The shards scattered across the floor like pieces of a starless sky.
Eveline stared down at them, breath caught in her throat. The image — her image — was gone. But something still lingered in the air: cold, electric, unfinished.
"Rowan…" Her voice trembled. "Did you see it?"
He hesitated. "The reflection?"
"She was me. But she wasn't."
She knelt beside the shattered glass, heart hammering in her chest. One fragment had caught the light — and in its reflection, she saw not the room, but a flicker of something else: a burning letter. A woman in gold. A locked door. A scream.
And then nothing.
Back upstairs, the house had changed.
The air was heavier. Clocks ticked out of rhythm. The windows no longer reflected the night correctly — one still held sunlight, another only fog.
"We woke something," Rowan said quietly.
"No," Eveline replied, fingers curling around her coat. "It woke us."
That night, Eveline dreamt.
She was standing in the same room — only it wasn't ruined. The mirror was whole. The chandelier glowed. But she was outside her own body, watching as another version of herself kissed Rowan with desperation, then shoved him away.
"We are doomed," the other Eveline said. "We always were."
"Not if we choose differently," Rowan pleaded. "Not this time."
"You think time forgives?" Her voice cracked. "Time remembers everything."
And then she turned to Eveline — the real Eveline, the watcher — and whispered:
"If you keep going, you'll lose him again. And this time, the house will not give him back."
Eveline awoke with tears drying her cheeks.
Downstairs, the clock chimed once — though it was long past six.
She stepped out of bed, barefoot on the wooden floor, and found a folded piece of paper by the door.
It hadn't been there before.
The handwriting was hers.
But she hadn't written it.
Don't let him see the letter in the drawer. You don't remember yet — but you will. Burn it before the tenth hour.
She ran to the study. The drawer groaned open like a mouth reluctant to speak. Inside: a letter sealed in wax. The crest: a rose made of thorns.
Rowan's family crest.
"What is this?" Eveline whispered, heart stuttering.
Behind her, the floorboards creaked.
"You weren't supposed to find that yet," Rowan said softly.
She turned — the light catching his face just enough to see the shadows under his eyes.
"What are you hiding from me?"
He closed the drawer gently.
"Something I swore to forget. For your sake."
Outside, the wind howled like a voice caught in a storm.
And upstairs, behind the cracked mirror, the other Eveline pressed her hand to the glass once more — waiting.