Ink and Immortality

The Calling

Cassian Grey had always found a certain charm in the overlooked corners of London—the crooked alleyways that seemed to pulse with secrets, the whispers in chimney smoke, the glint of unseen eyes between the gaslights. But none of them whispered like her.

She lingered behind every fluttering curtain of his memory, a half-formed silhouette on the edge of reason. No name. No past. Only that face—a beautiful phantom wrapped in midnight and fog. It stirred something ancient in him, something that refused to be silenced.

His loft was cramped and cold, a slant-roofed hideaway nestled above a bakery whose sweet bread smells never quite masked the rot of the Thames wind. Books piled on every available surface, half-dipped quills and inkwells littered across his desk, maps and sketches pinned haphazardly to the walls. It was chaos, but it was his chaos.

He hadn’t slept in three nights.

The dreams came like crashing waves—echoes of a bench under pale lamplight, her lips forming words he could almost remember. Something about secrets, about memory, about being hunted and protected all at once. He would wake gasping, tears drying on his cheeks, grasping at something just out of reach.

Cassian stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror above the washbasin. His curls were messier than usual, the shadows beneath his eyes more pronounced. But it wasn’t madness that stared back—it was obsession. Glorious, maddening obsession.

“Who are you?” he asked the air.

No answer came. Only the silence of a haunted man.

He turned back to his desk, pushing away half-started articles about superstitions and bog spirits. None of it mattered now. The city could burn and he wouldn’t notice—not until he found her again.

He remembered fog. Fingers brushing his. Her voice, velvet and moonlight. A grave with her name—no, he didn’t remember the name. Just that he had known it once.

And she had taken it away.

But left everything else.

She could have erased him entirely. She hadn’t. That meant something.

Cassian dipped his quill in ink and began to write.

---

The Lantern in the Fog: A Column of Observance and Wonder

by Cassian Grey

There are cities made of stone and ash and steam. There are cities made of dreams and blood and wind.

This one is made of all three.

I walk its veins by gaslight, and it hums to me. I listen. I record. I observe. That is what I do. I am not a poet—I am a witness.

But there are some things the eye alone cannot measure. There are some truths that slip between sentences like rain through cobblestones.

She is one of those truths.

To name her would be to tame her, and she is not meant to be tamed.

She is the hush before thunder. She is the softness of death’s first breath. A paradox in human shape—a predator, cloaked in elegance.

And I saw her. Not long ago. Not long enough.

A face carved from moonlight and tragedy. Hair like raven silk. Eyes older than nations. Skin kissed by the kissless grave. She did not smile, and yet the world smiled through her.

To those who think me mad: I am. Mad with wonder.

You came to me in shadows. Told me stories I wasn’t meant to hear. Left me with scars shaped like questions.

You made me forget. But you forgot—I write for a living. I remember through writing.

And so here it is: a beacon. A flare into the night. A message for you.

You told me to forget. But how can I forget what knows me?

I have stood where you once stood. I saw the name on the stone. I felt your hand, and it was not cold.

If you see this—and I know you will—I’ll be waiting.

Beneath the rusted angel. Midnight. The same fog. The same lamp.

I bring no words but longing.

Come.

---

Cassian read it over again. It didn’t make sense to anyone else, he was sure. Just the kind of poetic nonsense his editor would groan at. But to her?

She would understand.

He sealed the column in a crisp envelope, scrawled his signature across it, and left it in the submission box. Then he returned to his loft, poured himself a cup of bitter tea, and stared out at the city.

The fog was already gathering. Just like before.

Hours Later...

The rain had begun to fall again, soft and steady. Cassian sat with his legs propped on the windowsill, staring out into the skeletal framework of chimneys and iron lamp posts.

He didn’t understand it—this pull, this ache.

Every time he blinked, her face appeared behind his eyes. He heard her voice in the rustling of curtains, the clatter of hooves on cobblestone. His fingers ached to write about her. And when he tried to think of anything else, his thoughts folded in on themselves like dying stars.

He opened his journal, a personal one this time.

She said nothing when she left.

But I remember how the fog curled around her ankles like it missed her.

I remember her eyes, and how they held secrets bigger than this world.

He paused, tapping the quill.

I think I loved her...

The words shocked him. Not because they weren’t quite true—but because they felt inevitable.

Was it love? Was it enchantment? Was it simply obsession, the delicious madness of a man who’d tasted something immortal?

He didn’t know.

But he would find her again. He had to.

Back at the office, the article would soon hit print. And in the depths of the city, in a manor long forgotten, a pale hand turned pages with red-tipped nails, and golden eyes narrowed at the familiar cadence.

She read the column twice.

Then again.

And a single, dark smile curled across Seraphine’s lips.

Cassian Grey had remembered just enough.