The teahouse did not exist in any one world.
It was perched on the seam between realities — a place where no sun rose and no moon set, only a long, endless twilight. The building itself was small, with paper walls that shimmered faintly and floorboards made from wood that had never known the touch of an axe. It was the kind of place that existed only because someone had decided it should, and even then, only for as long as the conversation inside lasted.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of chamomile and grave soil.
Luna Heartreach was already there, seated barefoot at a low round table. She wore her usual flowing white dress, her pale hair loose down her back, her blind eyes fixed somewhere that wasn't quite here. The steam from her cup curled in strange shapes — sometimes faces, sometimes feathers, sometimes nothing at all.
She knew they were coming.
She always knew.
The first to arrive was The Morrigan, striding in as though the air itself bent to avoid her. Her long black hair was bound in a braid, her eyes sharp as a carrion bird's. She didn't knock, because Death never needed to.
"You summoned us," The Morrigan said simply, lowering herself into a seat opposite Luna. "Bold. Or foolish. The two are often the same."
"I didn't summon," Luna said in her sing-song tone. "I… opened the kettle."
The Morrigan's lips twitched, almost a smile.
The paper wall slid open again, and Hel stepped in. One half of her was a woman, pale-skinned and regal, with hair like spun gold. The other half was bone and rot, a bare skull grinning eternally. She moved without sound, the air around her cooling to an arctic chill.
"Tea," Hel said flatly, "is a curious invitation for those who deal in the absence of breath."
"Breath leaves," Luna replied. "Tea stays warm, for a while."
The door opened for the third time. This time it was Hecate, the Greek goddess of crossroads and the dead. Her dark robes shimmered like oil on water, and behind her shadow moved things with too many limbs and too many eyes. She smelled faintly of burnt offerings and moonlight.
"I was curious," Hecate murmured as she took her seat. "Not many mortals invite us all at once. Even fewer survive the conversation."
"Conversation only kills if you forget to listen," Luna said, tilting her head. "Or if you listen to the wrong thing."
The table felt smaller now, but there was still one more chair. It was filled last by Mictēcacihuātl, the skeletal Queen of Mictlan from Aztec myth. Her teeth were bared in a smile that was equal parts welcome and warning, her garments bright with the marigold patterns of Día de los Muertos. She carried the scent of incense and the faint, sweet rot of offerings left too long.
"You are a strange little bird," Mictēcacihuātl said, settling gracefully onto her cushion. "Do you know how many lifetimes it has been since a mortal asked for my company?"
"Enough to make the tea taste better," Luna answered.
The goddesses looked at her now, all at once. Four pairs of eyes — mortal and not — weighing, dissecting, calculating. Luna only smiled faintly, her head tilted like she was listening to something very far away.
"Why are we here, Luna Heartreach?" The Morrigan asked.
"To drink tea," Luna said simply, and then sipped from her cup.
"That is not an answer," Hel said coldly.
"It's the only one you'll get until the leaves tell me otherwise," Luna replied.
Steam curled upward as Luna refilled each cup. The tea in front of The Morrigan shimmered crimson; Hel's turned black as obsidian; Hecate's was silver, and Mictēcacihuātl's deep marigold.
"No sugar?" Mictēcacihuātl asked lightly.
"Sweetness is for beginnings," Luna said. "We're past that."
They drank.
The tea did not taste the same to any of them. To The Morrigan, it tasted of victory over a battlefield, the moment before the final blow. To Hel, it was the stillness beneath the ice, waiting for spring that would never come. To Hecate, it was crossroads dust and secrets whispered at midnight. To Mictēcacihuātl, it was the warm hum of remembrance, candles flickering in an endless city of the dead.
To Luna, it was just tea.
"You are mortal," Hel said, setting her cup down with deliberate precision. "You will die. Why invite those who could pluck your thread with a thought?"
"Because threads are prettier in a braid," Luna answered. "Even if they fray, even if they snap, they still hold a story."
The Morrigan leaned forward. "You speak like you have walked where you should not."
"I've walked where the ground did not remember my name," Luna said softly. "And I came back without my shadow."
Hecate studied her. "You are no priestess, no witch of the old orders. And yet, you see."
"I don't see," Luna corrected, tapping her temple. "I feel. Magic is heat and cold, life and rot. Death is the temperature between heartbeats."
Mictēcacihuātl's bony fingers drummed against her cup. "You've touched the underworld before, haven't you?"
Luna smiled faintly. "It touched me first."
Luna refilled their cups without asking. This time, the steam formed shapes above the tea — a crow, a wolf, a lantern, a skull ringed in flowers. The goddesses drank without comment, though their eyes followed the images until they vanished.
"You did not bring us here just for riddles," The Morrigan said at last.
"No," Luna admitted. "I brought you here for a question."
"Then ask it," Hel said.
Luna paused, hands resting lightly on the teapot. "If a soul chooses to stay, but the world forgets it, where does it go?"
Hel's skeletal fingers tightened. "It freezes in my halls, untouched, unspoken, until the ice cracks."
"In mine," said Mictēcacihuātl, "it walks among the flowers until the living remember to feed it."
"In mine," Hecate said, "it waits at the crossroad, choosing doors that lead only to more waiting."
The Morrigan only smiled, sharp and thin. "In mine, it goes to war — against time itself."
Luna sipped her tea. "And if it chooses not to go anywhere at all?"
They were silent.
The walls of the teahouse began to ripple, the paper trembling as though something outside pressed against it. The air thickened. The tea in the cups stilled completely — no steam, no ripple, as if time had paused.
"You've brought it here," The Morrigan said, rising to her feet.
"No," Luna said softly, "I've always had it here."
And from the corner of the room, something began to form — a shadow without shape, but heavy enough to feel in the bones. It was colder than Hel's touch, older than Hecate's rites, quieter than Mictēcacihuātl's graveyards.
"This," Luna said, "is the soul that stayed."
Hel's breath fogged the air. "Why show us this?"
"Because you're the keepers of endings," Luna said. "And I want to know what happens when ending refuses to end."
The shadow pulsed, as if it heard her.
The Morrigan's hand went to the blade at her hip. "It will consume the thread of every life it touches. This is not a pet for you to keep."
"It's not mine," Luna said. "It's part of me."
The goddesses exchanged glances. No one spoke for a long time. Then Hecate leaned forward, her voice low. "If it is part of you, mortal, you must choose — give it to one of us, or carry it until it devours you."
Luna tilted her head. "Devouring isn't the worst way to go."
"You speak like one who wishes for death," Hel said.
"No," Luna said. "I speak like one who's already had tea with it more than once."
Mictēcacihuātl's skeletal grin widened. "You could give it to me. I would weave it into the city of the dead, where it would dance in marigolds and candlelight forever."
The Morrigan's voice was sharp. "Give it to me, and I will teach it to fight — to become a blade instead of a shadow."
Hel's tone was icy. "Mine would preserve it, unchanging, until the end of all realms."
Hecate's smile was like a slit in darkness. "With me, it would learn the roads between roads. It would never be found again."
Luna set her empty cup down. "Lovely offers, all. But I think… I'll let it choose."
The shadow pulsed once, twice… then sank slowly back into Luna's chest, disappearing as though it had never been.
The goddesses stared.
"You will regret that," The Morrigan said finally.
"Perhaps," Luna said, rising to her feet. "But regret makes for good tea."
One by one, they left. The Morrigan without a word, her braid swaying like a raven's wing. Hel in utter silence, the frost she brought melting the moment she was gone. Hecate slipping away with the smell of smoke and dogs on her heels. Mictēcacihuātl last, smiling her skeletal smile.
When the last of them was gone, Luna sat alone in the twilight teahouse. The kettle was empty, but she poured herself another cup anyway.
The tea tasted different now.
Not sweeter. Not bitter.
Just… warmer.