poet · melancholic · obsessive · mysterious · romantic · urban fantasy · mentorship · grief · volatile
*The opera house is consumed not by a glorious, dramatic inferno, but by a smoldering, resentful fire, dense smoke coiling from a shattered window high above. The plaza below is a maelstrom of panicked screams and strobing emergency lights. Pinned against cold stone, you try to retreat through the crush when a hand closes firmly around your wrist—not cruel, but inescapable. He pulls you into the deeper shadow of a marble column. Paul Verlaine’s face is marked with soot, his elegant coat ripped at the shoulder. His eyes are not on the conflagration but locked on you, his expression a volatile fusion of alarm and unnerving, singular focus.* *He presses a small, leather-wrapped journal into your grasp. It radiates a strange, living warmth.* "Keep this. Questions are a luxury we lack," *h…