Page 110 of Specters & Spotlights

He shrugged. “I came straight from the airport.”

There it was again—that quiet steadiness, the way he made her feel anchored even when the ghosts stirred and the shadows whispered.

He reached for her hand. Not insistently—just a palm turned up, patient.

She let him take it.

His fingers were warm. The iron in her pocket hummed faintly, soothed.

“Hey,” he said gently. “We’ll go in together, okay?”

“I don’t know if it’s safe—” she started.

“Hey,” he said again, cutting her off. “I know. But there’s no way in hell I am letting you go in there alone.”

Elise nodded, swallowing the knot in her throat. The talisman still thrummed faintly in her other hand, but now she had something stronger to ground her.

Together, they crossed the threshold.

The moment Elise stepped in, the world stilled.

There was no change in temperature, no dramatic sound. Just a shiver down her spine and a flicker at the edge of her vision, like reality blinked.

Then—Kevin.

He coalesced from nothing in the middle of the hallway, as if pulled forward by her presence, or the talisman, or the building itself. One breath he wasn’t there. The next, he was adjusting his sleeves like he’d merely stepped in from a different room.

“Kevin?” Her voice cracked through the stillness.

Graham tensed beside her, but Elise barely noticed.

Kevin turned toward her slowly, like a man waking from a long, confusing dream. His brows furrowed. “Elise?” He looked around. “Where... is this?”

“You’re back,” she whispered. “You’re—oh, thank god—you’re okay.”

He didn’t answer at first. His gaze flicked to the door behind her. “The alley. You were there. He was—” He winced. “He was in me. And then—” He blinked like something short-circuited. “And now we’re here?”

Elise nodded. “A new city. New theatre.”

He gave a quick self-inspection—patting his ghostly torso, brushing his lapels, testing his coat for damage. “Well. Still stylishly dead, apparently. No scorch marks.” He checked the hall again, uneasy.

Graham spoke up, voice low. “Shouldn’t there be… something? If this Specter thing followed you, how can he be gone?”

Elise tightened her grip on the talisman. “I don’t know. I expected—something. A sign. A shadow.”

Kevin paused, head cocked, like listening for music that had stopped playing mid-note.

“I don’t hear him,” he murmured. “The Specter. There’s… a stillness. But not peace. More like a breath held too long.”

“Which could mean he’s really gone,” Elise said softly. “Or… just waiting.”

Kevin’s gaze found hers as he nodded slowly. “Let’s not mistake quiet for safety. But yes. For now… it seems like it’s quiet.”

Elise leaned against the wall just inside the stage door, trying to steady her breath. Kevin’s presence was like a warm light flickering back on inside her chest—reassuring, but fragile. Like it might gutter out again if she let herself relax too soon.

Graham hovered nearby, not quite touching, his concern held carefully in the space between them.

She slipped her phone from her bag and opened a new message to Cici.