Quilla doesn't even get the chance to drop her bags. Hel's hand, cold as a refrigerated coin, clamps onto her shoulder and steers her away from the stairs and toward a set of double doors draped in heavy, moth-eaten velvet.
"Keep a grip on your suitcase," Hel mutters, flicking a switch. "The floor is... reactive."
The doors swing open to reveal a room that looks like a library exploded inside a funeral parlor. Floor-to-ceiling shelves are packed with leather-bound ledgers, but the furniture—fine velvet armchairs and a mahogany coffee table—has been shoved haphazardly against the walls.
In the center of the room, the "mess" is pulsating. It looks like a pool of shimmering, iridescent oil spilled across the Persian rug, but it's moving against gravity. Thick, translucent ribbons of violet slime are lashing upward, clinging to the chandelier and dripping slowly onto the floor. Where the liquid hits, it hisses, smelling like ozone and wet dog.
"What is that?" Quilla chokes out, hoisting her heavy suitcase into her arms to keep it from touching the floor."A spill," Hel says casually, lighting her cigarette finally. A puff of grey smoke drifts toward the slime, and the violet ribbons recoil as if burned.
"Specifically, a Grade-4 lingering attachment. A local businessman didn't want to let go of his hedge fund, and when I pulled him through the veil, he... leaked. It's essentially soul-residue. Pure ego, and a bitch to clean up."
Hel reaches into a pocket of her kimono and tosses a pair of heavy, elbow-length rubber gloves—stained a permanent, sickly yellow—at Quilla's chest. "Put those on. There's a bucket of salt-water and crushed iron in the corner," Hel commands, pointing to a rusted pail that looks like it belongs in a medieval dungeon.
"Start scrubbing from the edges inward. If a stray thought enters your head—like a sudden urge to buy stocks or a deep-seated hatred for taxes—ignore it. That's just the residue trying to find a new host."
Quilla stands there, clutching her luggage in one hand and the oversized rubber gloves in the other, staring at the glowing, hissing puddle of a dead man's greed.
"I'm staying here for three weeks," Quilla whispers to herself, the weight of her suitcase feeling more like an anchor than a bag.
"Don't pout, darling," Hel says, blowing a smoke ring that drifted toward the ceiling. "Do a good job and I'll show you the collection room before dinner. Fail, and you're sleeping in the basement with the 'unclaimed' luggage."
Quilla drops her suitcase onto a dry patch of hardwood with a heavy thud and reluctantly pulls on the yellow gloves. They're cold, damp, and smell faintly of sulfur. Grabbing the iron-infused scrub brush, she drops to her knees at the edge of the violet puddle.
The moment the bristles hit the slime, the room goes silent. Not the normal kind of quiet—it's as if the world has been dipped in wax.
As she scrubs, the iridescent sludge thins out, revealing something snagged in the fibers of the rug that wasn't there a second ago. It's a small, tarnished silver locket, pulsing with a low, rhythmic violet light. It isn't covered in the slime; rather, the slime seems to be originating from it.
Quilla reaches out, her gloved fingers brushing the metal.
The moment she touches it, the "thoughts" hit her like a physical blow. It's not just about stocks or taxes. It's a flood of jagged, crystalline memories that aren't hers:
A rainy night in Hillingdon...
The sound of a heavy vault door closing...
A woman's face—partially obscured by shadow—wearing a ring that matches the Clarke family crest.
"She didn't leave you," a wet, gurgling voice whispers directly into Quilla's brain, vibrating through her skull. "She was harvested."
The voice sounds too much like her mother's. Panicked, Quilla's heart hammers against her ribs. She feels the violet residue beginning to creep up the rubber of her gloves like living veins.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" she hisses.
She fumbles for her phone with her clean hand, her fingers shaking. She doesn't look at the tracklist; she just mashes the 'Play' button on her most aggressive, high-decibel playlist.
The headphones, still draped around her neck, roar to life. She slams them over her ears.
The distorted bass and screaming synthesizers of heavy breakcore tear through the psychic static. The violet memories shatter. The gurgling voice is drowned out by a wall of 160 BPM percussion.
Quilla squeezes her eyes shut, breathing hard, the music acting as a digital exorcism. When she opens them, the locket is gone. In its place is a scorched, black mark on the rug, and the violet slime has turned into harmless, gray ash.
Aunt Hel is standing over her, one eyebrow arched so high it's nearly lost in her hairline. She taps on Quilla's headphone cup until Quilla reluctantly slides it off one ear.
"The music is dreadful," Hel remarks, looking at the scorched rug. "But your timing is impeccable. Most people let the residue talk to them for hours before they realize it's lying. Usually, they end up trying to jump off the roof."
Hel leans down, her eyes narrowing as she looks at the spot where the locket was. "What did it show you, Quilla? And don't lie. I can smell the adrenaline."