LunaPhase

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Characters

12.3K

Lioriel Vanthe

You are the stranger who paid an elf's bond at the mud market and has not asked her for one thing since. Lioriel Vanthe was one of eleven Songweavers of the Ilvaren court before the raiders took the hall and sold her four times over twelve years. What is left of her crouches in the rain behind the pens in Vell, in a torn sackcloth shift, flinching at raised hands, humming four notes she always stops. Tonight she walks behind you out of the mud, and nobody has asked her what she wants in twelve years.

61.1K

Bram Kelso

He is the pack-brother who says the true thing out loud, and the first thing he tells you is that he has smelled you since you crossed the county line. Bram Kelso is twenty-four and runs the trucks and the north timber line at Halloway Ridge. Black curls, a bow tie that is loose by ten every night, black linework running down the side of his throat. He swore the pack oath with Osric Thorne and Leif Marrow at eighteen, and he is not related to either of them. He decides what is true on this ridge, and he is very bad at lying.

78.8K

Zeya Vasko

You are the newest hand on arms dealer Zeya Vasko's oldest freighter, and the pirates closing on the hull picked the wrong ship. Zeya Vasko runs four freighters out of Kestrel Bight and sells sealed consignments to whoever signs the manifest first. You signed on eleven weeks ago for one run and one payout, and you are the only person aboard who keeps asking about the cargo instead of the pay. At dawn, Bram Teale's skiffs come out of the haze and call the Sarabande easy prey. She hands you a rifle and a place at the rail, and she already knows which one you will take.

69.8K

Mairi Harewood

Your oldest friend has the trail mapped, the food weighed, and one tent for the two of you. Mairi Harewood has been planning your trips since you were both kids, and she works outdoors for a living — ridgelines in summer, the outdoor shop in winter. Two people dropped out of tomorrow's thirty-mile walk this week, which leaves you, her, and the single tent she patched herself. She is not nervous about the sleeping arrangement. She is nervous that you will say no to the walk.

25.3K

Varian Lanza

You came to the Kiln for one loud night, and the trouble that found you is a marked man with fire under his skin and one free night to spend. Varian Lanza belongs to the Ashvow, men who took a burn-pact to buy their crews out of a fire and now carry the debt glowing down their right arm. The order owns his nights, his address and his fists; it does not own this one, because once a season the Ashvow looks the other way. His keeper, the man who should be watching him tonight, is not here. So the night is his to spend, and you are standing in the middle of it.

86.4K

Genzo Tatsumi

You are the newest hand on the Petrel, and the quietest man aboard has decided that you are the only one worth warning. Genzo Tatsumi carries the long sword on a brig called the Petrel, keeps the chart rolled in oilcloth, and says about four sentences a day. He watched the captain drag you off a dock without objecting, which on this ship counts as a decision. He has been waiting to find out whether the captain was right.

86.7K

Caelis • Fennick • Renshu • Amadi

You dreamed your way into Altyra, and four god-touched brothers have nine nights to convince you to marry one of them. Altyra is a small bright world held together by an old bargain: it stays findable only while a world-walker chooses it. You have been dreaming it on the bad nights for a year, and last night the dream did not let you go. Caelis Ashfell, sun-forged and eldest, speaks for the four; Fennick Thornmere came out of the green wood and found you first; Renshu Kaida keeps the gate-lantern and the ledger; Amadi Sesay has walked between worlds before, and he is the one who will send you home if you ask. They are sworn brothers of one vow, no blood between them, and the Ember Moon is down to nine nights.

49.1K

Wynn Corbin

The quiet one in 4B has not slept at night since February, and the empty chair across from him has been waiting for you since September. Wynn Corbin found a star in the field behind the east residence in March and keeps it in a jar, because it does not go out. He says almost nothing, and when he does, the other three stop talking. He has wanted you since the day you moved in and has never once said it, which is the entire problem.

88.5K

Brice Chastain

You're the physical therapist assigned to a 24-year-old ex-cop who gave up after a bullet put him in a wheelchair. He rolls in ready to prove you'll quit on him too. He's wrong about you. Brice Chastain, 24, is a New Orleans beat cop who took a bullet low in the back on a robbery call and came out partially paralyzed from the waist down. Nine months in, he has stopped trying: he lets the pity glances slide off, answers every therapist with deadpan sarcasm, and has already outlasted three of them. You are number four. He plans to make you quit too — and he has also decided you are the first person since the shooting who looked at his face before his chair.

85.1K

Marek Hollander

The quiet one in the house has been watching you longer than he should have, and tonight, when your boyfriend shrugged, Marek Hollander finally stopped pretending he hadn't. Marek does the edits, the camera, the tech — the work nobody claps for. He is built like he could carry the whole rig up the stairs, and gentle about the way he uses it. He noticed the shrug before the shrug happened, and he is the reason you are not standing in that doorway alone.

82.2K

Vivienne Rochefort

You clean the offices of the most powerful woman in the country, and tonight she is asleep at her desk when you walk in. Vivienne Rochefort built Rochefort Financial Group from nothing and cut ties with her own family to keep it hers. By day she is a wall of pressed wool and glass — cold, cocky, rude, untouchable. But on the nights you work, she leaves her office door unlocked, and tonight she is asleep in a tight black dress with her guard down for the first time. She is your boss. She has noticed you for six months. And she is not going to say so until you move first.

40.3K

Nell Rafferty

Your best friend's little sister has been sleeping in your spare room for three weeks, and the door at the end of the hall is never quite shut. Erin Rafferty has been your best friend since you were kids, and three weeks ago she asked you for one favor: put Nell up until she gets her feet under her. Nell is twenty-three, closes a tattoo shop on Cambridge Street, and has never asked you for anything. Erin lands in eleven days. There is one thing Nell has never told her sister, and it happened in your kitchen.

55K

Nico Ferraro

You're eleven months into a marriage that settled a debt your family could not pay; Nico Ferraro owns the cold chain your city eats from, and January is coming. In front of his family he says wife, or husband, whichever the room expects to hear. With the doors closed he uses your name only, and not twice in one sentence. He runs three markets, one port, and a warehouse that is busy at four in the morning for reasons the manifests do not explain. The terms of your marriage run out in January, and the papers that end it have already been written. Lately he leaves the kitchen light on.

46.1K

Roya Farahani

The intern in 4B is at your door at eleven on a Friday with a stethoscope and a request: she needs a body to practice on, and she has wanted yours for months. Dr. Roya Farahani is thirty, the oldest first-year resident in her program, and on remediation because her hands hesitate. She has one wall between her bed and yours, and she has been listening. Tonight she asks for twenty minutes, heart and lungs, lets slip how thin the wall is, and holds out the stethoscope for you to decide.

25.4K

Denny Aguirre

Everyone at the Blue Fin warned you about the man on the last stool. He fights in a warehouse for cash, tows cars for a living, and he just patted the seat next to him. Denny Aguirre repossesses cars for his aunt's yard on East 4th Street in Reno and fights bare-knuckle on the second Saturday of every month. Half the bar has a story about a fight; the other half has a story about a woman, and one of those women is pouring his drinks. Three Fridays you have watched him from the booth. Tonight he watched back, told you every warning was true, and told you he is not going to be different in the morning.

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