When the girl finally left—steady but shaken—Faye called Jace upstairs.
He expected another lecture about caution.
He didn't expect what he found.
The upstairs lounge was dim, illuminated only by a single lamp. A box sat on the table. Old. Dusty. Wooden. Faye stood behind it like someone preparing to cut open a wound.
"This belonged to the last barista the café chose," she said softly.
Jace's breath hitched. "What happened to them?"
Faye gestured for him to sit. He did.
She opened the box.
Inside were three things:
A cracked name tag,
A small notebook filled with frantic handwriting,
A faded drink ticket with the words Ichoose to stay,
Jace felt the air around him constrict.
Faye opened the notebook to the final entry. The handwriting slanted, uneven, desperate:
The café is inside my thoughts now. It finishes sentences before I think them. Every customer pulls something out of me I can't get back. But I have to stay. If I leave, it will collapse. If I stay, I disappear. I'm already disappearing.
Jace swallowed hard. "So they—"
"Became part of it," Faye finished quietly. "Their mind. Their emotions. Their sense of self. Absorbed into the Loom. They're not dead, but they're not… alive either. The café holds them like a memory. A ghost."
Jace stared at the dimly lit walls. Suddenly every flicker of light felt like a whisper. Every creak felt like a heartbeat that wasn't his.
"Why are you telling me this now?" he asked.
"Because the café is choosing again," Faye said. "And it's choosing you. You need to know what that means."
Jace scrubbed a hand through his hair. "So either I stay and lose myself… or I leave and the café falls apart."
Faye hesitated. "There might be a way for the café to survive without taking you. But it's untested. Dangerous."
Jace looked up sharply. "Tell me."
Faye closed the notebook and whispered, "First you need to decide if you want to live a life that's yours—or a life that the café writes for you."
Jace didn't realize until then that his hands were trembling.
He couldn't tell if it was fear…
Or the café reacting through him.