The nightclub in Bethnal Green had been called *Velvet Underground*. The sign still hung above the door, though the velvet had burned away, leaving only the metal frame and the suggestion of what had been.
Ro stood across the street, hands in her pockets, watching the building. It was 11 PM. The street was alive with people who didn't know that anything had happened here, that anything could happen. They walked past with their phones and their laughter, and Ro envied them with a sharpness that surprised her.
"You are shivering," Caelan said.
"I am cold."
"You are frightened."
"I am both." She didn't look at him. Couldn't. Looking at him made it real—the partnership, the danger, the choice she'd made. "The pattern. You said there would be a pattern."
"There is." He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the absence of warmth. He didn't radiate heat like a human. He was the temperature of the air around him, perfectly matched, perfectly wrong. "The fire started at the center. The bar. It spread outward in concentric circles, stopping at precise intervals."
"Like the pharmacy."
"Exactly like the pharmacy." He paused. "But there is something else. Something I did not see until you pointed it out."
"What?"
"The cash register." He turned to face her, and his expression was different tonight—less controlled, more open. "It was closed. Locked. The owners cashed out before they fled."
"So it's not just camouflage. It's robbery."
"It is both." He looked back at the burned building. "Someone is targeting neutral locations, stealing their resources, and destroying the evidence. But they are not destroying randomly. They are following a pattern. A ritual, perhaps."
"What kind of ritual?"
"The kind that requires specific locations, specific times, specific... ingredients." He said the word carefully, as if tasting it. "The pharmacy sold more than medicine. The nightclub sold more than drinks. Both were places where certain transactions could occur without interference."
"What kind of transactions?"
"The kind that require neutral ground." He turned to her. "You have been serving them for six months. You know what I mean."
She did. The customers who paid with coins that felt wrong. The ones who never ordered food but sat for hours. The way some of them looked at each other across the diner, not with hostility, but with the careful assessment of predators who had agreed not to hunt in this particular territory.
"The diner," she said. "They're going to target the diner."
"Eventually." He didn't flinch from her gaze. "The Hollow Crown is the oldest neutral ground in London. The others were practice. Tests. When they come for it, they will be ready."
"When?"
"I do not know. That is why I need you." He reached into his coat and withdrew a small notebook, leather-bound, worn at the edges. "Elias kept records. Observations. He noted patterns I did not see—human patterns, mundane details that seemed irrelevant to me but meant something to him."
"Like the cash register."
"Like the cash register." He held out the notebook. "I need you to read this. To see what he saw. To understand what I cannot."
She took it. The leather was warm, almost alive, and she felt a shiver run through her that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Why me?" she asked again. Not challenging. Genuinely curious. "You could hire anyone. Private investigators. Security consultants. People who actually know what they're doing."
"I have tried." His voice was quiet. "They see what they expect to see. They find logical explanations for impossible things. They dismiss the patterns that do not fit their understanding. You—" he paused, searching for words "—you do not dismiss. You file. You catalog. You remember. That is rarer than you know."
"I'm a waitress."
"You are a witness. There is a difference."
They stood in silence. The rain had stopped, but the air remained heavy, charged with something that made Ro's skin prickle.
"The notebook," she said. "What am I looking for?"
"Connections. Elias noted that the fires occurred on specific dates. The pharmacy burned on the night of the new moon. The nightclub, three days later, during the dark of the moon. He believed there was a pattern to the timing, but he could not determine what."
"And you think I can?"
"I think you see differently than he did. I think you will notice what he missed." He stepped back, putting distance between them again. "Read the notebook. Meet me tomorrow at midnight. The diner. We will discuss what you have found."
"And if I find nothing?"
"Then we will know that the pattern is not visible to human eyes, and I will seek other methods." He turned to leave, then paused. "One more thing."
"Yes?"
"The woman in red. She is not your ally. She is not your enemy. She is a creditor, and creditors have their own logic. Do not trust her. Do not trust me. Trust only what you see with your own eyes."
Then he was gone, walking into the shadows between streetlamps, and Ro was alone with the notebook and the weight of what she had agreed to do.
She opened the notebook. Elias's handwriting filled the pages—small, precise, the writing of someone who had learned to document everything because documentation was survival.
*Day 1: The pharmacy. Neutral ground. The owners are nervous. They know something is coming. I asked what. They would not say.*
*Day 3: The nightclub. Velvet Underground. The bartender is new. The old one left suddenly, no explanation. I asked where she went. No one knows.*
*Day 7: Pattern emerging. Both locations are on ley lines. Both are intersections. Both are—*
The entry stopped. The next page was blank. Then:
*Day 8: I was wrong. It is not about the locations. It is about the people. Someone is collecting witnesses. Removing those who see too much. I have seen them. They have seen me.*
The final entry, written in a hand that shook:
*Day 9: They know I am watching. They are coming. I am sorry. I am so sorry.*
Ro closed the notebook. Her hands were steady, but her heart was hammering against her ribs, a trapped bird trying to escape.
Elias had known. He had known he was going to die, and he had kept watching anyway. He had kept writing, kept documenting, kept trying to understand.
And now she held his notebook, and she understood what Caelan had meant about witnesses.
She wasn't just a waitress anymore. She was a witness. And witnesses were being collected.
The question was: by whom? And what did they want with the people who saw too much?
She walked home through streets that had grown dark and dangerous, and for the first time in six months, she didn't try not to see.
She looked at everything. She noticed everything. She filed it all away for later examination.
Because Elias had taught her something, even from beyond death: the only way to survive was to understand.
And she intended to survive.