Mischief had specified a corner on 42nd to meet. When she ran up, his halide chromium eyes blazed with anger. “You!” he shouted as soon as he saw her. “Never!”
“Are you kidding me right now with the drama?” she shouted back. “What the hell? We never even met before…”
Too late. He had already stalked off, and her skin couldn’t pick up his thoughts. She only caught a whiff of the number 8 and a vision or dream or whatnot.
“Yo, Mischief!” she yelled after his tall, dark figure. His long cape swirled around him like crows above a tree at twilight, and she raised her hands to the sky, to show they were empty. She held no weapons, no plots, no traps, no handcuffs made of wormholes.
All she wanted was a quick drink and some meaningless chitchat.
Apparently there was more to it. When she called him later, to demand an explanation, he never picked up. Instead his ringtone was set to Mahler’s ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’.
It was the saddest song she had ever heard. Faith listened for a long, frozen time, and her tears dried in salt tracks down her neck. She wished she could find the man in the dark cape made of crows, to tell him his song had moved her.
