Chapter 216: A Mortal Evening.
Mira walked toward our table with the small, knowing grin of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment.
Celestine caught it instantly. Her shoulders squared, spine straightening as her eyes narrowed a fraction. The shift was subtle, but the air around her cooled.
"Abram, right?" Mira said, stopping beside us.
"Yeah. Mira?"
She stood on the other side of the table, eyes sparkling with open amusement as they locked on mine. Celestine glanced between us, then settled her gaze on me with a smile that twisted through layers.
"What are you doing in the capital?" Mira asked.
"On a date," I said, the words a gentle reminder that I wasn’t alone.
Mira turned to Celestine with effortless charm. "I’m so sorry, lovely. Just excited to see him again—you know how it is." She kept it breezy. Celestine gave a gracious nod, the patience of centuries smoothing her expression.
Mira dropped the menus onto the table with a soft slap. Celestine picked hers up, flipping it open with long fingers.
"Told you we’d meet again soon," Mira said, turning back to me, voice low enough to be just for my ears.
I nodded. My mind spun. The date had flowed naturally from my apartment to here, and now Mira—last seen at her father’s safe house—had materialized from the back.
Is she the reason Mr. Kim was in the capital? The earlier moment at the coffee shop resurfaced, Kim trying his luck with Mercury.
"I’ll give you a few minutes to decide," Mira said, then softer: "Nice seeing you again, Abram." She turned. Her white hair swung as she disappeared through the back door.
At the far end of the room, Mistel sat watching our table with the particular, unwavering attention of someone who hadn’t looked away once since we sat down.
"Check this," Celestine said, sliding her menu across to me.
I opened it, scanning without really seeing. "I don’t think they have what I want."
"What do you want?" she asked, tilting her head, a faint smile playing at her lips.
Before I could answer, she rose smoothly. "Excuse me. Back in a minute."
I looked up. Mistel had already vanished. Celestine peeled my coat from her shoulders with graceful movements and draped it neatly over her chair. The black dress clung to her frame as she crossed the room and slipped out the front door.
What is going on between these two, I thought.
Enhance hearing.
The system answered instantly. The café expanded around me. Every sound sharpened into crystal clarity.
In the back, metal utensils clinked as Mira moved. Water ran briefly from a tap. Celestine’s footsteps pressed softly against the wooden floor outside. The front door creaked open, letting in a razor-sharp gust of night air before it clicked shut.
I held the menu loosely, every muscle coiled, listening.
"Does Sophia know you’re here, Lesty?" Mistel’s voice came through as clearly as if she stood beside me.
"No," Celestine replied. "She doesn’t need to."
"You’re using me," Mistel snapped, no pause. "I don’t want trouble with the Vales. You need to leave. Now."
I sat perfectly still, thumb pressing into the edge of the menu, heart rate steady but alert.
"You showing up here is already trouble." A tense beat. "Are you doing this for him?"
Silence stretched outside. Long enough to mean something.
"Mortals?" Mistel’s voice came back, sharper. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I’m not doing it for anyone," Celestine said, and something in her tone was different from everything else she’d said tonight—quieter, more careful. "I’m doing it for me. I just want to feel human again."
There it is, I thought, thumb pressing harder into the edge of the menu.
"And you thought I’d help you with that." Mistel’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "That’s an illusion given the times."
"Times." Celestine gave a small, cold laugh. "Says someone living in a borrowed body. Are you going to help me or not?"
"Leave." Sharp. Final. "Leave right now."
The door at the back opened. Mira came through, scanning the room, her eyes flicking straight to my table. She started toward me.
"That’s why I won’t support the awakening." Celestine’s voice, grounded and certain. "We can’t keep having more—"
"Hey." Mira was suddenly standing in front of me, cutting across the signal. "Where’s your—"
The front door slammed open with a sharp bang.
Celestine crossed the room in four quick strides, my coat already in her hand, her face composed in the specific, tight way of someone working hard to keep it that way. Her jaw was clenched, eyes sharp.
"We need to leave," she said.
I was on my feet before she finished the sentence, chair scraping back.
"We’ll meet again," I told Mira, and followed Celestine out.
I passed Mistel standing near the entrance, her eyes tracking us with cold intensity, and fell into step with Celestine on the pavement outside. The midnight cold hit us immediately, biting through my shirt.
"Everything okay?" I asked, glancing at her profile.
"Yeah." She forced a smile that didn’t touch her eyes, tension still radiating from her shoulders. "Small issues. I’m sorry." She glanced sideways at me, searching. "If you want, we can find another spot."
[Celestine Vale. Highly agitated. This could work in your favor but creatures like her sometimes turn violent to manage the feeling. Risk involved.]
[Suggesting another day may be the better move.]
"Let’s find somewhere else," I said.
She looked at me for a long second, something softening and settling in her expression that hadn’t been there before we walked into that café.
"Okay," she said quietly.
We started walking again. I draped my coat back around her shoulders. The capital night pressed in—cold, empty, watchful. My mind turned over the fragments I’d caught before Mira interrupted.
That’s why I won’t support the awakening.
Celestine Vale—primordial family—was against it. She had come to the capital chasing something human. She’d slipped into my locked apartment, warned me away from her sister, and let me pull her out into the night anyway. And beneath all of it, she carried a fracture that might be pulling her away from everything her family had spent centuries building.
What does that make you, I thought, watching her walk beside me, shoulders still tight beneath my coat. And what does it make the marking, if you’re already moving in the right direction on your own.
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