In the heart of Paris, tucked behind wrought-iron gates and obscured by ivy-draped walls that did little to hide its decadent reputation, stood the house—Aglaya and Sanlu's five-story monument to scandal, rhythm, and impossible wealth.
It wasn't really a home. It was a myth with plumbing.
The place had once been a hôtel particulier from the 18th century, but after three years of brutalist redesigns, midnight arguments with antique restorers, and a sponsorship deal with a champagne house, it had transformed into something else entirely—a surrealist hybrid of club, art space, performance venue, and palace of curated chaos.
No kitchen.
No bedrooms in the traditional sense.
But there was always iced champagne.
Just beside the garden pool—crystal-clear, luminescent, and lined with black marble—waitstaff in silk uniforms moved silently with silver trays. That pool stretched into the house itself, flowing through a wall of glass and into the indoor pool, which glowed under underwater lights and chandeliers made of shattered mirror fragments.
Above the indoor pool, if one happened to float and look upward at just the right angle, one could see into the ballroom on the third floor: floor-to-ceiling windows, gold-leaf moldings, and a domed ceiling painted in shades of amethyst and stormcloud.
Velvet cushions—violet, crimson, teal—were scattered everywhere. No one sat in chairs. Chairs were too linear. Too dull.
The Great Hall had been gutted and reborn as a stage: rich velvet curtains draped to the sides, mic stands and grand pianos nested beside vintage amps. It was where Sanlu once freestyled for an unbroken hour while Aglaya painted live with black ink and red wine.
The Great Chamber had become a dressing room, complete with antique vanities, full-length mirrors, racks of couture, and at least four wig stands.
The rooms above the dining room had been torn out entirely. Now, the dining hall soared—five floors tall, a single column of grandeur, draped with gauzy fabric and light installations that changed color depending on the music being played. Sound echoed and shimmered, making every toast feel like it had been pronounced by royalty in exile.
Aglaya and Sanlu didn't really live there. They spent most of their time in L.A. or New York, floating between shoots, studio sessions, and esoteric retreats. But sometimes—just sometimes—they returned.
And when they did, they opened the house.
To dancers, poets, rappers, stylists, heiresses, has-beens, and hopefuls. To film directors in leather gloves and philosophers in translucent linen. To lovers and liars and the curious in between.
It wasn't an invitation—it was an event horizon.
Once you stepped through the door, you didn't leave unchanged.
The invitation wasn't printed—it was spoken. Passed from lips to ears like a rumor too decadent to be real. No one received it officially, but everyone who mattered in Paris (and at least half of Berlin) knew: Sanlu Ritzchel and Aglaya Simon were turning twenty-three, and the party was happening at the house.
They were born on the same day—June 17th, 1984. Twins in energy if not in blood, fused by fate and hip hop, philosophy and infamy. The tabloids called them soulmates; they called each other mirrors. From their MTV debut at sixteen to the night they rapped about Plato and Spinoza while riding horseback through a Venice gallery opening, the world had never quite figured out where one ended and the other began.
Now it was 2007, and they were still unexplainable.
And the house?
It was ready.
By dusk, the gates had opened.
The garden shimmered with candlelight and laser art installations, the outdoor pool glowing cobalt beneath the rising moon. DJs floated between glass consoles and antique harpsichords. Models in linen suits with painted-on eyebrows danced barefoot on stone.
Champagne towers rose like edible architecture. Sushi spiraled on ice into the shape of a serpent. Somewhere, someone set off a cluster of helium balloons filled with gold glitter and handwritten fortunes.
Inside, the indoor pool steamed beneath a canopy of low fog and projected clouds. People floated with glasses in hand, limbs loose, faces dreamlike. Looking up, the ballroom pulsed with purple light, dancers silhouetted like shadows on stained glass.
Sanlu arrived shirtless, in velvet pants and diamond cuffs, quoting Kierkegaard.
Aglaya descended the grand staircase in a glass corset, hair woven with orchids and smoke.
They met at the bottom, turned, and faced the crowd.
"Happy birthday to us," Aglaya purred into the mic.
"Now dance or be forgotten," Sanlu added, raising a toast.
The room erupted.
The motorboat bobbed gently on the silver-blue fjord, the engine stilled, the water so calm it mirrored the sky with eerie precision. The world around them was hushed—no birds, no voices, just the occasional soft slap of water against the hull and the distant echo of mountain wind.
Beth sat at the front, arms wrapped around her knees, hair tousled by the breeze. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, unfocused, somewhere else entirely.
Jefrey watched her for a long moment, then turned his gaze to the water. He was calm in that way he always was—steady, quiet, carrying more inside than he let on. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft but certain.
"You want to talk?"
Beth didn't answer right away. The light made her eyes look even bluer—deep, unreadable, like the fjord itself.
After a pause, she said, "About what?"
Jefrey smiled faintly. "About whatever it is you're not saying."
Beth exhaled, a laugh that wasn't really a laugh. "That narrows it down."
He didn't press. Just waited.
She glanced at him, and something about the way he was sitting—so open, so steady—made her throat tighten unexpectedly.
"I got a note," she said finally. "From him. He's gone. Lenored. Or Leon. Whatever his name is."
Jefrey didn't flinch. He nodded once, slowly. "And?"
"And…" Beth hesitated. "I don't know what that means. I don't even know what we were. Or if we were anything. Maybe it was just a game to him."
She blinked hard, then added, quieter, "I think it was."
Beth looked down, fingers knotting in the fabric of her sleeve.
"He made me feel like I was the only real thing in the world," she said. "And now I feel stupid for believing it."
"You're not stupid," Jefrey said, firm but gentle. "You just wanted something to be true. That's not weakness. That's hope."
There was a long silence.
Then Beth whispered, "Do you ever wish you were someone else? Someone harder? Someone who doesn't fall for beautiful lies?"
Jefrey looked at her, and for the first time, his voice had an edge. "No. I just wish people who told lies weren't so good at looking like the truth."
The boat rocked softly.
The stillness around them deepened, the fjord stretching out in all directions like a mirror holding the weight of their silence. The late afternoon sun hung low, casting soft, golden light that made everything seem gentler—less sharp, less real.
Beth's fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the bench, heart beating too loud in her ears.
Jefrey looked down, his voice low, almost afraid of its own truth.
"You know," he said, "I always liked you."
Beth turned to him, her breath catching.
He kept his gaze on the water, words trembling on the edge of honesty. "You were never just Amanda's little sister to me. Not ever. You were always… more. Even when we were kids. Even when I tried not to let it show."
He let out a soft laugh, shook his head. "Never mind. It's not important."
But before he could retreat into himself, Beth reached out and laid her hand gently on his. Her touch stopped the apology before it could take root.
He looked up, surprised by her stillness—by the steadiness in her eyes, in that stormy blue depth that had once belonged only to her silences.
"It is," she said, quiet but clear. "It's important to me."
Their hands stayed there, lightly touching, no pressure—just presence.
Beth didn't look away. Neither did Jefrey.
And for once, there were no misunderstandings, no games, no masks or cloaks or fading notes.
Just truth.
And the ache of something long kept quiet beginning to bloom.
"Leon!" gasped Aglaya, her voice echoing across the vaulted ballroom like the chime of a glass dropped on marble.
She swept toward him with the weightless elegance of a storm cloud in silk. The room, already pulsing with music and champagne and the breathless rhythm of excess, seemed to pause—just a beat—as she spotted him entering through the grand doorway, backlit by the soft, opalescent glow of the pool behind him.
He wore a long shirt of white linen, thin as breath.
Aglaya's heels clicked once, twice—then she launched herself into his arms.
"My sweet, sweet, darling cousin," she cried, voice syrupy and full of mischief.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him—full on the mouth, once, twice, three times—laughing as she did, in that strange, lavish way only she could get away with.
Leon didn't flinch. He laughed, too—softly, easily, as if this kind of greeting were as natural as a handshake. As if it were perfectly normal to be kissed by a woman dressed like a poem in a house made of scandal and velvet and firelight.
"Missed me, did you?" he murmured into her cheek, grinning as he held her just long enough to make everyone watching question everything.
"Like death," she said, drawing back, eyes alight. "Now come, we've started drinking philosophy and ended up rapping about insects. You're late."
"I was baggage claimed," Leon replied.
Aglaya grinned, looping her arm through his. "You're forgiven. But only if you dance later. And maybe cry under a chandelier."
"You like my hair?" Aglaya demanded, laughing as she spun beneath the chandeliers, skirts fanning out like spilled ink and champagne.
Her blonde hair, cut in long, flowing layers with dramatic side bangs that framed her face like a perfectly careless painting, shimmered under the lights. It moved with her—sleek, wild, sculpted chaos. The kind of hair people paid stylists to almost recreate and failed every time.
She stopped spinning just long enough to tilt her head toward Leon, one manicured brow arched in mock challenge.
"Well?" she pressed, smirking. "Is it divine or merely iconic?"
Leon gave her a slow, appreciative glance, the kind that made even cousins blush if they weren't Aglaya Simon.
He smirked back. "It looks like something Botticelli painted and then got drunk with."
Aglaya cackled, delighted. "Exactly the vibe!"
Someone handed her a glass of something pale and fizzing, which she accepted without looking. "Sonya said I looked like a fallen angel. Sanlu said I looked like a capitalist mermaid. You've just added Botticelli to the mix. I'm collecting metaphors tonight."
She winked. "You'll know I'm truly powerful when someone compares me to a literary movement."
Leon lifted his glass. "You've always been postmodern, darling."
Aglaya grinned. "And proud."
Leon tilted his head slightly, amused, as Aglaya's fingers traced the sharp lines of his cheek with all the practiced intimacy of a stage actress who'd long forgotten the difference between performance and truth.
Her smile was all coquette and trouble, lips painted the color of stolen cherries, eyes glittering with layered irony.
"So," she purred, "how's your Bronchiectasis going?"
Leon chuckled, low and unbothered. "Flourishing. Tragically elegant. I coughed once on the plane and someone offered me their inheritance."
Aglaya threw her head back with a delighted laugh, then leaned in again, voice lowered to something near-conspiratorial. "Sanlu and I rediscovered it in literature, you know. We're calling it consumption again. Makes it sound more glamorous."
Leon smirked. "Romantic tuberculosis. Very Brontë. Very 'I die beautifully in a silk dressing gown.'"
Aglaya's fingers slipped from his cheek to his collar, teasing the open edge of his linen shirt. "Exactly. We're curating a whole reading list. La Dame aux Camélias, Keats, Anna Karenina—the new standard is: you don't suffer unless it's quote-worthy."
Leon arched a brow. "So you're aestheticizing my lung condition."
She winked. "We're rebranding it."
He laughed again, quieter this time. "You'd make a fabulous undertaker."
"I'd never let anyone die in ugly lighting," she said airily, already distracted by the music swelling across the ballroom. "Besides, if you're going to be ill, you might as well be mythological about it."
And with that, she twirled away into the velvet-lit haze.