Chicago, late October.
Rain ran down the shop windows in thin, silver veins, the kind that blurred the city lights into a dull glow. Luke had always liked nights like this — quiet, anonymous, unremarkable. Just him, the tools, and the scent of old wood and varnish.
He worked late, repairing a cracked Victorian mirror frame — oak, scorched at the edges. It had come from a collector in New Orleans, one of several he'd been sent over the past few months. All fire-damaged. All from different places. All bearing, faintly, the same symbol burned into the back: a curling shape like a spiral devouring its own tail.
He didn't believe in coincidences anymore.
Luke leaned closer, brushing away the soot. Beneath the grime, the pattern glowed faintly — not from any chemical, not from the light. It pulsed. Just once. Then faded.
He stepped back, heart hammering.
"Not again…" he muttered.
That's when the bell over the shop door chimed.
He froze. No one should've been out this late — not in this storm. The clock above the register read 11:47 p.m. He set his tools down carefully.
A woman stood in the doorway. Rain soaked her hair and coat, but she didn't seem cold. Her eyes searched the shop like she recognized it. When she finally looked at Luke, something inside him twisted.
She looked exactly like Emma.
Older, perhaps — her hair longer, darker at the ends. But her face, her lips, the soft scar near her temple — they were the same.
Luke's voice barely rose above a whisper. "…Emma?"
The woman blinked, confused. "Do I… know you?"
His throat tightened. "You— you look just like—"
She stepped forward, studying him. "I don't remember much," she said softly. "Just flashes. Fire. A house on a hill. And a name I keep hearing in my head…" She hesitated. "Luke."
Every sound in the room seemed to vanish. The hum of the lights, the rain, even the air between them felt suspended.
He swallowed hard. "That's my name."
Her gaze dropped to the mirror on the worktable. The faint spiral burned faintly once more, as if responding to her presence.
She touched the frame — and the air shifted. The lights flickered. For a moment, Luke saw her reflection in the mirror's surface — not standing in the shop, but surrounded by firelight, the same glow that had consumed Ashmere Hill three years ago.
Then the light snapped out.
The mirror cracked.
The woman gasped, pulling her hand away. "I didn't— I didn't mean to—"
Luke stepped forward, steadying her by the shoulders. "It's okay. It's… okay."
But he was lying. Because as he held her, he could feel it again — the faint, impossible warmth beneath her skin.
The fire hadn't died.
It had followed her.
And for the first time in three years, Luke realized the truth:
Emma wasn't gone.
The fire had brought her back.