I came in a room with fewer owls than I remembered — but not none.
A single one watched me from the wall, painted in long, streaky brushstrokes like someone had tried to finish it before midnight. I wasn't in the van. I wasn't in the woods. The sheets were scratchy, and the mattress squeaked when I moved. My body ached like I'd danced through a tornado — because I had.
Across the room, Kaito was at a small wooden table, counting money and laying out trinkets like a relic merchant after a séance. Coins from different decades. Keys too old for any lock I'd trust. A pair of gloves with symbols burned into the fingers. A baby doll head with a marble shoved in one eye. All of it laid out like evidence in a crime that hadn't been solved yet — maybe never would.
The furniture around him looked borrowed from every era: a rotary phone in faded pink, a velvet fainting couch, a cracked Bakelite radio humming static in the corner like it had secrets trapped inside.
He adjusted the antenna and gave the radio a little tap. The fuzz warbled — then caught something. Not a real station. Not the kind humans could hear. But something else.
Kaito leaned back slightly as a deep, reverberating tone crackled through the static. Some kind of orchestral dirge under a slow, gospel hum. Not gospel like I grew up with — this was burnt and backwards, like it had been buried under ash and dug up just to be heard once more. He was listening to W666: The Devil's Dial, or maybe WRLM: Realm Radio — a Sonter-only broadcast, rumored to come through in ghost towns, underground tunnels, and once, someone said, through a dying cassette deck.
Me? I just heard static.
I sat up slowly, the blanket sticking to my skin. My head throbbed. My mouth felt like I'd licked chalk and secrets.
Kaito stood when he noticed. His chair squeaked as it scraped back on the floor.
"You're up," he said, coming to me with a glass of water like I was the only ritual that mattered.
"Apparently."
His voice was calm, but too calm. Practiced. Like someone trying to sound normal during an aftershock. The longer I stared at him, the louder the silence in the room felt — like the radio was whispering things only he could hear.
I didn't ask. Not yet.
He helped me up. I sipped the water. It tasted like rust and motel pipes. The owl painting kept watching.
I told him I needed to wash off. The kind of bath that burned out the bad. The bathroom had an oversized tub, probably the only nice thing in this old place. I ran the water, hot enough to melt memory, and added my bath crystals — not store-bought. These were hand-ground. Quartz, pink salt, a sliver of charm-stone from back when the circus still traded in protection.
I stripped slow, my limbs still remembering bruises, and slipped in.
The knock on the door was gentle.
"You decent?"
"Not even a little."
"…Can I come in?"
"You can," I said without turning. "But you're still on punishment."
That earned a quiet chuckle — soft enough to sound tired.
I heard him step in, felt his presence shift the air before the water. The sound of clothing loosening. A belt undone. I didn't turn. Not yet. I just stared ahead at the curling steam, the water shimmering with bits of floating salt and crystal.
When he sank into the tub behind me, the water rose just a touch. A small ripple in the stillness.
Then came the pause. His silence was heavier than the heat.
"You didn't tell me it was this bad," he murmured.
I didn't need to ask. He'd seen the bruises blooming on my back and arms — marks I hadn't really stopped to notice until now.
"I figured you didn't see them," I said, my voice low. "Given my skin tone. A lot of folks don't."
He didn't argue. Just let out a slow breath, like maybe he was trying not to make anything worse.
I didn't turn around, but my thoughts were loud. Too loud.
This was the first real fight we'd ever had. Not just a spat about spending or sleeping in. A full-body, mind-ripping argument, cracked open by secrets and truths I wasn't ready for. Yesterday, I thought he was just some wandering collector with a few tricks and a habit of smelling like peaches.
Now I was in a bathtub with a man who had a radio tuned to frequencies I couldn't hear. A man who summoned bloodstorms with violins and danced through cults like it was choreography.
He was Sonter. Not a rumor. Not a myth. Not a bedtime warning.
He was a weapon.
And I… loved him.
Maybe.
That "maybe" didn't come easy. I wasn't the kind of girl to say it lightly. But in that water, with his hands not touching me, with the bruise heat on my skin and the ache in my chest, I felt it settling behind my ribs like a coin dropped in a well.
"You know," he said quietly, "once we get through this… I was thinking. Shopping trip. Whatever you want. I've got enough tucked away. Fancy shoes, new dresses, charm oils. Stuff that sparkles."
I didn't answer.
He added, "And after that? Vacation. Real one. No feathers. No screams. Just you and me. Maybe Thailand. Or somewhere they won't look at us twice."
That part stung more than it should have — because I knew what he meant. Places where being with someone like me didn't get you followed. Places where no one asked what flavor of monster you were.
A vacation sounded nice.
But did I want to take it with a man I'd only just started to see clearly?
I didn't answer right away.
But I didn't say no.