We picked the back corner of the café because it was neutral ground. Too public for a Collector to stroll in, too noisy for eavesdroppers to catch every word—or at least, we hoped. It was the kind of place where college kids in hoodies drowned out supernatural conspiracies with the sound of overpriced beverages and overworked espresso machines. The walls were painted in soft beige tones meant to calm you, but the flicker of the neon “OPEN” sign made everything feel like it was vibrating slightly out of tune.

  A student two tables over was typing with the furious clatter of someone writing either a thesis or a breakup text. Someone near the window was crying into a matcha latte.

  A barista shouted, “Oat milk latte for… Deathblade69?” and nobody even blinked.

  It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight.

  Euryale sat like marble in motion, sunglasses perched high on her nose despite the dim lights. The air around her had that sharp edge again—like if you glanced at her wrong, you might turn to dust. Elly, in contrast, was halfway upside-down in her chair, boots hooked on the rungs, short hair mussed by the steam rising off her hot chocolate. Two women who couldn’t be more different, both staring at me like I was the weakest link.

  News flash: I was. I am.

  “So.” I pushed my phone into the center of the table like it was evidence in a murder trial. “I called SilentWatcher.”

  Elly whistled. “Bold move, dialing up Captain Creeps-in-Your-Walls.”

  Euryale’s lips thinned. “Wraiths are unreliable. They twist words, thrive on half-truths, and are generally known to be peeping toms.”

  “Or panty thieves,” Elly agreed.

  “Yeah, but you aren’t missing any undergarments, and he was right last time,” I reminded them. “If not for his info, we wouldn’t have found Lily before she got—” I stopped. The memory of her limp in my arms wasn’t one I wanted to share over lattes.

  Euryale didn’t argue—which was her way of agreeing. “What did SilentWatcher say?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Collectors log, record, retrieve. The tags—they’re like… entries in a ledger. Once you’re tagged, you’re basically an order waiting to be filled.”

  Elly stopped spinning her mug. “Ledger?”

  “Yeah. Their page, their system, whatever that means. He said if they collect me, they’ll find him too. Everyone connected to me is a target.”

  She leaned forward, eyes sharp. “And that’s why he warned you. It’s not because he cares. It’s because you are collateral damage that leads back to him.”

  “Story of my life,” I muttered.

  Euryale tapped one manicured nail against the table, slow and thoughtful. “If this is true, then these Collectors don’t just hunt. They archive. Someone wants records. Someone wants proof of what you are, Daniel.”

  My stomach knotted. Proof. As if my being a walking anti-magic fire extinguisher wasn’t already drawing too many eyes. I suddenly felt hyper-aware of the café’s ambient magic—tiny glamours, luck charms, enchanted student planners—flexing around me like they knew something was wrong.

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  Elly cleared her throat, pulling out her phone. “Speaking of eyes, I’ve been digging. Elfnet’s buzzing.”

  “Elfnet?” I blinked. “Isn’t that your fae Reddit?”

  “How quickly you forget, grasshopper.” She smirked. “More like Craigslist with curses. Anyway, chatter says there’ve been sightings of Collector-types in three other cities. All vanish after two or three weeks of tagging and collecting. Nobody knows where the tagged go.”

  “Not good,” I said flatly.

  “No,” she agreed. “But it means they’re organized. They’re not just feeding. They’re reporting back to something bigger.”

  Euryale’s sunglasses slid lower, revealing the faint glimmer of gold in her eyes. “The same bigger that sent the Eidolich?”

  “Or worse.” Elly shrugged. “Either way, we don’t know enough yet. Which means… we start asking questions.”

  I groaned. “Asking questions means drawing attention.”

  “More attention. You already have some attention,” Eury said dryly.

  She wasn’t wrong. I felt eyes on me even when there weren’t any. Like the world was waiting for me to blink first.

  Elly leaned back, arms folded. “Step one: warn your little side-gig clients. If the Collectors are sniffing around null-adjacent cases, anyone you’ve kissed, spat on, or drooled near could be a target.”

  “That’s… all of them,” I said weakly.

  “And let’s all take a moment to be thankful it’s limited to those fluids for now. A more social male might have a larger list of sins to account for.”

  “Gross,” Eury remarked, frowning into her own steaming beverage. Green tea, of course. She drank it like it was liquid superiority.

  Elly arched an eyebrow. “Then warn all of them.”

  My wallet whimpered in advance. If I told people to cool it, that meant fewer appointments, fewer envelopes of cash slid across diner tables. Less garlic bread money. “Great. Guess I’ll pick up more hours at Elysium Solutions.”

  Eury sniffed. “The mortal call center, home base of the deplorable supervisor, Greg.”

  “Hey, it pays the rent,” I shot back.

  “And it keeps him off the supernatural radar when he’s doing tech support for normies,” Elly added, surprisingly on my side for once.

  I sat back, staring at the condensation sliding down my water glass. “So, what’s step two?”

  “Tin Can.”

  I blinked. “The homeless guy in my alley? The one I toss quarters to sometimes?”

  Elly smirked. “Yeah. Him. Don’t underestimate. He’s not just collecting cans; he’s collecting everything. He’s deep in Alterkind gossip. Knows more than most forums.”

  “You’re telling me my neighborhood raccoon cosplayer is—what? A supernatural insider?”

  “Observer,” she corrected. “Harmless. But sharp. He’s been around a long time. He’s the kind of guy who knows where the Collectors have been sniffing. And he doesn’t have a horse in the race.”

  I gawked. “And he spies on me for fun?”

  Euryale’s lips twitched, almost a smile. “Apparently you’re a great source of intel, what with the Alterkind harem and all.”

  I threw my hands up. “How do I get that job? Watching weirdness from the sidelines with a snack instead of bleeding all over the dirt?”

  Elly grinned. “Sorry, Daniel. You’re the snack.”

  I groaned into my hands. The café’s hum filled the silence that followed—steam hiss, milk frother, a pop song bleeding from the ceiling speakers. Around us, the world went on, blissfully ignorant. Someone nearby loudly asked if oat milk could be steamed to “a mystical temperature.” Reality was very disinterested in my spiraling.

  But under the table, my leg bounced restless. Collectors with ledgers. Tags that weren’t just warnings—they were receipts. And now we had to rely on a street philosopher who smelled like burnt hot dogs and conspiracy theories.

  If this new BBEG was anything like the Eidolich, this was going to end so well.

  I surveyed my companions sitting across from me. A not-so-tiny part of my lizard brain wondered who I was going to have to sleep with to save the day this time.

  I cleared my throat, blushing.

  They both eyed me as if they knew exactly what I was thinking—because, of course, they did. Elly’s smile was sly; Eury’s was the kind that promised judgment later.

  Was I really that much of an open book?

  Apparently, yes. Because even as I reached for my drink, Elly leaned in just close enough to whisper, “Careful, Mercer. Some pages aren’t meant to be read out loud.”

  The ice in my glass cracked right down the middle.