Chapter 39

     August had settled over the city like a thick, suffocating blanket, weighing everything down. The streets, once alive with movement and noise, now felt sluggish, as if the heat had drained the energy from every corner, leaving behind only shadows and stillness. The air itself seemed to move slowly, each breath heavy and labored, like I was wading through molasses.

     I was used to the heat. The city always got like this in August. But this time, it was different. It wasn’t just the weather—it was everything. The whole city felt like it was on the verge of something, teetering on the edge, but too damn tired to make the final leap.

     And me? I was no different.

     I’d been following the threads, chasing the answers, but every time I got close, the heat of August would slow me down, pull me back into its sticky grip. Achilles, Limbo, the voices in the crowd—it was all there, waiting to be untangled, but the heat made it hard to think, hard to act. I could feel the answers just out of reach, like dots waiting to be connected, but the sloth of the city kept me from making the final push.

     I sat in the small room I’d been calling home, staring out the window at the empty street below. The buildings shimmered in the heat, the asphalt radiating waves of heat that distorted everything in front of me. It felt like a dream. Or maybe it *was* a dream. I wasn’t sure anymore. The days had begun to blend together, each one a mirror of the last, the heat making it hard to keep track of time, of reality.

     I could feel the pressure building, the sense that something was about to break. But I was too tired, too worn down by the heat, by the endless string of unanswered questions, to do anything about it.

     The excruciating sloth of thinkers.

     That’s what it was—an intellectual paralysis. I could see the pieces of the puzzle, scattered in front of me, but the heat had dulled my mind, made it hard to think clearly. Achilles, Limbo, Tony, Madeleine—it was all there, all connected, but I couldn’t bring myself to put it together. Not yet.

     Impugn platitudes due at pink intaglio.

     The words came to me, unbidden, like a whisper in the back of my mind. I wasn’t sure where they came from, but they made sense in a way I couldn’t quite explain. The platitudes—the easy answers—were worthless now, empty in the face of what I was up against. And the intaglio? That was the truth, the hidden design carved into the surface of everything, waiting to be revealed. But I couldn’t see it yet. The heat, the sloth of August, kept me from looking too closely.

     I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes, letting the stillness of the room wash over me. The air was thick, almost unbearable, and I could feel the sweat trickling down my back, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Not yet.

     That’s when I saw her.

     Madeleine.

     She came to me in a dream, as she often did. The heat had finally pulled me under, dragging me into the depths of sleep, and there she was, standing in front of me, her dark hair shining in the dim light, her eyes locked on mine. She didn’t say anything at first, just watched me, her expression unreadable.

     But I knew what she was here for. She was my reminder. My push.

     “You can’t stay here,” she finally said, her voice soft, but firm. “You have to keep moving.”

     I wanted to argue, to tell her that I couldn’t, that the heat had made it impossible to think, to act. But I couldn’t find the words. Instead, I just nodded, knowing that she was right. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t let the heat, the sloth, keep me from what I needed to do.

     Madeleine smiled, just a small, fleeting smile, and then she was gone. The dream faded, and I woke with a start, the room still heavy with the oppressive heat of August, but something had changed.

     I could feel it—the push I needed, the reminder that there was more at stake than my own exhaustion. Achilles was still out there, still pulling the strings, and Limbo—whether real or imagined—was part of this too. I couldn’t let the sloth of the city stop me. Not anymore.

     I stood up, my legs heavy, my mind still foggy, but there was a new energy in me now, a new sense of purpose. The dots were there, waiting to be connected, and now it was time to start drawing the lines.

     At body uniting manifold dots.

     That’s what this was about, wasn’t it? The connections. The hidden design that linked all of this together. Achilles, Limbo, Tony, Madeleine—they were all part of it, all part of a larger pattern I hadn’t seen until now. The intaglio. The truth, hidden in plain sight, waiting for me to carve it out.

     I grabbed my coat, even though the heat was unbearable, and stepped out into the street. The sun was still high in the sky, the asphalt shimmering under its relentless glare, but I didn’t care. The sloth of August was still there, still trying to pull me back, but I wasn’t going to let it win.

     Not today.

     I had a job to do.

Chapter 38

     I should’ve known something was wrong the moment I saw the crowd.

     It wasn’t the usual kind of gathering you see in the city—no rush-hour crush, no aimless drifters looking for a place to be. No, this was different. The music hit first, spilling into the street like liquid heat: trumpets, tubas, a mournful saxophone winding its way through the chaos. The sound rolled over me, pulling me in before I could think to turn back. A New Orleans-style funeral procession. Bright colors, heavy brass, and a rhythm that crawled under your skin.

     I tried to push my way through, but the crowd pressed in tight—faces painted, beads flying through the air, people dancing and mourning all at once. It was disorienting, like being trapped in someone else’s fever dream. The music thumped through the streets, and I could feel the bass reverberate in my bones, each beat driving me deeper into the mass of bodies.

     Limbo’s establishment was somewhere ahead. I’d caught a glimpse of it through the crowd—a flash of neon, the faint outline of a sign above a narrow door. I knew I had to get there. I knew I had to find him. But now, the path was blocked, and no matter how hard I pushed, I couldn’t move forward. It was like trying to swim through mud, each step slower than the last.

     The voices started then.

     At first, they were whispers, words carried on the breeze, half-heard and impossible to pin down. But as I struggled through the crowd, they grew louder, more insistent. Voices from every direction, each one calling my name, each one telling me something I didn’t want to hear.

     "Sid Jangler..." 

     "Look behind you, Jangler..." 

     "You think you know the truth, but it’s not yours to know..." 

     I turned, trying to find the source, but the faces around me were a blur of paint and motion. The crowd surged and swayed, laughing and crying, the music growing louder, more chaotic. I couldn’t tell where the voices were coming from—everywhere and nowhere all at once.

     "You’ve been dancing on strings for longer than you think..."

     "Who’s pulling the strings now, Sid?"

     The words hit like a punch to the gut, each one pulling me deeper into the confusion. I felt like I was drowning, caught in a whirlpool of sound and color, unable to find my footing. I didn’t know where the voices were coming from, didn’t know if they were real or just figments of the heat, the music, the crowd. But they felt real. They felt like they were meant for me.

     I pushed harder, trying to break free, but the crowd was too thick, the music too loud. My heart pounded in my chest, the sweat slicking my skin as the procession dragged me deeper into its chaotic orbit.

     Then, just as suddenly as it began, the procession shifted. The music faltered, the crowd parted, and I stumbled forward, gasping for breath as the air finally opened up around me.

     I looked ahead, expecting to see Limbo’s establishment—the place I had seen just moments before—but there was nothing. Just an empty street, dark and quiet, the neon sign I had glimpsed gone as if it had never existed at all.

     I blinked, trying to make sense of it. The music was still playing behind me, but it sounded distant now, muffled like a fading memory. I turned, but the crowd was gone too—disappeared into the night, leaving nothing but the echo of footsteps and the faintest strains of a saxophone lingering in the air.

     "What the hell?" I muttered, my pulse still racing.

     Had I imagined it? The crowd, the music, the voices? No. I’d seen it. I’d heard the voices, felt the press of bodies around me. But now... now there was nothing. Just an empty street and a gnawing sense of unease.

     I took a step forward, my boots scraping against the wet pavement, and that’s when I saw it.

     A flier, crumpled and half-torn, fluttering in the breeze by the gutter. I bent down, picking it up, my fingers tracing the damp paper.

     GASPARD LIMBO.

     It was the same flier I’d found earlier, the same promise of answers for the troubled and lost. But now it felt like a taunt, a sick joke meant just for me. Limbo’s establishment didn’t exist. It had never existed. I had been chasing shadows, following a path that led nowhere.

     And yet... the voices. The procession. The feeling that someone, somewhere, was pulling the strings. Was Limbo real? Was he just another fraud in a city full of them? Or was he something more—something I couldn’t quite understand, something that twisted the edges of reality?

     To avoid beginning...

     The words came back to me, whispered on the breeze, a fricative "am" that scratched at the back of my mind.

     The procession. The voices. The flier. It was all connected, all part of a larger game I wasn’t seeing. Achilles had his plans, and now Limbo—whether real or not—was part of them. But who was pulling the strings? Achilles? Limbo? Or was it someone else entirely?

     I looked at the flier one more time, then let it slip from my fingers, watching as it caught the breeze and disappeared into the night.

     The city was playing its game, and I was just another pawn on the board. But I wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.

     I turned, walking back into the darkness, my mind buzzing with questions I wasn’t sure I wanted answered.

Chapter 37

     The city had a way of closing in on you, swallowing you whole until the only thing left was the sound of your own footsteps echoing back at you from a thousand directions. I was running—maybe to, maybe from—through the crowded streets, my mind buzzing with half-formed thoughts and unanswered questions. The rain had stopped, but the heat lingered, turning the air thick and sticky, like a fog that wouldn’t lift.

     I kept moving, dodging the faceless masses, my breath coming in short, ragged bursts. Achilles was still in my head, his words echoing through the chaos. *You’re the key.* I didn’t know what he meant, didn’t know why I mattered to him, but I knew one thing for sure—I had to keep moving.

     But then I saw them.

     Tony and Madeleine.

     They passed by me in the crowd, their faces blank, their eyes staring straight ahead like I wasn’t even there. Tony’s broad shoulders hunched against the press of people, Madeleine’s dark hair catching the light as she turned her head—but neither of them saw me. It was like I didn’t exist. Like I was a ghost, watching them move through the city without a second thought.

     I stopped dead in my tracks, the crowd surging around me, swallowing me whole. I called out, my voice lost in the noise, but they didn’t turn. They didn’t hear me. Or maybe they didn’t care. Either way, they kept walking, disappearing into the blur of the city, leaving me standing there, alone.

     I wanted to chase after them, to grab Tony by the arm, to call Madeleine’s name. But something held me back. Maybe it was the look on their faces—blank, indifferent, like they were moving through the world on autopilot. Or maybe it was something deeper, something that told me they were part of this too. Part of whatever Achilles was planning.

     I stood there for what felt like hours, the crowd pushing and pulling around me, until something caught my eye.

     A piece of paper, crumpled and discarded on the sidewalk.

     I bent down, picking it up, smoothing out the wrinkles with my hands. It was a flier, cheap and faded from the rain, but the words were still clear enough to read:

 

GASPARD LIMBO

Mysteries Discovered—Fates Unraveled

Fortunes Told—Answers Found for the Troubled and Lost

 

    I stared at the words, my mind reeling. Gaspard Limbo. It had to be a coincidence. A joke. Some street charlatan preying on the desperate, promising answers for a price. But the name—it stuck with me. Limbo. The same name I’d heard whispered in the back of my mind, the same name that had haunted the edges of the story ever since I’d set foot back in the city.

     Could it really be him? Could Mr. Limbo, the one I’d sensed watching me, pulling strings from the shadows, actually be a fraud? Or was it something else? Something bigger?

 

    Pull my foggy tent unto a noble hereafter.

     The words flickered in my mind, half-formed, like smoke curling in the air. Limbo, pulling his tent closer, inviting me in. A fortune-teller, a mountebank, a fraud. But then again, weren’t we all just playing a part? Weren’t we all just pretending, waiting for someone to pull back the curtain and reveal the truth?

     I folded the flier, tucking it into my pocket. I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. The city had a way of twisting things, of making the impossible seem real and the real seem impossible. And Limbo? He was part of it, whether I liked it or not.

     I started walking again, my steps slower now, more deliberate. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I had to keep moving. Achilles had his plans, his schemes, but now Limbo—Gaspard Limbo—was part of the equation. And I wasn’t sure which one was worse.

     Could a fraud be a god? The question gnawed at me, turning over and over in my mind like a puzzle I couldn’t quite solve. Maybe Limbo was just another hustler, another con artist looking to make a quick buck off the desperate and the lost. But then again, maybe he was something more. Maybe he was the key. The real key. The one Achilles hadn’t accounted for.

     I stopped in front of a small alley, the darkness swallowing the light from the street. The flier burned in my pocket, a reminder of the choices I still had to make. I could find Limbo, see what he knew, if he knew anything at all. Or I could keep running, keep chasing the shadows that danced just out of reach.

     But I was tired of running. Tired of chasing ghosts.

     I pulled the flier from my pocket, unfolding it once more. The ink was smudged, the paper wet, but the words were still there, clear and bold.

 

GASPARD LIMBO.

 

Mysteries discovered. Fates unraveled.

 

    I wasn’t sure what I’d find, but I knew one thing for sure—I had to find him. Fraud or god, it didn’t matter. I needed answers. And if Limbo had them, I was going to get them.

     I turned down the alley, the shadows closing in around me, and walked into the unknown.

Chapter 36

     It started with the rain. It always does. A slow drizzle at first, hardly noticeable against the suffocating heat of August, but it picked up fast, turning the streets slick and shiny under the yellow streetlights. I was soaked before I knew it, the water pouring off me like I’d been dunked in the river. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t paying attention to the rain. I was thinking about Achilles.

     I’d been tailing him for days now, trying to get a sense of what he was after. The city was always shifting, always moving, but this felt different. Achilles was playing a long game, something deeper than the usual power grabs. And I was in it now, whether I liked it or not.

     The rain pounded harder, bouncing off the pavement, turning the streets into a blur of reflections and shadows. I kept moving, my coat sticking to my skin, my mind racing. Achilles wasn’t just running a racket. He was setting something up, something bigger than the usual schemes, and I was right in the middle of it.

     I turned the corner and saw them. Achilles, flanked by two of his men—grunts, big and dumb, the kind that didn’t ask questions. They stood in the rain, their eyes scanning the empty street like they were waiting for something.

     I stopped, half-hidden in the shadows, watching. The rain made it hard to see, but I could make out Achilles’ face—calm, unreadable. He wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t rushing. Whatever he was waiting for, he knew it was coming.

     And that’s when I realized: it was me.

     I wasn’t tailing Achilles. He’d been leading me the whole time.

     Before I could move, the grunts were on me. They moved fast for guys their size, grabbing me by the arms, twisting me around and shoving me into the wall. My head hit the brick with a sickening thud, the rain running down my face like blood.

     “Evening, Jangler,” Achilles said, stepping forward, his voice smooth as ever. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

     I struggled against the hands holding me, but it was no use. They had me pinned, and Achilles wasn’t the type to let go once he had his claws in. He looked down at me, his eyes cold, calculating.

     “You’ve been poking around in places you shouldn’t,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t like that.”

     I spat rainwater, my head still spinning from the hit. “You know me, Achilles. I like to poke.”

     He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “That’s the problem with you, Sid. Always thinking you’re a step ahead, when really, you’re just playing catch-up.”

     The grunts tightened their grip, and I felt the sharp edge of panic creeping in. Achilles wasn’t just here to rough me up. This was something else. Something worse.

     “What do you want?” I asked, my voice steady despite the situation.

     Achilles tilted his head, studying me like I was a piece of meat he was about to carve up. “It’s not about what I want, Sid. It’s about what you are.”

     I frowned, trying to follow his train of thought. “What the hell are you talking about?”

     He stepped closer, his face inches from mine. “You think this is just about money? About power? No, Sid. This is about the city. It’s always been about the city. And you—you’re part of it. Whether you like it or not.”

     The rain fell harder, drenching us both, but Achilles didn’t seem to notice. He leaned in, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’ve been in the game a long time, Jangler. Longer than most. You’ve seen the city change, seen the way it shifts, the way it devours people whole. But you’re still standing. Ever wonder why?”

     I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I could.

     Achilles smiled again, that cold, calculating smile that made my skin crawl. “You’re not just a detective, Sid. You’re part of something bigger. Something older.”

     The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I’d always known there was more to the city than met the eye. But this? This was something else. Something darker.

     “You’re full of it,” I muttered, trying to shake the growing sense of dread in my chest.

     “Maybe,” Achilles said, stepping back. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re part of the plan now. Whether you like it or not.”

     He turned to walk away, leaving me there in the rain, still pinned by his grunts. But before he could leave, I found my voice. “Why me?” I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

     Achilles paused, glancing over his shoulder. “Because, Sid... you’re the key.”

     The key. To what, I didn’t know. But the way he said it, the way his voice carried through the rain, sent a chill down my spine. Achilles had plans—big plans—and somehow, I was at the center of them.

     The grunts shoved me harder against the wall, just enough to make me gasp for air, and then they let go. I stumbled, catching myself before I hit the ground, and when I looked up, Achilles was gone.

     The rain kept falling, washing away the blood, the sweat, the fear. But it couldn’t wash away the truth.

     Achilles was playing a game, one I hadn’t even realized I was part of. And now I knew—whatever came next, whatever hell he was about to unleash on the city—it all led back to me.

     Mealtime dross, evenly.

     I was the leftovers, the piece that didn’t fit. But I wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.

Chapter 35

     August came in thick and slow, like syrup poured over a burning city. The air was heavy with the kind of heat that made everything feel distant, disconnected—like you were moving through someone else’s dream. The streets shimmered under the weight of it, the concrete baking under the relentless sun, and the people, the ones who had nowhere else to go, slumped in doorways or leaned against walls, waiting for something to break the monotony.

     But nothing did.

     The city was still as bitter as ever, still full of people running their schemes, still full of ghosts that didn’t know how to leave. And Achilles? He was right there in the thick of it, pulling strings from the shadows, letting his presence ripple through the streets like a bad joke no one wanted to hear again.

     I hadn’t been back long. The marsh had given me time to think, time to reflect, but the city had its own way of pulling you back, dragging you into its mess whether you liked it or not. Achilles wasn’t done with me. Not yet. And the Fates, those twisted threads of fortune, had spun me right back into his web.

     The first thing I noticed when I got back was the heat. It clung to everything, thick and suffocating, the kind of heat that makes you wish for rain just to break the tension. But there wasn’t any rain. Not here. Not now. Just sweat, and exhaustion, and the knowledge that something was brewing—something bitter, something that wouldn’t end clean.

     The bored cohort outwitted high hope.

     That’s how it felt. The city was bored. Stuck. The people were tired, worn down by the endless grind of survival, outwitted by their own hopes and dreams. And Achilles—he thrived in that bitterness. He fed off it, let it fuel whatever schemes he was running this time around. I hadn’t seen him yet, but I could feel him—could feel the pull of his influence, the way the city twisted itself around him like a snake coiling around its prey.

     I walked through the streets, my hands in my pockets, my eyes scanning the familiar sights. The city hadn’t changed much. It never did. But there was something different in the air, something heavier than usual. The heat, maybe. Or maybe it was just me, carrying the weight of everything that had happened in the marsh. The land had chosen life, but the city? The city didn’t choose anything. It just kept going, kept grinding people down, kept spitting them out when it was done with them.

     I stopped in front of a small café, its windows streaked with dust, its tables empty except for a few tired souls nursing cups of lukewarm coffee. I didn’t go in. I wasn’t hungry. Just... waiting.

     That’s when I felt it. A shiver, despite the heat. A shadow, lingering at the edges of my vision. I turned, but there was nothing there. Just the city, stretched out in front of me like a tired animal, breathing in the smog and the sweat and the desperation.

     But I knew better.

     Mr. Limbo.

     He was there, somewhere. Not a person. Not really. More like a presence, a whisper in the back of my mind, watching me, watching the city, watching everything unfold like a story he was writing but never planned to finish. I’d heard about him, of course—people talked. The rookies, the old hands, the ones who thought they knew how the city worked. They all had their theories. Some said he was real, some said he was just a story, a myth. But I’d seen enough to know that myths had a way of coming to life.

     And Mr. Limbo? He was watching. I could feel his eyes on me, could feel the weight of his gaze as I walked through the city, back into the mess Achilles had left behind. It didn’t bother me. Not really. I was used to being watched, used to the feeling that someone or something was always one step ahead, pulling the strings while I danced on the edge of the knife.

    But Achilles? Achilles wasn’t going to let me dance for long. He had his own plans, his own bitter mode, and I was just another piece in the puzzle he was trying to solve.

     I kept walking, the heat pressing down on me, the streets closing in, the weight of the city settling into my bones. I didn’t know what Achilles wanted this time, didn’t know what he was planning, but I knew one thing for sure: it wasn’t going to be pretty. 

---

    Meanwhile, in the shadows...

     Somewhere, in a place that wasn’t a place, Mr. Limbo watched. He wasn’t real—not in the way Sid or Achilles were—but he was there, a presence just out of reach, a figure hovering at the edges of the story, pulling threads but never touching them. He didn’t intervene, didn’t push or prod. He simply watched, his gaze steady, his expression unreadable.

     Sid Jangler walked through the city, unaware—or maybe aware—of the eyes on him. Mr. Limbo watched him move, watched the way the heat pressed down on him, the way the city twisted around him like a living thing. It was all part of the game, part of the story that had been written long before Sid ever set foot in the marsh, long before Achilles had spun his web.

     Mr. Limbo smiled—just a small, quiet smile—and let the story unfold. 

---

     I kept walking, my mind buzzing with half-formed thoughts, the pieces of the puzzle not quite fitting together. Achilles was out there, somewhere, waiting for me. And Mr. Limbo? He was watching. Maybe he always had been.

     But none of that mattered now. The city was calling, and I had a job to do.

Chapter 34

     July was fading. The heat clung to the air, heavy and thick, and the marshes had settled into a kind of quiet that wasn’t quite peace, but wasn’t chaos either. The heather we’d planted was still there, still growing, its small roots digging deeper into the soil with each passing day. Life had returned to the land, and with it, a sense of calm. But it wasn’t the kind of calm that lasted. It was the kind that came before a storm, the kind that left you waiting, uneasy, for whatever came next.

     I could feel it in my bones—that restless energy, the kind that made me want to move, to jab at something, anything, just to break the stillness. I had spent too much time in that stillness already, reliving memories that I’d tried to bury. Meredith’s vicelike goodbye, the poet with his cryptic clues, the cases that had twisted and turned in ways I hadn’t expected. They were part of me, part of my past. But now, I had to let them go.

     Or at least, I thought I did.

     I sat on the porch of the small house I’d been using as my refuge these past months, watching the sun dip low in the sky, casting long shadows across the marsh. My hands rested on my knees, my fingers itching with that old, familiar need to do something. To move. To act. But there was nothing to be done. Not yet.

     “I must jab my flashy lot,” I muttered under my breath, the words tumbling out without much thought. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the quiet, or maybe it was just the weight of everything pressing down on me. I wasn’t sure. But the words felt right, like a reminder that this wasn’t the end. Just a pause.

     Teeth, yelp grown a hot fine head.

     The image flashed in my mind—teeth, bared in a snarl, a growl caught in the throat, waiting to be unleashed. Something was coming. I could feel it, deep down, like the way you know a storm’s on the horizon long before the clouds roll in. I wasn’t done. And neither was the world.

     As I stared out over the marsh, my thoughts began to drift. The heather swayed gently in the evening breeze, its small leaves catching the last rays of the setting sun, and for a moment, everything seemed almost normal. Almost.

     But then I felt it—a strange tug at the back of my mind, a name I hadn’t thought of in years. Mr. Limbo.

     It was just a flicker, a passing thought, but it was enough to make me sit up, to pay attention. Mr. Limbo. It wasn’t a name I heard often, not outside of whispered conversations and rumors that traveled in the darker corners of the world. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. Just a story, a myth, someone people talked about when they wanted to spook the rookies.

     But then again, I’d learned a long time ago that stories had a way of coming to life when you least expected them.

     I shook my head, trying to clear the thought. It didn’t matter. Not now. There was no Mr. Limbo, no mysterious figure pulling strings from behind the curtain. Just me, Sid Jangler, a washed-up detective with a head full of memories I’d rather forget and a future I wasn’t quite ready to face.

     But even as I told myself that, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming. That name—Mr. Limbo—it clung to the edges of my thoughts like a shadow that wouldn’t quite go away.

     I stood up, the porch creaking under my weight, and stretched. My muscles were tight, my body stiff from too many hours spent sitting in one place, thinking too much about things that didn’t matter anymore. The heat of the day was beginning to fade, replaced by the cooler air of the approaching night, but the restlessness inside me hadn’t gone away.

     I had said goodbye to Meredith, to the poet, to all the cases that had made me who I was. I had let them go, or at least I had tried. But the truth was, I wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.

     Teeth, yelp grown a hot fine head.

     I could feel it now—something stirring, something waiting just beneath the surface. The world wasn’t finished with me yet. There were still gaps to fill, still mysteries to solve, still stories that hadn’t reached their end.

     And maybe—just maybe—Mr. Limbo had something to do with it.

     I didn’t know for sure, and I wasn’t about to go looking for answers. But the name lingered in the back of my mind, like a whisper carried on the breeze. I could ignore it for now, push it aside and pretend it didn’t matter. But I knew better.

     The sun had set completely now, the sky a deep, dusky purple, and the world around me was quiet. Too quiet. I turned, heading back inside the small house, but the feeling of unease followed me. The interlude was over. The calm had passed.

     Something was coming.

Chapter 33

     There are some goodbyes that stay with you, the kind that don’t fade no matter how many years pass. They dig in deep, like a knife twisted between the ribs, and you carry the weight of them whether you want to or not. For me, it was her. She was the one who left the scar, the one whose vicelike goodbye still pressed against my chest whenever I let myself remember.

     I never wanted to remember.

     Her name was Meredith—or at least that’s what she told me. She was tall, strong, and had a look in her eye that said she’d seen more than her fair share of trouble. But she didn’t talk about it. She wasn’t the type to spill her secrets, and I never asked. We weren’t close, not in the way people might think. We were more like two pieces of the same broken machine, functioning together only because we had no other choice.

     I’d found her when I was deep in the game—back when I was still Sid Jangler, noir detective hero, solving cases and making a name for myself. She wasn’t a client, not exactly. She was... well, it’s hard to explain what she was. A partner, maybe. A giant housemaid, as the world saw her—someone there to clean up the messes, to do the dirty work while I handled the thinking. But there was more to it than that. There always is.

     We got the job done, every time. No matter how bad the case got, how deep we had to go, we made it out the other side. But she had her limits. She had a line that couldn’t be crossed, and I didn’t know it until it was too late.

     It was one of those jobs that should have been simple. A missing person, a woman who’d walked out of her life without a word and left her family wondering where she’d gone. I’d handled a hundred cases just like it, and I didn’t think twice when I took it. But Meredith—she knew better. She knew something was off from the start, something wrong with the way it all felt. I should have listened.

     The trail led us to a house. A big one, old and sprawling, tucked away in the outskirts of town where nobody asked questions. It was the kind of place you didn’t go poking around unless you had a damn good reason, and we had one. The missing woman had been there, we were sure of it. But she wasn’t missing anymore.

     The house swallowed us up, pulled us into something deeper than either of us had bargained for. I won’t go into the details—some things are better left unsaid—but when we found her, the woman, she wasn’t who we thought she was. And neither was Meredith.

     I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the day I lost her.

     She didn’t say it right away. She didn’t have to. Her goodbye came in the way she moved through that house, the way she stood beside me but felt a thousand miles away. I could feel it—the distance growing between us, the way her skin had numbed to the work, to me, to everything we were trying to do.

     When it was all over, when the case was wrapped up and we’d left the house behind, she turned to me with those cold, distant eyes and said, "It’s done, Sid. We’re done."

     Her words hit like a punch to the gut, but I didn’t show it. I couldn’t. I just nodded, pretending like I understood. Like it didn’t matter. But it did. It mattered more than I’d let myself admit.

     "Where will you go?" I asked, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.

     She shrugged, pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders. "Doesn’t matter. I’m done with this." Her voice was calm, detached. "I’ve done my part. I won’t clean up after you anymore."

     The giant housemaid, refusing her duty. Refusing the role I’d assigned her without even realizing it. The anti-oath.

     "You were never just cleaning up after me," I said, my voice low. "You know that."

     She shook her head, her face unreadable. "Doesn’t change anything, Sid. I’m done."

     I wanted to argue, to tell her she was wrong, that we were in this together. But I couldn’t find the words. Maybe I knew she was right. Maybe I knew that the cases, the work, the mess we’d made—it had taken too much from her. From both of us. And she was smart enough to walk away before it swallowed her whole.

     Her goodbye was like a vice, squeezing the air out of my lungs, but I didn’t stop her. I just stood there, watching as she walked away, disappearing into the fog like she’d never been there at all.

     I never saw her again.

     That was the end of it. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. But her vicelike goodbye stayed with me, pressing down on my chest every time I thought about her. I wondered where she’d gone, what she’d done with the rest of her life. But I never went looking. Some things are better left buried.

     Now, as I stood in the heat of the July afternoon, the memory of Meredith came back to me like a bad dream. The heather grew quietly in the marsh, and the land had settled into its new rhythm. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the past had a way of creeping up on you, no matter how far you tried to run.

     I wondered if Meredith ever thought about me, about the cases we’d solved, about the messes we’d cleaned up. But I knew better than to ask.

     Her vicelike goodbye was the last thing I’d ever get from her.

Chapter 32

     It was the poet who brought me back. Not literally, of course—I’d been drifting long before he showed up. But his case, his problem, it was what made me realize I wasn’t done. Not yet. Not while there were still gaps to fill, still mysteries that twisted beneath the surface like knots in a rope.

     I hadn’t wanted to take the case. Too abstract, too cerebral. I was used to straightforward problems—someone missing, someone dead, someone hiding a truth they didn’t want anyone to find. But this... this was different. It wasn’t about money or betrayal, not at first glance. It was about words. And if there’s one thing I’d learned over the years, it’s that words are just as dangerous as bullets. Maybe more so.

     The poet’s name was Julian Fen. He wasn’t famous, not in any way that mattered. A small-time scribbler who floated around the edges of the literary world, popping up at open mics and underground readings where people snapped their fingers instead of clapping. He didn’t look like much—thin, wiry, with a mop of unkempt hair and eyes that were always darting around, like he was afraid someone might be watching him. He was right to be afraid.

     He came to me on a Wednesday, I remember that much. It was raining, and I’d just lit a cigarette when he knocked on my office door. I didn’t get many clients back then—most people had given up on me by then, thought I was washed up, burned out. Maybe I was. But Julian didn’t seem to care about any of that. He had a problem, and he thought I could help.

     "Mr. Jangler?" he asked, his voice soft, uncertain.

     "That’s what the door says," I replied, taking a long drag on my cigarette. "What do you want?"

     He hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I need your help. It’s... it’s about something I wrote."

     That caught my attention. People didn’t usually come to me with writing problems. "Go on," I said, leaning back in my chair.

     Julian fumbled with the papers in his hands, pulling out a crumpled sheet and laying it on the desk in front of me. "It’s a poem. I... I think it’s a clue."

     I raised an eyebrow. "A clue to what?"

     He looked up at me, his eyes wide with something like fear. "I think someone’s going to die."

     That was all it took. I was hooked. I leaned forward, taking the paper from his hands. It was a short poem, no more than a few lines, but there was something unsettling about it. The words were jagged, sharp, like teeth waiting to bite down on something—or someone.

     "The poet brought a made digit to toothier meshes under," I muttered, reading the first line aloud. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

     Julian swallowed hard. "I don’t know," he admitted. "But I think... I think it’s about me. I’ve been getting these notes, these messages, and they all lead back to this poem."

     I stared at him for a long moment, trying to make sense of what he was saying. A poem as a clue? It didn’t make sense. But then again, neither did half the things I dealt with. The world was full of gaps, of spaces between what people thought they knew and what was really going on underneath. And if there was one thing I was good at, it was filling in those gaps.

     "You think someone’s using your poem to send a message?" I asked, tapping the paper with my finger.

     Julian nodded, his face pale. "I don’t know who, but... it’s like they’re playing a game with me. Like they want me to figure something out before it’s too late."

     I sat back in my chair, the weight of the situation settling over me. "And you think it’s going to end with someone dead?"

     Julian didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the poem, his eyes tracing the words like they were a riddle he couldn’t quite solve. "I don’t know," he said finally. "But I can feel it. Something’s wrong."

     Toothier meshes under.

     I could feel it too. There was something darker lurking beneath the surface of this case, something that went beyond the simple words on the page. The poem was a clue, sure, but it was also a trap—a net waiting to catch something, or someone, in its teeth.

     "What do you want me to do?" I asked, folding the paper and tucking it into my pocket.

     Julian hesitated again, his fingers twitching nervously at his sides. "I want you to help me figure out what it means. Before it’s too late."

     I lit another cigarette, the smoke curling up into the dim light of the office. "All right," I said. "But understand this, Julian—poems are just like people. They say one thing, but they mean another. If we’re going to figure this out, we’ll have to dig deep. And you might not like what we find."

     He nodded, his face pale but determined. "I’m ready."

     I wasn’t so sure. I’d dealt with cases like this before, ones that seemed small, almost insignificant, until they spiraled out of control. And something about Julian’s poem, about the "made digit" and the "toothier meshes under," made me think this was going to be one of those cases.

     "All right," I said, standing up and grabbing my coat. "Let’s go dig."

Chapter 31

     June drifted in quietly, carried on the back of the lingering mist from the storm, and for the first time in months, there was... nothing. The land had settled, the rot was retreating, and Ava’s madness seemed like a half-forgotten dream. The heather grew, small and fragile, but persistent, digging its roots into the earth as if determined to hold on to the life we’d given it. And me? I was still here. Still standing. Still waiting for something to happen.

     But nothing did.

     July followed close behind, hot and lazy, the days long and heavy, stretched out like a yawn that never quite ended. The marshes, once teeming with tension, had grown still. The people in town went about their business, barely noticing the changes that had come and gone like a passing storm. The world moved on, as it always did, and I found myself floating—adrift in a sea of silence, waiting for something to break.

     Gulfs abut.

     That’s what it felt like—gaps, spaces between what had happened and what was still to come. I was caught in the middle, floating between worlds, between stories. The land had chosen life, but what did that mean for me? For Tony? For everything that had come before?

     I wasn’t sure. But as the days slipped by, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something. That the space between events—the gulf—wasn’t just empty. It was... something else. Something waiting to be filled.

     Huh?

     It didn’t make sense. But then again, not much did these days. Two months of nothing. Two months of silence. It was enough to drive a man mad. And maybe that was the point. Maybe the world needed quiet after all the noise. Maybe I needed it, too.

     I leaned back against the rough wooden post outside the small house I’d taken up in since everything had gone down. The sky above was bright and cloudless, the heat pressing down like a weight on my chest. I closed my eyes, letting the silence wash over me, but it wasn’t long before the familiar itch returned. That old feeling, the one that told me I wasn’t done yet.

     Because I wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

     “Sid Jangler,” I muttered aloud, testing the sound of the name in the stillness. It felt strange on my tongue, like an old suit that didn’t quite fit anymore, but it was mine all the same. I hadn’t used the name in years. Not since... well, not since things had gone sideways.

     I wasn’t the hero type. Never had been. Heroes were for stories, for books, for movies where the guy in the hat got the girl and everything tied up neat at the end. That wasn’t me. Not by a long shot. But sometimes life didn’t give you a choice. Sometimes it threw you into the fire and you either burned or crawled out with the scars to prove it.

     And I had plenty of those.

     At float hit tot.

     That’s what they used to call me—Sid Jangler, the float who hit. I had a reputation for drifting from place to place, for getting involved in cases that didn’t seem to have any answers. The kind of cases that other detectives turned down because they didn’t make sense. But that was my specialty. I floated between the cracks, between the gaps in people’s stories, and somehow, I always found a way to hit something. Even if it didn’t always make sense.

     But then something changed. I stopped floating. I stopped hitting. I disappeared. Went into hiding, some said. Others figured I’d burned out, maybe hit the wrong thing one too many times. But the truth was simpler than that.

     I’d gotten tired. Tired of the same old cases, tired of the same old stories that never seemed to end. So I stopped. Took myself out of the game. But you can’t hide forever. Not when the world keeps moving. Not when the gaps between stories start to fill themselves in whether you like it or not.

     So here I was, Sid Jangler, back in the game whether I wanted to be or not. The float who hit, trying to make sense of the spaces between, of the gulfs that abut. And there were plenty of those. More than I cared to admit.

     “Huh?” I muttered, shaking my head as if to clear the cobwebs. It didn’t matter. Not now. The land was healing. The storm had passed. And whatever was waiting out there in the gulfs, I’d deal with it when the time came.

     For now, I’d float.

Chapter 30

     The storm had finally passed. The winds that had once howled through the marshes had quieted, leaving behind only the soft, rhythmic lapping of the Atlantic against the shore. The sky, once dark and furious, had cleared, revealing the faint glow of dawn just beginning to break over the horizon. It was Saturday—or at least, it felt like it. Time had lost its meaning in the chaos of the past few days, but the rising sun reminded me that the world, in its own quiet way, was moving forward.

     I knelt beside the small patch of heather we had planted, my hands still caked with the soil that clung to my skin like a second layer. The earth beneath my fingers was cool and damp, but there was life here now—fragile, yes, but undeniable. The land had chosen to heal, and in that moment, I felt a strange sense of relief, even as I grappled with the enormity of what had just happened.

     Ava was gone. Not dead, but broken, her connection to the land severed, her power unraveled. She had been consumed by her own obsession, her desire to control something that could never truly be mastered. And in the end, the land had rejected her. It had chosen to move forward, to embrace life, even in the face of so much decay.

     I rose slowly, feeling the weight of exhaustion settle into my bones. The marsh was still, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and salt, but there was something peaceful about it now—something that hadn’t been there before. The land was quiet, as though it, too, was taking a breath after the storm.

     "However, hi …" The voice I had heard earlier, soft and uncertain, lingered in my mind. I didn’t know who—or what—had spoken, but it felt like a reminder. A reminder that the work wasn’t finished. That there were still mysteries to uncover, still forces at play that we didn’t fully understand.

     Tony stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, his face grim but calm. He had seen it all—the storm, the rot, the madness that had gripped Ava. But now, with the storm over, he seemed just as unsure as I was about what came next.

     "We did it," he said, his voice low. "The land’s healing."

     I nodded, but there was a part of me that couldn’t fully celebrate. Yes, we had stopped Ava, we had broken her hold on the land, but the cost was still unclear. The ground beneath us had been scarred by centuries of decay, by the forces that had been unleashed in the pursuit of power. The heather we had planted was a small victory, but it didn’t erase the damage that had been done.

     In my zeal to rise, I thought, as I looked at the world around me, besmeared myself with jangly bandwagon of vegetative wood.

     The image flickered in my mind—a strange, jangling mix of nature and destruction. The vegetative wood that had grown from the decay, the tangled mess of life and rot that had clung to the land for so long. In trying to restore balance, I had become part of it, smeared with the same chaos that Ava had fed on. It wasn’t clean, and it wasn’t simple. But it was real.

     "Yeah, we stopped her," I said aloud, though the words felt hollow. "But there’s more to this. More we don’t understand."

     Tony frowned, his gaze shifting to the heather. "What do you mean?"

     I shook my head, unsure how to explain it. The "Nah …" that echoed in my thoughts felt like a refusal, a denial of easy answers. There was an unobtained channel, something we hadn’t grasped—something beyond the immediate crisis. Ava’s defeat was a resolution, yes, but it wasn’t the end. The land had chosen to heal, but it had also revealed its deeper complexity—its ability to nurture life, but also to hide rot, to balance creation with destruction.

     The wood button. The phrase came to me, odd but persistent. As though the land itself had a mechanism for resetting, for detonating evenly, balancing life and death in equal measure. The heather was growing, but the scars of the rot remained, embedded in the earth, waiting for the right conditions to rise again.

     "We detonated the button," I said quietly. "But it’s not over. There’s more—there’s always more."

     Tony glanced at me, uncertainty flickering across his face. "So what now?"

     I didn’t have an answer. The storm had passed, but the land was still shifting, still finding its balance. There were mysteries here—old, deep mysteries—that we hadn’t even begun to understand. And Ava, for all her power and madness, had only been one part of a much larger story.

     The sun was rising now, casting a soft glow over the marshes, the light filtering through the mist that still clung to the land. It was beautiful in a way—quiet, peaceful. But I knew, deep down, that the peace wouldn’t last. There were still forces at work, still currents beneath the surface that had yet to reveal themselves.

     "Now?" I repeated, turning my gaze to the horizon. "Now we wait. We see what the land decides."

     Tony didn’t say anything, but I could feel his unease. He wanted answers, wanted closure. But there was none to be found, not yet. The land was healing, yes, but it was also changing, and with that change came uncertainty.

     I turned back to the heather, the small, fragile plant that had been our salvation. It was growing, its roots digging deeper into the soil, but the scars of the past remained, and I knew they always would.

     "However, hi …" The voice came again, soft and distant, as though carried on the wind.

     The sun had risen. The storm had passed. But the future was still unwritten.