The café smelled of burnt sugar and bergamot, a scent that clung to the air like a half-remembered dream. It was tucked between a boarded-up apothecary and a shop selling clocks that all told different times, their hands spinning lazily backward. The sign above the door read The Steeping Truth in peeling gilt letters, and the windows were fogged with steam, hiding the patrons inside behind a veil of condensation.

  Sorin hesitated at the threshold, his golden scars prickling. "This feels like a trap."

  Aeris rolled her eyes and shoved past him. "Everything feels like a trap to you. Even breakfast."

  Kael, already two steps ahead, flung the door open with a flourish. "Ah, but breakfast can be a trap! Ever bitten into a pastry only to find it’s actually a—"

  "—A mimic?" Nyx finished, grinning. "Happens more often than you’d think."

  Lyria slipped inside without a word, her bare feet silent on the warped floorboards.

  The café was a cacophony of clinking porcelain and murmured conversations that stopped just a little too quickly when the group entered. Patrons hunched over their cups, their faces obscured by steam or shadow, their hands curled protectively around saucers as if guarding secrets. The walls were lined with shelves of mismatched teapots—some cracked, some whispering, one leaking a slow drip of something that wasn’t tea.

  A waiter materialized beside them, his apron stained with ink and his smile too wide. "Ah. The ones who don’t belong here yet."

  Nyx snorted. "Yet?"

  The waiter ignored them, gesturing to a round table in the corner where five cups sat waiting, steam curling in languid spirals. "Sit. The leaves have questions for you."

  Kael dropped into a chair with exaggerated grace. "Finally, someone who appreciates my depth."

  Aeris scowled at her cup. "I don’t like divination."

  "Too late," said the waiter. "You’ve already been seen."

  Sorin’s cup was the darkest, the liquid inside thick as ink. When he lifted it, the scars on his wrists flared gold, casting fractured light over the table. The leaves at the bottom had settled into a shape—a crown, fissured down the middle, its points twisted like broken fingers.

  "Nothing lasts," the waiter murmured, though his lips didn’t move.

  Lyria’s cup was empty. Not a single leaf clung to the porcelain. She tilted it, frowning, and a drop of liquid welled up from the base—clear and cold, like a tear.

  Nyx, ever restless, snatched Aeris’s cup before she could protest. "Let’s see what the great and prickly archivist is hiding—"

  The tea had overflowed, pooling in the saucer, the leaves forming a tangled knot.

  "You’re trying to hold too much," the waiter said, this time aloud.

  Aeris’s jaw tightened. "I don’t need leaves to tell me that."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Nyx, unsatisfied, swapped their cup with Kael’s. "Cheat fate, win prizes."

  Kael’s original cup showed a lute with snapped strings, half-submerged in what looked like a river of ink. Nyx’s stolen cup, now in Kael’s hands, swirled with leaves that shifted as he watched—forming a mask, then a flute, then a child’s face.

  The waiter laughed, a sound like rattling china. "The joke’s on you. None of these are yours."

  Kael’s smile faltered.

  A whisper skittered across the table—a voice none of them recognized, yet all of them almost remembered.

  "To love a king is to lose him twice."

  The words lingered, clinging to the steam. Sorin’s scars pulsed in response, and for a heartbeat, the café’s noise faded into a hollow silence, broken only by the distant, dissonant chime of a clock.

  Then Nyx leaned back, kicking their boots onto the table. "So. Anyone else think this place is a front for a cult?"

  Aeris pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why do I travel with you people."

  Lyria, still staring into her empty cup, said softly, "Because we’re the ones who remember you."

  The air stilled.

  The waiter’s grin stretched. "Ah. Now you understand."

  Kael swirled his stolen cup, watching the leaves rearrange into a new shape—a bird mid-flight, one wing torn. "Well, that’s morbid."

  The waiter leaned over his shoulder, his breath smelling of over-steeped mint. "Not a prediction. A reminder."

  "Of what?"

  "Something you already forgot."

  Nyx kicked their chair back, balancing on two legs. "This is why I hate fortune-tellers. Always talking in riddles like they’re not just guessing."

  Aeris’s fingers tightened around her overflowing saucer. A drop of tea hit the table, and for a second, the wood darkened into the shape of a dagger—her dagger, the one she kept tucked in her boot. The one she’d used to threaten the Sanctum Knight. The leaves weren’t just reading the future. They were rifling through her past like pages in a book.

  Sorin’s cup trembled in his hands. The cracked crown had bled into the porcelain, staining it gold. "This is a bad idea."

  Lyria reached across the table, her small fingers brushing his wrist. "Too late."

  A bell chimed—not from the door, but from the ceiling, where a cluster of rusted teacups hung on strings. The sound wasn’t metal. It was glass.

  The patrons at the other tables didn’t react. One woman laughed into her tea, the steam coiling around her face like a mask. A man two seats over stirred his cup with a bone spoon, humming a tune that made Kael’s fingers twitch toward his lute.

  The waiter slid a fresh pot onto the table. "Second pours are for the truths you ignore."

  Nyx grabbed it before anyone else could. "Perfect. I love ignoring things." They tipped the pot—but instead of tea, a thin, silver liquid spilled out, pooling into their cup like mercury.

  The waiter’s smile sharpened. "Ah. The thief gets caught."

  Nyx’s cup showed a key. Not just any key—the one from the Market of Might-Have-Beens, the one Lyria had pulled from thin air. The one Nyx had pocketed when she wasn’t looking.

  Lyria didn’t look surprised.

  Nyx scowled. "Okay, that’s cheating."

  The waiter tapped Nyx’s forehead. "So is stealing from time."

  Aeris slammed her cup down. "Enough. We’re leaving."

  The waiter blocked her path. "You haven’t finished your tea."

  "I don’t want to."

  "But it wants you." He pointed to her saucer, where the spilled leaves had formed a new shape: a tower, its windows lit with blue fire. The Wandering Saint’s tower.

  Kael’s laugh was too loud. "Great! A destination. Can we go now?"

  Sorin stood abruptly, his chair screeching. His scars were glowing brighter, pulsing in time with the café’s erratic clocks. "Something’s wrong."

  Lyria’s empty cup began to fill—not with tea, but with dark water, rising from the bottom as if the porcelain were a well. The surface rippled, showing a reflection that wasn’t hers: a crowned figure, their face obscured by smoke.

  The waiter sighed. "Ah. He remembers."

  The café’s door slammed shut.

  The patrons kept drinking.

  Nyx’s key burned in their pocket.

  Kael’s lute string snapped without being touched.

  Aeris’s dagger was in her hand, though she didn’t remember drawing it.

  Sorin’s scars etched light into the walls, painting the shadows with gold.

  And Lyria—

  Lyria dipped a finger into her overflowing cup, stirring the water until the crowned figure dissolved. "We should go," she said, as if commenting on the weather.

  The waiter bowed. "You already are."

  The teacups on the ceiling chimed again.

  This time, it sounded like laughter.