Theda knows the house is still alive.
Even after the mirror cracked.
Even after Mara vanished.
Even after Irlenne emerged—bleeding and bright like someone born from myth.
The house hums with a different kind of heartbeat now.
Not one of lies.
But of remembrance.
---
She moves through the halls with bare feet and a jar of dried lavender in one hand. For protection. For scent. For ritual.
The gallery is quiet. The shards are gone, swept away or dissolved.
But in the hollowed walls, the mirror's memory lingers like smoke.
And Theda? She's the only one left who can speak to it.
---
> "You always loved drama," she murmurs to the bones of the house.
Her voice echoes back — not mockingly, not maliciously.
Just tired.
Like the building itself has exhaled for the first time in years.
---
She arrives at the heart of the house.
A room that never appeared on blueprints. Never had a door.
A breathing space beneath the floorboards.
Where voices go when no one is left to hear them.
Theda kneels and pours a circle of salt. Drops the lavender in its center. Lights a black match.
The flame rises green.
The mirror was born here.
But so was everything else.
---
She whispers names.
Real ones.
Not the ones Lucien wears like a crown.
Not the one Mara tried to steal.
Not even Irlenne's, which is older than the stars remember.
She speaks the names beneath the names.
And the room stirs.
---
Theda has always known things others don't.
She was born with a memory too wide, a mouth too quiet.
She remembers the day the mirror was brought into the house.
How the billionaire's wife whispered that it wasn't a gift—it was an invitation.
How Mara stared into it longer than anyone else. How the silver never reflected her correctly.
---
Now Theda sees them all.
The echoes. The afterimages.
Lucien, brushing dust from Irlenne's hair.
Irlenne, tracing the edges of a love that hurt more than healed.
Mara, screaming in a place no longer hers.
And one more.
The First Girl.
The one who made the mirror.
---
No one remembers her name.
Not even Theda.
But the house does.
And it wants her back.
---
Theda places a single black feather in the center of the salt circle.
It curls inward. Shivers.
The flame flickers.
And the floor begins to bleed—not with blood, but with light.
Silver.
Smooth.
Like glass.
---
She leans forward, touching it with one finger.
> "She's not done," Theda says, more to herself than anyone. "Not yet."
Not Irlenne.
Not Mara.
Not the mirror.
The mirror is not dead.
It is simply waiting.
And Theda is the only one who remembers what comes next.
Because in stories like these—love doesn't end.
It fractures.
And someone always picks up the sharpest piece.