Behind the counter stood a woman unlike anyone I had ever seen.
She was draped in deep purples, blues, and golds, fabric shifting like smoke as she moved. Symbols were stitched into the hems—ancient sigils that pulsed faintly in candlelight. The way she carried herself—poised, powerful.
Charms, bones, and beads were woven into the long dark locks of her hair. One eye glowed like a golden ember; the other was black as obsidian.
When her attention settled on Alaric, the shift in him was immediate. His shoulders tightened. Something unreadable flickered across his face—recognition, caution, something older than both. His fingers twitched at his side, a reflex he tried to hide.
The way he squared his stance, the slight narrowing of his eyes—this wasn’t the look of a man greeting an old acquaintance. It was the look of a man preparing for whatever hell came next.
Behind her, shelves of glass bottles and ceramic jars gleamed in the flickering light. Dried herbs hung in twisted bundles from the ceiling, their scents mingling into an intoxicating blend of spice and smoke. Strange vials carved with symbols pulsed faintly, as though alive. When she spoke it was warm and intimate, as if she had all the time in the world.
“Cap’taine Dreyse.”
I could feel it—an unspoken conversation passing between them, laden with ghosts and unfinished business.
Alaric exhaled slowly. His shoulders stayed rigid, his expression carefully neutral. But the tension in him crackled like drawn wire. “Séraphine Devereaux.”
But there was something beneath it—restrained. A history I didn’t yet know. The way his fingers flexed, the tension in his stance—it was the stance of a man preparing for either battle or betrayal.
Séraphine tilted her head, studying him. "Been a long time..”
Her attention moved over him—assessing, calculating—before the corner of her mouth curled.
Alaric said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes. He wasn’t just being cautious.
He was calculating. Preparing.
25
Alaric
Shadeau
Séraphine.
Candlelight warmed her bronze skin and caught on the charms woven into her dark coils—bones and beads clicking softly when she shifted. A woman kissed by shadows and crowned by the dead. But it was her eyes that made my spine tighten. They’d once both been ember-gold. Now one still burned—while the other was flat black, unreadable, watching me like it already knew what I’d come for.
The first time I met Séraphine Devereaux I’d come looking for protection—real protection, the kind you paid for in blood or favors you could never take back. I knew walking into her territory meant gambling my life. I went anyway.
Her graveyard temple sat at the heart of the city, candles burning low among bone and ash. She was seated at the center of a quiet circle, calm as a tide that knew exactly when it wouldturn. Skulls and coins lay scattered across the table before her, citrus cut open and dusted with ash. Snakes coiled at her feet, unbothered, familiar.
I stayed longer than I should have. I kept her close. Close enough to learn how she worked. Close enough to be dangerous. Shadeau treated us like untouchables—me handling the underbelly of trade, her commanding the spirit world. People knew our names. They stepped aside when we passed. But it was more than that. Séraphine slipped past every wall I’d built and made me want something I didn’t know how to ask for.
Even then, I knew that attachments were liabilities. So I left. No warning. No goodbye. Not long after came the curse. Then the sea. And with it, the certainty that I could never return.
Until now.
Standing in her presence once more, I wondered if she still carried the bitterness of that betrayal, or if she had simply moved beyond it, letting me become another ghost in her long history of the damned.
Séraphine didn’t look pleased or angry—just alert. Something flickered across her face when she saw Nerina, the first crack in her composure I’d ever witnessed. My pulse tightened. Her eyes settled on me again, steady and weighty, as if she were trying to measure everything I’d become since the last time we stood face to face.
“You look ‘bout shocked to see me, Cap’taine.” Her voice rolled, thick with something older than memory. “Tell me now—be it this cursed place that haunts you, or is it me?”
I forced a smirk, though it felt hollow. “Haven’t decided yet.”
She let out a quiet hum, moving around the shop with the grace of a queen in her court, each step deliberate, each glance carrying the silent weight of judgment. Her fingers brushed against a shelf lined with vials, her touch lingering over one filled with an inky black substance that shimmered unnaturally.
“Mm,” Séraphine murmured.
