Chapter 3 Stranger in the Glass

Arielle didn't remember falling asleep. She just remembered waking.

The sunlight sliced across her face like a blade, pale and cold through the thin curtains. Her sheets were tangled around her legs, drenched in sweat. Her hands were clenched into fists. Her entire body felt as though she'd run miles in her sleep.

She sat up slowly, eyes scanning the room. Everything looked normal. Too normal.

The envelope was gone, just like the night before. No proof that it had ever existed. No wax seal. No parchment. No whispering voice from the shadows. But the tight coil in her gut didn't go away.

It had happened.

She wasn't crazy.

Still, she moved through the morning like a ghost in her own life. She called in sick - something she never did - and spent hours sitting at the tiny kitchen table, staring at the spot where the envelope had been. Something was coming. She didn't know what. Or why. But it was circling her like a predator in the dark.

And worse... part of her didn't want to run.

By nightfall, the city had taken on a new tone. The streetlights hummed lower, the wind bit sharper, and the people moved with the kind of silence reserved for funeral processions or secrets.

Arielle wrapped her coat tight and walked.

She didn't know why. She just needed to move. To breathe. Her feet took her past the diner, through alleys she'd avoided in the past, into parts of the city that never made it onto maps. Everything felt off. The world was too still. Too aware.

And then she saw it.

A store she'd never noticed before.

No name on the sign. No lights in the windows. But her feet stopped in front of it anyway, like they'd known where they were going.

It was a mirror shop. Or maybe an antique store. Or maybe something else entirely. Inside, the space glowed gold and red, though no light seemed to come from anywhere in particular. Dozens of mirrors lined the walls - tall, broken, ornate, smooth. Some were as old as time. Others shimmered as if they had only just been made.

She pushed the door open.

A bell chimed, but the sound was too deep, like the toll of a church bell underwater.

"Hello?" she called.

Silence.

She stepped inside, her reflection following her from every angle. She looked... different. Paler. Sharper. Like the woman she saw wasn't quite her.

Something moved in the largest mirror - not a reflection, not a trick of the light - a man.

Tall. Dressed in black. Skin pale like marble. Eyes golden like firelight. He didn't move like a normal person. He flowed.

Like shadow and silk.

Her breath caught. "What the hell-"

The man in the mirror smiled.

Her heart stopped.

It was him.

The man from her dream. The voice in the dark.

Lucien Draven.

But he didn't speak. He just stared at her with eyes that burned, and for one awful second, she felt her knees go weak. She gripped the edge of a nearby table to steady herself, her pulse roaring in her ears.

Then - he was gone. The mirror blank.

The air shifted.

A hand landed on her shoulder.

She turned fast, fists raised-

Only to meet the eyes of an elderly woman, her face weathered but sharp, her expression unreadable.

"You shouldn't be here," the woman said.

Arielle blinked. "Then why is your door open?"

The woman tilted her head. "It wasn't. Not for anyone else."

There was a long silence.

"Who was he?" Arielle asked, her voice low. "In the mirror."

The woman's eyes didn't blink. "That was not a mirror."

Arielle frowned. "Excuse me?"

The woman leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. "There are things in this world that were never meant to be seen. Blood remembers. You may have forgotten what you are... but he hasn't."

Arielle felt the bottom of her stomach drop.

"What I am?" she repeated.

The woman didn't answer. Instead, she reached into a drawer beneath the table and pulled out a small pendant. A circle of obsidian surrounded by thorns, a ruby set in the center.

"Take this," she said, pressing it into Arielle's hand. "You'll need it soon."

Arielle stared at the pendant. It pulsed in her palm like a heartbeat.

"Why?" she whispered.

The woman turned away. "Because he's coming. And when he does, he won't ask for permission."

****

Lucien stood at the edge of the rooftop, the wind pulling at his coat, the city sprawling beneath him like a kingdom in waiting.

"She saw me," he murmured.

A young vampire, barely turned, stepped forward nervously. "You said not to reveal yourself yet."

"I didn't," Lucien said, eyes still fixed on the horizon. "I allowed her to look."

The fledgling swallowed hard. "Is she ready?"

Lucien's smirk was all teeth. "Not even close."

He stepped off the ledge - and vanished into mist.

That night, Arielle couldn't sleep.

The pendant lay on her nightstand, glowing faintly in the dark like a sleeping ember. Every few seconds, she glanced at it, as though it might do something. Catch fire. Whisper. Explode.

Instead, the shadows in her apartment just kept moving, twitching at the edges of her vision.

She turned her head - and saw him.

Standing in the corner.

Not a dream.

Not a vision.

Lucien Draven.

Tall. Still.

Unapologetically there.

"You're real," she whispered.

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate. "So are you."