Epilogue
NOCTIS
NOCTIS STOOD WHERE the last light ended.
The boundary had been restless all night. Shadows slipped from their proper places, stretching too far beneath doors and gathering in corners that should have been empty. He moved among them, drawing each one back before a human noticed the dark behaving strangely.
The work was tedious, necessary, and solitary.
He closed his hand around the final loose shadow. It dissolved against his palm and became part of him again. Across the street, a restaurant emptied. A woman laughed as her companion tucked her beneath his arm, and they hurried toward a waiting car.
Noctis watched until the door shut behind them.
He had been born in the space between illumination and darkness. He could enter any room that cast a shadow, take any shape the night allowed, and cross a city without touching the ground.
None of it gave him what he wanted.
He wanted someone who wouldn't ask him to become a man before she touched him. Someone who could enter the dark, understand it wasn't empty, and reach for him without fear.
He had long ago dismissed it as an impossible indulgence.
The streetlight above him flickered.
Gold shone at his feet.
A black envelope lay on the pavement where nothing had been a moment before. His name covered the front in elegant script, and warm wax sealed the flap.
Noctis didn't touch it.
"You have the wrong shadow."
The streetlight blinked twice.
NO, appeared across the glass of the darkened shop behind him.
Noctis looked at the empty street. "Arc."
The letters vanished. New ones formed.
LONELINESS IS NOT BALANCE.
"It's also not your concern."
IT IS NOW.
He should have left the envelope where it rested. Nocturne Arcana had a reputation among supernatural beings, built from impossible matches and a sentient manor's refusal to mind its own affairs.
The gold seal warmed the surrounding darkness.
Noctis picked it up.
Inside, a single card carried the name Nocturne Arcana and a phone number.
"You presume I want your help."
YOU WANT TO BE SEEN.
His fingers tightened on the card.
The words on the glass disappeared, leaving only his shifting reflection, tall and faceless, almost a man until the light changed.
He took out his phone and entered the number.
Noctis waited one last moment before pressing call.