The night had never felt so quiet, so dangerously heavy. Paris, with all her crowded streets and glimmering lamps, seemed to hold its breath as Isabelle Laurent stood at the edge of Rue de Varenne.
The invitation card sat cool and weightless in her gloved hand. Its ivory finish, embossed only with a black feather intersecting an eye, looked more like a warning than an entry pass.
But she'd already made her decision.
Isabelle adjusted her coat, pulled her scarf tighter, and stepped through the arched gateway ahead. On any map, the address didn't exist, though rumors had swirled around it for years — whispered between victims' families, old records, and shadowed backrooms.
La Maison de Verre — The House of Glass. Or at least that's what the old police reports called it, though the true name had likely long since been buried under bribes and silence.
A tall, wrought-iron gate loomed ahead, ivy strangling its twisted patterns. At first glance, it looked abandoned, until the faint glint of polished hinges caught the moonlight. Isabelle approached slowly, her boots brushing against the damp stones.
No guards. No cameras.
And still, as though sensing her presence, the gate emitted a quiet click and swung open.
The air changed as soon as she crossed the threshold. The muffled city sounds vanished, replaced by the softest strains of music — violin strings played at a tempo too slow, their melody warped and dissonant, like something half-forgotten.
La Maison de Verre stood before her in full, shadowed splendor.
The building was a mansion swallowed by overgrowth, its high glass walls veiled behind ivy and time-stained lace curtains. Lanterns flickered along its pathways, giving the entire place the feel of a stage: perfectly arranged, unnaturally still.
Two figures stood waiting at the entrance. Their faces were hidden beneath lace masks — black, shaped to mimic the heads of crows. Their posture was rigid, hands folded neatly in front of them. One lifted a pale glove, palm outstretched.
Isabelle slid the invitation card into the hand.
The crow-masked figure gave a small nod and stepped aside, granting her passage. The doors opened, ushering her into another world entirely.
The moment Isabelle stepped inside, her senses reeled.
The grand hall was vast, but every surface was cloaked in velvet and shadow. What little light there was came from hundreds of flickering candles trapped in ornate glass lanterns, each distorted flame dancing across polished black floors.
Guests, if they could be called that, glided through the room like actors in some silent play. All wore masks — some elaborate and feathered, others simple but haunting in their stillness. There were no voices, only the occasional rustle of fabric, the clink of fine crystal glasses, and the never-ending strains of that distorted music, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Isabelle kept her movements slow, deliberate, absorbing every detail. She moved among the guests, her detective's instincts clawing against the surreal nature of the scene. The scent of old perfume and something sharper — like drying ink and aged paper — hung in the air.
Then her eyes caught it.
A mural, stretching across the vaulted ceiling. What at first seemed like a tangle of crows circling the stars began, on closer inspection, to form something else entirely: human figures, faces turned skyward, mouths open mid-scream. Their eyes had been painted over with black stains.
A chill prickled down Isabelle's spine.
She drifted toward the edges of the room, eyes scanning for any clue. Then she saw them.
Performers, standing perfectly still at the base of a grand staircase. Unlike the guests, they wore identical lace masks shaped like bird skulls, their clothing more theatrical — black velvet gloves, bare feet, and long dark robes draping to the floor.
A thin black thread was tied around each of their wrists, binding them to one another in a silent chain.
When the music shifted, their heads all tilted at once, like a flock sensing the wind change. Then, slowly, the ritual began.
The performers moved with unnatural precision, circling the grand staircase, weaving patterns as though acting out an invisible script. Their hands sometimes traced the air, sometimes hovered above the guests as if blessing them, or marking them.
Isabelle stood frozen, her mind racing through the files, the evidence. Every disappearance — every cryptic clue — pointed to these people. This was the heart of the web. She was standing inside it.
As her gaze swept across the shifting figures, something strange caught her attention: one of the performers hesitated. The line of the dance broke, the figure's masked face lingering on her longer than it should.
Isabelle's heart skipped.
The figure tilted its head slowly. Even from across the dim room, she could see the shape of the jaw beneath the lace — and a thin, pale scar, so faint but so familiar it might as well have been carved into her memory.
Her breath caught. The scar. Vivienne's scar.
The figure — her sister — stepped closer, moving against the current of the other performers, gliding between guests without a sound. The music around them seemed to dull, or maybe her mind had simply stopped registering it.
Then the figure stopped, only inches from her.
The mask tilted forward, mouth hidden behind the fine weave of black lace. For a moment, silence stretched into eternity.
And then, a whisper.
So soft, barely a breath — but it struck like a lightning bolt through her chest.
"Isabelle."
There was no mistaking it. The voice that had haunted her dreams for months. Her sister's voice.
She tried to move, to speak, but the world seemed to narrow. Around them the room kept its silent waltz, the masked guests gliding past as though blind to what was happening.
Vivienne raised a gloved hand. It hovered for a second, as if it might reach for her.
But before Isabelle could respond, the figure turned abruptly, disappearing back into the spiral of dancers.
The music shifted once more — and the lace curtain at the hall's far end fell, cutting off her line of sight.
And somewhere behind her, the soft metallic click of a lock sliding into place broke the silence.
To be continued...