Tin Can wasn’t the kind of guy you just ran into.

  He was the sort of person you only saw out of the corner of your eye—by the underpass, in the alley beside the liquor store, at the edge of the farmers market where the vegetables were a little too fresh but grossly overpriced. And then you blinked, and he was gone, leaving nothing but a crushed soda can and the smell of burnt copper, like a shorted-out wire.

  So, when Elly told me he’d agreed to meet us, I felt the weight of that word. Agreed. Like he’d checked a box on some eldritch form and decided we were worth his paranoia. What did it take to get a conversation with the city’s resident ghost of the sidewalks?

  We walked side by side down a narrow street that reeked of wet concrete, exhaust, and dumpster juice. A low fog had crept in from the river, clinging to our ankles like static. Elly’s boots clicked, steady and unbothered, while I tried not to gag. She’d pulled her leather jacket tight against the chill, her pointy ears tucked under glamour, but her eyes glittered like she was already five steps ahead of me.

  “Why me?” I muttered. “Why not Lily or Eury? They’re better at the whole… making-friends-with-freaky-informants thing.”

  Elly’s grin was small and sharp. “Because he asked for you, Daniel.”

  “Right. Not creepy at all. Desired by hobos. I’ll put that on my résumé.”

  She elbowed me lightly. “Relax. He’s eccentric, not homicidal.”

  “That’s exactly what people say before the guy turns your flesh into lampshades.”

  “Don’t give him ideas. Besides, you’ve talked to him before. Gave him money, snacks—he likes you.”

  “The Baja Blasts were before I knew he was a supernatural stalker. A Sensate.”

  We stopped at the edge of a vacant lot. The streetlight above us buzzed and dimmed, like it didn’t want to see what came next. A shopping cart sat in the weeds, wrapped in strips of reflective tape that shimmered faintly in the fog. Beside it, perched on an upturned milk crate, was Tin Can himself—cross-legged, hands folded like he was meditating, though his eyes were very much open.

  Up close, he looked… wrong, in ways that weren’t about dirt or poverty. His beard was streaked grey like lightning bolts, his coat was more patch than fabric, and his hands trembled as though conducting invisible symphonies. But his eyes—dark, but bright and cutting—made the hair on my arms stand up. There was depth in them. Not madness, exactly. Just the kind of awareness that comes from seeing too much and deciding to keep seeing anyway.

  “Mr. Mercer,” he said, like we’d been introduced at a garden party. He hopped down from the crate, bowing slightly. The smell of rust and sage hit me. “And Miss Ellyllon.” He pronounced it perfectly.

  Elly blinked, caught off guard. “You know my full name?”

  He tapped his temple. “The pond ripples. The stones sing. The trick is listening.”

  I shot Elly a look. She only shrugged, like what did you expect?

  Something skittered in the shadows.

  A rat emerged from the weeds—sleek-furred, disturbingly well-fed, a glimmer of intelligence in its beady eyes. Then another. And another. Until the whole fence line seemed to writhe. At their center stood a boy—maybe nineteen, stringy-haired, hoodie half-zipped. He looked like he belonged at a skate park, except for the faint gleam of teeth too sharp and ears that twitched toward the scuttling chorus.

  Tin Can gestured to him with a flourish. “My associate. You may call him Willard.”

  The boy grimaced. “Please don’t. It’s a terrible joke.”

  “Willard it is,” I said before I could stop myself. Elly elbowed me again.

  Tin Can nodded solemnly. “Code names are important. Safety in names. Besides, a fine piece of cinema.”

  The rats swarmed closer, clustering at Willard’s sneakers like bodyguards. He didn’t flinch. Just looked at me, then at Elly, nostrils flaring as if he could smell my wrongness. Which, honestly, he probably could. That or the lingering garlic from last night’s takeout.

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  Tin Can clapped his hands once, and the rats stilled mid-motion, eyes fixed on him. “Now,” he said, “business.”

  “Right,” I said, trying not to stare at the twitching whiskers near my boots. “The Collectors. You know what they’re after, right?”

  “Everyone knows,” Tin Can said lightly. “But nobody listens. Men of paper. Men of boxes. They tag, they tally, they take.” He leaned in close, breath hot and metallic. “Do you know what happens once you’re collected?”

  “Storage?” I guessed. “Something like that?”

  His smile was knife thin. “Oblivion with an index card.”

  A chill slid through me. Elly’s expression didn’t change, but her knuckles went white as she clenched her fists.

  Willard spoke quietly, his voice steadier than I expected. “They mark their prey first. Stickers, slips, sometimes folded notes. My rats have tracked three disappearances this week. Same pattern—first the tag, then the vanishing. No struggle. Like they walked into the box willingly.”

  Elly’s face darkened. “Why?”

  Willard shrugged. “Could be glamour. Could be compulsion. Could be faith.”

  Tin Can pointed a trembling finger at me. “And you, Feeder—”

  My stomach dropped. “What did you just call me?”

  Elly stiffened beside me. The word Feeder hung in the air like a bad omen.

  Tin Can only chuckled, the sound dry and papery. “The spider speaks, does it not? The pantry prophet whispers your name. You think the walls do not listen? You are louder than thunder to the ones who crawl.”

  I wanted to argue, but my mouth went dry.

  Elly stepped forward, voice low and deliberate. “You’ve told us what we already knew. Now tell us something useful. Tell us where they’re taking people.”

  Tin Can tilted his head like a bird, studying her. Then he spread his arms wide, coat flaring like torn wings. “Everywhere. Nowhere. They serve a ledger, a library, a Curator of curiosities. They deliver the world one package at a time.”

  The word Curator stuck in my throat. “And you’ve seen this thing?”

  He tapped his ear. “I hear it in the wires. I taste it in the rain.”

  “Of course you do,” I muttered. But a part of me—it believed him. There was something about the way the air seemed to hum around him, like the city itself was feeding him whispers.

  Willard crouched, scratching a rat under its chin. “We can get you close. My network sees more than you’d believe. But it’s risky. If they tag you—”

  “What happens?” I asked.

  “Then you belong to them,” Willard said. “Body, memory, data. Gone.”

  The rats chittered in eerie unison, a sound like laughter through teeth.

  Silence stretched. Even the traffic noise seemed to pause.

  Elly cleared her throat. “You’re serious about this.”

  “Deadly,” Willard said. The rats echoed the word—deadly—in soft, synchronized squeaks that made my skin crawl.

  Tin Can leaned closer to me, his voice suddenly calm. “You’re noisy, Mr. Mercer. A series of ripples that won’t stop spreading. They will notice you. They already do.”

  My heart thudded unevenly. “And I’m a walking bullseye?”

  He smiled, thin as paper. “Exactly.”

  Elly squeezed my arm before I could spiral. “Then we’ll protect him. That’s why we’re here.”

  Tin Can studied her for a long moment, then me, then let out a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “Protection is not immunity,” he said finally. “You cannot outrun the filing cabinets forever.”

  I groaned. “You make everything sound like an IRS audit.”

  Willard smirked faintly. “Not far off.”

  The conversation wound down in the strangest quiet I’d ever heard—like the air itself was listening. Elly took careful notes while Willard murmured to his rats, sending them scattering into storm drains. Tin Can adjusted the reflective tape on his cart, humming something tuneless that made my teeth itch. The fog pressed closer around us, thick and damp, carrying the faint scent of iron and mold.

  As we turned to leave, Tin Can called after us.

  “Mr. Mercer!”

  I froze mid-step. His eyes glowed faintly, catching the streetlight like mirrors.

  “Do not mistake survival for victory.” His grin showed too many teeth. “The game has only just begun.”

  The words landed in my chest like a stone sinking through water. I nodded, because honestly—what else could I do?

  Elly and I walked back toward the street. The night air was heavy, the kind that made you feel like you were breathing through cloth. Neither of us spoke until we reached her car.

  Then she muttered, “He’s terrifying.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And that was him trying to be polite.”

  She gave a shaky laugh as she unlocked the door. “Remind me to never complain about your weird clients again.”

  I opened the passenger side and slid in, still trying to unclench my jaw. The hatchback shuddered to life with a cough that sounded too human. I glanced out the rearview window—and froze.

  At the edge of the lot, just beyond the mist, something moved. A shape too square to be natural, too still to be alive. For a heartbeat, the light caught on its form—a torso like a filing cabinet, its front drawer yawning open. A slip of paper fluttered from the slot, fluttering over to the window glass, blank except for one word scrawled in ink that gleamed even in the dark:

  Mercer.

  Elly swore under her breath and slammed the gas. The tires squealed against wet pavement, and the lot vanished behind us.

  We didn’t look back. Not even when the rearview mirror started to hum softly, like a tuning fork.

  But when we pulled into a spot outside my building, there it was— a perfect white sticker, stuck to the sideview mirror.

  Blank. Square. Waiting.

  And for the first time that night, I realized we weren’t just being watched. The filing had already begun.