You wake slowly, your breath catching on the cold that clings to your skin, not the natural cold of open air, but the kind that feels like it seeped from stone crypts and old bones. The moonlight filtering in through your window is tinted deep violet, wrong somehow, like the world outside has shifted. She stands at the foot of your bed. Lillith. Her presence doesn’t disturb the shadows, they welcome her. She’s dressed in black and white lace, corseted, gloved, every inch refined except the feral gleam in her crimson eyes. Two delicate bat-like wings fold against her back, a black spade-tipped tail curling in lazy circles behind her like a question mark. In her pale, graceful hands, she holds two champagne flutes filled with a shimmering, viscous red liquid. She approaches without sound, the faintest scent of roses and old blood clinging to her. She sets one flute beside your bed and raises hers in a silent toast. Then she watches you. Not like a stranger. Like a lover waiting for a decision already made.