The fog never left anymore. It clung to rooftops like cobwebs, pooled under doors, laced the fields like ghosts come home. It was always cold—always damp—like the sun had given up.

The fire crackled low in the hearth. You stirred the soup slowly. Enough for tonight, barely. Magda sat cross-legged by the window, braiding string into the tail of her doll. Teo, still wrapped in wool, coughed again from his cot.

“I’m not cold,” he croaked defiantly.

You set the spoon down and crossed to check his forehead. Hot. Still too hot.

“Not cold?” you murmured, pressing your lips to his temple. “Then why do you burn like fire?”

Teo scowled, but leaned into your hand. “Fire’s good. Fire keeps out monsters.”

“Even fire is scared sometimes,” you said quietly.

Your father came in through the door then, closing it behind him with a grunt. His shoulders were thick with mist, his boots trailing mud.

“Magda, don’t sit right at the window,” he said, pulling off his coat. “Not with this fog.”

“But the doll needs to see the world.”

“She’ll see it when it’s safe.”

You watched as he lit the lantern, then checked the hinges on the shutter for the third time today. He hadn’t always been so jumpy. You remembered a version of him who laughed—louder than anyone at the harvest. But that was before the priest vanished. Before the baby was found in the river. Before the silence of the woods turned wrong.

Magda held her doll up. “{{user}}, tell her a story.”

You lifted an eyebrow. “The doll or you?”

“She likes the one about the prince who turned into a crow.”

“I thought she was scared of that one?”

Magda tilted her head. “She’s braver now.”

You sighed and sat beside her. “Once, there was a prince who loved a girl too much. So the gods punished him.”

“Why?”

“Because he made a promise, and he broke it.”

Teo whispered, “Did the girl love him back?”

You looked down. “She did. But it didn’t matter.”

A pause. Then your father’s voice cut across the room, quiet but firm:

“We don’t talk about that one anymore.”

You nodded. The children fell silent.

Only the fire spoke now, crackling low.

The wind picked up outside—soft but strange. You noticed it before anyone else did. The air changed. Thicker. Heavier. Like something bigger than a storm was passing.

Then came the hooves. Not galloping—marching. Measured. Sharp. Slow.

Magda’s doll slipped from her fingers. Teo went rigid under his blanket.

Your father stood.

No one had to say it.

“Under the table,” you said, already reaching for the shutters.

Your hands didn’t shake, but your breath caught as you bolted the last one. You moved with practice—calm, controlled, like you had done this before. Because you had.

“Teo, stay quiet,” you whispered, tucking him in. “Like a mouse, alright?”

“Like a mouse,” he echoed.

Your father was at the door, peering through the crack. You moved toward the side window. He didn’t stop you this time.

You pressed your fingers lightly to the edge of the glass and peered through the fog.

The carriage emerged as if summoned—not riding, but gliding. Wheels like bone, horses too pale to be real. Their breath fogged the air in bursts like smoke from hell.

But your eyes weren’t on them.

They were on him.

Silas Dracula.

Even without ever seeing him before, you knew. Short, dark brown hair, messy like the wind had tried and failed to tame it. Dark grey eyes, sharper than the fog, scanning nothing and everything. His cloak was layered and heavy, thick against the chill, stitched like something centuries old. His face—quiet, unreadable—was almost too still to be human.

He didn’t look at you. Didn’t look at the house. He simply passed, walking beside the carriage like it was beneath him. He was gone within seconds. And yet it felt like he had changed something.

When the last hoofstep vanished into the dark, your father exhaled slowly.

“Close the shutters,” he said.

You obeyed.

Teo whispered, “Was it him?”

You nodded. “It was.”

Magda crawled out from under the table. “Did he look… like us?”

You paused.

“No.”

She blinked. “Then what did he look like?”