Chapter Text
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nyx did not come.
The truth of it settled like frost beneath her skin. Her shoulders sagged, surrendering at last, and she let herself fall back until her spine struck the closed door. The wood was cold and unyielding, its grain pressing into her as if the Manor wished to feel her weight, to catalog her exhaustion. The sound was soft, swallowed instantly by the corridor, leaving only her breath—uneven, frayed.
She was so very tired. Not the simple weariness of sore limbs alone, though her feet throbbed fiercely now, every step she had taken echoing back in dull protest. This fatigue lived deeper, coiled behind her ribs, heavy as damp wool. It made her thoughts sluggish, her heart ache with a quiet, stubborn persistence.
She stank of herself—of musk and sweat, of effort and fear—and beneath it all, that unmistakable sweetness of roses that clung to Blackwood like a curse disguised as perfume. It wove through her hair, lingered in the folds of her clothes, pressed against the inside of her throat. Each breath tasted faintly floral, too rich, almost bruised, as though the roses had been crushed beneath invisible hands.
Ophelia tipped her head back, the wood cool against her neck, and closed her eyes. Somewhere far off, something creaked—a settling beam, a sigh of stone—but nothing came for her. No soft footfalls. No familiar presence sliding between shadows. The silence stretched, taut and listening.
Across from her, Dorian slid down it with a quiet inevitability, his back finding the wood as though he, too, had reached the end of whatever strength had been holding him upright. He sat there, knees bent, boots stretched out before him, the faintest rasp of leather against carpet the only sound he made.
Ophelia noticed before she meant to. She always did.
She lifted her head, eyes still heavy, and found him already looking at her. The distance between them was small—too small for comfort, too large for touch. The lantern light pooled lazily between their doors, catching on the planes of his face, the damp curl of his hair, the quiet fatigue etched around his eyes.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. They simply existed there, pressed to opposite doors like mirrored confessions. The Manor held its breath, stone walls close and listening, the air thick with roses and sweat and the echo of unanswered calls.
She drew her knees closer to her chest, the borrowed jacket slipping further around her shoulders. She could still feel his warmth in it, lingering like an afterimage. Her gaze flicked down, then back to him, and she wondered—briefly, foolishly—if he felt it too: this strange gravity pulling them inward.
“Did you come with another plan?” She murmured. She was too tired to say anything else. Too tired to argue.
Dorian’s eyes softened when they met hers. There was no judgment there. No impatience. Only a quiet steadiness that made her chest ache. He leaned his head back against the door, the wood creaking faintly in protest, and exhaled as though releasing something he had been holding for far too long. He shook his head once, subtle and tired.
“So, Nyx is your cat?” His voice exhausted, yet, threaded with curiosity.
Ophelia inclined her head in a small, weary nod, the motion barely disturbing the air. “He’s a kitten,” she replied. “A stubborn, mischievous little thing. One with opinions of his own and no patience for being told otherwise.”
The corner of his mouth tipped upward, amused. “Are you quite certain,” he asked, “that the Manor has not been playing tricks upon you?”
She turned her head, brows knitting together. “Tricks?”
He gave a slight nod, eyes drifting briefly to the shadows pooled along the corridor walls. “It would not surprise me in the least. Blackwood has a talent for invention. It might have gathered a kitten from dust and dusk, shaped him from moonlight and mischief, and set him loose simply to see what mischief would follow.”
Ophelia huffed a soft breath—half laugh, half protest. “Nyx is very real,” she said, with quiet insistence. “He is not made of dust.”
Then she faltered.
The words slowed in her mouth, her gaze going distant, as though she had brushed against a thought long avoided. “Though…” she murmured, more to the corridor than to Dorian, “he does glide through walls. And doors. And he settles into chairs as if they’ve been waiting for him, as though gravity itself grows indulgent where he’s concerned.”
The admission lingered, delicate as a held breath.
She shook her head, a swift, dismissive motion, as if attempting to banish the idea back into the shadows. “Still,” she said, quieter now, “he is real. A real creature—with warmth, with a heartbeat you can feel if you’re paying attention.” Her fingers tightened faintly in the borrowed jacket. “Though I suppose,” she added after a moment, “he belongs more to this world than to the one I came from.”
Dorian’s gaze lingered on her, curious now, and a little amused. “Then how did you manage to bring him here?” he asked, resting his head lightly against the door behind him. “I’ve heard the Host—the King of Blackwood—is not particularly fond of felines.”
Ophelia’s blush bloomed instantly, a soft pink creeping across her cheeks and up to the tips of her ears. She dropped her gaze, and for a moment, her fingers busied themselves with the hem of the jacket around her shoulders.
“I… wrote him,” she said at last.
Dorian lifted a brow. “Wrote him?”
She nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “A formal request. On parchment. I used my best ink and my tidiest handwriting.” Her voice was quiet, laced with both pride and embarrassment. “Then I threw it up into the air.”
Dorian murmured. “You threw it?”
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed, biting the inside of her cheek. “Up toward the rafters in the east wing. It disappeared just before it landed on the floor.”
A beat passed. Then—
“And he responded?” he asked, disbelief tempered by delight.
Ophelia’s blush deepened. “Not even moments later. A letter drifted down like a feather. Smelled faintly of smoked vanilla and leather.”
She finally dared to glance up, and Dorian’s expression—wry and quietly enchanted—did not help.
“I know that sounds…” she began, faltering.
“Mad?” he offered, voice low and teasing.
She narrowed her eyes, though the corner of her mouth quirked. “I was going to say whimsical.”
“Mm. That too.”
She looked away once more, her smile a wisp of a thing—there and gone like breath on glass. “The letter granted me leave to keep Nyx,” she murmured, “so long as he did not linger where he wasn’t invited.”
A shadow passed through her tone, threading softly through the syllables. Her fingers stilled, clutching the edge of the jacket as if it might steady her.
“I hope he’s asleep in my room,” she said, voice gentling into worry, “curled in the blankets or nestled into the window’s light. But if he’s wandered…” Her gaze flicked down the corridor, toward the deep velvet hush where the lantern light could no longer reach. “I fear the Host would not hesitate to turn him into kitten paw soup.”
Dorian’s soft, startled laugh unfurled in the dark, and the sound of it warmed something in her chest.
“And yet,” he said, eyes glinting, “you still brought him.”
“I did.” She lifted her chin, the smile returning now, faint but steady. “I’d brave paw soup, shadow, and spectral scorn for Nyx. He’s mine—even if he belongs more to the Manor than to me.”
Their laughter faded, gently unraveling into silence, the kind that settles not from awkwardness, but from the weight of being understood. For a moment, they sat in that hush together—two figures tucked into the folds of the corridor, the air around them thick with fading roses and candle smoke, and something older still.
It was Ophelia who broke the quiet this time, her voice soft as worn silk.
“Are there… no other empty rooms?” she asked, glancing toward the darkened hallway beyond. “I was rather hoping to sleep in my bed tonight, not in the Manor halls like some discarded chess piece.”
Dorian sighed—long and slow—and ran a hand down his face, as though the question had stirred a tiredness older than the evening itself.
“Once you’re assigned to a room,” he said, “that is your room… until the third and final night.”
Ophelia frowned, her brow knitting. “That’s absurd.”
“It’s tradition,” he replied flatly, though his tone lacked conviction.
“It’s imprisonment dressed up as courtesy.”
He gave a small, helpless shrug. “It’s Blackwood.”
She exhaled through her nose, the sound equal parts frustration and surrender. “So what—because I followed a cat out of my room, I’m now banished from it?”
“Not banished,” he said, a little too carefully. “Just… rerouted.”
She pressed her head back against the door, eyes closing for a brief second as if to gather patience from the wood itself. “And where, exactly, does one sleep when the Manor has locked every door but the floor?”
He looked at her then, properly, eyes gentler than his words. “With a bit of luck,” he said, “you sleep before the Manor decides to move the floor too.”
She cracked a smile, bitter and fond. “Marvelous. I’ve always wanted to dream with the dust.”
Dorian’s lips curved. “Don’t worry. I’ve done it before. The floor’s surprisingly kind if you ask it nicely.”
Ophelia shook her head, letting the quiet settle again—this time not with defeat, but with a strange, reluctant acceptance. The Manor had taken her room, the cat had vanished, and now even the walls seemed to murmur secrets she couldn’t quite hear.
But at least she wasn’t alone in the corridor.
___________________________
The corridor had no warning to give.
One moment, the overhead sconces glowed with their usual low, flickering amber, casting long shadows against stone and velvet. The next—
Ffft.
A single flame blinked out. Then another. Then all of them at once, the entire length of the hall swallowed by velvet-black, touched only by the faintest glimmer of starlight filtering through distant stained glass windows. It wasn’t frightening, not exactly. But it was final—intentional.
Ophelia’s breath caught in her throat, the hush pressing in like a second skin.
Dorian didn’t move, not right away. He simply exhaled, slow and even, as if the change in light had been expected. His voice came quiet and almost amused:
“The Manor is telling us to sleep now.”
She turned toward him, eyes adjusting to the new shadows, and found his silhouette softened by the dark. He lay with his back half-curved against the door, long legs stretched out, one arm flung lazily over his face. The other rested across his chest, fingers splayed like he’d once meant to reach for something and forgotten halfway.
Ophelia watched the slow rise and fall of his breath, the way he looked—utterly at ease, as if he had long ago surrendered to the strange rules of this place.
She hesitated before rising to her knees, letting her hand trail along the cool floor as she shifted closer. Her body ached—shoulders taut with fatigue, legs trembling from the day’s weight, the soles of her feet sore from the endless wandering. The chill of the stone seeped through the fabric of her dress.
“I won’t be able to sleep on the floor, Dorian,” she whispered, the words catching in her throat like petals snagged on thorns.
He didn’t lift his head. Just cracked one eye open beneath his arm, gaze catching hers in the dim.
Then, with a soft breath, he stretched the other arm out beside him. Not dramatically. Not even particularly gently. Just… there. A simple gesture, quiet and certain.
“Use my arm as a pillow,” he murmured, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Ophelia froze. The words curled in her chest, too soft to push away but too intimate to accept without hesitation. She looked at him—really looked—and found no mischief in his face. No game. Just a quiet kind of offering.
“Dorian…” Her voice was smaller this time, laced with something trembling and unsure.
His gaze didn’t waver. “Just for the night, Ophelia.”
He tapped the jacket still wrapped around her shoulders. “That’s your blanket. Comes with a matching pillow. No strings. Just sleep. I promise.”
Still, she hesitated. Her mind was unraveling—thoughts slipping like silk through her grasp. She hadn’t meant for any of this. Not the cat, not the corridor, not him.
The floor beneath her seemed colder by the second, the air thick with the scent of roses, of distant smoke, of magic that did not sleep. Her body was crying out for rest, but her heart was caught in some other rhythm entirely—one she didn’t yet understand.
Ophelia slowly lowered her head onto his outstretched arm.
It was not comfortable.
The floor beneath her was unforgiving—polished wood, hard and unyielding beneath the thin velvet runner stretched between the doors. No cushion, no softness, only a rigid echo of elegance meant for footsteps, not sleep. Her shoulder ached almost immediately, her hips pressing against the grain in quiet protest.
And Dorian’s arm—warm though it was—made for a rather unfortunate pillow. The angle was awkward, her cheek resting on a muscle too firm to cradle. She became keenly aware of the tension coiled beneath her ear, the blood pulsing faintly beneath his skin, and worse: the dreadful certainty that his arm must be going numb.
She tried to be still.
Tried to quiet her thoughts. But the darkness around them was too full—too alive.
Every time her eyes fluttered closed, the Manor seemed to shift. She heard laughter—soft, lilting, half-shaped like words, though none she recognized. It curled beneath the door frames and bloomed in the spaces between shadows. Not cruel laughter, no. But delighted. Mischievous. As though the extinguished lights had given permission for unseen things to come out and play.
She didn’t like it.
Her heart began to pound, too fast, too loud inside her chest. Her breath caught, shallow and uneven. It was ridiculous—she knew that. But knowing meant nothing in Blackwood.
“Dorian,” she whispered, barely a breath, “I can’t sleep.”
He shifted beside her, the arm draped across his eyes falling away, and he turned—slow and unhurried—until his body faced hers completely. His outstretched arm remained beneath her, cradling her head now from a different angle, and the new proximity made her breath still.
They were close. Too close.
His face hovered only inches away—barely a breath between them. She could see the subtle line of his mouth in the dark, the outline of his lashes, the faint glimmer in his half-lidded eyes as he looked at her, unblinking. The warmth of him radiated like a quiet hearth.
“Close your eyes,” he said softly.
She didn’t. Her thoughts were too loud. Her bones too stiff. The Manor too watchful.
“Trust me,” he added, his voice a murmur wrapped in velvet.
After a pause—long enough to feel like falling—Ophelia obeyed. Her eyes shut.
“Good,” he whispered. “Now listen.”
She felt the low hum of his voice beneath her flushed cheek as he spoke.
“Remember this place. Blackwood Manor. Where rules bend. Where things are not ordinary. Now imagine—just for a moment—you’re not lying on the floor.”
She tensed. Her mouth almost twitched into a smile, incredulous. “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” she whispered.
“I know,” he murmured. “But absurdity is Blackwood’s native tongue.”
He went on, gentler now. “Picture a bed. Not one from memory—but one the Manor dreams for you. Imagine it: down-filled pillows that sigh beneath your weight. A mattress that breathes. Velvet sheets, worn soft with age. A canopy of roses, not sculpted, but blooming—quietly, above you.”
Ophelia let out a shaky breath, her mind resisting even as it leaned toward the image.
“You’re not on wood. You’re on silk,” Dorian continued. “And it cradles you. As if it’s been waiting. As if the Manor made it just for you.”
So she did.
Ophelia let her eyes stay shut, breathing in the dark, listening to the low cadence of Dorian’s voice still echoing in her chest like a lullaby spoken into bone. And she imagined—because there was nothing else left to do.
The shift came gradually—like slipping into warm water without realizing the cold had ever been there. It smelled no longer of musk and roses clinging to corridor stone, but of lavender water and candle wax, of fresh linens sun-dried beneath an orchard sky.
And when she dared open her eyes—not all the way, just a sliver—she saw it.
She was not on the floor. She was on a bed.
Not just any bed, but the sort that belonged to fairy tales spun in candlelight and held together with threads of starlight. Enormous and inviting, with a frame carved of dark heartwood twisted into the shapes of climbing roses and crescent moons. The mattress cradled her with the impossible softness of clouds warmed by sunlight, and the quilt that covered her—was velvet-lined and smelled faintly of rose petals left out in rain.
Her body no longer ached. Her limbs were clean. She wore a nightdress she did not remember changing into, soft and flowing, cool against her skin. The fabric smelled of rose milk and the faintest hint of woodsmoke. Her hair had dried, and now spilled loose across a feather pillow that murmured when she moved, like it was dreaming alongside her.
And beside her—on the other pillow—lay Dorian.
Not quite close enough to touch, but near enough to feel the quiet pull of his presence.
He, too, had changed—his day-worn shirt and boots vanished, replaced with deep grey nightclothes that looked far too fine to belong to any normal wardrobe. The collar was loose, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting lightly across his chest. His inkjet hair was slightly tousled, as if the bed had claimed him first and asked her to follow.
Ophelia blinked slowly, sleepily.
He wasn’t watching her. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and even, though, something in the way his lips curved suggested he knew she was looking.
She turned her gaze upward again, to the velvet canopy above, the faint golden threads swirling like constellations rearranging themselves just for her.
The strangest part of it all… was how real it felt.
The bed was not imagined. She felt it—beneath her shoulder blades, beneath the backs of her knees, against the curve of her waist. The comfort was exquisite, enveloping, coaxing something out of her that she hadn’t realized she still guarded.
She exhaled—slow, unguarded—and with that breath the fear eased its grip, lifting like a heavy curtain drawn back to let moonlight spill across a quiet room. What remained was warmth, and a stillness so tender it felt earned.
In the hush, her hand drifted, fingers grazing the linen over her chest, a small, instinctive motion—as though she needed proof that she was held, that this softness was not a trick of a tired mind. The bed breathed beneath her. The dark no longer pressed.
“Dorian…” she whispered, the name unfurling like a secret into the air between them.
He didn’t open his eyes, but the corners of his mouth curved, subtle and soft, as though her voice had reached somewhere deeper than thought.
“Hm?” came his reply, drowsy, low—more warmth than word.
She didn’t need to see him. Not now. Her eyes stayed closed, her face half-turned into the pillow, her voice no louder than a wish.
“I think I feel it.”
No laughter met her words. No teasing remark. Only a stillness that felt like listening.
Then, gently—so gently. She heard the final words of the night.
“Sweet dreams, Ophelia.”
___________________________
Ophelia woke as though she were drifting up through layers of a particularly kind dream, the sort that lingers out of politeness and refuses to hurry. Sleep loosened its hold slowly, leaving warmth behind like a fond farewell, and she remained suspended in that soft in-between for a moment, perfectly content to float. The bed beneath her seemed almost amused by her stillness, cradling her with a gentle give, the sheets cool and smooth against her skin, the pillow carrying the faintest scent of candle smoke and clean linen.
When memory finally caught up, it did so with a flutter rather than a jolt. She had imagined this—conjured it from nothing more than hope and a quiet, stubborn wish. The realization made her smile before she quite knew why. A small, sleepy giggle escaped her lips, light and airy, as if it had been waiting all night for permission. She shifted, toes brushing the mattress just to be certain, delight sparking anew at the solid reassurance of it.
“Well then,” she murmured softly to no one at all, pressing her cheek back into the pillow, wonder still blooming. Against all reason—and perhaps because of it—the Manor had listened.
She lingered there a moment longer, cocooned in warmth, her thoughts drifting—inevitably—to Dorian.
To the way the corridor had gone dark when the flames guttered out, shadows swallowing the hall as if the Manor itself had drawn a breath and held it. To the quiet steadiness of him beside her then, unruffled, grounded. She remembered how he had offered his arm without ceremony, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, how his presence alone had eased the tight coil of panic in her chest. Close your eyes, he had told her gently. Imagine. And she had—tentatively at first, then with growing certainty.
She had imagined him there.
An arm’s length away. Close enough to feel, not close enough to overwhelm. Sharing the bed she had dared to conjure into being, solid and wide and safe.
The memory tugged her fully awake.
Ophelia lifted her chin, turning her head toward the space beside her—expecting, foolishly, to find him still there.
But, emptiness greeted her.
The sheets lay smooth and undisturbed, cool where his warmth should have been. For a heartbeat, disappointment flickered sharp and unexpected. Then her gaze fell to the pillow.
There—a shallow dent, the faintest impression where his head had rested.
Proof.
A quiet reassurance settled in her chest. He had been there. He had slept beside her.
She drew herself upright, gathering the covers around her as she pulled her knees to her chest, bare feet brushing the mattress. Sitting there, she let her eyes roam at last, taking in the room properly.
It was beautiful.
Earthy and calm, as though the space had been shaped by breath and patience rather than stone and will. Soft beiges layered with dusky blues, deep greens threading through the furnishings like moss, dark browns grounding it all. Wood and fabric and shadow in careful harmony. No sharp corners. No excess.
It felt like a clearing after a long, winding path.
Ophelia breathed in slowly, deeply. The air carried the clean softness of linen threaded with the faint sweetness of bluebell, and the scent struck her chest with a sudden, aching nostalgia—like a memory she couldn’t quite place but felt certain she had once lived inside.
Her head tipped forward until her forehead rested against her knees.
There it was again—that strange, drifting sensation, as though something inside her had come unmoored. A memory hovered just out of reach, poised at the very tip of her tongue, almost tasteable in the way certain thoughts were—so close she could feel its shape, its warmth—yet impossible to grasp. The harder she reached for it, the more it slipped away.
She exhaled, slow and honest. She wasn’t going to pretend otherwise: it had been happening so often since she had received the invitation.
Every new face she met, every corridor she walked, every scent or sound she was certain she had never encountered before carried with it a quiet sense of recognition. As though the world kept nudging her gently and saying, you know this, even when her mind insisted she did not. Familiarity without context. Comfort without memory.
She didn’t understand it.
There were gaps in her thoughts—clean, deliberate absences, like pieces missing from a puzzle she hadn’t yet seen completed. And still, she found herself reaching for them, one by one, gathering fragments without knowing where they belonged. Not in panic. Not in fear.
But with the slow, aching hope that if she held onto enough of them, the larger picture might one day Ophelia lifted her head slightly, the weight of her hair slipping forward as she stared at nothing in particular, eyes unfocused. She could feel it now—that quiet pull beneath her ribs, the sense of something turning, aligning. The fragments she had been collecting did not feel random. They felt patient. As though they were waiting for the right moment to be assembled.
Soon, she thought.
So soon it made her breath hitch.
There was an inevitability to it, a gentle pressure rather than a threat. The way dawn pressed against the edge of night before anyone noticed the sky had begun to pale. Whatever had been taken from her—whatever had slipped between the seams of her mind—was not gone. It was merely… withheld.
And the Manor knew it.
The walls seemed to hum faintly around her, not loud enough to startle, but present all the same. Attentive. She had the sudden, unsettling impression that Blackwood was watching her with something like fond anticipation, as though it, too, were waiting for the moment when the last piece would click into place.
Perhaps it would not be her mind that revealed the truth.
Perhaps the Manor would.
The thought did not frighten her.
If anything, it felt like standing at the threshold of a door she had once walked through without fear—one she was certain she would cross again, very soon.
Ophelia turned her body, and her feet found the floor one at a time, the cool wood kissing her skin with a quiet, grounding shock. The chill traveled upward slowly, anchoring her in the present, in the simple certainty of here. She flexed her toes instinctively, feeling the grain beneath them—real, solid, faintly worn, as though others had stood here once and left their weight behind.
The room seemed to wake with her.
Light filtered in gently, not from any single source but from everywhere at once, softening the edges of furniture and shadow alike. The colors she had noticed from the bed deepened now that she stood within them—beiges warm as sand, blues like distant sky after rain, greens dark and thoughtful, browns rich and steady. It felt less like a room and more like a breath held in comfort.
She rose slowly, wrapping her arms around herself as the nightdress whispered against her legs. There was no rush in her movements, no urgency urging her onward. Only a quiet sense of being allowed to take her time. As though the Manor, having given her rest, now watched with patient curiosity to see what she would do with it.
Ophelia took a step forward, then another, the floor creaking softly in acknowledgment beneath her weight. Her pace quickened as she moved toward the bathing chambers, the familiar pull of morning rituals guiding her—water, warmth, something solid to anchor the day. The room blurred gently at the edges as she walked, intent and half-lost in thought.
A sudden flash of deep emerald green cut through her peripheral vision, sharp enough to make her stop short. She halted abruptly, breath catching, one foot still lifted mid-step as the moment snapped taut around her.
Slowly, she eased back, retracing her steps on the balls of her feet, careful and quiet, as though afraid the moment might vanish if she moved too loudly. The color resolved itself as she drew closer, rich and unmistakable, until she stood before it at last.
A portrait.
It was large, framed in dark wood softened by age, the varnish catching the light just enough to glow. The woman depicted wore a gown of emerald green so deep, it looked as if velvet had been pasted over the silhouette of her dress. She was beautiful—strikingly so. Dark brown hair swept back from her face in loose waves, revealing eyes of green-gray that glimmered with quiet intelligence. Her lips were caught mid-expression, curved as if she were fighting a smile and failing delightfully at it. The apples of her cheeks were flushed the color of wine, and her lips matched them—rich, alive.
She was beautiful—arresting in the way of things that do not try to be. Dark brown hair was swept back from her face in loose, effortless waves, revealing eyes of green that shone with quiet intelligence and something warmer beneath it. Her lips were caught mid-expression, curved as if she were fighting a smile and failing delightfully at it. A flush the color of wine warmed the apples of her cheeks, mirrored in her lips, giving her the unmistakable vitality of someone mid-laughter, mid-joy, mid-life.
Ophelia’s breath hitched.
Her gaze drifted downward.
And there it was.
The source of that restrained joy.
A young girl, no older than six, stood at the woman’s side, her small hand clasped in the woman’s gloved one. The child’s smile was wide and unapologetic, bright enough to crinkle her gray eyes into crescents. There was mischief there—open, delighted, unafraid. The kind of happiness that could not be taught or tempered, only allowed.
Ophelia felt her own lips curve before she realized it.
The smile came softly, instinctively, as though the portrait had reached out and touched something tender within her. She stood there a long moment, studying the way the woman’s composure bent gently toward the child, the way love—quiet, fierce, unmistakable—had been captured in paint.
For reasons she could not name, her chest ached.
And yet… it was a good ache.
Just as she turned once more toward the bathing chambers, something caught her eye again—this time not color, but light.
A glint. Carved. Familiar.
Ophelia froze.
She turned slowly, dread and wonder tangling in her chest, and then she saw it—and the breath left her in a sharp, startled gasp.
There, resting against the young girl’s chest in the portrait, was the heart-shaped locket.
Her locket.
The very one the Manor had taken.
It looked impossibly real, nestled against the painted fabric as though it belonged there, its surface catching the light with the same quiet gleam she knew by heart. Even rendered in paint, it seemed dimensional—solid, present—too tangible to be a coincidence.
Her hand lifted without her willing it to, fingers trembling as they reached the portrait and brushed instinctively at the girl’s collarbone.
Cool metal met Ophelia’s touch.
Her breath stuttered.
The locket lay there against her skin. Relief and disbelief surged together, sharp enough to make her knees weaken. Slowly, reverently, her fingers curled, preparing to grasp it fully—
And it vanished.
The girl still smiled.
Perhaps—Ophelia thought with a shiver—a touch more mischievously now.
The locket was gone.
But before the loss could fully settle, before panic could find its footing, something else made itself known. A presence. A gentle insistence. She felt it before she saw it—an unfamiliar weight pressing into her palms.
An envelope.
It rested there as though it had always belonged, as though it had been placed not by hand but by intention. Ophelia’s breath hitched as she lowered her gaze, her fingers curling slowly around the thick paper.
And as she looked down at the envelope cradled in her hands, a quiet certainty settled into her chest.
Her next riddle had arrived.