Page 3 of Moonlit Desires

Lyra laughs, the sound thin and brittle. “Don’t I know it.”

Maya leans in again, urgency sharpening her features. “I mean it. People around here—some of them hunt for magic. Sell it. If they think you’ve got something rare, they’ll rip you open to get at it.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“I’m serious.” Maya’s gaze flicks to the end of the hall, where the emergency exit opens onto the alley. “If you need an out, you take it. You call me, you hear?”

Lyra nods, though she doesn’t mean to. “Yeah. I hear you.”

Maya studies her for a long beat, then nods and heads back to the main floor, leaving Lyra alone in the hum of the fluorescent light.

She checks her reflection one more time. The crescent is still there, but softer now—more like a bruise again, the silver all but gone. She exhales, shoves her hands in her pockets, and follows the hallway back to the bar.

The rest of the night is a blur. She moves through it on muscle memory, serving drinks, breaking up minor arguments, flashing her practiced smile.

She’s acutely aware of the mark on her back, the heat of it, as if it might flare to life at any second and burn through her shirt.

Every time someone bumps her in the crush of bodies, she tenses, half-expecting the world to split open and reveal her for what she is.

She makes it to the last call. The bar is thinning now, only the diehards and the freshly heartbroken lingering over their empties.

Lyra begins the closing rituals—wiping tables, upending chairs, sweeping the sawdust-strewn floor.

Maya handles the register, counting the night’s take in slow, careful increments.

When the last patron shuffles out, Lyra closes the door, flips the sign, and bolts it. She turns to find Maya staring at her, a question written in the furrow between her brows.

“You sure you’re alright?” Maya says, keeping her voice low. “I can walk you home if you want.”

Lyra shakes her head. “I’ll be fine. Got to clean up first anyway.”

Maya gives her a long, appraising look, then shrugs and heads out, the chime of her keys fading as she climbs the stairs to her own apartment.

Lyra stands in the empty bar, listening to the silence settle.

Only then does she allow herself to relax, pressing her forehead to the cool glass of the bar mirror and letting the tension bleed out of her.

The pain is still there, but it’s muted, a low ache.

She rolls her shoulders, breathes deep, and lets her thoughts wander.

What did it mean, the mark? The silver woods in her dreams, the eyes watching, the voice that called her name?

She’s never known her family, never been told if there was something odd in her bloodline.

She’s always assumed she was ordinary—a little too sharp, a little too restless, but never anything supernatural.

But now?

She closes her eyes, and the memory of the crescent shimmers behind her eyelids, silver and bright and terrifying. She tries to picture what it would be like to let it out, to peel away the fabric and let the world see what she really is. The thought makes her shudder.

A sound behind her snaps her awake. She spins, reaching instinctively for the mallet tucked under the counter, but it’s only the wind rattling the back door. She exhales, tension draining away. Still, she double-checks the locks, then grabs her own coat from the hook and slips out into the alley.

The city is quieter now, the fog thick and unmoving.

She takes the long way around, avoiding the main street, ducking through the old bricked alleys where the shadows are thickest and least judgmental.

Her apartment waits above the tavern, two flights up, its windows lit by the sodium vapor of the streetlamp below.

As she climbs the stairs, she feels the mark throb again, like a signal. The urge to scratch it is overwhelming, but she resists. She unlocks her door, steps inside, and only then allows herself to collapse onto the bed, staring at the ceiling.

She is still lying there, shoes on, when the phone rings.

She flinches. No one calls her at this hour, not unless something’s wrong. She picks up, voice hoarse. “Yeah?”

A moment of silence. Then, a voice she doesn’t recognize, smooth as oil:

“I saw what you did tonight. You can’t hide it, not from us. Meet me tomorrow at the old train yard. Alone. Or I’ll come find you.”

The line goes dead.

Lyra lets the phone fall to her chest, numb with fear and something else—something electric and cold, threading through her like wire. She turns her head, catching a glimpse of herself in the black glass of the window.

The crescent is there, reflected and inverted, burning in the center of her back.

She closes her eyes, and the woods rise up to greet her.

____________

Lyra opens the tavern alone the next morning, nursing a hangover of pain and dread. The first customers drift in at noon, hungover themselves, faces slack and desperate for routine. She serves them with a practiced smile, counting tips and watching the door.

The city watch comes in, two at a time, and she feeds them lies about the fight—no one wants trouble with the mercenaries, not even the law. By three, she’s nearly convinced herself the mark was a hallucination, an aftershock of trauma and exhaustion.

But when she ducks into the washroom again, it’s still there. The crescent. The silver. Fainter, but alive.

The hours crawl. Maya comes and goes, shooting her concerned glances, but Lyra brushes them off. She keeps her head down, polishes glasses, ignores the pulse of the mark until it’s time to close.

She locks the door behind her, checks the alley, and heads for the train yard.

The city’s edge is emptier than she’s ever seen it.

The train yard is a graveyard, rusted tracks overgrown with moss and thorn.

The fog hangs thick, muffling every sound.

Lyra moves with caution, steps lightly on the gravel.

She can feel the mark growing warmer, guiding her, pulling her toward the center of the yard.

At the heart of the clearing, someone waits.

A hooded figure, face obscured, hands gloved and still. Lyra slows, heart pounding, sweat breaking out on her palms.

“You came,” the figure says, voice the same as the one on the phone.

Lyra squares her shoulders. “I want answers.”

The figure inclines its head. “That’s what I offer. You have the mark. You are one of us, whether you will it or not.”

“One of who?” she demands. “What is this?”

The figure steps closer, and Lyra catches a glimmer of silver beneath the hood. “We are the Moonwoven. The dreamers. The touched. The old blood that never died.”

The words settle over her like snow. Lyra laughs, the sound half-crazed. “There’s nothing special about me.”

“Then why does the mark burn?” the figure asks softly. “Why do you run from the woods in your dreams?”

Lyra takes a step back. “What do you want from me?”

“Only what you already are.” The figure holds out a gloved hand, palm up. “You cannot cut the silver out. It grows, like hunger. Like a need.”

Lyra hesitates. Then, driven by impulse, she reaches for the offered hand. The moment their fingers touch, the pain erupts again—hot, white, blinding. She gasps, falling to her knees, the world spinning in a vortex of light and memory.

She sees the woods, real this time. The moon overhead, cold and watchful. Shadows flicker at the edges, eyes blinking open, all focused on her.

And for the first time, she feels them not as predators, but as kin.

When she comes back to herself, she’s alone. The train yard is empty, the fog gone, the sky overhead bruised and limitless.

She staggers home, the mark burning steady and sure at her back.

She knows now: there will be no hiding from what she is.

She wouldn’t want to, even if she could.