Magnus looked at the eccentric girl with a doubtful expression. The flickering lamplight throughout Nora's Knickknacks cast long shadows across her pale face, making her eyes look almost unreal.
"What do you mean, you know?" he asked cautiously.
She shrugged, as if the weight of her knowledge were nothing more than a casual inconvenience.
"I don't know exactly what you've done," she said, her voice too casual for the gravity of her words. "Only fragments. But I can feel it. You're going to do incredible things, Magnus. Things that will change people. Whole systems. Maybe even the world."
'Incredible things? Klaudia once said something like that...'
---
He hadn't thought of Klaudia in years, not properly.
Not beyond the surface flashes of summer visits and shared birthdays. But the whisper pushing at the back of his mind dredged up something older, deeper, a moment fixed in perfect clarity the way only someone with an ironclad memory could hold it.
They'd been eight, both of them grass-stained and sweating under a too-bright sun at his grandparents' place in Norwood. The backyard was a fortress in their eyes: a rotting wooden fence for ramparts, garden beds for trenches, and a scratched plastic slide serving as the tower from which they surveyed their imaginary kingdom.
Magnus had climbed halfway up that slide when the neighbour's dog barked through the fence. One savage, echoing snarl that tore straight through him. He'd frozen mid-step, heartbeat hammering in his small ribs, convinced the world was about to end in teeth and noise.
Klaudia didn't freeze.
She darted ahead of him, dragging him back by the wrist with such fierce certainty that he didn't even resist. Her dark hair whipped around her face, eyes blazing like she'd take on the dog herself if it came crashing through the planks.
But, of course, it wouldn't.
"Don't be scared, Mags," she'd said, breathless but sure. "You're gonna be someone important one day. Someone they write stuff about. Like in books!" She'd stood straighter, chest puffed like a tiny soldier guarding a king. "And I'll always protect you from the bad guys. I promise."
Even now, Magnus could remember the exact pressure of her hand around his wrist. The sensation was warm, slightly sticky with cordial, steady enough that he believed every word. The dog had kept barking, but it hadn't mattered. In that moment, her certainty had been louder than fear.
He never forgot that promise.
He couldn't.
Not with the way his mind held memories.
What he had forgotten, was the last time he saw her.
And how promises made by children don't always survive the slow violence of growing up.
---
Magnus shook himself free from the past and stared at the girl who just claimed he'd also do amazing things.
"So… you're one of them too," he muttered. "Another believer. Your kind always has a habit of trying to prey on people."
Her smile was gentle, unsettlingly calm. Not defensive, and not angry, but like someone who had already seen the moves he hadn't even realised were on the board yet. "My kind? You're funny," she said softly. "You think you're not already starting something. But you are. Even now. Every time you speak, they listen. Even when you deny it."
Magnus shook his head, instinctively taking a step backward. "I don't know what you're trying to pull here, but I'm just going to go."
"I'll be here," she said with a nod, her voice carrying a quiet, almost inhuman certainty. "At Nora's Knickknacks. If you take too long in accepting your role in this world, you will suffer a great loss. That much, I can say for sure."
Magnus opened his mouth to reply, whether to challenge her or simply tell her to stop talking, he didn't know, but the bell above the door chimed first.
A man stepped inside, rain beading along the shoulders of his worn coat. He had the look of a scholar fallen out of his own time.
He wore cuffed dress shoes, sleeves rolled to the elbow over ink-stained forearms, half-moon glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, hair just a shade too long to be deliberate. Something in his gaze snagged on Magnus as though taking measure of his being.
No judgement, no warmth, only a quiet, unreadable interest.
Magnus shifted, suddenly eager to be gone, and taking the opportunity to escape from the crazed girl.
As he reached for the door, he heard Elaine greet the newcomer with casual familiarity.
"Hey, Cass. Looking for a tome, text, or something else?"
Magnus didn't wait for her to speak another word.
The bell above the door jingled wildly as he shoved it open, stepping out into the chill of the street. His hoodie went up over his head, and he started walking fast, letting the cold rain soak into his clothes as he navigated toward the subway.
"This fucking rain..."
Magnus told himself it was all coincidence. A good day at work. An eccentric girl with a flair for theatrics. The misfire of an app.
That was all it could be.
But something deep inside him, a whisper he had never noticed before, refused to be ignored. It pressed against the walls of his rational mind, reminding him that excuses were just excuses, that there was something more, something real, and it was waiting.
By the time he reached the subway station, the whisper grew louder, sharper, almost like a pulse, quickening his heartbeat. The world around him felt just slightly off-kilter.
People moved mechanically, faces pressed against phones, oblivious to the currents he now sensed threading beneath the mundane tapestry blanketing across Linden.
He slid onto a train car and found a seat near the window. Across the aisle, a young woman was absorbed in her phone, her fingers flicking over the screen. Magnus caught glimpses of the video she was watching: neon lights, thrumming bass, smoke curling through the air.
"The Ascension Pit," a narrator's voice intoned, low and hypnotic. "One of Linden's top three clubs. A spectacle of light, sound, and sensation. If you want to experience something unforgettable, this is the place."
Magnus frowned, intrigued despite himself. He wasn't a party-goer or a lover of the club scene, he didn't even consider himself social in the traditional sense, but every fragment of the video carried an almost magnetic allure. He leaned closer, catching snippets of people moving in perfect sync to the music, laser lights slicing through a fog of colour, faces twisting in ecstasy or awe.
The video ended with another piece of narration.
"I promise you, you will never want to leave."
'I've never even heard of this place,' Magnus thought, his brow furrowing.
Linden was large, sprawling, saturated with nightlife and influencers, but he hadn't once seen a post, an ad, or a mention of the Ascension Pit. And yet here it was, glowing on the screen like it had been waiting for him. Waiting for everyone.
The train screeched to a halt, jerking him upright. Outside, the city was grey and still heavy with rain. Drops splashed against the pavement, slicking the streets into reflective mirrors of neon signage. He tugged his hoodie tighter and stepped out, the cold rain biting at his cheeks.
He walked quickly, letting the rhythm of his boots on wet concrete drown out the thought spirals. But the whisper from earlier hadn't left; it was there, just behind the edges of his mind. It said something he didn't want to admit yet, something that made his chest tighten.
'This isn't coincidence. Nothing here is coincidence. But where do I even start? Should I even start?'
Magnus kept walking.
Things were changing.
Too many things.