Reflections in the Silver

The West Tower was freezing. It was the only part of the house the unnatural heat didn't reach.

Elias stood on the balcony where Arthur had allegedly jumped. The stone railing was waist-high. A man didn't just stumble over it.

He examined the stone. There were scratches. Leather shoe marks. Scuffing that suggested a struggle—or a desperate attempt to hold on.

"He didn't jump," Elias muttered. "He was dragged."

He turned back to the room Arthur had used as an office. It had been scrubbed clean. Too clean.

Elias walked over to a silver serving platter left on a side table. He leaned in to check his teeth—the gritty feeling was getting worse.

As he looked into the polished silver, his reflection wavered.

It wasn't his face.

It was the face of a miner. A man with coal dust in his pores and eyes hollowed by starvation. The man opened his mouth to scream, but molten gold poured out, choking him.

Elias stumbled back, knocking the platter to the floor with a clang.

He looked around the empty room. "Who's there?"

The room whispered. It wasn't a sound; it was a vibration in his teeth.

* He paid. We paid. You will pay.*

Elias rubbed his chest. His lungs felt heavy, stiff. He coughed again, harder this time. More blood. More gold. A jagged little nugget the size of a grain of rice landed in his palm.

He needed a drink. A real drink. Not the gold-laced poison downstairs.

He remembered seeing a flask in Arthur’s desk drawer during his initial sweep. He yanked the drawer open.

The flask was there. But underneath it, taped to the bottom of the drawer, was a small leather-bound book.

A diary.

Elias grabbed it. He opened it to the last entry, dated three days ago.

* December 17th.*
* The pact is due. The Gilded Man is waking. I thought I could buy my way out. I thought if I doctored the ledgers, if I showed Sebastian the profit margins, he would spare me. But the profit doesn't matter. Only the weight matters.*
* He needs a Seeker. Someone hungry. Someone empty.*
* I won't do it. I won't become one of the statuary. I’d rather the rocks take me than the gold.*
* God forgive me. I'm jumping tonight.*

Elias closed the book. His hands were shaking, and not just from the withdrawal.

"A Seeker," Elias whispered. "Someone hungry."

He thought of the debt collectors back in the city. He thought of the five hundred grand Sebastian had promised. He thought of how quickly he had said yes.

He wasn't the detective. He was the replacement.