The morning news played over a cup of coffee gone cold.
Alexia sat at her kitchen counter, chin in hand, watching the screen flash grainy security footage of a cloaked figure moving through a London alleyway. The headline scrolled across the bottom:
"MOONVEIL RETURNS: LONDON'S NIGHTMARE OR GUARDIAN?"
She exhaled sharply through her nose. "Him again," she muttered. "This guy does more damage than the criminals he catches."
For months, the city had whispered his name like a ghost story. Moonveil—half vigilante, half myth. Teachers at school joked about him to break the tension in the morning news cycle, but Alexia never joined in. She hated chaos. She hated the way fear seeped into classrooms, into children's questions.
She reached for her phone just as it started ringing.
"Marc Stevenson," read the caller ID.
She frowned. They hadn't spoken since that awkward meeting in the grocery store weeks ago. When she picked up, his voice came through warm and a little rushed.
"Hey, Alexia. How are you?"
She couldn't help smiling at the nervous energy beneath his tone. "I'm good," she said. "How about you, mister government employee?"
"Really gonna tease me like that?" he chuckled. "I was thinking… maybe dinner tonight? If you're free."
Alexia turned in her chair, glancing at the lesson plans spread across her kitchen table. "Let me check my schedule." She flipped a few papers with deliberate exaggeration. "Hm. Looks like I can squeeze in a dinner at eight."
"Sounds fantastic," Marc said, the relief audible even through static. "It's a date. I'll pick you up."
"Alright," she said softly, though he'd already hung up.
---
By nine, the city had stirred itself into motion.
Alexia's classroom smelled faintly of chalk dust and ozone from the smartboards. Her students—teenagers buzzing with caffeine and curiosity—had already taken their seats when she entered.
"Good morning, class," she said, brushing her hair from her face and switching on the holo-display. The floating diagrams of star systems blinked to life, their light reflecting off eager eyes.
"Today," she continued, "we're talking about Aetherian science—their technology, their presence on Earth, and how they've adapted to coexist with human systems."
A few hands shot up immediately.
"Yes, Clara?"
"Miss, is it true the Aetherians used to be gods?"
Alexia smiled. "Not gods. Just advanced. They came here thousands of years ago when our species barely had language. To early humans, anyone with light at their fingertips looked divine."
She swiped her hand through the hologram, expanding it. A sleek model of an Aetherian ship rotated slowly, energy lines pulsing like veins. "They use Aether energy to power everything—from propulsion to communication. It's cleaner than nuclear and stable in ways we don't fully understand. Earth's atmosphere helps them stabilize their cores. That's why they still keep bases here."
Another hand rose—Dylan, the one who never quite stayed seated. "Miss, is it possible on some other planet there are… nehentethrals? You know, alien versions of us?"
The question made her pause. She liked how he said nehentethral—the old term from Enttle linguistics for "parallels."
"It's possible," she admitted. "Time and evolution move differently on every planet. If you wait long enough, nature tends to rewrite its favorite ideas."
The class murmured, intrigued. She continued explaining how Aetherians used Earth's magnetic field as a staging point, how treaties had kept them from direct interference since the Gaidan accords. But as she spoke, part of her drifted elsewhere—back to Marc.
He'd sounded… different on the phone. Older somehow. Weighted. She remembered him at nineteen, all quiet fire and bad jokes, leaving for service before anyone could say goodbye properly. He'd gone to war and come back with walls in his eyes.
---
By evening, the sky hung low and bruised. London's neon shimmered against wet pavement, streetlights flickering like static.
Alexia stood before her mirror, adjusting the neckline of her dress. It wasn't anything fancy—a navy wrap dress with silver earrings—but for once she wanted to look like the version of herself that wasn't just "Miss Alexia" to a classroom full of students.
When she stepped outside, the streetlight caught the drizzle in a thousand glints. A sleek dark car pulled up to the curb. Marc stepped out, his coat catching the light rain, a smile flickering across his face.
"Hey," he said, opening the door for her. "You look incredible."
"Nice car," she said, smiling despite herself. "You make good money, huh?"
He laughed. "Oh no, it's not mine. It's a rental. I don't need a car—our department vans pick us up. Perks of government work."
She rolled her eyes, sliding into the passenger seat. "A rental? You really know how to impress a woman."
He grinned as he started the engine. "Wait till you see the surprise. Then you'll forgive me."
They drove through the city, past the glowing towers of Canary Wharf and the older bones of Westminster, their conversation easy at first—teasing, cautious, stitched with nostalgia. But between her laughter, Alexia noticed how Marc's eyes lingered on passing shadows, how his knuckles whitened on the wheel whenever a police siren echoed in the distance.
"You alright?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," he said quickly. "Just… habit."
They passed a billboard flashing Ynkeos's new logo—the crescent design with the tagline SEE EVERYTHING. The sight made Marc's jaw tighten for half a second before he forced it into a smile.
"So," he said, "how's teaching?"
Alexia looked out the window. "It's good. Hard, sometimes. The kids want answers about things I can't give them—Aetherian politics, the Enttle war, what's next. I try to keep them curious but grounded."
Marc chuckled. "You always were the grounded one."
"And you," she said softly, "were always looking up."
He laughed under his breath, but something in his eyes dimmed. "Yeah. Still am."
---
The car turned down a quiet street lined with trees, the world narrowing to the rhythm of the windshield wipers.
"So where are we going, mystery man?"
Marc smiled, eyes on the road. "It's a surprise."
She arched a brow. "If this ends in a warehouse or an empty field, I'm calling the police."
"Relax," he said, laughing. "It's not that kind of surprise."
But as the car rolled to a stop before an old observatory on the city's edge, her breath caught. The domed structure loomed like a relic from another century, its lights faint and warm through fogged glass.
He looked at her, hesitant but proud. "Thought you'd like it. They reopened it after years. It's quiet. No cameras, no crowds."
For a moment, she forgot her guarded sarcasm. The observatory's massive telescope glinted in the moonlight as though waiting for them.
"Marc," she said softly, "you remembered."
He smiled, and for an instant, he was the boy she'd known before war, before gods and ghosts and masks.
"I remember everything," he said.