What We Owe The Night by Ann Catherine at Inkitt

Story Notes

What We Owe the Night draws inspiration from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night, borrowing their devotion, mistaken identities, and the inevitability of tragic love shaped by timing and secrecy through a non-linear narrative. The Faustian structure of the story echoes classic moral tales of bargaining for time and survival, while the nightclub setting and lyrical pacing are influenced by the emotional storytelling of mid-century music.

Summary

In a plague-shadowed 1950s city, The Thereafter opens its doors at midnight, a nightclub where music, devotion, and damnation intertwine. Odette “Della” has three months left on a Faustian bargain made to save the last of her family, dancing each night in service of the devil who owns the club. When Nicholas—a wealthy boy who has loved her since childhood—returns to her life and makes a bargain of his own, their devotion pulls them into a web of mistaken identities, revenge, and impossible choices. As illness spreads, death accumulates, and love is bartered for time, Odette must decide what she truly owes the night—and whether love can survive the cost of staying alive.

Genre: Drama/Romance

Author: Ann Catherine

Status: Ongoing

Chapters: 2

Rating: n/a

Age Rating: 16+

Dedication

For those who have known love as both devotion and ruin.

The ones who have counted days instead of years.

Choices we would have made in a kinder world.

Anyone who has even been real gone.

I’m sorry.