"Hey Karu! How's business? How's your mother?"
Before I could say a word, Cayos was already at the bar, all easy posture and crooked grin, voice smooth like he'd grown up here.
It was jarring.
He didn't sound like the cryptic manipulator who spoke in riddles.
He sounded… normal. Charming, even.
Like someone who belonged here.
The girl behind the counter didn't flinch. Didn't smile either.
"No questions," she said, flat as rusted steel.
A few heads turned, curious.
"Ah, right. That's the rule, isn't it?" Cayos gestured lazily to the words painted on the back wall. No fights. No questions. No exceptions. "You'll have to forgive me."
He leaned in slightly, voice dropping. "But really, when was the last time you saw the sun? Remind me to take you to the surface sometime."
She stared him down with a look that could cut pipe.
When her only answer was a long, cold glare, Cayos just chuckled, genuinely amused.
"Two bowls, Karu. I'll be back in a minute."
And then he vanished, slipping behind a curtain like the whole scene had been staged for an invisible audience.
The silence that followed prickled.
I stood there, still holding my breath, feeling every sidelong glance ripple through the space he'd just vacated.
"Uh… sorry about him."
Karu rolled her eyes. "Don't be. He's helped us out more than a few times."
She gave me a quick glance. Then another. Measured. Not unkind. Just... observant.
"You probably don't have cash."
It wasn't a question.
"I-uh... Like paper money?"
"Figures." She grabbed a bowl without looking at me. "Friends of Cayos eat on the house. I owe him that much, at least."
"Thanks," I muttered, grateful and unsure where to stand.
She ladled broth, added noodles, vegetables. Worked fast, but not carelessly.
She couldn't have been older than me. Maybe younger. But she moved with the kind of certainty you only got from having no other choice.
And somehow, she had a whole restaurant, down here, in the depths, named after her.
The thought barely finished forming before she answered it.
"The restaurant was named after my grandfather," she said, without looking up. "I was named after it."
She slid the bowls forward. The steam curled like fingers, reaching for my face.
I didn't sit right away. Just hovered awkwardly, then took the stool across from her when she nodded toward it, once, barely perceptible.
She didn't say anything. Neither did I.
The silence stretched. Not uncomfortable exactly, just solid. Like it belonged to her.
I picked up the chopsticks, unsure if I should wait for Cayos. Karu didn't stop me.
"Thanks," I said finally.
She grunted. "Eat before it gets cold."
I did. The broth hit like a memory I didn't have. Deep. Simple. Real.
"You're good at this," I said.
"Obviously."
Her tone was flat, not rude. Just tired of hearing things she already knew.
"You always run it alone?"
Karu gave me a sidelong glance, like she was measuring how long I'd last in this place. "When I was younger, people helped. Pity orders, leftover stock. Thought I was just playing at it."
"And now?"
"Now I feed half the level," she said, matter-of-fact.
There was no pride in it. Just truth.
I hesitated. "What happened to your parents?"
She stiffened slightly, just for a breath. Then answered, low.
"Mum's upstairs. Sick. Dad got himself killed over a loan when I was eight. The restaurant was hers."
I didn't know what to say to that.
But she didn't seem to need anything from me anyway.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly.
She gave a shrug that said she'd heard that before, too.
We ate in silence for a bit.
Then she asked, almost idly, "Why'd he bring you here?"
I looked up, surprised.
"Cayos?"
"Yeah."
I shook my head. "Honestly, no idea."
She studied me for a long moment, eyes narrowing like she could see something under my skin.
"Does he scare you?"
The question caught me off guard. I opened my mouth, closed it. Thought about lying.
"Sometimes," I said.
That, at least, earned a real reaction. She huffed, amused maybe, but didn't smile.
"Good," she said. "Means you're paying attention."
I finished the last of the broth. Set the bowl down.
"Do you trust him?"
She didn't answer right away. Wiped down the counter with a faded cloth.
"All that matters is that he pays in full and leaves before sunrise. That's two steps ahead of most."
I thought about that. About how he always just… appeared. Moved like the world tilted for him. Like nothing could surprise him because he already knew how it ended.
"What does he want from you?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said. Then, after a pause, "That's the part that worries me."
Her eyes landed on someone behind me.
I turned.
Cayos was already in the back, seated like he'd always been there. Like he'd never left. Like I was the one who'd missed a step, sipping from a flask that definitely hadn't been in his coat a second ago. He didn't wave or call out, just met my eyes and tilted his head slightly.
Then he nodded at the bowls.
An invitation.
Or an order.
What was I getting myself into?
Who, or what the hell was Cayos?
—
I carried both bowls over, hands warm from the steam, and sat without a word. He didn't say anything at first either, just watched me settle in, the same unreadable expression on his face, like he was waiting for a punchline I didn't know I'd already delivered.
He took a slow sip. Let the silence stretch.
Then:
"You dream last night?" he asked, casual. Too casual.
I blinked. "What?"
"You haven't been marked yet," Cayos said, leaning back, "but your fate is already brushing the Reverie's edge. The dreams come early sometimes, soft at first. Familiar places twisted just wrong. People who feel close but speak in riddles. Messages you forget the moment you wake."
He stirred his noodles once, watching the swirl. "So... Did anything strange happen while you were sleeping?"
I almost lied.
Almost said no.
But the memory of that field, too still, too blue, and her sitting on the rock, crooked smile and moonlight eye, it hit me like a wave.
"There was a girl," I said.
His head didn't move, but something in his posture shifted. Alert now. Listening.
"In the clearing. Our clearing, mine and Anya's. But it was wrong. The sky was cracked. The Citadel was gone. And she was just sitting there, waiting."
"What did she look like?"
I hesitated. "One eye shimmered like ice. The other… it reminded me of you."
Cayos went still.
Utterly, perfectly still.
"And?" he asked, voice quieter now.
"She called herself the Veilweaver. Said I could call her Vaelith."
I expected something.
A laugh. A scoff. A deflection.
But all I got was silence.
If before his expression flickered through masks, now they were all trying to rise at once, none quite winning.
His fingers curled around the flask a little tighter.
"She said one more thing," I added, suddenly unsure if I should.
He looked at me, and for the first time since we met, I saw something crack behind that eye. Not madness. Not cunning.
Just… ache.
"What did she say?" he asked.
I hadn't known why she had said it, or who it was meant for, but now I understood.
I swallowed. "She said that she misses you."
The words sat between us like a dropped knife.
For a moment, I thought he'd laugh. Or deny it. Or wave it off with that smirk he wore like armour.
But he didn't.
He closed his eyes instead.
Then, slowly, almost without realizing, he reached up and touched the edge of his eyepatch. Just two fingers, resting gently there. Like a reflex. Like a memory.
Not to remove it. Not yet. Just to feel the weight of what was underneath.
A breath passed.
When he opened them again, they weren't cold. They weren't clever.
They were full.
Of grief. Of memory. Of something older than either of us had names for.
"Is she… real?" I asked.
Cayos didn't answer.
Instead, he looked down at the bowl between us.
Steam still rose. The broth still swirled.
But everything else felt impossibly still.
"She's farther than I can reach," he said, finally.
"And yet closer than my breath."
Then he looked up.
And the mask returned.
The smile. The tilt of the head.
But I'd seen it now.
Seen what was underneath.
"Eat," he said, nudging both bowls toward me. "You'll need your strength."
Before I could ask, he stood.
"Getting late," he said, mostly to himself. "Shops'll start closing soon. But the Hollow Exchange…" He smiled faintly. "That one waits for the dark."
He didn't wait for a response. Just tipped his head toward Karu, then toward me.
"Eat, and ask her where to go. You'll find what you're looking for there. I already got what I came here for."
Then he turned, walking past the pale kid still hunched over his homework. He dropped a quiet stack of cash beside the boy's elbow like it was nothing.
The kid froze mid-equation. Pencil hovering. Eyes wide, but not surprised.
He blinked once. Twice. Then looked up, not at the money, but at Cayos.
No thank you. No awe.
Just a small, wary nod.
Like this had happened before.
Cayos reached the doorway, then paused. Leaned back into the room with that same mischievous grin.
"Well, I guess there's one errand I still need to run."
And just like that, he was gone.