The Chateau revealed its secrets slowly—like scratching at your skin until it bled.
Lucian's Grimoire fluttered again the next morning, long after the others had begun exploring the halls. Its pages were warm. Not glowing, not urgent—expectant. A low hum traced through the echochords in its binding, as though it were remembering something it had never seen.
He followed it down a long corridor of shattered glass and snow-dusted carpet, past a half-frozen mirror that reflected no one and a staircase that ended in mist.
Eventually, the hall narrowed and pressed inward, like lungs holding breath. At the very end: a sealed parlor door, etched with silver glyphs too old to parse. His Grimoire pulsed softly, and with a murmur, it opened the lock.
The door groaned open.
Inside, warmth. Actual warmth.
Lucian blinked, stunned. This room was untouched by the frost crawling over the rest of the Chateau. Velvet wallpaper still clung to the walls. A golden chandelier swayed overhead. And all around the parlor, glass cabinets lined the walls—each one glowing faintly from within.
Bowls. Cones. Cups.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Each one perfectly preserved, cradled in crystal like a museum of forgotten cravings. Frost clung gently to each, but none melted. None dripped.
Lucian stepped closer.
Every dish bore a silver label.
"A Widow's Last Hug."
"The Forgiveness I Never Said."
"The Taste of First Flight."
He let out a breath. It felt too loud in this place.
"Lucian?"
Alice's voice drifted from the doorway. She'd followed him—barefoot, despite the cold. Her hair was unbraided today, a soft curtain of river-dark strands falling past her shoulders. Her eyes glinted as she looked around.
"What... is this place?" she whispered.
Lucian's Grimoire answered before he could.
[FLAVOR-RITE ARCHIVE DETECTED]
Emotion-Preservation Chamber: ACTIVE
Note: Consumption will result in temporal emotional transference.
"They're... preserved emotions," he said aloud. "Memories. In edible form."
Alice drifted to one of the cabinets, drawn by some quiet pull. Her fingers hovered near a silver dish labeled: "A Sister's Apology."
She didn't ask permission. She didn't hesitate.
She opened the cabinet, lifted the dish, and tasted a spoonful.
The change was instant.
Alice gasped and stumbled back, clutching her chest. Her eyes brimmed. A single tear ran down her cheek. Then another. Then laughter—a strange, bubbling sound, like the kind someone might let loose at a funeral just to survive it.
Lucian caught her by the shoulders. "Alice?"
She was shaking. "I don't know who it was. I don't know whose sorrow I felt. But... it was real. And it didn't hurt."
He nodded slowly. "It wasn't yours. But you carried it for a moment."
Alice placed the dish back, reverently.
He looked back at the other labels. So many. So much unspoken.
Eventually, one called to him.
A cone of pale silver, swirled with gray-blue.
"The Day He Let Go of My Hand."
His throat tightened.
He didn't want to know what it meant. But his hands moved anyway.
Lucian lifted the cone and brought it to his lips.
The world fell away.
A basin. Steam rising. Pine soap.
A woman humming—a melody that never made it into memory. Her hands were worn, warm, weathered. She lifted his chin and smiled. "You're too quiet again, Luce. Come now. Say something."
He was so small.
He wanted to say everything.
But in the memory, he just nodded, unable to speak.
And then: her hand slipping from his. A door closing. Final.
Lucian staggered back, breath ragged. The cone fell to the ground.
His Grimoire fluttered.
[USER RECALL: UNINDEXED]
Emotional Stability Threshold has Been Met
Proceeding with fragment integration.
He didn't wipe the tears. He didn't need to.
The room felt quieter now, like it was listening.
"Come on," Alice whispered, taking his hand. "Let's see what else the King left behind."
They found the study behind a collapsed hallway, where frost had spared a single oak door marked with the symbol of a crown and a spoon.
Inside: a fireplace long dead, parchment journals stacked in careful piles, and a lingering scent of vanilla and burnt cedar.
Merry had joined them now, flipping through one of the leatherbound tomes. She read aloud:
"Two tears. One berry from the grave tree. Churned under moonlight. Best for lost love."
"Three spoonfuls of envy, soaked in rainwater. Burned. Serve chilled."
"Salt and milk, in equal parts. Stir only when thinking of a name you cannot speak."
Lucian read a final note, tucked under a glass lid.
"I can no longer eat. I am full of sorrow not mine. If no one else comes, I will freeze it shut. I'll let it settle into silence."
He let the page fall. "He was never feeding joy. He was... eating their grief."
Merry's face was unreadable. "Trying to perfect the taste of letting go."
+
Later, they entered the Carousel Room.
It groaned with ice and the music of a lullaby no one played.
A wide, circular chamber wrapped in blackened mirrors, where a massive carousel sat encased in frost. Its painted horses bore riders made of marble and frozen wax—faces captured in mid-laughter or gasps of fear.
Cadrel stepped forward, face pale.
"I know one of them," he whispered. "That's Imrel. She left on an expedition ten years ago. She—"
The statue blinked.
Just once.
A single flake of snow drifted off its cheek.
Then it stilled again.
"Don't taste the final flavor…" it whispered.
+
Deep beneath the Chateau, they found the vault.
A spiral staircase led down into a chamber sealed by six glyphs of ice. The Echoheart recognized the pattern, unlocking the ritual.
Inside: a single silver bowl, sealed in glass.
Label:
"What the King Felt When He Closed the Door."
Lucian stepped forward. The air trembled. Even the Grimoire was silent now.
He reached for it.
Alice stepped in front of him.
"Don't," she said.
"I have to understand."
"No, you want to. Not all knowing helps."
Lucian paused, hand just inches away.
"What if Elian already feels like this?" he whispered. "Like nothing but pressure, and silence, and sorrow with nowhere to go?"
Alice said nothing.
Eventually, he pulled back.
And the bowl remained untouched.
+
In the King's throne room, they found him.
A man-shaped figure slumped on a glass throne shaped like a sundae bowl, his body preserved in milk-white ice, silver spoon still clutched in one hand. A crown sat askew atop frost-tangled curls.
A single tear hung frozen from one eye.
He did not move.
But his Grimoire noted:
[Vitality: Faint]
[Status: Voluntary Stasis — Emotional Shutdown Complete]
"He chose this," Lucian murmured. "He felt everything. And then he chose to feel nothing."
No one spoke after that.
They returned to the upper level—and found the footprints.
Fresh. Shallow. Melted just after being made.
Lucian's pulse quickened.
Elian was here.
He said nothing to the others. Only waited.
And when the front doors opened with no sound, Elian walked in.
No force. No frost. Just stillness.
He was dressed immaculately, his Grimoire trailing behind him like a tethered commandment. He did not speak right away.
Instead, he walked to the first cabinet, chose a dish, and read the label.
"What It Meant to Be the 13th."
He tasted it.
And for a moment—just one—Lucian saw his hand tremble.
Not much. Barely enough to notice.
Then Elian looked at him, expression unreadable.
"You shouldn't have come here," he said softly. "But I see why you did."