The Evernight Cathedral loomed against a shroud of mist, its black spires pricking holes in the sky.
Beneath its endless halls, far below where common prayers dared tread, a door yawned open into the Chanis Gate—the ancient, breathing heart of the Church's sealed secrets.
Klein wasn't sure why he was here. Technically, he wasn't sure he should be here at all.
Leonard Mitchell, for his part, looked even less thrilled.
In fact, Leonard was quite sure he shouldn't be here.
His instincts—trained by years of Church protocol and basic survival—were screaming that this was less "inspection" and more "cosmic culinary ambush."
"This isn't what I meant when I said we had church business," Leonard muttered, eyeing the heavy black iron door Klein had already strolled through. "I said inspection. Not... whatever this is."
Klein shrugged helplessly. "There was a reservation. My name was already on the list."
Leonard squinted at the stone wall. Sure enough, there it was:
Reserved for Klein Moretti (+1)
Special Midnight Service.
"…That's not normal," Leonard said flatly.
"And yet here we are," Klein replied, gesturing grandly.
Leonard dragged a hand down his face. "Why am I the plus one? I am a Deacon of the Church. I have a rank. A schedule. A moral code. And I specifically told you we were here for documentation review!"
Klein offered an innocent look that said 'this is somehow your fault.'
"I revere the Evernight Goddess," Leonard muttered, stepping reluctantly toward the open gate. "But even I wouldn't come down here by choice unless She personally darkened my doorstep with an invitation."
"She didn't have to," Klein said cheerfully. "I did it for Her."
Leonard sighed. "That's not how divine delegation works."
"Come on," Klein said, already slipping through the door. "It's rude to keep the Evernight Goddess waiting."
Leonard followed with all the enthusiasm of a man on his way to be spiritually audited by dessert.
---
The "restaurant" inside was less a room and more a suspended fragment of space — black marble underfoot, void overhead, an expanse that seemed to drink in every sound except their footsteps.
The only illumination came from chandeliers made of frozen starlight, dangling like silent prayers.
In the center:
A table set for two.
Black velvet cloth. Silver cutlery humming with barely-contained hymns.
Menus written in shifting, dreamlike glyphs neither of them could quite focus on.
And in the center of the table...
A single, trembling dessert under a glass dome.
The Void Cake.
It was a slice of something that might have once been cake, or darkness, or a whisper remembered wrong. It pulsed faintly, like a sleeping heart.
---
Klein took his seat. Leonard hovered uncertainly, finally sitting across from him with all the grace of someone about to be ambushed by theology.
After a long moment of silence, a voice—no louder than the stirring of ancient curtains—breathed through the air:
"Taste, and understand. Child of mystery.
The world eats what it forgets… but you remember what it consumes."
Leonard stiffened. "Was that...?"
Klein nodded solemnly. "Pretty sure that's the Evernight Goddess."
"She spoke to you."
"I think She does that when I dine somewhere weird enough."
Leonard looked like he desperately wanted to file a complaint with reality, but instead, he picked up his fork.
"On three?" Klein offered.
Leonard gave him a look that said he regretted every decision that had brought him to this moment.
"Three."
They sliced into the Void Cake.
---
At first bite—
Klein tasted the end of a candle's life.
The soft velvet of midnight prayers.
The cool kiss of a star extinguished a thousand years ago.
A hush so profound it seemed to rewrite the silence inside his bones.
Leonard, across the table, was gripping his fork like a man facing divine judgment through baked goods.
The hymns above them shifted—soft, mournful, sweet—echoing every stray memory and buried regret they hadn't realized they still carried.
"...This is oddly nostalgic," Klein said after a long moment, blinking.
Leonard wiped at his mouth with a black napkin embroidered with tiny silver constellations. "I feel like I should confess to the cake."
Klein nodded sagely. "Probably safer to apologize first."
Another slice of Void Cake trembled slightly on the platter, as if listening.
---
Halfway through the meal, the dessert spoke again.
Not in words—but in vivid impressions:
Lost promises. Unspoken dreams. The aching weight of mortality balanced on a buttercream edge.
Leonard put down his fork. "If it tries to absolve us, I'm leaving."
Klein considered. "What if it offers a complimentary blessing?"
Leonard gave him a long, suffering look.
"Taste deeper," the Goddess breathed again, and this time Her voice curled around Klein alone—curious, almost fond:
"Yours is a tongue that tastes what others leave behind.
A soul attuned to the sacrament of sustenance.
You walk a path not marked, but simmered."
Klein obediently took another bite.
A shiver ran through him—memories he had not lived. Oaths he had never sworn. Tears shed by strangers in the dark corners of holy places. It was not grief. It was something gentler.
It was remembering that even endings could be cherished.
---
When they finally pushed back their chairs, the Void Cake had shrunk to a polite sliver—one last, tiny offering, like the memory of a dream already dissolving in the morning light.
But before they could rise, the table sighed once more.
From the darkness overhead, a new presence settled—a velvet hush deeper than silence, the weight of a gaze that had watched stars die and still not blinked.
A final item materialized between them.
A wine glass, tall and impossibly thin, stem spun from something that shimmered like liquified hymns. The bowl was etched with constellations that rearranged themselves if you looked too long, forming patterns that felt almost... remembered.
Inside shimmered a liquid so dark it bent the starlight around it.
Evernight's Reserve: Vintage Silence.
Leonard stared at it warily. "I don't drink with ancient forces."
Klein picked up the glass. It was cool in his hand, heavy with expectation.
"It's not drinking," he said softly. "It's... communion."
He brought it to his lips and took a careful sip.
The taste was like velvet prayers folded in the dark. A lullaby sung in the language of forgotten stars. Cool midnight air over still water. Notes of blackberry, candlewax, distant bells, and the moment someone brushes your hand in a dream and you wake up missing them.
The glass chimed faintly as Klein set it down, the sound stretching into something older than music.
A voice returned, soft and immense, pressing through the very folds of space:
"You who dines with silence, carry its memory.
You, Klein Moretti... are not yet full.
But you are known."
Leonard's spine stiffened.
"That was Her again," he whispered.
"Mm," Klein murmured. "She's good with timing."
Leonard eyed the glass, his reverence warring visibly with suspicion.
Then he sighed, picked it up, and drank.
He blinked. Once. Twice. Then quietly muttered, "...This is genuinely good."
"Right?" Klein whispered. "Pairs well with existential dread."
The stars above them flickered in faint amusement.
The wineglass evaporated slowly, like fog at dawn.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment—both knowing this silence wasn't empty. It was full. Reverent. Listening.
---
At last, the table cleared itself.
The velvet cloth folded away into mist. The chandeliers dimmed to pinpricks. Even the hymns in the air went quiet—like a great breath had been held, then gently released.
A final object drifted downward from the void:
A card. Silver-edged. Stamped with a symbol Klein couldn't name, but felt in his pulse.
Celestial Loyalty Program
4 Gourmet Revelations Attended
5 More Until Enlightenment + Complimentary Candle of Soft-Edged Prophecy
Klein sighed happily. "One step closer."
He pocketed it with a satisfied nod.
Leonard stared. "You're collecting frequent flyer miles on... metaphysical food?"
"Dream big," Klein said, pocketing the card.
Leonard groaned softly. "I swear, if this ends with you ascending via charcuterie board—"
"I wouldn't rule it out," Klein said brightly. "Though I imagine enlightenment is probably a cheese course."
Leonard gave him a look like he was already rehearsing the eulogy. "I came here out of devotion," he muttered. "And somehow, you walked away with a loyalty stamp and a personalized blessing."
"It's a gift," Klein said, brushing starlight crumbs from his coat.
Behind them, the chandeliers flickered, and the heavy gates of Chanis sighed open once more.
As they left, Leonard muttered, "Next time, I pick the venue."
Klein just smiled, a lingering taste of starlight and reverent silence on his tongue.
They walked together toward the sighing gates of the Chanis corridor.
---
Above them, far too high for chandeliers to hang, a whisper echoed like velvet stitched through stone:
"Known... and still becoming."
---
Klein's Review:
Ambience: cosmically quiet, with a touch of metaphysical gravitas.
Main Course: darkness made edible. Surprisingly tender.
Beverage: profound. May have forgiven the stars.
Divine Commentary: sparse, but effective.
Dining Partner: surprisingly reverent, emotionally flammable.
Unholy Number of Forks: 17 (don't ask).
Loyalty Program Perks: increasingly absurd.
Would dine again (but maybe bring incense).
10/10
---
Notes:
Next Chapter: Klein visits the underground greenhouse-turned-restaurant run by the ever-eclectic Frank Lee.
Joining him this time? Cattleya, the Admiral of Stars herself, reluctantly on land and somehow already regretting the dress code.
The menu includes:
Edible flowers that speak in metaphor.
Soup that grows back when stirred.
And a salad that once argued with its own vinaigrette.
Will Klein survive a tasting menu curated by a man who once brewed hallucinogenic moss tea on purpose?
Will Cattleya finally admit the arugula is glaring at her?
Will the dessert ask them personal questions?
Find out next time in…The Fool's Gourmet Tour!