Amara didn't sleep that night.
She tried — she went home, changed out of her gown, curled up in bed — but her mind wouldn't let go. The photograph. The locket. The symbol was carved into the door.
And Lucien.
Everything about him defied logic. His knowledge. His calm. His belief. But it wasn't just what he said — it was what she felt. Like every moment with him was brushing against a buried memory, like touching a scar she couldn't remember getting.
She gave up on sleep around 4 a.m.
By 6, she was standing in front of the old bookstore Lucien had mentioned briefly the night before — The Hollow Page — tucked between a wine bar and a laundromat in the East Village. It didn't have a website. It didn't even have signage. But he'd said the owner, a woman named Madalena, "understood things."
Amara wasn't sure what that meant anymore. But she needed answers.
The door creaked open with a jingle.
Inside, the air was thick with dust and incense. Rows of shelves leaned slightly under the weight of ancient books. The place smelled like time. No music, no cash register hum. Just silence.
And then —
"You're not supposed to be here yet."
The voice came from the back.
A woman emerged from behind a curtain. Tall. Ageless. Long silver hair tied back in a braid. Her eyes were milky blue but sharp, like storm clouds. She looked at Amara the way one might look at a knife — not with fear, but with respect.
"You're Madalena?" Amara asked.
The woman nodded. "And you're late. By a century or so."
Amara blinked. "Excuse me?"
Madalena gave a small, humorless smile. "Come. You're not ready, but we never are."
Amara followed her to a small table near the back. On it sat an old bronze bowl, a small vial of dark liquid, and a candle already burning low.
"Sit," Madalena said. "And don't lie to me. I don't have patience for modern cowardice."
"Good thing I'm not the cowardly type."
Madalena raised an eyebrow. "We'll see."
Amara sat. Madalena took her wrist and pricked her finger with a silver needle before she could object. A drop of blood hit the liquid in the bowl. It hissed.
"What is this?" Amara asked.
"Memory," Madalena said. "Yours. His. All the lives you've both lived."
The candle flickered wildly. Then went still.
And Amara fell into the bowl.
The vision hit her like a storm.
Flashes. Screams. A carriage on fire. Rain. A hand reaching for hers.
Lucien — but not Lucien. His face was younger, his hair longer, clothes strange. He called her name — Anaïs. And she ran.
A voice shouted in a language she didn't know but somehow understood: "The marked ones must not reunite."
Then steel. Then pain.
Then darkness.
Amara gasped and pulled back from the bowl, nearly toppling the table.
Her chest heaved. Her hands were shaking.
Madalena didn't look surprised. "Now you see."
"I— I died," Amara whispered. "I saw myself die."
"Yes. That's what they do. Every time you find each other, they kill you. Before the two of you can remember what you were."
"What were we?"
Madalena's eyes darkened. "Something powerful enough to break them."
Amara sat in stunned silence.
"You were always meant to awaken," Madalena said. "But they're hunting you faster this time. They've learned."
"Why now?" Amara asked, voice barely steady.
"Because Lucien's remembering too fast," Madalena said. "And because this is the last cycle."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't get another life after this," she said. "If you die this time, it's final. They've made sure of it."
The words hit like ice. Cold and permanent.
Madalena pressed something into Amara's palm — a smooth piece of obsidian with a rune etched into the surface.
"Keep this with you," she said. "It's not a weapon, but it'll warn you when they're near."
Amara stood, still dizzy. "How do I fight something I don't remember being part of?"
Madalena smiled faintly. "You don't need to remember who you were. You just need to decide who you're going to be."
That night, Amara didn't go home. She went to Lucien's penthouse.
He answered the door before she knocked.
"You felt it, didn't you?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "I went to see Madalena."
Lucien stepped aside to let her in.
"I saw us," she said. "One of the times we died."
Lucien closed his eyes for a moment. "They always find us too soon."
"This time we fight," she said.
He turned to her. "You're sure?"
Amara opened her hand. The obsidian shard glinted in the low light.
"It burned in my hand halfway here. Something's coming."
Lucien's jaw clenched. "Then we start now."
He crossed the room and pulled back a hidden panel in the wall. Behind it: weapons, old books, strange objects that hummed faintly with energy.
"Welcome to the war, Amara."
She didn't flinch.
"I've already died in it," she said. "Might as well finally win."