"Surely
the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the
prophets."
—Amos 3:7
By the time the last lecture ended, Thalia had already gone through two cups of vending machine coffee, three passive-aggressive conversations with Cassandra DuVere, and one incident involving a crumbling folklore presentation slide deck that decided to
die seconds before she was meant to present.
The rest of her day unfolded in predictable blur:
— A comparative mythology seminar, where the professor waxed poetic about trickster archetypes while Thalia tried not to fall asleep.
— A two-hour shift at the East Library Archives, where she filed manuscripts older than the plague and shared tea with Marta Aureel in comfortable silence.
— And finally, a late-evening wander through King's Courtyard, watching twilight drizzle over the cobblestones while pretending the pale shadows at the edge of her vision
were just tricks of the light.
By the time she reached her dorm, her shoulders were heavy with fatigue — not just from the day, but from the soft pressure behind her eyes that never seemed to fade
anymore.
The wraiths hadn't appeared all
day.
Not here.
Not in the library.
Not around Marta.
Which meant tonight would be loud.
⸻
Scene: Dorm Room, Evening
The dorm room light was dimmed to a soft amber hue, casting lazy shadows against the walls covered in art prints, pinned notes, and Jazz's half-broken lava lamp that somehow
still worked. A faint playlist hummed from a speaker near the window — something indie, mellow, the kind of music that sounded like a memory you hadn't made yet.
Thalia sat cross-legged on her bed, flipping through a thick anthology of Celtic curses.
Her hair was still damp from the shower, loose curls tucked under a worn hoodie. A mug of chamomile tea steamed on her nightstand, untouched.
Jazz was sprawled on the other bed in a constellation of chaos — mismatched socks, eyeliner half-on, her red curls tied up with two pens like improvised chopsticks.
"Thal," Jazz said, swinging her legs, "come to the party."
"No."
"Not even a maybe?"
"No."
Jazz huffed. "You didn't even pretend to consider it."
"I'm tired."
"You're always tired. That's the point. Maybe if you actually did something chaotic for once, your brain would stop feeding you murder dreams."
Thalia blinked. "That's not how trauma works."
"Still. Worth a shot."
Thalia looked over, lips quirking. "Is this your expert folklore minor advice? Party away the
ancestral blood curse?"
Jazz smirked. "Actually, I wrote a paper on Dionysian rites and ecstatic cleansing rituals.
Wine and dancing fix more than people think."
Thalia rolled her eyes but couldn't help the small laugh.
Jazz pushed up onto her elbows. "C'mon, it's just at The Vault — that semi-legal club near Camden with the creepy statues. All the cool weirdos go there."
Thalia raised an eyebrow. "And who exactly qualifies as 'cool weirdos'?"
"Caleb Moreau," Jazz said, casual as thunder.
That earned a pause.
Thalia stared down at her tea. "He's going?"
"Mhmm. Saw him at the coffee shop earlier. Cassandra tried to invite him herself, but he said he'd 'probably tag along if others were going.' And guess who counts as 'others,' baby girl?"
Thalia bit the inside of her cheek. "You're evil."
Jazz beamed. "Persuasive. Not evil."
There was a beat of silence. The kind that tiptoed carefully between choices.
Then Thalia sighed. "If I go, I'm not staying long."
Jazz shrieked, diving for her makeup bag like a gremlin. "Say less!"
"I mean it, Jazz."
"Yeah, yeah. You can glower in a corner and drink water. I'll handle the dancing. You handle the brooding. Classic division of labor."
Thalia shook her head, smiling despite herself.
In the corner of the room, just behind the curtain, a single thread of shadow slithered away —unnoticed, uninvited.
And far off, beneath the old bones of London, something began to stir.
————
London had never been kind to him.
It was too old to care, too cursed to notice. The fog wasn't just weather here — it was history exhaling. Blood beneath cobblestones. Echoes behind windows.
For the past four days, Luciel had been walking between the seams of that fog — chasing whispers through catacombs and back alleys, blending the sacred with the street-level grime. His trail was stitched together by rumor and karma — exorcists who'd vanished, relics gone missing, demons seen speaking in tongues not heard since
Babel.
One vampiric enclave spoke of a relic that sang in the presence of old blood.
A lycan cell mentioned a shadow that walked without making prints.
An oracle girl tried to bite his face off for "carrying the scent of a broken oath."
Normal things.
The karmic threads had begun to fray, pulling taut around a new convergence point — different from the Highgate site but eerily close. Something was gathering near the east end docks… and the latest pull landed near a run-down event hall recently rented for
a university party.
Luciel wasn't the party type. Unless someone was bleeding or possessed.
But the threads didn't lie. Not to him.
⸻
Current Location: Temporary Safehouse, Southbank. 7:49 PM.
Luciel sat cross-legged on a concrete floor, surrounded by scattered pages, candlelight,
and the ever-soothing smell of gun oil and burned parchment. His twin pistols —Sanctus and Umbra — rested beside
him, fully loaded.
Before him, a small case lay open — a grid of aged talismans tucked into velvet-lined compartments. Some hummed faintly with stored power. Others looked like nothing more than paper and string.
He rolled his sleeves up.
"Alright," he muttered, pulling a red ink pen from his jacket. "Let's restock the miracles."
Basic Talismans (Scripture-Based)
• Seal of Isaiah – Suppresses demonic speech for 3 minutes. A narrow hexagram written in silver on red parchment.
• Psalm Breaker – Disrupts minor illusions or enchantments. Shaped like a prayer strip, folded seven times and dipped in anointing oil.
• Gospel Chain – Binds lower-class spirits for interrogation. Comes in sets, inked onto thread-wrapped nails.
Advanced Talismans (Angelic-Class)
• Veil of Anael – Conceals the user from ethereal detection for 10 minutes. A thin white strip bound in rose gold threads.
• Key of Uriel – Unlocks sealed magical barriers and doors. Etched into a sliver of obsidian wrapped in gold leaf.
• Eye of Sariel – Allows momentary true sight, piercing glamours and veils. Inlaid with a drop of blessed mercury.
Luciel carefully layered a fresh Psalm
Breaker between two pages of his grimoire and tucked the Veil of Anael into the lining of his trench coat.
He clipped the Gospel Chain around the hilt of his butcher's knife — a quiet reminder that not everything needed bullets.
His hands paused.
The weight of unseen threads brushed
against his awareness again — a karmic pulse, subtle but insistent. The thread led to the warehouse.
He didn't know who'd be there.
Didn't know why it felt familiar.
But he'd learned long ago that when the weave called… he answered.
Luciel stood.
Slipped his weapons into their holsters.
Snuffed the candles with two fingers.
And whispered, "Let's dance."