The street is empty, silent. No one is around to watch as Aiden and I step up close to the shuttered, boarded-up corner store.

Thank god. After everything Aiden and I have done together, if breaking into a corner store is how we wind up getting ourselves arrested, I’m actually going to be mad.

We’re taking precautions, speaking very quietly, sticking to the shadows. But I feel no eyes on us as Aiden presses his fingertips against the brick wall, feeling out the integrity of the old structure.

“It’s pretty run down,” I point out, my breath puffing on the cold air. “Can’t you just smash through it, Bicep Boy?”

Aiden looks at me over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “You want to get the attention of the whole street?”

“So you’re saying you could?” I let out a soft whistle, slowly run my eyes up and down his body. “Sexy.”

“Stay focused, little demon.” Aiden turns back to the building, the few fireflies he’s summoned drifting around his broad shoulders. “Let’s go around to the back. Whatever we do, we don’t want people seeing it from the street.”

We quietly pick our way around to the back of the corner store, glancing over our shoulders now and then to make sure that no one has noticed us. The brick wall we end up standing before faces nothing, really - a dark alleyway with a few trash cans. We’re better covered here, and I take a better breath.

Aiden draws a few more fireflies into existence. We both step up closer to the wall, examining it for weak points. We find one at the far end of the building, a back door that’s been boarded up.

Wood and glass seems easier to get through than brick, but just as loud.

Aiden and I fall silent, considering our options.

“Can bricks melt, science teacher?” he asks softly.

“Yeah, but the temperature would have to be ridiculous. There’s a reason they line fireplaces with these. It’s clay, so the melting point is super high.”

“Fuck.” Aiden takes a step back, blue eyes narrowed. “You see a way we can use heat or light to do this? Without making a ton of noise?"

So far as I can tell, there’s no way that Heliomancery will help us get inside. Starting a fire is sure to attract attention, and there will be a fire if Aiden heats up that wood. There might also be a glass explosion.

“If there is, I can’t think of it.” My eyes flit from the building to Aiden. “You can do other kinds of magic, though. You’re not limited to heat and light.”

“I know. I just…” Aiden shrugs nervously, adjusting his snapback. “Prefer to stick to what I’m good at.”

“Well, time to branch out, Sugar Maple.” I thread my fingers through his, give them a squeeze. “You can do it. I know you can. You know it, too. Just - trust yourself.”

Aiden nibbles his lip, gazing down into my eyes. Then he takes a deep breath, and his eyes go back to the wall. He lets go of my hand, puts his fingers to the bricks.

“What are you thinking?” I ask, following behind him as he feels his way down the wall.

“I felt a weak spot before, I’m trying to find it again. I could use a heat blast to blow open part of the wall, but it’s gonna be loud as hell. So I’m just gonna smash us an opening manually, and try to, um. Catch the noise, with my magic. I definitely can’t do a heat blast and catch the noise at the same time, anyways.”

“What-?” I blink at Aiden, startled. “Catch the noise? You can do that? Have you ever done it before?”

“No, but keeping noise quiet is something I’ve been practicing my whole life.” Aiden stops near a mossy, decaying section of the brick wall. “This is just - applying it to something else. A different kind of noise. I’m hoping the skill will transfer.”

This sounds risky - if Aiden fails to catch the noise, we’re pretty much fucked - but I meant what I said. I have faith in his abilities, his talent.

“Okay." I give him an encouraging nod. "Give it a shot.”

Aiden backs away from the wall, then flexes his muscles and kicks his toes into the ground, limbering up. “Stay back, okay? And get ready to run, in case I fuck this up.”

I hold my breath as Aiden bounces on his toes once, then twice, then throws his foot forward in a swift, hard kick. Right as the sole of his boot connects with the wall, I see a pulse of white-blue magic flash through his eyes.

I flinch in anticipation, bracing myself in case the noise escapes and I need to run. But in his usual way, Aiden accidentally did too much magic, not too little.

No sound comes from the bricks as they shatter apart beneath the bottom of Aiden’s boot. For a moment, no sound exists at all.

Everything falls perfectly, utterly silent. The forceful kick, the crumbling wall, Aiden landing back on his feet with brick dust on his Timbs - none of it makes the faintest whisper of noise. Before, I could hear the distant rush of the waves, the wind moving through the trees. Now I can’t even hear myself breathing.

And then it’s over, and everything comes rushing back at once. The rustling of the leaves, the swells out on the ocean, Aiden catching his breath - it’s all back in my ears.

“Did that work?” Aiden asks, the icy blue light fading from his eyes.

“Ah - yeah, it did.” I gaze up at him, brimming with pride and admiration. “Too well, actually. I think you might have switched off the audio channel for all of Port Sitka, for a second. Didn’t you hear everything go silent?”

Aiden taps his temple. “S’never silent for me, remember?”

“Oh, right - wait a minute. Oh, my god.” I stare blankly at the opening in the wall, then whip around to face Aiden. “Holy shit, Bicep Boy! You literally did just smash it open, you fucking brute!” I step up close to him, looking up into his face with eager eyes. “Let’s go have sex, yeah?”

“Okay,” Aiden says instantly, then blinks and shakes his head. He huffs out a laugh, pushing my hands down as I start to take two fistfuls of his jacket. “Wait, no - save it for later, man! We’re in the middle of something.”

“Right, yeah, the break-in. Okay.” I turn back to the corner store, fanning my face, then pause as I get a look at the entrance that Aiden made for us. “Wow. Can’t see anything, huh?”

The gap in the wall looks endlessly dark, giving us no hint at what’s inside.

Aiden beckons to his fireflies, then gestures at the broken wall. The fireflies drift slowly together, form into a cluster, and float through the opening.

They don’t illuminate anything but the dust floating within.

I look at Aiden, and he looks at me.

We both take a breath, then step forward together.

~~~~

I go first, crawling my way through the short, dark passage. I slip through it and stayed crouched before it, waiting for Aiden.

He has to make himself as small as possible to get through, and even then it’s a tight fit. He bows his wide shoulders, then pushes another brick out of the wall, giving himself just enough room to squeeze his way inside.

He brushes the brick dust off of his snapback, puts it back on, and unfolds to his full height. I stand up with him, and we turn as one to look around at the corner store.

Shafts of white moonlight spill in through the topmost panes in the boarded-up windows. They fall in like spotlights, leaving some small parts of the store brightly lit, but most of it dark, thick with shadows.

Still, I can see enough that I let out a groan of disappointment, and Aiden tips his head back in defeat, his shoulders sagging.

“Goddamnit,” he mutters.

I thought this place might be like a time capsule. It’s been shut down for so long that I expected to see rows of shelves lined with products from the sixties. Everything left as it was, resting beneath a layer of dust.

It turns out the layer of dust is more or less the only thing here. The shelves and glass-fronted coolers are empty. Even the cigarette wall behind the counter has nothing. The register has been left behind, but besides that, this is an empty husk of a corner store.

“Should we just leave?” I ask.

I'm hoping that Aiden will say yes. This place gives me the chills.

The dust is a thick veil spun over everything, glowing where it catches the moonlight. The depth of the darkness everywhere else is unnerving. Aiden could make some more fireflies, but it would look odd to anyone walking by outside if the corner store that’s been shuttered for decades suddenly has golden light glowing in the windows in the dead of night.

Aiden is picking up the same vibe from this place that I am, I think, because he pauses before he shakes his head no. “Let’s at least look around, first.”

I pull out my phone and open the flashlight, and Aiden does the same. The white beams of them come together for a moment, then part ways as Aiden and I set off towards different ends of the corner store.

I shiver, zipping up my jacket. The air in here is unmoving, and it has that frigid feeling of a place that’s gone untouched for a very long time. The beam of my phone flashlight travels over shelves so thick with dust that I honestly think no one has set foot in this place since it closed down. Until tonight, that is.

“Found something,” Aiden calls softly, reading some kind of official notice posted in one of the windows. “Looks like this spot closed down because it violated a zoning law. This area is residential, not commercial.”

“Well, that explains why no one bought it after,” I answer, matching Aiden's quiet volume. “Who’d want the hassle of converting it into a house?”

“Yeah, true.” Aiden moves behind the countertop, then scans his flashlight over it. “Got anything over there?”

“No.” I weave my way around another set of empty shelves, then cross towards Aiden, sneezing as my footsteps send whirls of dust into the air. “Except - oh.”

I stop with my flashlight aimed over Aiden’s head. There are a few old, faded advertisements from the sixties there, plastered onto the wall behind the counter. I stop with my light on the one in the middle. It's an ad for Campbell’s soup, with a picture of a roughed-up, post-game football player about to eat a big spoonful.

In big letters across the top, it says The Manhandlers! and at the bottom: The Campbell’s Soups that have what it takes to handle a hungry man! M’m! M’m! Good!

“Oh, my god.” I press my fingers over my mouth, suppressing a laugh. “Aiden, look behind you.”

“Ha, ha,” he says, pointedly ignoring me, roving his flashlight over the circular metal buttons of the old register. “That’s not gonna work, dude. Even if this place does feel spooky.”

“No, babe, really-” I stop mid-sentence, narrowing my eyes. The laughter drops from my face, and I freeze to the spot. “Aiden - there’s something behind you.”

Aiden pauses when he hears the change in my voice. He straightens up, gives me a suspicious look, and turns around.

There’s a silence, and then he turns back to me, makes an irritated scoffing noise. “Can’t believe I fell for that. It was fucking convincing, though. Thought you couldn’t lie, Keane.”

“I can’t,” I answer, very seriously.

Aiden looks at me, his eyebrows knitting in confusion. He glances behind himself again, starting to look concerned. “What are you talking about, Jamie?”

Now I'm confused, too. “You don’t see that?”

“See what?”

I haltingly take a step forward, then cross the rest of the way to the counter and stop on the other side. Aiden comes around and joins me, his blue eyes scanning the place where he was standing. Searching for what I’m seeing.

I don't understand how he can't see it. It's right there, right before our eyes.

I’d mistaken it for a beam of moonlight, before. But it can’t be that.

It’s a shimmering, glowing white fog, and unlike everything else about this place, it’s in movement. It flows and ripples slowly, opalescent, gently refracting the moonlight. But it also seems contained, in some way - it’s no wider than any of the moonbeams around us, and no taller than me.

I’m about to ask Aiden if he seriously, honestly doesn't see it, but I can already tell the answer from the expression on his face. I’m the only one seeing this, which means…

I'm seeing it with the Vision.

“Can you put on the glasses, Aiden?” I ask, very quietly.

He slips them out of his pocket, puts them on, and looks around at the store. Then he looks at me again, baffled. “What am I supposed to be seeing, exactly?”

Not a ghost, apparently. Aiden can see ghosts, when he has the glasses on. But I can see it, so why-?

My mind suddenly goes flying back to a time before we rescued Will. When we had Ariana’s locket, but we couldn’t figure out how to open the secret compartment. I remember the pale glow I saw around the locket. The glow of what Ariana had contained to it.

The ghost she made and sealed inside.

It was the same texture, the same brightness as this.

I could see it, because I see and hear ghosts. Aiden couldn’t, because he sees and hears energy, and it had no energy. Because it was a ghost of a moment, not a person.

But - Ariana made that ghost of a moment so that she could give us instructions on how to open the secret latch. It was created for a purpose, then contained to the locket, where only the right hands could open it.

If this white mist in front of me is the ghost of a moment, a memory, then - why is it floating freely, someplace where no one would ever think to look for it?

“Aiden,” I say softly. “Do you remember the ghost moment that Ariana made? The one she contained to her locket?”

Aiden arches an eyebrow at me. “Yeah?”

“Would it be possible for a Guardian to make one of those by accident?”

Aiden takes a moment to think it over. I wait in silence, my eyes still on the glowing mist.

“Yeah, maybe,” comes the eventual answer. “I’ve made a ghost of a person by accident. So has Ariana. Should be possible to make a ghost of a moment by accident, too. If the Guardian was feeling a lot of intense emotion - yeah, it’s possible.”

“Okay,” I answer slowly, “Because, um - I think the Port Sitka Guardian did.”

"What?" Aiden stares at me, startled. “You’re seeing one? Right now?”

“No, but I think there’s one here that I could activate, like I did with the locket.”

Aiden absorbs that for a moment, his eyes very wide.

“Holy shit," he murmurs. "We should activate it, then, right? Or - wait a sec. Last time we had to supercharge your Vision before it was strong enough for you to see something that faint. We had to spend a couple of hours with the connection open.”

“You mean like we just did? On the beach?” I stare at the pale fog, watching as it glitters gently in the moonlight. “I bet that's why I can see it so clearly, right now! It's actually really lucky that we did that.”

Aiden lets out a disbelieving laugh.

“Activate it,” he rumbles. “Let’s see what it is.”

I hesitate, a little nervous. Aiden won't be able to see it, so I’ll be experiencing this alone.

He’ll be right here by my side, though. As if to remind me of that, he weaves his fingers through mine, gives them an encouraging squeeze.

I take a second to steady myself, holding tightly to Aiden’s hand. Then I reach across the counter, trail my fingers through the glow of the ghost.

It sweeps into movement, flowing like water. Growing less opaque, until it looks like white silk.

I hold my breath as a moment long past unfolds around me.