Cassie didn't sleep that night.
Not because the ghosts returned, but because she couldn't stop thinking.
Adrian's words repeated in her mind like a song on a loop: You are a tether. Once bound to death, you walk between two worlds.
Whatever that meant, she was sure it wasn't good.
The next morning, the scent of herbs wafted into her room, waking her from the restless doze she'd drifted into near dawn. Cassie rose slowly, skin prickling with the residual anxiety of recent nights.
She padded barefoot into the kitchen where Adrian stood, stirring something in a small pot over the stove. He looked impossibly out of place in such a mundane human setting, like a marble statue that had come alive but couldn't shed the echo of eternity.
She leaned against the doorframe. "Didn't take you for the cooking type."
He didn't look at her. "This is not cooking. It is preparation."
"For?"
He turned to her then and handed her a dark clay bowl filled with murky tea. "For clarity."
Cassie raised an eyebrow. "You trying to poison me?"
"I do not waste poison on mortals."
"Wow. Comforting."
Still, she took a sip.
It tasted like wet dirt and regret.
Her nose scrunched. "Okay. I'm awake. What now?"
Adrian set the pot aside. "Today, you learn how to hold your ground."
The training did not involve swords or spells, as Cassie half-hoped.
It began with meditation.
And lasted hours.
"You want me to sit here and do... nothing?" she asked, cross-legged on a mat in the center of a small, dim room filled with incense.
"You must still your mind," Adrian said, sitting across from her in the same posture, utterly motionless. "The dead are drawn to chaos. You must become the eye of the storm."
Cassie groaned. "I am the storm."
His eyes opened, calm and unwavering. "Then you will be devoured."
She huffed but closed her eyes anyway.
It was harder than she expected. Her thoughts raced-worries, memories, her stomach growling, Adrian's breath disturbingly even while hers stumbled like a baby deer.
But after an hour or maybe longer, something shifted.
The air in the room thickened.
Cold swept through her like an unseen tide.
Cassie's eyes snapped open.
And then she saw her.
The girl was standing in the corner of the room.
Young. Maybe nine or ten.
Half her face was burned, skin peeling away like melted wax, revealing bone beneath. Her eyes were hollow pits of black, oozing tears of soot.
Cassie choked.
She scrambled backward, knocking over the incense pot. "Shit! Mr. Death!"
Adrian didn't move.
"She's here!" Cassie gasped. "Don't you see her?"
"I see," he said simply. "Now tell me what does she want?"
Cassie's mouth worked, but no sound came. She looked at the girl again.
The ghost hadn't moved. Just stared.
Tears streamed from her hollow eyes. Her lips were moving. Whispering.
Cassie had to lean in closer. "What... what are you saying?"
The words were faint, but they were there:
"Help me find my brother..."
Cassie's heart twisted.
"Her name was Lani," Adrian said softly.
She looked at him, startled.
"She died in a house fire. Her brother survived. She thinks he abandoned her."
Cassie's throat tightened. "Did he?"
Adrian's expression didn't change. "He was young too. He didn't know how to reach her."
Cassie turned back to the ghost girl.
"I'll help you," she whispered. "I'll find him."
The girl blinked slowly.
And then she was gone.
The room lightened, just slightly.
Cassie slumped forward, breath shaking.
"That was..."
"Your first," Adrian said.
She looked at him. "There'll be more, won't there?"
He nodded.
That evening, Cassie stared at the notes she had scribbled about Lani. Clues to where her brother might be now. It was a stretch, but she needed to do something. Needed to believe there was a way to help.
Because if she couldn't help, what was the point?
Adrian entered quietly, setting down a file on the table.
"What's this?" she asked.
"A lead."
Cassie flipped it open. There was a photo of a man in his mid twenties, dark hair, tired eyes.
"Lani's brother?"
"He volunteers at a children's shelter on 48th."
Cassie's heart jumped. "Why would you help me?"
Adrian didn't answer.
But she saw something flicker across his face.
She didn't press. Instead, she grabbed her coat.
Cassie didn't sleep after the ghost of Lani vanished.She stared at the photograph Adrian had given her. In it, the man had a gentle smile, almost tired, like someone who'd lived too many lives before his time. His name, according to the folder, was Brandon Sato.
She took the bus the next morning, the city rattling around her like a broken drum. Her fingers clutched the file, smudging the corners. She had no idea how she was going to explain this without sounding utterly insane.
Cassie approached the entrance of the children's shelter, her heart banging in her chest like a trapped bird. Inside, kids were laughing, drawing, fighting over crayons. A young woman smiled politely and gestured toward the back when she asked for Brandon.
Cassie followed the narrow hallway and found him bent over a table sorting through boxes of winter clothes.
"Brandon?" she asked hesitantly.
He looked up. The man in the photo but older than she expected. The wear on his face wasn't age; it was grief.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
Cassie forced a small smile. "I'm...not sure how to say this. My name's Cassie. I...well, I saw someone. A girl. Her name is Lani."
Brandon's hands froze.
"I'm sorry," he said sharply. "Who gave you that name?"
"I...no one. She told me."
He stared at her.
Cassie swallowed. "I can see people who've passed on. Sometimes, they find me. And your sister... she came to me."
Brandon's jaw tightened. "This some kind of joke?"
"No. God, no. I swear."
He stood up, suddenly furious. "Get out. I don't know what kind of sick person tries to..."
"She's still here," Cassie cut in. "She's trapped. And she needs you."
Brandon's nostrils flared. "This is sick. Don't play with me like this."
"I'm not playing," she insisted. "I saw her. Her face was burned, but she kept saying the same thing. That you left her. She died in that fire, Paul. And she still thinks you abandoned her."
His expression hardened like a brick wall. "Get the hell out of here."
"Just listen..."
"You don't know anything!" he snapped, voice rising. "You don't know what it was like! You don't know what I saw!"
Cassie stepped back, stunned by the rage and pain in his voice.
Brandon pointed to the door. "Leave. Now. Before I call someone."
Tears stung the corners of her eyes as she turned and walked out of the building. The air outside was too cold, or maybe she was just too tired.
By the time she reached the apartment, she didn't care that it was still early afternoon. She collapsed onto the couch, staring at the stained ceiling.
"I tried," she whispered. "He doesn't want to hear it."
The room grew cold.
A whisper slithered through the air: "He hates me..."
Cassie sat up slowly. Lani stood at the corner of the room again, her charred face streaked with black tears. This time, her form shimmered more vividly, as though her pain grounded her closer to this world.
"I'm sorry," Cassie said quietly. "I really am. But he won't believe me. He thinks I'm crazy."
The ghost girl sobbed, her long, broken wails that pierced through Cassie's chest like needles.
Cassie clutched her head. "Please stop crying...God, it hurts..."
Lani's voice echoed: "He promised he'd never leave me... and then the fire..."
Cassie felt her own tears fall. "Lani... if there's anything, anything you can give me...something to prove it please..."
There was a moment of silence.
Then, Lani's voice spoke directly into Cassie's mind. Not as a whisper, but a memory.
"We used to sit in the laundry closet, hiding from Mom and Dad when they fought. We'd bring a flashlight and tell stories. I told him about the Moon Castle and he said he'd build me one."
Cassie gasped. The images flashed behind her eyes; two children huddled together, a plastic flashlight casting shapes on the wall, promises made in the dark.
The next morning, she didn't hesitate.
She returned to the shelter.
Brandon spotted her the second she stepped in and cursed under his breath.
"I told you to stay away!" he said, storming toward her.
"I know. I know, but please just listen. One minute. That's all I ask."
"No."
"You used to hide in the laundry closet," she said quickly. "You and Lani. You brought a flashlight and told each other stories. She told you about the Moon Castle, and you promised to build one for her one day."
Brandon froze.
Cassie held her breath.
He slowly stepped back, as if she'd struck him. "How the hell do you know that?"
"I told you," Cassie said, voice trembling. "She's still here."
He looked away, jaw tight. "That was our secret. No one knew that."
Cassie nodded. "She gave it to me. Because she wants you to know she never blamed you. But she's stuck here, Brandon. Stuck in that fire, in that moment."