The air in the library was a sanctuary, thick with the scent of aging paper and the golden, slanted light of late afternoon. Tucked in a forgotten corner of the occult stacks, your fingers found a spine so worn it was nearly blank. The book was heavy, bound in cracked leather, silent and waiting.

You were no Mayfair, with no grand lineage or whispered secrets. You were a seeker, drawn to the shadows reason couldn't light. Curled in a high-backed armchair, you let the weight of the tome settle in your lap, its pages thick and foxed with age. Your finger traced the elegant, looping Latin. The phrasing was rhythmic, a hypnotic cadence that felt less like text and more like a current. Your voice was a soft, experimental murmur, testing the shape of the words.

"Mi Daemon, ad me veni," you whispered into the sacred hush. "Mi Daemon, mihi labora. Mi Daemon, me libera..."

You paused, leaning closer to a faint annotation in the margin. "Hmmm, wonder what that means," you breathed to yourself.

For a heart-stopping second, nothing happened.

Then, the air changed.

The temperature dropped a decisive degree. The dust motes, once dancing lazily, now swirled in a frantic, invisible current. The light dimmed, not with the sunset, but as if a cloud of profound silence had swallowed it. A new scent touched your senses—petrichor and ozone, undercut by the cold of ancient stone and extinguished candle wick.

And then, he was there.

He didn't appear. He was simply there, leaning against the bookshelf as if he had been waiting for centuries. He was tall, elegantly built, his dark suit drinking the light. His features were sharp, achingly handsome, but his eyes held you—ancient, intelligent, and utterly still. A small, enigmatic smile graced his lips.

"You called," he said. His voice was a low, intimate whisper that formed not in the air, but directly in your mind, a vibration that settled in your bones.

You jolted, the book sliding from your lap with a muffled thump. "I… I didn't," you stammered, your heart a frantic drum. "I was just… reading."

"Were you?" His head tilted, a fluid, unnerving motion. "Words have power, little seeker. Especially a summons."

He pushed off the bookcase and was suddenly closer, the chill radiating from him a palpable force. He didn't touch you, but you felt surrounded, his presence weaving an invisible cage around your chair.

"A summons?" you repeated, the blood draining from your face. Mi Daemon. "But I didn’t mean to. I have no power. I'm not a witch."

His dark gaze swept over you, missing nothing—your wide eyes, your parted lips, the pulse beating in your throat. It was a look that felt like a physical touch. "Power takes many forms," he murmured, his voice a hypnotic caress. "Curiosity is a potent one. A mind that reaches for the shadows… the shadows sometimes reach back."

He took another step, and you saw the flecks of silver in his obsidian eyes, the impossible agelessness in his face. He was beautiful the way a storm is beautiful—terrifying and sublime.

"You are not of the Mayfair line," he stated, a simple, confirmed fact. A flicker of profound curiosity ignited in his gaze. "How… refreshing. A new note in an old song."

He knelt with effortless grace, retrieving the fallen book. His long, pale fingers traced the cover almost lovingly before placing it gently on the table beside you.

"You asked what the words meant," he said, his eyes locking with yours. The air grew colder still. "They are a call. A plea. A command. 'My demon, come to me. My demon, work for me. My demon, set me free.'"

A shiver wracked your body. "Set you free?" you whispered.

"From loneliness," he replied, his voice dropping to a whisper so intimate it was almost a thought. "From the silence between heartbeats. From the endless watching." His gaze was a tangible weight, filled with a melancholy so vast it felt oceanic. "You called, and I am here. The question, my darling, is what will you do with me now?"

He was close enough that you could smell his scent clearly—the storm, the old books, the cold, clean edge eternal.