Just half a second. Then she smiled.
"Second and a half year," she said. "Transition semester. Depends on how you count the credits I brought from my exchange. Americans are weird with their system."
"You’re from an exchange?"
"I came three years ago. I already feel like a local."
"From where?"
She looked at him.
A fraction of a second too long.
"Prague."
"You don’t have a Prague accent."
"I learned Spanish very young. Besides, how do you know what a Prague accent sounds like?"
"I don’t know. I’m just saying you don’t have one."
"Interesting deduction, Vega."
They sat down at a small table by the window. Outside, the sun had already set and the streetlights were turning on one by one.
Sariel set her coffee on the table, pulled a small hardcover notebook from the inner pocket of her coat, and opened it to a marked page.
"Okay. Cases."
"You brought notes?"
"Vega, I offered to analyze your sister’s file. Did you think I was going to do it from memory?"
"A little."
"A little bit of an idiot."
"A little bit."
She smiled again, and for a moment Adrián forgot about the scarred man at the counter, the nonexistent Prague accent, and the academic year that had changed in twenty minutes.
Focus, he told himself. This is about Elena.
"You copied four cases," Sariel began, turning the notebook toward him. "Your sister’s, plus three."
"Yeah."
"Can I ask how you chose those three?"
"Location. Mercier Street and surrounding areas."
"Good. But look at this."
She pointed to three points she’d marked on a map that Adrián hadn’t noticed she’d hand-drawn in the notebook.
"This is your sister’s case. May 3rd, 9:40 PM. This is Ana Ríos, 23 years old, September 6th of the previous year, also around 10 PM. This is Marina Costa, 24, January 19th, 2023, 11 PM."
Adrián nodded. He knew all of that. He’d copied them himself.
"Notice anything?" she asked.
"Nearby areas. Similar profiles. Cases closed without evidence."
"Yeah. I noticed that too. But look at the dates."
"Spaced out. No weekly or monthly pattern."
"Not in dates. In phases."
"...phases?"
Sariel turned the page. On the new page was a hand-drawn lunar calendar, with three days marked in red.
"All three cases occurred on a new moon."
Adrián went very still.
He looked at the notebook.
He looked at Sariel.
"...are you saying what I think you’re saying?"
"I’m not saying anything yet. I’m pointing out a correlation. Correlations aren’t causes. But it’s a rare enough coincidence to investigate."
"New moon."
"Yeah."
"So we’re talking about... someone who plans their... whatever they do... by lunar phases?"
"I’m saying all three disappearances happened on a new moon. Within a time frame of 9 to 11 PM. Within a six-block radius. With victims of similar demographic profiles. And yes, I know how it sounds."
Adrián ran a hand over his face.
"Sounds like a cult."
"Sounds like something structured. Not necessarily a cult. Could be a person with obsessive-compulsive patterns. Could be a group. Could be statistical coincidence. But it’s the first thing I noticed when I ran your photocopies through a spreadsheet last night."
"...you ran my photocopies through a spreadsheet last night."
"Yes."
"When?"
"After I met you. Before I sent you the message."
"Sariel."
"What?"
"That’s..." he searched for the right word and didn’t find it. "That’s a lot. That’s a lot, for someone you just met."
She didn’t look at him. Kept staring at her own notebook, her fingers resting on the page.
"I know," she said quietly.
"Why?"
"I already told you in the library."
"’Because no one else is going to’ isn’t a reason. That’s a..." Adrián hesitated. "That’s a rehearsed answer."
Sariel looked up.
Her yellow eyes were darker under the store’s artificial light. The ceiling lamp reflected in the amber of her irises like a small flame.
"You want the truth?"
"Yeah.
"You might not like it."
"I don’t like much lately. I’m used to it."
She took a deep breath. Looked out the window. Looked back.
"I lost someone too," she said. "A long time ago. Different context, different story, but the feeling is the same. And when I saw you in the library with that folder open to page thirty-seven, with your jaw so tight it looked like you were going to break your teeth, something in me..." she made a vague gesture with her hand. "Reacted. Not in a calculated way. It just reacted."
Silence.
Adrián looked at his coffee. Looked at Sariel. Looked at his coffee again.
"Who did you lose?"
"My older sister."
"..."
"Yeah."
"When?"
"A long time ago. It doesn’t matter."
"It does matter."
"Vega."
"What?"
"I’m trying to help you with your thing. Mine is old. It’s resolved in the way these things get resolved, which is that they don’t get resolved but you learn to carry the weight. Let me help you, okay? If I ever want to tell you the story, I’ll tell you. Not today."
Adrián nodded slowly.
"Okay."
"Okay."
They sat in silence for a few seconds. Sariel took a long sip of her coffee. Adrián tapped his cup with his finger, three times, off-beat.
"Sariel."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
She didn’t look at him. Spoke into her cup.
"Don’t thank me yet."
"Why?"
"Because we haven’t found anyone yet."
"Still."
She nodded, very slightly. And for a moment Adrián thought he saw something cross her expression—the same thing he’d seen in the library, that sad and guilty thing that appeared and disappeared so fast he wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it.
But it disappeared.
Sariel closed her notebook.
"Alright," she said, switching tone, back to professional mode. "Next steps. We need to cross-reference the three cases with police reports that probably aren’t in the public files. Neighbor testimonies. Nearby cameras. And I think we need to go to Mercier Street."
"Go."
"Physically. Walk it. See the place. There are things you only notice by being there."
"When."
"Saturday. 8 PM. We meet at the corner of Mercier and Toledo."
"That’s late. You said yourself the disappearances happened between 9 and 11."
"Exactly. We’re going to walk during that time frame. See what you can see. What you can hear. What’s not there that should be."
Adrián looked at her.
"Is it safe?"
Sariel smiled. It was a different smile from all the others. Smaller. Stranger.
"You’re going to be with me," she said. "Nothing’s going to happen to you."
And that’s exactly the tone people use right before something bad happens, Adrián thought with a very small part of his brain. But the big part, the part that had been alone for three years looking for Elena, the part that was looking at a tall girl with amber eyes who’d spent the previous night plugging his missing sister’s data into a spreadsheet—that part just nodded.
"Saturday," he said. "8 PM. Mercier and Toledo."
"Perfect."
She finished her coffee.
Stood up.
"See you Saturday, Vega. Don’t be late. And bring comfortable shoes—we might be walking for a while."
She smiled at him one last time, and Adrián noticed—for the first time—that her smile had something sharp in it. Not hostile. Just... edged. Like a knife wrapped in velvet.
She nodded, satisfied, and squeezed his shoulder briefly as she passed—the touch lasted exactly a second, maybe less, but Adrián felt it with too much clarity for how long it had lasted—and walked out of the store.
The bell chimed.
Adrián remained seated at the small table, his coffee cooling between his hands.
After a moment, he looked up at the counter.
The man—Adrián now remembered he’d read the name on a half-hidden plate above the register, "Kenji"—was still staring at the door Sariel had walked out through. He no longer had the toothpick between his teeth. He had it clenched in one hand, nearly snapped in two.
"Hey," Adrián said, without thinking too much about it.
Kenji looked at him.
"Do you know her? The girl."
Kenji was silent for two seconds. Then three. Then he pulled another toothpick from a jar next to the register and put it in his mouth.
"No," he said.
"But you looked at her weird when she walked in."
"I look at everyone weird. It’s my face."
"Kenji."
The man looked at him more slowly this time.
"How do you know my name?"
"It’s on the plate."
"Ah."
"Why did you look at her like that?"
Kenji studied him for a long moment. His good eye moved across Adrián’s face in a way that reminded him of something, though he didn’t know what. Then he lowered his gaze to the counter, to the half-finished crossword puzzle, and moved the toothpick in his mouth again.
"Kid," he said, in a tone that wasn’t hostile but wasn’t friendly either. "I’m going to give you some free advice, and then I’m not giving you any more."
"Okay."
"There are people in this city who aren’t what they seem. I’m not the one to tell you who’s what. Not my job. But I’ve been in this neighborhood for twenty years, and I’ve been watching university students come through for twenty years, getting into things they don’t understand. Some of them come back to the store. Some of them don’t."
Adrián went very still.
"..."
"I’m not saying anything specific about anyone specific. You understand me?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Here—" Kenji pulled something from his apron pocket, set it on the counter, and gestured for Adrián to come closer.
Adrián approached.
It was a cord. A simple, thin cord, made of some thick material—linen? wool? he couldn’t identify it—with a small knot in the center that held a dark wooden bead.
"What is it?"
"A keepsake from my grandmother. Put it on your wrist. Don’t ask why."
"Kenji, I can’t accept this."
"I’m not giving it to you. I’m lending it to you. When you don’t need it anymore, you give it back."
"When will I not need it anymore?"
"You’ll know."
Adrián looked at the bracelet. Then at Kenji. Then at the bracelet again.
This is weird as hell.
He put it on his left wrist. The wooden bead rested on the inside, against his pulse.
"Good," said Kenji. "Now go home. And eat something. You’re too skinny."
"Everyone keeps telling me that."
"Everyone’s right. And don’t steal anything. And tell your girl not to think about it either."
Adrián stared at him dumbfounded for a few seconds.
"But I don’t... And she’s not... You know what, forget it, this day has been way too weird already. Thanks."
Adrián left three coins for the coffee Sariel hadn’t paid for—despite having promised to—and walked out of the store.
The bell chimed one last time behind him.
At the counter, Kenji stood staring at the door. Toothpick between his teeth, his right hand already resting under the counter where he kept his blessed rosary, with an expression that wasn’t hostility or fear, but something much older and more tired.
"Another one," he muttered to himself.
He sighed.
And went back to his crossword puzzle.
---
By the time Adrián got back to his apartment, it was fully dark.
He took off his hoodie. Dropped his keys on the desk. Turned on the kitchen light.
Looked at the bracelet on his wrist. The dark wooden bead rested against his pulse, slightly warm from skin contact. There was nothing special about it. It was wood. A simple cord. A knot.
"A keepsake from my grandmother."
"A keepsake from my grandmother" my ass.
But he didn’t take it off.
He pulled out his phone. He had a new message.
Ishtar Blackwood.
How does Ishtar have my number?
Vega. Are you home?
Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question, obviously you’re home, it’s Tuesday of first semester, you have no social life.
I need you to send me the notes from tomorrow’s statistics class. I’m not going. Statistics gives me allergies.
Also I need you to confirm you’re still alive. Genuine concern. I saw you coming out of the convenience store with a weird expression.
Adrián stared at the message.
Read it again.
She saw me coming out of the convenience store.
This girl lives in the same neighborhood as me. The store is two blocks from my place. She saw it. Saw me. Without me seeing her.
Meaning she was on the street. Nearby. For no apparent reason.
He typed a reply:
What were you doing around here?
The reply came within five seconds:
Walking. It’s a free zone. People walk. Don’t be paranoid, Vega.
Notes or not?
I’ll pass you the notes tomorrow.
Perfect. Good night. Dream of me.
No.
You already are.
No.
Yes... Pervert.
Adrián turned the phone screen off and set it face-down on the desk.
He stood in the middle of the apartment, looking at the corkboard, looking at the bracelet on his wrist, listening to the silence of his kitchen and Kenji’s words bouncing around the back of his head.
"There are people in this city who aren’t what they seem."
"Trust your instincts."
He sat down on the bed.
Rubbed his hands over his face.
"What have you gotten yourself into, Adrián?" he asked the ceiling.
The ceiling, wisely, didn’t answer.
Outside, on the building across the street, a figure with black wings folded against her back watched his window from a different rooftop than the night before. She mentally logged his movements. She reported them.
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