Bonus Scene One

Daniel

I stood alone in my library, the fire long since guttered into ash, the scent of old paper and dust my only companions in those last several days. Shelves full of books crowded all around me, each a sentinel of knowledge I gathered but couldn't use to ward off the storm brewing on Earth.

Only the moonlight gave the room its shape, spilling through the stained-glass window before me, casting its broken colors across the floor. The window became both my torment and my altar. I couldn't stay away from it, though each vision it reflected carved another wound into my soul. It was the one place where I might catch a glimpse of the other man. The one who had a face like mine, though he was no brother I could recall.

Through the jeweled glass, I viewed his world as if the distance of realms thinned to a worn-out curtain. And though each glimpse pained me, still I returned. For what curse is heavier than to watch and yet be powerless? What thing more sacred than to bear witness, even when the sight alone is enough to break the heart that dares it?

Night after night, I pressed my forehead to the cold panes until my temples throbbed. The voices that whispered from deep inside me told me he is one of us. They said the fire in his soul is the same as mine, though he walks in another land beneath another sky. Kin, they call him. And I believe them.

Every now and then, when the moon and stars line up just right, I can cross over. Not in body, but in spirit, riding as a shadow stitched to his heels. That night, the shimmer came again, and I was no more in my library but upon his wagon with him. I smelled loam and sweat, heard the steady rhythm of hooves beating the ground, felt the worn leather reins in his hands.

I tried to warn him so many times. I whispered in his dreams, put visions into his waking thoughts, and begged him to listen. But he turned from me every time. He walled me out, stubborn fool, shutting every door I sought to open. He would not hear me.

So I'm left to only follow him, voiceless and unseen, dragged along by the bond that I couldn't break... wouldn't.

The wind shifted, and the horse balked beneath us. His heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my own throat. I ached to seize the reins and walk the path for him, but it was one made for him alone. Yet I would watch and endure it, for I must know what awaited him.

He climbed down from his seat and stepped into the simple white house as the sun finally sank behind the trees beyond the fields of corn. I went with him and saw when he found the handprint smeared down the wall along the staircase. And still he dragged me with him into the bedroom down the hall.

Bodies lay twisted in death on the bed, and he staggered backward, turning and running away to his home down the lane. And there, at the kitchen table, sat the black-eyed man, fathomless pits of nothing, devouring the light of the single lamp burning between them. And the monster smiled. Then—darkness—only the inside of my head as our connection ended.

The library returned to me in a rush. And before me, the window no longer shimmered with visions, but gave back only my own pale face—an unwelcome reminder that I was bound to the Realm now, powerless, caged within those stone walls.

No kin of mine stood in that glass anymore, no bond, no echo of the path I just walked. It was as though a great hand seized me by the scruff of my neck and tore me from his world, casting me back into my own before the tale was finished.

How was I to help shape the future when I didn't know the ending? The questions and doubts raged unanswered inside me, and the silence of the room mocked me with its indifference to them. And there in the glass' depth stared only my own face. All that remained to me was failure, the bitter truth that I could only be a watcher and never a savior to those Earthborn souls our world needed so desperately.

Bonus Scene Two

Haldir- Savannah, Georgia in the Time of Gaslamp

The wheels of the carriage rattled over the stones of Jones Street as we turned the corner to Thorin’s home. Yet all the grandeur of the beautiful houses lining the road was subdued beneath the tokens of mourning. Every door and window dressed in black crepe, every balcony draped with long ribbons that stirred faintly in the wind as though the house itself breathed sorrow.

Not a soul amongst us spoke of the sweet girl we lost, but her absence was carved into every shuttered pane and hoof step.

The horses slowed before the dwelling, and a servant came at once to take the reins from me. I hopped off first and turned to aid Thorin as he set foot upon the stones. Shell of a man he was still, he only lingered on the sidewalk, his eyes climbing at once to the upper balcony and shuttered door that had once belonged to his sister.

Thorin hadn’t set foot within those walls for more than ten years while the Order lay in the grasp of its enemies. Yet with Jasper and Isabelle’s triumphant rebellion, the city’s witching society was made safe again, and the house opened to him as rightful heir.

Jasper pledged him both counsel and protection, and such honors were well meant. Still, they came too late. Tragedy had already dealt its hand to Thorin. Still, I saw in him a quiet solace, for whatever grief shadowed his heart those days, he was glad to stand once more upon his own blood’s dwelling.

Behind us, poor Miss Sofia stumbled down from the carriage, her kerchief blotched and sodden from weeping nonstop. But their young butler, Thomas, was there to catch her, offering his arm as though his narrow frame might bear all her sorrow. They made an odd pair—she stout as a kettle, he tall as a broom-handle—yet they were bound by the same grief as any family.

I laid my hand against Thorin’s back, urging him toward the staircase after them. “Come,” I said. “Let’s get settled, eh?”

The doorman stood aside to let us through, his head bowed respectfully. It was the way of these high society witching types to see to every detail, and they supplied a whole staff to tend and need in these days of sorrow, that the masters of the house might not be burdened with their own affairs for a while.

Thorin hesitated in the foyer, his eyes slowly taking in every detail as though he half-feared to find the place changed beyond knowing. “At least they didn’t wreck the place, I suppose,” he said, more to himself than to me.

The air stirred at my back, a draft curling through the room as the door opened once more. I turned, and there was Jasper Mason with his quick smile.

We’d long been friends, and it was no surprise to me that he should be the one to set things right in Savannah. And restoring Thorin’s inheritance when no law compelled him spoke of a decency that reached beyond duty. It was the kind of gesture that marked him out, not just as a leader, but as a man worth standing beside.

He came straight to Thorin and embraced him, not as an obligation, but as a brother returned home at last. “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Thorin,” Jasper said and let him go enough to lay his hand on Thorin’s face. “I’ve already got my best men on this. But if you need anything at all, it’s yours. The Order is at your service.”

Thorin was a man of thoughts and books more than a wielder of swords. The fight had never been his calling, so what happened to his sister wore him so thin he barely stood on his own anymore. “I’m so tired. I just want to be alone a while, if you don’t mind.”

Jasper only nodded, setting a hand on Thorin’s shoulder before motioning toward the stairs. “Go on. Take all the time you need.”

Grief is a heavy thing, and it weighed so heavily on Thorin as though it might push him through the floor. But at last he found strength enough to mount the stairs, though each step seemed to cost him dearly. When he vanished from sight, finally, the hall felt emptier for it, as though his sadness seeped into the walls and left behind a silence nothing could fill.

Jasper gave his dark curls a scratch, one brow flicking at me. “How is he truly?”

“As you might expect,” I said with a shrug. “But to be home will right him, and the hunt for the bastard will give him purpose enough to find his footing again.”

Jasper studied me for a breath, and I held his eyes as well, for we understood each other well enough to know there was other business to tend to.

Daniel set me to one task only—to act in his stead where his hands could not reach. His command was a brand on my soul, yet to speak it aloud was to confess that Jasper and his beloved would suffer a fate none of us could turn aside. But he was my friend, and he deserved the whole truth. Whatever he did with it after was for his conscience to sort out.

I let my eyes shift toward the parlor doors and said, “Anyhow, I have a tale to share with you. Best we take it with a drink, eh?”

These witches are a curious folk. I knew damn well he understood I had no good news to tell him. Still, he only swept his hand toward the double doors on the other side of the foyer, his toothy grin inviting a little trouble just for trouble’s sake. “Age before beauty, as they say.”