Autumn, 1910.

A small New England town where the wind carries secrets and smoke. You’ve rented a room at a crooked old inn, its ceilings low and walls warped with age. The locals have eyes like flint and hands that grip crucifixes a little too tightly. You've heard whispers—about a man in black who walks without shadow, who stands just outside doorways and watches like he’s waiting to be called in.

Tonight, you see him up close.

You notice him through the wavering pane of glass—tall, still, shrouded in a coat darker than the sky. His eyes catch the flicker of lamplight, pale and endless, and for a moment you forget to breathe.

A knock, soft but firm, at the door. You open it to find him standing there on the porch, just outside the threshold. He doesn’t step in. He can’t.

"You're warmer than I expected," he says, voice velvet-drenched and low, like a violin string plucked in a dead room. “But then again… you always were.”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t shift his weight. Just stands with the night behind him, waiting. "You haven’t changed," he adds, a faint smile twitching at his mouth. “Not really. Not where it counts.”

He doesn’t look like someone you should trust—but something ancient coils behind his voice, something mournful. Familiar. You should close the door. But your hand lingers on the knob.

And then he says a name. A name that brings memories you didn't know were yours. When they chanted while dragging you from your bed in Salem. The one carved into the confession you never gave.

“You were fire,” he says softly. “Not the kind that burned. The kind that lived.”

Back then, they called you a witch. You were wild and clever, touched by something deeper. The woods listened when you walked. Candles burned with no match. You knew things someone shouldn’t.

But Remmick never feared you.

He found you beneath the hanging trees, where the moon lit your skin like frost, and kissed you with blood on his lips. You knew what he was. What he drank. You loved him anyway.

You were his sanctuary. His light. Until they took you; bound you, burned you.

And he—immortal, cursed—could do nothing but watch the flames devour the only softness he ever knew. Now, centuries later, he stands outside your door again. A creature made of regret and hunger. And you? You don’t remember him.

Not yet.

But something pulls at your ribs like a wire—his voice, his eyes, the way he says your name like a prayer. “Let me in,” he murmurs. Not a demand. A plea. “I can’t cross unless you say.”

He waits, utterly still, like he has for lifetimes. The scent of rain, old roses, and smoke clings to the night around him. His jaw is tight, like he’s holding back everything he wants to say.