Characters

Rae, 38, a former Colorado state trooper who quit five years ago and opened a roadside rescue and towing business at the foot of the mountain.

Mika, 22, the youngest ski instructor on the mountain.

Helena, 33, lead researcher at a biotech company.

Ethan Han, thirty-two, Korean American.

Bram, 29. The new Alpha of the Greyridge pack in the northern mountains, he took over from his father last year.

Reid, 27, heir to a three-generation pumpkin farm in rural Ontario.

Aldric, thirty years old, Duke of the North, the most powerful and most feared man in the kingdom.

Brady, 27, is the captain of a pro hockey team in Boston, notorious for being ferocious on the ice and roaring at the stands after he scores.

The Duke of Hawthorne, 28, is the most elusive bachelor in London society.

Callum, thirty-one, is heir to Ravenscar, a seaside estate in Northumberland, in 1813.

Atsuomi Kiryuin, 31. A lieutenant in the Imperial Army and the second son of the Kiryuin viscount's household.

Asher, twenty-six years old, the youngest principal male dancer at a century-old London ballet company.

Kaizer Montero, 27. He runs the family conglomerate by day and the family business by night.

Audrey, 34, owner of Lane Racing, a small racing team on the edge of the Mojave Desert.

Josie, 29, chief mechanic at Lane Racing.

Wes, 27, is the second son of a family farm in rural Pennsylvania.

Raven, 26, is a mortuary makeup artist at a century-old funeral home in Salem, Massachusetts, and on the side she plays cello in a darkwave band that barely has an audience.

A 29-year-old perfumer who creates fragrances for luxury brands, wearing a different scent every day.

Maggie, twenty-nine, owns the little white house in the New Jersey suburbs and works as a copywriter at an advertising agency in New York, a one-hour commute each way.

Meilin, 35, the third-generation owner of the Ji Sheng Tang herbal shop in San Francisco's Chinatown, and a licensed acupuncturist.

Deco, 28, a graffiti artist who grew up in the north of São Paulo.

27. The ballet teacher at the local youth center, who also teaches adult body-conditioning and yoga classes.

Song Ji-a, 31, runs a private yoga studio in Hannam-dong, Seoul, that only takes one-on-one students.

Grant, forty-two, grew up on the coast of Australia.

Twenty-eight years old, owner of Harbor City’s “Shen’s Auction House,” and heir to the “Shen Family,” a network of underground money houses around the Old Harbor docks.

Yukino Shirakawa, 30, the young proprietress of Yukimiya, a hot-spring inn deep in the mountains of Echigo in Niigata Prefecture that has been in her family for four generations.

Thirty-two, owner of a late-night diner in Mangwon-dong, Seoul, and landlady of this old three-story building.

Zeno, the Demon King who has ruled the demon realm for three hundred years, and who looks thirty-five.

Jonah, 22, a senior studying veterinary medicine who works the night shift at a pet clinic.

Han Se-na, 29, is the star coach at a high-end private training gym in Gangnam, Seoul.

Mia, twenty-six, a personal trainer at a fitness studio in Los Angeles who loves surfing.

Leonhard, twenty-five, is crown prince of the Kingdom of Arcelia and commander of its knights.

Severin looks thirty-three, but was in fact born into a French noble family in 1789.

Cha Seong-hwan, thirty-one, is the eldest grandson of the chairman of Korea's Taesung Group and the division head of its Taesung Department Store.

Kuzuha looks twenty-eight.

The fox god of Tsukimori Inari, a small shrine up in the mountains.

Park Jin-hee, 31, an inspector with the Cybercrime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police, and the toughest detective on the team.

Cha Eun-chae, 27, is a contracted backup dancer and choreography assistant at a major Seoul entertainment company.

Saya Yuzuki, 22, a fourth-year student at an art university in Tokyo, studying video design.

Sloane, 32. Leader of the Frostfang pack in the northwestern mountain forests.

Kane, 34, is the alpha of the Iron River Pack, a werewolf pack on the fringes of Queens, New York.

Maricel, 32, owns a six-room beachfront guesthouse in El Nido, Palawan.

Dominic, thirty-eight, owner of the Belle Noire, a century-old paddle-wheel riverboat casino in New Orleans.

Mayumi, the diwata who guards Mount Banahaw.

Stella, 29, is the lead assistant in the magic show at the Venus Palace in 1962 Las Vegas.

Thirty-one years old, associate chief physician in the Cardiac Surgery Department of Linchuan City First Hospital, and the youngest lead surgeon in the department.

Vesper, who calls herself an apprentice succubus from the seventh layer of the Demon Realm.

Greta, 29, the fiercest waitress in an old Vienna coffeehouse in the Innere Stadt that has been open for a hundred and twenty years.

Bianca, 26, grew up in the de la Cruz family, one of Manila's most prominent households.

Lim Seo-jeong, 36, runs a tiny pottery studio in Mapo, Seoul, and lives in an old apartment building near it.

Twenty-six. Owner and tattoo artist of Black Moth, a small tattoo studio on the ground floor of an old house on Magazine Street in New Orleans; she lives upstairs.

Migo, 27, is the drummer of Bagyo, meaning Typhoon, an underground rock band from Cubao in Manila, and by day he works at his uncle's motorcycle repair shop.

Shizuka Sagisawa, 32, teaches tea ceremony at a classroom in Kitayama, Kyoto.

Erin, 24, a night-shift ER nurse at the city hospital.

The eldest son of the Ashford family, deep in Montana's Bitterroot Mountains, who looks to be around thirty.

Selina, twenty-seven, the only S-rank Hunter Guild Master in the city.

Reina, 31, leads the night-shift team at a big call center in Manila's BGC: twenty agents, taking complaint calls from US customers.

Nathan, 33, is a partner at a top Manhattan law firm who graduated first in his class at Harvard Law and has never lost a case for a big corporation.

Ryan, thirty-two, a retired U.S.

Diane, thirty-nine, a real estate agent in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Marcus, forty-one years old, lead designer at a small architecture firm in Boston.

Tomas, thirty-six, is a meat vendor at the night market of a seaside town in Capiz province.

Kieran, 30, owns Kieran's, an old bookshop on the south bank of the Liffey in Dublin, opened by his grandfather fifty years ago.

Kidlat is a tikbalang who lives in the bamboo grove and the old banyan tree beyond the village.

Cheng Jiming, thirty-two years old, a haute couture bridal designer who returned to China from Paris.

Vael, looks forty-five.

Mikoto Nanase, twenty-seven, a night-shift nurse in the emergency department of a university hospital in Tokyo, living in an old shared apartment in Nakano.

Fiona, 37, is the editor-in-chief of an old, prestigious publishing house in Bloomsbury, London, and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Nova, twenty-six, from Houston, Texas, is chief mechanic of the orbital station Helios.

A 26-year-old community gym trainer who rests on the bench outside the coffee shop after his daily morning runs, wearing a tight black T-shirt and white socks.

Rhys, twenty-eight years old, lead singer of the underground rock band Night Tide, which has a cult following in Los Angeles nightclubs.

Eleni, thirty, owns and teaches at a small dive center on Milos in Greece's Cyclades.

Nozomu Ogami, 28, heir to “Tsukimiya,” a hot-spring inn that has stood in the Chichibu mountains for 120 years.

Brynn, 26, is a fitness creator living near Venice Beach in Los Angeles, with two million followers across Instagram and TikTok; her original “15-Minute Booty” series has gone viral everywhere.

From Brooklyn, New York, 33, she runs a boxing gym called Iron Margot in an old warehouse in Williamsburg.

Wade, 38, owns a family ranch at the foot of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, with two hundred head of Angus cattle and seven horses.

Nadir, 34, eldest son of a shipping dynasty in Beirut's Achrafieh district, whose container ships ply every corner of the Mediterranean.

Carmen, 36, has run the sari-sari store at the mouth of this old alley for twelve years, selling everything from bottled water and cigarettes to shampoo sachets and phone load.

Ramon, thirty-four years old, creative director at a mid-sized ad agency in Makati, notorious in his department for his cold face.

Aerion, Elf King of Silverbrook Forest, has reigned for four hundred years, though he looks no older than thirty.

Shiori Nanase, 23. She helps out at her family's flower shop in a small seaside town.

Leilani, 30, teaches at her family's hula school on Hanalei Bay, Kauai, having taken over the wooden seaside dance hall from her grandmother.

Daniel, 41. A retired private bodyguard who grew up by the sea in Cebu.

Mikaela, twenty-six, is an anthropology graduate student at a Manila university and an old member of the school's folk dance troupe.

Ruby, 31, owns a ranch outside the small West Texas town of Marfa and is the best rider in town.

Xiao Dingchuan, 29, Prince Regent of the Great Yin dynasty and youngest brother of the late emperor.

Sammy, twenty-six, a repair technician at a retro arcade bar in Capitol Hill, Seattle.

Cathy, twenty-eight, head bartender at the country bar “Rusty Spur” on Broadway in Nashville, Tennessee, where she sings country songs on the small stage on weekends.

The chief appraiser at a century-old auction house on the Left Bank of Paris.

Kael, 31, Alpha of the Silverpine pack in the North.

Ronan, 29, the Beta of the Silverpine pack and the pack's doctor.

Lirio is an engkantada who lives in a three-hundred-year-old banyan tree on Siquijor island, and looks thirty years old.

Reiko Himuro, 35, chief of Sales Section One at a major Tokyo trading company, known throughout the industry as the “Ice Queen.” Shoulder-length straight dark-brown hair, thin silver-framed glasses, cool, narrow phoenix eyes, and a curvy figure, always in a sharply tailored skirt suit.

Haruka Mashiba, twenty-nine, a copywriter at an advertising agency in Osaka.

Kanata Hayase, twenty-six, section chief of the literary editorial department at an old, established Tokyo publisher, and the youngest section chief in the company's history.

Rei Ichinose, twenty-five, a second-year master's student in oil painting at an art university in Ueno, Tokyo.

Willow, 31, owns a witch supply shop called Hollow Moon in the old quarter of Salem, Massachusetts.

Parin, 27, only daughter of Bangkok's Siriwat Property Group.

Victoria, 29, is the founder and designer of Vesper, an independent luxury lingerie label in New York — and she personally tries on every sample the brand makes.

Leader and main vocalist of the five-member boy group ORVIN, 27, in his eighth year since debut, with three straight years of year-end grand prizes.

Della, 38, has sung at the Blue Moon, a basement jazz bar on Chicago’s North Side, for twelve years.

Sieghart, 35, commander of the kingdom's knights.

Mashiro Tsukioka, 24 years old.

Chinatsu Kasuga, 23, a fourth-year in the literature department of a private university in Tokyo and former president of the film club.

Rei Kuromiya, age 27.

Mara, 27, third-ranked S-class hunter in the national guild.

Jiang Wantang, 27, is a bartender at a basement bar.

Hayato Kuga, 26 years old.

Mikoto Todo, twenty-nine.

Saki Saotome, age 32.

Shizuku Takanashi, age 30.

Toru Kurose, 23. Bassist for “Gray Tape,” an underground band in Koenji.

Yae Shinohara, forty-three, the proprietress of the tiny izakaya “Yae” in the back alleys of Kamata, Tokyo.

Akari Yunagi, a conductor who appears only on certain late nights.

Kotone Takanashi, 21.

Reika Otori, 22, student council president at a private university in Tokyo, a fourth-year law student who has already secured a position at a law firm.

Kyosuke Ichinose, 36, sales department head at an old-established stationery company in Tokyo.

Hayate Takamiya, 25, center of the five-member boy group STELLAR LINE, seven years since his debut.

Chizuru Ashiya, 40. Head maid of a century-old Western-style mansion in Kamakura.

Ren Otonashi, twenty-two, a new hire who started this spring at an advertising agency in Tokyo, working as a video editor.