The record store looked different in daylight.
Lyra stood across the street, same corner as before, watching the entrance to Vinyl Resting Place. The rain had stopped overnight, leaving the city washed clean and gleaming under a pale sun that seemed uncertain of its welcome. The bakery next door was open now—she could smell fresh bread and coffee, human comforts that meant nothing to her.
She'd been standing here for twenty minutes.
It was absurd. She was a hundred and twenty years old. She'd attended Council gatherings where vampires who'd lived through the French Revolution debated policy with those who'd witnessed the fall of Rome. She'd killed—once, in self-defense, a rogue vampire who'd mistaken her for prey. She'd watched her mother die.
And yet she couldn't cross a street.
A woman with a stroller passed her, glancing at Lyra's coat with a flicker of envy. Lyra didn't acknowledge her. She was watching the record store door, waiting for something she couldn't name.
What did she expect to find? The boy—K.S.—probably wouldn't be there. The website had said his album was on hold until Friday. Today was Wednesday. He had no reason to visit.
But she'd come anyway. Because the alternative was sitting in her room at the estate, thinking about Marcus Valerius and his vintage watches and the future her father was building for her like a cage with invisible bars.
She crossed the street.
The bell above the door chimed as she entered. The store was small and cluttered, filled with wooden bins of vinyl records arranged in no obvious order. The walls were covered with faded posters—Hendrix, Joplin, bands she'd never heard of from decades she'd lived through but never really inhabited. The air smelled like old paper and dust and, faintly, pipe tobacco.
A man emerged from behind the counter. Gray hair. Wire-rimmed glasses. He moved with the careful deliberation of someone who'd spent decades handling fragile things.
"Help you find something?" His voice was warm. Unhurried.
Lyra hesitated. She hadn't planned this far. "I'm looking for something by Nick Drake."
The man's eyebrows rose. "Good taste. Which album?"
"Pink Moon."
"Ah." He smiled, a little sadly. "That one's spoken for, I'm afraid. First pressing. A customer of mine has been waiting for it. I can put you on the list if another copy comes through."
"That's fine." Lyra glanced around the store, buying time. "I'll browse."
The man nodded and retreated behind the counter, pulling out a cloth and beginning to clean a record that was already spotless. Lyra moved through the bins, running her fingers over the spines of albums she'd never heard. Names and faces blurred together. Music had never been her escape the way it seemed to be for humans. Too much emotion compressed into too little time.
She was in the back corner, pretending to examine a collection of jazz albums, when the bell chimed again.
She didn't turn around. She didn't need to. The scent hit her first—pine and earth and that electric current that made her skin feel like it was waking up after a long sleep.
He came.
Lyra kept her eyes on the album in her hands. Miles Davis. Kind of Blue. She'd heard of it. That was all.
Behind her, she heard footsteps. Then the man's voice: "Kael! Good timing. A young lady was just asking about your Nick Drake."
Silence. Then: "Was she."
Lyra's fingers tightened on the Miles Davis album. Kael. Not K.S. Kael. The name suited him. It sounded old. Northern.
"I told her it was spoken for," the man continued, oblivious. "She's still here somewhere, if you want to—"
"I saw her."
The footsteps moved closer. Lyra didn't turn. She stared at the album cover—the dark silhouette of a man with a trumpet, blue tones bleeding into black.
He stopped beside her. She could see him in her peripheral vision. The canvas jacket. The dark hair, dry now, falling across his forehead.
"Miles Davis," he said. His voice was lower than she'd expected. Quiet. "Good choice. Though I'd have pegged you for something else."
She turned her head. Their eyes met.
"Something else?"
"Billie Holiday. Lady in Satin." He said it like he was offering a key to a door she hadn't known existed.
Lyra set the Miles Davis album back in the bin. Her hands weren't shaking this time. She wasn't sure if that was progress or something else entirely.
"I don't know that one."
"Most people don't." He reached past her and pulled out a different album. The cover showed a woman with a flower in her hair, her expression distant and bruised. "It was her last album. Recorded when her voice was almost gone. Critics hated it. Said she'd lost her range."
Lyra looked at the cover. "Why do you like it?"
"Because she knew she was dying. And she sang anyway."
The words hung in the dusty air between them. Lyra thought about her mother. About refusing immortality. I want to see what comes next.
"What's your name?" Kael asked.
She should lie. Give him a false name. Maintain the distance the treaty required.
"Lyra."
He nodded slowly. "Lyra. Like the constellation."
"Like the instrument. My mother was a musician." She hadn't meant to say that. The words came out before she could stop them.
Kael didn't respond immediately. He was looking at her with those amber eyes, and she had the uncomfortable sensation that he was seeing more than she wanted to show.
"Your mother," he said finally. "She's gone?"
"Yes."
"Mine too."
Another silence. The man behind the counter was pretending not to listen, but Lyra could hear the slight quickening of his pulse. He knew something was happening, even if he didn't understand what.
"Why didn't you run?" Kael asked. "Yesterday. You saw me. You knew what I was. Why didn't you run?"
Lyra considered the question. She could lie. She should lie.
"Because you didn't run either."
A muscle moved in his jaw. "I should have."
"Yes."
"And you?"
"I should have too."
Neither of them moved. The store was very quiet.
Finally, Kael reached into his jacket and pulled out a pen. He wrote something on the corner of a flyer that was sitting on top of the jazz bin—an advertisement for a local show, some band Lyra had never heard of. He tore off the corner and held it out to her.
A phone number.
"This is a bad idea," he said.
"I know."
"I'm not sure I care."
Lyra took the paper. Their fingers didn't touch. She folded it carefully and slipped it into her coat pocket.
"Friday," he said. "There's a coffee shop on Division. Forty-Second Street. Six o'clock."
"Why?"
He looked at her for a long moment. "Because I want to know what happens next."
He turned and walked to the counter, where the man—Leonard, she remembered from the website—was holding a brown paper bag. Kael took it, nodded once, and left. The bell chimed. The door closed.
Lyra stood in the jazz section for a full minute before she moved.
She walked to the counter. Leonard looked up at her with an expression she couldn't read.
"The Billie Holiday album," she said. "Lady in Satin. Do you have a copy?"
Leonard smiled. "I might. Let me check in the back."