“Poppy, I swear to god, if you eat one more stamp, I’m turning you into soup,” Xandra hissed, swatting at the quail who fluttered just out of reach, a perforated rectangle clenched triumphantly in her beak.
The bird landed atop a stack of unsorted delivery manifests, puffing her feathers with the smugness of a thief who knew exactly how absurd she looked.
The Yang’s Atelier smelled of ink, aging parchment, and the faint metallic tang of the pneumatic tubes that occasionally rattled to life in the walls. Morning light strained through grimy windows, catching motes of dust that swirled around Xandra’s head like lazy constellations.
She rubbed her temple, another headache brewing, the kind that came with whispers. Old maps did that sometimes, murmuring fragments of places they’d once charted. Today, it was a phrase looping behind her eyes: the door with no keyhole.
Miss Beatrice breezed in, balancing a tray of steaming teacups. “Houdini’s arguing with Corina again,” she muttered, sliding a cup toward Xandra. “Something about unsigned papers and a ‘netherworld beast’ whatever that means.” She paused, eyeing Poppy’s latest plunder. “That’s the third stamp this week.”
Xandra groaned. “At this rate, I’ll be paying the courier fees out of my pocket.” She took a sip, the tea bitter and over-steeped, exactly how Beatrice made it when she was distracted. The older woman was staring at her with an odd intensity. “What?”
“You delivered to Damascus Boutique this morning.”
Xandra’s fingers tightened around the teacup. “Yeah, why?” The words came out sharper than she intended. Poppy, sensing the shift, hopped onto her shoulder and nibbled nervously at a loose strand of her hair.
Beatrice leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Because that place hasn’t been open in twenty years.”
The teacup slipped from Xandra’s grip, shattering against the floorboards. Across the room, Mr. Houdini’s head snapped up, his fork hovering midair. “Everything alright over there?”
“Fine!” Xandra chirped, too brightly, already kneeling to gather the shards. Beatrice crouched beside her, pretending to help.
“Did you see her?” Beatrice hissed. “Asherah Damascus?”
Xandra’s fingers froze around a porcelain shard. The whisper in her mind, the door with no keyhole, suddenly sharpened into a scream. She forced a laugh, too loud and too brittle.
“Of course not. Just dropped the package in the mail slot like always.” The lie tasted like rust. She had seen her; a woman with oil-slick hair coiled tight against her skull, wrists weighted with silver bangles that chimed like funeral bells.
Beatrice’s nails dug into Xandra’s wrist. “Liar.” The word was a puff of chamomile steam against her ear. “Listen to me. That boutique burned down the night the Damascus family was slaughtered. Every last one of them. And Asherah—” A shudder ran through her. “She wasn’t human. Not at the end.”
Poppy let out a soft squee of alarm as Mr. Houdini’s chair scraped back. “Girls,” he called, “if you’re done with the theatrics, Corina made kale.” His voice was light, but his eyes, amber and unblinking, fixed on them like a falcon spotting prey.
Xandra stood abruptly, shards clattering from her skirt. “Lost my appetite.” She strode to the coatrack, Poppy fluttering after her. The whispers crescendoed, no keyhole, no keyhole, as she fumbled with her satchel. Beatrice’s warning clung to her like cobwebs.
The Damascus Boutique loomed at the end of Clockmaker’s Alley, its once-elegant facade now a carcass of blackened brick. Xandra stared at the intact cherry wood door she’d knocked on that morning, its brass handle polished to a gleam. Above it, the sign swung gently in a wind that didn’t exist: Asherah & Echo, Fine Silks Since 0098.
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the teacups still trembling on the counter. Mr. Houdini strode in like a man who’d just lost an argument with a hurricane, his usually immaculate cravat slightly askew. He dropped into his chair with a sigh that could have wilted Beatrice’s herb garden and stabbed a fork into the mountain of kale on his plate. “Corina,” he muttered, “if I eat one more lettuce leaf, I’m staging a coup.”
Xandra barely had time to hide her smirk behind her teacup before the door burst open again, this time with Ms. Corina herself, her cheeks flushed and her spectacles sliding down her nose. “Xandra,” she announced, “you’ve got a guest.” The way she drew out the word made it sound like a scandal.
“Some handsome knight lurking outside, looking like he stepped out of a tapestry.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Should I tell him you’re tragically allergic to chivalry?”
Xandra was out of her seat before the laughter could fully erupt, Poppy squawking indignantly as she nearly toppled off her shoulder. She burst into the alleyway just in time to see Kastro leaning against the lamppost, sunlight catching the ridiculous angle of his grin.
He had one hand tucked into his coat probably clutching that damnable lunchbox and the other extended like he’d been waiting for her to crash into him. Which she did. Hard.
“You’re late,” she huffed into his collarbone, breathing in the scent of ink and cedar. His arms tightened around her.
“I brought you a peace offering.” He pulled back just enough to waggle the lunchbox between them. “Pickled herring and black bread. Your favorite.”
“You monster.” She kissed him anyway, quick and biting, tasting the apple juice already smeared at the corner of his mouth. Poppy pecked at his ear in reprimand.
The Plaza Circle was mercifully empty when they settled on the fountain’s edge, knees knocking together as Kastro unpacked the meal with theatrical flair. “So,” he said, nudging a slice of honeyed pear toward her, “I was thinking—”
“Always dangerous,” Xandra interjected, stealing the pear.
“We could petition the Guild for a joint workshop: you with your whispering maps and me with my architectural nonsense,” he grinned lopsidedly. “Imagine it: Crosswood & Soltonia, Conquerors of Impossible Geography.”
Xandra’s laugh died when she noticed the tremor in his fingers. He was serious.
Before she could respond, a shadow loomed over them. A familiar, hulking silhouette snatched the last pickled herring straight from Kastro’s outstretched hand.
“Eshram,” Xandra groaned, watching her brother toss the fish into his mouth with the grace of a starving alley cat. “Must you?”
Her brother’s grin was all teeth. “Must you,” he mimicked, nudging her boot with his own, “lurk in public like some lovesick—” He paused, squinting at Kastro’s fingers laced through Xandra’s. “Wait. Are you holding hands like peasants? Gods, it’s worse than I thought.” Eshram shuddered, tossing another stolen herring into his mouth.
Kastro’s thumb traced the ridge of Xandra’s knuckles, deliberate. “Jealous, Esh?”
Eshram choked.
The apple juice went everywhere.
Xandra, now sporting a sticky constellation of droplets across her tunic threw her last black bread crust at her brother’s forehead. “You infant.”
Kastro, who had somehow managed to dodge the entire spray was laughing so hard his shoulders shook silently, tears glinting at the corners of his eyes. He pressed a handkerchief into Xandra’s hands without looking, his fingers brushing her wrist in a way that made Eshram’s left eye twitch.
“Stop that,” Eshram growled, wiping his chin with his sleeve.
“Stop what?” Xandra snapped, scrubbing at her tunic.
“You know what?” Eshram jabbed a finger at Kastro’s smirking face. “That! That look. Like you’ve just won something.”
Kastro leaned back on his palms, sunlight catching the silver on his threadbare collar. “Haven’t I?”
ns216.73.216.69da2
and then Add to home screen.