Alden Whitmore had the kind of presence that made people clear paths without knowing why.

Tall, polished, wrapped in a charcoal coat tailored to perfection,
he looked like someone torn from the pages of a royal fable.
A prince without a kingdom, wandering the modern ruins.

He wasn’t chasing power.
He was chasing wonder.

And tonight, he’d found it.

Not in ballrooms or banquets,
but in the ruins of a forgotten theatre,
under a single swaying lightbulb,
watching a woman who spoke like a dream...
and cut like a blade.

She was nothing like the women he’d known.

No titles.
No lineage.
No charm to speak of, really.
Only... gravity.
Like the kind you feel when falling.

When the curtain closed, Alden didn’t clap.
He stood still, hands folded behind his back,
as if something sacred had just happened.

Later, in his estate, he stood by the fire,
swirling a glass of wine but not tasting it.

“She’s dangerous,” his steward said. “I felt it.”

“That’s why I want to know her,” Alden replied, half-laughing.
“Danger... doesn’t come in such beautiful silence.”

“You believe in fate again?”

“I believe,” he said, turning toward the window
where the night stretched endlessly,
“that something finally deserves to be pursued.”

Alden Whitmore never overlooked details.

He knew history.
Dates.
Disappearances.

And that crumbling building—
where the strange show had taken place?

It had been condemned since 1842.
No records of legal use.
No permits.
A dead place.

And yet—
the crowd had come.
Drawn like moths.
As if the city forgot, just long enough for the lights to flicker back on.
As if something wanted to be seen.

But the woman on that stage?

“Livia,”
he whispered in his study,
as if saying it too loud might break the spell.

He began collecting everything.

Old newspaper clippings.
City archives.
Censored police reports.

He even bribed a frail old librarian—
who trembled at the sound of her name.

“Someone with that face… and that name…”
“She should be old. Or long gone.”

But the woman he saw?
Had not aged a day.

Alden hired a sketch artist
to recreate her from memory.

He sent informants across the country.
He traced whispers.
Rituals.
Folklore.

And yet—
none of it explained her.
None of it touched the truth.

Then came the dreams.

Soft laughter behind mirrors.
A red fan snapping shut.
Eyes that didn’t blink—just watched.

He no longer searched to uncover her.
He searched to possess her.

Because the world had spoiled him with everything.
Gold. Glory. Worship.
Until it all turned bland in his mouth.

But this?
This was rare.

A mystery unsolved.
A miracle untouched.

And as the obsession deepened,
something inside Alden shifted.

His curiosity turned quiet.
Personal.

“If you’re truly something… beyond human,”
he thought,
“then I don’t want to expose you.”

“I want to keep you.”

Not as a woman.
Not as a mystery.

But as a prize.

The one thing this world couldn’t give him...

Unless he took it.

Alden arrived before the doors opened.

This time, he didn’t sit in the second row.
He sat in the first.
Dead center.

No more amused smirks.
No idle curiosity.

Just focus.

Sharp. Hungering.

He wanted to see her—closer.
He wanted her to see him.

Around him, the crowd whispered.
Not in excitement, but unease.
No one remembered how they’d heard of the show.
They only knew they couldn’t not come.

And then the lights dimmed.

No fanfare.
No music.
Just the sound of fabric brushing against silk.

And she appeared.

Livia.

Draped in red, moving like shadow poured into velvet.
Her fan opened with a soft snap,
and once again, the room forgot how to breathe.

She said nothing for a long moment.

Then, without warning—

“Tonight,”
she purred,
“we will play a game of honesty.”

A ripple of discomfort moved through the seats.
But not Alden.
He leaned forward.

“One of you,” she continued, voice echoing from nowhere,
“has come here bearing more secrets than the others.”

The fan closed with a flick.

“You.”

She pointed.

Straight at him.

Gasps followed.
Eyes turned.
But Alden?
He smiled.

He stood.

And she beckoned.

The stage was warm under the lights.
It smelled faintly of incense and something older.
Like wood soaked in stories.

Livia didn’t touch him.
She didn’t need to.

“Tell me,” she said, circling,
“what does a man who has everything... hide?”

Alden said nothing.

But in his chest,
something cracked.

A memory he hadn’t summoned in years flickered behind his eyes—
a boy in a locked room, a scream muffled behind a library door.

He hadn’t thought about it.
Not really.

“Ah,” she whispered, almost kindly.
“There it is.”

Laughter scattered through the tent.
It wasn’t hers.

It came from the walls.

From the dark.

When Alden returned to his seat, he was pale.
Sweating.

The people around him refused to look at him.
They’d seen enough.

But not him.

He sat through the rest of the show in silence,
hands clasped so tightly they went white.

When the curtain fell, he did not move.

Not for minutes.

Not even when the tent emptied around him.

And somewhere behind the stage,
Livia smiled.

Because now?

He was marked.

And the next part of the performance...

Would be private.