The silence in the cafe was a thick, woolen thing, a midweek lull that felt heavier than usual. It was Tuesday. Two days remained until Mira’s performance, and the air itself seemed to be holding its breath in anticipation. Outside, the sea pressed its vast, gray palm flat against the windows, its surface unreadable, its intentions unknowable. Evan wiped the polished wooden counter for the third time, the motion a small, repetitive ritual against a rising tide of unease. It wasn't about cleanliness; it was about having something, anything, for his hands to do.
Joseph, observing from his usual perch at the bar, finally broke the quiet. His voice was a low rumble. “You’re going to polish a hole right through to the floorboards, Ev. I never pegged you for a clean freak.”
The squeak of a stool announced Mira’s arrival. She slid into her seat at the corner table, her battered bass case leaning against her knee like a weary traveling companion. She caught the tail end of the exchange, her gaze lingering on Evan’s tense shoulders for a second longer than necessary. “It’s not a mess,” she said, her voice soft but clear. “It's quiet. He’s been wound tight since the incident.”
Evan shrugged, the gesture stiff. He abandoned the cloth, his hands finding his pockets instead. “It’s just… loud lately.”
"The sea?” Joseph asked, glancing toward the inscrutable gray expanse.
“Everything,” Evan confessed, then faltered, as if the admission was too large for the small space. “I mean—yeah. The sea. And I’ve been having these nightmares.” He trailed off.
Joseph, ever the deflector, offered a wry grin. “I have strange nightmares too. The classic about my teeth falling out, or the one where I’m giving a presentation and realize I’m not wearing any pants.”
Mira watched them, a flicker of understanding in her eyes, before she turned her attention to the notebook she’d placed on the table. It was a chaotic artifact, its cover softened with wear, its pages dog-eared and dense with ink. Margins overflowed with frantic arrows, chord progressions, and half-formed melodies—a cartography of her creative mind. “So,” she said, tapping a finger on a crowded page. “I found something.” The shift in her tone was magnetic. Joseph leaned over the table immediately, his curiosity piqued. “If this is another heartbreaking ballad about the ephemeral nature of existence, Mira, I beg you, spare me.” “It’s worse,” she said, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “It’s poetry.” Despite himself, Evan smiled too—a genuine crack in the anxious facade. He moved to the espresso machine, the familiar hiss and clatter a brief comfort as he prepared their drinks. Her focus entirely on the page. “ You’re going to hear some really good music on Thursday.” Joseph grinned. “What’s the new song called ?”
She paused. “Rage.”
Joseph whistled. “Can’t wait to see QiYi-” Evan lightly nudged Joseph’s back “I mean, your band rock the stage”.
_____________________________
Joseph leaned back, tapping the blue book once.
“I talked to its owner,” he said.
Evan looked up. “And?”
“She’s… peculiar,” Joseph said.
Evan hesitated. “Dark hair? Scar on her left eye?”
Joseph snapped his fingers. “Yes. She said her name was Lyra.”
The name settled like a ripple on water that refuses to fade.
“She also said something strange,” Joseph went on. “That the book grants a person their deepest desire.”
Mira’s fingers slipped on her bass strings.
For a moment, she saw her face again, remembering meeting someone with the same name.
I’m your fan, the woman had said.
Lyra.
Evan placed coffee cups before them “Speaking of ancient things and cryptic stories,” he declared, his eyes glinting, “shouldn’t we be asking about the blue book?”Later, in the hallowed quiet of the municipal library, the world outside was reduced to a watercolor blur. Rain streaked down the tall, arched windows, dissolving the city into soft, indistinct shapes. The three of them sat at a long, heavy oak table, the silence here a different kind—reverent, thick with the scent of old paper and binding glue. Between Evan and Mira, the blue book rested like an unanswered question, its color a deep, defiant sapphire against the dark wood.
Mira had already exhausted the obvious avenues. Hours spent navigating digital archives, cross-referencing catalogs, and searching for any mention of its title or potential author had yielded nothing. It was a ghost in the system. Joseph had made a valiant effort with the physical card catalogs, his theatrical sighs the only sound in their section as he pulled out drawer after dusty drawer, only to find dead ends.
Finally, Evan rose. He approached the main desk, cradling the book as if it were a fragile, sleeping bird. The librarian was an older woman, her silver hair pulled into a neat twist, her eyes sharp and intelligent behind wire-rimmed glasses. They were the eyes of someone who missed very little.
He placed the book gently on the counter. “Excuse me,” he began, his voice softer than he intended. “We were wondering if you knew where this might have come from.”
She adjusted her glasses, her gaze clinical. She turned the book over once, then again. Her fingers, wrinkled but steady, traced the spine, feeling the unusual texture of the cover. She brought it closer, her expression shifting from professional curiosity to something deeper, more contemplative. “This,” she said, her voice slow and deliberate, “is not from our collection.”
Mira, who had followed Evan, leaned in. “Is it a historical artifact, then? Something that might be in a special collection?”
The woman hesitated, her sharp eyes looking past them for a moment, as if consulting a catalog only she could see. “It feels… older than classification,” she murmured, more to herself than to them.
Joseph, joining them, raised a skeptical eyebrow.
The librarian ignored him, her focus now entirely on the book and the two people who had brought it to her. “Maybe you should ask in an antique shop” she said, the decision made.
Evan’s fingers tightened on the strap of his bag, a knot of nervous energy forming in his chest. “Where do you recommend?”
She gave a slow, deliberate nod, her gaze unwavering. “Ask for the shop in the Suun district. With any luck, they might be working these days.”
As they walked away from the desk, the weight of the new lead settling upon them, Joseph glanced back over his shoulder at the silver-haired woman, who was already lost in her work once more. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did she just tell us to go to the infamous spooky district of Suun?”
“Yes,” Mira said, her expression a mask of pure determination.
Joseph let out a short, sharp breath of a laugh. “Love that for us.”
_________________________________________________________________________
The Sunne antique shop did not stand so much as it stooped, its spine bent under the weight of forgotten stories. It leaned inward, casting long, skeletal shadows that pooled between the shelves like dark tidepools left by a retreating sea. It did not welcome them so much as catalogue them. The door shut with a sound too soft to be accidental, and the space inside rearranged itself—not physically, but in intention. Objects leaned closer to the edges of their shelves, glassware chimed faintly without being touched, and the air carried the strange pressure of a held bargain. Joseph wandered toward an ancient mirror framed in salt-pitted bronze; his reflection wavered, splitting briefly into versions that smiled where he didn’t. Mira was drawn to the bookshelves, her attention snagging on volumes that seemed to hum beneath their bindings, titles obscured as if waiting to be earned. Evan stayed near the entrance, scanning the shop for its keeper.
“I bet this is where all the banned gothic romance novels come to die,” Mira murmured, her voice a small, bright thing in the oppressive silence. She ran a finger along a shelf, leaving a clean streak in the dust.
“You’ll find the banned occult books as well, my dear,” a voice answered, smooth as polished jet. “They have far more interesting endings.”
From the deeper shadows, a figure emerged. She was not so much a person as an extension of the shop itself, draped in layers of black lace and velvet that seemed to drink the already dim light. Her presence was a deliberate, theatrical construction, less an identity and more a performance that had been running for a very long time. Silver rings adorned her long fingers, and her eyes held the reflective, knowing quality of still, deep water.
Joseph let out a low whistle, he smiled “Woah.” Mira nudged him sharply in the ribs as she stepped forward, her own apprehension masked by a flicker of annoyance.
The woman’s gaze passed over them, cool and assessing, before settling on Evan. “Are you looking for something?” she asked, though it sounded more like a statement.
Evan, who had been holding his breath, lifted the blue book. The simple, unadorned cover seemed to absorb the gloom, a void in the dusty air. “Have you seen this before?”
Her gaze didn’t just sharpen; it ignited. A flicker of ancient recognition. “Oh,” she breathed, the sound like the turning of a fragile page. She glided to a heavy oak counter, her movements silent. Upon its surface, she set down a worn, silk-wrapped deck of tarot cards. “A book like that,” she said, her eyes never leaving it, “reflects much like water does.” She began to shuffle the cards, the sound a soft, rhythmic whisper of fate being rearranged. “It shows you not what you want, but what you are.”
“Draw,” she commanded softly.
Joseph, ever the first to rush in, went first. He pulled a card, and she turned it over.
“The King of Wands,” she murmured, her voice a low hum. The card depicted a crowned figure holding a blossoming staff. “Vision. Charisma. A fire that inspires movement in others.” She looked at him, a faint, knowing smile touching her lips. “But fire, of course, always believes its own light is helpful, even as it consumes.”
Joseph shrugged, a practiced gesture of nonchalance. “Guess that’s better than being a total disaster.”
Mira drew next. As her fingers brushed the card, a strange coldness radiated from it. The archivist’s hands stilled for a fraction of a second as she revealed it.
“The High Priestess.”
The air in Mira’s lungs seemed to crystallize. The image of the seated, veiled figure holding a scroll felt like a portrait of her own soul. The poetry she’d found, the unspoken words for her music, the weight of Evan’s fear—it all pressed down. The archivist’s eyes were on her, piercing the veil Mira so carefully maintained. “You are a keeper,” the woman said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But secrets are living things. They have their own hunger. Keep them starved of the light for too long, and they will eventually decide to speak for themselves.”
Mira said nothing. She couldn’t. Her throat was a knot of unsung lyrics and silent fears.
Finally, it was Evan’s turn. His hand trembled as he reached for the deck.
A soft click came from the back of the shop — a door closing with intent.
“That’s enough,”
A well dressed man appeared between two shelves.
Sara didn’t even look at him. “Shh. We’re mid-fate.”
Moses crossed the room and placed two fingers on the tarot deck, stopping her shuffle. “You’re mid-charging.”
Joseph blinked. “Wait, we have to pay?”
“Five coins,” Sara said brightly. “Unless the cards scream. Then it’s free.”
“Sara,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t a café fortune booth.”
She turned to him with exaggerated innocence. “I charge very reasonable rates.”
“This isn’t about the money.”
“Everything is about the money,” she replied serenely, sweeping the tarot deck back into a neat stack. “You just hate admitting it.”
Moses ignored her and turned his attention to the trio.
His gaze landed on Evan first — not accusatory, not curious. Measuring.
“Welcome to Sunn's antique shop, how can I help you?” he asked
The question was simple. The weight behind it was not.
Evan swallowed. “We’re trying to understand where the book came from.”
Moses’ eyes flicked, just briefly, to the blue cover resting on the counter.
A pause.
“I’ve seen it before,” Moses said.
Mira’s breath caught. Joseph leaned forward instinctively.
“When?” Joseph asked.
Moses’ expression didn’t change. “A long time ago.”
“And who brought it?” Mira pressed, her voice careful, deliberate.
Another pause.
This one was different.
“I don’t remember.”
Joseph made a small, offended noise. “Oh, come on.”
“I said I don’t remember.”
The air thickened.
Evan felt an inexplicable pressure in his chest, the same one that came with his nightmares — the sense of standing in front of a door that would not open no matter how politely you knocked.
the shopkeeper said.“When the coastlines hadn’t settled yet.”
Moses folded his arms. “That book belongs to a time when sea magic was not a metaphor. When the water answered back.”
Silence stretched.
“You mean spells?” Mira asked.
“No,” Moses said. “I mean wielders.”
Sara stilled.
“There were people the sea recognized,” Moses continued. “Wielders of ancient water.”
Evan felt the pressure in his chest spike, familiar and unwelcome. “So who had it last?”
Moses’ jaw tightened.
“I don’t use names,” he said.
“That’s it?” Mira asked.
“That’s it.”
For a moment, it looked like she might argue.
Instead, she nodded.
“Thank you for your time,” she said.
___________________________________________________________________
As they turned to leave, Sara watched them go, her expression unreadable —Silence reclaimed the shop.
Sara exhaled slowly. “You’re getting worse at lying.”
Moses didn’t look at her. He moved to the counter, adjusting the book’s position so it sat farther from the edge — a small, unconscious act.
“You could have given them something,” she continued lightly. “A name.”
“No,” he said.
She leaned against the counter, studying him now. “Moses,” she said casually. “I'm pretty sure you remember everything.”
He closed his eyes.
"let's avoid trouble, Sara"
“They’ll come back,” Sara said. “Everyone does, questions ripen and so do prices.”
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