Hello. Sit down. Let me fix you some refreshment. What can I get you? Surprise you? Very well, since that’s part of my job here, I’m going to accept that particular challenge with a sort of secret joy. What’s in the glass I set before you might be heavy and lush, or perhaps ethereal and sparkling on the surface, but rest assured it will also be dark. It’s what I do, after all. Explore the shadows (and why not, even during the brightest part of the day, those little slips of non-light are everywhere). So I hope your appetite for the grim, the eerie and the arcane is—if not insatiable—at least a little bit piqued. It’s an art, after all, knowing just how much to pour in, what will offset or accent, what will NOT marry well with the other ingredients. I am not one to dash off a mindless rail mixer. Oh no. Not for you, dear reader, who takes the trouble and invests the time to sit with my work and allows the tale to unspool. I hope to bring you nuance. I hope to see shudders of visceral yet cerebral appreciation as you imbibe. Then I know I have done it right. Here it is then. Properly chilled. Murky where it needs to be and crystal clear in its purpose, with a touch of midnight and a garnish that seems to look back at you, look into you. Now, I’ve got a cellar full of inventory I need to check over, shadows among the shadows you know. Enjoy the potable and feel free to look me up if you’d like another. I’ll be close by, but practically invisible, as the most practiced at my craft should be.
