.

Pretty.
Little.
Thing.

Thing.

She knew what it meant.

What he meant.

“Didn’t think someone like you’d be looking for work here,” he went on, like he hadn’t said anything strange. Like this was normal. “Bet you get offers all the time. Bet you know how to make a man feel… appreciated.”

Pretty.
Thing.
Feel.
Man.

Words stacked like weights. Off. Wrong. Tilted.

Her pulse hiccupped. Her breath caught, halfway to being real. Her grip on the folder tightened—but not out of decision. Just muscle memory. Just… something to hold.

“You want this job?” he asked, stepping forward. “You’re gonna have to be a little flexible. Show me you can be… cooperative.”

She wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t she moving?

He stepped closer.

No no no no no—

The room felt wrong. Off-axis. The light too dim. The air too still. Every surface gleamed sharp. Hooks. Blades. Smiles with teeth.

His eyes were on her. Not just on—in. Peeling. Picking. Pressing.

“I’m not picky,” he said. “Long as you’re sweet. I’ll take care of you.” A chuckle, low and smug. “Don’t need to write this part on the résumé, sugar. Just between us.”

Her skin tried to flinch. Her spine stayed still.

Closer now. Too close.

Eyes slicing her up and down like meat in a case.

Folder in hand. Arms around herself.

Still. Still. Still.

Hot breath. Sour breath.

Beer? Fish? Rot?

Folder still in her hands. Hands still on her body. Whose body? Her body?

Touch. Wrist.

No.

Smile.

Like a fishhook.

“See? That’s not so hard.”

It was.

Then palm. On her shoulder. Fingers.

Inside-out feeling. Like her blood tried to leave.

No.

Not today.

Not again.

Not—

His hand squeezed.

CRACK.

Her hand moved. Her feet didn’t.

The slap rang out, clear and loud. A line drawn in blood and fury.

Her folder hit the ground.

He reeled back, blinking, stunned.

And Sally breathed. Shaky. Alive.

The man staggered half a step, stunned.

Sally didn’t speak. She couldn’t.

But her eyes burned. And her hands didn’t shake.

Not this time.

For one second, he just blinked.

Then his expression curdled.

“You little bitch—”

He lunged.

Sally moved.

She didn’t think. Didn’t plan. She pushed—hard, with everything she'd kept buried, every flinch and smile and swallowed word—

—and he stumbled.

One step back. Then two. Then—

CRASH.

He hit the floor like a sack of rotted bait, knocking over a stack of tackle boxes with a clang that rang across the walls. Rods clattered. A lure display toppled. Somewhere, a bell jingled indignantly.

He groaned, winded, stunned

And then—squelch.

The jar of bait worms he’d knocked off the counter cracked open.

A glistening mass of pale, blind bodies spilled across the floor—wet and frantic. They writhed in every direction, a tangle of slick muscle, wriggling over themselves, over the floor—over him.

He yelped, scrambled, smacked at them—but they kept crawling. Over his belly. Across his face. Into the folds of his clothes.

Sally stood above him.

Straight-backed. Steady.

A queen at the high tide of her fury.

He wasn’t a man anymore. Just a mess. A thing on the floor being crawled over by creatures that didn’t know shame.

And for once—he was the one being touched without wanting it.

They didn’t flinch at his fury.

They weren’t afraid of him.

And something in Sally—

something old, something bruised, something that had been told to smile and be sweet and stay silent—cracked wide open.

Her heart was pounding now, not from fear.

From clarity.

She stepped forward.

Her boots echoed on the wood. Her spine straightened like it remembered how to hold her. Her mouth—finally, finally—unlocked.

“I am not afraid of you.”

She breathed the words in existence. She claimed them. Spoke them like a spell. Like the truth it had always been, waiting for her voice to set it free.

“You’re not a man,” she said, each word clipped like the crack of a gavel. “Men build. Work. Bleed. Love. Even the worst of them—try.”

She took a step forward, calm as a tide coming in.

“You? You corner women in empty shops. You breathe on them like they owe you for walking through the door.”

The bait worms kept writhing—dozens now, sticky and pale, squirming across his chest, slipping into his shirt collar and hairline.

“And they don’t. I don’t.”

He scrambled, gasping, but she didn’t flinch.

“You think your want is worth something? That your gaze makes us small?”

She tilted her head, voice cooling to ice.

“You’re not a monster. Monsters have teeth and legend. You’re not even the bait.”

She nodded down at the worms now nesting in his sweater, nesting in his shame.

“They have more purpose than you. More guts.”

His mouth opened—maybe to argue, maybe to beg—but she cut him off with a whisper:

“I hope they make a home in you. So you never forget what you really are. Not even worthy to be maggots’ food.”

A tremor passed through him as another worm slid across his face.

And Sally stood there. Not shaking. Not flinching.

Unburned by his filth. Unmoved by his fear.

She didn’t need to scream.

He’d never forget this silence.

“I am not afraid of you,” she said again.

Because it felt too damn good to say it twice.

The man writhed—shirt full of crawlers, breath hitching, every inch of false power stripped clean.

Let him crawl out, alone, from the filth of his own making.

Sally turned.

One step. Then another.

No rush. Just the sound of her boots on warped wood, slow and sovereign.

She passed the threshold. The bell gave a strangled clang behind her.

Outside, the cold wind caught her coat like a banner.

And she kept walking.

Like a woman who would never again apologize for taking up space.

Chapter Text

Sally staggered out onto the pier, dragging behind her the silence of her contained fury—howling now in each brittle breath.

In her ribs. Her throat. Her teeth.

Everything inside her had drawn tight, like a wire pulled past breaking. Her hands were fists—she hadn’t asked them to be. Her jaw ached from the grind of her own anger. Her whole body trembled.

There was too much in her.

Too much.

Too much.

She didn’t stop walking until the shop was far enough behind to be a bad memory—if not for the shaking in her knees. The sky above was cut-glass clear, hard blue on the edge of black. The stars were knives. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

She tilted her head back. Opened her mouth like it might let something out.

Nothing.

No breath. No sound.

Just the weight, pressing heavier for being trapped.

So she screamed.

Loud. Fierce. Useless. Glorious.

Not words. Just sound. Raw from the gut, broken from the bone. A howl that tore through her like a truth too long unsaid and poured out into the stars.

And then—because everything had to come out somehow, and the stars wouldn’t care—she started laughing.

Big, ragged, gasping laughter. Like her body didn’t know how else to survive it. Like her lungs couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying in reverse—only that something had to escape.

Tears blurred her vision.

She let them fall.

Her fists dug into her ribs. Her shoulders trembled. Her spine bent—just once—as the sob ripped free and left her hollow in its passing.

She was at the end of the pier now, where the planks groaned and the air tasted like salt and rust. The sea below churned dark and cold.

Then she wiped her face with the back of her hand, still laughing, still crying, and whispered, hoarse: “I did it.”

A battle cry.

A burial hymn for her pain.

She drew in a breath—salt and wind and winter.

A beginning, waiting to take root.

The sound of footsteps behind her made her spin, breath caught sharp—what if he’d followed, what if—

But it was Damos.

He was tugging his wool jumper into place, breath just a touch uneven—he’d probably rushed after her. A gust came off the water, nearly claiming his dusty woollen beanie—it wobbled, barely clinging to his smooth, round head.

Sally was ashamed to admit she had forgotten about her big teddy bodyguard in her fury. He looked at her—tilted head, brow furrowed, a low trill curling from his throat. Soft, unsure.

She mustered a smile—but if anything, it made him shift closer, shoulders tense, eyes scanning her like he wasn’t sure if she was hurt.

Sally sighed and stopped pretending. Her smile wilted.

“I look like a fright, don’t I?” she murmured.

Damos gave a solemn little nod.

It pulled a laugh from her—wet, shaky, teetering on the edge of hysterical. The wind caught it and whisked it out to sea.

Damos straightened. His nostrils flared. The softness dropped from his face.

He glanced toward the shop, then back at her. Raised his brows. Curled one hand into a fist and gave the air a single, solid punch—silent offer, clear intent.

Sally huffed—something halfway between a breath and a laugh—and shook her head.

“Tempting,” she rasped, voice still scratchy. “But I handled it.”

Damos dropped his fist. Reached out. Gave her a quick pat on the head. Nodded. Then hit her with his patented double thumbs-up.

And just then—

A wave surged beneath them—smacked the pier’s edge—and slapped over them in a shock of icy spray.

Sally shrieked, Damos honked in alarm, and his beanie finally surrendered to the wind, flipping off into the sea like a flustered bird.

Soaked, shivering, alive, she barked a laugh that was all her own.

“Yeah,” she said again. “I handled it.”

Damos looked mournfully after his beanie, the wind ruffling his bare head like a final insult.

Sally followed his gaze. A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth—small at first, then sharper. A spark of mischief lit behind her eyes. An idea was already taking shape.

She nudged him with her elbow. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going back to Café Dune.”

Damos blinked at her.

“Because,” she added, voice light, eyes glinting, “we both deserve something hot to drink. And you,” she pointed a dripping finger at him, “need to hear all about the most disastrous job interview in human history.”

Her tone was casual. Her smile wasn’t. It was time shame changed camps.

Damos gave a theatrical shiver, nodded solemnly, and fell into step beside her.

Warm air hit them the moment they stepped into Café Dune—roasted coffee, orange peel, cinnamon, and something buttery from the oven. It wrapped around Sally like a heavy blanket, and for a second, she nearly dropped.

The sea blurred in the windows behind them, waves watercoloring into sky. Light slanted across the oak floor. No one looked twice as they dripped a trail across the tiles.

They collapsed into the nook by the window, Sally still trembling a little from the cold—or everything else.

The cocoa came fast. Thick and hot, with whipped cream stacked like it was trying to apologize for the rest of the world. She took a sip, then another, and it hit her like velvet on raw skin—luxury and comfort and a warning that she was still frayed underneath.

Across from her, Damos cradled his mug like a devotionnal chalice, eyes fixed on her. Waiting.

She exhaled slowly. Then she told him. Voice calm. Words exact. And without apology.

By the time she reached the worst of it, Damos was halfway through a protective growl. She caught his gaze and shook her head. His jaw worked once, then stilled.

A sharp gasp split the air behind them.

“He did what?” came the café owner’s voice, pitching higher than her espresso machine. “No wonder his wife—”

She froze off mid-sentence,caught under their stare. Then flushed scarlet and scurried back behind the counter, suddenly overcome with the urgent need to reorganize a stack of very clean saucers.

Sally took another slow sip of cocoa, let the cream paint her lips, then wiped it away with the back of her hand.

And smiled. Crooked and wicked, behind the rim of her mug. Gossip was best served overheard.

A shame, really, that certain indiscretions tend to echo in small towns. It wasn’t her fault if the truth had a flair for circulation.

She glanced across the table at Damos, who was already halfway through his second mug and eyeing the pastry case like it might surrender its secrets under pressure. He caught her look and offered a hopeful shrug, then pointed to a triple-chocolate torte with theatrical innocence.

Sally huffed a laugh—more breath than sound—and nodded.

One torte became two. A third cocoa appeared, shared between them, topped with cinnamon and crushed toffee like an apology.

They gorged themselves. Damos licked chocolate from his thumb with grave satisfaction. Sally, somehow, ended up with fudge near her collarbone and cream streaking her nose.

It was exactly the right kind of too much.

By the time they scraped the last crumbs from the plate, she was buzzing—not just from the sugar, but from the feeling that something inside her had cracked open and let the light in.

They thanked the owner (who still wouldn’t quite meet Sally’s eye), and stepped out into the dark.

The walk back was quiet. Damos offered his arm with a little flourish, and Sally took it, resting her head briefly against his shoulder.

Mabel was asleep on the couch when they came in—crossword slipping from her lap, glasses askew, softly snoring.

Sally didn’t have the heart to wake her.

Instead, she pulled a blanket off the back of the armchair and tucked it gently around Mabel’s frail shoulders. Then she turned off the lamp, padded quietly to her room, and let the day finally end.

Sleep didn’t come easy. The night pulled strange shapes through her dreams—Gabe grinning with hook-sharp teeth, waves rising like towers, her son’s voice crying out beneath it all, just out of reach. She woke late. Bleary.

Finding Damos standing vigil just outside her doorway made her feel instantly better. She startled him into a hug—more of a jump attack, really—but he caught her easily and ruffled her hair with a delighted honk of laughter.

They padded down to a feast laid out on the kitchen table and a note stuck to the fridge with a crooked magnet:

Gone to the farmer’s market. See you this afternoon. —M.

She lingered at the table longer than she needed to, half-tempted to crawl back into bed. But the sun was out—bright and honest through the kitchen windows—and hiding forever wasn’t a solution.

By the time she rinsed her mug and pulled on her coat, she’d made up her mind: a walk through town, maybe a stop by the wool shop. A beginner’s kit couldn’t be that hard to figure out. Percy would probably love one of those absurdly cute crochet animals—and she wouldn’t mind another lesson from Bran. Everyone needed a hobby.