The idea starts as a joke.
A bad one.
She's in the studio, a half-finished panel open on the screen, when her brain casually offers:
If you really want to know, just make him spill something ridiculous. Like… pumpkin spice latte on quarterly reports.
She snorts out loud.
"Yeah," she mutters. "Very scientific. Sabotage via seasonal beverage."
The room doesn't laugh with her.
The cameras sit silent. The little security monitor hums, its feeds unchanged. Her wrist buzzes once, a faint, restless vibration—not a warning, just… awake.
The echoes have been worse the past few days.
Every time she draws a throwaway detail, she finds herself watching for it in the penthouse: a flick of Lucian's hand, the way a guard stands, the pattern of light on the marble. When one of them matches, her stomach drops. When one doesn't, she feels almost disappointed, which is worse.
She's started second-guessing everything.
Is this line safe? Is this panel neutral? Is this pose going to snap into place at some point in the next twenty-four hours like a magnet finding metal?
Lucian's advice—stop drawing for tonight—helped for exactly one evening. Then the itch returned. The story doesn't stop because reality is misbehaving. It just gets stranger.
Her cursor blinks in the empty corner of the page.
She could ignore the idea. She should.
Instead, she leans back in her chair and stares at the ceiling.
"Small," she tells herself. "Harmless. Controlled."
The word controlled feels like a joke when applied to whatever is happening between her panels and this tower.
She swings back to the desk and opens a new file.
Not a chapter file.
Not the main series.
Just a scrap document—a digital napkin—labeled junk_test.sketch.
"Okay," she says under her breath. "Hypothesis: I'm losing my mind. Experiment: prove it."
Her heart beats a little too fast for a joke.
She thinks about brands.
The penthouse has its own in-house coffee situation: sleek machine, unlabeled tins of beans, some discreet relationship with a local roaster, probably. When outside coffee appears, it's always from a handful of places—minimalist logos, muted colors, very we are not a chain energy.
She needs something they've never had here.
Something she would notice immediately if it appeared.
Her brain offers up an image from a few weeks ago: a bright, obnoxious box on a supermarket shelf she'd walked past with Leah. A limited edition line, all teal-and-gold packaging, with a wolf logo that had made Leah elbow her and say, "Look, it's your boyfriend's brand."
She'd laughed and snapped a picture, captioning it low-budget alpha aesthetic before sending it to Leah and then deleting it, embarrassed by her own joke.
She remembers the name now.
LUNA LUXE COLD BREW.
Of course.
Moons.
Wolves.
The universe is a hack.
She types the brand into the corner of the page, small, almost shy.
LUNA LUXE – MIDNIGHT HAZELNUT
Her fingers tingle.
"Too on the nose," she mutters. "But if I'm going to poke fate, might as well use neon paint."
She sketches quickly.
A desk.
Not Rheon's, not quite Lucian's. A generic high-end setup: glossy surface, tablet, a few neatly stacked files. On the top of the pile, she writes Q3 – PROJECTIONS in her usual jagged text.
Beside it: a takeaway coffee cup.
Not like the ones Ms. Kwan orders.
This one is tall and cylindrical, with that same teal band and tiny gold moon logo she saw on the supermarket shelf. She adds the words LUNA LUXE in small print, just legible if you zoom in.
She doesn't bother with character hands or faces. This isn't about a person; it's about an action.
In the next mini-panel, she sketches the cup knocking over, a motion arc, the lid popping, dark liquid spilling in a messy fan across the top file.
She draws the splash pattern carefully.
Not catastrophic. Just enough to ruin the first few pages and soak the corner of the others.
She adds one last scrap of detail: a single droplet hitting the margin where a handwritten note sits in the edge of the page.
revise pack allocation
Her wrist zings.
Sharp, quick. Not as violent as when she drew claws on the courthouse wall, but not nothing either.
She flinches and pulls her hand back.
"Okay," she says through gritted teeth. "That's a… reaction."
The binding throbs for a moment, then settles into a low hum.
She stares at the tiny scribbled panel.
Nobody's going to see this.
It's not part of an episode. It's not backed up to the cloud. It's not synced with any of her usual workflow. It's literally a test in a file she could delete with two taps.
"Harmless," she tells herself again, softer now. "It's coffee. On paper. You're not drawing car crashes. You're not drawing blood. Just… stains."
For a second, she almost reaches for the stylus to erase it.
Instead, she closes the file.
Doesn't save.
Or thinks she doesn't.
Her finger hovers over the "discard changes?" prompt.
Yes.
She taps it.
The file disappears.
The image is gone.
But the memory of it—teal logo, amber spill, scrawled note—remains sharp behind her eyes.
Her wrist still hums faintly, like something in the invisible ink has taken a snapshot.
"Fine," she says to the empty room. "We'll see."
She sleeps badly.
When dreams come, they're fractured: flashes of teal, the smell of coffee, the rustle of paper. No claws, no moon, no gold eyes. Just a mess of mundane textures, amplified until they feel uncanny.
In one brief fragment, she sees her own hand reaching across a desk to catch a falling cup, too slow.
She wakes with her fingers aching like she actually grabbed something.
—
The next morning, the building is buzzing.
Someone important is coming.
She hears it in the briskness of Ms. Kwan's footsteps, sees it in the way the guards' gazes sweep a little more often, feels it in the extra layer of tension in the air. Even the elevator chimes seem sharper.
Her schedule is clear until late afternoon—"flexible creative block," which is corporate-speak for sit quietly while the adults do whatever they're doing.
She drifts toward the main living area anyway, drawn by the promise of coffee that isn't from the machine in the studio.
There's a catering setup on the island: pastries in neat rows, fruit sliced into symmetrical patterns, and a row of cardboard drink carriers lined up like soldiers. Each tray holds four or five cups from different coffee places—logos she recognizes now from days of observing.
Minimalist black fox. Clean-serif "ARCH & BEAN." The discreet, label-less silver thermos that probably came from some private chef she'll never meet.
And one that doesn't belong.
Teal.
Gold moon.
LUNA LUXE COLD BREW.
She stops.
The world narrows to that one cup, sitting slightly crooked in the front tray, its wrapper already starting to sweat with condensation.
Her heart lurches so hard it feels like it trips.
She tells herself she's overreacting.
It's just a drink.
It's just a brand.
Brands exist in the world.
She drew something that already existed; of course it might show up eventually.
But she knows what's in the building. She knows what Ms. Kwan orders. She's been here long enough to recognize the patterns, the preferences, the habits.
Nobody here has ever bought that.
Until today.
"Ah, Ms. Reyes," Ms. Kwan says, appearing from nowhere like she always does when Amara is on the verge of a minor panic attack in a common area. "You're up early."
"Coffee," Amara says, which is technically an answer.
"There should be options to your taste," Ms. Kwan says. "Mr. Hale requested a broader selection this morning. Apparently his guest insists on 'trying local chains.'"
Her tone suggests she considers this a character flaw.
"Local," Amara repeats faintly, eyes still locked on the teal.
Luna Luxe is local. She'd forgotten that.
The city is big enough for brand overlap. Her drawing is not a curse. She is not… whatever her fear wants to call her.
Her hand trembles as she reaches for a pastry instead.
Lucian arrives ten minutes later.
He's flanked by Adrien and another man Amara hasn't seen before, all sharp edges and expensive watch. They talk in low voices as they move toward the island, discussing some merger or risk model. The words slide past her; she hears only cadence, not content.
Lucian looks tired.
Not weak, never that. Just… stretched. The kind of tired that sinks into bone when you don't sleep enough for enough nights in a row and keep pretending you're fine.
His gaze flicks to her briefly as he approaches the coffee tray. There's no surprise at seeing her—she lives here, after all—but there's a quick check in his eyes, as if confirming she's upright, breathing, not actively causing a disaster.
Then his attention shifts back to Adrien, conversation never breaking.
They reach the island.
He gestures absently toward the cups.
"The usual," he says.
Ms. Kwan steps in smoothly. "We have your regular," she says, indicating a plain white cup with a small black fox logo. "And some alternates—cold brews, flavored options. Hale's request."
Adrien grins. "Variety builds resilience," he says. "Or something. My therapist says trying new drinks is good for the brain."
"You don't have a therapist," Lucian says.
"Not a licensed one," Adrien says cheerfully.
Lucian reaches for the white cup automatically.
His phone buzzes.
He glances down at the screen.
Whatever he sees there hardens his jaw.
He shifts his weight, distracted, skims the rest of the tray with his free hand as he accepts the call.
"Valtor," he says, lifting the phone to his ear.
The hand that isn't holding the phone hovers over the cups.
Fox logo.
Minimalist arch.
Plain thermos.
Teal and gold.
Amara watches, breath caught.
His fingers close around the Luna Luxe cup.
He pulls it out of the tray without looking.
Her ears fill with rushing sound.
No way, she thinks. No way, no way—
He turns slightly away from the island, voice clipped as he listens to whoever's on the other end.
"Last quarter's report is in your inbox," he says. "If you want to reinvent the projections, bring something better than speculation."
Adrien and Ms. Kwan exchange a glance over the pastries.
The new man shifts, checking his watch, clearly waiting for his moment.
Lucian sets the cup down on the nearest flat surface—one of the side consoles that run along the edge of the room, currently occupied by a neatly stacked set of folders.
The top one is labeled.
Q3 – PROJECTIONS.
Her stomach drops out.
It's not her handwriting.
It's not the same font as the one she used in her sketch.
But the letters line up.
Q.
Projections.
Her vision tunnels.
This is ridiculous.
The world is full of Q3 projection files. It's literally a business tower. If there weren't Q3 projections lying around, that would be weirder.
But the cup. The brand. The placement.
He balances the cup on the edge of the console, still half-listening to the voice in his ear, half-engaging with Adrien, all while flipping through a smaller document in his free hand.
It's a human thing to juggle.
It's a human thing to miscalculate.
His hip nudges the console.
The cup wobbles.
Time slows.
Everything inside Amara screams stop.
Her hand twitches as if she could cross the room in a blink.
She doesn't move.
The cup tips.
The lid pops.
Dark, sweet coffee arcs out, splattering across the top folder, soaking the first few pages in a bloom of brown.
A droplet lands on the margin of the second page, right where a handwritten note sits.
She can't see what it says from here.
She doesn't need to.
The sound of liquid hitting paper is soft but vivid.
Reality snaps back to full speed.
"Damn it," Lucian snaps, pulling the cup upright, already too late. He covers the mic of his phone. "Mei."
Ms. Kwan materializes with towels and a resigned expression.
"It's just printouts," she says calmly. "The digital copies are safe."
Adrien makes an exaggerated wince. "Look at that," he says. "Freudian spill. You never knock anything over."
Lucian shoots him a look that says if you keep talking, I will personally adjust your bonus.
Amara stands frozen.
Her wrist is burning.
Not buzzing.
Burning.
Like someone has drawn a hot line around her skin.
She presses her fingers into it reflexively, nails digging into her own arm to ground herself.
The binding's heat doesn't feel like punishment.
It feels like acknowledgement.
We saw that.
Lucian finishes the call quickly, ends it with a clipped "fix it," and pockets his phone. Coffee drips down the side of the console.
He runs a hand through his hair, annoyed, then glances up—and meets her eyes.
For a terrifying second, she's sure he can see it on her face.
Every line of the sketch she shouldn't have drawn. The stupid teal cup. The splash. The note.
He doesn't.
He just sees a woman standing too still in a room where something mildly inconvenient has happened.
"Sorry," he says, almost as an afterthought, as if apologizing for the proximity of his mess.
"It's fine," she hears herself say. Her voice sounds normal. Too normal. "Paper towels are having their superhero moment."
Adrien snorts. "You should draw this," he tells her. "Alpha of the Boardroom: The Battle of Q3."
Lucian swats at a coffee droplet with unnecessary force.
"Don't encourage her," he says.
"I'm not," Adrien replies. "I'm trying to get free access to the next storyline."
They banter.
They move on.
Within minutes, the spill is cleaned, the damaged pages set aside, the room's focus shifting to whatever meeting awaits in the next hour. People come and go; the console is wiped dry. The teal cup disappears, tossed in some hidden trash.
Only Amara stays rooted in place for a beat too long, fingers still pressed against her burning wrist.
No one else seems to feel the temperature spike in the air.
She turns away before Lucian can look at her again.
The studio door swings shut behind her with a soft click that sounds like a bell turning the air private.
She leans back against it, chest heaving.
"Okay," she says out loud, just to hear a voice. "Okay. Okay."
The word doesn't help.
She paces.
Back and forth, short lines in the small space between the desk and the window.
Her thoughts keep circling the same point.
She drew it.
She didn't save it.
She didn't ink it.
She didn't show it.
And it happened anyway.
Exactly?
No.
Not exactly.
The cup's position was slightly different, the table lower, the logo half-covered by his hand. The note on the margin is not one she can confirm matched her invented phrase.
But the pattern is there.
Brand.
Placement.
File label.
Spill.
Her wrist throbs with delayed shock.
She sinks into her chair and drags her tablet toward her with shaking hands.
In a blank file, she quickly re-sketches what she remembers.
Teal cup.
Q3 file.
The splash pattern.
It's sloppier now, hastier, but the core is the same.
She stares at the lines.
A rational part of her whispers: Coincidence. Probability. Self-fulfilling prophecy. You noticed the brand because you'd been thinking about it. He picked it up because it was there and he was distracted. Q3 files are everywhere. You're connecting dots because that's what you do.
Another part—the one that watched glowing eyes in a courthouse corridor and felt invisible ink sink into her skin—whispers back: You nudged it.
She squeezes her eyes shut.
Lucian had asked her, not that long ago, not to test it.
Don't, he'd said. When she asked about drawing big things. When she hinted at experiments.
She'd done it anyway.
And she doesn't know if this counts as big.
It's just coffee.
Just paper.
No one is hurt.
No claws.
No blood.
But it proves something she is not ready to have proven.
Her mind skates to worst-case scenarios.
What if she'd drawn something else?
A stubbed toe instead of a spill?
A fight?
A fall?
A transformation?
The idea makes her stomach flip.
She shoves the thought away and opens her chat app instead, thumb hovering over Leah's name.
Her best friend would have a field day with this.
"Congrats, you're a coffee witch," Leah would say. "Use your powers for good and free us from overpriced cold brew."
But Leah is out there, in a world that thinks this is just a messy lawsuit and a juicy rumor. Dragging her into the magic of it feels cruel.
Her thumb moves to Zara's name instead.
ZARA (CHAOS)
last online: 4 minutes ago
She imagines typing: Hey, funny story, I think I made your brother spill coffee with my mind.
She imagines the responses.
lol same
welcome to the club
meet me on the roof in five, bring a salt circle
Or worse: seriousness. Worry. The weight of being believed.
Her wrist pulses, as if reminding her: Rule four. Tell him if you dream. If you see. If you draw something that feels like more than fiction.
She could go to Lucian.
She pictures it: knocking on his office door, sitting in one of those unforgiving chairs, telling him she's been quietly stress-testing the boundaries of the magic that ties them.
Watching his expression as he realizes she's not just a risk magnet by accident, but by curiosity.
She imagines the tightening of his jaw. The way he'd lean back, fingers steepled, voice going very calm.
We agreed you wouldn't do that.
We agreed you would tell me.
What else have you drawn?
She imagines his next move: more rules, more monitoring, more restrictions on when and how she's allowed to put pen to screen. Or maybe something worse—some adjustment to the contract she doesn't understand until it's too late.
She opens a note instead.
Not for him.
For herself.
Echo Test #1 – Coffee
• Sketch: Luna Luxe cup + Q3 file + spill
• Location: studio – junk_test.sketch (unsaved)
• Time: ~15:42 yesterday
• Manifestation: Lucian picks same brand from tray, spills on Q3 PROJECTIONS file ~09:17 today
• Variables: outside coffee ordered (Hale), brand previously noticed by me weeks ago
• Binding reaction: mild zap on drawing, burn at moment of spill
• Probability of coincidence: ???
She stops, stylus hovering over the last line.
She wants to write low.
She wants to write too low to ignore.
Instead, she puts:
• Probability of coincidence: not comfortable
Her wrist buzzes once, softer now, like it accepts this as a compromise.
She locks the note.
Password-protected.
Not connected to the cloud.
Just a tiny secret tucked into the guts of her device.
The first one she's held that's this big since she signed.
Guilt prickles at the back of her throat.
Lucian had told her: You will tell me. Immediately. Before you draw. Before you write. That was one of the rules.
He hadn't said anything about after.
Technicality.
Cowardice.
Survival.
It all feels the same.
She spends the rest of the morning pretending nothing happened.
She draws a neutral scene—background characters walking down a city street, anonymous buildings, a bus. No cups. No files. No moons. When her hand tries to wander toward something more loaded, the binding stings, and she veers away.
At lunch, she eats at her desk.
She doesn't go near the kitchen.
In the afternoon, during their scheduled creative review, Lucian appears in the studio doorway, as punctual as a recurring villain.
"How's the work?" he asks, leaning against the frame.
"Normal," she says. "Boring. Very safe. No one dies in this one, not even coffee."
He quirks an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware beverages were on the endangered list," he says.
Her heart does a weird flip.
He doesn't know.
Of course he doesn't. If he did, he wouldn't be this relaxed. His eyes would be sharper, his questions more direct.
She clings to that.
They go through the beats of the chapter, arguing about dialogue, compromising over a shot that makes his building look too much like itself. He suggests moving a scene to a more neutral location; she begrudgingly admits he's right. They talk like co-workers, like reluctant collaborators, like two people who haven't shared a nightmare.
Every time his hand moves near her line of sight, she flinch-watches for teal.
There is none.
By the time he leaves, her nerves are frayed.
"Rest tonight," he says at the door. "No more experiments."
She freezes.
He's looking at the canvas, not at her.
"You're pushing yourself too hard," he clarifies. "I can see it in the line work. It gets jittery when you don't sleep."
"Oh," she says. "Right. That experiment."
He gives her a long, searching look.
For a heartbeat, she thinks—he knows. He always knows.
Then he nods once and walks away.
When the door closes, she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes until lights explode behind them.
"He doesn't know," she whispers. "He doesn't know. He doesn't know."
The binding is quiet.
Which is almost worse.
If it punished her, if it seared her skin or flashed a warning across her vision, she could tell herself the line was clear: do this, hurt; don't do this, safe.
Instead, it's letting her sit in the gray.
She spends that night doing nothing that looks like magic.
She reads messages from Leah and sends back vague, sanitized replies. She watches dumb videos on her phone until her brain feels fuzzed. She flips through Zara's latest barrage of memes—filtered moon selfies, pack jokes that don't quite make sense, screenshots of the comment section roasting some other CEO.
She almost types something about the coffee.
She deletes it.
Later, lying in the dark, the city a dull glow beyond her window, she presses her wrist against her chest and feels the faint thrum there.
Cause and effect used to be simple in her world.
She drew because things hurt.
Now she isn't sure if she hurts because she draws.
"Small," she whispers into the dark. "Harmless. Controlled."
The words feel childish now.
Somewhere in this tower, Q3 projections sit drying on a separate pile, stained faintly brown at the edges. Somewhere in this city, a teal coffee brand is running ads, blissfully unaware it was part of a test.
She's the only one who knows both images.
For now.
She rolls onto her side, eyes heavy, head buzzing.
Sleep comes in fits.
In one dream, she sees her own hand again, reaching out—not for a cup this time, but for something else. A pen. A door handle. A wrist.
She wakes up with her fingers curled tight around air, nails biting into her palm.
Her first conscious thought is not I should tell him.
It's What did I just draw in my head?
And beneath that, quieter but insistent:
What happens when the test isn't about coffee anymore?