(COMMISSION) THE GAME MAP: GOOD OPENING EPILOGUE

“He was like the sun.”

Nathan’s brow furrowed at the broken-hearted statement, and he turned his gaze to stare at the woman beside him. She would have looked normal, if overdressed, if she had not been floating over the edge of the charred front porch of Wycliffe’s Hudson Heights estate. 

“Edmund,” the ghost clarified, despite not seeing the expression on his face. 

“Huh,” Nathan intoned, for lack of anything else to say, his gaze returning to the estate. Brownies, working under the guidance of a Lord he knew little about, scoured through the remains for any magic-related item that had survived the battle. 

“Warm, friendly, and innocent,” the ghost continued unabashedly, as if he hadn't spoken at all. Something he had gotten used to over the course of the adventure he had been unceremoniously thrown into. Just like Lady Danae had predicted, his treacherous mind sang. “He could do no one harm, not even a fly. Least of all, children.”

The last sentence was said with such venom that he found his attention drifting back to the ghost. 

Griselda Wycliffe née Montgomery was beautiful and remembered it, and so her ghost was as well. Even in death, she carried herself with a regality befitting her station. But ghosts were shaped by their obsession as well as their memory, and this one was as obsessed as they came. 

“Have you ever loved anyone, Nathan?” she asked. 

Ignoring the fact that she spoke his name with unwelcome familiarity, he gave the question some thought.

“Yeah,” he said, and that was that. 

She nodded, still not looking at him. “Love is such a beautiful thing. Makes life worth living, as my father would say...”

Nathan waited for the point.

“…But it blinds us. Renders us completely unable to see the very truth before our eyes.”

Her form briefly fizzled out of existence, and in that moment, Nathan couldn't help but feel sorrow. Almost as if he was witnessing a passing. Then, the moment passed, and Griselda frowned. 

“Despite everything though,” she said, shaking her head and smiling. “I don't regret devoting my all to that man. Not at all.”

For a moment, nothing more was said between the two. The only sound, save for Nathan’s breathing, was the rustling of the nearby trees and the distant clamor of the city, held back by the barricades on the road.

His mind drifted to the speakeasy, to the House Special he had promised himself he would try, and only the haunting thought of Griselda appearing above him in the dead of morning, again, stopped him from leaving.  

He got the gist of the whole thing. Classic romantic tale. She fell in love with Edmund when they were young, and stuck around as he fell further and further into darkness because she still saw the person she loved instead of the monster he had become.

Could she be any more cliché?

It was still very tragic; he would give her that. But that didn't mean she had to bitch and moan about it. 

“Thank you,” she said. 

He looked up at the ghost again, mouth agape. Her voice had dropped into a gentle, soothing purr, and her faded green eyes crinkled at the corners, radiating a warmth that felt entirely manufactured. 

“Thank you for stopping me from killing the child,” she said, her chest rising and failing in a slow, simulated breath that she no longer needed. “She didn't deserve to die.”

Her words drew an angry snarl from his lips, and before he knew what he was doing, he was already in front of the illusion of the ghost, looming over her with his teeth bared. Griselda didn't even pretend to flinch. 

It made him angrier. 

“Don't you dare thank me. You forced me into this mess, and it was only luck that saved me from a worse death than your.. “ Nathan swallowed the next word leaving his throat.. “...of a husband.”

Ghosts had no physical form of their own, and exposed as they were, were exceptionally vulnerable to magic of every kind; it didn't matter as Griselda rose to her full height and then some, her eyes flashing with a power far beyond his. 

Nathan remembered all too well what she had done to him, leaving himself and every one of his colleagues none the wiser. Only Lady Danae had been in the know, and instead of spitting it out to him, she had chosen to leave him in the dark, dropping only cryptic hints. 

Griselda was, even in death, a very powerful witch. 

He looked away, fear and anger twisting in his gut, made all the more bitter by his helplessness in the face of such inhuman magic.

The ghost sighed, and the weight that had fallen over him eased, making it easier to breathe. “I know being puppeteered by another being in your own body must have been a scary experience, but you wouldn't have survived without my help. You wouldn’t have found the murderer without my helping hand. I had to do it.”

He gave a stiff nod, more so because she obviously expected a response than for any other reason. 

“And that is why I'm thankful,” she said. “Few are as gracious as you have been towards me.”

The two lapsed into silence again as Nathan chose not to reply this time. The only thing on his tongue was insults, and he doubted she would be happy to hear them. 

Eventually, Griselda broke the silence herself:

“This is where I shall bid you goodbye.”

He spun toward her so violently that the sudden snap of his neck would have torn muscle in any ordinary man, but Nathan didn't care. Had he heard right?

The ghost chuckled, rather warmly for something with no physical body. 

“But I ask that you grant me one last favour,” she added. 

“Why?” he spat out the question before he could rethink it. Haven't you done enough damage? He wanted to yell, but the words were stuck in his throat.

“Even though I've found my beloved’s murderer, I can't leave now. Not while…” she trailed off, her gaze gaining a faraway look. 

Did she want to—

Interrupting his thought, Griselda shook her head, almost as if she could read his mind. “Her death would serve no purpose. But her future might, which is why I want my ring to go to her.”

An emphatic “No.” was at the tip of his tongue before common sense caught it. What good would arguing do? And while any self-respecting adult wouldn't want such a person getting close to a child, how could he even stop her? Nor, he considered, did he want to know what could happen now that he wasn’t useful anymore. Whatever reason Griselda had for going after the kid was hers and hers alone. And maybe, with someone else to haunt, he would be free. 

Besides, a favour from a powerful ghost wasn’t exactly something one turned down in his line of work. Lady Danae certainly thought the ring was worth having; Nathan hadn’t forgotten the way her eyes lingered on it. If a Sidhe wanted it, then he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Letting the ring become someone else’s problem, even a literal child’s, was easily the smartest decision he could make. The only one, really.

So he nodded to Griselda. 

Nathan received a beatific smile from the ghost before she vanished from his sight as he pulled off the ring. Watching it float off down the street, most likely towards the child, he turned away to finally head home.

“Nothing personal, kid,” he said to no one in particular.