Theo burst through the library doors without knocking—something he did often, and with great flair.
"We're going out," he declared.
Caelen didn't lift his gaze from the book in his hands. "No."
Alec, seated across the room with a decanter of dark red in hand, raised a brow. "Out where?"
Theo grinned, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. "The bar down by Grayson Street. The one with the awful lighting and surprisingly decent jazz."
Cassian, who had been half-asleep on the velvet chaise, cracked one eye open. "We're going drinking?"
"Yes!" Theo clapped his hands once. "Exactly. You're catching on."
Caelen finally looked up. "Why?"
Theo gave a long-suffering sigh and paced the room like a man delivering a monologue. "Because this place has been a brooding pit of doom for the past week, and I, for one, refuse to let the weight of ancient existential dread smother me before my third cocktail."
Cassian sat up, already intrigued. "Sounds like an excellent plan."
Alec said nothing but began pouring another glass—noncommittal, which usually meant he'd show up anyway.
Caelen stared at them all, expression unreadable. "I'm not interested."
"You never are," Theo said, unbothered. "But tonight, you're coming. Even statues need to stretch their legs once every two centuries."
Caelen didn't reply, but something in the silence said he was considering it. Maybe it was the dreams. Maybe it was the unbearable feeling that something unseen had started to unravel. Either way, the quiet inside the house was pressing in on him, and Theo—as irritating as he could be,was rarely wrong about the energy in a room.
"I'll drive," Alec said flatly, standing.
"Excellent!" Theo tossed Cassian his coat and turned to Caelen with a smug grin. "You too, old soul. Pretend you're human for a few hours, Don't forget to conceal that..." he said pointing at his eyes. "You don't wanna scare those poor souls".
Caelen stood, slow and deliberate. He said nothing, just shrugged on his coat and moved past them toward the door.
He didn't know that fate was already waiting.
*********
The bar was dim and cozy, its lighting the color of warm honey, though it always buzzed just a little too loud on Thursday nights. Ariadne sat at her usual spot near the end of the counter, her fingers curled around a chipped mug of house coffee she hadn't paid for—courtesy of Jasper, the bartender who had long stopped asking questions.
He glanced over at her now, wiping down a glass. "Still looking for your ghost?"
She smiled faintly, eyes fixed on the door. "He's not a ghost."
"You sure he was real?"
She didn't look away from the door. "I didn't imagine him."
"That's what you said last week. And the week before."
"And I'll say it again next week if I have to."
There was no bitterness in her tone, just quiet conviction,the kind people stopped questioning after a while.
She came here every night she could afford to take the long walk. Which was most nights, since the coffee was cheap and the rent was overdue and the city never slept quietly. She clung to the fading image of him—tall, mismatched eyes, out of place like a dream bleeding into reality. The man,full of mystery invading her mind.
The one from her dreams.
Ariadne glanced at the entrance again, her heart aching with hope she barely admitted to herself anymore.
"Jas?" she asked.
"Hm?"
"If someone… wasn't meant to be found in a normal way,how would you find them?"
Jasper chuckled. "Sounds like the start of a love poem. Or a bad idea."
She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
Then the door creaked open.
Four men stepped in—two laughing, one quiet, and the last…
Her breath caught.
Him.
The dream pulled from the shadows.
It was him, striding in behind the others. Same face. Same presence. Only his eyes... they were wrong. Not mismatched, not wild as she remembered, different—more ordinary but in her bones, she knew. It was him."
She didn't move. Couldn't.
Jasper said something she didn't hear. The bar blurred around her.
After all this time, after all the doubt and nights chasing ghosts.
He was here.
********
The bar was warm, cramped, and already buzzing with idle thoughts—humans always thought too loudly. Caelen stepped in last, his senses recoiling slightly from the noise and scent of too many bodies in one space.
He regretted agreeing the moment the door swung shut behind him.
Cassian was already chatting up the bartender, Theo had thrown himself onto a booth like it was a throne, and Alec stood near the wall like a sentinel, arms folded, eyes scanning.
Caelen remained by the entrance.
And then,
A pull.
Subtle, but unmistakable. A ripple in the air, brushing against the edge of his consciousness. It wasn't magic, not exactly. Not a threat either. Just… presence. Familiar in a way that made no sense. Foreign, but intimate. Like a name on the tip of his tongue he'd never learned to say.
His eyes flicked over the room, narrowing.
She was there.
He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.
Amber eyes met his from across the bar. Wide. Disbelieving.
A woman. Young. Worn boots. A coffee mug cradled like armor. Her expression was unreadable—half terror, half awe—but her gaze didn't waver.
Neither did his.
For the first time in centuries, Caelen felt his breath hitch.
This is what's been pulling at me, he realized, something shifting behind his ribs.
But the feeling wasn't comforting—it was maddening. Invasive. The sensation he'd been waking up with for weeks, uninvited and unrelenting, had a face now. A name he didn't yet know. A question he hadn't asked but was already answering itself.
He turned away first.