The morning sun in the Sinclair-Callahan apartment didn't so much shine as it did struggle. It filtered through a massive window, cracked in the upper corner and dutifully sealed with duct tape, casting long, dusty bars of light across a floor that was more paint-splatter than hardwood. For Lyra, this was the best time of day, the quiet hours before the city's roar drowned out the soft, rhythmic scratching of Barnaby's claws against watercolor paper.
Lyra stood in the center of the tiny kitchen nook, wrestling with a temperamental espresso machine they had salvaged from a sidewalk curb three years ago.
"Come on, Beatrice," Lyra whispered, giving the chrome side of the machine a gentle, encouraging pat. "Just one more shot. I have a long day of pretending to be a functioning adult, and you're the only thing standing between me and a very long nap."
The machine let out a gurgling groan, a sound like a drowning piper, and finally sputtered a dark, aromatic stream into a mismatched ceramic mug. Success.
"You're talking to the appliances again, Ly. It's a slippery slope. By noon, you'll be taking life advice from the toaster, and by dinner, you'll be asking the fridge for a raise."
Lyra turned to see Maeve Callahan leaning against the doorframe of the small, cramped bedroom they shared. In a city where space was a luxury reserved for people like her "Mr. Existential Dread," they had managed to divide their room with a tall, open-backed bookshelf overflowing with art history texts and Maeve's collection of vintage Irish literature. Maeve was a firework in human form, her bright red hair was a chaotic nest of curls, and she was currently wrapped in a chunky knit cardigan that looked like it had survived a riot.
"Beatrice is a sensitive soul, Maeve. She needs positive reinforcement," Lyra countered with a grin, holding the warm mug to her face.
Maeve let out a melodic laugh, the lilt of her childhood home in County Cork still coloring her vowels. She hopped onto the edge of the kitchen counter, an act that always made Lyra's mother, Vivienne, wince and snagged a piece of toast from Lyra's plate.
"So?" Maeve said, her bright green eyes dancing. "Are you going to tell me about the museum or keep me in suspense until I die of old age? I came home last night to see you looking like you'd seen a ghost or at least a very handsome, very miserable statue."
Lyra felt a strange, fluttering heat rise to her cheeks. She turned back to the counter, busying herself with a spoon. "It wasn't a ghost. Just... a moment. I met someone. Or rather, I interrupted someone who was very busy being a 'patron' of the arts. His name is Elias."
"Elias," Maeve repeated, testing the weight of the name. "Sounds like someone who drinks his tea with his pinky up and has a very specific opinion on the humidity levels of his wine cellar."
"He was a bit of a pill, honestly," Lyra admitted, a small laugh escaping her. "I told him the piece he was looking at looked like a grumpy octopus. He looked like I'd just told him the earth was flat. But Maeve, he actually looked. I told him to shift his perspective, and for a second, I think he really saw it. He saw the violet under the black. He said his family has been a patron for three generations, so he's likely some trust-fund heir who's never had to worry about rent in his life."
Maeve's expression softened, her teasing edge momentarily blunted. She knew Lyra's tendency to look for the "color" in everyone, even those who preferred to remain in the shadows. "Elias Thorne," she mused, recalling the name Lyra had whispered the night before. "Sounds like the kind of name you find on a building or a lawsuit. Be careful with those 'brooding elite' types, Ly. They don't see people; they see assets. Or worse, they see projects."
"I'm not a project," Lyra insisted, though the memory of his stormy grey eyes felt like a hook she couldn't quite unseat. "He was just a person. A very well-dressed, very serious person who doesn't know how to eat a peppermint."
The morning unfolded in their typical, chaotic rhythm. While Maeve got ready for her shift at the cafe, Lyra moved to her easel. Barnaby watched her from his perch on a stack of drying watercolor paper.
"Don't give me that look, Barnaby," Lyra muttered, picking up a palette knife. "I know the rent is late. I'm working on it."
The apartment was a gallery of her father's influence. Photos of Lucian Sinclair were pinned everywhere, Lucian at the chalkboard, Lucian holding a young Lyra's hand as she painted her first sunset. He had been an art teacher who taught her that a canvas wasn't just cloth, but a window. Since his death three years ago, Lyra had felt like she was the keeper of that fire.
Her brother, Dorian, had gone the other way. He had chased the glitter of the corporate world, working his way up the ladder at a massive firm uptown. He rarely visited the "closet with a sink" anymore, preferring the glass-and-chrome world that Lyra found so stifling.
"I'm heading out!" Maeve called, grabbing her bag. "I'm going to stop by your moms after my shift to help her with that garden project. Are you coming for dinner? She's making shepherd's pie."
"Tell Mom I'll try!" Lyra shouted back. "I want to finish this study first. I've got a feeling about this one."
Once the door clicked shut, the apartment settled into a comfortable silence. Lyra moved to her easel, looking at the abstract she had started the night before, the pillar of cold blue being encroached upon by sparks of gold.
She began to paint, her movements frantic and rhythmic. She didn't plan; she reacted. She thought about the way the light had hit Elias's face when he stood to the left of the painting. She thought about the way he moved.
Around noon, her phone buzzed. It was a text from Dorian.
Dorian: Hey Ly, sorry, not gonna make it to Mom's tonight. The VP wants me to oversee the final logistics on a new shipping route. Might be a late one. If I nail this, I'm basically guaranteed that senior associate title. Tell Mom I'll take her out to that fancy bistro this weekend to celebrate?
Lyra sighed, her thumb hovering over the screen. Always a new route, always a new title. Dorian was twenty-six and acted like he was fifty, carrying the weight of the family's financial struggle on his shoulders with a desperation that worried her. He seemed so convinced that if he just played the game well enough, he could rewrite their history.
Lyra: You work too hard, Dor. Mom misses you, and shepherd's pie is better than a bistro anyway. Don't forget to breathe. Love you.
She put the phone down, but a small prickle of unease settled in her chest. Dorian had been acting twitchy lately, buying expensive watches he didn't need and talking about "investments" that sounded a little too good to be true. She hoped the high-pressure world he'd chosen wasn't making him reckless.
To shake off the worry, Lyra threw herself back into the canvas. She mixed a shade of midnight blue that felt like a fortress, then slashed it with a streak of marigold that looked like a scream.
"What do you think, Barnaby?" she asked the cat. "Is it too much?"
Barnaby let out a low meow and began licking his paw, clearly unimpressed.
"Fair enough," Lyra laughed.
By the time the sun began to dip below the skyline, painting the buildings in shades of bruised purple, Lyra felt a deep sense of accomplishment. She cleaned her brushes with a rag that was a rainbow of past mistakes and looked out the window.
Far off in the distance, the corporate towers stood like giants of glass. She knew Dorian worked in one of them, Thorne Logistics, he'd said. It was a strange coincidence, him working for a company with the same name as the "Elias" she'd met at the museum. But 'Thorne' was a common enough name among the city's elite; it was likely just another branch of some massive, interconnected family tree she would never be part of.
She thought about her plan for next Tuesday, the chocolate-covered espresso beans. A small, mischievous smile played on her lips. She wondered if Elias would be there again, standing in front of The Void, looking for a way out.
"He needs to learn to laugh," she told Barnaby, who was now asleep on a pile of sketches. "A man who looks that good in a suit shouldn't look that miserable."
She spent the rest of the evening in a state of quiet domesticity. She washed the dishes, watered the three dying succulents on the windowsill, and organized her sketchbook. She felt at home in the messiness of her life. She had her art, she had Maeve, and she had the memory of a father who told her she was named after a constellation of harmony.
She had no idea that at that very moment, in one of those glowing offices uptown, Silas Grey was pulling the final digital thread on Dorian's shell companies. She had no idea that her brother wasn't "overseeing logistics," but was currently watching the clock in terror as his access codes were quietly deactivated.
For now, she was just Lyra Sinclair, an artist in a drafty apartment, completely unaware that this was the last night her world would ever be this simple.
She sat down at her desk, lit a small candle, and opened her sketchbook to a blank page. The ochre smudge was still on her cheek, a small mark of the girl she was, before the world demanded she become someone else.
"Next Tuesday," she whispered to the quiet room. "I'll show him that the darkness isn't so bad if you know where to find the light."
She fell asleep at her desk an hour later, her head resting on her arms, while the city lights outside twinkled like a distant, uncaring constellation. The smell of wet paint and lavender incense filled the room, the last lingering scent of a peace she was about to lose forever.