Chapter Six — Poison in the Wine
The chapel walls breathed memories. And ghosts answered when hearts remembered how to bleed.
Evelyn stood beneath the cathedral dome of the ruined chapel, wrapped in silence and candlelight. The flickering flames danced like spirits across the dust-streaked stone, illuminating the path she once walked in innocence. Her fingers still hovered where Dorian's arm had been moments before, as if her body refused to let go of a past it had never truly stopped yearning for.
He stood a few steps away now, draped in shadow, the collar of his black velvet coat brushing his jaw, gloves still on. His profile was like a portrait carved by grief—sharp, elegant, distant. A man not reborn, but resurrected by bitterness.
"I…" she began, but her voice cracked beneath the weight of all that was unsaid. "I didn't know what they would do to you, Dorian."
"You knew enough." His words, calm but razored, sliced the air between them. He didn't raise his voice—he didn't need to.
Guilt twisted in her gut. Her gaze dropped to the floor, to the cracks in the stone—fissures like the ones he'd once painted across her spine in metaphor, back when love was still a language they both spoke fluently.
"I was scared," she murmured.
"So was I. But I didn't run."
She looked up, startled by the pain in his voice—so carefully buried beneath restraint. "Why did you bring me here?" she asked, barely breathing.
Dorian turned from her then, his steps soundless as he approached the altar. "To remind you," he said, placing a gloved hand gently on the edge of the marble. "Of who we used to be. Of what you destroyed."
Her feet moved on instinct, following him through memory's corridors, heart pounding like it had the first time she'd kissed him under starlight and ruin.
"You still paint," she said, her eyes drifting to the easel behind the altar. It was draped in crimson silk, but the cloth had slipped slightly—revealing a new canvas.
A portrait. Of her.
Unfinished.
The likeness was almost painful—except the eyes were vacant. Hollow. Like someone had loved her so deeply, they'd forgotten how to paint her soul.
"I never stopped," Dorian replied softly, lifting the silk completely. "Your betrayal gave me color. Your silence gave me texture."
She stepped closer to the painting, lips trembling. "You hate me."
He turned his head just enough to meet her gaze. "No," he said. "I'm past hatred."
That, somehow, wounded more than rage ever could.
A silence descended—tense and reverent. Outside, wind whispered through broken stained glass like forgotten hymns.
"Do you…" she hesitated, voice cracking. "Do you still think of me?"
Dorian moved forward, erasing the space between them. His gloved hand rose, fingers grazing her cheek with aching familiarity. His touch was barely there, like a memory resurrected by longing.
"I think of you every night, Evelyn," he said. "I remember the way you smiled… just before they dragged me away. I remember the cold in your eyes when you didn't speak up. I remember your perfume on the night I lost everything."
Her breath hitched. "I didn't know how to protect you."
"No," he said, eyes gleaming. "You knew how to protect yourself."
She reached up, cupping his wrist gently, as if afraid he'd vanish. "But I loved you."
His voice dropped, low and haunted. "And yet you left me in the dark."
A beat of silence passed.
And then, softer, "And still… I remember how your lips tasted under the moonlight. That wasn't fake."
"No," she whispered instantly, tears rising unbidden. "That was never fake."
He leaned in, forehead nearly brushing hers, the air between them charged with memory and fury and something too broken to name. His breath stirred her hair as he whispered, "You'll have to prove that."
Then he stepped away—like a ghost returning to his grave. And with him, the warmth of their shared past receded once more into candlelit shadows.
Without another word, he withdrew a silver envelope and placed it in her trembling hands.
A masquerade invitation.
"Tomorrow night," he said. "The Grand Mirror Hall. Come if you dare. Wear red. I'll find you."
Before Evelyn could utter a response, he was gone—his silhouette swallowed by the stone columns and fractured light. All that remained was the echo of her name in the hollow chapel, and the scent of white rose and sandalwood that lingered like regret.
She looked down at the envelope, blood pounding in her ears.
The crest on the seal was unmistakable—Greyborne.
The poison had been poured.
And she had already taken the first sip.