As he approached, I noticed other details. The coat wasn’t just heavy, it was oddly shaped, as if accommodating something bulky underneath. The hat seemed to sit strangely on his head, not quite fitting right. And his hands—what I could see of them extending from his coat sleeves—were large and… different somehow, though I couldn’t immediately place why.
A chill ran down my spine, accompanied by a sudden, inexplicable certainty. He was not what I had expected. Not areclusive genius, not a quiet craftsman, not even a mysterious stranger with a tragic backstory.
He was something else entirely.
He stopped at my table, looming above me like a small mountain. Up close, the shadows beneath his hat obscured his features, but I caught a glimpse of unusual eyes—dark and deep-set, with an intensity that made my breath hitch.
“Clara Bellweather?” His voice was low, resonant, with an unusual timbre that seemed to vibrate in my chest.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“I am Rion.”
He slid into the booth across from me, the structure creaking slightly under his weight. The table between us suddenly seemed very small and very fragile.
As he adjusted his position, his hat shifted slightly, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw something curved and solid protruding from beneath the brim. Something that shouldn’t be there. Something impossible.
The rational part of my brain immediately dismissed it. A trick of the light. An unusual hairstyle. A figment of my overactive imagination.
But a deeper, more primal part of me recognized what I’d seen, and sent a single, clear message racing through my body:
This is not a human being.
The thought should have been absurd. Supernatural beings might exist but they didn’t come strolling into a Willowbrookcafé on a weeknight. They belonged in my library’s mythology section, in the books I carefully curate and display.
Yet as I sat across from this massive figure, watching how carefully he positioned himself to avoid bumping the table and observing the unnatural way his coat settled over his form, that certainty grew stronger.
There was something ancient about his presence. Something that made the café, with its modern furnishings and trendy playlist, seem suddenly flimsy and ephemeral. As if he belonged to a different world, a different time, and was merely visiting this one temporarily.
I realized I’d been staring silently for far too long.I should say something. Anything. Start the conversation about ladders. Pretend everything is normal.
But my mouth had gone dry, and the only thought circling through my mind was decidedly not about library furniture:
What exactly is sitting across from me?
CHAPTER SEVEN
He is not a human being.
The thought circled in my head like a shark, predatory and impossible to ignore. I sat frozen, my chai latte forgotten, as Rion settled his massive form into the booth across from me.
“You have the ladder specifications?” His voice rumbled, deep and resonant, with an unusual accent I couldn’t quite place—something ancient beneath modern English.
“I—yes. Yes, I do.” My own voice sounded distant, as if someone else was speaking. I fumbled with the folder on the table, nearly knocking over my drink in the process. “They’re right here.”
As I pushed the folder across the table, his massive hand reached for it, and I noticed what had seemed off before. His fingers were thicker than human proportions would allow, ending in neatly trimmed but unmistakably claw-like nails. Not grotesque, but decidedly not human.
My eyes darted upwards, seeking his face beneath the shadow of his hat. The café’s dim lighting worked in his favor, obscuringdetails, but I could make out a strong jawline and what appeared to be unusually textured skin.
I leaned forward slightly, curiosity momentarily overriding fear.
That’s when it happened.
As Rion bent to examine my diagrams, the wide-brimmed hat shifted. Just an inch. Just enough.
The unmistakable curve of a horn emerged from the shadow—polished, amber-brown, arching upwards from his forehead with deliberate, elegant purpose.
I blinked, certain I was hallucinating. But when I opened my eyes, not only was the first horn still visible, but the hat had slipped further, revealing its twin on the other side.
