#*replies.zsofi

Zsófi opens the front door exactly three seconds after the knock. Not eager. Not late. Precise. Councilman Moreau is greeted by a smile so immaculate it could’ve been engineered in her workshop—polished, measured, absolutely hollow. The house behind her smells like paprika, roasted meat, and something sweet caramelizing in the oven. Heat hums through the walls. So does tension.

“Councilman,” she says smoothly, stepping aside. “I hope you haven’t eaten in weeks. My mother cooked enough to sustain a minor uprising.” The door closes behind him with a solid, final click.

Zoe had spent the entire morning defending this visit like it was diplomacy. Zsófi had spent the same morning dismantling that argument piece by piece while sharpening knives that did not need sharpening. Her brother remained neutral, which somehow irritated both women more. She does not trust councils. Councils monitor. Councils grant with one hand and measure with the other. If they wanted to see how the Harsányis “operate,” it meant they suspected something needed observing.

“You’ll want to take your shoes off,” she adds, tone light but edged. “The Boszorkány will have you beheaded.” A beat. “That’s my mother,” she clarifies, deadpan.

She leads him through the house, movements controlled, deliberate. The walls are lined with relics: embroidered Hungarian textiles, a carved wooden crucifix older than Sol City itself, a tarnished cavalry saber mounted above a doorway. Photographs from places that no longer look the same. A brass samovar. A cracked porcelain teacup mended with visible gold seams. The house is modest but alive. Lived in. Functional. No wasted space. No hidden luxury. Everything has purpose. Everything has history.

She stops just outside the back door instead. The kitchen window is cracked open, and Zoe’s voice spills out in rapid Hungarian—sharp, musical, absolute—punctuated by the authoritative knock of a wooden spoon against a pot. The house pulses with life behind the glass.

Zsófi leans against the brick, fishes a lighter from her pocket, and shields the flame from the wind. It flares gold for a second before she brings it to the end of the blunt between her fingers. The tip glows, ember bright, smoke curling slow and lazy into the dusk. She inhales like it’s maintenance. Not indulgence. Just calibration. The tension drains from her shoulders by degrees.

She exhales toward the darkening sky, then turns her head slightly toward Moreau without fully facing him. Smoke threads between them.

“I made that for you two weeks ago.” Zsófi doesn’t even look up at first. She’s wiping her hands with a rag gone permanently black from oil and powder residue. Then she does look up—slowly—and the silence that follows is heavier than the accusation.

“And you broke it already?!”

Music rattles the walls of Zsófi’s workshop, bass thick enough to blur thought into instinct. She leans over the workbench, gloved fingers delicately dissecting what most people would’ve already declared dead. The weapon in front of her is scorched, warped, and stubbornly uncooperative. She respects that.

The first knock doesn’t register. The second blends into the percussion. By the third, she turns—slowly, not startled, just annoyed at the interruption of something almost beautiful.

Someone stands in the doorway. She straightens, rolling one shoulder as if the motion itself is a warning. The narrow slits of her visor angle toward them, mirroring the sharpness of her stare beneath it.

The air inside The Bearded Lady was cool and dim, a welcome contrast to the noise of the streets outside. Zsófi paused just past the door, scanning the crowded room for any place to sit. She’d thought her week had been long—until she saw the sheer number of tired faces packed inside. Maybe she wasn’t the only one trying to drink the edge off.

She slipped between a group still arguing over what to order, catching the familiar sound of Celeste’s voice as the singer took the stage. That small comfort tugged a grin out of her.

At last, she spotted a single empty chair tucked in the corner. A man sat beside it, but the seat itself looked unclaimed. Zsófi tapped his shoulder and gestured toward it. “This seat—taken?” she asked, then added with a wry tilt of her head, “Say no. There’s nowhere else to sit.”

Late hours had become the norm, but tonight Zsófi was pushing the limit. Sleep never settled in her bones anymore—not with the unfamiliar hum of Sol City outside, her mother’s voice drifting through the walls as she finished work on the Haven, and the weight of a new job pressing on her shoulders.

Bent over her workbench, she hummed under her breath to the faint crackle of the radio, fingers steady as she snapped a casing shut. The sharp click cut through the quiet. Almost immediately, the door creaked open behind her.

She exhaled, a weary half-smile ghosting across her face. “Tell me it’s an easy task,” she said without looking up. “Otherwise, the shop’s closed.”