Present Day, London

I found a job at a bar that had been converted from an old pub into something trendy and modern and served overly complicated cocktails with pretentious names. I’d been a bartender for a while before but I’d never really known what I was doing so I had a hard time adapting to the upscale menu. Luckily, I had someone more experienced to be my guide. In spite of the venue’s mystique, Lyla was utterly no nonsense, a veteran bartender who knew her stuff even though she seemed like the last person who would care about herbal infusions or bitters with exotic names. She drank her own bourbon straight, but she knew that there was money to be had from serving a young crowd with too much money and not enough sense.

“That is not how you muddle,” she scoffed when she saw me pummeling mint leaves into the bottom of a glass. “Give that here.”

She rocked the muddler in a fresh glass with elegant efficiency to show me how it was done. “Just enough to release the oils on the leaves,” she explained.

“Got it,” I replied, mimicking her movements precisely.

She gave me a grin that showed off a dimple, her nose ring flashing in the light as she nodded. “You learn fast, K.”

Why she had picked that letter out of my name to use as my nickname, I had no idea, but I hadn’t bothered to correct her. Lyla was not the type of person to take correction lightly. I was the opposite, adept at learning partially because of the practice I’d gotten with Yun Seo. Back then I’d had to be a quick study or I wouldn’t have survived long at his side.

“Now, just a dash of bitters.” She rolled her eyes when she saw my attempt. “You call that a dash? Are you tenderizing steak? Here. Like this.” Her wrist flicked and I tried to follow her example, pleased to see that my movement had a similar effect on my own concoction.

“Very good. I’ll make a bartender out of you yet!”

Soon we were working together like clockwork, filling orders and raking in tips that got more outrageous the later the hour. I didn’t mind taking the last shift and neither did Lyla, so we shut down the Goldcrest most nights and often walked back to our apartment building together after closing time. Lyla lived in the same building as Thom, and I had met her on the elevator the day I moved in, overhearing her conversation with a friend about a coworker who had just quit. Smiling at my luck, I mentioned to her that I was looking for a job and she said I could come along with her to work if I was interested. She looked skeptical, understandably so, but her boss was friendly and gave me a chance in spite of Lyla’s reservations. I realized quickly that skepticism was a near constant state for Lyla since she kept everyone at arm's-length until they gave her good reason to trust them. I wasn’t sure if I had reached that level with her yet, but I was slowly getting there.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to protect you on the way home tonight,” Lyla said one day, a grin curling her lips as she unloaded the dishwasher behind the bar. Lyla had more mass than me and between her various scars and a full sleeve tattoo, she looked like the sort of person who didn’t fear much. I, on the other hand, was tall but lean and had the look of someone who could be blown over by a stiff wind. In reality, I had seen my share of scrapes and could hold my own in a fight, but Lyla liked to tease me about my skinny ass and long, delicate fingers as if these characteristics made me unlikely to defend myself.

“What’s the reason for leaving me so vulnerable?” I asked with feigned offense. “What if I get mugged?”

“Who would mug you? You look like you’ve got all of 5 pounds to your name.” She grinned proudly as she added, “And I have a very good reason. I’ve got a date!”

I laughed. “A date? At this hour? Are you sure it isn’t just a hookup?”

“Call it what you like,” she replied, giving me a punch in the arm that landed hard enough for me to feel a shock of pain. “Either way, I’m getting some tonight. Don’t be too jealous.”

“Good for you,” I replied genuinely. I had avoided any casual hookups since my night with Ian, deciding a dry spell would probably do me good. Sex was a distraction at the best of times, and I was already too good at finding ways to distract myself these days.

I let Lyla leave early and took over her share of the chores in closing down the bar, taking the trash out to the alley and bringing all of the half-drunk bottles of beer to the basement for the resident biersal to clean up. The owner pled ignorance when I mentioned the house spirit, but based on the gleam in his eye and the fact that he occasionally left beer at the foot of the stairs himself, he knew what Hadley was.

Hadley rarely came out of hiding, but he seemed to recognize me as someone who was safe to interact with, so he came out for a chat whenever I brought him the leftovers from my shift. According to his meandering stories, the biersal had lived in the basement of the pub since long before it was converted into the Goldcrest, and he kept the cellars nice and tidy in exchange for his share of beer.

“The fiery vixen isn’t with you tonight, is she, laddie?” Hadley asked as I arranged the bottles on the bottom step, creeping closer while maintaining his distance like a skittish animal that wanted a treat but wasn’t willing to take unnecessary risks.

Assuming he meant Lyla with her bright red hair and air of violence, I replied, “She has a date.”

“Ah, a date!” As soon as I set the last bottle down and retreated to the middle of the stairs to sit down, the biersal moved quickly from his hiding place behind a rack of barrels and began slurping down the beer one bottle at a time, tossing the empties neatly in a nearby crate of recycling. “I thought she might finally take up with you if you got your act together,” he said, pausing before taking the last bottle. “Guess you’re still working on that act, huh?”

“Me?” I laughed, wiping my hands off on my apron. “I’m not Lyla’s type regardless of my act.”

Hadley frowned at me, but seemed interested only as long as the beer lasted. “Well, good luck with that,” he replied, backing into the darkness beyond the stairs. “See you tomorrow night, laddie.”

The evening felt colder than I’d expected when I finally stepped outside and I huddled in my light jacket for warmth, walking quickly down the dark streets and keeping my eyes on the ground in front of me. Looking up when I heard a clatter on a nearby roof, I stopped in my tracks at the sight of a hooded figure hanging from a billboard on a nearby building. The sign advertised something called Walden Construction and depicted a smiling middle-aged man with his arms crossed over his chest standing in front of a row of shiny, high-rise apartments. “Let’s make our city beautiful,” read the headline, but the hooded figure was spraying lines over the words to make it read, “Let’s ruin our city,” instead. They scrawled x marks across the smiling man’s eyes and drew a forked tongue unfurling from his mouth before finishing with a little signature next to the destructive art, a crown with a cat’s nose and whiskers beneath.

“Hey,” I shouted at the figure and he flinched, hopping down to the nearest rooftop and taking off at a run. He was nimble and fast, hopping from roof to roof like some sort of parkour artist and I soon lost sight of him.

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Sighing, I resumed my journey with a shrug. I had seen fences around several sites in the neighborhood emblazoned with the Walden Construction logo, so I knew they were one of the companies responsible for knocking down older buildings and erecting modern eyesores in their place, capitalizing on the popularity of the area to build expensive apartments that would further push the current inhabitants out.

The apartment I shared with Thom was in a building that had been converted from an old warehouse and retained many elements of the original structure, from the stained brick walls to the oversized window frames. The windows themselves had been upgraded, but the style and shape of the panes looked authentic. The rawness of the style had immediately appealed to me, and I’d known after my first night in the cramped apartment that I was going to sign the sublease in spite of my reservations about Thom. There was something homey about the space in spite of the modern decor that Thom preferred, and it was a convenient launching place for my life in the city.

I wasn’t surprised to find the apartment empty now in spite of the late hour. Thom kept to himself most of the time, his hours as off kilter as my own even though his day job didn’t have set hours. Painting murals on the side of buildings was an activity that required sunlight typically, but he also painted murals inside and worked whenever the inspiration struck. I was learning that mural painting was in high demand since Thom was booked with work for months in advance.

I heard the front door open as I stepped out of my bathroom fresh from a shower. Peeking my head out of my bedroom, I saw Thom slink into the kitchen and pull a carton of milk out of the refrigerator, taking a few swallows straight from the container. He looked fresh from a run, dressed in a dark pair of joggers and a hoodie, his forehead damp with sweat, and for a moment I wondered. Had it been Thom on that rooftop I saw earlier? He was a muralist. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine he might be a graffiti artist as well.

“Evening,” I said, trying not to let my suspicion show. “Odd time to workout.”

“Is it?” he asked, wiping at his lips with the back of his hand and giving me a look that made a full appraisal of my bare chest and legs, his gaze snagging on the knot of the towel wrapped around my hips before returning to my eyes. “I like a late night run. It’s bracing.”

I shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious. This wasn’t the first time I’d caught Thom looking at me that way, but Thom had a way of being intense and attentive regardless of the situation so I hadn’t thought much of his behavior until now. This was also the first time I’d walked around the apartment barely dressed, however, so maybe that had something to do with it. Even if I did find Thom attractive, I really wasn’t interested in starting anything with anyone at the moment, especially with a roommate. If things went south, then I would be out of a place to stay. “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that,” I said finally, waving a hand at him. “Night.”

I could feel the weight of those hazel eyes watching as I walked away, and I had a hard time getting to sleep that night, tossing and turning until I finally gave into the itch under my skin and took the edge off my body’s interest, doing my best not to think of a haunting gaze or the way droplets of sweat had rolled enticingly over dark skin.

I decided to make myself breakfast when I rolled out of bed around noon the next day. Cooking was not something I enjoyed, but I’d bought some ingredients at the market earlier in the week that were only going to go bad if I didn’t use them. I had been building up my courage to try every time I opened the refrigerator and saw them on the mostly empty shelves.

My father had been a horrible cook as well, so after my mother died my younger brother took over most of the cooking. His delicious food haunted my memories and I found myself craving the flavors after months of eating whatever cuisine was most popular in the region I was traveling through. I didn’t know many recipes, but my father had been the one to teach me how to make kimchi pancakes, so I felt confident I could manage that much.

Thom emerged from his bedroom as I nudged the pancake out of the pan and onto a plate, staring at me with half-lidded eyes and messy hair. He looked first at the food on my plate and then back up at me, looking sleepy and effortlessly sexy in a way that made me remind myself firmly of all the reasons why hooking up with my roommate would be a terrible idea.

“What is that?”

“A pancake. Do you want one? I have enough ingredients to make another one.”

Nose wrinkling, he walked over to the kitchen island and leaned closer, peering down at my creation with skepticism. He was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and boxers and showing off more muscle tone than I had expected to find under his usually baggy clothes. “What’s in it?” he asked.

“Egg, flour, chives,” I replied, tearing off a little piece of the pancake with my chopsticks and offering it to him. “Kimchi, obviously.”

Looking even more skeptical, Thom leaned further over the counter to take a delicate bite off my chopsticks, his expression twisting with distaste as he chewed and swallowed. “That’s vile.”

I shrugged, unable to hide my smile. I’d expected that sort of a reaction from someone who ate mostly meat, fish and bland staples. “More for me, then.” I popped a bite into my mouth and tried not to cringe at the burnt taste around the edges. The flavor was closer to what I remembered from my father’s poor cooking than I had intended, but it only made me ache at the memory.

“See? It’s even making you sad,” Thom said dryly, pushing past me to reach the refrigerator, our arms brushing against each other in a way that seemed unnecessary, as if he had intentionally leaned in my direction as he pulled a bottle of water and a cup of yogurt out of the refrigerator before letting the door sway shut behind him.

I took a shaky breath and tore off another piece, my throat so thick that swallowing each bite felt a little painful.

“I don’t get it.” Thom pulled the top off the yogurt and licked it clean. I had paused with another piece of pancake held up to my mouth to stare at the way his limber tongue moved over the foil. “Why would you eat it if it’s that bad?”

“The taste isn’t the problem,” I replied, lowering the pancake to the plate and dragging my attention away from his lips as he took a bite of yogurt in an equally provocative manner. “My dad used to make this recipe when I was young. The taste reminds me of him.”

A soft smile tugged at Thom’s lips, the gentlest expression I’d seen him make. “That’s sweet.”

I scoffed, and stuffed my mouth full of pancake.

“It is,” Thom insisted, leaning an elbow on the counter and putting himself into the path of my gaze again. “I don’t remember much about my own parents, so it’s hard for me to relate, but I think it’s nice that you have such fond memories of growing up.”

Shaking my head, I stabbed at the remaining pancake with my chopsticks. “I have a few.”

“Just a few?”

I didn’t reply, finishing off the pancake in a few more efficient bites. Tossing the plate into the sink with the dirty pan, I ran some water to clean the dishes, knowing Thom would be annoyed if I left them unwashed. He kept the apartment pristine and I’d seen the way he looked at Mason’s inevitable messes as if they physically caused him pain. I’d had a lot of cleaning to do when Mason left but I found that Thom was as meticulous in his housekeeping as I tended to be and the second bedroom and bath had contained most of the results of Mason’s stereotypical bachelor lifestyle. Mason was lucky he was so endearing or I might have been bitter about having to clean up after him.

“What are you doing today?” Thom asked, and I glanced over my shoulder at him in surprise. He’d never asked me a question like that before, both of us passing through each other’s lives without making contact most of the time.

“I have to work tonight, but I thought I might wander around a bit until then.”

“Do you want to see the mural I’m working on? It’s almost done.”

I stared at him a while before responding, suspicious of the offer for no good reason. “Sure,” I said reluctantly.

“Smashing. I’ll just get dressed and we can go.” His hazel eyes lingered on me as he backed toward his bedroom, only breaking our gaze when he had to turn away.

Sighing, I leaned against the counter and stared into the soapy water in search of answers I knew I wouldn’t find. I still hadn’t figured out Thom’s connection to the world of folklore yet, but there was definitely something about him that was compelling in a way that wasn’t entirely human. Every time he caught me in his gaze like that I felt like I was being hunted by a predator that could see all of my weaknesses at a glance. And yet I had no objective reason to fear Thom. He’d yet to do anything threatening or make me feel unwelcome in his apartment, but there was still something otherworldly about him that set off alarm bells in my head every time he got close. The feeling was entirely too familiar, and I knew better than to find it as tempting as I once had.