Finally: “No.”
She steps forward, the hem of the shirt brushing her knees. “Bad dream?”
“Not dream. Memory. Twisted and gnawed.”
She watches me a moment, then crosses to the stove. “Well, since we’re both awake and haunted, I’m making pancakes.”
“…Pancakes?”
“Sacred morning discs of batter and butter. Great American tradition. You’ll like it.”
I doubt this.
But I watch her anyway, entranced by how she moves in her little kitchen, flipping with ceremony, humming a tune under her breath that sounds like war drums passed through a coffee shop.
When she sets the plate before me, I stare.
Fluffy stacks. A pat of butter melting like a lazy soldier. Rivers of syrup pooling around the edges.
I take a bite.
It tastes… wrong.
Sweet. Too sweet. Like kindness and guilt and memories you don’t want but need to keep.
She sits across from me, mug in both hands. “So. What’s eating you besides my questionable cooking?”
I chew. Swallow. The spear hums behind me like it can hear everything.
“I may be stranded here.”
Her brow furrows. “Stranded? You mean…”
“The spear’s magic is waning. Its link to my world—the Veil—weakens the longer I remain. If the bond is severed, I will not return. Ever.”
Silence stretches between us.
“I’m sorry,” she says, quietly.
“You should not be. This was my path. I knew the cost.”
“But… you didn’t expectthis.”
Her voice wraps around me, soft and accusatory all at once. She’s not wrong. I expected beasts and blood. Not a woman who smells like ink and stubbornness. Not mornings with pancakes and moonlight with secrets.
I meet her gaze.
“This place… your world… it changes me.”
She half-laughs, half-sighs. “Welcome to the club.”
We fall into silence again. But it’s not the same silence as before.
This one buzzes.
Between the clink of forks and the hush of syrup, I feel it—something fragile and dangerous, curling up between us like smoke. A closeness neither of us asked for but both keep inviting.
She looks at me like I’m the answer to a question she hasn’t dared ask.
