The silence on the other side of the door is brief. "Okay," Aven says, softer. "I'm leaving it outside."
I wait until his footsteps retreat before I breathe again.
25
Aven
Bylatemorning,Sorenhas moved Hugo's copied symbol three times without admitting he's moving it. First it sits beside the register. Then under Vera's ledger. Then face down beneath a jar of dried rue, as if paper can be smothered if enough herbs are involved. He keeps snapping at the files whenever Hugo's name comes up, which isn't helping his argument that the detective and his murder-office homework have absolutely no emotional impact on his life.
"If I have to explain residual essence to one more person whose biggest spiritual achievement is choosing a tie that doesn't clash with his anxiety, I'm going to lose my mind," Soren says, pacing behind the counter with enough energy to qualify as a workplace hazard. His bright reddish-orange hair is standing up in frantic tufts where he's been running his fingers through it, and the silk robe he threw on this morning keeps sliding off one shoulder like even the fabric is trying to escape him.
"You already lost your mind," I say from beside the display of biting plants. One of the ferns nips at my sleeve, but I don't pull away. "We're all just respecting the historical site."
Soren points at me without looking. "You're becoming far too comfortable here."
"That sounds like a complaint."
"It's an observation. Complaints are louder and involve invoices."
Cain moves without making a sound, a trick of ancient muscle and predatory grace that still makes my heart skip beats for all the wrong reasons. He nudges a ceramic mug toward me, the steam smelling of dark roast and cinnamon, and doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. The gesture is quiet enough to make my throat tighten, which is rude because I'm trying very hard not to have feelings before noon.
I take the mug. The warmth seeps into my fingers.
"You're going," Ira says from near the front door.
It's not a question. Ira has never met a question he couldn't make sound like a tactical assessment. He has one shoulder angled toward the window, green eyes fixed past the glass, scanning the street with the kind of focus that makes pedestrians across the road suddenly remember appointments in other directions.
"I have coffee with a manipulative seminary student," I say, trying for a grin that probably looks more like a facial twitch. "Very prestigious social engagement. If I come back with a pamphlet, nobody is allowed to make eye contact with me."
Ira doesn't smile. He opens the door just enough to look outside, gaze moving over parked cars, storefront reflections, shadows that don't move right. "Keep your phone on."
"I do know how coffee works."
"If he touches you, if he makes you feel like you can't leave, if anything changes, you call."
"Do I need a permission slip for emotional damage too?" I ask, but the joke dies almost as soon as I step onto the sidewalk.
The door clicks shut behind me, and the world gets louder.
The wards of the shop were a physical weight I didn't realize I was wearing until they were gone. Outside, the city presses in from every direction: sirens several streets over, brakes hissing at the curb, someone laughing too loudly into a phone, the wet slap of shoes through a puddle by the gutter. Beneath all of it, the dead crowd the edges of the morning.
Most are static. Gray shapes in doorways. Echoes hovering over commuters' shoulders. A man in a suit who's been waiting at the same bus stop since 1998 and still looks offended when the bus doesn't stop for him. I can handle static. Static is background noise with regrets.
The ones leaning closer today are sharper.
He's watching you, a woman whispers as I pass the bus stop. She wears a dress from the seventies, her throat a jagged mess of spectral light that pulses when she speaks. The one with the soft hands. He brings the cage when you get tired.
I don't look at her. I keep my eyes on the cracked pavement and count my steps because the old rituals still work even when the prayers don't. One, two, three, stay in the body. Four, five, six, ignore the woman with the ruined throat. Seven, eight, nine, don't think about cages.
By the time I reach the coffee shop, my heart is doing something ugly against my ribs and my palms are damp around my phone.
Ezra is already there.
He sits in the corner booth like he belongs to a cleaner version of my life, the one with organized notes, quiet chapels, and mornings that didn't involve vampires handing me coffee like they know exactly how I take it. Beige knit sweater. Neat hair.Soft eyes. He looks exactly like a prayer that learned how to disappoint me.
When he sees me, he stands. His smile is warm enough to hurt.
"Aven," he says, reaching out to squeeze my forearm. His touch is careful in the old way, gentle enough to pass for kindness if I don't look too closely at the pressure underneath. "You look tired. Have you been sleeping? You've got circles under your eyes I haven't seen since finals week."
