Rosehill Manor's evening air was heavy with a stillness that was unnatural.
Even the wind was not brave enough to pass the gates.
Elena was huddled under her blanket, her thoughts churning.
Leah and Mark had departed after vowing they'd sensed something, and Elena didn't feel like the crazy one for once.
She looked at the mirror. It showed nothing but the vacant room now. Cold, quiet, indifferent.
But she didn't believe it.
Not anymore.
Weary eventually overwhelmed her.
The dream started under moonlight.
Soft, silver-blue light poured over a stone floor. She was naked, and her feet were bare, standing in a long hall that went on forever into darkness. The walls were lined with mirrors—but none reflected her.
Only his.
A tall man, always just in front of her. Dark hair. White skin. A coat that was centuries out of place.
His back was to her, but she knew whom it was.
Julian.
"Wait!" she cried, moving forward.
He didn't turn.
Instead, the mirrors started to hum—a low, eerie sound that throbbed in her bones.
"Elena."
The voice wasn't loud. It didn't ring out. But it sang deep inside her chest like a memory she'd never experienced.
"Who are you?" she breathed.
He hesitated.
Still not looking at her, he held up a hand and laid it lightly against the glass of the closest mirror.
There was a crack in it. A single one, fine and branching like a spiderweb.
"Elena," he spoke again.
And this time… it was different.
It wasn't a voice of warning.
It was a plea.
Elena sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding.
It was still dark—but not quiet.
The mirror was humming.
Whispery. Imperceptible. But unmistakably alive.
She stood up slowly, gaze fixed on the glass.
And she saw it.
A tiny crack.
Diagonal from the top right-hand corner—just like the precise one in her dream.
Her blood went cold. She hadn't dreamed it. He existed—not merely stuck behind glass, but extending.
Elena couldn't catch her breath.
The crack glimmered palely under the moonlight—a rough-edged silver line running along the corner of the mirror, thin though unmistakable. She stretched out a shaking hand and stayed an inch back.
It wasn't there before.
She would have noticed.
She'd dreamed it first.
Was that possible at all?
"Elena," she spoke aloud, echoing his voice. "Why are you calling me?"
As if in response, the mirror throbbed—once—gentle and rhythmic, a second heartbeat trapped within glass.
She took a step back. "No. No, this is crazy."
The first thing she wanted to do was run. To gather her belongings and get out of Rosehill. But before the thought could coalesce, something kept her rooted.
A pull in her chest.
One she knew.
Ancient.
Not fear.
Almost.
It felt like… a vow.
Elena stumbled over to the corner where she'd piled boxes of her grandmother's things. Her hands ripped through them blindly—journals, letters, photographs, lace handkerchiefs that still smelled like lavender and dust.
Then she found it.
A journal, bound in leather that was worn to a softness. Her grandmother's handwriting cursive across the first page:
"Some mirrors reflect more than the eye can see. Some imprison. Some protect. This one. this one chooses."
Elena's heart pounded.
She ran through pages. Symbols drawn. Dream notes. Warnings scribbled repeatedly:
"Don't talk to him."
"The fourth dream will trap her."
"Only a Harper can shatter the cycle."
She hesitated. Her fingers stiffened on that name.
Harper. Her last name. Her heritage.
She stared again into the mirror—and for an instant, hardly, she saw something shift behind the glass. Not herself reflected. Not Julian's whole form either.
Just a hand.
Open. Waiting.