London, 1900.
Early morning. The fog had not yet lifted.
Albert awoke in the old quarters of the Order. The chill from last night still clung to his skin. His room was sparse — a wooden bed, shelves filled with ancient tomes, and a small mirror draped in black cloth.
> "Never look into the mirror on a full moon," Elias had once said.
"Sometimes… what looks back isn't you."
---
Downstairs, Seraphine brewed tea. Rowan stood by the window, gazing out at the damp cobbled street. Elias flipped a coin in the air — except the coin hovered midair, refusing to fall.
"The new one's awake," Elias said, eyes fixed on the levitating coin.
"Just in time," Seraphine replied.
Rowan turned, holding a torn letter, its edges stained with blood.
> "A call for the Travelers."
---
📜 A Strange Letter from Highgate Cemetery
Delivered overnight. No sender. No recipient.
Only a few lines in dark ink:
> "I hear singing beneath the earth.
The one I loved is dead, but she won't leave.
Please, take her before something else does."
— C. W.
Seraphine turned to Albert.
"You're coming with me."
"Where?" he asked.
"To Highgate Cemetery," she said. "To listen… to the dead."
---
⚰️ Highgate – Where the Veil Is Thinnest
Highgate was cold, even under daylight. Moss-covered graves, headless angel statues, and crypts gaping like mouths frozen mid-whisper.
Seraphine brought no weapons. Only a small book bound in silver chains. Albert carried an unlit candle and a stalk of sweet flag root — "to repel death's shadow."
"You believe the letter is real?" Albert asked.
"We're not here to believe. We're here to listen."
---
🕯️ The Song from Beneath
They stopped before an old tombstone:
"Clarissa Whitmore – 1877–1899"
The air was so still Albert could hear his own heartbeat.
Then… singing.
A woman's voice. Faint. Mournful.
A lullaby. Ancient. No words — just sound — full of sorrow.
> "She shouldn't be singing," Seraphine whispered.
"The dead do not remember."
But something… was calling.
Seraphine opened the book. Runes glowed. She drew a circle with blood from the cover's edge.
"Albert, stand inside the circle. No matter what happens."
Albert nodded, gripping the sweet flag root.
---
👁️ The Spirit of Clarissa
The tomb opened. No sound. No dust.
A figure rose — pale, long-haired, eyeless. But not frightening.
She was… hauntingly beautiful, like a memory refusing to fade.
Clarissa.
She hovered just steps from Albert. Then spoke:
> "He didn't come. He promised to wait for me… beneath the lilacs."
That voice — unlike the song — made the air visibly colder.
Seraphine chanted, but the runes began to flicker. Something… was pushing through.
> From the soil below, another entity emerged.
A formless shadow. Hundreds of eyes.
And a whisper in Albert's ear:
> "You will not take her. She is mine."
Wind stirred the cemetery, though no clouds shadowed the sky. Dry leaves spun in wild circles, caught in an unseen pull.
Seraphine chanted faster, her runes flickering like dying stars. The book in her hands grew hot, smoke curling from its corners.
> "Hold the circle, Albert!" she shouted.
Albert stood frozen inside the blood-drawn sigil. He couldn't take his eyes off the shadow drifting near Clarissa. Formless but terrifying — all eyes, dozens of them, blinking with quiet hunger.
> "You do not understand the love of the dead," the voice crept into his mind.
"She belongs to me. No one else came for her. Not even Charles."
"Clarissa," Albert called softly.
"You don't have to listen to it. The man you loved… still remembers."
She turned to him, lips trembling.
"He promised… lilacs over my grave…"
Albert's thoughts flew to Elias's warning:
> "Spirits don't cling to promises.
They cling to pain."
Seraphine screamed, "I can't hold it much longer!"
The circle cracked. The shadow laughed — its red eyes gleaming. Clarissa wept, backing away.
Albert stepped out of the circle.
"Albert! No!" Seraphine cried.
But he walked toward Clarissa.
"You can leave," he said, pressing the sweet flag root into her hand.
"Not for Charles. Not for anyone else. Because you're still you."
She gazed at him. For a moment, her empty eyes shimmered — gold flickered within.
The shadow howled and lunged.
> But at that moment — Seraphine shouted a final, ancient word.
The book in her hands exploded in radiant white fire.
The shadow disintegrated. No scream. Just… silence.
Clarissa looked at Albert once more.
"Thank you…"
Then faded into mist, soft as a lullaby's last note.
That evening, at the Travelers' House, Seraphine poured them both black tea.
"You're reckless," she said.
"Stepping out of the circle was a death wish."
"But she'd been trapped long enough," Albert replied. "No one deserves to be left behind."
Seraphine watched him for a moment.
"You might die soon, Albert. But I'm starting to believe… you were meant to be a Traveler."