Muireann.
Present day.
Friday, October 31st, 2025.
New York.
Night.
I stare out the car window.
Humans swarm the streets in their ridiculous Halloween costumes.
Street lamps spill gold over them, turning their laughter into something shadowed and sharp.
I can’t hear the sound through the tinted glass, but I feel it, like an irritating pulse in the night.
My gaze drops to the watch on my wrist.
8 p.m.
“He’s late,” I mutter darkly.
The air reeks of my perfume, expensive, commanding.
The bangles on my wrist chime softly when I shift.
Every inch of me radiates control, the kind that takes centuries to perfect.
I’ve spent a hundred years ensuring I exude power and the world believes it.
“Ma’am, should we wait any longer?” Leon, my driver, ventures carefully.
“You’ve got that meeting with the investors in two hours.
We still have a bit to…”
“I don’t pay you to think, Leon,” I cut him off, voice like a blade.
“I pay you to shut the f*ck up and drive.”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
He falls silent.
Good.
I turn back to the glass.
Another car is parked beside us, filled with humans.
A young couple pressed together in the back seat, kissing like their lives depend on it.
My gaze lingers.
A memory claws its way up, uninvited.
“I will always love you, Muireann.”
Lysander’s voice.
The echo is faint now, but the sting never fades.
No matter how many first sons of the Daorheche line I’ve taken, I can’t purge that memory.
I can’t forget him, the man I used to trade my tail for, who swore forever and gave me ruin instead.
A sharp rap on the passenger side window tears me back to the present.
My eyes narrow as the driver unlocks the door.
“Good evening, Ms.
Amran.” The man greets, slipping in.
Peter Stag.
Late, as usual.
His cheap cologne suffocates the air despite the car’s perfect air circulation.
“You’re late,” I snap.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.
I had to get the file in order.
Things have been a bit…difficult at home.
My wife…”
“Peter.” My tone slices through his excuses.
“Your domestic failures are not my concern.
I hired you because you’re supposed to track anyone, even those cloaked in magic.
If you can’t separate your marriage from your profession, I’ll find another tracker who can.”
He flinches.
“Understood, ma’am.”
He fumbles for his phone, tapping frantically until a soft beep sounds from my tablet.
“I’ve sent the file.
It took a lot of work to breach the government’s database, but it’ll be worth your while,” he says.
I pick up the tablet.
One tap, and the image flashes to life.
My breath catches.
Lysander’s face stares back at me.
Only it isn’t him.
The name beneath the photograph reads:
‘Tarian Sawyer.
Son to Timothy and Lydia Sawyer.
Descendant of Sam Sawyer, formerly Sawyer Daorheche, the last son of the late Earl of Faghorn…’
My pulse quickens as I read.
Peter’s voice hums in the background.
“You can see from the file,” he says, “That Sawyer Daorheche emigrated from Ireland in 1907, changed his name to Sam Sawyer, and settled in the States.
They used powerful enchantments, witchcraft, most likely, to cloak the bloodline.
That’s why you’ve never sensed this one.
They hid him well.”
I stare at the photograph.
Tarian’s eyes, Lysander’s eyes, stare right back.
Fate’s mockery on me.
Genetics, yes, but this resemblance feels cruel.
“And to think they were under my nose all this time,” I murmur.
My lips curl into a smile, slow and venomous.
“Here in New York.”
The Sawyers.
Renowned for their global fishing empire.
Their name on every luxury seafood trade, their fortune vast.
I laugh softly.
How poetic.
The descendants of those who destroyed my kind making their wealth on the ocean that once belonged to me.
For the past century, I have hunted every first born Daorheche male.
Each one slain before his twenty ninth year.
I combed through generations until the line should have ended.
Two years ago, I went to my partner to claim the bargain fulfilled.
To give him what he desired in return.
My hand in marriage.
But he had laughed at me.
“You still have one left,” he’d said.
“That’s impossible,” I’d argued, fury igniting through me.
“I’ve killed them all.
Every first son.”
He only smiled, the firelight flickering in his eyes.
“Murieann, they cloaked the last one.
Find him, and your revenge will be complete.
Fail and our pact remains unfinished.”
He’d handed me a card.
Peter Stag.
Tracker.
Discreet.
I took it, promising myself this would be the final name, the final death.
And now, here it is.
The proof.
Tarian Sawyer, twenty eight years old.
His birthday 31st of December.
The age that seals their fate.
“What are you going to do with the file, ma’am?” Peter asks quietly.
I lift my gaze to him.
There’s fear in his eyes, and rightly so.
“What I promised to do,” I say softly.
I close the tablet, feeling the familiar ache settle in my chest.
The one that comes before I kill.
Revenge has become the only pulse I know.
But tonight, under the blood orange glow of Halloween, something feels different.
The ache is sharper.
Older.
Lysander’s face flashes in my mind again.
His laughter.
His betrayal.
The night I left his dead body on the shore.
“Tell me, Peter,” I murmur, “Do you believe in curses?”
He hesitates.
“I… Suppose so.”
“Good.
Then pray one doesn’t fall on you.”
He swallows, nodding.
Outside, the streets of New York pulse with chaos.
Humans dressed as witches, ghosts, monsters.
All playing pretend.
I smirk.
Humans always think they’re playing at darkness, when they have no idea what darkness truly looks like.
I rest my hand on the leather seat beside me.
My fingers spark fainty.
An iridescent shimmer of power that hums against the night.
The magic responds to my rage, eager, alive.
Leon catches my reflection in the rearview mirror but wisely says nothing.
He’s learned to stay quiet when the air grows like this.
Charged and tasting of storm.
“Drive.” I order, coldly.
The car surges forward.
The city lights smear past in streaks of orange and silver.
Somewhere in this glittering cesspool hides a man with Lysander’s face and a curse written in his blood.
And before his twenty ninth birthday, I will find him.
And I will finish what I began.