The diner was quiet, but it was the deceptive quiet of a landmine waiting for a heavy foot. The air conditioner hummed its rattling, mechanical song, fighting a losing battle against the Texas heat that pressed against the windows.
I stood near the front entrance, my hand resting on the brass handle of the door, looking out at the parking lot. The gravel was empty, save for my truck and the shimmering heat waves rising off the asphalt. My mind was still reeling from the conversation with Pearl. The scent she had crafted for me—rain, ozone, and pure need—was still clinging to the inside of my nose, a phantom perfume that refused to fade.
I felt a presence at my elbow. It wasn't the heavy, predatory weight of Pearl, nor was it the electric, storm-charged static of Eira. It was lighter. Cooler. Like a breeze drifting off a shaded creek.
"You look troubled, Uncle," a voice said softly.
I turned. Liri was standing there. She had come out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She looked so much like Eira—the same bright emerald green eyes, the same pointed ears that twitched independently of her face—but there was a softness to her that her sister lacked. She was the calm water to Eira's jagged lightning.
"Don't call me Uncle," I muttered, though there was no heat in it. "Makes me feel old. And I'm not troubled. Just thinking."
"Thinking is the most troubling thing a warrior can do when there is no war to fight," Liri observed. She stepped closer, her movements silent on the linoleum. She leaned against the doorframe, studying me with an intensity that felt ancient despite her youthful face. "You are thinking about the Glimmuck. You are thinking about her words."
"I'm thinking she's dangerous," I said. "And I'm thinking I don't like people messing with my head."
Liri nodded slowly. She folded the dishtowel with precise, geometric movements. "You must understand something about the beings from the Void, Marcus. People from the other dimensions... we have lived many years more than humans. My sister, myself, even the Glimmuck... our lives are measured in epochs, not decades."
She looked up at me, her green eyes catching the light from the neon sign in the window.
"Because of this, our methods are very much like stone," she said. "We are formed by pressure and time. We do not change easily. A human is like clay—malleable, soft, easily reshaped by a single event. But we? We are granite. Once we decide something, once we set a course, it takes a cataclysm to alter it. But..."
She paused, reaching out to brush a speck of dust from my lapel.
"We survive forever," she whispered. "Or close enough to it that the difference does not matter."
The word hung in the air between us. Forever.
I looked at her. I really looked at her. I saw the faint, iridescent patterns on her skin that only showed up in certain lights. I saw the way her pupils expanded and contracted not with the light, but with her focus. I thought about the sheer weight of time she was describing. To live like stone. To be unyielding. To watch civilizations rise and fall and just... keep existing.
"Forever is a long time to be stubborn," I said.
"It is," Liri agreed. A small, sad smile touched her lips. "That is why we value the clay, Marcus. We value the things that can change. The things that can surprise us."
I felt a sudden swell of affection for this strange, alien girl. She was trying to warn me, trying to explain the unyielding nature of the women currently fighting over my soul, but she was doing it with a kindness that was rare in this place.
I reached out and pulled her into a hug. It was awkward at first—my arms were heavy and stiff, and she was slight and fragile-feeling—but she melted into it. She wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed. She smelled like herbs and dry leaves. It was a clean smell. An honest smell.
"Get your hands off him."
The voice was sharp enough to cut glass.
We broke apart instantly. Eira was standing in the hallway leading to the back rooms. She was fresh from the shower. Her hair was wet, slicked back from her face, dripping water onto the shoulders of a fresh waitress uniform that fit her a little too tightly. The dirt and the moss of the Void were gone, scrubbed away, but the anger remained. Her eyes were narrowed slits of emerald fire.
"What is this?" Eira demanded. She stalked toward us, her boots thudding heavy on the floor. "I leave for five minutes to wash the filth of the forest off me, and I come back to find you clutching at each other in the doorway?"
Liri took a step back, her hands raised in a placating gesture. "Peace, sister. It was nothing."
"It didn't look like nothing," Eira snapped. She looked at me, her gaze traveling over my body as if checking for bite marks. "What were you doing?"
"Just a little history lesson," I said, keeping my voice level. "Your sister was telling me about rocks."
Eira blinked. The confusion derailed her anger for a split second. "Rocks?"
"Metaphorical rocks," I clarified. "About how you elves are stubborn and live forever. You know, light conversation."
Eira looked at Liri. Liri looked at the floor.
"He needed to know the nature of the stone," Liri murmured.
Eira opened her mouth to retort, but the bell above the front door jingled violently. It was a cheerful, jarring sound that shattered the tension of the moment.
We all turned.
Two men walked in. They brought the outside with them—a gust of hot air, the smell of dry dust, and the underlying scent of nervous sweat. They were farmers. You could tell by the permanent tan lines on their necks, the heavy work boots that were caked in dried mud, and the way their denim overalls were worn white at the knees. They took their hats off as they entered, holding them against their chests with dirty fingers.
But they weren't just tired. They were spooked. Their eyes darted around the diner, checking the corners, checking the shadows.
"Table for two?" Liri asked, slipping instantly into her role as the hostess. Her demeanor changed from ancient sage to friendly teenager in the blink of an eye.
"Just drinks," the taller of the two men said. His voice was gravelly. "And maybe a menu. We need to sit."
"Anywhere you like," Liri said, gesturing to the empty floor.
Pearl was already moving. I hadn't seen her leave the bar, but suddenly she was back behind the counter. She had stepped up onto her wooden box—the one she used to give herself a few extra inches of height—and was wiping down the surface with a rag. She looked perfect. Serene. As if she hadn't just been trying to rewrite my neural pathways five minutes ago.
In the corner, sitting in the deepest shadow of the booth nearest the kitchen, was Nyx.
The goblin cook was taking a break. He sat hunched over the table, his knees drawn up to his chest, his dark, beady eyes tracking everything. To anyone else, the farmers coming in was a mundane event. To Nyx, it was a source of endless, baffling fascination.
He watched the men sit down. He watched them place their hats on the table. He watched the way they handled the laminated menus.
Strange, Nyx thought, his mind churning in its jagged, goblin way. They come. They sit. They will ask for charred meat and boiled roots. They will eat. And then... they will leave paper.
It made no sense to him. In his world—the deep, dark warrens of the Void—transactions were visceral. You paid with blood. You paid with secrets. You paid with a piece of your finger or a year of your life. But here? Here they traded green paper with pictures of dead men on them. It was so casual. So dangerously casual. These humans walked around like they weren't food. They walked around like the universe wasn't trying to eat them.
Nyx scratched his ear with a long, yellow claw. He didn't trust it. He was leery of the transaction. Every time a human handed over money, he expected a trap. He expected the paper to explode, or the food to turn into snakes. But it never did. It was just... business.
Marcus walked over to the table. He moved with that easy, loping stride of a man who knows he can handle trouble if it starts.
"Afternoon, boys," Marcus said. "What can we get you? Coffee? Beer? Something to take the edge off?"
The two farmers looked up. The shorter one, a man with a face like a dried apple, let out a long, shaky breath.
"Beer," he said. "Coldest thing you got. And keep 'em coming."
"Rough day?" Marcus asked. He didn't write anything down. He just leaned back on his heels.
The tall farmer looked out the window, staring at the empty sky. "You could say that. You been hearing it? The ruckus?"
"Ruckus?" Marcus asked. "I hear a lot of things. You'll have to be more specific."
"In the sky," the man said. He lowered his voice, leaning in over the table. "Lights. Weird colors. Violet and green. And the sounds... like thunder, but wrong. Like the sky is tearing open."
Marcus kept his face neutral. He knew exactly what the man was talking about. The Slipgate was leaking. The energy from the Void was bleeding through, affecting the atmosphere around the diner.
"Probably just atmospheric pressure," Marcus lied smoothly. "Heat lightning. Plays tricks on the eyes."
"Don't feel like heat lightning," the man muttered. "Feels like the devil is knocking on the roof."
The shorter man turned his head. His eyes locked onto the bar. Specifically, they locked onto Pearl.
She was standing under the soft glow of the pendant lights. She was polishing a glass, her movements hypnotic and fluid. The light caught the sheen of her dark hair and the curve of her neck. To a dusty, tired farmer who had spent twelve hours staring at the back end of a mule, she must have looked like a hallucination.
"Well now," the man said. A grin spread across his face, revealing teeth stained with tobacco. "To hell with the weather."
He stood up. He didn't walk steady. The exhaustion mixed with a sudden surge of testosterone made him clumsy. He walked over to the bar, his boots scuffing loud on the floor.
Marcus tensed. I saw his shoulders square up. He watched the man approach the counter.
The farmer leaned his elbows on the bar top, invading Pearl's space. He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her chest, then her waist. It was rude. It was the kind of look that would get you punched in any respectable establishment, and killed in any unrespectable one.
"Oh my," the farmer drawled. "Aren't you just a pretty little thing to find in the middle of nowhere."
Pearl stopped polishing the glass. She looked at him. Her expression didn't change, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop five degrees.
She looked over at Marcus. She saw him watching. A flicker of amusement danced in her sea-blue eyes, highlighting the golden ring that circled her iris. This was a game to her. Another lever to pull.
"Thank you, sir," Pearl said. Her voice was sweet, dripping with a Southern charm that was entirely manufactured. "But that is not super appropriate."
The farmer blinked, surprised by the rejection. "Aw, come on now. I'm just being friendly. A girl like you shouldn't be all alone back here."
"I am not alone," Pearl said. She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand. "And I am not available. I am kind of... promised."
"Promised?" The farmer scoffed. "To who? Some city boy?"
Pearl raised a finger and pointed directly at Marcus.
"To him," she said. "That man right over there. He has claimed me."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Eira, who had been wiping down a nearby table, froze. Her head snapped up. She looked at Pearl, then at Marcus. If looks could incinerate, Marcus would have been a pile of ash on the floor.
The farmer turned slowly. He looked at Marcus. He took in the flannel shirt, the worn jeans, the tired lines around Marcus's eyes. He didn't see the soldier. He didn't see the man who had just sprinted through an alien dimension. He just saw a guy standing between him and the pretty girl.
The farmer laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound.
"Him?" the farmer said. He looked back at Pearl. "You gotta be shitting me, darling. That washed-up has-been? He looks like he couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper sack."
The air in the diner changed. The casual atmosphere evaporated, replaced by the sharp, metallic taste of violence.
"That," Pearl said, her voice dropping the sweet act and becoming cold as ice, "was a mistake."
She moved faster than the farmer could react. She didn't reach for a weapon. She reached for the pitcher of ice water sitting on the counter.
With a flick of her wrist, she threw the contents into the farmer's face.
It wasn't just water. The way she threw it, it hit him with the force of a solid object. The ice cubes struck his skin like hail. He sputtered, blinded for a second, stumbling back.
"You bitch!" he roared.
He grabbed blindly. His hand closed around the neck of a whiskey bottle sitting on the bar. He didn't think. He swung it hard against the edge of the counter.
CRASH.
The bottle shattered. Brown liquor sprayed everywhere, smelling of peat and alcohol. The farmer was left holding the jagged neck of the bottle, the glass teeth dripping.
"I'm gonna carve you up!" he screamed, lunging across the bar toward Pearl.
Marcus was already moving.
He didn't run. He exploded from his spot. He covered the fifteen feet between them in two strides. He vaulted over a chair, his movement fluid and practiced.
As the farmer thrust the jagged glass toward Pearl, Marcus caught the man's wrist. He didn't just grab it; he clamped down on the nerve cluster with a grip like a hydraulic press.
The farmer howled.
Marcus twisted. There was a sickening pop of cartilage. He wrenched the bottle neck from the man's hand and, in one continuous motion, brought the heavy glass base of it smashing down onto the bridge of the man's nose.
The sound was wet and crunchy. The farmer dropped like a sack of feed. He hit the floor and didn't move.
"Hey!" the second farmer yelled.
He jumped up from the table. He was big, heavy-set, with hands the size of hams. He ripped his leather belt off through the loops of his jeans. The heavy brass buckle swung through the air like a flail.
"Get away from him!" the big man shouted. He swung the belt. The buckle whistled through the air, aiming for Marcus's head.
Marcus ducked. The buckle took a chunk out of the wooden bar top, sending splinters flying.
"Stay down!" Marcus ordered, coming up from the crouch.
The farmer swung again, wild and panicked. He lashed out at Pearl, at the bar, at anything moving.
Then Eira was there.
She didn't vault over chairs. She moved like smoke. She appeared behind the big farmer. She reached out and grabbed him by the back of his overalls and his belt loops.
This man weighed two hundred and fifty pounds easily.
Eira lifted him.
She didn't struggle. She didn't grunt with effort. She lifted him into the air as if he were made of styrofoam. Her elven strength was terrifying in its casual application.
"You are disrupting the establishment," Eira hissed.
With a heave of her shoulders, she flung him.
The man sailed through the air. He flew ten feet, crashing onto the top of a sturdy oak table. The wood cracked under the impact. He rolled off, groaning, trying to scramble to his feet.
Eira wasn't done. She walked toward him. She picked up the jagged remains of the whiskey bottle that lay on the floor. Her eyes were glowing bright emerald green. The air around her crackled with static. She wasn't looking to subdue him. She was looking to end him.
She raised the glass shard, aiming for the jugular.
"Eira! No!"
Marcus rushed forward. He placed himself between Eira and the groaning man on the floor. He put a hand on her chest, right over her heart, stopping her forward momentum.
"Stand down," Marcus said firmly.
Eira glared at him. Her chest was heaving against his hand. "He attacked us. He threatened the premises. The penalty is blood."
"Not here," Marcus said. His voice was low, hard. "Not in this world. We don't execute drunks for being stupid."
"He insulted you," Eira spat. "He called you a has-been. He tried to strike you."
"I've been called worse by better men," Marcus said. He gently pried the glass shard from her fingers and tossed it into a nearby trash can. "Step aside, Eira."
She looked at him, her lip curling in a snarl that exposed the tips of her sharp canines. "Why? Why do you protect them?"
Marcus looked down at the terrified farmer, who was currently trying to crawl backward under a table, staring at the glowing-eyed woman who had just tossed him like a salad.
Marcus looked back at Eira. He straightened his jacket. He looked her dead in the eye.
"Because we are in Texas," Marcus said. "And in Texas, the men handle the bar fights."
Eira held his gaze for a long second. The emerald light in her eyes pulsed, then slowly faded back to a deep, forest green. She let out a breath that sounded like a hiss of steam.
"Fine," she said. She stepped back, smoothing her skirt. "Handle it."
Marcus turned to the man on the floor. He reached down, grabbed a handful of the man's shirt, and hauled him to his feet. The farmer was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.
"Get your friend," Marcus said quietly. "Get in your truck. And don't come back until you learn some manners."
The man nodded frantically. He scrambled over to his unconscious friend, draped the man's arm over his shoulder, and dragged him toward the door.
Liri held the door open for them, a polite, frozen smile on her face.
As they stumbled out into the blinding sunlight, leaving a trail of dust and bad choices behind them, the diner fell silent again.
Pearl stood on her box behind the counter. She picked up a fresh glass and a dry rag. She looked at Marcus, then at Eira.
"Well," Pearl said, her voice echoing in the quiet room. "That was exciting. Who wants a drink?"