Chapter 7 – Shooting Star, Make a Wish
Rowan needed air.
The shop had five too many women in it, all of them acting like he was the last charged phone in a zombie apocalypse. He mumbled something about taking the trash out back and escaped through the rear door before anyone could follow.
The alley behind Ash & Antiquities was the usual city alley: one dented dumpster, one flickering streetlamp, and a raccoon that sometimes wore a tiny paper crown it definitely stole from a birthday party.
Rowan tossed the trash bag. It landed perfectly. The dumpster lid closed itself politely.
He leaned against the brick wall, hands in his hoodie pocket, and looked up.
The sky was weirdly clear tonight. Like someone had turned the light pollution setting to zero. Stars everywhere. More than he'd ever seen in the city.
One of them moved.
Fast.
A bright streak, getting brighter, heading straight down like a missile with poor life choices.
Rowan watched it, half-asleep. "Huh. Plane on fire? Drone? Really big firefly?"
The flaming streak slammed into the alley twenty feet away.
The impact shook the ground. Heat washed over him. The dumpster rattled. The raccoon dropped its crown and ran for its life.
Rowan blinked at the smoking crater.
"Okay. Definitely meteorite. Cool."
Something climbed out of the hole.
A woman. Naked except for swirling galaxies that covered the important bits like a very censored screensaver. Skin shifting between black-hole dark and supernova bright. Hair made of actual nebula clouds. Eyes like someone had bottled the Milky Way and shaken it.
She took one wobbly step toward Rowan and collapsed to her knees, breathing stardust.
Rowan's customer-service brain kicked in.
"Hey, easy. You okay? That looked like it hurt."
The woman looked up. Her voice sounded like solar wind and church bells.
"My core… failing… elder dark… coming…"
She reached a shaking hand toward him.
Rowan did the only logical thing: he took off his hoodie and draped it over her shoulders.
"There. You'll freeze otherwise. City gets cold at night."
The second the hoodie touched her, every star in the sky flickered at once.
The woman (Nyx Astraea, last princess of the Celestial Host) felt her dying core suddenly explode with more power than she'd ever had in fourteen billion years of existence. The hoodie just sighed and accepted its new job as cosmic battery.
Her eyes went full super-nova.
Rowan offered her a hand up. "Come on, inside. I've got instant ramen and, uh, five new roommates who are gonna be super jealous of your special effects."
Nyx took his hand.
Somewhere in deep space, an elder god that had been chasing her for three galactic sectors simply stopped existing. All timelines. All dimensions. Gone. Like someone deleted a background tab.
Nyx felt the absence like the warmest hug in the universe.
She stood, clutching the hoodie closed with both hands, and followed Rowan toward the back door.
She was also floating three inches off the ground and orbiting him slowly like a very sparkly moon.
Rowan didn't notice. He was too busy yawning.
"Weird," he muttered, glancing up again. "Thought I saw a shooting star. Must've been my imagination."
Nyx stared at the man who had just accidentally murdered an elder god with second-hand laundry.
Her core decided then and there: new orbit, new center of gravity, new reason for existing.
Rowan opened the back door and called inside:
"Hey, found another one! She fell out of the sky. Anyone got spare pants?"
From the shop came five voices in perfect, murderous harmony:
"ANOTHER ONE?!"
Rowan shrugged. "Be nice. She looks like she had a rough landing."
He stepped inside, cosmic girlfriend floating after him like the world's most devoted satellite.
The raccoon came back, picked up its tiny crown, looked at the crater, and decided some mortals weren't worth robbing anymore.
Rowan shut the door.
Six immortal disasters.
One very tired hoodie.
Zero functioning brain cells in the building.
And the night was still young.