🕯️ Chapter 6
The fog hadn't lifted in three days.
It clung to the windows like a ghost too stubborn to pass on — and Seraphina understood the feeling. She moved like clockwork behind the café counter, her motions graceful but mechanical, her smile polished but paper-thin.
Lucien hadn't come in that morning. Neither had Ivy. The silence felt louder.
She was wiping the espresso machine when the envelope appeared — deep red, wax-sealed, resting right on the counter as if dropped by invisible hands. No one had seen who left it. No name. Just her initials scrawled across the front:
S.L.
Her heart stalled.
It was a shade of red she knew too well — Langley Red — the custom tone her family had used for branding and gala themes. Only people who knew her from before would remember that.
She stared at it for a long time before breaking the seal.
Inside was a thick ivory card, embossed in silver:
The Atrium Society invites you to an exclusive Winter Masquerade.Only ashes prove there was once fire.— Darven Holdings
Her breath hitched.
Darven Holdings. The name alone twisted something cold in her stomach. The company that had quietly acquired her family's assets after they were framed in a corporate scandal. They'd stayed clean, untouched. And now… they wanted her at one of their elite gatherings?
A trap. Or worse — a stage.
She slipped the card into her apron just as the café door jingled again.
Lucien stepped in, drenched from the mist but sharper than usual. His eyes scanned the room before locking onto hers.
"You got it, didn't you?" he said.
She didn't ask how he knew. She just nodded.
Lucien's jaw tightened. "Don't go."
Her eyes narrowed. "I don't remember asking for permission."
"You shouldn't walk into a room full of wolves."
"I grew up in a den," she replied coldly. "I can still smell fur through perfume."
There was silence between them — but not empty silence. It was thick with unsaid things.
Lucien stepped closer. "They're not inviting you to apologize. They're inviting you to ruin you again. Publicly."
"And what if I want them to try?" she whispered. "What if I'm done hiding?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he took something from his coat pocket — another card. A match to hers.
"I was invited too," he said. "But I wasn't going."
"Until now?" she asked.
"I don't let people put targets on the ones I care about."
Her eyes widened slightly. Not at the word care — but at how softly he'd said it. Like it slipped out before he could stop it.
Before she could reply, Ivy burst in through the door, winded and breathless. Her lavender hair was soaked, her cheeks red from the cold.
"You're not gonna believe this," she panted, holding out a wet envelope.
It was another invitation.
But this one wasn't for the masquerade.
It was for Ivy.
And it was signed in silver ink:
"To the girl with the flames in her sketchbook — let's see what else you can draw… in blood."