The city looked different in early light.
Same cracked pavements, same leaning balconies, same tangle of overhead wires—but morning softened the edges, like the whole place had been given a chance to pretend it wasn't fraying.
Manraj did not feel softened.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror before leaving.
Eyes red-rimmed. Jaw tight. A faint reddish mark, like a burn that wasn't, trailing up his forearm where the fire had tried to escape the night before.
He tugged his sleeve down and looked away.
Zoya had texted once more at dawn.
> 7:30. Juna café. Don't be late.
No emoji. No explanation. Just an order.
He clung to that certainty the way he'd clung to her voice at the bus stop.
---
Juna café was a small place tucked under a railway bridge, all chipped tiles and warm light, the kind of spot that smelled permanently of coffee and old conversations. Morning crowds hadn't hit yet; only a few tables were occupied by people pretending their lives were normal.
Zoya had claimed a corner table by the window.
She was already there when he pushed the door open—burgundy coat, damp hair tied back, a notebook open in front of her, fingers wrapped around a mug like she needed its heat to stay rooted.
Her eyes flicked up the second he walked in.
She scanned him once, quick and clinical, like she was checking for cracks.
"You look like you fought a bus and lost," she said by way of greeting.
"I feel," he answered, dropping into the chair opposite, "like the bus reversed."
That pulled the ghost of a smile out of her, brief but real.
"Did you sleep at all?" she asked.
"Define 'sleep'."
She made a small annoyed sound and pushed a second mug toward him.
"Drink. Caffeine is a bandage. Not a cure, but I'll take it."
He wrapped his hands around the cup. The warmth felt trivial compared to the heat that lived under his skin, but it helped ground him. The world shrank to that table, that window, her watching him with eyes that looked like they'd seen several lifetimes more than her age allowed.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she flipped the notebook around so he could see.
The pages were dense with sketches and notes—circles of symbols, three beasts, lines connecting words like flame, shadow, silence, memory, erasure.
At the center of the page, she'd written a name and circled it three times.
Manraj Suryavanshi.
He swallowed.
"You've been busy," he said.
"I was already busy," Zoya replied. "You just gave the mess a face."
He stared at the page. The three beasts tugged at his memory—one burning, one made of night, one blurred, like his brain refused to render it fully.
"What is all this?" he asked.
"Evidence," she said. "Half of it is myth. Half of it is… you."
She tapped a symbol near his name. It looked like a sun split in two.
"This," she said, "shows up in fire cult myths from three different regions. It also shows up in reports of unexplained flare events over the last twenty years."
He raised an eyebrow. "Reports."
She shrugged. "Hidden reports. Old case files. Classified stuff that accidentally fell into the wrong folder on the right server."
"Accidentally," he echoed.
"Very sloppy accident," she agreed, unbothered. "Anyway. All of them mention a pattern—fire that behaves like it has a will. Like it's choosing what to burn."
He thought of the streetlight warping. The way the heat had leaned toward him.
"Okay," he said quietly. "And?"
She turned to a second page.
This one had a fox drawn in the margin. Dark, many-tailed, eyes glowing.
Noxian.
He shivered.
"Shadow incidents," Zoya said. "People seeing things in the corners of their vision. Creatures that leave marks but not footprints. Missing time."
"You think that thing with Azhar has been here before?" he asked.
"I think it was never gone," she corrected.
She met his gaze again, steady.
"And then there's you," she added. "Fire in your chest. Memory gaps where trauma should be. A stranger who calls you brother and talks like someone else edited your life."
"And you," he returned, "who can touch all of this without getting burned."
Something flickered in her eyes.
"That," she said slowly, "is what worries me."
He frowned. "You're worried about you?"
"I'm worried about whatever… uses me," she said. "Last night, when I touched you, the fire obeyed. That's not normal. It felt like something in me pressed mute on something in you."
"Silence," he said.
The word hung there between them, heavier than its seven letters deserved.
She looked down at her fingers, flexing them like they belonged to somebody else.
"I've been seeing things for years," she admitted. "Not like you. Not flare-events. More like… gaps. Pauses where the world stutters. Places where sound drops and it feels like someone cut a scene from reality."
He stared at her.
"And you didn't think to lead with that when we met under a bus stop?" he demanded.
She huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. "You were busy almost torching city infrastructure. Forgive me for pacing the exposition."
Silence fell again, but it was a different kind now. Denser. Not awkward—loaded.
Outside, the bridge shuddered as a train rolled over it. The vibrations hummed through the café floor.
Manraj flinched.
The train's thunder folded into the echo of another sound in his mind: a ritual circle roaring, a boy screaming, a god's voice saying Balance must be protected.
His hand tightened around the mug.
"Last night," he said quietly, "I saw something. In a dream. Or a memory. I don't know. A circle. Fire. A hand pulling me back. And something else."
"What something?" Zoya asked.
"White," he said, eyes distant. "Not fire. Not shadow. Angry and… kind. It felt like—"
He broke off, the words dissolving on his tongue.
Zoya didn't push.
Instead, she closed the notebook and leaned back, studying him.
"Whatever happened to you and Azhar," she said, "wasn't an accident. It was a choice. Several choices. By things that think they get to decide who you are."
"And you?" he asked. "What do you think I am?"
Her answer came without hesitation.
"Someone who deserves to know what was taken from him."
Something stung behind his eyes.
"So," he asked, voice rough, "what now?"
Zoya looked out the window.
Morning had brightened into a washed-out day, but the city still seemed to hold its breath.
"Now," she said, "we stop waiting for answers to drip-feed themselves to you in nightmares."
She looked back at him, resolve settling in her expression.
"We go to where the first questions started."
He frowned. "Which is?"
She hesitated.
"The temple," she said finally. "The one nobody remembers standing on the hill. The one this city keeps building around but never over."
A chill ran through him.
"Why there?" he asked.
"Because," she said quietly, "that's where the first erase happened."
---
Across the street, under the shadow of a shuttered pharmacy, Azhar watched them through the glass.
He saw Manraj's hunched shoulders, Zoya's sharp profile, the way their heads leaned closer when the conversation turned serious.
Noxian sat at his side, tails coiled neatly, eyes narrowed.
You should go in, the fox suggested. Sit. Order coffee. Make it a family meeting.
Azhar's lips twisted.
"They're not ready for that," he said.
You're not ready, Morrigan's voice cawed from a nearby signpost.
He didn't argue.
"Let them take the first steps," he murmured instead. "Let her decide which truth he hears first."
Through the glass, Zoya stood, gathering her notes.
Manraj followed, shoulders squaring as if he'd made a decision without realizing it.
Azhar watched them turn toward the exit.
"The temple, then," he said softly.
Noxian's tails flicked.
Back to where you broke him, the fox said.
Azhar didn't flinch.
"Back," he agreed, "to where they broke all of us."
The morning brightened another fraction.
The day was just beginning.
But for Manraj, Zoya, and Azhar—
it was still the same night, finally dragging its shadow into the light.