"I wasn't meant to be seen. You looked anyway."POV: Riven

  The feather was still there, a scarlet wound against the apartment's dingy floor.

  It hadn't disappeared with the first light of morning. It hadn't crumbled to ash or slipped into memory or turned into anything else dream-logic might have used as an excuse. It was just... lying there. Exactly as it had been the night before. On the floor beside his bed. Untouched. Unchanged. Red. Warm.

  Riven stared at it far longer than he needed to, still curled under the bnket like even the smallest movement might shatter the spell—if it was a spell in the first pce. If it wasn't something worse and something darker than spells.

  You're losing it. That was his first thought. A dismissal.

  The second was: What if I'm not? What if it's something else?

  The feather didn't move a muscle. Didn't smoke or glow or whisper secrets. It just was.

  The fear didn't budge either. It spread its roots and grew.

  He finally peeled himself off the mattress, legs unsteady, spine tight as if it might snap. He scooped the feather up, hardly aware he was doing it until it was done, his fingers closing around it like it might disappear if he took too long. It didn't.

  Outside his room, the apartment smelled like kettle ramen, burnt hopes, and past lives.

  "Morning, sunlight," Bowen called from the kitchenette, not bothering to turn around. "I saved you the worse half of a noodle packet because I'm generous like that."

  Riven stepped into the light, blinked against it.

  Bowen paused.

  Turned.

  Stared.

  "You okay?" he asked, tone fttening. "You look like you fought god and lost."

  Riven didn't answer right away. He just moved past, toward the table, shoving the feather into the inside pocket of his jacket like it was some kind of contraband.

  "Didn't sleep much," he muttered. "Dreams."

  Bowen made a noise. Somewhere between a hum and a huff. "Well, if your subconscious starts leaving physical evidence, let me know. I'll add a new column to my conspiracy spreadsheet."

  Riven didn't ugh. Didn't argue.

  And Bowen—too observant for his own good—noticed.

  But he didn't say anything.

  Not yet.

  They ended up outside together, tripping down the stairs and nding on the street—one after the other—without really knowing how it had happened. Shadows were long on the pavement, and leftovers from a three-day rainstorm collected in uneven pools and cracks. They traced their way through the waking city as if they'd pnned it that way, but Bowen just... appeared, like always. Like a clockwork figment of the universe's predestined imagination that knew Riven better than he knew himself. Made sure he wasn't alone. Wasn't left to spiral without a witness.

  He was carrying a brown paper bag. Talking heedlessly. Talking breathlessly. Talking a mile a minute about something he couldn't believe he'd salvaged from the recycling bins behind a defunct electronics shop.

  "—so technically, I could rig the wiring to filter Whispernet signals through a frequency dampener, but that'd mean sacrificing the old charge coils, and I know you're emotionally attached to them because you're a masochist for vintage tech—"

  Riven blinked through the residual fog of sleep. "What's in the bag?"

  "Breakfast."

  "That's not an answer."

  Bowen grinned, teeth white and careless against the morning. "Exactly." He passed Riven a foil-wrapped something. It was hot. Greasy. Smelled suspiciously like bck market eggrolls and maybe even the edges of expired kindness. Riven took it without comment.

  They walked in silence for a few blocks, synchronicity in their strides. It wasn't uncomfortable—not with Bowen. But it wasn't normal, either. The quiet twisted into unfamiliar shapes. Into something that could've meant anything or nothing or everything. Riven felt it press against him, the urge to say more. Expin more. Admit more. He resisted.

  Bowen kept gncing sideways, like he was deciding on a tactic and finally went with: "So... just out of curiosity. If you were to, say, hallucinate divine possession, would you tell me about it?"

  Riven didn't stop walking. Tried to sound casual. Nonchant. Less like he was lying. "No."

  "Cool cool cool." Bowen popped a bite into his mouth, chewing with exaggerated emphasis, then lifting his brows. "Hypothetical follow-up. Would you tell me if your fingers were burned?"

  Riven froze mid-step.

  Bowen pointed. "Your hand. Right one."

  There, on the knuckle—red. Raw. Blistered like he'd touched the wrong part of a lighter fme. It stung now that he'd noticed it. Which he hadn't. He would've remembered that. Wouldn't he? Or maybe he wouldn't, not with the way his mind had been spinning and slipping and skipping in its tracks. Not with the scarlet thing that branded itself into him just by existing, just by being.

  "Please tell me the altar's not actually, like, radioactive now," Bowen added, tone still flippant—but softer now. Uncertain.

  Riven tugged his sleeve down like it might hide the guilt. "It's nothing."

  Bowen didn't push.

  But he looked like he wanted to.

  "Not yet," he said. "But I reserve the right to ter."

  Riven tried to smile. Tried to make it reach. Tried to convince himself it wasn't the worst lie he'd ever told. "You're generous like that," he mumbled, shoving food into his mouth so he wouldn't have to talk—so he wouldn't have to feel the dredge of panic that kept rising and rising and rising. But the burn on his hand felt too real to ignore, and the feather felt too solid to forget. Even as they moved farther from the apartment, he felt it like a knot in his chest, like a call he couldn't refuse. Felt it thrum against the pocket of his jacket with every footfall, like a bird in a cage. Like a secret desperate to be told. He hadn't meant to see it. He hadn't meant to touch it. So why was it following him?

  He let Bowen's voice fill the space between them. He listened to him talk about conspiracies and mod jobs and the politics of using expired chili sauce packets on breakfast foods. But his thoughts wouldn't join the conversation, wouldn't drift far from the pce they'd anchored. The memory of picking up that red-hot nothing floated in front of him like dream-static, crackling at the edges, refusing to dissolve.

  The afternoon cooled, and the quiet began to spin like a centrifuge, shaking loose particles of word and possibility.

  "So—" Bowen began.

  "Maybe." Riven cut him off, breathless.

  Bowen smirked, victory curling the end of his mouth. "Maybe?"

  "Maybe my subconscious started leaving physical evidence." Riven didn't look at him, like saying it aloud was treason against his own head. Like saying it aloud might make it truer.

  "Sweet. Time to add a new column to my spreadsheet." Bowen ughed, elbowed him in the ribs. This time, Riven almost ughed back. Almost. But there was still something dark and hungry at his heels, and the spent wick of fear still flickered at the edge of him. He saw Bowen catch it in his periphery. Saw him hesitate. Weigh it. Decide against it.

  "Later, then," Bowen said breezily. "Bring your hallucinations over when you're done using them as an excuse to be a hermit." He veered left at the crosswalk. "See you back at the altar?" he called, already careening into the next block.

  Riven watched him go, watched him duck between pedestrians and float above a rippling neon sea of umbrels. He wouldn't be a block away before the questions started again, before the ones Riven could shrug off took shape and expanded and multiplied. And maybe he'd answer them; maybe he'd even tell the truth. But not now. Not with the memory of that shimmering intruder sparking behind his eyes. He pulled the feather from his pocket, half expecting it to be gone. Half hoping it would be. It wasn't.

  The feather was still there, a scarlet wound against the apartment's dingy floor.

  "Text me when you've summoned Satan or whatever."

  Bowen said it lightly, but the words hung heavier than usual. Like even he didn't believe his own sarcasm. Riven stood at the edge of the alley, hood up, hands in pockets, and gnced back. "Not funny," he said. Bowen, leaning on the railing of a rusted stairwell across the street, shrugged. "Wasn't a joke." Their eyes met for a second too long. Then Riven turned and slipped into the shadows between buildings. The alley always felt removed from the world, like a pocket reality that refused to follow city rules. Today it felt like a bruise—tender and humming. He ducked under the leaning beam. The vines had shifted again. There were more of them now, red at the tips like they'd bled through the wall. The shrine was there. Waiting.

  The air was wrong. It wasn't the smell—though that had changed, too. Less mildew, more ozone. Less decay, more... presence. He knelt carefully, heart thudding. The offering bundle in his coat felt heavier than usual, like it knew what it was walking into. Coin. Feather. Pstic charm. He reached for the candle st. It lit before he touched it.

  The fme flickered high, thin, hungry. He didn't flinch—but his breath caught. The heat kissed his skin like it remembered him. He exhaled slow. "Okay," he whispered. "You win. You're weird. And I'm losing it." The fme didn't respond. But the pendant around his neck—Bowen's handmade fidget-thing—grew cold. The kind of cold that sinks past skin. The kind that feels like breath on the back of your neck. Riven looked up sharply. No one was there. But something was.

  He closed his eyes. And for a moment—just one—he felt a thought that wasn't his, pressing close. Not words. Not even a voice. Just the shape of something watching. Longing. Regret. He opened his eyes. The candle still burned. The vines had bled farther, flowering scarlet across the concrete with arterial abundance. The shrine was a live thing, breathing. Waiting. He didn't stay longer than he had to. He left everything there, including his nerve. He was a block away from the alley before he could feel his fingers again, before he could tell himself he hadn't imagined it, hadn't gone completely and irrevocably off the deep end. They were red. Stained. Like he'd been holding the feather too tightly. Like it had never left his hands.

  The city broke around him in smearing fshes. Noise and movement everywhere. People everywhere. He didn't remember the walk home; he only remembered the heat on his skin and the cold shooting through his heart, the way something had looked too hard and too deep inside him. The way he'd looked back. He hadn't meant to. Maybe it hadn't either. Maybe it had already forgotten him. Maybe it couldn't.

  Later, the city hummed with low evening static. A neon haze vibrated against the skyline, buzzing with traffic and voices and the endless pulse of a city that never quite let the noise fade. Riven sat curled on the fire escape, knees drawn up, hoodie too thin for the chill. The feather y in his palm, its red catching the st of the rooftop glow like an ember that hadn't gone out yet. The alley felt like it followed him back, clinging to the air. Clinging to him. The raw red on his fingers wouldn't fade. The imagined thought wouldn't fade, either.

  He hadn't spoken since he got back.

  The shrine hadn't answered. Not with words.

  But something had felt him. Reached for him. And the air hadn't felt empty since. The humming lingered, lifting into the apartment, winding through the gap in the window frame. Riven stayed on the fire escape because the open air felt less full—because even this brittle silence felt less like a trap. The breeze wrapped around him, heavy with the scent of rain and metal and the st of autumn. Around him, lights twinkled into being, dotting the surrounding high-rises like tiny voids against the darkening sky. The temperature dipped. He rubbed his thumb along the feather's spine, expecting the skin to numb. It didn't.

  The window creaked behind him.

  Bowen appeared with two chipped mugs, one in each hand, a bnket over his shoulder like an unbothered grandma. He was talking into the apartment, like he assumed Riven wasn't really gone. Like he assumed Riven just needed to hear him talk in order to sit still and stay. But he didn't say anything right away once he crawled out the window. Just passed Riven a mug—too much cinnamon, too much sugar. Just the way he always made it. The way it was supposed to taste, even if Riven forgot or pretended not to care.

  They sipped in silence. The cold settled around them, biding its time. Waiting for one of them to blink first.

  It was Bowen who broke first.

  "You know you can tell me if something's crawling up your spine, right?"

  "Even if it's—" Riven stopped, voice thin. He stared down at the feather. It hadn't cooled. "Even if it's impossible?"

  "Especially if it's impossible," Bowen said.

  "I thought I was just pying pretend," Riven said quietly, like the air was listening now. "Lighting candles. Making patterns. Letting myself believe in something without having to actually... believe."

  Bowen watched him. Watched the way he didn't look up. "And now?"

  "I think something's listening."

  A beat.

  "Something real."

  Bowen's knuckles tightened around the mug. "Real like... dangerous? Or real like you're losing it?"

  "I don't know." Riven looked at him. The words came out barely audible and raw. "But I'm not sure it matters anymore."

  They sat with that for a long time. With the sounds of the city burrowing into the quiet until the quiet changed shape and the words could mean something else, could mean more. The bnket slipped from Bowen's shoulders. The night wrapped itself around them, colder and deeper than before, and Riven wondered if distance would matter—if it would follow him. If it even had to.

  Then Bowen, voice quiet but clear: "If it's real, I'll punch it."

  Riven almost ughed. Almost.

  "You'd lose."

  "Obviously. But it'd remember me."

  Silence again.

  Then: "You promise me something?"

  Riven looked over.

  Bowen's gaze was steady now. No joke in it. "If it whispers back—you tell me."

  Riven nodded. Not because he meant to. Just because he couldn't lie to Bowen. Not here. Not with the air so heavy and close. The feather reflected in Bowen's gsses, in the dark of the window behind him. The heat from their mugs seeped into their palms, and they drained them in long, slow sips. They didn't move. They didn't speak. They let the night catch up with them, let it push the st of the light over the horizon. The sky folded into itself, deep indigo swallowing pale dusk. The apartment glowed dimly at their backs, warming the edges of the fire escape, casting them in a fragile halo, but Riven didn't go in. Didn't let Bowen drag him in, even when his hands started to shake against his knees. Even when the cold bit bone-deep.

  The silence stretched on.

  And on.

  It was te. Past one. Past two. The clock in the corner had stopped ticking hours ago, leaving the night stranded somewhere between yesterday and what might come after. Bowen had fallen asleep on the couch again, one leg dangling over the side, his arm thrown up over his head like he owned the pce. Riven sat on the floor beside the window, knees up, eyes half-closed, the rhythm of Bowen's breathing filling the living room and the spaces between his thoughts. The feather was on the nightstand. Riven had tried to leave it there, tried to ignore it. Tried to convince himself it hadn't followed him home. But it had.

  He reached for it anyway.

  It was warm. Warmer than before. Like it had been waiting, biding its time, taking form.

  Still.

  Not memory, not accident. Not some fleeting dream.

  Presence.

  A pulse moved through him like a current—an intimate and electric charge, bypassing touch and sound and all the senses he thought he could trust. It was emotion. It was too much. Loneliness. Regret. Riven sagged against the wall, breath shallow and caught. Panic rose in his chest. A familiar panic.

  And then—like breath against his ear, like a whisper just beneath the skin:

  "You called me. I heard you."

  His heart smmed through him, hard and frantic and wild as he pushed himself upright in one quick motion. He looked toward the couch. Bowen hadn't moved. Hadn't flinched. Hadn't heard. The air was heavy, full, and Riven could hardly stand the density of it all. He picked up the feather, hands unsteady. Held it close, held it tight, and whispered back.

  "I think something is trying to answer."

  Bowen stirred and yawned. "What?" he said, voice thick with sleep. "Who're you talking to?"