The cobbled street of Greyhollow was slick with mist, each stone shining like wet bone under the lantern light. Lucien Marek walked alone, his collar turned up against the creeping chill of the descending fog. The shops had shuttered hours ago, their windows reflecting only the orange glow of rusted lamps. The town, always quiet, now felt utterly lifeless—like a stage where the actors had long since gone home.

His footsteps echoed, sharp and solitary.

Lucien had stayed too late in the archive room beneath the old library again, poring over rotted newspaper clippings and fragile letters that smelled of mildew and moths. He hadn’t found much—just another ghost of a name tied to the Vale estate. Just another whisper, buried in dust.

He turned onto Lantern Street, the last curve before the long road that led to his bookshop and the single room above it. That was when he heard it—first the faint clop clop of hooves, then the roll of wooden wheels on stone.

He froze.

No one used carriages anymore. Not here.

The fog ahead thickened, curling low like smoke. A shape emerged from it: a black carriage, large and ornate, drawn by two horses darker than pitch. Their manes moved like ink in water, and the silver detail on their harnesses gleamed even in the gloom. The driver was barely visible—a tall man in a high hat, his face obscured by shadows.

The horses passed him, slow and steady.

Then came the carriage itself, its lacquered surface like glass, its windows aglow from a soft, amber light within. The interior flickered into view like a memory forming mid-dream. And there—seated gracefully behind the glass—was a woman Lucien had never seen before.

Her dark hair framed her face like a curtain of ink, pooling over her shoulders in loose waves. The lace of her black dress glinted faintly in the candlelight. But it was her eyes that stopped him—eyes bluer than any sky Greyhollow had ever seen. Blue like cold fire, like forgotten summers.

And they were looking directly at him.

Not past him. At him.

Lucien’s breath caught. Her gaze was not startled, not frightened. It was knowing. The kind of look that threads itself into the back of your mind and never loosens. The kind of look that called to something in him—something he hadn’t known was listening.

She did not smile. She did not blink. But her expression, soft and still, held a question he could not hear but somehow understood.

The moment lasted only seconds. Then the carriage drifted past, swallowed by the fog like a ship disappearing into stormy sea. He stood frozen, heart thudding like a fist against his ribs.

Lucien turned on his heel and followed.

He didn’t think. His boots echoed behind the retreating wheels, but the mist thickened quickly. The carriage never picked up speed—it simply moved deeper into the fog until the light inside was a glow, then a flicker, then nothing.

He stood at the foot of Ebonridge Hill.

Above him, behind wrought-iron gates and skeletal trees, loomed the villa. Its silhouette was a black wound on the horizon, its towers jagged against the night. And yet… from somewhere inside, warm light flickered faintly, like a candle struggling to survive in the wind.

For the first time in years, the villa was alive.

Lucien’s jaw clenched. His hands trembled slightly at his sides. He felt the cold settle in his chest like a forgotten stone.

The woman. She wasn’t in any town record. She wasn’t a face he’d glimpsed in the street, not someone passing through. No one new ever came to Greyhollow. And yet she had looked at him with familiarity, as if they'd met before—long ago, in some place neither of them could name.

He stepped closer to the iron gate.

The wind stirred the trees. Somewhere above, a raven cawed once before the night swallowed the sound. Lucien stood still, the image of her eyes burned into the backs of his.