The manor didn't sleep.
Even after the brothers retreated into silence and the whiskey was long forgotten on the drawing room table, Larissa could feel the house breathing. Not literally—but in the way a forest feels alive when you're alone in it. Every creak of wood, every shifting shadow—it all watched her.
She sat in the armchair, hands clenched around a half-cold mug of tea. Lukyan stood by the window, unmoving. Dimitri had disappeared down a corridor that hadn't existed an hour ago, the wall behind him swallowing him whole.
"He's wrong," Lukyan said without turning.
Larissa's gaze remained fixed on the fire. "About what?"
"You weren't chosen because of your parents. Or any sacrifice."
"But he said—"
"He lies," Lukyan snapped. "He always has. It's what he does."
She looked at him now. "Then tell me the truth. About the accident. About me."
His eyes glinted like frost-bitten steel in the firelight. "Your parents were researchers—archivists, really. They tracked relics. Old things. Dangerous things. I didn't know until after I signed the contract with you. That's when the house… reacted."
She stood slowly. "Reacted how?"
"The snow began falling in August. Paintings started bleeding into the walls. I heard voices in your old room—before you even arrived." He looked at her now, voice low. "It wasn't coincidence, Larissa. You were always connected to this place."
Her chest tightened. "So this marriage… was it ever about protecting me?"
A pause.
"No," he said, quietly. "It was about protecting everyone else from you."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Larissa turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. "I need air."
She fled the drawing room, the corridor stretching out long and dark ahead of her. Her feet took her to the only place that felt remotely hers: the conservatory.
It was bitterly cold there—glass walls rimed with frost, snow swirling outside. Dead vines curled along the iron framework above. She pressed her hand to the glass. Her breath fogged it.
Behind her, something stirred.
She turned—but no one was there.
Then… music.
A soft, eerie lullaby drifted through the air. A melody she hadn't heard in years.
Her mother's music box.
She turned toward the far end of the conservatory, heart slamming in her chest.
There, on a stone bench, sat the box. Unlocked. Spinning slowly on its own.
She approached, hands trembling.
The tune wound down with a fragile click.
And then, in the fog of the glass behind it—a reflection.
A child.
Larissa gasped and turned, but the space behind her was empty.
When she looked back, the reflection was still there.
And it was smiling.
Scene Break: The Memory Hall
She didn't tell Lukyan.
She couldn't.
Not yet.
Instead, she returned to the library that night with a candle and a mission.
If the manor remembered her, she would return the favor.
She traced her fingers over the old shelves until they found a book she'd never seen before—its spine unmarked, bound in cracked leather. Inside, the pages were blank… until she touched one.
Words bloomed on the paper like ink bleeding through time.
Larissa Mikhailovna Petrov.
Daughter of flame and frost. Survivor of the marked fire.
Witness to the binding.
Key to the unmaking.
Her breath hitched.
She flipped the page. It showed a drawing—of a child, standing alone before the gates of Volkov Manor. The snow around her feet was red.
The next page showed her face.
Older. As she was now.
And beside her…
Dimitri.
Scene Break: The Brother's Pact
In another wing of the house, far below the drawing room, Lukyan stood before a mirror that didn't reflect.
Dimitri leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
"She's seeing them," Lukyan said.
Dimitri gave a small shrug. "It's starting. She can't run from it anymore."
"I won't let the house take her."
Dimitri chuckled. "You forget, brother. It doesn't want to take her."
Lukyan turned, voice low and dangerous. "Then what?"
Dimitri's grin faded.
"It wants her to replace Mother."