The Frayed Spine’s staff room, wedged sideways across from the counter, is a functional shoebox at best.

There is just about enough space for three people, and only if they arrive in a chipper mood. The coat rack that stands proud in its overload by the door seems to be taking up the most room.

Maz steps in and, in an attempt to avoid looking at Ron and Eli in the room, she turns to the coat rack. She unhooks her cardigan from the stand and slings it on. *This would’ve helped to fight the frost that followed Mr. H. It’s fine.*

She heads for the kettle that is already on. A single strip light far overhead hangs well off-centre, as weak as the rest of the shop’s lighting, and doesn’t let the kitchenette in the corner hold on to too much colour.

For every tick it fails to come to a boil, she pushes the sleeves of her far too loose cardigan back up to her elbows.

Her hands graze over the countertop’s edge. *You can definitely pretend you’re… waiting here to make coffee. Yep. For now. That’s surely a good enough reason to be away from any more new faces.*

Eli’s voice comes from behind her as he hums a short, half-remembered jingle on repeat.

Maz’s sleeves drop. *That melody… What is it? Something familiar, like the notes of a ticket number being called for the thousandth time.*

She closes her eyes. *A thousandth time.*

Ron hunches over the cutlery drawer beside Maz. He rummages through it with repetitive clinks and scrapes that join in with the kettle’s death rattle. He glances over and gives her a smile that’s too crooked not to carry a concern.

Meg’s theatrical laughter trickles in through the wall and slides straight off. None of it sticks in here.

Maz stares at the microwave, where someone wrote ‘NO GODS, ONLY LEFTOVERS’ across its door. *Meg’s charming a customer again. Where does she find the energy? Possibly her built-in mischief. Probably too much coffee. Maybe you do need one after all.*

The kettle next to it carries on with a sound that is far too noisy for this room.

Maz takes a mug from its tower by the sink and puts it down on the counter. *If that thing can finish boiling today.*

She turns. Her back rests against the curved ledge as her eyes fixate on the floor.

Eli sits slouching in the middle. He teeters his chair on two legs at angles that test the edge of gravity. His thumb slides up and down on his phone with restless energy camouflaged as boredom.

He stops humming. His gaze sweeps between Maz and Ron and returns to her face. “You alright?” 

Maz’s nod aims at his boots.

Eli’s chair comes back to four legs with a clack that makes her catch his eye. *Okay. I’ll ask her this time.*

He puts his phone face down on his jeans before folding his arms. “You don’t remember either?”

“I got… Some… Nothing.”

“Right.”

The kettle clicks off.

Maz’s fingers find the hem of her cardigan sleeve as she crosses the two steps to reach the plastic chair opposite Eli. She meets his gaze and sinks into the seat.

The space she leaves between them is close enough for her to feel the scuff of his boot and for their knees to not quite touch. *Ask him. Ask where he was. Or where you were. Did time get redacted, or did you?*

“Did I…?” Eli’s eyes sharpen for a second, skate off her and land on his phone. *Am I looking for a better question? Do I have a better answer?*

His thumb finds one by tapping on the side of his phone. He keeps on keeping time with the melody that has already rerouted in his mind. *So, it’s plausible that we had a big night out and blacked out for… a while? Yeah, right. Say that and see what that does to her. I’m not volunteering to be that idiot.*

She shakes her head as her lips join the motion with their twitching from side to side. “Never mind.”

Ron watches them before he slides a teaspoon into his mug that holds a dry teabag.

Maz’s phone buzzes. She slides it out of her pocket. The screen is already lit up to display a text preview from Eli:

‘Half for you, half for me?’

He offers her half a grin as he begins to drag the mint tin out from his pocket. It only goes halfway out when his finger dishes in the embossing on it with a muted snap from partly under the denim.

She pulls her sleeves over her hands. *You want it too much. Stop it.*

Her eyes widen, a warning before the fall, then soften. *Wait. He never mentioned that outside home before. Is it that bad? Well, all that time since you’ve been using it… Maybe just as bad.*

The kettle in the corner that no one has switched on starts boiling again. It gets louder by the second as she stops holding her sleeve.

Meg’s next laughter arrives in her ears quieter and more muffled than it did earlier.

The pattering rain outside grows more thunderous.

She sits straighter in the chair. Her shoulders stay down. *It’s like that day all over again. You were in the kitchen.*

***

You were in the kitchen.

Of course, the kettle. It had been more than ten minutes since it had started boiling. You just knew it wouldn’t ever stop unless you ripped its plug out. You absolutely hated that thing ten years ago.

No. Ten months. Maybe so far back that it might as well be a myth. Well, it was definitely autumn. A proper one, before it forgot when it was time to leave.

Did the countertop have two shadows of you on it? No. The light was up to its tricks again, or your cardigan had gone loose enough to earn one for itself. Nonsense. One of them was moving for sure.

You really thought the flat was bigger then. You could see the front room window looking small from there. Like it was trying to lighten the mood, it made blurry ribbons out of the streetlight glows. Yeah, rain, of course. It was raining. Your damp fringe kept weighing down to your eye.

Eli was right next to you with his arms crossed. There was comfort in him being that close as he made it easier for you not to admit that you were actually leaning on him.

Ari was there too, standing by the doorframe with his hood up.

His eyes looked strange under the bare bulb’s low light. They were the same wobbly colour as the tiles, like they wanted to be green and gave up halfway and tried on brown to match the season’s trees outside.

The way he smelled was even stranger. Had he been rolling in syrup that got fire branded? And probably dipped in some secret medicinal flower? Maybe metal. Whatever it was, it kept you having to fake a cough.

Ari shook the mint tin between his fingers so that its contents rattled like loose change.

“Half a scale keeps it balanced.” He sounded like either he couldn’t care less or he was already bored. It did feel like he might’ve said that before too many times. “Everything worth feeling needs a little venom, you know.” He turned and stared at the rain on the window. “Otherwise, why bother?”

Eli’s eyebrow reached a height that could’ve made you laugh if this was any other day. “Scale, as in…?”

“It’s called ‘Viper’. Scales, not pills. Gotta respect tradition.” Ari’s smile broadened. “You know, it’s a version of an old recipe. Older reason.”

He leaned close without ever stepping away from the doorway. When he opened the tin way too near your face, you knew that was where the strange smell was coming from. He let the mint tin sway from side to side, which let the green scales inside skitter with it. “Relax. Natural as rain.”

Eli just shook his head and never let his eyes leave Ari’s hand.

Ari shrugged like it didn’t matter how well his pitch needed delivering. “Call it maintenance. For when the world forgets its own boundaries. You know… the mirrors that show too much, shadows that start acting up. This…” Ari tapped the mint tin. “Smooths things out.”

Eli looked at you like he wanted you to decide for both of you.

You couldn’t take your eyes off the round scales. They glinted green and black. Their edges were as fine as gold leaf. They looked expensive and oddly dangerous. Yet the promise in Ari’s voice sounded like rest. Maybe peace, which you hadn’t felt since, well, you’d forgotten.

The flat felt colder when the bulb above made a sound and flared brighter. The light returned weaker.

Cold didn’t go anywhere. You pulled your sleeves over your hands, not that you felt cold. “How do you…?”

Ari tapped his tongue with a wolfish smile fixed in place, like he was going to tell a dirty joke. “Half for you, half for him.” His grin dropped. “Then wait for the hiss.”

He looked across the doorway like something you couldn’t see had stolen his attention. “It’ll keep things from getting messy.”

Could a green little thing make the shadows go away? You didn’t know. You had the feeling that it might. You also had a hunch that an old story had just remembered you, not the other way around. “And if we don’t?”

Ari closed the lid and placed the mint tin on the counter. “It’s not a pull you want to follow.”

A shape of a snake coiled around a block letter V was embossed on top of the tin and ate up all the light. It looked like medicine. It felt like evidence. You wanted it gone, and opening the lid had done so.

Ari took a step back. “You’ll get the rhythm eventually.”

You laughed for the sake of making a noise and knew it sounded nowhere near a laugh, just didn’t want to count out loud that there were seven in there.

Eli walked Ari out. They were talking. You tried to listen, but their voices were muffled at the door.

Thunder rolled outside. The sound of rain grew louder against the window.

The flat felt darker. You didn’t want to look around since you were pretty sure the duped shadow you had was leaning in.

Eli came back with worry on every edge of his face and pulled a kitchen knife from the drawer. You saw his reflection in the blade, where it looked like an old film that had gone all grainy at the edges.

He plucked out a scale from the tin and put it on a receipt. Its surface caught the low light in petrol rainbows as the cut ran jagged across its middle. Green and black powder glittered against the paper like crushed emeralds. He held out the half in his palm. “Ladies ascend first.”

You caught the uncertainty in his eye, leaned in anyway, and took it from his hand with your mouth. Your tongue grazed his skin on the way. The half-scale tasted bitter and metallic, and was gone so fast you couldn’t even make sense of what you thought of it.

Eli watched you before taking his half next.

Nothing happened for a while, or nothing obvious.

A silhouette almost took shape in the fridge’s reflection. It had disappeared before you could figure out if it had ever been there.

Something changed, and your heartbeat matched his breathing. Maybe the other way around. It was a strange thing to feel as it was both yours and not. Yet it still managed to make you imagine scales sliding against scales out of nowhere.

He stared at the wall. “Feel that?”

You nodded. “The hiss.”

The bulb cut out and dropped the flat into darkness.

Laughter took you both by surprise, startled by how suddenly clear everything was.

The light came back and went again. When it found its regular glow at last, the kitchen’s colours snapped back to normal. The shadows folded themselves away. The whole flat felt alive. You felt alive.

His arm found your waist and wrapped around. He pulled you closer until your temple leaned on his chest. His heart was beating against your ear. It felt good. Better with the smell of him, that Eli-smell you’d know by heart, even blindfolded in a riot.

He rested his chin on your head. “Feel different?” 

“Quieter.”

“Then it works.”

The kettle clicked off at last.

***

The kettle clicks off with a crack too loud for the staff room.

Maz arranges a smile so stiff it might snap. Her knee jitters.

She tucks her phone away while she throws glances at the kettle, Ron, the door, anywhere except Eli’s fingers drumming against his phone. *That was… uncalled for. You’re fine. You’re not craving. It’s nothing more than a… habit.*

Ron watches her as he places his mug down. The teabag is still dry. His chin tips down when he looks at the mint tin peeking out from Eli’s pocket. He picks up his mug again and adds the water.

Maz digs her lighter from her pocket. Her thumb presses the spark wheel down before it is clear of the denim.

She is already halfway out of the door before anyone can ask.