Faylan woke before the alarm.
Not because of noise.
Because something in her chest felt… wrong.
For a few seconds she stayed perfectly still beneath the covers, staring at the dim outline of her ceiling while the last pieces of sleep slipped away. Pale morning light filtered through the crack in her curtains, turning the edges of her room a soft gray.
Her heart was beating steadily.
Too steadily.
That same strange rhythm from the night before—slow and deliberate, like someone tapping a finger against a table in perfect time.
Faylan frowned slightly at the ceiling.
“Okay,” she murmured to herself, voice rough with sleep. “That’s either a heart problem or I’m haunted.”
Her gaze drifted toward the window.
The fog still lingered outside, clinging to the branches of the old oak tree beside the house. In the pale morning light the town looked softer, quieter—like Greythorne had decided to pretend nothing strange had happened overnight.
Faylan pushed the blankets aside and sat up.
The memory of the deer returned immediately.
The trembling legs.
The glassy eyes.
Those two tiny punctures at its throat.
She rubbed a hand over her face and exhaled slowly.
“Right,” she muttered. “We’re not thinking about that first thing in the morning.”
Her feet found the cold floorboards and she padded across the room, pulling the curtains open a little wider.
The street outside was quiet. A thin ribbon of fog drifted lazily along the pavement, and somewhere in the distance a car door slammed.
Normal sounds.
Normal morning.
She clung to that idea for a moment before heading toward the door.
The hallway outside her bedroom was already filled with the warm smell of coffee and toast.
Faylan followed it downstairs.
The Hart house had always been old enough to creak like it had opinions about everything. Every step she took down the staircase earned a faint complaint from the wood beneath her feet.
The kitchen light glowed warmly at the end of the hallway.
But when Faylan stepped into the room she immediately noticed something different.
Her dad wasn’t there.
The toolbox that had been sitting on the counter the night before was gone. The coffee pot sat half empty beside the sink, and the usual scatter of tools Daniel left behind in the mornings had already been cleaned up.
He must have left early for the shop.
Only one person sat at the kitchen table.
Seina.
Her younger sister—though technically not that much younger anymore—sat curled sideways in one of the chairs with a sketchbook spread open across her lap. A mug of tea rested beside her elbow, steam curling upward in thin lazy threads.
Her pencil moved quietly across the page.
Seina had always drawn like that—completely absorbed, head tilted slightly, dark hair falling across one side of her face as if the rest of the world had faded into background noise.
Faylan leaned against the doorway and watched for a moment.
“Morning, Picasso.”
Seina didn’t look up.
“Morning.”
Faylan walked into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee, inhaling the rich smell gratefully before taking a long sip.
“Dad bail already?”
Seina nodded slightly, still sketching.
“He had an early engine repair.”
“Of course he did,” Faylan said. “That man wakes up before the sun like it personally owes him money.”
Seina’s mouth twitched faintly at the corner, but she still didn’t look up from the page.
Faylan pulled out the chair across from her and sat down, curling her hands around the warm mug.
For a minute the kitchen stayed quiet except for the soft scratch of Seina’s pencil.
Faylan tilted her head.
“You draw before breakfast now?”
Seina shrugged.
“I woke up early.”
That wasn’t unusual.
Seina had always been a quiet sort of early riser—especially when she had a new idea stuck in her head.
Still, something about her posture seemed slightly tense this morning.
Faylan leaned forward, trying to peek at the sketchbook.
“What are you working on?”
Seina shifted the book instinctively, hiding part of the page.
“Nothing.”
“Uh-huh.”
Faylan narrowed her eyes.
“You know that’s the artist equivalent of saying ‘don’t look because it’s ugly,’ right?”
“It’s not ugly,” Seina said calmly.
“Then show me.”
Seina sighed quietly but rotated the sketchbook enough for Faylan to see.
The drawing made Faylan pause.
It was the town square.
The fountain stood in the center exactly the way it did in real life, water spilling down the moss-darkened stone. The surrounding buildings had been sketched with careful detail.
But the fog—
The fog in the drawing twisted strangely around the clock tower.
Almost like it was reaching for it.
Faylan leaned closer.
“You did that from memory?”
Seina nodded slightly.
Faylan stared at the page for another moment.
“You’re getting scary good at this,” she said.
Seina finally glanced up.
Her eyes were the same strange green-gray as their mother’s had been, silver flecks catching the light in a way that sometimes made Faylan feel like her sister was looking at things she couldn’t see.
Seina studied her for a second.
“You look tired.”
Faylan blinked.
“I am tired.”
Seina tapped the eraser lightly against the edge of the page.
“You had a dream.”
Faylan narrowed her eyes.
“You say that like it’s suspicious.”
“It was.”
“Okay,” Faylan said slowly. “You’re being weird.”
Seina looked back down at the sketchbook.
“The bell rang again.”
Faylan’s coffee paused halfway to her mouth.
“…what?”
Seina’s pencil moved again across the paper, shading part of the tower.
“I heard it.”
Faylan stared at her.
“The bell didn’t ring this morning.”
“Yes it did.”
Seina said it so calmly that for a moment Faylan almost believed her.
Then she shook her head.
“No, it didn’t. Trust me, if that thing started randomly ringing again I would have noticed.”
Seina didn’t argue.
She simply continued sketching.
“I didn’t hear it with my ears,” she said quietly.
Faylan felt that same faint chill crawl down the back of her neck.
“Then how did you hear it?”
Seina’s pencil slowed.
She lifted her gaze again.
“I felt it.”
The words hung in the warm kitchen air for a moment.
Faylan opened her mouth.
Then closed it again.
“…you know,” she said finally, “most siblings wake up and ask each other normal things. Like ‘did you finish the milk’ or ‘why did you eat my leftovers.’”
Seina blinked.
“We have milk?”
Faylan groaned and leaned back in her chair.
“You are impossible.”
Seina smiled faintly and returned to her drawing.
Faylan took another sip of coffee and tried to ignore the uneasy flutter in her chest.
By the time Faylan finished her coffee, the steady, unnatural rhythm in her chest had softened into something she could almost pretend was normal. Almost. She rinsed her mug in the sink, stole a piece of toast from the plate their dad had left covered in foil, and leaned her hip against the counter while Seina kept sketching like the world wasn’t quietly rearranging itself around them.
Outside, the fog thinned in slow patches as the morning tried to assert itself. Sunlight made a weak attempt to pierce through the gray, turning the edges of the kitchen window into a pale, watery glow. Greythorne looked gentle from here—sleepy roofs, damp streets, the oak tree’s branches swaying like they’d always swayed. It was the kind of morning that made last night feel like a bad dream you could laugh about later.
Then someone knocked.
Not the polite tap of a delivery driver.
A familiar knock—two quick knocks and one slower one, like a signature.
Faylan’s shoulders loosened before she even turned toward the door.
“Of course,” she muttered, already walking toward the entryway. “Because why would I get one normal morning?”
Seina didn’t look up, but Faylan saw the faint shift of her pencil slow.
Faylan opened the front door.
Rowan Vale leaned against the porch post like he belonged there, hands shoved in the pockets of a dark jacket, hair slightly damp as if he’d been outside for a while. The fog behind him curled around the porch steps, and the pale morning light made his eyes look softer than they had any right to.
He smiled—small, lazy, familiar.
“Morning, Hart.”
Faylan narrowed her eyes.
“It’s too early for you to be this awake.”
Rowan’s smile widened just enough to be annoying.
“You say that like I have a choice.”
“Do you not?” Faylan asked, stepping out onto the porch. “Because I’m pretty sure most people can choose to stay in bed.”
Rowan’s gaze flicked over her face, quick and subtle—like he was checking for something. Faylan noticed anyway. She always noticed with him. Rowan had a way of pretending he was casual while his eyes did a quiet inventory of her existence.
“You okay?” he asked.
The question sounded normal.
But something underneath it sounded… sharper. More careful.
Faylan lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m fine.”
Rowan didn’t move, didn’t call her out, didn’t push. He just looked at her the way he always did when he knew she wasn’t fine and didn’t want to talk about it. Like he was filing it away for later.
“Your sister feeding the sketchbook again?” he asked, tipping his chin toward the house.
Faylan’s mouth twitched. “Seina’s been sketching since before I had coffee.”
“That’s terrifying,” Rowan said with perfect seriousness.
Faylan snorted and rolled her eyes. “She drew the clock tower.”
Rowan’s posture shifted so slightly most people wouldn’t have noticed it.
Faylan did.
His shoulders tightened for the briefest moment, then eased again.
“Did she,” he said, voice still light.
Faylan narrowed her eyes harder.
“You’re doing the thing.”
Rowan blinked. “What thing?”
“The ‘I’m totally normal and not suspicious at all’ thing,” Faylan said. “It’s your worst one.”
Rowan huffed a small laugh, the sound warm and genuine enough to make her irritation ease a little. He pushed off the porch post and stepped closer, close enough that she caught the faint scent of cold air clinging to him, like he’d been outside longer than he should’ve been.
And as he moved, the chain at his throat glinted.
A small, dark red stone set in a simple piece of silver.
Faylan’s gaze snagged on it automatically.
Rowan had worn that necklace for as long as she could remember. Not “a few years” as long. Forever-as-far-as-Faylan-was-concerned.
She couldn’t picture him without it.
Once, when they were kids, she’d asked what it was and he’d shrugged and said, Just something I keep. Like that explained anything.
Now, seeing it catch the light on his skin, she felt a weird little tug in her chest—half curiosity, half a feeling she couldn’t name.
“You still wearing that,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to do with the moment.
Rowan’s fingers brushed the stone automatically, almost unconsciously, before dropping back to his side.
“Yeah,” he said simply.
“You ever gonna tell me what it is?” Faylan asked.
Rowan’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes sharpened a fraction.
“Maybe when you stop asking like you’re about to steal it.”
“I’m not going to steal it,” Faylan said.
Rowan’s gaze flicked to her hands. “That’s exactly what someone who’s going to steal it would say.”
Faylan made a face. “You’re insufferable.”
Rowan’s expression softened. “You like me.”
Faylan scoffed and stepped back, pretending she wasn’t smiling as she opened the screen door wider. “If you’re here to be annoying, congratulations. Mission accomplished.”
Rowan followed her inside.
The kitchen felt warmer compared to the porch, and the scent of Seina’s tea and pencil shavings drifted faintly through the room. Seina looked up when Rowan stepped in, her gaze landing on him with that quiet, measuring calm she had when she was deciding what kind of day it was going to be.
“Ro,” Faylan said automatically, the nickname slipping out like it always did, casual and familiar.
Rowan’s eyes flicked to her at the sound of it, something unreadable passing through his expression—gone before she could catch it.
“Sei,” he greeted, nodding toward Seina.
Seina’s pencil hovered above her page. “You’re early.”
Rowan shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Faylan’s gaze snapped to him.
“You?” she repeated, skeptical. “You’re telling me you, Rowan Vale, couldn’t sleep?”
Rowan’s smile returned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “We all have our struggles.”
Faylan opened her mouth to tease him again, but Seina spoke first, quiet as ever.
“The bell rang.”
The room seemed to tighten around the words.
Rowan’s hand—just for a second—lifted to the necklace at his throat.
Then he dropped it again, posture smooth, expression steady.
“Did it,” he said, voice calm, too calm.
Faylan stared at him.
Seina watched him like she was drawing him with her eyes instead of her pencil.
Rowan met their gazes and smiled gently, like the conversation hadn’t just stepped onto a sharp edge.
“Well,” Faylan said quickly, because she didn’t like the way the silence felt, “if Greythorne’s clock tower wants to be dramatic, it can do it without me. I have work.”
Rowan’s attention returned to her immediately.
“I can drive you,” he offered.
Faylan blinked. “I have a car.”
Rowan’s smile turned faintly smug. “And I have a car with heat that actually works.”
Faylan narrowed her eyes again. “You’re bribing me with functional heating?”
“It’s a strong offer,” Rowan said.
Faylan hesitated, then sighed like she was suffering greatly. “Fine.”
Seina’s gaze flicked between them, thoughtful.
“I’ll walk later,” she said quietly, then glanced down at her sketchbook again like she was pretending she hadn’t just decided something.
Faylan didn’t press her. Not yet.
Rowan waited until Faylan grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door. As she stepped closer, she caught that faint chill around him again—like he carried the outside with him even when he entered warm rooms.
Rowan leaned closer, lowering his voice just enough that Seina wouldn’t hear.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked, the humor stripped away.
Faylan’s throat tightened.
She wanted to say yes.
She wanted to pretend last night hadn’t happened.
But the image of the deer—and that second heartbeat—rose up behind her eyes.
“I’m fine,” she lied, because she didn’t know how to say anything else.
Rowan held her gaze for a moment, and Faylan felt something strange in the air—like a quiet pressure, like standing too close to a storm.
Then Rowan nodded once.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Let’s go.”
They stepped out into the damp Greythorne morning, the fog wrapping around them like a secret. Rowan’s car sat at the curb, engine already running, heat fogging the inside of the windows. Faylan paused on the porch steps and glanced once over her shoulder at Seina through the front window.
Her sister was already sketching again.
But this time Seina wasn’t drawing the clock tower.
She was drawing the forest line beyond town—dark, dense, and waiting.
Faylan’s stomach tightened.
Because somehow she already knew where this day was going.
And as Rowan opened the passenger door for her—casual, familiar, careful—Faylan felt that steady rhythm in her chest return, faint but insistent, like a warning tapping from inside her ribs.
The road to downtown Greythorne was short.
But something told her that by the time the day was over, the town she thought she knew was going to feel like a different place entirely.
Rowan pulled away from the curb with an ease that suggested he’d driven these streets a thousand times—because he had. Greythorne slid past in damp, fog-softened pieces: dark storefronts still closed, porch lights blinking off one by one, the faint silhouette of the clock tower rising above the square like a watchful spine. The heater in Rowan’s car worked almost aggressively, blasting warm air that fogged the windows and made Faylan feel cocooned from the chill outside.
For a few minutes they fell into the comfortable kind of silence that only existed between people who had known each other too long to fill every gap with words. Rowan kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting loosely near the gearshift, and Faylan watched the fog smear across the glass like something alive. She tried not to think about the way his necklace caught the faint light every time he shifted, or how his fingers had gone to it so quickly when Seina mentioned the bell—as if the stone could steady something inside him.
Rowan glanced at her at a red light, expression casual again, as though the tension in the kitchen hadn’t happened.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
Faylan huffed softly. “I’m conserving my energy for work.”
“Mm,” Rowan murmured, like he didn’t buy it for a second. “Want me to distract you?”
“Your distractions usually involve you convincing me to do something dumb,” Faylan replied, though her mouth twitched like she was trying not to smile.
Rowan’s lips curved. “They involve you choosing to do something dumb.”
Faylan rolled her eyes. “Wow. Victim blaming.”
Rowan laughed under his breath, then turned onto the road that led toward downtown. The buildings grew closer together as they neared the square, old brick and stone rising out of the fog with familiar stubbornness. Greythorne looked like it always did on the surface—sleepy, quiet, ordinary.
And yet Faylan’s chest tightened faintly again as they passed the forest road.
A soft pulse beneath her ribs.
Steady.
Measured.
As if the world itself had found a new rhythm and expected her to keep up.
Rowan’s car slowed near her workplace. He pulled into a space along the curb, the engine idling quietly as he glanced toward her.
“Text me if you need me,” he said lightly—like it was a joke, like it was nothing.
But his eyes didn’t match the tone.
Faylan stared at him for a beat, then scoffed softly, more to keep herself steady than because she meant it.
“I always need you,” she said, then immediately regretted the honesty and added, quick and defensive, “to leave me alone.”
Rowan’s smile softened into something almost gentle.
“Sure,” he said. “That’s definitely what you meant.”
Faylan muttered something under her breath and reached for the door handle.
Outside, the fog thinned just enough to reveal movement on the street—people beginning their day, shopkeepers unlocking doors, the town stirring awake like it had nothing to hide. Faylan stepped out, the chill immediately biting at her face, and the sound of Greythorne returned in pieces: distant gull cries, low voices, the faint clink of keys and metal shutters.
Rowan stayed in the car, watching her for a moment longer than necessary.
Then Faylan turned toward the storefront.
And as she approached the antique shop entrance, the bell over the door gave a soft, ordinary jingle—nothing like the clock tower’s heavy note, nothing like last night.
Still, Faylan’s stomach knotted as she slid her key into the lock.
Because something about the air felt different today.
And when the door swung open and the scent of old paper and polished wood washed over her, Faylan stepped inside—
—unaware that someone was already waiting for her in the shadows of Greythorne’s waking streets.