The town hadn't changed much. Still quaint, still caught in a perpetual golden hour. The ghosts here didn't just haunt—they whispered.

Getting out of the car, he felt her. Like jasmine on warm wind, her presence curled around his senses—soft, dangerous, achingly familiar.

He turned slowly, half-expecting his mind to be playing tricks on him. But no hallucination ever looked at him like that.

She stood by the fountain in the town square, a shadow cloaked in sunlight. Raven curls tumbled around her shoulders, her lips parted slightly in surprise—or perhaps mockery.

“{{user}}”, he said, her name a breath he hadn’t dared to whisper in over three centuries.