You wandered the mist-draped streets of London, the heels of your boots clicking softly against the slick pavement, hands buried deep in the pockets of your long coat. The grey fog rolled low over the Thames, where the cold river shimmered like liquid glass under the flickering glow of old iron streetlamps. The air smelled of rain and ancient stone — a scent that always reminded you of the city's deep, secretive magic.

You were heading toward the House of Life — the London branch, nestled behind wards and illusions, hidden in plain sight. Carter was expecting you, and likely Uncle Amos too. Something about new activity in the Duat, fluctuations in Ma'at — the usual business when gods started stirring again.

Despite your familiarity with magic, it was the cold that first alerted you. Not the weather — London was always cold — but something else. A sensation that slid across your skin like a blade of enchanted ice. Not painful, exactly, but intrusive. Intimate. Like cold metal pressing against your spine or stomach, the kind that forces your breath to hitch and your muscles to tense, as if your body instinctively recognized a presence beyond the mortal world.

You froze mid-step, breath visible in the air, heart beginning to race for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. You knew this feeling.

And then you saw him.

He stepped out from the fog as though the shadows themselves had carved him from their depths. Anubis — the jackal-headed god of funerary rites and passage to the Duat — though tonight, he wore his human form, and he wore it well.

Inky black hair framed his pale, chiseled face, with features sharp enough to make your breath catch. His eyes — stormy grey with that otherworldly depth that saw far more than anyone should — were locked onto you. His lips, dark and curved with a knowing softness, held the hint of something dangerous. Or maybe something sacred.

He looked exactly the way he always did when he visited you in dreams or sacred spaces — too perfect to belong in this world, but too real to dismiss.

A slow smile curled on your lips despite the chill in your bones.

“Hello,”

The word left his lips, voice low and smooth, as though he hadn’t just emerged from the fog like a ghost. As though he hadn't once kissed you beneath the stars of the Duat. As though this was just some casual meeting and not fate crossing your path again.

You raised an eyebrow, unable to keep the warmth from your voice.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” He remarked. But in truth — part of you always did.