“Oh wow,” says Xozo, peering into the drum with satisfaction. “This’ll do it..."

  "Say whatever you want about the black tux syndicate, they sure are great at figuring out parties and gifts.”

  Gazing downward Eileen does not say anything right away. Her eyes narrow just a touch, not out of fear, but in the way one might squint at a casserole that smells wonderful but refuses to name its ingredients. The thought bringing a smile to her lips, soft and crooked as she remembers the questionable food she has eaten at nearly every inn she had ever stayed in. Soggy pies, suspicious gravies, one unforgettable beet pudding with a clove stuck in the middle like a warning sign.

  But that thought in turn, brings her mind to the nights that followed, the lounges, the back rooms, the slightly cracked microphones and off-key serenades under flickering fairy lights. She sighs, dreamily, thinking of all those karaoke nights, of Daniel, of both of them, of love, of life.

  The corridor wines like something uncertain of its own shape. Eileen walks beside Xozo, the two of them moving through light that hums pink and low. The walls on either side shift in texture every few hundred feet: brick, velvet, pressed tin, a panel of chalk drawings that smudge under the air but never fade. Someone has tried to map something here, but the lines loop inward, endless.

  Xozo talks the whole time. Not nervously. Not warmly either. Just with the rapid, eager rhythm of someone who has memorized a script and is trying very hard to make it sound casual.

  “I used to think success was, like, a ladder,” she says, skipping over a floor tile that pulses faintly underfoot. “But that’s so linear. So limiting. My coach taught me that success is more of a spiral. Or a sigil. Or like… an upward echo. It’s about reframing your personal void into a revenue opportunity.”

  Eileen hums softly to herself, letting the words tumble out of Xozo’s mouth. Offering, instead, a hum now and then.. not quite agreement, more the kind of encouragement one gives a child who wants to open a lemonade stand on the moon.

  Not that Xozo notices. She’s too busy gesturing, at least one of her hands, the other always vanishing into her cloak when she does, so it looks more like the fabric itself is excited and that she is excited that the fabric is excited.

  “There’s this whole structure to it, right? You start by identifying your phantasmal blockages. That’s like the parts of you that still cling to past lives and old scarcity beliefs. Then you map your aura flow into your spectral alignment chart, which reveals your resonance axis. Mine is glint-based, obviously. Which makes sense.”

  “Obviously,” Eileen says kindly.

  “And once I knew that, I could finally unlock my core orbit potential. And that’s when the real breakthroughs started. I’m talking about passive energetic dividends. Vision-based clarity loops. Synergistic soulcraft. The whole thing.”

  The corridor gives a quiet shudder as they pass beneath a stone arch covered in tiny bells. None of them ring. Eileen, not wanting to be rude and appreciating the route guidance to the knowledgeable Quills, holds her breath.

  She really wanted to ask why the hallway seem to be breathing, but it felt so rude to interrupt. So instead, she simply listens as Xozo exhales sharply through her nose, winding herself up for the big reveal.

  “I didn’t even know what ectoplasmic synergy was before the dream,” she says. “I was just going to school, being miserable, pretending I didn’t care. Then boom, this dream hits me like an echo from the beyond.”

  She pauses dramatically, cloak swirling as she stops in front of a curtain made of maroon glass beads hanging like rain pretending to be precious. “It was this abandoned market. Totally empty, except the food court had three suns. And the stairs were all going the wrong way. And then… the clipboards.”

  Eileen tilts her head, just slightly. “Floating,” Xozo clarifies. “With pens attached. Hundreds of them. They started chasing me, and every time I turned around, there were more. I tried to hide in a candle shop, but they kept spawning. Multiplying. Breeding. By the end they were singing a pitch deck in a twelve-part harmony.”

  Eileen places a hand lightly on her chest. “Right?” Xozo beams. “And when I woke up, there was a brochure on my pillow. Spirit Stock grade paper. Still warm.”

  Eileen nods once, more out of sheer kindness. Xozo grins. “…and that is how I got involved with ectoplasmic synergy. Trust me, the passive income alone will. Set. Me. Up. They'll see that my family deserves all the respect my ancestors garnered.”

  Xozo then turns and flourishes the curtain. Each smooth maroon bead simply swaying back and forth as they appear to be strung on a fine silk thread anchored to the ceiling. Some even vibrate after witnessing the flourish as if they appreciate the drama of the story.

  “I don’t know, Xozo,” Eileen says gently. “Passive income doesn’t often come with buying so much of the product up front. This ascension accelerator you mentioned…”

  She trails off, eyes flicking toward the curtain as if it might have ears. “As a former business owner, I’ve had to wrestle with the intricacies of inventory and overhead. It’s an often overlooked specialty…”

  Xozo shrugs beneath her cloak. The movement is exaggerated, slightly theatrical. “I’m just not explaining it well,” she says. “My coach will do a much better job. We’ll go see them after we get the information from the Ebony Quills.”

  Lifting one hand she swiftly cuts off any reply from Eileen with a practiced wave. “Trust me. They’ll convince you. No problem. You could even be my first downline distributor.”

  Eileen chooses not to reply. Instead, she smiles, soft, sweet, the kind of smile meant to change the subject without bruising the moment. She gestures toward the curtain. “The Quills?”

  “Yeah..” says Xozo, her voice dropping just slightly, a mix of fear and respect. “They’re efficient. They handle administration for the entire complex. Rumor is they would’ve taken over the supply chain too if Zenthos hadn’t blocked it in committee.”

  She pauses, chewing at the inside of her cheek. “They’ve been distracted lately, though. Preparing for the broadcast. Which means…” Xozo pauses dramatically, as if Eileen could possibly guess what she is about to say next.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “It means they haven’t been eating enough, which is probably the only reason this is even going to work. So my advice? Don’t try to overpower them. They're not a species you can beat physically.”

  Eileen nods thoughtfully, as though beating them physically had even been a real option for her. Then Xozo, with a quiet breath, reaches forward and parts the beads. The strands for which clack softly as she passes through, the maroon glass catching the light and holding it like a secret, it bottles up inside.

  Moving beyond the curtain, Eileen moves into a large atrium.. cool, immaculate, and impossibly tall. Towering concentric rings spiral upward into the gloom, each floor packed with shelves, library books, and writing desks arranged with obsessive care. The levels rise twenty high, maybe more, each one identical in layout, as if the entire place has been copied from itself again and again.

  At the center of the room sits a massive desk carved from dark wood and it gleams like something polished with too much focus. On and around it swarm hundreds of tiny faeries, each no taller than a candlestick, with ivory skin and thin maroon wings like dried blood pressed between pages.

  The faeries do not flutter. They flit.

  It is a feature not only of their size but augmented by something that glints across their wings like wet thread. And they move quickly, precisely, lashing one another with delicate, gleaming strands while shouting in what seems to be their native tongue: a language made entirely of syllables that sound like melting consonants slurred over the din of a noisy bar.

  Eileen watches for a long moment. Then nods, slowly. “Well,” she says quietly, mostly to herself, “it’s tidy, at least.”

  She steps forward following Xozo while doing her best not to avert her gaze. It was clear these creatures wouldn’t respond well to kindness or even violence like Xozo had mention which meant she needed information.

  Her eyes soon registering the threads which are slick with each other’s wounds, the blood used like ink? They arc and flick, blood splattering onto slips of paper, guided with uncanny precision. Crimson ink flows into the grain of the scrolls, which curl and uncurl with an almost thoughtful grace, fluttering toward the desk and away again.

  A grisly sight. All rhythm and repetition. Almost beautiful in its horror, in that sick twisted way, the brain will do anything to rationalize the violence it sees. A thought stealing Eileen’s breath not a moment later. ‘If madness had a script, it would look like this.’

  A hand at the small of her back, guides her gently from the moment and nudges her toward a red rope waiting queue. Where two figures already stand ahead. One cloaked in black, trimmed with old gold. It does not speak. The faeries, now sharp-eyed and silent, pass it scroll after scroll, each vanishing into the dark folds of its robe like smoke into a bottle.

  The second is harder to ignore. A broad, lizard-shaped creature, upright and scaly, its shoulders hunched with boredom, its claws only just clean enough. It shifts. Huffs. Paces in place. Until Eileen and Xozo step in line behind it.

  It turns. Nostrils flaring as it catches the scent from the gift drum on the hand truck Xozo is pushing. The fragrant warmth of braised roots, unfamiliar spices, and the crawling scrape of tens of thousands of tiny legs swimming about.

  Xozo doesn’t hesitate. “Some creatures forget they’re at the bottom of the food chain,” she says, loud enough to carry. The kind of line meant to sting. And meant to be heard even as she looks at Eileen before then turning to the lizard to finish the sentence.

  Her smile is slow. Deliberate. The kind of smile you give before letting something go of the leash.

  Eileen blinks. The comment is so pointed, so casually cruel, it takes her a moment to register the absurdity of it. She glances between Xozo and the creature, eyebrows knitting in gentle confusion as her mind spins for traction on the why of this approach.

  “I don’t beg,” the lizard snarls, voice thick with offense. “If I want the drum, I will take the drum. If I want a taste, I will take a taste.”

  In a blur, it crouches and punches a talon straight through the side of the drum. The metal sings as it splits. Steam gushes into the air and it licks its claw slowly. Savoring. A predatory gleam in its eye.

  “Maybe I will kill you both,” it growls. “Maybe I won’t.” But its eyes betray it. The taste lands, and something behind them glimmers.. surprise? Delight? Hunger.

  “Next!” shriek the Quills behind the desk, voices like tearing paper. The lizard growls and turns.. halfway toward Eileen and Xozo, halfway toward the desk. It chuffs at both of them. A challenge. A warning.

  Eileen, for her part, tries to simply step around it. Soft-footed as ever, like sidestepping a bad-tempered trolley. Her gaze is kind. Almost apologetic.

  “Next!” comes the cry again. Sharper now. Edged. “I will enjoy my meal,” the lizard snarls. Not to anyone. To everyone. “At my leisure.”

  Until Xozo’s voice, syrup-slick, cuts through the bravado. “It’s not your meal.”

  She doesn’t look at the lizard. She looks at the desk, where the faeries have stopped their whipping for a fleeting moment to watch. A descending hush fills the room. Just before the match is struck. “It’s a gift for the Quills,” she says.

  “It’s their meal and you've stolen it.”

  The lizard blinks. Once. Then again. The look on its face twists. Confusion to fear in barely a beat.

  It tries to move. Too slow.

  Xozo’s already moving, dashing with everything she’s got. She grabs Eileen and throws them both to the ground. They slide across the smooth floor. Just far enough. Just in time.

  They devour.

  It is swift.

  It is unspeakable.

  Then.. just as suddenly.. it is over. The sound behind them dying like thunder in a glass jar. First loud. Then distant. Then nothing at all.

  What remains is not silence, but its echo. A buzz of stillness too perfect. Too intentional. As if the room has been wiped clean of presence and meaning only to be replaced by the hunger of leering.

  Still Xozo holds her down now. Not rough. But firm. A shield more than a restraint. She does not let Eileen rise until long after the buzzing has stopped and the last crack of wing or whip has fallen silent The place becoming so quiet it feels staged, like a silence set out for tea, arriving on a little silver tray.

  Only then does she lean close, whispering into Eileen’s ear. “That should satisfy them. Trust me, it’s better this way. They feed multiple times an hour. It’s already dangerous enough to catch them when they’re this busy.”

  Eileen opens her eyes. The atrium is immaculate. Not a single sign of the violence remains. No claw marks. No blood. No skin. No bones. Even the drum has been set upright, as if it had never been touched. Having been also repaired and sealed. The tiles sparkling, even the ones next to her. The scrolls curling and uncurl in perfect rhythm as if nothing had just taken place.

  Eileen frowns... slow, soft. She thinks again of Xozo’s words, 'They’re efficient. They handle administration..' and they were efficient, almost too efficient. Still she cannot argue with Xozo that it was accurate. Even if her heart balks at the memory of the lizard’s voice. Its eyes. Its fear.

  Did it have to die? Did it really?

  She tucks the horror down into her belly where it sits like a cold stone. Her face betrays nothing. Instead, she rises, first to a sit, then to a stand, swallowing the sour taste in her mouth as if it were just tea brewed too strong. Still she lingers on the fear in the creature eyes. It had been the deep kind of fear that only parents knew: to realize, too late, that it would never see its brood again. So she feels compelled to offer a breath for it in the kind of thanks a body gives when it survives something it wishes it hadn’t seen.

  Glancing up, Eileen sees Xozo already several feet ahead. But when the girl notices Eileen hasn’t followed, she stops, backtracks and lowers her voice. “Maybe don’t mention my ectoplasmic synergy venture to them,” she murmurs. “My coaches have lost… quite a few downline distributors. The Quills aren’t exactly open-minded about passive income streams.”

  Eileen doesn’t reply aloud. But in her mind, the words come clear and quiet. So they eat the downline distributors? Just for mildly inconveniencing them.

  It’s a realization that settles into her bones. A new truth. These faeries could not even be treated like criminals might be. She would have to speak to them differently. She would be treating them like she would a cruel adult, much like the Dawkith Lorth she was trying to meet.

  “Eileen, this is Mora Relle. Mora Relle…”

  Xozo gets no further.