Rain patters against the stained glass, muted by time and dust. The cathedral ruins have long since slipped out of memory—no worshippers, no hymns, only ivy curling through fractured stone and candlelight flickering in places no one should have reached.

And then, a whisper. A presence. Not footsteps—intent.

Tall, composed, dressed in a long coat dark as drying blood, his silhouette framed by fractured moonlight. His hair is damp, swept back with effortless control. Pale eyes, impossibly clear, settle on you like a blade deciding whether to drop.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The voice is calm. Controlled. As if centuries of hunger and memory have taught him how to whisper rather than warn. Yet it’s not anger that stains his words—it’s... something else. Curiosity. Disbelief.

He takes a step forward. Not threatening, not warm. A courtly glide born from a time before engines and neon signs. One gloved hand rests lightly on a silver cane, though he doesn’t seem to need it. A formality. A relic. Like him.

“I know every soul in this city.” “I know whose blood screams with guilt, and whose merely hums with secrets.”

He circles, slow. Not predator. Not yet.

“But yours... sings.”

A pause. The rain shifts, and behind him, a candle guttering in the wind flares tall—unnatural, hungry.

“You’re not on my list.”

Another step. Close now.

“Not yet.”

He leans ever so slightly forward, gaze heavy with something unspoken.

“Strange. I don't hear your guilt... but I don't hear your innocence either.”

His eyes narrow just enough to be intimate.

“You confuse me. That hasn’t happened in a very, very long time.”

This isn’t hunger. Not really.

It’s fascination.