They said the fog in Blackbridge never cleared. It just sat there, heavy and damp, hanging low over rooftops and coiling in the gaps between stones.
In the old quarter, everything felt older than it should've been—walls leaning, wood swollen with damp, the streets still wearing the stains of things best left forgotten.
Smoke billowed from chimneys, heavy with the smell of cheap coal. Lamps flickered behind warped glass, offering just enough light to remind you how dark it really was. Rats scurried along gutters that hadn't run clean in years. The living moved fast down here. No one lingered, not unless they had to.
The scent of roasted chestnuts mingled with coal smoke, curling through the slush-heavy air. Bells rang somewhere behind the chapel wall. Two old men stood near a lamplit corner, warming their hands over a tin pail of embers.
"Shame, really. First Christmas without him."
"Aye. Buried him last Tuesday, didn't she? Just three days past Saint Stephen's."
"One frostbitten morn, closed coffin. No choir either. You'd expect more for a man like him."
"Maestro Mortelle," the other muttered, nodding slowly. "Played the Royal Hall for half his life. Folk still say he wrote her that aria—what was it called—'Evermine'?"
"That's the one. Wouldn't let anyone else sing it. Just her. Said no other voice could hold it properly."
"Can't blame him. Verena Mortelle—now there was a voice. Shook the rafters and your ribs with it."
"She loved him fiercely, too. Never took her eyes off him, not even when the stage lights came up. Still wears that dried rose of his. Pinned right there—same lapel, every time."
"Aye, saw it on her yesterday, walkin' through the market. Dressed in all black, but not weepin'. Not like a widow, not quite."
"Well. That wake she threw didn't feel like mourning, either. String quartet, red wine, dancers. In December, mind."
"Snow in the windows, and she opened every curtain like it was midsummer. Said grief didn't want silence—it wanted music loud enough to wake the bones."
The bell tolled once, deep and heavy.
"The year's nearly out," one said. "Blackbridge doesn't change."
"Still 1891 for a few days yet. And still that house of hers stands colder than a tomb."
The storm had the decency to wait until the final bell.
Thunder rolled like timpani over the distant skyline as Lady Verena Mortelle lowered her champagne flute, her voice echoing faintly in the chamber's vaulted dome.
Her audience—five carefully selected guests dressed in mourning black—sat still, silent, and expectant. The room was filled with the fragrances of jasmine, wine, and candle smoke, creating a lingering aroma. Behind her, the great portrait of her husband loomed—a man too young to be dead and too beautiful to be buried.
"To art," Verena said softly, raising her glass once more. "And to the only kind of immortality this world permits."
No one dared speak. Not yet. The guests exchanged knowing glances, understanding the weight of her words and the depth of her grief. Verena's eyes lingered on the portrait for a moment longer before turning to face her guests, a steely determination in her gaze.
From the hearth, the fire emitted a soft, constant glow that glided over her black silk gown, which was plain yet substantial, with the hem flowing like wet ink along the floor. Her hair was pulled back into a severe twist, not a strand out of place, pinned with a silver comb shaped like a sprig of thorns.
She stood straight, shoulders set, hands calm at her sides. No tears on her face. No tremble in her fingers. Just stillness, polished and precise. There was a steeliness in her gaze, a determination etched into her features; she exuded a quiet strength that belied the turmoil within. She looked like a woman who had decided grief would not touch her.
She turned slightly, her gaze drifting to the covered grand piano behind her. It had not been played since the night he died.
"Some believe mourning should be quiet," she said. "But I find that silence is a liar. Silence lets the world forget."
Her voice cracked—just barely—but it passed like a tremor through velvet. Verena remained stoic, her grief buried deep within, a facade of strength carefully maintained. She did not even when the doctors peeled the ring from his blue fingers. Not when they lowered his coffin into a grave far too common for the man he had been.
"Death takes, but it also gives," she continued. "It reveals. It sharpens. It tells you what matters."
"Verena," came a voice from the back. A man in a patchwork cravat—Henri Blouet, painter of saints and sinners—fiddled with his cigarette case. "It's been days since the funeral. Perhaps this… this opera of mourning has played long enough?"
Verena's head tilted. The room froze.
She stepped forward, placing her untouched flute on the marble credenza. The sound of glass on stone was softer than thunder, but it struck harder.
"And yet you came, Henri."
He shut his mouth.
Across the room, a thin woman in a blood-coloured shawl—Isolde, dancer addict and Verena's oldest rival—smirked. "You always did know how to trap an audience, darling."
Verena ignored her.
She moved to the piano, pulling the silk cloth free in one fluid motion. Dust spiralled like ashes in the candlelight. The instrument's keys were bone-white. Literal bone—he had chosen the material himself. 'Music is the ghost of sound,' he used to say.
Verena sat. Her fingers hovered over the keys but did not touch. She wasn't ready—not yet.
A hush settled over the parlour like a drawn curtain. No one dared cough or sip or breathe too deeply. The wine had gone warm in their glasses. Candlelight shimmered along the piano lid, catching the edge of a single page of music—yellowed, handwritten, and creased once at the corner by a man who always folded things just so.
She didn't look at the guests. She didn't need to. This was not for them.
Verena took a slow and steady breath before she began to play the piano.
The initial notes were gentle, played at a slower pace than the composer intended, with a touch that seemed almost reverential. They crept out like mist, curling around velvet chairs and empty picture frames. Her voice followed, not with grandeur, but restraint. No theatre tricks. No bravado. Just her—bare, bruised, and bound to the music like a moth to flame.
Ah… mon doux amour…
You came to me wrapped in winter wind…
No crown… no cross… just bleeding skin.
I knew your name before you spoke—
A vow that burnt but never broke.
A gust of air moved through the room, though the windows were shut. One flame on the far side of the room dipped low, flared, and steadied. A murmur passed between two guests, but Verena didn't falter. Her hands moved with certainty now, muscle memory giving way to something deeper and older.
I kissed the blood upon your mouth—
It warmed me more than spring in South.
I carved your name into my thigh,
So you would never say goodbye.
They dressed you cold, in lace and satin—
But love, you slept on bones of mine.
Not Heaven, not the Reaper's toll…
Could prise your name out from my soul.
The chandelier above them chimed—not swinging or rattling, but chiming—as if the crystal had captured a sound only it could perceive.
Isolde shifted in her seat.
Henri cleared his throat, but softly, like one does in the presence of something sacred.
And still, Verena played.
You never asked me to be good.
You loved me more than others would.
Not for the way I looked in light—
But how I held your name at night.
You never said the word was mine…
But when I sang, you stayed. Evermine.
Ah…Je chante encore…
But you…You cannot hear me anymore.
The last chord hung in the air far too long. It rang past the edge of silence. Past comfort and what felt explainable.
And in the lull that followed—thick, strange, almost wet—came the sound of glass cracking.
The champagne flute on the credenza had split, fine and sharp, as though sliced from within.
Verena stood. She did not flinch nor gasp. She smoothed the fabric of her skirt and turned to face them.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For indulging me."
Henri opened his mouth, but no words followed. Isolde crossed her arms, saying nothing for once.
Then Verena lifted her hand.
"Now," she said, "if you would follow me to the west room."
The guests hesitated. Not out of fear—yet—but because they suddenly realised this was not the end of the evening.
She was not finished.
And this… had only been the overture.
She turned on her heel and crossed the chamber without another word.
The guests hesitated—no one moved at first—but then the hush cracked, and chairs scraped softly against the floor. One by one, they rose. Henri was the first to follow, stuffing his cigarette case back into his coat. Isolde lingered, adjusting her shawl with theatrical care, before drifting after him. Mireille clicked softly on the parquet in pointed heels, already whispering to the man beside her. No one spoke above that.
Verena's silhouette disappeared down the corridor—a long, narrow passage lit only by wall sconces and the occasional glint of glass from framed portraits. The air grew colder as they walked. Not frigid, just... off. Like something in the walls was breathing slowly and shallowly.
None of them had been this far into the house before.
They passed no servants. The only sound was the rustle of silk and coat hems dragging along the floor and the hush of their breath fogging in the dim.
At the end of the hall stood a pair of dark oak doors.
Verena opened them herself.
The west room was nothing like the one they'd left behind. The fire here was long dead. There was no chandelier, no scent of wine or flowers. Just tall windows fogged with winter and a long oval table already set for six, though no meal waited. Instead, at each place sat a small, round mirror, a folded card with a name, and a glass of water still as ice.
Except for a solitary item at the distant end, the walls were devoid of decoration. This item was an antique phonograph, meticulously polished to a deep shine, with its horn positioned like an attentive ear directed towards the table.
Verena stepped aside to let them in.
"Please," she said, and only then did they realise she hadn't spoken since the piano.
"Take your seats."
She walked to the head of the table, where she naturally took her seat, placing her hands lightly on the back of the chair without sitting down immediately.
"I called you here because I need witnesses," she said.
"Tonight… I intend to speak with him."
Silence clung to the walls for a moment too long.
Henri, ever the one to fill silence with sound, leaned forward, his voice low but sharp.
"You mean… truly speak with him?" He gestured faintly toward the mirrors. "As in table-rapping? Spirits and signs?"
Mireille scoffed—just a breath through her nose—but didn't speak. Her gloved fingers tapped once against the stem of her water glass, then stopped.
Isolde rolled her eyes. "Oh, let her have her séance, Henri. The whole city's been summoning ghosts this season. You've read the broadsheets—ectoplasm in Belgrave, table-turning in Mayfair. It's the fashion now, isn't it?"
Verena's expression didn't flicker.
"This is not fashion," she said. "And it is not for entertainment."
She circled to the side of the table, her palm brushing gently along each chair as she passed. "You are here because you knew him. Because you knew me. And because I trust your silence—whatever you see tonight, whatever you hear, it stays in this room."
Henri's brow furrowed. "You believe this… truly?"
"I do," she said, without hesitation. "He promised me once: if death tried to part us, he'd find a way back."
"And you think this is the way?" Mireille asked, her voice tight now. "Candles and glass and little mirrors? Verena, grief is cruel. But this—"
Verena stopped at the far end of the table, beside the phonograph.
"No one is obliged to stay," she said. "But if you choose to remain, you must follow the rules."
The word hung in the cold like a blade.
"First," she continued, opening a small box from beneath the phonograph. Inside, six slim candles sat in carved holders—bone-white, like the piano keys. "No one speaks unless spoken to."
She lit each candle with care, setting them before the mirrors one by one.
"Second: do not break the circle, no matter what you see."
Henri looked down. A circle of ash had been drawn around the table, so faint it had blended into the grain of the floor. It must have taken hours to make.
"And third," Verena said, lighting the last candle, "you must listen."
With that, she placed the needle on the phonograph.
A hiss. Then the first low note of a violin—slow, mournful, rising like breath under silk.
Verena returned to the head of the table and finally sat.
Chairs eased back in a quiet sequence. No one spoke. Velvet skirts skimmed the floor. Shoes crossed the line of ash with measured steps. One by one, they took their places around the table.
Henri hesitated, his gaze following the faint ring as though it might twitch. Mireille sat with deliberate poise, smoothing her gown with fingers too steady to be calm. Isolde didn't bother to hide her amusement, though her hands hovered briefly before settling flat, still, and too careful. The other two guests, silent since the drawing room, moved as if by cue, their faces half-swallowed by shadow.
The phonograph played on—soft, winding, and slow. A single violin, drawing its notes like breath through silk. The candle flames rose thin and high, leaning toward the mirrors. As if something behind the glass had drawn closer.
Verena stood at the head of the table, her fingertips gliding along the edge, absentmindedly. There, at the table's centre, a wooden spirit board rested, flanked by a tarnished bell and a long-handled candle snuffer, its tip blackened from use. The flames in the bone-white tapers flickered gently, even though there was no breeze present to cause their swaying. Verena took her seat without a word. Then, only then, did she look up.
Then she rested her palms on the table, and with a steady voice, she said. "You'll find a mirror in front of you. Do not turn them unless told. They are for seeing—not what stands before you, but what might come through." Her gaze flicked to the water glasses. "Water holds memory better than words. Watch the surface. If it stirs without cause… do not speak."
She nodded once toward the folded cards. "Your names bind you to your place. Do not move them. Do not offer another's aloud. Spirits are drawn to names like wolves to scent." Her fingers passed lightly over the spirit board at the centre of the table. "This is for them, should they choose to speak. But not all who speak deserve to be heard."
The fireless hearth groaned as the wind pushed against the tall windows. The flames in the tapers initially flinched, then gradually rose in intensity.
"Whatever answers us tonight," Verena said, "was not invited lightly. And it may not leave willingly. We must be cautious with our questions and our words." Verena's voice was low and steady, filled with a sense of foreboding. The room seemed to grow colder, the shadows darker, as if the spirits were drawing closer. The air was thick with anticipation, and the flickering candlelight cast eerie shadows on the walls. Whatever awaited them on the other side, they were not prepared for the darkness that would soon envelop them.
Then she took a breath.
"If something answers," she said, quiet and flat, "you do not give it your name. You do not ask it to prove itself. And you do not, under any circumstance…"
She let the words hang, her gaze steady as glass.
"…break the circle. No matter what you hear."