Chap­ter IV begins on a qui­et yet charged evening in New York City, with Addie wak­ing up in a sub­way car. Beside her, Hen­ry is still present, offer­ing her a sense of com­fort in their shared space. They’ve just fin­ished a long day togeth­er in the city, and despite the knowl­edge that their time is short, they are reluc­tant to part. Addie, deeply affect­ed by an under­ly­ing sense of anx­i­ety con­nect­ed to some­one from her past, con­vinces Hen­ry to stay longer than planned. Their con­nec­tion feels frag­ile, as though any moment could unrav­el, yet they find solace in each other’s pres­ence. They decide to vis­it a local bar, the Mer­chant, aim­ing to stretch their pre­cious time into the night, their fin­gers inter­twined in a sim­ple, unspo­ken wish for more.

At the Mer­chant, they jok­ing­ly cel­e­brate an anniver­sary that isn’t theirs, claim­ing it’s been “three hun­dred” years. Caught in a sur­re­al state of exhaus­tion from the day’s events, they indulge in this fab­ri­cat­ed cel­e­bra­tion, each moment blur­ring into the next. The atmos­phere is light, the sound of laugh­ter min­gling with the clink­ing of glass­es as they dance and talk, their joy reflect­ing a tem­po­rary escape from the com­plex­i­ties of their lives. This dream­like state under­scores the beau­ty of their fleet­ing moments togeth­er. It feels like a respite, a brief reprieve from the weight of the world, yet there is an unde­ni­able aware­ness that it will end. The night takes an unex­pect­ed turn when a glass of Cham­pagne arrives at their table, accom­pa­nied by a note in French—an intru­sion from some­one in Addie’s dis­tant past. This unex­pect­ed gift caus­es an imme­di­ate shift, draw­ing Addie’s atten­tion to the shad­ows of her his­to­ry that she thought she had left behind.

The bar sud­den­ly shifts into an eerie sta­sis, and time seems to freeze for every­one except for Addie, Hen­ry, and Luc, a fig­ure from Addie’s past. The patrons, once part of the live­ly atmos­phere, are now motion­less, their frozen expres­sions a stark con­trast to the pulse of life that moments before filled the room. Luc’s calm and unnerv­ing­ly casu­al demeanor is a sharp con­trast to the ten­sion hang­ing in the air. His cryp­tic words and the sin­is­ter under­tones of his pres­ence sug­gest a com­plex and dark his­to­ry with Addie, one that stretch­es far beyond ordi­nary expe­ri­ences. The super­nat­ur­al nature of their rela­tion­ship is unde­ni­able, as Luc reveals him­self to be some­one unaf­fect­ed by the years that have passed, still intri­cate­ly woven into Addie’s life. As Luc speaks, the ten­sion between him and Addie becomes pal­pa­ble, hint­ing at unre­solved deal­ings and tan­gled emo­tions. The arrival of this fig­ure casts a long shad­ow over the time Addie and Hen­ry have shared, set­ting the stage for a dan­ger­ous unrav­el­ing of the present.

Luc’s atten­tion shifts to Hen­ry, sig­nal­ing a poten­tial clash between the past and present. The inter­ac­tion between the two men becomes fraught with an unspo­ken rival­ry, with Luc’s manip­u­la­tions hang­ing in the air like a storm cloud. It’s clear that their meet­ing is no mere coin­ci­dence; the super­nat­ur­al force that binds Addie to Luc is pow­er­ful and relent­less, and it threat­ens to pull Hen­ry into its web. This brief encounter sug­gests that Addie’s love for Hen­ry may not be as sim­ple as it appears and that their con­nec­tion is threat­ened by much dark­er, hid­den forces. As Luc’s cryp­tic remarks echo through the still­ness of the bar, it becomes clear that the bal­ance of pow­er in Addie’s rela­tion­ships is not one of equal­i­ty. Her past, defined by deals and bar­gains made with Luc, now casts a long, omi­nous shad­ow over her present and the future she might have with Hen­ry.

This chap­ter is a mas­ter­ful blend of romance, mys­tery, and the super­nat­ur­al. It delves deep into Addie’s inter­nal strug­gle, as she nav­i­gates the com­plex­i­ty of her past and the emerg­ing dan­gers in her present. Her con­nec­tion with Hen­ry, though filled with warmth and ten­der­ness, now faces a greater challenge—one that pits her against the forces that have shaped her life in ways she can­not escape. The light­heart­ed­ness of the evening con­trasts sharply with the loom­ing pres­ence of Luc, who serves as a con­stant reminder that the past, with all its dark and super­nat­ur­al ele­ments, is nev­er far behind. The nar­ra­tive expert­ly weaves togeth­er themes of fate, love, and the strug­gle for per­son­al agency, explor­ing the con­se­quences of deals made with pow­er­ful forces and the toll they take on those who are entan­gled in them. In this chap­ter, the read­er is invit­ed into a world where time is not lin­ear, where love is test­ed by the weight of his­to­ry, and where the bound­aries between the super­nat­ur­al and the real are dan­ger­ous­ly blurred. The stakes for Addie and Hen­ry are raised as their love sto­ry becomes inter­twined with forces beyond their con­trol, set­ting the stage for a much dark­er jour­ney ahead.