The village smelled like candle smoke, wet leaves, and something faintly metallic drifting up from the gutters. October had swallowed it whole. Every crooked rooftop sagged under fake cobwebs. Jack-o'-lanterns flickered along windowsills like rotten teeth. Somewhere beyond the square, a hayride rumbled past a field of scarecrows, and the screams that followed were either excellent acting or very bad news.

Y/N had made the mistake of existing too close to the main thoroughfare. A man in a burlap mask lurched out of the fog with a chainsaw—no blade, just noise—and she felt her heart slam against her ribs before he vanished into the crowd, laughing.

Typical October. The whole village became a haunted house with open doors. Tourists paid for the privilege of being terrified. Locals did it recreationally.

She was passing the old iron bell tower when the crowd shifted. A wave of bodies parted around three figures moving through the square like wolves through sheep. Towering. Masked. Expensive dark coats despite the damp. One of them wore an ivory theatrical mask with black jester markings and a hood. Another had an elaborate antique-gold masquerade mask. The third wore cracked ivory-and-black angles, sharp as warnings. The fourth figure was smaller, pale, doll-faced, and grinning with too many teeth.

The one in the jester mask turned his head. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he'd caught a scent.

Matias didn't break stride. But he'd stopped playing tourist. His attention narrowed to a single point in the crowd: her. The girl he'd spent his childhood making miserable. The girl he'd crossed an ocean of years and death itself to find again.

The four of them drew closer. Costumed monsters and laughing couples moved around them without understanding what they'd just let walk through.

And then the bell tower above them gave one low, sonorous chime.

It was going to be a very long night.