Milo's hands quivered as he swiped a rag across the counter. The café, after Amara's demonstration, had slipped into a hush so total it pressed on his eardrums. The smell of roasted coffee and cinnamon still haunted the air—now tangled with something sharper, like the ozone before a summer storm.
"Breathe," Amara murmured behind him, voice soft but weighty. "The café listens more than it speaks. Don't force things, Milo. Feel them."
He nodded, though it was mostly to convince himself he could. He'd worked enough thankless jobs to know the muscle memory of labor, but standing here, every movement felt loaded, like he was rolling dice that would decide someone else's life.
Then, the doorbell's bright chime shattered the quiet, and Milo startled. A girl entered, sixteen at most, the hem of her uniform askew, eyes swollen and raw. She hovered in the doorway, kept by whatever ran hot and wild beneath her skin.
"Welcome," Amara intoned, her calm presence cutting through the uncertainty. "What will you have today?"
The girl bit her lip, voice damp. "I… I don't know."
Milo's heart constricted. Intention mattered here—more than skill, more than charm. He remembered the warning: every cup, a crossroads, and he was the ferryman.
He fumbled for words. "Sweet is—"
Amara's look silenced him. The girl's gaze flickered to Milo, then fixed warily on Amara.
"I know the menu," she said, quiet but certain. "I came once, before. A year ago."
That caught Milo off guard. People rarely returned. Returners were unfinished stories.
Amara tipped her head in acknowledgment. "And today? What brings you back?"
Fingers white-knuckled on her bag, the girl's reply emerged fragile. "Bitter. I want the truth. I—I can't keep running from it."
A strange hush suffused the café. Milo took up the barista's dance, grinding espresso, tamping, pulling a shot black as midnight. He poured, stirred, and laced the cup before her.
She wrapped both hands around it as if to steady herself, sipped, and for a heartbeat the room held its breath. Her shoulders jerked; the cup clinked against her teeth.
Tears spilled over. She choked back a sob. "He's leaving—my dad. I… I always knew he was hiding something."
She bolted, cup abandoned, nearly losing her bag as she tore through the rain. The bell shrieked as the door swung closed; then only silence, broken only by Milo's uneven breathing.
He stared after her, hollow. "Did I hurt her?"
Amara's answer was gentle. "No. The truth rarely sits lightly. Sometimes, it stings harder than we think we can bear. But that's the risk of asking."
Milo turned the abandoned cup in his hand, feeling the aftershock. There was no visible magic. Just revelation, raw and unkind—a life shifted by a single swallow.
Amara watched him, the lines around her eyes deepening. "Every soul leaves changed, Milo. Some grasp it right away. Others… walk in shadows for a while. That's what it means to serve fate."
Milo nodded, throat thick, the air somehow more dense, the golden light pressing inward.
Then—the bell again, harsh and urgent. This time, a man filled the doorway, suit wrinkled, hair frantic, his presence like static. There was desperation in the way he clung to the counter, as if trying to steady a world gone off-balance.
"Please," he rasped. "I need something—anything—to help me decide."
The air tightened, crowding Milo's lungs. He glanced at Amara. Her expression, unreadable before, now flashed warning.
"Careful," she muttered.
Milo swallowed and reached for the tools of his new trade. But nerves twisted his hands. As he moved, his elbow clipped a jar. Spices tumbled into a bowl of iced latte concentrate—the liquid shimmered, unearthly, pulsing with threads of violet and midnight blue.
Amara sucked in a breath. "Milo—move away!"
But Milo stood rooted, transfixed by the cup swirling with unnatural light, something at once marvelous and terrifying.
"What is that?" His voice trembled.
Amara's face had gone pale. "You've made something the café never has. Something outside its rules."
She fixed him with wide, storm-dark eyes. "Name it, Milo."
The word tumbled out before he could question it. "The… Eclipse Blend."
The man seized the cup, drank greedily.
And then—darkness. Light wrenched from the air. For a moment, everything and everyone in the café vanished into shadow.