Chapter 1: Oh Valentine!

The city of Blackmire was, to put it delicately, an absolute pit.

It smelled of wet stone, old sins, and the kind of regret that lingers in the back of one's throat like cheap gin. The streets were paved with cobblestones that seemed to rearrange themselves just to trip you, the gas lamps flickered as if winking at your misfortune, and the alleyways had an unfortunate habit of swallowing people whole.

Blackmire did not welcome you. It tolerated you.

And if you were particularly unlucky, it noticed you.

Valentine Fontaine had lived here long enough to know three important rules:

Never make eye contact with anyone selling "mystery meat." If you hear someone whisper your name from the sewer grates, no, you did not.Falling in love in Blackmire was like slipping on a banana peel at the gallows—it wouldn't kill you outright, but it would certainly make your death a more complicated affair.

Unfortunately for Valentine, he was a romantic idiot with no sense of self-preservation.

So when he woke up that morning with his heart doing somersaults and no recollection of why, he simply accepted it as fact.

Somewhere in this godforsaken city, he was in love.

And Valentine Fontaine had no idea who he was in love with.

But he knew one thing for certain: he had to look fantastic while making a fool of himself.

***

He stumbled out of bed, barely dodging a floorboard that had been trying to trip him for weeks, and landed in front of the cracked mirror nailed precariously to the wall. His reflection looked about as enthusiastic as a man about to be executed, which was fitting, considering love in Blackmire was only slightly less dangerous than treason.

Still, he had woken up with that unmistakable ache in his chest—the kind that said someone out there had tilted his entire existence off balance. And if his heart had already signed its own death warrant, he was at least going to make sure he died dressed properly.

He rummaged through his wardrobe, which consisted of:

A once-dashing coat that had lost a duel with time.A waistcoat that might have been burgundy in a past life but now resembled a color best described as Regret.A cravat he had won in a poker game, which, much like his love life, had frayed edges and questionable origins.

He threw on the ensemble with the air of a man getting dressed for both a first date and a funeral—because in Blackmire, the two were often interchangeable.

Feeling dapper but slightly concerned about his ability to survive the day, he descended the stairs of his boarding house, stepping over a passed-out drunk (who may or may not have been the landlord).

Outside, Blackmire greeted him with its usual charm:

A man sprinted down the street, being chased by three other screaming men and what looked suspiciously like a sentient debt collector.The bakery sign read FRESH BREAD but had a dagger stuck through the word fresh.A crow sat on a streetlamp, staring at Valentine with the knowing gaze of something that had witnessed war crimes.

Ah. Home.

Valentine, ever the optimist in a city that ate optimism for breakfast, decided he needed food before embarking on his great romantic adventure.

He strolled into The Crooked Spoon, which still did not possess any actual spoons, and ordered something that the menu claimed was "Eggs and Toast." The dish that arrived looked more like the concept of eggs and toast rather than the real thing.

"Romance fuel," he muttered to himself as he took a bite. It tasted like existential dread and lukewarm regret.

Perfect.

***

Valentine Fontaine had just taken a rather regrettable bite of what The Crooked Spoon insisted was "Eggs and Toast" when he noticed her.

The old woman sat directly across from him at the tiny, rickety café table.

He hadn't seen her arrive.

Hadn't heard the creak of a chair, the shuffle of footsteps, not even the faintest rustle of fabric.

One moment he had been alone with his tragic breakfast, and the next, she was simply there.

She regarded him with small, sharp eyes—bright and knowing, the kind of eyes that suggested she had lived long enough to see things that ought to have never been seen at all. Her face was a map of deep wrinkles, etched with time, sorrow, and perhaps a few too many expressions of disapproval.

She wore a coat so many layers deep it seemed less like clothing and more like a portable fortress against the world. A few grey feathers stuck out from one of the inner linings, as though a bird had either nested there or been swallowed whole.

Valentine swallowed his bite of toast (which took far more effort than it should have) and cleared his throat.

"Can I help you, madam?" he asked, because politeness cost nothing—except, in Blackmire, it sometimes cost everything.

The old woman blinked. Slowly. Once.

Then, she reached forward with her gnarled fingers, tapped his plate with a single, brittle nail, and said:

"That's not food."

Valentine looked down at his meal.

Looked back at her.

Then, with an exhale of absolute defeat, he set down his fork. "Yes. You are correct."

She nodded, satisfied. "You should know better."

"Sadly, I do not."

A long, stretched silence followed, in which the city outside carried on its usual nonsense—a man on the street was being pickpocketed by a goddamn child in a coat. But worse, poor Lemmy, Max's dog, was being kicked to death by a man wearing uniform that read — Chief Henson. Commission and Security.

Valentine shifted. The woman did not blink.

"So," he ventured, feeling vaguely as though he were speaking to something older than time itself, "do you make a habit of appearing at breakfast tables to judge the life choices of complete strangers?"

She let out a breath that could, under generous circumstances, be considered a laugh.

"No," she said. "Only the interesting ones."

Valentine wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a warning. Possibly both.

Before he could ask what, exactly, made him interesting, the old woman leaned forward ever so slightly, peering at him with the slow inevitability of a storm rolling over the sea.

"Tell me, boy," she said.

He had the distinct impression that whatever she was about to ask would either ruin his day or set it entirely off-course. Possibly both.

"Do you believe in fate?" she asked.

The spoon on his plate gave up entirely and dissolved into his tea.

Valentine Fontaine did not believe in fate.

He believed in bad luck, poorly made decisions, and the occasional act of divine punishment disguised as romance, but fate? No. That was for poets and priests, neither of which had ever done him any favours.

Still, when an old woman appears at your table, ruins your already-ruined breakfast, and asks, in a voice like unraveling parchment, Do you believe in fate?—you are, at the very least, expected to humor her.

So Valentine sighed, wiped the existential dread from his face with a napkin, and answered, "No. But I get the feeling you're going to tell me I should."

The old woman smiled in the way that suggested she had seen men like him before and knew exactly how they fell.

"There is a boy," she said, as if this explained anything.

"Congratulations," Valentine muttered, pushing the remnants of his not-food aside. "I've heard those exist."

"His name is Light."

Valentine made a face. "Oh, fuck off."

The woman's eyes gleamed. "If you save him, whatever you desire will be yours."

Silence stretched between them. A long, uncomfortable silence, broken only by the distant sound of someone in the street screaming, "I don't even OWN a horse!" followed by the rapid clatter of hooves.

Valentine leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. "Let me get this straight. You, an old woman of dubious breakfast etiquette, have appeared before me at The Crooked Spoon, a café so financially desperate it doesn't even own cutlery, to tell me that if I save some boy—named fucking Light, might I add—then my deepest desires will be granted?"

She nodded once.

He squinted at her. "That isn't reality."

"It is now."

"That's fucking stupid."

She raised an eyebrow. "And yet you're listening."

Valentine hated that she had a point.

He folded his arms, suddenly very aware that he was being pulled into something ridiculous, impossible, and almost certainly doomed.

"Why me?" he asked, because of course, of course fate would decide to drop this nonsense into his lap the one morning he was actually trying to have a decent day.

The woman tilted her head. "Because you still ask why."

Valentine frowned. "That doesn't mean anything."

"It doesn't have to."

Gods. This was annoying.

There were a thousand ways he could handle this. He could scoff, stand up, leave her behind and pretend this conversation never happened. He could remind himself that things like this do not happen in Blackmire. That people didn't get plucked out of their miserable little lives for grand adventures and impossible bargains.

No one would be foolish enough to take this deal.

No one in their right mind would say yes.

So, of course, Valentine Fontaine—romantic idiot, lifelong collector of bad decisions, man with nothing better to do—sighed, brushed some imaginary dust from his sleeve, and said,

"Alright. Fine. Where's the kid?"