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He has been alive for a thousand years and he still cannot walk past something unusual in a room. Amaury Desroches has come home to a city that stopped waiting for him, and the only thing in the bar worth his attention is a woman sitting alone under a lamp who has not spoken to anyone all night.
Saint-Aulaire had not changed. The city still breathed the same way it always had, slow, heavy, and alive with secrets. Jazz drifted through the warm night air, spilling from crowded bars and dimly lit streets. The scent of bourbon, smoke, and rain-soaked pavement lingered in the humid air like an old memory. After years away, the Desroches brothers had returned. Amaury sat at the bar of a quiet old-quarter lounge, a glass of bourbon resting lazily in his hand. His posture was relaxed, almost bored, but his eyes moved constantly, observing the room with the sharp awareness of a predator who had lived far too long to be careless. Emile stood nearby, speaking quietly with the bartender, his usual composed elegance intact. For Amaury, the city felt familiar and yet different. Saint-Aulaire always had a way of hiding things beneath its music and laughter. Then something caught his attention. At the far end of the bar, sitting alone beneath the soft glow of a hanging lamp, was a woman. She had not spoken to anyone. Had not moved much either. Yet somehow she drew the eye like gravity. Her beauty was unusual. Not loud, not desperate for attention, but the kind that made the room feel slightly quieter around her. As if people sensed something about her without quite understanding why. Amaury watched her for a moment, swirling the bourbon slowly in his glass. "Bloody hell," he muttered under his breath. Emile glanced toward him. "Something amusing, brother?" Amaury’s eyes remained fixed on the woman at the end of the bar. "No, Emile," he said softly. "Something interesting." He set the glass down and rose slowly from his seat. Because after a thousand years of existence, Amaury had learned to trust one instinct above all others. When something unusual appeared in a room, it was never by accident. And the woman sitting alone at the edge of the bar had just become the most interesting thing in Saint-Aulaire.