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She was probably still at school, because it was only two o'clock.

Normally, I'd be at university right now, too, but the rest of my lectures and seminars with Alarik had been canceled for the rest of the day.

Now I knew the reason why.

“This can't go on!” the Russian's voice reached my ears, even though I had already entered the left wing of the house and was walking past Emely's door.

I kept looking back to make sure no one was following me.

Here, you could never really know if you were alone. One second, you were calmly admiring venerable paintings from the founding era, the next, a shirtless guy with glowing yellow eyes was standing behind you.

Senseque were like supernatural machines. They saw everything, heard every step, probably smelled my fear from miles away, and once they had you in their clutches, they were fast and could tear you apart with their strength.

Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a little, but these creatures were the walking definition of predators.

Luckily, the Alpha's study was on the ground floor of the right wing, although I wouldn't be surprised if, in the next second, a Copeland appeared out of nowhere behind me and blew my cover.

Often, all the Senseque in this town would gather in the evening and disappear into the forest, mostly in the form of oversized, albeit elegant, wolves.

Sitting at the window reading, I would notice pairs of glowing yellow eyes returning and scurrying through the dark garden.

This place where I found myself was not scary – if you ignored the looming nighttime shadows of the huge antlers that seemed to adorn every wall in this house – but more fairytale-like, which was not how I had imagined the pack's place to be. I couldn’t remember what image I had had in my head before, but I had been surprised to find a rippling stream and a lively forest clearing with black butterflies in the woods behind the sprawling meadow.

The creaking floorboards under my feet made me pause for a moment.

The closer I got to Alarik's rooms, the more I was pulled back into the present.

In the evening, this house was lit by many dimmed lamps with a warm glow, giving it a less haunted feel than Moenia. It was as if I were in another world. Gentler, closer to nature, in the midst of a story waiting to be explored...

A tingle wandered through the tips of my fingers.

Blairville seemed to harbour many secrets. A town with a heart. A prison for some. But if you looked closer, the birthplace of ancient knowledge well hidden by the ivy of time. It was like a Canadian version of New Orleans.

Arriving at Alarik's door, I looked around one last time, prayed that no one would come, and pressed down on the door handle.

Camera Obscura

Angus MacRae

When I got into the dark room, I closed the door and fumbled for the light switch, before I finally found it.

A wave of fascination swept over me when dozens of small, warm, dimmed lights came on and illuminated the big room, which looked like a combination of a library and a living room.

The crème-colored curtains fluttered in the breeze from the open floor-to-ceiling windows, bringing cool winter air into the room with its light truffle-brown walls and historic wooden floorboards, and a pleasant aroma of coffee hung in the air.

Alarik lived in paradise.

It looked cozy, and yet, as if someone had tried to bring together small fragments from bygone eras.

Dark brown Florentine wall consoles adorned with Tuscan terracotta vases displaying a variety of plants. On his book shelves: brass candlesticks, intricately decorated pocket watches, a bronze writing set decorated with an elegant wolf, a dark wooden Victorian jewelry box with a carved lighthouse figure, a Tiffany lamp with a brown glass pattern and white lily motifs, an antique music box with a dark walnut case decorated with white inlaid mother-of-pearl and gold-plated fittings, adorned with a golden mermaid, and other treasures from days gone by.

The next thing I discovered was the antique wooden chest of drawers with the crystal glass set next to the artful, half-filled whiskey decanter in the shape of a globe, next to it a real vintage globe in shades of brown, some loose, messily scribbled papers rocking in the wind, and two dark blue books stacked on top of each other, decorated with a white paper crane speckled with black ink stains.

I couldn't help but smile at Alarik's mess, which nevertheless did not detract from the coziness of this place. Quite the opposite.

I instantly fell in love with the many brown cushions on the couch and floor; with the framed oil paintings depicting sections of the Vanderwood courtyards overgrown with white lilies, one of which hung crookedly; as well as the coffee table covered with books and notebooks, on which two other paper cranes lay, which he must have folded in one of his moments of intense concentration.

This place was alive.