The scratching stopped.
For one terrible moment, the garden was silent except for the distant ringing of the bell.
Then the voice spoke again.
"Lucien. Open the door."
The prince looked as though someone had reached inside his chest and closed a fist around his heart. His fingers flexed once at his sides, then went rigid. A shallow breath caught in his throat before he forced it out.
I had never seen him frightened before. Angry, yes, cold, certainly. But this was different. His face had lost every trace of color, and his golden eyes were fixed on the sealed west wing as though he expected it to come walking toward us.
"Who is that?" I whispered.
"Go inside."
I stared at him.
"Your dead brother is calling you from a locked room, and you want me to go inside?"
"Rose."
"Try again."
His jaw tightened. A muscle jumped beneath his cheek. He glanced at the door, then at me, as if weighing which danger he could control.
For a moment, I thought he might grab my arm and drag me away. Instead, he turned toward the mansion.
"Stay behind me. Whatever happens, do not answer him if he calls your name."
A chill crawled down my spine.
"Why would he know my name?"
Lucien did not answer.
Naturally.
The prince had apparently sworn an oath to make every conversation as unpleasant as possible.
I followed him through a side entrance and into a narrow corridor. Elena had disappeared somewhere behind us, and I could only hope she had enough sense to return to the servants' quarters.
The mansion felt different at night. Shadows gathered in the corners, and the portraits seemed to follow us with their painted eyes. As we approached the west wing, the temperature dropped until my fingers ached.
At the end of the corridor stood a pair of enormous black doors.
Silver chains crossed them from top to bottom. Strange symbols had been carved into the wood, and a thick layer of frost covered the handles.
Lucien stopped several feet away. His breath clouded faintly in the air. His shoulders rose and fell once, too quickly.
"Three hundred years," he murmured.
"What?"
"That is how long this door has remained sealed."
The voice came again from behind it.
"Little brother."
Something inside me twisted at the sound.
It did not sound like a monster. It sounded like a man who had been waiting too long for someone to come home.
Lucien's hand rose toward the chains, but he hesitated before touching them, his palm hovering inches from the frost. His fingers curled slightly, as though he wanted to pull away and could not.
"Do not open it," I said.
He glanced at me.
"You were the one who wanted answers."
"I wanted answers, not to release whatever is scratching at the door."
"Then we agree on something."
He pressed his palm against the wood.
The symbols glowed a dull blue.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then the silver ring in my pocket grew hot.
I gasped and pulled it out.
Lucien spun around.
"Put that away!"
There was something close to panic in his voice. His gaze darted from the ring to the chains, and for an instant, I thought he might snatch it from me.
But it was too late.
The ring shone with a pale light, and the chains began to loosen. One by one, they slid from the doors and struck the floor with heavy metallic clanks.
Lucien seized my wrist.
"Rose, listen to me. Whatever you see in there, do not believe everything it tells you."
"Why should I believe you instead?"
His grip loosened. His thumb brushed once against my pulse before he pulled away, as though the contact had startled him.
"You shouldn't."
The answer caught me off guard.
Before I could question him, the doors creaked open.
A wave of freezing air swept through the corridor. The lanterns went out, leaving only the light from the ring.
Beyond the doors lay a long room lined with mirrors. Most were cracked, their surfaces clouded with frost. At the far end stood a tall mirror framed in silver, and before it knelt a man.
His black hair fell over his face. His clothes were old-fashioned, torn at the sleeves and stained with something dark. Heavy chains circled his wrists, disappearing into the floor.
He slowly lifted his head.
He looked almost exactly like Lucien.
The same golden eyes. The same sharp cheekbones. The same impossible stillness.
But where Lucien's gaze burned with restrained fury, this man's eyes held a sorrow so deep it made my chest ache.
"Lucien," he whispered.
The prince did not move. His shoulders had drawn tight, and one hand had closed around the other as though he were holding himself in place. His nails pressed into his palm until the knuckles blanched.
"Adrian."
The name escaped him like a wound reopening.
Adrian smiled faintly.
"You took your time."
Lucien's face hardened.
"You are dead."
"Am I?"
Adrian glanced down at the chains around his wrists.
"Then why am I still here?"
I stepped forward before Lucien could stop me.
"Who are you?"
Adrian turned his gaze toward me.
The moment his eyes met mine, every mirror in the room cracked.
A sharp sound burst through the air. I stumbled, clutching the ring as a thin line of light spread across its surface.
Adrian rose slowly.
"Margaret's daughter."
My stomach dropped.
"How do you know my mother?"
His expression changed.
For the first time, the sorrow in his face gave way to something like horror.
"She had a child?"
I glanced at Lucien.
He was staring at his brother with an expression I could not read. His lips parted, then closed again, as if he had nearly said something and thought better of it. His eyes flicked toward me, then away.
"You knew," Adrian said softly. "You knew she had a daughter."
Lucien said nothing.
Adrian laughed, but there was no humor in it.
"Of course you knew. You always did know how to keep a secret, little brother."
"Enough."
The word came out too quickly. Too sharply. His hand twitched toward the hilt at his side, though he did not draw it.
"Did you tell her what the ritual really does?"
The question struck the room like a blade.
I turned toward Lucien.
"What ritual?"
His expression became a wall.
"Adrian has been imprisoned for centuries. He does not understand what has happened."
"Then explain it to me."
"Not here."
Adrian tugged at his chains. The metal groaned, and the mirrors trembled.
"He wants your blood, Rose."
"I already know that."
"No." Adrian's eyes locked onto mine. "You know what he told you. That is not the same thing."
Lucien stepped between us.
"Do not listen to him."
Adrian's smile vanished.
"You brought her here, Lucien. Just as they brought Margaret. You put the same chains around her, only yours are made of promises instead of silver."
I felt the words settle inside me.
The necklace. The letter. The ritual.
My mother had been meant to marry Lucien, and she had escaped. My father had helped her, but the bargain had never been broken.
Now I was here in her place.
"Why was my mother supposed to marry you?" I asked Lucien.
His eyes flickered. For one heartbeat, shame crossed his face before he buried it beneath anger. His mouth tightened, and he looked toward the floor as though the answer were written there.
Adrian answered for him.
"Because our family made a bargain with hers. Her blood was meant to keep the royal curse alive."
I frowned.
"Keep it alive? I thought the ritual was supposed to end it."
"That is what they want you to believe."
Lucien moved toward his brother, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl.
"Stop."
Adrian barely looked at him.
"Ask him what happened three hundred years ago. Ask him why I was sealed in this room. Ask him which one of us was supposed to wear the collar."
The air seemed to vanish from my lungs.
I looked at Lucien.
He stood perfectly still.
Too still. His face had gone blank, but his breathing had become shallow, almost soundless.
"Lucien?"
His eyes met mine, and for the first time since I had arrived at the mansion, I saw something worse than anger in them.
Shame.
And beneath it, something that looked dangerously like fear.
Before he could speak, the silver mirror behind Adrian lit up.
A woman's face appeared in its surface.
My mother's face.
She looked younger than I had ever seen her, but there was no mistaking her eyes or the shape of her mouth.
Her lips moved.
I stepped toward the mirror.
"Mother?"
The face turned toward me.
And then she spoke in a voice that sounded as though it had travelled a very long way to reach me.
"Rose, if you can hear this, then they have brought you back."
The mirror darkened.
Her final words echoed through the room.
"Do not let Lucien take you to the altar."
Every mirror shattered.
And in the sudden darkness, someone seized my hand.
It was not Lucien.