The storm outside had not let up since the night before. Lightning split the sky open like jagged scars while thunder rattled the very bones of the Armand estate. Rain beat against the tall, arched windows like frantic fists desperate to get in, or perhaps, to warn someone from going further.
Juliette had barely slept. Her dreams had been wild and blood-tinted, filled with whispering voices and glimmering eyes watching her through mirrors that bled when touched. Every time she woke, her throat burned like she'd been screaming. And yet the house remained eerily quiet, as if it too were holding its breath.
She couldn't stop thinking about the mirror in the study. Or Elias. Or the way her name had been carved into the frame of something ancient and terrible. She couldn't pretend anymore that these things were accidents or dreams. Something lived in this house, inside this house and it was watching her.
At dawn, she dressed. Not because she felt rested or strong, but because something compelled her. The mirror was gone. Elias hadn't appeared again since the night the silence fell. But a new sound had come in his place.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It echoed faintly through the floorboards. Always the same pace. Always pulling her toward the west wing.
The one wing she had never entered.
The one her grandmother had sealed.
Juliette moved like someone sleepwalking. Her fingers skimmed the carved wooden walls, following the sound as it grew louder with each hallway she passed. Candles lit themselves as she went, small flares of gold that blinked into existence with no visible fire.
Finally, she stopped.
The door was ahead, old and warped with time. No lock. Just an iron handle and a sigil scorched into the wood. She recognized it. The same rune drawn in blood above the bed in her grandmother's old room.
Her fingers hovered over the handle.
She hesitated.
Then I turned it.
The door swung open.
And Juliette stepped into The Forbidden Room.
It was larger than she expected. Almost cathedral-like. High ceilings stretched into darkness, and the air was heavy, like walking underwater. Velvet drapes hung from the walls, faded and moth-eaten, but thick with dust. Every surface shimmered with the pale residue of time, ash, maybe, or something more sinister.
And in the center stood a mirror.
Not gilded. Not framed in gold like the hallway one.
This one was wrapped in thorns. Real thorns, black and glistening with a viscous, reddish liquid that dripped steadily to the ground.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She approached slowly. Her own reflection shimmered at first, then began to blur. Her chest tightened. The air around her vibrated, like something just beneath the surface of reality was straining to break through.
The mirror pulsed.
And suddenly, Juliette was pulled in.
The Other Side was not a reflection.
It was a world of inverted light and twisted shadow. Trees grew upside down from the sky, their roots writhing like tentacles. The sky bled a dull crimson, as if the moon had burst and soaked the clouds in its gore.
Juliette stood in the center of a ring of stones, each one carved with the name of a woman. The names she'd seen before. Her ancestors. The bloodline.
And standing before her was the woman in white.
Only this time, she spoke.
"You should not have come."
Juliette's voice trembled. "Who are you?"
The woman lifted her veil.
And Juliette gasped.
It was her grandmother.
Younger. Paler. Eyes hollow and grief-stricken. Her mouth was smeared with dried blood, and her fingers twitched with rage, or madness.
"You weren't supposed to inherit the curse," Marianne whispered. "You were supposed to live. Love. Leave."
Juliette stepped back. "What curse? What is this place?"
Marianne raised a hand and the world around them rippled.
A vision appeared. Flames. Screaming. A woman burning in a ritual circle while others chanted.
"It began with Corvina Vire," she said. "The first witch. She made a pact, protection for her bloodline, but at a price. Each firstborn daughter would carry the burden. And when the Crimson Moon rose, she would be tested."
"Tested how?"
Marianne looked at her, eyes full of pain.
"She must either feed the mirror... or be fed to it."
Juliette felt her stomach drop. "You... you fed it."
"I had no choice," she snapped. "I loved my sister. But the mirror wanted her. I gave her it and I've heard her screams every night since."
Juliette collapsed to her knees.
"You were marked from birth, child," Marianne continued. "When you touched the first mirror, the claiming began."
"How do I stop it?"
"You don't."
Suddenly, the air behind Marianne split open and Elias emerged.
But not the Elias she knew.
His body was laced with glowing runes, and his eyes burned silver. He stepped forward, and Juliette saw a chain binding his chest to the ground, thin as thread, but pulsing with power.
"Elias?" she whispered.
He looked at her.
And smiled.
"You didn't really think I was your ally, did you?"
Juliette staggered to her feet.
"You brought me here! You told me I had a choice."
"And you chose to come," he said. "That's all the mirror needs."
The world spun. Trees screamed. The sky cracked open and began raining blood.
Juliette turned to run but the thorns around the mirror coiled up like serpents, slashing across her skin. She cried out.
Marianne stood silently now, face hollow.
"You can't escape what's written in blood," she whispered.
"I'm not like you," Juliette growled.
Then she did something no Armand woman had ever dared.
She grabbed the thorns.
Blood erupted from her hands. But she didn't stop. She yanked them back, tearing open the vines that bound the mirror and beneath it, hidden in its heart, was a book.
Old. Bound in skin. Still warm.
She opened it.
Her name was there. Not written. Etched in flesh. But below it, a line of text appeared in dripping ink:
"Break the mirror, break the chain."
Elias roared. "NO!"
He lunged.
But Juliette turned, lifted the book and hurled it through the mirror.
The world exploded.
When she opened her eyes, she was on the floor of the forbidden room.
The mirror was gone.
Only ashes remained.
The thorns had burned to smoke, and the book,
It was in her hands.
Elias was nowhere.
But a single black feather lay beside her.
She picked it up.
And heard the faintest whisper in her mind:
"You've broken the mirror. But the curse is awake."
She stood slowly.
The house was quiet. For now.
But something deep within the walls had stirred.
And it knew her name.