Ro didn't sleep.
She sat at her kitchen table, the notebook open, a cup of tea growing cold beside her. The radiator knocked. The neighbor's television murmured. London breathed around her, unaware that something was hunting in its shadows.
She read Elias's notes again. And again. Looking for what he had seen, for what he had missed, for the pattern that had cost him his eyes.
*Ley lines. Intersections. Witnesses.*
She pulled out a map she'd bought at a newsagent—London, detailed, with the streets she'd walked every day for six months. She marked the pharmacy. She marked the nightclub. She drew lines, careful, precise, the way she'd learned to map gallery floors in her abandoned art history program.
They didn't connect. Not directly. But they both sat on the same road—Holloway Road. The same road where The Hollow Crown sat.
She marked the diner. Drew a line.
Holloway Road was old. Older than the Romans, some historians said. An ancient track, straight as an arrow, cutting through London's sprawl. And The Hollow Crown sat near its northern end, where three ley lines crossed.
The woman in red had mentioned a market. A gathering. Christmas Eve.
Ro opened her laptop. Searched. Found nothing—no event listings, no announcements, no evidence that anything would happen on that night.
Which meant it was hidden. Secret. The kind of event that didn't appear on calendars because it didn't happen in the world most people knew.
She sat back. The tea was completely cold now, the surface filmed with oil from the cheap bag. She dumped it out, made another.
The sun was rising when she found it—not in the map, not in the notes, but in the memory of something she'd seen months ago, filed away and forgotten.
Table seven.
The man with the newspaper. The one who read the same paper for three weeks, who folded it with too much precision, who paid with coins that felt wrong.
She'd noticed him. And she'd noticed something else—a woman who came with him once, twice. Middle-aged. Red coat.
The woman in red.
They knew each other. They were connected.
And table seven always sat in the same booth—the one with the window that faced north, toward Archway, toward the pharmacy, toward the line that connected them all.
Ro stood up. Paced. The flat felt smaller than ever, the walls pressing in, the ceiling too low.
Table seven. The woman in red. The fires. The witnesses.
She was missing something. Something obvious, something Elias had seen but hadn't recorded because he'd run out of time.
She looked at the final entry. *They are collecting witnesses. Removing those who see too much.*
But why? What use were witnesses to someone setting fires?
Unless the fires weren't the point. Unless the fires were just... diversion. Cover. Something to hide the real purpose.
She grabbed her coat. She needed to see Miriam. She needed to ask questions she'd spent six months learning not to ask.
The diner was quiet when she arrived, the CLOSED sign still in the window. Miriam was in the back, counting inventory, her purple cardigan looking more worn than ever.
"You're early," Miriam said, not looking up. "Shift doesn't start for eight hours."
"I know who table seven is."
Miriam's hands stopped moving. She looked at Ro, and something flickered in her eyes—not surprise. Resignation.
"Do you?"
"He's connected to the woman in red. He's been coming here for three weeks, sitting in the same booth, watching the same window. He's marking the location. Reporting."
"And what makes you think that?"
"Because he sat facing north. Toward the pharmacy. Toward the pattern. And because he always came on Tuesdays, and the pharmacy burned on a Tuesday, and—" Ro stopped. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"That you knew. That you've always known."
Miriam set down her clipboard. She looked old today. Older than her years, her face lined with something that might have been grief.
"Sit down, Rowan."
"It's Ro."
"Sit down."
Ro sat. The booth was familiar, the vinyl cracked in the same places, the table scored with the same initials from decades of customers.
"Your grandmother," Ro said. "She made arrangements. During the Blitz. That's what you told me."
"I did."
"What kind of arrangements?"
Miriam was quiet for a long moment. The diner was silent around them, holding its breath.
"The Blitz was bad," she said finally. "Bombs every night. Buildings falling. Streets on fire. And in the middle of all that, there were... things. Creatures. Monsters that thrived in the chaos."
"Fae?"
"Some. Others. Things that don't have names in any human language." Miriam's voice was steady, controlled. "My grandmother was not magical. She was not special. She was a woman who owned a café and knew how to make deals. She made a deal with one of them—protection for her family, in exchange for a service."
"The diner."
"The diner." Miriam nodded. "She agreed to keep it open, always open, to anyone who needed shelter. Human or otherwise. In exchange, her bloodline would be protected. My mother, my sister, me."
"But you don't have children."
"No." Miriam's smile was sad. "I never had children. And now the protection is ending. The deal expires when I die."
"Unless?"
"Unless someone takes my place. Someone who has served long enough, seen enough, to understand what the diner is." Miriam met her eyes. "Someone like you."
Ro felt the weight of it settle on her shoulders. The money in her pocket. The notebook in her bag. The choice she'd made to accept Caelan's offer.
"I'm not special. I'm not chosen. I'm just—"
"You are exactly what this place needs." Miriam reached across the table, took her hand. "You see without wanting. You notice without demanding explanations. You serve without judgment. That is rare, Ro. That is valuable."
"I'm trying to leave. Edinburgh. The degree."
"I know."
"I'm trying to get out."
"I know that too." Miriam squeezed her hand. "But some things, you don't get to choose. Some things choose you. And this diner, this place, this burden—" she gestured around them "—it has been watching you for six months. Waiting to see if you were worthy. And you are."
"What if I say no?"
"Then the protection ends. The diner becomes ordinary. And the creatures who have gathered here for decades, who have found shelter and neutrality and peace—they will have nowhere else to go."
Ro thought of Caelan. Of the way he sat in his booth, careful, controlled, waiting. Of the way he spoke of debts and obligations, of oaths that bound him.
"The collector," she said. "The one taking witnesses. What does that have to do with the diner's protection?"
Miriam's expression shifted. "Who told you about a collector?"
"Elias. The man who died. He said—"
"Elias was wrong." Miriam's voice was sharp. "He didn't understand what he was seeing. There is no collector. There is only—"
The door opened.
Ro turned. The woman in red stood in the doorway, rain dripping from her coat, her eyes finding Ro with unerring precision.
"There you are," the woman said. "I have been looking for you."
"We're closed," Ro said.
"I am aware of the hours." The woman stepped inside, let the door close behind her. "I am not here for coffee. I am here because you have been asking questions, and I need to provide answers before you ask the wrong ones of the wrong people."
She approached the booth. Stood at its edge, looking down at Ro with eyes that seemed to see too much.
"There is no collector, Miss Blackwood. There is only... inventory. Someone is taking stock of who sees, who remembers, who threatens the new order they wish to create. And The Hollow Crown is on their list."
"Why?"
"Because it is the oldest. The strongest. The most valuable." The woman smiled, and it was cold. "And because the woman who protects it is dying."
She looked at Miriam. Miriam looked back, something passing between them that Ro couldn't read.
"You are not welcome here," Miriam said.
"I am welcome wherever debts are owed." The woman's hand found the tri-band ring on her finger—the same ring she had left for Caelan, the same ring that had disappeared from his hand. "And your protector owes me a great deal."
Ro stood up. "I'll take Miriam's shift tonight. I'll be here. Whatever you are planning—"
"We are not planning anything, Miss Blackwood. We are preparing." The woman turned toward the door. "The market approaches. And when it arrives, everyone will have to choose sides. Even you. Especially you."
She left. The door chimed once.
Ro looked at Miriam. Miriam looked at her hands, folded on the table.
"How long?" Ro asked.
"A few months. Maybe less." Miriam didn't look up. "I wanted to tell you. I wanted to prepare you. But you were running so hard toward your escape, and I didn't want to—"
"Trap me."
"Anchor you." Miriam finally met her eyes. "There is a difference."
Ro sat back down. The weight of it was crushing—the money, the degree, the debt, the diner, the dying woman who had become her only family, the three-hundred-year-old fae who needed her help, the woman in red who knew too much.
"What do I do?" she asked.
"What you have always done." Miriam's smile was gentle. "You serve. You watch. You wait. And when the time comes, you choose."
Ro looked at her hands. They weren't shaking.
That was something.