The gallery buzzed like a hive—low voices, clinking glasses, flashes of camera phones. Even from the sidewalk, the trio could see that something unusual had happened.
Emily pressed closer to the glass. "There's a line."
William whistled. "I didn't think people even lined up for art in this city unless it had a sneaker attached."
Lucas grinned. "It's not just the line. Look."
Inside, near the back wall, Ryunosuke's portrait hung under a focused white light. The crowd around it had tripled since the opening. Phones were out. People were murmuring.
Emily led the charge inside, weaving between gallery-goers, brushing shoulders, heart racing.
The painting was exactly as she remembered—but now, seeing it with the room around it, with the attention it pulled—it felt different.
The figure was unmistakable: Lilith, her violet eyes haunting, her posture regal and distant. The background—half-city, half-dream—blurred behind her like a memory you could almost place.
One woman whispered to her partner, "It's like she's watching you…"
Another nodded. "I swear, I've seen her somewhere."
A man nearby added, "This wasn't here last week. It just… showed up."
William leaned in close. "You know, I saw this thing get made. Ryuu just went off like he wasn't even thinking. It was spooky."
Lucas nudged him. "Spooky? Bro. He summoned her like a Pokémon."
Emily didn't laugh. She stared at the painting, her mouth slightly open.
"I've seen her before," she whispered. "In Hollywood. The day we took Ryuu out."
Lucas blinked. "Yeah—the aura-farming ghost girl."
Emily nodded slowly. "It's her."
William stepped back, suddenly uncomfortable. "You think she's real?"
"She is," Emily said. "And Ryuu's somehow connected to her."
The three of them stared in silence for a moment.
Behind them, someone snapped another photo.
Ahead of them, the painted Lilith smiled, just slightly.
Emily took a slow step back from the painting.
The crowd pressed around her—admiring, whispering, interpreting—but none of them understood what they were looking at. Not really.
Not like she did.
She squinted at the background of the portrait again. That half-faded cityscape… the angle, the lines—it almost looked like—
Movement.
Out of the corner of her eye.
A figure in black, short, graceful, moving through the far side of the gallery—calm, like she wasn't in a hurry at all.
Violet eyes.
Emily turned sharply.
"Did you see that?" she said aloud, but her friends were still talking behind her.
The figure disappeared around a column.
Emily pushed through the crowd.
"Emily?" William called. "Where are you going?"
Lucas laughed. "Uh oh, she's possessed now."
But she didn't answer.
She rounded the corner, heart pounding.
The hallway was narrow, flanked by framed prints and trailing ivy from a ceiling planter. She caught just a glimpse of the black coat disappearing through the side exit into the alley.
She ran after it.
The door swung closed behind her with a heavy thud, the sudden shift from the gallery's warmth to the alley's cool air sending a jolt through her spine.
"Hey—!" she called out.
But the alley was empty.
No footsteps. No wind. Just the sound of her own breath, too loud in her ears.
She turned slowly in place, scanning every shadow.
Nothing.
Then… a whisper.
Not out loud. Not external. Inside.
"You're not the one I'm here for."
Her breath caught.
She looked down at her hands—shaking.
And from somewhere behind her, a faint, floral scent drifted through the alley.
Lavender. Violet. Like old perfume and cool rain.
Emily backed up against the wall, suddenly aware of just how alone she was.
Then the gallery door creaked open again behind her, and Lucas poked his head out.
"There you are! Dude, don't wander off in alleys like a Final Girl."
She didn't answer.
Not right away.
She just looked back down the alley again.
And whispered to herself, "She's real."
Lucas stepped fully into the alley, glancing around with an exaggerated shiver. "Okay, well, this is definitely where people get abducted in Netflix documentaries."
William followed, his face more serious. "Emily, what's going on?"
Emily turned to them slowly. Her hands were still trembling. She didn't try to hide it.
"I saw her."
Lucas raised an eyebrow. "You mean her her? Violet eyes, spooky calm, portrait muse from the Shadow Realm?"
"Yes," Emily said. "In the gallery. She was walking along the side wall. I chased her out here, but—"
"She disappeared?" William asked, already guessing the ending.
Emily nodded. "But before she did… I heard her. Not out loud. In my head."
Lucas blinked. "Bro."
William stepped closer. "What did she say?"
Emily hesitated. Her voice dropped.
"She said, 'You're not the one I'm here for.'"
The alley went still again.
Lucas let out a long breath and broke the silence with a nervous laugh. "Okay. Nope. Absolutely not. We are officially out of Scooby-Doo territory and entering Paranormal Activity 4. We need sage. Or a priest. Or both."
William looked at Emily carefully. "You're sure it wasn't just someone who looked like her?"
Emily shook her head. "No. It was her. The same face Ryuu painted. The same woman I saw in Hollywood. She knew who I was. And she knew I wasn't the one she wanted."
William frowned. "Which means she's watching Ryuu. Maybe even… following him."
Lucas looked between them. "Okay, serious talk: what do we do now? Because this is officially above our pay grade."
Emily's jaw clenched. "We tell Ryuu. Everything. The sketchbook. The painting. The girl. All of it."
William hesitated. "You think he'll believe us?"
She looked back toward the gallery.
"I don't care if he does," she said. "He deserves to know she's not just in his dreams anymore."
They re-entered the gallery together, hearts still racing, the alley's strange chill clinging to their clothes.
But something was off.
The crowd had thinned slightly, shifting toward the wine table and the live acoustic set beginning in the corner. A few stragglers remained near Ryunosuke's painting, quietly whispering.
Emily stepped forward first, Lucas and William close behind.
And then she saw it.
The bottom right corner of the portrait—where before there had been nothing—now bore two signatures.
The first was unmistakably Ryunosuke's—his sharp, angular cursive scrawled in black ink.
But beside it, overlapping slightly, was another signature written in soft lilac.
Elegant. Feminine. Curved like a whisper.
Lilith.
Emily stared, mouth parting slightly.
"It wasn't there before," she said under her breath.
Lucas leaned in. "What the hell—did someone add that?"
William looked around. "No gallery pen, no marker station. No one's supposed to touch the art."
Lucas frowned. "But look at it... that's not just a name."
He pointed to the way the two signatures interlocked—how the swirl of the "L" from Lilith's name curled beneath Ryunosuke's like a flourish, like a tether.
It looked…
Affectionate.
Intimate.
Emily's voice was quiet, almost hollow. "She's marking it. Marking him."
William swallowed. "This isn't a mystery anymore. It's personal."
Lucas took a shaky step back. "This is turning into a messed-up love story, and we don't even know which genre it ends in."
Emily kept her eyes on the name.
"I think she wants us to know," she whispered. "She wants us to see that she was here."
"But like... she's done that already; so what is she really trying to tell us?" William added.
A heavy silence settled between them.
Then Lucas, in a half-whisper, leaned in and said, "Okay but... if her next move is to like one of Ryuu's Instagram posts from three years ago, I'm out. Ghosted by a demon is one thing. Haunted and soft-launched? Nah."
Emily turned to him slowly, trying—and failing—not to laugh. She pressed a hand to her mouth, the tension cracking just slightly.
"Shut up, dude," she said, smiling despite herself. "This is serious."
Lucas raised both hands in mock surrender. "Hey, I'm coping with humor. Y'all are coping with existential dread. We all got our methods."
William shook his head, but he was smiling too—for a second.
Then they all turned back to the painting.
And the signatures stared back.
Still fresh.
Still perfect.
Still together.
Lucas fell quiet again, his earlier levity retreating behind the tension in the air.
Emily stepped back from the painting, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her gaze was distant, still locked in thought.
William, uncharacteristically quiet, finally spoke up.
"I've been thinking," he said, voice low. "This isn't random."
Lucas blinked. "You think she's, what, stalking him? Like in love with him or something?"
"I don't know," William said. "But it's not just infatuation. This—" he gestured to the portrait "—this is deliberate. She wanted him to see her. She wanted us to see her."
Emily nodded slowly. "And now her name is literally touching his."
William looked back at the painting, jaw tightening. "Whatever she is… she's choosing him for something. Maybe it's romantic. Maybe it's something else entirely. But it's clear—she's pulling him into something he doesn't understand."
"Could be a curse," Lucas offered. "Or a pact. Like she needs something from him."
William added, "Or maybe… maybe she's protecting him. Guiding him toward something."
Emily looked between them. "But if that's true… from what? Or who?"
No one had an answer.
The three of them stood in silence again, watching the signatures loop and twist around each other like a promise—or a warning.
Emily suddenly stiffened, eyes widening slightly. "Wait—Victor Navarro."
Lucas and William both turned sharply. William spoke first, "Who?"
Emily glanced around quickly, lowering her voice as if suddenly aware of ears beyond their own.
"When we went through Ryuu's sketchbook, there was a name on one of the pages," she said quickly, the words tumbling out. "Victor Navarro. He wrote it down, next to a drawing of a garage—"
Lucas nodded eagerly. "The BMW page."
William's expression hardened. "You think this Navarro guy is connected to the girl?"
Emily's voice grew quieter, more certain. "He has to be. It's too specific. Ryuu was hiding it for a reason."
Lucas ran a hand through his hair, exhaling nervously. "So we have a ghost lady who might be in love with our best friend—and she's somehow connected to a mysterious rich guy?"
Emily didn't look away from the painting. "It fits. Ryuu hasn't been the same since he found that name. It's like Navarro triggered something—or someone."
William folded his arms, his posture shifting protectively. "Then this isn't just some weird obsession anymore. It's a warning. Lilith isn't just here to watch him. She's here because something's about to happen."
Emily glanced back to the signatures once more, jaw set.
"And whatever it is… Ryuu's in the middle of it."