Chapter 1 : The Longitude of Loss

London smelled different in 2026.

For three centuries, it smelled of diesel and desperation. Now, it just smelled of ozone and overpriced roasted beans..

Elias Thorne stood in the corner of the grind, a coffee shop tucked into the shadow of the shard, and hated every second of it. He hated the fluorescent harm of the refrigerator display. He hated the way the barista - a boy with a tattoo of a barcode - mispronounced “ espresso “ . But mostly, he hated the noise.

To a man who had once measured silence in the vast, empty Moores of Lancashire , modern London was a scream that never ended.

He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, the soak gliding over his skin that hadn’t felt the true bite of cold since king James sat on the throne. He checked his watch, a Patek Philippe that cost more than the entire village he’d been born in.

2:14 PM

He had a meeting with a property developer in twenty minutes. Another skyscraper, Another scar on the skyline. Elias didn’t care about the building; he cared about the lay lines beneath the foundation. He has spent 400 years buying up London, inch by inch, mapping the cold geometry of the city, just in case she was hiding the architecture.

She wasn’t. She never was.

“Order for Elias? “The Barista called out.

Elias pushed off the wall. He moved with fluidity that unnerved people, a predator’s grace masked by a bespoke suit. As he reached for the cup, the bell above the door chimed.

A gust of wind, carrying the scent of rain and exhaust, swept into the shop.

And then, the world stopped.

It didn’t slow down. It didn’t fade. It’s simply cease to exist. The hiss of espresso machine, the chatter of the students at the window, the thrum of this city. It all vanished into ringing, absolute silence.

Elias froze, his hand hovering inches from his coffee. The air in his lungs, unnecessary, but habitual, turned to stone.

She was standing by the door, shaking a wet umbrella.

She wore a denim jacket that was too big for her shoulders and black leggings. White headphones were pulled down around her neck, tingling with a messy, dark brown hair that caught the harsh overhead lights. She looked tired. She looked ordinary.

She looks exactly like the woman he had watched burn.

“ No “ , Elias whispered. The word was a fracture in his chest.

It was a hallucination. It had to be. He had seen her face in 1000 crowds before - in a Parisian salon in 1789 , in a trench in 1916 , in a disco in 1979 . It was always a trick of the light, a cruel joke played by mine that lived too long.

But then she turned, she looked at the menu board, her profile cutting a short, familiar curvaceous silhouette against the gray window. The curve of her jaw. The way she sucks in her bottom lip when she was thinking. The slight, almost imperceptible arch of her left brow , she had a slight scar that ran through it .

It wasn’t just a resemblance. It was geometry. It was the specific, divine mathematics of a face he had memorized before he’d even learn to read.

Elias felt a sensation he hadn’t felt in centuries. Fear.

His heart, a slow, heavy drum that usually beat four times a minute, hammered against his ribs. Thump. Thump. Thump.

She stepped into the line, pulling her phone from her pocket. She scrolled through something, her thumb moving fast, completely unaware that a monster was standing 10 feet away, dissecting the very atoms of her presence.

Catherine .

The name rose in his throat, tasting of Ash and bile.

His memory flashed back. He then remembered the heat. He remembered the smell of singeing hair and the way the crowd cheered as a smoke rose into the darkness of the sky. He remembered screaming her name until his vocal cords tore , straining against the ropes, praying to God, the devil, anyone to stop it .

And now, here she was. Deciding between a latte and a fucking cappuccino.

Elias took a step back, his hip, bumping into a high table. The noise was deafening in his own ears. He needed to leave. He needed to run. If he stayed, he would shatter. If he stayed, he would cross the room, fall to his knees, and terrify her.

“ Next , please ! “ the barista shouted.

She stepped forward. “ Hi “ she said .

Her Voice .

It hit him like a physical blow. It was husker now, shaped by a different accent, stripped of the Lancashire lilt , but the timber was the same. It was still deep and luxurious. It was the voice that had whispered promises in the dark. The voice that had promised him forever. The voice that moaned his name in a way he could only remember yet feel though his entire body .

“ Can I get an oat vanilla latte? “ She asked tapping her card on the reader and … “ Actually, can you add an extra shot? It’s been a hell of a fucking Tuesday.”

Elias gripped the edge of the counter, his knuckles white. The wood groaned under his grip, splintering slightly.

It’s been a hell of a fucking Tuesday .

Catherine didn’t swear. Catherine didn’t drink coffee. Catherine was dead. She was dust in the wind of a cruel century.

The girl turned to wait for her drink. Her eyes hazel flexed with gold, the color of autumn leaves swept over the room.

They landed on him. Elias stopped breathing.

For a second, their eyes locked. He waited for the spark . He waited for the widen of the eyes, the gasp of recognition, the soul remembering its other half. He waited for her to see the man who had burned the world down just to find her ashes.

She blinked. Her gaze slid off of him indifferent and polite , as if you were just part of the furniture. Just a stranger in a suit.

She didn’t know him .

The realization was colder than the grave he crawled out of.