✧ VALENROSE MANOR ✧
Part I – The Door Opens
The manor did not look haunted. Not in the way the stories said, not in the way Eli expected.
It looked... abandoned, yes. Forgotten, certainly. Ivy strangled its iron gates and rose vines snaked up the stone like desperate hands. But there were no shattered windows, no blackened scorch marks from fires long past. The front doors still stood, tall and untouched, sealed shut like a mausoleum.
"I thought you said it was a ruin," Juno muttered, chewing on the stem of her sunglasses. "Looks more like a wedding cake made of rot."
Lena rolled her eyes and handed her the crowbar.
Cass stood a little away from them all, head tilted, staring up at the balcony above. Her eyes followed an invisible trail, her fingers twitching faintly like a pianist preparing to play. She said nothing.
Micah was sketching the façade in a tiny notebook, mumbling something under his breath.
Eli shivered and didn’t know why.
They'd arrived late in the afternoon, just before golden hour. The road that led to the manor had long vanished beneath moss and bramble, and only Lena’s obsessive researching had led them here—her obsession with urban legends, mysterious disappearances, and the infamous Twins of Valenrose.
They didn’t know who they were, not really. Just names in a footnote, a single black-and-white photograph in a dusty town archive—two masked figures standing back to back, their clothing obscenely ornate, faces impossible to make out.
"They say they died here," Lena had explained in the car. "During their final masquerade. No bodies were ever found."
Micah had gone quiet. "Do you think… ghosts stay behind if no one ever finds them?"
Cass had smiled, but didn’t answer.
Now, as the sun began to sink and the light took on that eerie golden quality—like the world itself was remembering something—it was Cass who stepped forward, brushing her fingertips along the locked doors.
"Here," she said softly, and reached beneath the crumbling lion-head statue to withdraw a key.
Juno barked a laugh. "You’re kidding."
"She’s not," Eli murmured. Something in his chest squeezed.
Cass turned to them. "Do you want to go in or not?"
And just like that, the door creaked open.
The air inside was cold. Too cold for summer. And it smelled like dust and perfume, like a room that hadn’t been empty as long as it should have.
Their flashlights carved through the dark like knives. Velvet drapes hung half-decayed. A grand piano stood against one wall, strings exposed like ribs, and for a moment Eli swore he heard a single note ring out.
He turned. Cass was watching him.
"Do you feel it?" she asked quietly.
He wanted to lie. Wanted to say no. But…
"Yes."
Upstairs, a hallway stretched on and on, lined with cracked portraits and forgotten doors. At the far end, a pair of double doors stood slightly ajar, as if waiting.
Micah moved toward them like he was sleepwalking.
Inside was a ballroom. Still opulent, in its own decaying way. A chandelier clung to the ceiling like a ghostly spider, its crystals glittering faintly. Mask fragments littered the floor. A long-dead bird lay beneath the window.
And on the walls, faded murals danced in the light—figures in blue and gold, caught mid-spin.
Micah sat down, trembling. "I know this place. I know this song."
Juno frowned. "What song?"
Micah looked at her, and for a second he wasn’t Micah. His eyes were somewhere else entirely. "The last waltz. They played it while everyone burned."
Behind him, Cass hummed the tune.
Eli turned to her. "Who are you?"
Cass looked at him—truly looked—and for a moment, her eyes were centuries old.
"You’ll remember," she said gently. "When the music starts again."