CHAPTER ELEVEN — THE FIRST THREAT

His Point of View Silence is never empty. Mortals believe it is, but between worlds, silence holds everything. Threads hum with unfinished stories. Endings wait. Reapers move like quiet shadows, completing their tasks. This is the silence I have always understood. Yet lately, when I close my eyes, I do not see the dying. I see a mortal curled on her floor, sobbing into her knees. Nora. I have guided countless souls. I have witnessed every shape of grief. But her grief lingered. It echoed. It pulled at something in me I should not possess. This is why I should stay away. I do not. Instead, I trace the faint pull of her thread until I find her again. She sits at her small desk, hair loosely tied back, laptop open, notebook waiting beside it. Her thumb rests on the trackpad as if she has been debating whether to write for some time. Then she exhales and begins. A romance manuscript. Her fingers move slowly across the keys. She writes of two souls drawn together by something

Last Updated : 2025-12-19

CHAPTER TWELVE — THE MARGIN

Nora's Point of View I wake with the certainty that I am not alone. Not the way you wake from a nightmare. Not the hazy panic of a half-remembered dream. This is different. The room is exactly as I left it. The lamp on the end table. The blanket twisted around my legs. My laptop closed, dark and silent. Moonlight spills through the blinds in thin silver lines, striping the floor. Nothing is wrong. And yet my chest feels tight, like something important has already passed through me. I sit up slowly and listen. Even for this late hour, the silence feels wrong. No distant sirens. No passing cars. Not even the usual late-night voices drifting up from the street. I swing my legs over the edge of the couch. “That’s new,” I whisper. My tarot deck sits on the coffee table where I left it. The cards look ordinary. Harmless. Just paper and ink and old symbols. I reach for them anyway. The moment my fingers brush the top card, the room shifts. Not physically. Something deeper. P

Last Updated : 2025-12-20

CHAPTER THIRTEEN — THE UNNAMED CLAIM

His Point of View I remain after she sleeps. I should not. This is not my role. I do not linger once a thread has steadied. I do not watch when no ending is imminent. Vigilance without purpose serves no function I am meant to perform. And yet, here I am. Nora lies curled on the couch, breath slow and even, her pulse steady beneath the thin skin of her wrist. The room has returned to its proper shape. The air no longer bends. The streetlight outside keeps its rhythm. Everything appears corrected. It is not. Fate does not make mistakes. It recalibrates. And tonight, it recalibrated around her. I tell myself that is why I stay. Because Fate has moved. Because visibility has been breached. Because consequences will follow. These are sufficient reasons. They should be enough. Still, I note the deviation. I do not understand when observation began to resemble concern, or why, when I consider leaving, the idea feels incorrect. I stand at the edge of the

Last Updated : 2025-12-21

CHAPTER FOURTEEN — THE SECOND DEVIATION

Nora’s Point of View I wake to sunlight and the strange awareness that the night did not pass unnoticed. Not the feeling of being watched. The feeling of having been kept. Like a promise made without words. The room looks the same. The couch beneath me. The blanket twisted around my legs. Pale gold light slipping through the blinds. The city beyond the windows already awake. And yet the air feels alert. Like something stood guard until morning. I lie still for a moment, listening. Traffic hums. A door slams somewhere down the block. Someone laughs, sharp and brief. Normal sounds that don’t ease the tension in my chest. “He stayed,” I murmur, without knowing why I’m certain. The space near the far wall feels warmer than the rest of the room. Not occupied. Just recently vacated. I sit up slowly and rub my arms, grounding myself. Whatever watched over me last night is gone now, but the reason it stayed doesn’t feel gone at all. The quiet feels wrong. Not empty,

Last Updated : 2025-12-22

CHAPTER FIFTEEN — ACCOUNTED FOR

His Point of View I did not come gently. The air shifts before she sees me. Pressure settles into the room, heavy and deliberate, bending the quiet around itself. The city noise dulls, not silenced, but pushed aside. I have not arrived like this for a mortal in a very long time. Force announces itself. It leaves a mark. Even when no damage follows, something remembers being displaced. I am aware of that cost as the room tightens around my presence, as if the walls themselves hesitate, unsure whether to yield or resist. Gentleness would have been dishonest. She straightens on the couch the moment she senses me. Not afraid. Braced. “You were warned,” I say. The words are flat. Controlled. Final. She lifts her head slowly. “I know.” That answer tightens something in my chest. “You felt the boundary,” I continue. “You recognized it. And you crossed it anyway.” “I did.” No excuse. No defense. That restraint is the only reason my voice remains steady. I step closer. Shadows

Last Updated : 2025-12-23

CHAPTER Sixteen — THE LESSON HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO GIVE

Nora’s Point of View He was gone before I could answer. Not walked-away gone. Not slam-the-door gone. Gone like the room had never held him at all. The air stayed heavy anyway, thick with the memory of him, like it did not know how to move forward without his permission. My living room looked exactly the same as it had minutes ago, but it felt altered. Too still. Too quiet. As if the world itself had paused to see what I would do next. My hands were shaking. I pressed my palms against my thighs and focused on breathing. Slow. Controlled. Human. Accounted for. The word echoed in my head, sharp and unforgiving. I was no longer overlooked. No longer tolerated. I was accounted for. It sounded like a ledger entry. Like someone had finally written my name down in ink that could not be erased. I swallowed and dragged the sleeve of my sweater across my cheeks. Only then did I realize I was crying. “You said there would be a cost,” I whispered into the empty room. My voic

Last Updated : 2025-12-24