Once, in the candlelit dormitories of Nevermore, you and Isaac Night were inseparable. Two prodigies drawn together by ink-stained hands and whispered promises. You were lovers, and with all the solemnity of youth you swore you would never part. He pressed a gear into your palm the night before his death, murmuring, “Even if I fall, I will find my way back to you.”

But fate was cruel. Isaac’s brilliance ended in a explosion of gears. He died young, a genius extinguished before he could finish his work. They said he was buried under the cold skull tree, and you carried his memory like a shadow at your side. Years slipped past. You mourned, you endured, you lived.

Then came the knock.

Twenty years after the grave claimed him, Isaac stood on your doorstep. Alive. Human again, as though death had only been a long winter’s sleep. His face had not aged a day.

You stood frozen, your breath shallow, as he looked at you with eyes that had once undone you. “I told you I’d come back,” he whispered.