She slammed the window shut.

But he was already inside.

The name was still there the next morning.

Talievra.

Scrawled in dirt. Not ink. Not charcoal. Soil—fresh and damp, clinging to the wooden door like a fingerprint pressed into time. Talia stared at it until the sun came up, and even in daylight, it felt no less real. She didn’t touch it. Didn’t erase it. Just stared.

Some ridiculous, half-dreaming part of her believed that if she rubbed it away, he’d come back—not to write it again, but to carve it into her skin instead.

The rest of the day passed like a dream she couldn’t wake from. She didn’t respond to Leo’s messages. Didn’t open the curtains. Didn’t eat. Her heartbeat pulsed high in her throat, like it no longer belonged to her at all.

She tried to convince herself she was imagining it. The voice. The name. The man.

But then the sun began to sink.

And with it—

came him.

---

She felt him before she saw him. That was new. A chill crawled along her spine. Her mouth filled with the strange taste of ash and rain. Something old had turned its gaze on her, and whatever it saw—it liked.

She was in the kitchen, fingers clenched around the edge of the counter, when the light changed. Not the lamp overhead. The world. The air bent. Warped. Her breath fogged, even with the heater rattling behind her.

She turned toward the balcony doors. No knock. No warning.

He was already there.

Barefoot. Bare-chested. Still pale as bone—but his eyes had changed. Brighter now. Starving. Like the name he left behind had fed him.

Talia’s grip on the counter tightened. “Go away.”

He didn’t move. She crossed the room and pulled the curtain shut, cutting off the view.

Silence.

Then—a knock.

Soft. Measured. Rhythmic. Not urgent. Just patient.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

She pressed her palm to the glass through the curtain, heart hammering.

“Why me?” she whispered.

His voice reached her, muffled, old as dust.

“You carry the fire. Even now.”

She flung the curtain open.

“Who are you?”

No answer. Just those eyes. Fixed on her like she was his last meal. Or his first.

Talia cracked the window open a few inches. The wind pushed in—cold and copper-sweet.

“Why do you keep coming here? What do you want from me?”

Silas leaned in just enough for his breath to reach her skin.

“Everything.”

She moved to shut the window. But his hand caught the frame. Not forcefully. Not even fast. Just—certain. Like he was indulging her need to pretend she had a choice. His eyes didn’t leave hers.

“I won’t hurt you, little lamb.”

“You are hurting me,” she snapped. “You’re in my head. In my blood. I see things I don’t understand. I hear you whispering when I sleep. And now you’re leaving names on my door like some deranged—”

His head tilted. “Talievra.”

The name on his tongue wasn’t casual. It was soft. Sacred. Like a man kneeling at a gravestone carved with his lover’s name.

Talia froze.

“That’s not my name.”

“It was.”

He stepped closer to the window, still just outside. The dim kitchen light caught on the angles of his collarbone, on the dried blood and dirt smudging the folds of his tattered robe. He looked like something unearthed from marble—something ruined, but still divine.

“I don’t remember you,” she whispered.

He smiled. “Your body does.”

A shiver prickled down her arms. She reached for the window—intending to slam it shut.

But he was already behind her.

Not through the glass. Not through the door.

Just there.

The scent of burnt incense and old soil filled the space. The air rippled, and when she spun, he was standing in the middle of her flat.

Talia stumbled backward and hit the wall. Silas didn’t advance. He didn’t speak. Just stood there, quietly surveying the room like he belonged in it.

“Get out,” she breathed.

He stepped forward, brushing his fingers across the spines of her books, dragging a slow line along the countertop.

“Still cluttered,” he said. “Still cold.”

“You’re not real.”

He turned to face her.

And then he knelt.

Smooth. Slow. Controlled.

Crouched in front of her like he was waiting for her to reach out—thread her fingers through his black hair and welcome him home. But there was something dangerous in the curve of his smile.

“You woke me with your blood,” he said. Then his voice lowered.

“Now... wake me with your mouth.”

She slapped him.

The sound cracked in the air. His head barely moved. But his grin widened.

He leaned in, his lips grazing her jaw.

“There’s the fire.”

She shoved him.

He let her.

Stepping back, hands lifted in mock surrender, like he found her resistance charming.

“I didn’t come to take,” he said. “Not yet.”

Then he turned.

And vanished.

No sound. No exit. Just gone.

The windows rattled in the wake of his absence. Her tea mug slipped from the counter and shattered on the floor.

And where her bloodied glove had been?

Gone.