Saturday night sadness. The lock remains. Most restaurants fail. The melancholy of a red ledger.

Every single day after he’d reached 99%, Sal got messages about the good he was doing, though his Diagraff remained locked, and his Karmic Gauge stuck in the depths of a deep purple. He probably shouldn’t have cared so much, but by Saturday night, he was thoroughly depressed. It wasn’t so much he wanted the power, though there was that aspect to it, but it was more he simply hated feeling so stuck.

Betty wasn’t any help, and Kaixo was keeping to herself, now that she was alone in her room. At least they had a Tower Climb date, according to Theovanni, who was thrilled to finally have the chance to earn some money to give Sal some rent.

Actually, the kid was no trouble at all. And starting the morning fire was simple. Sparky stood in front of the stove and breathed fire onto the wood, and it caught and burned easily throughout the day. The days were still as hot, but Shivaun was very good at keeping the room cool.

That didn’t seem to matter much. They rarely had repeat customers. There was the Eagalis woman, who came in every day and bought the half-price dough rings and chased them down with a sweet lemonease. That was a large amount of sugar, though the eagle woman seemed to relish every bit of her dining experience.

Sal had bought advertising space in the Tower Today, but he didn’t know if it was working or not. He thought about giving his customers surveys, about how they’d learned about his restaurant, and yet that felt so invasively rude. Besides, he simply didn’t have that many customers at all.

Otto Ovum came to visit, along with his sister, and Cousin Ollie. Sal was very nervous as they ate his eggs and sausage, but they said nice things. However, Sal was forced to dance a little, for Otto, which was embarrassing— far harder than rhyming on the fly.

Otto mentioned something about one of his sorcerers studying the Killword Scroll, and for some reason, that put a bad feeling in the former Dark Lord’s belly. He still didn’t know what would happen if someone used it for murder. He’d had the opportunity to take it, Otto had offered, but now it was too late.

All in all, they ended their first week in the red. They’d have to do better, though, if they wanted to make it. If Sal bought the same amount of inventory, and if they had the same amount of traffic, he’d be broke in a month.

It was a race. Could they get enough customers to break even before he ran out of money?

It was very stressful. Unbearably so, or that’s how it felt. Conquering the world felt easier. At least then, if you were losing money, you could send your evil army to sack a city. It was a quick way to get some revenue. But then there was the blood and screaming and gnashing of the teeth. There was a cost, a high one, for such activities.

Yet, in that old life, he could force the world to bend to his will. Either by spell or sword, he could hack out a destiny for himself. He wasn’t scrambling for customers, no, he had his armies to force people into being his customers, upon pain of death.

He had to be honest with himself, though. Back then, the stakes were high. As he found out when he found his best friend’s sword through his chest. In this new life, the stakes were so much lower, dramatically so.

And yet, it didn’t feel that way.

He so wanted to succeed. He had to spread the word. People needed to know that the best way to escape the heat was spending the afternoon at The Champion Café.

It wasn’t all bad news. Saturday, actually, had been a fairly good day for them. A lot of people flooded the town for a special Saturday market in Destiny Square. Theo was able to use his sign and dragon to get people to take a bit of a detour, promising them some delicious breakfast food.

They would be closed on Sunday, since most people ate at home, and Tower Climbs were forbidden on Sunday, and that meant less traffic. Also, Sal was hoping that if he closed on Sunday, that might make the Pontra Genetrix a bit less hostile toward him. Kizi Adamu was planning something, he knew it, but he didn’t know what it was.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

He was a poor spy for the governor in that manner. As for the Gorbin, he didn’t see any in town, though he kept thinking he should take a trip into the mountains to see if the Gorbin, with their special knowledge of magic, could help him with his locked Diagraff.

That Saturday night, Sal considered a trip across town to Fabrizio’s Mind & Body Tables, but he didn’t have the energy. He felt exhausted after those six days of work, and yes, they pushed their closing time to four, which he hated. Except, the afternoon traffic was so good, and people loved their lemonease.

He needed to get moving on the gnocchi recipe before Tony Belly got mad and stank up the place again. That would be a task for the next day.

Saturday night, Theovanni was out with Kaixo and the New Astounders, doing some training. Sal had reached out to Kaixo, but she hadn’t reached back. Theo said she was just focused, but Sal knew it was more than that. She was pushing Sal away, probably because he’d seen into her past, and she felt exposed.

He regretted that.

He regretted a great many things.

He found himself outside, in the heat, sitting under the soot-stained umbrella. Betty was out and about. He wasn’t sure where. She didn’t like him keeping track of her, but if she were gone too long, he worried.

He also remembered how she’d abandoned him before, without a word. That wound still felt fresh. It was probably silly of him, but he felt what he felt. He liked it when all of his friends were together, and yes, it felt like they were all friends.

Shivaun came out and stood in the shadows of the doorway. The plaza was empty, and there was very little chance of anyone coming there, not without some prompting. It was why they had all the signs, and even that wasn’t enough. They had to have Theo out there, barking at people, to motivate them.

Sal sighed.

Words popped on the wall in icy letters. You have been sad for days now. Why? I demand to know.

“We are not profitable, my friend. I have fulfilled my oath. I have opened this establishment. We can run for another month before I run out of the financial resources I need to continue. I do not know what will happen then. And there is the gnocchi to consider.”

Surely, this is nothing compared to what you have done before.

“I was just considering such things. My life before. My life now. I cannot enslave my customers by force. I must entice them. It is a seduction, and I am not gifted in that area.”

You flirted with the Pork Poet. You like her eloquence and her dark addiction to rhyming.

Sal felt his cheeks burn. “That was not flirting. I was merely trying to secure a bacon reservoir. If anything, the salted and smoked meat will bring people here. Again, though, it is an expense, an expense that might ruin us if there is no return.”

Shivaun shook her head. Her eyes bore into him. There is more to it than that. You want your magic back. You want to conquer.

“I don’t,” he said honestly. “I would simply like this café to be profitable.” He knew if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose Karma points, and so he had to tell the truth. “If I had a certain type of magic, something to do with food stuffs, that might mean the difference between success and failure. And yet, I find myself at a standstill. I see the opportunity, and yet, I cannot take advantage of it.”

Shivaun dropped her head and let her long dark hair cover her pale face. When she looked up, her black eyes were shadowed and angry. If you could regain all of the magic you had before, would you take up the mantle of the Dark Lord?

“No. And the magic I had before would not help me run a café. It was far too…violent. The rules of my life have changed.”

I do not believe you.

Sal knew he was powerless to change her mind. He wanted to defend himself, at least about Hearthhome, but no, there was no defense at all. It felt unfair. She thought he was evil, and he couldn’t be, not ever again, unless he wanted his precious second life stolen away from him.

He stood up. “This is pointless, Shivaun. You wanted to know why I was sad, and I have told you. My Diagraff is locked, my café failed to be an immediate success, and I have worlds of labor ahead of me, none of which can be made easier through sorcery. What do you want from me?”

Admit you are evil, now. As evil as I am.

That made Sal pause. “Are you evil, Shivaun?”

She nodded at him, a broken kind of defeat on her face.

“How are you evil?” he asked.

She vanished, even as her words melted down the side of his café.

That made Sal angry. He charged into the diner. “Shivaun, we are not finished. I want to know about the corpses I found when I first got here. I want to know what is in the locked chest. You claim to be evil, but you offer no proof.”

He stopped and smiled. “Other than the fact you tried to kill me, several times, before I won your favor. Then again, a single word from you would slay me outright. That makes me question the extent of your evil.”

Nothing answered.

Sal charged up the stairs, took a left, and shoved open the door to Theovanni’s room. It was a mess, all right, with a bunch of clothes on the floor and several cheap books scattered about. Sal wondered if he should ask the kid to keep his room clean. That seemed a little too parental.

Sal went to the ladder and climbed the rungs up into the attic.

That was where he found Shivaun, in the far corner, facing the corner of the attic. It was really rather creepy.