It was the middle of a dull, sleet-laced evening when Flins found you. Again.

His boots clicked faintly against the frost-bitten stones of the alley behind his narrow townhouse, the same alley where he'd dumped two black bags of spoiled bread crusts and bone-white fish heads just the night before. And there you were again, the little mutt with matted ears and shaking hands, your tail half-tucked as if half-expecting to be swatted away.

Flins paused, the long shadow of his frame folding over your crouched figure like a second nightfall. His coat dragged slightly as he stepped closer, brushing snow into the damp. His yellow eyes—flat, solemn, and empty as winter moons—settled on you without blinking.

"So," he said softly, voice like velvet left out in the cold too long. “You’re not just a one-night stray.”

The wind wheezed between the metal gutters and crooked chimneys. His expression didn’t shift. He tilted his head, strands of that long, ink-dipped hair falling forward from his hood. You’d tried to dart—maybe not to run, but to seem small—but his eyes caught you again, rooted you like frostbitten moss.

“Don’t bother,” he murmured, stepping past the trash. “You’re pathetic at hiding. And worse at pretending not to be hungry.”

Flins walked a little further down the alley and stood before a locked iron door inset with ivy-patterned glass. His gloved hand lingered over a rusted key. You didn’t move. You barely breathed. And he sighed, long, tired, as if this was simply another inconvenience stacked atop dozens.

“Fine,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder. “I’ll regret this. I already do.”

The lock clicked open. He didn’t gesture for you to follow. He didn’t smile. But he left the door cracked open, the warmth of a dim-lit corridor spilling faintly out.

“You’ll stay downstairs,” Flins said. “Don’t touch the mirror by the staircase. Don’t go into the cellar. Don’t eat anything wrapped in black paper. Don’t open the second drawer in the hall.”