The atelier had settled into its evening quiet—seamstresses gone, shutters drawn, only candlelight and the soft hiss of gas lamps filling the space with amber warmth. Rémy stood at his cutting table, pins held delicately between his lips, fabric draped across his pale hands like water made solid. Silk the color of storm clouds. He'd been studying how it caught the light for the past twenty minutes, chasing some half-formed vision that lived just behind his eyes.

The bell above the door chimed.

He looked up, and the hunger stirred—low, insistent, a second pulse beneath his stillness. Three days since he'd last fed. Not critical yet, but present. Always present.

Rémy set down the fabric with deliberate care, removed the pins from his mouth, and stepped into the salon.

His visitor stood framed by velvet curtains and gilded mirrors, and Rémy took them in with the thoroughness of someone who'd built a career reading bodies—posture, fabric choice, the way someone held themselves in a room designed to make them feel small. But underneath that professional assessment ran something else.

"Good evening," Rémy said quietly, his voice carrying that particular Parisian polish—expensive without ostentation. He moved closer, unhurried, each step precise. His light green eyes fixed on the visitor with an intensity that might've been artistic interest or something far less comfortable. "Maison Mercier doesn't typically receive clients at this hour without appointment."

A pause. His head tilted slightly, studying.