POV: Lucien
The house was too quiet when Seraphine knocked.
"Vale," her voice came, soft and breathless through the door. "Come. I want to show you something."
He rose, still half-lost in dreams of sketches and secrets. She was already walking down the hall when he opened the door—barefoot, pale in the morning light, her hair like ribbons trailing behind her.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
She didn't look back. "To meet the others."
The back of the house was somewhere he hadn't been allowed. She unlocked the door with a brass key she pulled from around her neck, and the air that hit him was cool and still, thick with the scent of wet earth and something sweet, almost rotting.
It wasn't a garden.
It was a graveyard.
Gravestones spread out in uneven rows, each one carved in different hands, some crooked and broken, others clean and new. And flowers—wild, growing unchecked, blooming in impossible shades.
Seraphine moved through them like she was floating.
"This one," she said, stopping by the first grave, "wanted the gold. He asked me where I kept it before he even learned my name."
Lucien followed, silent.
She pointed at another. "This one said he loved me. He wanted to marry me and take the house for himself."
Her eyes flicked to the next.
"This one called me a ghost. Said I was cursed. Thought he could run."
She stepped again. "This one went to the locked wing."
Lucien's gaze sharpened. "What happened to him?"
Seraphine stopped in front of a small headstone. White marble. Polished. Her voice dropped.
"He hurt me the most."
Her hand drifted to a glass box beside the grave. Inside—two cloudy, lifeless eyes stared up at them.
"I told him not to go upstairs," she said, almost like she was talking to herself. "He disobeyed."
Lucien stood perfectly still.
The silence stretched.
Then: "Why… did you bring me here?"
Finally, she looked at him.
"I wanted you to see what happens," she said. "When people lie to me. When they try to take what's not theirs."
Lucien's chest tightened.
But she stepped closer—close enough to touch.
"I want you to be different, Vale."
And with that, she turned and began walking back to the house, her white dress brushing the dirt, her hair catching in the wind like silk.
Lucien stared after her, pulse like a drum in his throat.
So this is what she is, he thought. And this is what I've walked into.
But he followed her back anyway.
Lucien didn't speak as they returned from the graveyard. His boots left no sound on the velvet carpet. The house, like always, swallowed noise like a secret.
At the hallway, Seraphine turned to him.
Her eyes gleamed—glass-bright and unreadable. The morning light hit her just so, casting soft shadows over her cheekbones. Her lips curved, not into a smile, but something... knowing.
She leaned in close.
Too close.
Her breath was cold on his skin as she kissed his cheek.
"Don't be afraid," she whispered, her voice wrapped in sugar and storm. "I know you won't hurt me."
Her fingers lightly brushed the collar of his shirt, possessive.
"We'll meet again for lunch."
And then she was gone—sweeping down the hall like a ghost in silk, disappearing behind her door with a click that echoed louder than it should have.
Lucien stood there for a long moment. Frozen.
He exhaled, shaky.
And then turned sharply and strode to his room.
He shut the door behind him, leaned against it. For a heartbeat, he didn't move. Then he walked to his bed, reached under the pillow, and pulled out his notebook.
His fingers moved fast.
Rip. Rip. Rip.
Each page—carefully mapped plans, guesses, routes, coded questions—was torn from the spine. Tossed to the floor.
There had been a grave for every one.
The gold. The escape. The inheritance. The idea of manipulating her. They all had a grave already waiting outside, six feet under wildflowers.
His hands were shaking.
"She's not just lonely," he muttered under his breath. "She's—she's a ghost. Or a madwoman. Or a damn psychopath."
But still, his eyes flicked to the hallway. To where she disappeared.
And part of him... still didn't want to leave.