Chapter 3: The Mayor's Mask

Chapter 3: The Mayor's Mask

Port Blossom City Hall was less a building and more a monument to everything Lyra had lost. It rose from the center of town like a shard of obsidian, its seamless glass walls reflecting a distorted, super-charged version of the sky. The old town hall, a charming brick building with a perpetually slow clock tower, was gone, erased from existence.

Getting inside was a surreal experience. There was no security guard, only silent, floating chrome spheres that pulsed with a soft blue light, their lenses tracking Lyra’s every move. Her faded flannel and torn jeans earned her a focused, unnerving scrutiny. The air inside was cool and sterile, smelling of ozone and polished marble. A spectral receptionist, a being of shimmering light and soft, humming tones, hovered behind a floating glass desk.

"Can I help you?" its voice was a synthesized, multi-tonal chord.

"I'm here to see Jenna Thorne," Lyra said, her voice sounding rough and out of place in the pristine silence.

"Do you have an appointment with the Mayor?"

"No," Lyra admitted. "But tell her... tell her Ly is here. She'll see me."

The spectral form paused, its light flickering as it processed the archaic, un-booked request. It clearly deemed her a security risk, a glitch in its perfect system. But the name, Lyra’s old nickname for herself, must have triggered something. The light pulsed, and a moment later the calm, chord-like voice returned. "The Mayor will see you. Top floor. The lift at the end of the hall."

The lift was a silent, enclosed glass box that ascended the outside of the tower, giving Lyra a nauseating, god's-eye view of the city she no longer knew. The glowing magical sigils on the streets below formed a complex, city-wide circuit board she couldn’t begin to comprehend. This was Jenna’s kingdom.

The lift doors opened directly into a vast, minimalist office. One entire wall was a window overlooking the city and the sea beyond. The furniture was sleek, modern, and impossibly expensive. And behind a vast, dark wood desk that looked like it was carved from a single, petrified tree, sat Mayor Jenna Thorne.

She looked up, her expression carefully neutral. She was polished, powerful, every inch the woman from the news articles. Her auburn hair was perfect, her suit sharp enough to cut glass. At her throat, a silver amulet pulsed with a faint, protective light. For a heart-stopping second, Lyra saw no recognition in her eyes, only the cool assessment of a politician facing an unexpected problem.

Then, the mask was fitted into place.

Jenna’s eyes widened. Her perfectly painted lips parted in a gasp. She rose slowly from her chair, a hand flying to her chest in a gesture of flawless, theatrical shock. "Ly?" she whispered, her voice cracking with manufactured disbelief. "Lyra? It... it can't be."

Lyra stood her ground, arms crossed over her chest. "In the flesh. Sort of."

Jenna rounded the desk, her movements fluid and graceful. "But... how? They said... they said you fell. The storm..." She reached out, her fingers hesitating just before they touched Lyra's arm, as if she were afraid Lyra might crumble to dust.

But as Jenna drew closer, Lyra’s strange new sense flared to life. The polished grief on Jenna's face was a lie. Beneath it, Lyra could feel a maelstrom, a hurricane of pure, undiluted terror. It was a chaotic symphony of emotions: the metallic tang of panic, the frantic, caged-animal energy of someone whose darkest secret had just walked through the door, and a cold, sharp undercurrent of murderous calculation. The dissonance between what Lyra saw and what she felt was sickening.

"The storm didn't kill me, Jenna," Lyra said, her voice flat.

Jenna’s mask tightened, her eyes glistening with unshed, crocodile tears. "Oh, Lyra. What happened to you? For twenty years... I thought you were gone. I... I helped fund the search parties myself. We looked for weeks."

A convenient lie. A calculated addition to the official story to paint herself as the loyal, grieving friend. The force of Jenna’s hidden panic was a physical pressure, making the air in the room feel thick and heavy.

"I was murdered," Lyra said, watching Jenna’s face for a crack in the facade. "Here. In Port Blossom. The night of the homecoming bonfire."

Jenna flinched, a genuine, micro-expression of fear before the grief-stricken mask slid back into place. "Murdered? No, that's impossible. The police... they investigated. It was an accident. You were always so reckless, climbing on those cliffs."

"Someone was with me," Lyra pressed, taking a step closer, forcing Jenna to take a step back. "Someone I trusted."

"You're confused," Jenna said, her voice taking on a soothing, patronizing tone. "Whatever you've been through, it's obviously damaged your memory. You're home now. You're safe. We can get you help."

It was a dismissal. An attempt to frame her as crazy, as a ghost addled by trauma. The anger that had been simmering in Lyra since she clawed her way out of the grave began to boil. She leaned forward, planting her hands on the gleaming surface of Jenna's enormous desk, her face inches from her former friend's.

"I am not confused," she snarled. "And I don't need help. I need answers. What happened twenty years ago? What did you do to turn this dead-end fishing town into… this?"

The moment her palms made contact with the dark, polished wood, the world dissolved.

It wasn’t a gentle echo this time; it was a psychic shotgun blast. The sterile office vanished, replaced by the splintered, salt-sprayed wood of the old pier at Blackwood Cove. The air was cold, thick with the smell of low tide and impending rain. Night. The night she died.

Two figures stood silhouetted against the churning, black water. One was Jenna, twenty years younger, her hair a wild mane in the wind, her face contorted with fury and desperation. The other was a young man with shaggy dark hair and a familiar punk rock jacket. Marcus. The lead singer of their terrible high school band.

The vision had no sound, only the raw, boiling rage of the argument, a silent film of pure emotion.

Jenna, gesturing wildly out at the dying town, her ambition a burning, ravenous fire. Her frustration was so potent Lyra could taste it like ash in her mouth.

Marcus, shaking his head, his posture radiating a deep, desperate fear. He was pleading, begging. He pointed back toward the woods, in the direction Lyra must have been waiting. His warning was a silent scream of terror.

Jenna, grabbing his arm, her face a mask of cold fury. She was not asking. She was demanding. This was their only chance. A pact is a pact. Her resolve was like a blade of ice.

The vision shattered. Lyra gasped, stumbling back from the desk as if its surface had burned her. Her head throbbed, the phantom emotions of the memory clinging to her like sea mist.

Jenna saw her recoil, saw the dazed horror in her eyes. The mask of grief finally slipped, replaced by raw, naked panic. She didn't know what Lyra had seen, but she knew it was something real.

"What... what did you do?" Jenna stammered, her composure utterly broken.

Lyra stared at her, the pieces clicking into place with horrifying clarity. The argument wasn't about a simple disagreement. It was about her. And Marcus… he hadn't been angry. He had been trying to warn someone. He had been trying to stop Jenna.

"Marcus," Lyra breathed, the name feeling alien on her tongue after twenty years. "Where is he?"

Jenna's face went white. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She looked trapped, a cornered animal ready to chew off its own leg to escape.

That was all the answer Lyra needed. She turned and walked away, her mind reeling. She didn't know the whole truth yet, but she had a new thread to pull. A new name. A new ghost to find.

As the lift doors hissed shut, Lyra looked back. Jenna was already scrambling for the glowing communication panel on her desk, her face a portrait of cold, calculating fury. The mask was gone for good, and Lyra knew with chilling certainty that the city's loving Mayor had just become her deadliest enemy.