A drizzle ticked against the gallery’s leaded windows, streaking the panes like weeping eyes. Outside, Marrowgate steamed in its usual way—fog rising from wet cobblestone, headlights blurred like memory. Inside, warm amber light danced across polished parquet floors and the gleaming cheeks of lifelike wax figures standing in frozen, silent agony.

People whispered in hushed tones, as if afraid to offend the dead.

The scent of lavender, paraffin, and turpentine clung to the air—thick and deliberate, a kind of perfume and warning. In the center of it all, he moved like a rumor given form.

Julian Verlaine.

He moved like a shadow dressed in silk — tailored charcoal suit, black gloves, wax mask flawless and serene. He glided past guests, murmuring pleasantries, but his visible eye watched, and more importantly, listened.

“Incredible detail,” murmured a woman in pearls. “It’s unsettling,” her date replied. “Too real.” “That’s the point,” came Julian’s voice, low and smooth. “Truth often is.”

He did not look at them as he spoke—only inclined his head slightly, the wide brim of his hat casting his visible eye in shadow. The wax mask was perfect tonight, freshly buffed to a faint sheen; its expression serene. Seraphic. Nothing like the man beneath.

And moved on.

Julian drifted through the gallery like a slow tide, nodding, offering brief comments in his dusky accent. “A tragedy immortalized,” he’d say, or “She was a dancer once.” Not lies, not truths. Something in between. Patrons would clutch their glasses tighter, enchanted and unnerved.

“It’s wax, for God’s sake,” a voice near the back whispered. “Morbid. Like a mortuary.” “He’s clever, I’ll give him that. But it’s theatrical.”

Julian stopped.

He didn’t turn toward them—just tilted his head, ever so slightly, as though listening to a faint note beneath the music. His cane tapped once against the floor. Polished wood. Hollow inside.

“—Didn’t catch his last show, but I hear it was the same shtick. Corpses in corsets.”

A smile curled beneath the mask. Not pleasant.

He moved on.

Past the patrons sipping cognac, past the critics in their fedoras and fur-collared coats, past the pianist hired only to play Saint-Saëns. His eye flicked from face to face, reading gestures, posture, eyes that lingered too long or turned away too fast.

Not admiration. Not curiosity.

He was hunting doubt.

In the back of the hall stood a younger man—mid-twenties perhaps, sketchbook in hand, trying to appear unimpressed. He scribbled quickly, brows furrowed, lips thin with judgment.

Julian approached.

“What are you drawing?” He asked softly.

The man looked up, startled. His pen froze.

“Just...just impressions.” “Of my work?” “Of the atmosphere,” he deflected.

Julian stepped closer. The scent of lavender grew stronger. The masked half of his face caught the candlelight just right—a living statue interrogating a breathing one.

“Mmm. You are an artist, then?”

The young man nodded. Faint sweat glistened at his hairline.

“Be careful,” Verlaine said, voice velvet. “Impressions can become hauntings if you're not precise.”

The man chuckled, uneasily. Verlaine did not.

“Enjoy the evening,” he said at last, moving away—his cane clicking softly behind him.

As he walked, he reached into the pocket of his coat and removed a small leather-bound notebook. On the inside: dozens of names, scribbled and coded. He flipped to a fresh page and, with the click of a silver pen:

"Sketcher. Displeased. Left-handed."

And beneath it:

"Possibly beautiful. Will revisit."

He closed the book. Slipped it away.

And smiled.

The gallery murmured around him. Somewhere, someone said the word “grotesque” just softly enough to escape their own courage.

But not softly enough to escape his ear.