The next morning, she smelled breakfast.

  Still half-asleep, Savannah groaned and dragged herself out of bed, following the scent with her eyes stubbornly shut. She moved like a sleepwalker, arms swaying slightly as she sniffed the air—until she collided hard with the edge of a chair that definitely hadn’t been there last night.

  “Oi! What the—?”

  “Oh, you’re up,” came her mother’s dry voice.

  Savannah blinked her eyes open slowly. Not using her powers—and with her Mani levels still in the gutter—made mornings feel like trudging through fog with bricks for limbs.

  Speaking of fog.

  Sandra stood by the sink in her usual spot, robe loose, cigarette balanced between two fingers like a conductor’s baton. She took a drag, then pointed the lit end toward the table with a flick of her wrist.

  “For me?” Savannah asked.

  “No, I’m just pointing at a sealed container so you don’t break your nose on it,” Sandra muttered with a smirk.

  “Color me surprised. A hint of concern.”

  Sandra laughed, raspy and full-throated. Her robe slipped off one shoulder as she cackled. “Tony brought it. You should apologize for running over his foot yesterday. He’s a nice guy.”

  “That depends entirely on how good the food is.”

  Savannah wobbled over to the table and flopped into the chair like a felled tree. She popped open the bag and unwrapped the container. The scent hit her like a memory.

  The bread had that crispy edge you only got from a grill that hadn’t been cleaned since the Clinton administration. The eggs were fluffy but firm, folded over gooey slices of cheese that clung to them like melted gold. Somewhere inside, smoky meats and sharp onions fought for dominance, and lost beautifully to hot sauce that soaked through just enough to promise a kick without drenching the bun.

  She smiled.

  Maybe Tony wasn’t so bad.

  Savannah devoured the food. Back at Echo-9, meals were… fine. Nutritious. Sometimes even tasty. But when the kitchen roster depended on who hadn’t died or bled out that week, quality became a roll of the dice.

  Sandra had wandered off somewhere, but Savannah didn’t care. She hadn’t come home expecting conversation. Truth be told, she didn’t even know why she’d come home at all. Yes, they said she had to go home but that’s mostly protocol. If she didn’t want to go… she could have stayed on the base. She wasn’t planning to stay long anyway. Just long enough to stop aching every time she breathed.

  As she mulled over how to waste her vacation, Sandra returned. A deck of cards in one hand, a box of cigarettes in the other.

  Savannah raised an eyebrow between bites and chuckled. “Isn’t it really early for cigarettes?”

  “Is it? I swore being an adult meant I could decide that on my own.”

  “Adult is pushing it.”

  Sandra didn’t flinch. “Did you really come home to be a baby?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I did,” Savannah muttered. “Since I’m out there being a real adult.”

  “Real?” Sandra scoffed, pulling out a chair. “You fight monsters and whatever blew up that park—”

  “Oi!” Savannah cut her off, pointing a fork at her. “So you were following along.”

  “I saw the news—I heard what happened. But no one came to my door, so I figured you were fine.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I can’t overstay my blessings,” Sandra said plainly, lighting her cigarette. “Everyone else died, but my daughter came home. What more can I ask for?”

  “Don’t talk about them like that.”

  “I’d rather we not talk about it at all.”

  “Why?” Savannah’s voice rose. “Don’t you want to know what happened to me?”

  Sandra paused, lowering the cigarette from her lips. She stared at her daughter for a long, dry moment.

  “What can I do, Savannah? You fight monsters or whatever. I provide a place to stay. Hence why you’re here. What more do you want from me?”

  Savannah thought of a million things. But they’d had this conversation a million times. This was just how Sandra cared. Half-spoken. Half-hearted.

  Her eyes dropped to the cards. “You about to play solitaire?”

  “No,” Sandra said, shuffling with a practiced flick. “We can play Speed. Unless you’re scared I’ll win.”

  Savannah snorted. “Please. Deal.”

  Sandra laid out the piles with quiet precision, then asked without looking up, “So. What’s the plan? How long you staying?”

  Savannah took a breath and watched the cards settle.

  “Until I stop limping,” she said. “After that… I don’t know. Haven’t figured it out yet.”

  They didn’t say much after that.

  But the shuffle of cards said enough.

  The game started fast. Cards slapped down between them in a messy rhythm, fingers flicking with years of practice. Savannah won the first round easily.

  “Ha.” Savannah dropped a card in perfect sync. “Too slow, old woman.”

  Sandra grumbled, already shuffling again. “You cheated.”

  Sure.” Savannah tossed down another card. “Maybe you should light another cigarette. You don’t seem focused.”

  Sandra raised an eyebrow, matching her move with a flick. “You might be onto something.”

  They went again. This time, Sandra held her own, cackling when Savannah hesitated just a second too long on a six.

  They played a few more rounds, trading wins and insults until the tension in the air thinned out into something more breathable. Then, during a lull in the shuffling, Sandra spoke.

  “It’s always good to have a plan,” she said, quietly.

  Savannah leaned back, chewing the inside of her cheek. Her eyes wandered to the window.

  “I’m just saying. Don’t hurt yaself thinking too hard.”

  Savannah let out a weary sigh as she reached for a cigarette. With a flick of the lighter, the flame caught, and she took a slow drag before exhaling deeply, her body sinking against the edge of the table.

  “I could… I don’t know. Help with the investigation. The whole thing with the creature. Maybe figure out….” She frowned. “But it’s dead. They’ve got people for that. Smarter people. I’m not really needed.”

  Sandra dealt again, slow this time.

  “Then plan to do nothing.”

  Savannah blinked. “Wow. Truly a mother’s wisdom. Sit on your ass and pray the world fixes itself.”

  Sandra chuckled as she matched another card. “Don’t get it twisted. Doing nothing on purpose is harder than it sounds. Especially for my bigheaded daughter with a savior complex and a chip on her shoulder.”

  “I’m not lost or anything,” Savannah added quickly. “I just… I dunno. I have this itch to do something. Something normal.” She then snorted, playing her card with a little too much force. “And bigheaded? Says the woman who used to flex about winning a karaoke contest in ’92 like it was a Grammy.”

  “Don’t get salty just because you sound like a dying cat every time you sing.”

  They laughed, even as the game went on. Sandra won the round and smugly leaned back, victorious and unbothered.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Savannah tapped the edge of her cards, gaze softening.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I usually am,” Sandra said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Sandra shrugged. “Must be the nicotine.”

  They played another hand in relative peace. This time slower. Less competitive. Savannah found herself almost relaxing.

  Maybe… maybe planning to do nothing wasn’t the worst idea.

  Not forever. But for now.

  “Yeah… I plan on doing nothing for this vacation… someone else can handle this for now…”

  “There you go.”

  “Oi! Shut up.”

  ——

  “Take a shot.”

  “Fine!” Seyvon groaned, pouring the whiskey. He knocked it back, grimaced, then slammed the glass down. “But I highly doubt aliens did this!”

  Mason pointed a wobbly finger at him, his purple eyes half-lidded and way too serious. “If there are rifts, vampires, and Demurges—then aliens could’ve definitely pulled some strings!”

  “I’m pretty sure we’d have seen evidence of aliens by now.”

  “Says who?” Mason flared, arms wide, nearly tipping over his chair. “You think little green dudes need to show up waving flags and crop circles? Maybe they already did! Maybe we’re the evidence!”

  Seyvon rolled his eyes behind his blindfold. “You sound like a sleep-deprived conspiracy YouTuber. Next you’re gonna tell me birds aren’t real.”

  Mason opened his mouth, paused, then muttered, “Some of them aren’t.”

  They both burst into laughter, their voices echoing off the balcony walls like drunks who’d lost track of time.

  Rittenhouse Square stretched below them, all shimmering windows and polished steel. From their vantage point in the high rises, the city looked like it was pretending to sleep.

  Seyvon leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head. He wore a black blindfold to match the rest of his fit—jet black Nike track suit, spotless black Air Forces.

  Across from him, Mason was a chaos rainbow in slow collapse—black hair wild, purple eyes glowing faint in the moonlight. He wore a flowing purple robe and dark navy-blue Crocs with unmatched socks. One had stars. The other, a cartoon duck.

  “You think too narrow, Seyvon,” Mason said, twirling his half-empty glass like it held the secrets of the universe. “You’re trapped in the frame. Sometimes, to grasp the whole picture—you have to look outside it. See the colors bleeding over the edge. The brush strokes you weren’t supposed to notice. That’s where the truth hides.”

  Seyvon nodded slowly. “That’s real poetic. And yeah, I get that. But the canvas is still ruled by Manifestation. Strict laws. Tight boundaries. It’s hard to move around them unless you bring in something external—rituals, relics, pacts. You can’t just think your way out of the painting.”

  “I will not be ridiculed by a man wearing Air Forces in a philosophical discussion,” Mason said, clutching his chest.

  “Then take another shot and say something even dumber.”

  Mason raised his glass with pride. “Gladly.” He went to pour and realized they were out.

  He called for her without raising his voice.

  “Cellirna.”

  A moment later, she appeared—shorter than both men, yet carrying herself like a queen who didn’t need a throne. White hair tumbled to her shoulders in sharp waves, and her crimson eyes seemed to burn even while half-lidded. She was sucking on a red-and-white lollipop, and in her free hand, she held a chilled bottle of something way too expensive for the level of chaos on this balcony.

  She wore a fitted, sleeveless slate-gray top with a high collar and a front zipper. A slim strap buckled across her chest just above a sheer cutout. The long sleeves, attached only at the arms, slouched slightly off her shoulders.

  Without a word, she poured a glass for Seyvon, then one for Mason.

  “Appreciate you,” Seyvon muttered, taking his drink.

  Mason leaned forward with a slight sway. “Tell me something, Cellirna. In your two centuries walking this chaotic little plane… has anything like this ever happened before?”

  She popped the lollipop from her mouth and gave him a look that said you already know the answer but imma say it anyway.

  “Nope,” she said, voice soft but hard-edged. “Not even durin’ the Family Wars. Closest I seen was that throwdown ’bout fifteen years back. Apostle versus Jojo Santana.”

  Mason let out a low whistle and leaned back. “I remember that one. Everyone said it was just a test site implosion. A stupid lie to hide the fact that three islands sunk.”

  “You humans are just easy to manipulate I guess,” Cellirna said, sucking on her lollipop again.

  Seyvon turned toward her, tapping his glass. “What about the Three Families? Could they be behind this? I’ve already checked every known cult with the firepower to pull something like this. They’re all preoccupied—political wars, truce festivals, whatever.”

  Cellirna shook her head. “Nah. Ain’t heard nothin’ on the channels. An’ if the Families were movin’, I’d know. Same with the Packs of Furen. This ain’t their style.”

  Mason laughed, swirling his drink. “Packs of Furen? Please. Like those mangy mutts could ever craft something this grand.”

  Cellirna grinned. “Right? Whoever did this had finesse.”

  Seyvon sighed. “Which means we’re no closer to figuring it out.”

  Mason lifted his glass. “Which means we take another shot.”

  Cellirna raised a brow. “At this rate, y’all gon’ solve this mystery by accidentally astral projecting.”

  Seyvon and Mason clinked glasses.

  “Worth a shot,” they said in unison.

  “Alright,” Seyvon said, setting his glass down with a firm clink. “Let’s break down everything we do know.”

  Cellirna didn’t respond right away. Instead, she bit down on her lollipop. A sharp crack echoed between them—just loud enough to slice the silence. The candy splintered, and she let the shards sit on her tongue like she was savoring the slow disintegration.

  Mason sighed and stood, his robe fluttering faintly. Without another word, he slipped inside, presumably to fetch another bottle—until they heard the soft thump of a canvas being dragged out.

  Seyvon continued, fingers lacing together as he stared into the skyline. “If it’s not the Vampires or the Packs of Furen, and it’s definitely not the cults—we’re down to individuals. A person. Not a Lord. Not an Apostle. That kind of aura would’ve been caught the second they flinched. And they’ve been dormant anyway, ever since E.R.O. put their top Riftkeepers on watch rotation.”

  Cellirna gave a short nod, her crimson eyes thoughtful. “Then maybe…” she said slowly, “maybe it ain’t from here. Maybe it ain’t from anywhere. Somethin’ new came through the Rift. Somethin’ we don’t got names for yet.”

  Seyvon shook his head. “That’s not how Rifts work. Not in any documented instance. You’ve been around long enough to back me on that.” He looked at her, voice measured. “Even the unstable ones show signs—energy fluctuation, spatial decay, pre-rupture noise. Hours. Days, even. This thing just was. Rift-rebounds are rare for a reason. There was no pulse. No warning.”

  Cellirna didn’t argue. She didn’t need to. Her silence admitted he was right.

  Mason returned with a medium-sized canvas tucked under one arm, brushes in the other. He sat cross-legged on the floor, dragging the canvas into the ambient light spilling from the balcony’s overhead light.

  “Y’know,” Mason began, swirling paint without looking, “all of this came at the best and worst time. We finally get a few weeks where the Families aren’t throat-punching each other, cults are off doing their shadow opera nonsense, and the Lords are actually dormant for once… and then this drops. Like the universe got bored of balance.”

  He dipped into black and began sweeping wide arcs across the canvas. It was the night sky. Sparse, quiet, too clean—until flecks of red, like distant flares, dotted the void.

  Cellirna watched him, lollipop stick still clutched between her teeth. “You ever think it wasn’t from space?” she asked suddenly. “Maybe it came through a Rift, yeah, but not from outer space. Just… another layer of reality. One none of us been to.”

  “A pocket realm,” Mason mused, dotting a single violet streak across the stars. “Or maybe the inside of something. Like a stomach. A machine.”

  Seyvon only half listened. His mind had wandered, spiraling back to the one thing he couldn’t shake.

  “Experiment,” he muttered under his breath.

  Cellirna glanced at him. “Hm?”

  “The creature said ‘experiment,’” Seyvon said louder, voice low and grim. “Demurges don’t say stuff like that. They’re built for chaos, not commentary. Even the highborn ones, the thinkers—they’re still killers. Sharper teeth. Better grammar. That’s it.”

  “Then this one wasn’t just a Demurge,” Cellirna said slowly.

  “No,” Seyvon said. “And that’s the other thing. Savannah’s report—she said the boy had been around for years. And there’s no record of a Rift forming near that park. Not ever. No energy discharge. No dimensional fracture. But a Veythari was born.”

  They all went still.

  Mason dipped his brush again, gaze haunted. “So it wasn’t a Rift. It was more akin to a birth?”

  Seyvon nodded once.

  Cellirna finally spoke again, flicking the now-empty lollipop stick off the balcony with a lazy snap of her fingers.

  “Maybe it was a Rift Beast,” she said, voice casual but laced with weight. “One of the old ones. Somethin’ big crawlin’ in from the deeper layers. Ain’t seen one of those in a hot minute.”

  Mason snorted mid-brushstroke. “What, like Bigfoot? Loch Ness? Next you’re gonna tell me Mothman got tired of West Virginia and decided to take a vacation.”

  Cellirna grinned. “You makin’ jokes, but I’ve seen Mothman. Dude had an attitude and great legs.”

  Seyvon just sighed, rubbing his temples.

  Mason leaned back from his painting, gesturing wildly with a brush still dripping paint. “No offense to cryptids, but if another fuzzy humanoid or underwater lizard showed up, they wouldn’t leave an empathic crater.”

  “Unless it was a dragon,” Cellirna offered.

  Mason paused dramatically. “Okay. Maybe a dragon. But let’s be honest—we’d have seen a dragon. Heard it. Seen the Twitter threads.”

  Seyvon didn’t even blink. “You have Twitter?”

  Mason waved him off. “Strictly for art accounts and kitten threads.”

  “Of course,” Cellirna muttered.

  Mason turned back to the painting. He began dotting bright gold into the sky. “Rift Beasts make noise. They come with chaos. This thing was quiet. It nested. It didn’t rampage—it waited. Watched. That’s not a beast. That’s… something else.”

  Mason sneezed violently.

  His arm jerked forward, elbow bumping the glass next to the canvas. The half-full cup tipped over and splashed across the lower half of the canvas in a wave of amber and red.

  “Tch—!”

  He froze, then slowly turned his head to glare at Cellirna.

  “You could’ve stopped that.”

  She raised a brow. “Excuse me?”

  “You saw it fall. You could’ve caught it—you’re fast enough!”

  “So are you,” she shot back, crossing her arms.

  “That’s not the point!” Mason said, clutching the wet canvas like it had been mortally wounded. “I sneeze once, and my masterpiece gets a whiskey baptism—and you’re standing right there, just watching like you’re on the sidelines of an opera!”

  Cellirna smirked. “If this was an opera it would be a terrible showing and I would start throwing tomatoes.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Keep talking and I’ll throw you into the sunlight.”

  She leaned in, voice cool and calm: “And I’ll burn every one of your paintings. And crush your sculptures. Even that weird little glass swan you pretend isn’t sentimental.”

  Mason gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Try me.”

  As the two squared off, Seyvon barely registered their antics. His gaze was locked on the canvas.

  The spilled paint and alcohol hadn’t ruined it. In fact, they’d transformed it. The swirling liquor mixed with deep blacks and radiant gold, the result… unsettling.

  Experiment.

  His eyes widened.

  What if… someone was trying to make something new? Not summon, not awaken—but create.

  Two anomalies. The creature. The Veythari. Both outside normal Rift patterns. Both tied to the same event.

  He smiled—slow, careful. The grin of a man brushing against the shape of the truth for the first time.

  Mason, still scowling, looked down at the canvas. “…Okay. I’ll admit it. The blend isn’t bad. The textures… I can work with it.”

  He turned to Cellirna. “What brand was that whiskey again?”

  “Xarthin Red,” she said, glancing over. “Distilled in Hollow Moor. Why?”

  “I want to try it on black primer next time.”

  As he dabbed his brush back into the chaotic mess, Cellirna tilted her head toward Seyvon, who was now leaning back in his chair, arms crossed and smiling like a man who’d just cracked a code.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Alright. What’s got you giddy? Your heart rate just jumped.”

  Seyvon didn’t look at her right away. He just kept staring at the canvas. “I have a strong hypothesis,” he said softly.

  And then, he finally looked up.

  “And if I’m right… someone’s not just tearing through the rules. They’re rewriting them.”