Tanya had her legs splayed out in a loose W, her notebook open across her thighs, the interface before her eyes like a second ghostly page. The tenseness in her shoulders worsened as she frowned down at the notes. The others had gone quiet around her—Olena lying sprawled like a particularly smug starfish, and Boris perched on the arm of the couch with a drink he was swirling too seriously for its spotty mug.
The design finally blinked into form. At first glance, it was fine: a longline cloak with a reinforced collar. She'd removed the design on the hem. It looked like it should work. But every time Tanya adjusted anything in the range, stability plummeted or the risks started talking about disintegration or partial invisibility trauma.
The real problem, she'd figured out, wasn't the effect. It was the boundaries.
She pinched the edge of the interface and pulled open the diagnostic layers. Words spilt out in clean rows.
"Okay," Tanya muttered, mostly to herself. "So if I go full passive range again…"
The overlay flickered.
• • •
Design Analysis: [Stealth Cape Version 1] LOADING… Main Focus:
Unobtrusive Presence
Possible Active Parameters:
Passive Effect
Trigger: Summoning
Range: Adaptive Radius
Risks:
Boundary Cohesion Failure
Ally and Enemy Interference
Delayed Deactivation
• • •
"Bloody hell." Tanya scrubbed her hand down her face. "That's a horror show."
"Still not work?" Olena asked, rolling over on the sofa towards her.
Tanya waved vaguely toward the floating overlay. "I mean, technically it works. But I think with the risks it'll be dodgy as hell."
Boris leaned forward. "What's happening with it exactly?"
"The range. It's too… loose. Like, I think if I'm standing next to someone, the magic's not sure if they count as me. So either it stretches to include 'em and costs more, or it chops off awkward and you get flickers. Honestly, this is all assumptions though."
Olena hummed. "Sound like every house party I've ever been to."
Tanya cackled. "What does that even mean?"
Boris took off his glasses and cleaned them against his sweater. "So does your overlay thing explain this? Does it give you solutions?"
Tanya sighed. "No, and no. Basically, it gives me risks and based on what else has changed I just kinda have to assume. So, like, this one says Boundary Cohesion Failure, Ally and Enemy Interference, Delayed Deactivation. I think they all piece together to—"
"Be that the adaptive range is confused, right."
"I tried actual numbers first. Wasn't quite this bad but still had the Interference thingy and some worry about it not movin' properly"
Tanya's fingers danced through options in the overlay. She tried narrowing the radius manually—setting a hard limit in metres again. At least that way it was better than the last one.
"How about this," Tanya said to no one in particular.
She added a section saying
Motion: Moves with Wielder.
She'd not messed with the sections themselves yet but it was worth a try.
The overlay flagged Dynamic Interference Risk. She anchored it to her. The overlay refused that entirely.
"I don't think it likes when I get clever," she muttered. "Keeps throwin' tantrums." She deleted the line.
Boris cracked a small smile. "Didn't you say stealth would be 'straightforward'?"
"I did," Tanya muttered. "Because I'm an idiot."
"Is there anything else can fix?" Olena asked.
"Hm?" Tanya replied absentmindedly.
"If keep changing this section not work then change new section."
Tanya skimmed through it and her attention was grabbed by 'trigger'.
• • •
Design Analysis: [Stealth Cape Version 1] LOADING… Main Focus: Unobtrusive Presence Possible Active Parameters:
Duration: Event
Trigger: Clasp
Range: Barrier within fabric
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Risks:
Failure
Vitality cost
Inconveniencing allies
• • •
"Oh—snap!" Tanya yelled, standing up in one fluid motion.
"Olena, you are a genius."
Olena sat up on her elbows, looking over. "I am? What I do?" Olena said.
"What did you change?" Boris asked, leaning forward, eyes gleaming.
"The trigger was passive like the last one. I can change that up to make it about the cape itself."
"Then I deserve a drink!" Olena exclaimed. She picked up the apricot alcohol and looked crestfallen.
Tanya took it and jiggled it side to side. It was almost empty.
"We could wait until after the tattoos?" Boris said.
"Never! Gimme!" Olena cried, scrabbling to her feet and necking the rest of the bottle. She then stared into the hole, disappointed with the size of the last drop.
Boris glared at her.
She looked at Tanya with the wide eyes of a guilty child. "I mean—waiting totally fine."
Tanya laughed and dusted her hands off on her trousers as she pushed up to her feet. "Good timin'. I need a break." Her back cracked in protest from standing, and she winced with theatrical flair. "Let's find something for you guys, and me for after."
"A celebratory drink," Boris said with a smile.
"Exactly," Tanya said, already on her way to the exit. She turned at the last second, realising that she didn't have to leave the front door to get up to the flat now.
Tanya turned to look at the others. "Pretty cool innit?"
They both smiled back.
Tanya turned the corner, then dipped back around. Olena and Boris stopped whatever banter they'd just started to look at her. "Back in five. Try not to let Olena seduce the floorboards while I'm gone."
"Jealous?" Olena called after her.
"Deeply," Tanya called back.
The hallway was quiet again as she made her way up the stairs. It had been days since she'd come up here. With her late nights and early mornings, she and Ishita had taken the upstairs and downstairs without needing to talk about it. The sweet smell of Tanya's washing powder and deodorant still lingered, just enough for Tanya to smell it for a second and be transported back, then lose it again as quickly.
The door creaked as she pushed it open.
She stood on the threshold for a moment. The place still looked like hers but everything had moved slightly. Patterned blankets of Ishita's were draped over a chair. A cup she had rarely used was sitting by the window. It felt like intruding on someone elses home, and for the first time since she'd settled downstairs, she looked forward to getting her flat and shop back fully. Maybe she'd even redecorate when she got a chance.
I wonder where Olena and Boris even live.
She stepped inside, the floor groaning under her feet. It felt weird, how fast they'd all fallen into this rhythm—her, Olena, Boris. Mornings full of noise and construction. Evenings marked by drinks and wild ideas. None of them had really said it aloud, but she felt it. They were building something. Not just a shop. A shape of life again. The way Boris always carried an extra cup of tea, even when she didn't ask. The way Olena had started bringing back sweets she claimed were for Fahad but kept hidden in her coat for Tanya to find. Tanya had asked where she'd found them earlier that day. The hazy memory faded into her mind's eye.
"Aha! Trade secrets, Tanya. A woman never reveal trade secrets!"
She opened the kitchen cupboard and reached into the back, pulling free the crate that had once lived proudly atop her fridge. Inside were the bottles—mismatched, labelled, some decorated with glitter or hand-scrawled doodles.
She smiled without meaning to.
• • •
Her kitchen had been crammed. Six people, two chairs, one beanbag, and enough pillows to build a low-effort fort. Someone had brought samosas. Another had insisted on fairy lights. The table was full of craft glue, string, tags, half-drunk cocktails, and laughter.
"Alright," shouted Lorna, brandishing a pen like a sword, "let's start with Tanya's. We all gotta write a challenge on it. Make it good!"
"I say… she has to open this when she gets her five thousandth customer," said Alex.
"Too soft," someone said.
"Don't be a downer," said Lorna. "Hitting the bigger numbers isn't hard, it just takes time."
"Doesn't make it a bad goal!" Alex rebutted.
Tanya had been laughing too hard to argue.
They went all the way around the circle. She faintly remembered one about leaving their parent's house, another about finishing their degree and a third that was about some kind of pet. When it was her turn, she picked one of her own bottles up. "Okay, challenge me."
"Okay," said Will, serious as anything. "You can only open this if you actually get off your ass and do that trip across Europe you're always talking about!"
Tanya gasped and clutched her hand to her chest. "You wound me!"
They all laughed at her reaction. Tanya had laughed too. Because that was the rule of having just turned 20—you laughed at your dreams, or it counted too much.
• • •
She'd not spoken to most of these people in years. Somehow those people who were the centre of her life were just hazy faces in her head nowadays. She couldn't even remember one of their names.
Was it Jo or Jay who said everyone's ideas were soft?
She perched on the edge of the counter and turned one of the bottles in her hand. The tag on it read: For the next clubbing pre-drinks with all of us here. It was navy ink, looped cursive. She didn't even remember whose handwriting that was.
Her throat closed.
System, how many humans are left on this planet?
1,194,837,562
One billion an' somethin'. 1 outta seven are left.
She sat there for a long time, unable to do anything but clench the bottle and try to breathe.
The piece of paper haunted her. It wasn't pessimistic to assume they'd never be together here again. 1/7. Statistically, she was the only one of them left alive. She hoped they'd been luckier than average.
Without ceremony, she tugged the tag off and stuffed it into the back of the crate. She picked up another—'For your thousandth customer'—and paused, hand ready to tear that one off too.
Maybe I can actually do that one.
She set it gently aside.
Then she found the one she'd remembered. It was labelled 'Go on that trip across Europe you donkey!' She scratched that out with a pen and rewrote: For shop opening day.
It wasn't the same but it didn't need to be.
She stood, cradling the first bottle against her hip as she moved back toward the stairs.
Mrs Eceer exited her bedroom as Tanya passed. Her arms were loosely crossed, eyes staring into nothing.
"You alright?" Tanya asked.
Mrs Eceer didn't respond at first. Then, in a voice so quiet it was almost dazed, she said, "He just called me grandma."
Tanya blinked. "Fahad? What, like—seriously?"
Mrs Eceer looked at her, brows slightly lifted. "Yes."
It would've been funny, maybe even a bit absurd if the expression on her face hadn't been so bewildered. As if something ancient inside her had cracked open and was still trying to decide whether to let the light in.
Tanya didn't say anything for a moment. Then she smiled. "Kids are weird."
"Yes," Mrs Eceer agreed. Then she coughed, smoothed her skirt, and looked properly at Tanya. "You have time to talk?"
Oh fuck I completely forgot.
"Oh! Yeah," Tanya said, glancing at the stairs. "Let me just stash this bottle and we can—"
"No," Mrs Eceer said, interrupting gently. "Give me the short version. I don't want to interrupt you."
"I've started basic," Tanya said, shifting the bottle between both hands. "Test each one real stripped down. Figure out how much Vitality they burn on their own before I even start thinking about combinations."
Mrs Eceer gave a small nod. "Sensible. And you have design ideas already?"
"Yeah, practising for Olena and Boris. So far I've just got this." She summoned the broach. "It calms the Wielder. Step one of calming fields."
Mrs Eceer nodded.
"The way all this works—I don't think it's random. There's a shape to it. A structure."
"And you want to learn its grammar."
Tanya blinked at her. Then grinned. "Exactly."
They hovered there for a moment, quiet. The candle up here was already dimming, shadows stretching longer across the floor.
Mrs Eceer placed her hand briefly on Tanya's shoulder. "Then let's look at the results together instead."
Tanya nodded as she pattered down the stairs. "Deal."
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