"It wasn't the world that reached for him. It was the god that remembered how."

  POV: Riven

  He didn't dream that night. Or maybe he did, but each time he reached for a thread of memory, it unraveled. Wisps of something vague tangled in his mind, too slippery to hold. A dream with teeth too quiet to bite. When he opened his eyes, the feather was still there—its edges glowing with that impossible heat. Same pce. But somehow, it felt closer. Like it had crept through the night, more than the inches between them could express.

  The air in the apartment was wrong again. Not cold. Not warm. Just... inhabited. The sense of it prickled against his skin, like someone had breathed into every corner and stayed behind. The heaviness of presence without the comfort of flesh.

  Riven sat up slowly, feeling the tension in his limbs—a tautness that whispered of an ache deeper than muscle. He didn't touch the feather, but he didn't avoid it either. His body was still holding the shape of something it wasn't meant to carry. A weight that didn't live in the bones, but in the breath. He reached for the notebook, fingers skimming the cover without opening it. Hesitating. Stalling.

  He could still feel it—what had happened st time. The way his hand had moved like it belonged to someone else. The words that had spilled out of him without warning or will, like confession. Or prophecy.

  I might want it to.

  He shook his head, trying to push back the thought before it crystallized. Focus on routine. Anchor in habit. He made tea. Burned toast. Let the kettle scream far too long just to drown out the silence that wasn't really silent anymore.

  The gss on the window had fogged, a veil of condensation bordering on the unreal. He hadn't showered yet. He hadn't even boiled enough water for steam. Still, the mist traced erratic lines across the pane like fingers dragged in memory. It wasn't a message. Not exactly. But it was presence. A residue of attention. A smudge left by something that didn't have skin.

  Riven backed away from the gss. Not afraid. Not quite. Just... wary. Like he'd stumbled into a cathedral barefoot and bloodstained, and the altar had recognized him.

  Then—without meaning to—he whispered: "I know you're here."

  Nothing answered. But the quiet shifted in the stillness. Like breath. Like listening.

  He pulled on a jacket, though it was warm outside. He needed the yers today. Needed the bulk of fabric between himself and the world. Between himself and other worlds. The air felt strange against his skin as he stepped out—thick with summer but clinging like a wet promise. He walked to the train station, hands buried deep in his pockets, the stride of a man keeping pace with his own panic.

  The ptform was loud. Unkind. Comforting in its refusal to care who he was. What he was. He sank onto a bench, letting the noise fill him up where quiet had been. A toddler was screaming at the far end, a parent's patience unraveling in soft, biting tones. Someone else was compining into their phone, something about a meeting running te. Riven tched onto the voices—any scrap of life uninterested in him. Uninterested in the invisible.

  The train roared into the station with a sound like tearing, brakes shrieking like the city was dying and didn't know it yet. Riven stayed where he was, letting people surge around him.

  He could still feel it. A smudge of attention. The sense of being seen.

  He took the next train, stood with his back to the sliding doors. The whistle blew, shrill and shoving. The doors screamed shut behind him, and he didn't flinch. Let the train rattle his bones, a shaking he didn't have to expin.

  The gss on the window had fogged before they reached the first stop. He watched the lines of condensation trace their paths, like they knew where they were going. Like they were heading somewhere he couldn't follow. It was a message. It was a hand. It held him like a breath.

  Riven got off at the next station and retraced his steps to the apartment.

  He couldn't keep running.

  Then maybe he wouldn't.

  The weight in his pocket was unmistakable. A feather. A relic. A cim he wanted to deny.

  I might want it to.

  He pushed the notebook aside, reached for the kettle. Made more tea. Burned more toast. When the silence caught up with him, he let it.

  "I know you're here."

  Nothing answered.

  Still, the quiet shifted. Like breath. Like listening.

  The light caught on the edge of the feather like it wanted to be noticed. Like it needed him to see. Like it was an accusation wrapped in fire.

  Riven didn't touch it. Not yet. Not before he knew what touching would mean. Instead, he moved through the room like it might notice if he breathed too loud, like it was watching him decide whether or not to acknowledge what they both already knew. A kind of cataclysmic confession—the kind he couldn't take back.

  The bathroom mirror was still fogged. Still. Not again—still. He hadn't touched it since st night. Hadn't showered. Hadn't stood there, palm pressed to the gss like a kid pretending not to wait for monsters. And yet, the surface glistened with new condensation, shimmering along the curve of his warped reflection.

  He stepped in anyway. Each footfall sounded too loud in the tile silence. The kind of silence that suggested it was making room for something. He reached out. Touched the mirror. Not ft this time. The heat met him halfway.

  A flicker—

  Movement that didn't follow his own. For half a breath, his reflection gged. It blinked too slow. Tilted its head the wrong direction. His own face, but not quite. His own eyes, but deeper. Then it caught up. Snapped into sync, like it had only just remembered how to be him.

  Riven pulled his hand back. Slowly. Didn't run. Didn't flinch.

  Just whispered: "You're not hiding anymore, are you?"

  From the hallway, the kettle screamed again.

  Only—he hadn't turned it back on.

  Riven stepped out of the bathroom with the kind of stillness one reserves for breaking spells, with the kind of footsteps that don't dare speak too loud. The apartment felt smaller now. Not cramped. Not cluttered. Just occupied. A space already cimed.

  He walked past the kitchen.

  Didn't stop.

  Didn't look.

  Whatever was boiling wasn't water.

  The bedroom door stood open, even though he remembered closing it. His bed was made. He hadn't done that either.

  And the feather was—

  Gone.

  Not on the pillow. Not on the desk. Not anywhere at all. There was no trail, no trace, but its absence felt sharper than the edges of its heat. His breath hitched in the emptiness it left behind.

  Then—

  "Don't scream," a voice whispered. Not aloud. Not quite.

  Riven turned.

  There, in the hallway mirror—his mirror—Kinunnos stood.

  Not reflected.

  Present.

  Half-wrapped in Between light, smoke-veined and flickering, his shape barely holding. One hand pressed to the gss. The other? Outstretched. On his side. Reaching.

  And Riven—too tired, too raw, too honest—almost reached back. Almost let himself believe in the material of need, need spun into matter and shaped into form, the miracle of it holding. Almost.

  The phone rang.

  Riven flinched. Dropped his hand from the gss like he'd touched a live wire, like the suddenness of sound had shocked him back into being flesh, into being fallible. Back into being scared.

  The phone rang.

  And he ignored it. He looked at the godlike apparition filling up his world, filling up his skin, and he ignored it. Let it ring. Let it stop. Let it go.

  Kinunnos stayed.

  Kinunnos stayed—faded but stubborn, a silhouette drawn in light and hunger against the smear of Riven's own reflection. His own outline visible beneath the body of a god. Smoke and shadow. Ink and nerve.

  Kinunnos stayed.

  And the quiet returned. Immense. Sacred. Intimate.

  "Something is happening," Riven said, and his voice felt rger than the room could hold. "Something I didn't pn for."

  The god ughed and trembled at once, shape flickering with the force of it, like he couldn't quite conceal how uncertain he was. How fragile. "You sound surprised."

  "I am surprised."

  "And here I thought you knew everything."

  Riven was silent. Stubborn. Sincere. Hoping.

  Kinunnos wavered. Stilled himself with a visible act of will, every muscle and sinew a moment away from dissolving back into the aether. "You could," he said. "You could, if you wanted."

  He let his fingers brush the mirror and felt the heat steam through. Felt the gss shift. Felt them draw so close it hurt.

  Felt the need to believe it.

  "I want..." Riven started, and he couldn't bring himself to finish. Couldn't bring himself to speak the truth aloud.

  Kinunnos filled the space between them with his answer. "Show me," he said, and Riven almost did. Almost let himself be made in Kinunnos' image. Almost let himself matter to a god.

  The power of it poured through the gss, a surge of unmatched voltage, of devotion rendered pure and fleshless and brutal.

  Too much.

  He staggered.

  Pulled back again, unsteady, the air around him spiraling into less than nothing. His lungs empty. His limbs empty. The hollow of him almost rge enough to hold Kinunnos. Almost.

  The apartment spun.

  The world spun.

  The only thing that stayed—until bckness closed in—was the sight of the god's outstretched hand, too bright, too close, too real.

  Riven's vision bcked out like a bulb bursting.

  He hit the floor with a weight he hadn't let himself feel until now. A weight that was breathless. Boundless. Unbearable.

  The silence swallowed him whole.

  And then, through the dark, through the din, he felt it:

  The light caught on the edge of the feather like it wanted to be noticed.

  Riven didn't get to reach back. Didn't get to feel his skin close the impossible space between himself and the hand that promised, the hand that cimed, the hand that held every part of him so close it hurt. He didn't get to know what it would have meant.

  Because the second his fingers twitched toward the gss—toward him—something more violent than a miracle tore through the room. The front door smmed open, hollow thunder, with the subtlety of a brick through stained gss. The sound of it spun Riven around, ripped air into his lungs, shook the depths of him with shockwaves of impending fury and panic, colpsed the small infinity growing inside of him into a single, stupid point.

  "Yo!" came a voice too solid to belong to a ghost and too brash to belong to a god. "They lied about the bus schedule again. I swear the city's run by sleep-deprived cryptids—oh, hey."

  Bowen.

  Riven flinched so hard his hand scraped the wall. He looked back.

  The mirror was empty again.

  Of course it was.

  "You okay?" Bowen asked, and before Riven could answer, he closed the door and mussed his hair back into pce, mussed his clothes back into pce, mussed his confusion back into pce like nothing much had happened. Like it wasn't still happening, like the dead didn't rise and fall and rise again in the span of half a second.

  Riven turned slowly, trying to calm his breathing before Bowen caught the tail end of his freefall. Too te.

  "You okay?" the question came again, this time more pointed. The tremor in Riven's shoulders must have been doing some serious sign nguage on his behalf, because Bowen's tone shifted from comedic indignation to clinical concern in a heartbeat. "You look like you saw something that wasn't supposed to see you."

  "I'm fine," Riven said, the lie so transparent it was practically spectral.

  Bowen stared at him. The kind of stare that was all knowing, dry humor, and no patience. The kind of stare that said Riven was a ridiculous liar and they both knew it.

  "Cool. So not fine, then."

  He tossed his messenger bag across the table and didn't look away, gaze like a diagnostic machine. Eyes scanning Riven for fws in the wiring, for warning signs, for any readout branded with the word fragile. Riven hated it when he did that. Hated how accurate he always was.

  "I made tea," Riven offered weakly, a failed negotiation tactic from someone who couldn't even buy into his own pretense.

  Bowen raised an eyebrow, nonchant disbelief. "Great. That expins why the kettle was screaming while unplugged."

  Riven blinked. The glitch in him stuttered. "It was—?"

  "Yup," Bowen said, popping the p as he rounded the corner to the kitchen. Riven stood where he was, a game of chicken between his panic and Kinunnos' absence. "Also, the bathroom mirror fogged again. That a new feature or are we just leaning all the way into the haunted cryptid roommate aesthetic?"

  He stared at the empty mirror like it might change its mind again, like it might change Riven's mind along with it. Like it might forget how to be empty and remember how to spin devotion back into matter.

  Bowen returned a moment ter, not in any hurry, two chipped mugs in hand. He held one out, steam curling above it—too sweet, too much cinnamon. Just the way Riven used to like it before he got too tired to have preferences.

  Riven took it. Held it. Didn't drink.

  Bowen sat across from him, mug in both hands, elbows on knees. Casual. Controlled. Watching. Like he knew the trick to this particur magic show was to wait until the audience let their guard down.

  "You've been quiet tely."

  "I'm always quiet."

  "You've been weird-quiet," Bowen crified, voice low. "That's different. Like you're listening to something I can't hear."

  Riven didn't answer.

  He wanted to. But the impulse sounds like. The impulse for worship. The impulse for confession.

  Bowen let the silence stretch, then said softly: "You checking mirrors now? Waiting for something to show up?"

  Riven's grip on the mug tightened. Just slightly.

  Bowen leaned back, sighed. "Right. Cool. Not a problem. Totally not giving me war fshbacks to when you used to sleep with a knife under your pillow and flinch every time I coughed."

  "I don't—"

  "Didn't say it was the same," Bowen interrupted gently. "Just... familiar."

  They sat in that for a minute.

  It was kind of silence that knew what it was doing. The kind that filled the space, pushed out the breath, moved in while no one was looking.

  Then Bowen added, quieter: "You wanna talk about what's flickering in your reflection? Or should I just start building you a panic shrine out of old tech and spite?"

  Riven almost smiled.

  Almost.

  But instead, he whispered: "He was here."

  Bowen didn't move. Didn't flinch. But his hands stilled on the mug.

  "In the mirror?" he asked.

  Riven nodded.

  Bowen took a long breath, let it out slow. Then: "Well. If he breaks the gss, I'm charging him for it. Sacred haunting or not, rent's due on Friday."

  Bowen didn't press the way Riven knew he could. He didn't dig for details that Riven wasn't sure he had the words to hand over, didn't pry or push or try to unearth the things still tangled in Riven's chest. He didn't hurl sarcasm like a grenade, didn't question or comment on the way Riven looked like he'd been hollowed out and left to wander back to himself. He didn't point out how Riven's hands were shaking just enough to spill the full force of what had happened all over the floor.

  Instead, he just got up.

  Just washed his mug.

  Just left Riven's where it sat, water rings forming beneath it like ghosts making themselves at home.

  "Alright," he said, voice as soft as a closing door. "If you need me, I'll be... not sleeping. Because the fire arm's possessed and the router blinked 'I see you' in Morse code."

  He paused at the hallway.

  Looked back.

  "You're not alone, Riv. Even if it feels like it."

  Riven didn't look at him, didn't trust his voice enough to speak, didn't dare to drag Bowen back into the gravity of what had taken shape between himself and the mirror. Between himself and the god. He didn't pull Bowen too far in when he was still halfway there himself.

  But he nodded. Just once.

  And Bowen left it at that.

  The apartment settled itself again once Bowen's door clicked shut. The kind of quiet that hums. That watches. That waits to see if Riven would fill it or lose himself within it.

  Riven sat there long after the tea had gone cold and the apartment had cooled around him. He sat there with his hands curled around the mug like he could convince his skin not to remember. Like he could keep his body from betraying him, keep it from wanting what he hadn't pnned for, keep it contained. Keep it safe from the way the mirror had burned, had pulsed through him like a promise. The way it had felt like being chosen and set every part of him on fire. The way it had hurt.

  He stood eventually, like someone not quite finished being human. Or maybe: like someone who wasn't sure how to be. The bedroom was still wrong, but less than it had been. Less like it left him behind. Less like it didn't know where to put him.

  He blinked. Saw why.

  Maybe it was less wrong because the feather was back—on the desk now, beside the notebook. A silent admission. A shared secret. A reminder that Kinunnos hadn't just wanted to fill a space in Riven's reflection. That he hadn't just wanted to haunt him from afar. That he hadn't just meant to be a ghost.

  Riven looked at it for a long time.

  He didn't speak to it.

  Didn't demand answers.

  He just reached out and brushed it with his fingertips. Not enough to pick it up, not enough to let it show him everything, not enough to overwhelm.

  But enough to acknowledge it.

  The air shifted—low and warm, like breath across skin.

  Riven closed his eyes.

  And this time, when the thought pressed close—I see you—he didn't pull away.