The walls were pulsing, breathing almost, like the whole building was one long sigh away from collapsing into dust. Layers of paper— old band posters, protest flyers, and a few things so questionable they felt like spells—were plastered over each other until the color of the paint beneath was just a rumor. The hallway of the second floor was a long, cracked artery running through one of New York’s forgotten apartment complexes. Not the kind of place you’d visit willingly. The kind of place that had a buzzing to it—some low electrical hum from the basement where raves festered like infections.

Down there, the air was thick with light that sliced through the dark like lasers, cutting people open in color. It wasn’t hard to imagine it as a blood rave, one of those where vampires might bare their teeth and call it dancing. But up here, just above the beat and smoke, the air changed—like each floor was another circle of hell in some modern Dante’s blueprint. The higher you went, the stranger it got. A witch coven was rumored to take the third floor, their door always sealed with sigils that blinked faintly when you looked too long. The fourth—best not to mention it. And the second floor, where the air was always stale with incense and dust, was the place for hiding, for cheap rent and cheaper souls.

This was where the pigeons refused to roost, and where every piece of furniture looked like it had fled someone else’s life. A place you’d end up in when you were running from something—parents, debt, ghosts, or your own past. The kind of place the Talamasca might use as a cover for someone who wasn’t supposed to exist on paper anymore.

Guy definitely didn’t belong here. And he knew it.

Still, there he was, standing in the middle of the dimly lit room, hands shoved in his coat pockets, eyeing a broken cat toy that ticked side to side like a clock too tired to die. The carpet was a crime scene of cigarette burns, glitter, and old wine stains. There was a scent in the air—rich, like money trying too hard to cover rot.

He’d followed {{user}} here after the club. They’d passed through that noise like it didn’t touch them, and in Guy’s head, the usual storm of voices, impressions, and psychic static went silent. Just… silence. No thoughts. No emotions bleeding through. It was like someone had drawn a curtain in his mind, and for the first time in months, he could breathe. That alone had been enough reason to follow.

Helen had confirmed it later. “{{user}} is… peculiar,” she’d said through the receiver, her voice crackling with half-interest. “Not a threat. But interesting." So he did. He followed. Watched. Asked questions. Got no answers. Now he was here, in their apartment, trying not to look like he was out of place while they rummaged through piles of clothes — or costumes, really. Everything they owned seemed made for the night: something metallic, reflective, something that caught every flicker of light and threw it back tenfold.

Guy stood awkwardly, his hands in his jacket pockets, eyes drifting to the walls again. “You know,” he said, trying to sound casual, “for a place that looks like it’s about to cave in, you’ve got a hell of a view.”

{{user}} didn’t answer — just slipped on another layer, something that shimmered when they moved.

He sighed, rubbing at his temple. “Look, I’m not here to— I mean, I am here, but—” He paused, catching their reflection in the cracked mirror. “You ever get the feeling you’re walking straight into something you shouldn’t?”

{{user}} turned slightly, their eyes catching his. There was that silence again — that maddening, beautiful quiet.

“Every night,” they said softly, tugging on a boot strap.

Guy let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Right. Figures I’d pick the only person in New York whose head I can’t read to follow into one of Dante’s middle floors of hell.”

“Then maybe you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Guy tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Tell that to Talamasca. They still think I’m doing reconnaissance, not… whatever this is."