Page 29 of My Neighbor Literally Bites

I'm in my old library, where the air holds the weight of undisturbed years. The heavy oak doors remain closed, sealing in the quiet that has become my habit. I have honored Hannah's requests for two days now, even as every instinct pulls me toward her. Nathan's shadow lengthens across Briar Glen, hunters prowl, and fragments of Elspeth's old secrets at my ears. Yet I remain here, because forcing myself would only confirm what she already suspects: that I'm just like her ex-husband.

The grandfather clock in the corner has not ticked in years. Its hands rest at a fixed hour, a small mercy I once welcomed. Tonight, the silence presses differently.

A knock echoes through from the main door. I cross into the corridor, my steps muffled on the worn runner. When I open the door, Elias stands on the wide stone steps, his coat cut in an old European style that speaks of another century. His eyes, sharp as polished flint, meet mine without warmth or accusation.

"Alaric," he says. "The town stirs with unwelcome visitors. Draycott being one of them. It's time I came."

I step aside, letting him enter. We move without further greeting into the library. Elias surveys the room—the draped furniture, the books untouched since the last war, the single chair I use. He chooses to stand near the window, fingers tracing the velvet curtain drawn tight against the night.

"Hunters have grown bolder," he says, turning to face me. "But that is not why I crossed three territories before nightfall. I came because I felt the disturbance around you. Not fear. Not grief. Something older waking."

I lean against the desk, arms crossed. "Then you came for nothing. Whatever you felt is mine to manage."

"It is not managing you," Elias says. "It is moving through you like weather through a cracked house."

"Poetic."

"Accurate." His gaze sharpens. "Where is the woman?"

"Where she asked me to leave her. Away from me."

"And still it pulls this hard." Elias's voice lowers. "Then I was right to come."

"She needs space to weigh the truths for herself. Pushing would prove I value my judgment above hers."

He moves to the far shelf, where a small silver frame rests face-down beneath a thin layer of dust. He lifts it and turns it toward the light. The portrait holds a woman with steady eyes and a half-smile that once anchored my world. Her name lingers in memory but stays unspoken between us.

"You have carried this grief for too long," Elias says, setting the frame upright on the shelf. "Loyalty does not require you to become a mausoleum."

"Stop."

"No. You have been careful for ninety years, and look what it has made of you."

The woman in the frame belonged to a life I buried whole. I loved her. I failed her. Those two truths seemed enough to build a prison from.

"Hannah is not her," Elias says.

"I know."

"Do you?" He steps closer. "The first bond you mistook for destiny was grief wearing a crown. This one is different. Rare. Reciprocal, if she ever chooses to meet it. It does not ask you to guard a memory. It asks whether you can stand before a living woman without making her pay for the dead."

The words strike where I have no armor.

Elias continues, mercilessly gentle. "A rare bond does not make her yours. It makes the truth harder to avoid. She remains free. She must remain free, or the bond curdles into possession."

I stare toward the face in the frame and, the memory hurts cleanly. Not as a chain. As a grave.

"I loved her," I say.

"Yes."

"And Hannah is not a second chance at her."

"No."

"I lied to Hannah because I thought knowledge would endanger her," I say. "But I chose what she was allowed to know. I made fear sound noble. That is not protection."

"No," Elias says. "It is only another locked door."