A festival story. The characters are imagined; the clothes are real.
The third cat was waiting on the mixer when Isla got back from the water station. Ears up, tail curled around its paws, folded from newsprint so thin the booth lamp glowed through it.
Magenta newsprint. Foreign words marching down its spine.
She stood still while the long track rolled on without her: nine minutes of deep house she put on at 2 a.m. every Saturday to refill her bottle. Three Saturdays running, somebody had used those nine minutes. The first cat was cobalt. The second, violet. They rode in her headphone case now, nose to tail.
She teased the tail open with a thumbnail. Pencil, small capitals: ROOF. FIRST LIGHT. THEN YOU'LL KNOW.
Around her the loft moved like one body. Four hundred dancers under the timber beams of an old Arts District warehouse, five floors above the Los Angeles River, the air warm with sweat and the hot-dust smell of the speaker stacks. Downtown's towers blinked red through tall factory windows. This was the last loft party of the season. At five-thirty the crew would haul the decks up the fire stairs, Isla would play the sunrise set, and at first light it would be Valentine's Day.
Only one person had ever drawn her a cat, and he'd been an ocean away for five years. She had long since stopped doing the time-zone math.
Three and a half hours. Three suspects.
She lifted her eyes to the floor, and someone in the crowd lifted theirs back.
✦
Benny ran lights. Six-four, soft-spoken, the man who kept her booth lamp the exact pink of the inside of a seashell because she'd mentioned once, in November, that she liked it. During long sets he folded gum wrappers into tiny stars and lined them along his desk.
She drifted past on the next long blend. Twelve stars, all silver foil. His fingers smelled of spearmint and gaffer tape, nothing like newsprint. He went red to the tips of his ears when she smiled, which was either a clue or simply Benny.
Odette ran the whole series. She'd come home from two weeks in Lisbon with a sunburned nose and a box of custard tarts. When Isla held up the magenta cat, Odette's eyebrows rose.
"Portuguese." She tapped a word on the tail. "That's a Lisbon tram timetable. Someone in this building is completely gone on you, babe. My new coat-check guy speaks Portuguese, my door girl speaks four languages, and I just flew home with a suitcase full of Lisbon. Good luck."
Lisbon. Isla pressed the fold until it went soft. Plenty of people went to Lisbon. Odette had just been to Lisbon.
And then there was Coco.
Every Saturday, front left, cheek almost on the speaker, Coco danced eyes-closed in a knit beanie with two felt cat ears and blew Isla a kiss at every drop. Cat ears. Paper cats. Isla had spent all of January trying not to find that interesting.
At 3:52, mid-blend, she glanced up from the mixer, and Coco was at the edge of the booth, reaching in.
Something pale was cupped in her hand.
✦
Isla caught her wrist before she'd decided to move.
Coco yelped, then laughed so hard her felt ears wobbled. In her palm sat a fourth cat, white, folded tighter than the rest.
"Oh, honey. You thought—" She fanned her face. "I'm marrying a woman named Simone in May. I'm the mail carrier. A guy downstairs hands me one each week to slip in during your long track. He said you'd want to work it out yourself."
"What guy?"
"Coat check. Beard, hood up, folds jackets like napkins at a fancy restaurant." She closed Isla's fingers over the cat. "He said, tell her the third verse is on the roof."
The kick drum kept going. Isla's hands did not.
Inside the white cat, in pencil that leaned left the way it always had, sat a chord chart. F minor, D-flat, A-flat, E-flat. She knew those chords in her wrists. Four kids, a borrowed keyboard, a van that smelled of hot vinyl seats and orange peel, two summers of backyard shows. A band called Sunstripe, and a song they never finished, because Ezra flew to Lisbon for a three-month session gig and called from a tram stop to say three months was turning into a while.
DJs came up the freight elevator. She had never once walked past coat check.
She was down five flights before the long track ended. The coat-check window was dark. A volunteer with glitter on her cheekbones looked up.
"The beard?" She shrugged. "Clocked out at four."
The clock over the door said 4:03.
✦
At 5:40 the roof was forty-seven degrees and smelled of wet tar and river wind. The crew had rigged the decks on road cases beside the water tower, and a hundred dancers in hoodies and blankets faced east, the San Gabriel Mountains dark and snow-capped along the northern sky.
Isla played. Rolling bass, warm piano chords, a vocal looping one word she couldn't hear over her own pulse. Her eyes kept leaving the jog wheel. Benny by the stair door. Odette in a blanket. Coco swaying, ears up. No beard. No hood.
The sky went cobalt. Then violet. Then a seam of magenta opened along the eastern hills, and she looked down at the four cats beside the mixer, cobalt, violet, magenta, white, and saw the sunrise folded in order.
One track left. From the headphone case she drew a USB worn shiny at the corners: the Sunstripe demo, the only thing they ever recorded. Piano. Ezra's guitar. Her own twenty-two-year-old voice, verse one, verse two, and then the place where the song always stopped, in a long hiss of tape.
The sun cleared the hills, white.
The hiss went on. Then, from the shadow of the water tower, someone sang into it.
✦
Low, unhurried, rough from the cold: a third verse she had never heard, about a van window and a stripe of sun and a girl asleep in it.
He looked older. A beard, a thin jacket, cheekbones the Lisbon sun had worked on for five years. Over his arm hung something long and soft, a swirl of cobalt, violet, magenta and white.
"Your hands are ice," Ezra said, which was none of the things she'd imagined him saying, and he swung the cloak around her shoulders.
The fleece closed around her, warm all the way down. In the gold light the cloak bloomed with cats: tabbies on hearts, a blue one among roses, black ones at the hem.
"Two hundred and sixty," he said. "One cat a week. They're in a shoebox in Lisbon. These are the four I was brave enough to bring." He swallowed. "You never asked about the logo."
"Your doodle. On every flyer."
"You," he said. "Asleep on the amp cases every drive, curled up in the one stripe of sun through the van window. I drew you for two years, Isla. You never noticed."
She sat down hard on the edge of a road case. Behind her the demo looped back to the top, her young voice singing into the sunrise, and a hundred strangers on a rooftop raised their arms to a song nobody had ever played for a crowd.
The roof emptied one hoodie at a time, until only the two of them were left with the water tower and the pink mountains.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and his fingertips were cold enough to make her gasp. She caught his hand and slid it inside the cloak, to the warm curve of her waist, and watched his eyes go dark.
He stopped an inch from her mouth. "Tell me where this goes," he said. "I'll follow."
"Downstairs. With me. Right now." And she kissed him first.
He tasted of cold air and orange peel. The hood fell back. Below them the city lit up window by window, and she towed him to the freight elevator by the front of his jacket, laughing against his collar.
The gate rattled shut, and the old cage began its slow sink through the building, her cloak catching the last gold from the roof, cobalt and violet and magenta and white, a whole sunrise carried down between them.
It took the elevator a very long time to reach the ground.
The cloak from the water tower
Ezra's sunrise gift is the Valentine Day Cats women's festival cloak ($250) from Magus Fawn: orange tabbies, a blue cat and little black cats curled among hearts and red roses, all riding a swirl of cobalt, violet, magenta and white that moves like the sky over the San Gabriels at 6:40 a.m. Counting the cats is between you and whoever you're dancing with.
Cloak: micro-mink outer · ultra-soft fluffy microfiber fleece lining in black or white faux fur · listed fabric weight 200 g/m² · double front zipper · heavy drawstrings · four pockets (two interior stash pockets, one zippered, plus two deep side pockets) · unisex fit, XS–5XL.
More for the long night and the rooftop after: women's cloaks · men's cloaks · hooded blankets, cat-ear hoods included
What do you wear to a Valentine's Day rave?
For a Valentine's Day rave, wear something colorful that moves for the dance floor, plus a warm hooded layer for the night outside. In Los Angeles in February, loft parties run hot while rooftops drop into the 40s °F by dawn, so a zip-front festival cloak over a light outfit carries you from the first track to sunrise.
- The house music dress code: groovy, colorful and relaxed. Think pattern-mixed sets, wide-brim or bucket hats, and crushed velvet once the sun drops. House crowds dance in loose circles around their friends, so pick pieces that swing.
- A rave outfit for a date: let one color tie the two of you together, say a cobalt top under a cloak that carries cobalt, instead of full matching sets. It reads as a couple without looking like a costume.
- Loft and rooftop climate: a loft party runs warm on the floor and cool by the windows, and a rooftop at dawn catches the wind. A double front zipper opens for the dance floor and closes for the sunrise set, and deep pockets hold phone, keys and earplugs.
- Know the room: loft and warehouse parties often drop the address a few hours before doors through RA, Dice or the collective's own site, keep the floor phone-free and dance until dawn.
Desert Hearts' City Hearts has brought its house and techno to downtown Los Angeles since 2017, including editions at Father Serra Park; HARD Summer fills Hollywood Park in Inglewood with house and techno in early August, on nights around 65°F; and Day Trip sets house and techno beside the Queen Mary in Long Beach in late June, with marine-layer nights in the 60s.
Frequently asked questions
Is it cold in Los Angeles at night in February?
Cooler than most visitors expect. Downtown Los Angeles nights in February usually settle into the upper 40s to low 50s °F, and rooftops and open lots feel cooler still once the wind moves off the river and the mountains. Pack a warm hooded layer for any party that runs to sunrise, and something lighter underneath for dancing.
Is a festival cloak a good Valentine's Day gift?
Yes, for anyone who dances outdoors after dark. A Magus Fawn festival cloak is made to order with an ultra-soft faux-fur fleece lining, a double front zipper and four pockets, in unisex sizes XS–5XL. Production takes 7–11 business days and delivery takes 6–14 business days, so order about five weeks before February 14.
What to wear to a rooftop party at night?
Dress for two climates: a breathable outfit for dancing and a warm outer layer for the wind and the pre-dawn chill. Rooftops lose heat fast after midnight, so a hooded cloak or a heavy hoodie beats a thin jacket. Flat, grippy shoes suit stairs and roof decks, and deep pockets keep your hands free for the music.
Written by Magus & Lylyth Fawn, the Los Angeles artists behind Magus Fawn. Magus makes VR and digital visionary art and produces Psy EDM. Lylyth makes fractal digital art and runs design and customer care. We've been selling wearable art since 2020 on Etsy (4.7★ from 144 reviews as of October 2026) and here at magusfawn.com. Come say hi on Instagram @magusfawn.
0 comments