October 2025 - Long List

My bookstore sits where the docks start to rot. Salt in the floorboards, mould in the spines, and ghosts thick enough to choke on. I used to be a detective before the city taught me the difference between truth and survival. Now I sell stories instead of chasing them. They hurt less that way.

Then she walked in.

Trench coat cinched over sequins and feathers, blue-black hair slick with rain, perfume all sea salt and smoke. I pegged her for a dancer from The Birdcage—a seedy joint down by Pier Nine. Her heels clicked like a countdown, one of them tracking in blood.

“You sell books about birds?” she asked, in a voice that could’ve stripped paint—or a man’s resolve.

“Sometimes.”

“Specifically, migration.” Her yellow-gold eyes studied mine like she was reading a confession.

I took her in the back. Found The Pacific Book of Birds. She flipped it open, fingers tracing a map of the Galápagos like she was reading an escape plan. That’s when I saw it—scales, faint silver, crawling up her hands and vanishing under her sleeve.

I didn’t ask. Everyone in this city’s got secrets.

“They go all the way up,” she said, sensing the question. “My legs, too.”

“You work at The Birdcage?” I asked. I’d heard the rumours—women who looked like dreams and danced like they knew they were nightmares.

“Work?” She gave a laugh that could’ve sliced glass. “I’m trapped in it. We’re all trapped.”

Something in her voice lit a spark in me I thought long dead. That fire you feel when a new case lands on your desk, commanding your attention.

Then the bell above the door rattled. Footsteps. Heavy.

She paled. I signalled her to stay quiet and drew the curtain.

The guy waiting had a gun in one hand and a red gash down one cheek I imagined would be about a perfect match for that bloody stiletto back there.

Good for you.

“I help you, son?” I said, lighting up.

“Looking for a lady,” he said, “tall, dark, wearing feathers and a chip on her shoulder.”

“Only ladies I’ve seen today are on paperback.”

He didn’t smile. Just dropped a card on the counter.

The Birdcage.

“Ask for Kane,” he said, “if you see her. You’ll be well compensated.” Then he left, dragging the smell of gunpowder with him.

When I went back, the window was open. Rain cutting in sideways. On the floor; sequins, a trench coat, and a single bloodied heel. And on the sill, a blue-footed bird with blue-black wings and perfect golden eyes. For a heartbeat, she looked at me, then flew into the storm.

The map was gone. Pages torn clean.

I thumbed Kane’s card. The raised lettering bit into my fingers.

We’re all trapped, she’d said.

I poured a shot and looked out at the harbour. The fog swallowed the lights whole. I slipped the card into my pocket.

Looks like I’ve got a case again, and this one’s got wings.