Clara Dunn was not a girl easily startled. She worked nights at the town's only café, pouring coffee for sleepless students, lonely wanderers, and the occasional drifter who mistook Elmswick for a place to rest. Most never stayed long.
But when the stranger came, she noticed. Everyone did. His presence pressed against the room like a storm waiting to break. He drank nothing, ordered nothing, only sat in the corner where the shadows gathered thickest. Yet when Clara walked past, she felt the brush of his gaze like ice along her skin.
That night, as she locked the café doors and stepped into the misty street, she swore she saw him standing across the square. Still. Watching.