The hairpin pierced Ayla's palm with the stench of rust and rotting iris roots—identical to her mother's spilled medicine on her deathbed. The golden scar on Lucas' cheek constricted like a scalded serpent, cerulean blood crawling up her wrist to crystallize into Odile's youthful signature under her skin.
(Nails digging into the hairpin's filigree, faded blue ribbon tangling her middle finger's old scar)
"This relic can't handle more trauma." Lucas gripped her trembling wrist, his ocular lenses fissuring into spiderwebs. "Your mother pinned Odile's hair with this—the day she decided to remodel me into a human archive."
Eric's watch chain lashed out, snaring the falling music manuscript: "Best not bleed on the staves, Miss—unless you fancy activating 'Remorse Sonata's finale."
The ribbon's edge suddenly tautened, cutting into Ayla's flesh. Lucas' scar peeled off, floating mid-air as a holographic map of Odile's lab—corridors glowing with coordinates from anonymous letters. Rain seeped through clock tower cracks, animating musical notes that crawled up Lucas' spinal gears, etching maternal notes: "When scars become vows, betrayal redeems."
"Your body heat..." His bloodied prosthetic traced her clavicle bolt. "...resonates with the hairpin's metal fatigue."
(The ribbon combusted, ashes revealing on the manuscript's verso: "Play Section VII backwards to pause curse")
As the clock struck inverted midnight, Ayla deciphered Odile's script—venomous curses overlay encrypted surgical logs. Each "betrayal" hid micro-coordinates pointing to Lucas' memory blockers. The manuscript curled, charred edges forming Eric's fingerprint.
"The night of his spinal replacement," the butler wiped blood off his watch face, "Lady Odile mixed confession ashes into anesthesia—said it'd archive pain."
Lucas ripped his shirt open. Ayla's blood navigated circuitry crevices, activating two-decade-old holograms—teenage Odile injecting cerulean serum while her mother recorded data behind a secret door.
(The hairpin's tip speared the hologram Odile's temple)
All scars resonated. Disintegrating ribbon fibers became memory prism: Odile clutching the hairpin while tearing marriage contracts, Lucas sewing music sheets into his spine pre-surgery, Ayla's rebirth brainwaves syncing with his mechanical pulse at 0.3-second lag...
"Reverse vows..." Eric crushed watch gears. "...are just knotted fault lines of time."
The collapsing floor exposed buried lab logs. A specimen-labeled blue ribbon, faded to corpse-gray, slid out—"Subject 21 Emotional Bond Test Sample". When Ayla's blood hit the label, manuscript fragments assembled into Iris Requiem—Odile's postscript gleaming: "Curse breaks only when he learns to hate you."