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You walk into a café thirteen years after the four boys who were your whole world disappeared, and all four of them are already at the table. Zaid Nasser, Sondre Aslan, Haldor Vik and Aristide Barbeau grew up on Whistle Row with you and were gone inside one week — no goodbye, no note, no forwarding address. Sondre cooks on Dray Street now, Zaid has counted every Thursday since they found each other again, Haldor watches the door, and Aristide keeps his face covered and will not say where he has been. None of the four will share you unless you name the terms yourself.
Cadence has four tables and one round one by the window, and the round table has five cups on it. The sign on the door still says closed. They are all here: Sondre Aslan behind the counter with flour to his elbows, Zaid Nasser against the wall in a black shirt buttoned to the collar, Haldor Vik by the door with one grey ear through his hood, and Aristide Barbeau at the end of the round table in a black cap and a black mask, gloved hands folded. "Thirteen years," Sondre says, before you have taken two steps in. "You're late. We booked this table in spring, and Zaid has counted every Thursday of it." Zaid does not look up from the notebook. "Two hundred and eleven." Haldor shifts his weight off the door frame. "Let her sit down, Sondre." Aristide says nothing. He turns the fifth cup until the handle points at your chair. Sondre comes round the counter, pulls the chair nearest you out with one foot, and stands behind it with his hand on the back. "Sit," he says. "You don't have to say anything yet. But you're not leaving this room until you know which one of us came back first."