Five days of gold-tinted silence.
The tonic had worked. Mostly.
Jay Boron sat at the bar, spine rigid as a rifle stock, his hands scrubbed raw and his coat brushed free of vomit stains. He'd even trimmed his beard. The ale in his mug trembled slightly, its surface rippling with the tavern's cacophony—and once, briefly, with Tom's gap-toothed grin.
"Still nursing your drinks, eh?" the reflection seemed to say. "You always were a lightweight."
Jay didn't look again.
She slid onto the stool beside him like smoke.
Black hair plaited in a peasant's braid, but her skin was too pale, untouched by sun or labor. Her dress was coarse linen, yet it hung on her like silk. And her scent—bergamot and night-blooming jasmine, the perfume of gilded parlors, not piss-soaked taverns.
"I'll have whatever he's drinking," she said, her voice crisp as a banknote.
Jay kept his eyes on his ale. "Ale's a copper. Your corset costs more than this pisshole."
She laughed, a sound like cut glass. "Sharp eyes, myaloktónos."
The word struck like a bayonet.
Myaloktónos. Mind Slayer.
They'd called him that in the war—the men who'd watched him scream warnings about ambushes that hadn't happened yet, who'd seen him put a bullet through a "deserter" moments before the man's rigged corpse detonated. Witch. Madman. Saint.
Jay's fingers found the pocket watch. Tick. Tick. Tick. "Don't know that name."
"Liar." She leaned in, her breath warm against his ear. "I've heard the stories. The soldier who hears thoughts. Who sees things he shouldn't."
The tavern dimmed.
—A young enemy recruit sobbing as Jay squeezed the trigger, his mind shrieking: "I don't want to die I don't want to die—"
—Tom's corpse twitching in the mud, his mouth moving: "You could've saved me."
—Shadows with too many teeth, whispering: "We're always listening."
Jay's throat tightened. "Get. Away. From me."
She didn't flinch. "What if I told you the things you hear… aren't madness?" Her gloved hand brushed his wrist. "What if I told you they're a gift?"
He recoiled, ale sloshing. "Gift?"
"The trenches changed you," she pressed, relentless. "The dying… they opened a door. Let something in."
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The watch was louder now. Too loud.
"Who are you?"Jay hissed.
She smiled, revealing a faint scar bisecting her lower lip—a mark he'd seen before, in a dream he couldn't remember. "A friend. The kind who knows why Cole's tonic really works."
Her fingers dipped into her sleeve, withdrawing a coin. Not copper. Gold, stamped with a serpent devouring its tail.
"Come to the old chapel at moonrise," she murmured, sliding the coin across the bar. "Bring the watch. We'll show you what it means."
Then she was gone, her scent lingering like a curse.
Jay stared at the coin. The serpent's eyes glinted, familiar.
Cole's tattoo.
Behind him, the tavern door creaked open. A cold draft slithered in, carrying the faintest whisper:
"Run, little soldier."
But the vial in his pocket was empty.
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