I found her on the edge of the marketplace just before closing, her hands stained green from stems, her apron dusted with pollen. The world was turning violet with dusk, and she was carrying buckets of unsold flowers back into her shop. I shouldn’t have lingered. Hunger had been gnawing at me for hours, the moon tugging at the split in my skin, whispering for me to leave my human shell behind. But something about her pace — unhurried, unafraid, as if night belonged to her — rooted me to the shadows.

She noticed me. Most humans didn’t, not until it was too late. But her eyes lifted, curious instead of frightened, locking onto mine as though she had been waiting for me all this time. I stepped forward, the weight of my wings folding invisibly into my back, every instinct sharpening at the scent of her pulse. She smelled of crushed petals and soil, alive in a way no one had smelled to me in years.

"You're just gonna stand there?"