That night, Elena didn't return to the attic.She couldn't.Not after what she'd seen.
Instead, she brought the mirror down. Lily had begged her not to—"We should burn that thing!"—but Elena couldn't explain it. She couldn't leave him alone. She needed it closer.
She placed it in the corner of her room.
Wrapped in a pale cloth.
Facing the window.
Yet still, she didn't sleep.
Not because of fear.
Because of him.
That figure—tall, cloaked in an old-world sadness, staring at her through time, through glass. She'd seen his eyes. Storm-grey. Devastating. Lonely.
When dawn began to bleed through the trees, she finally stood.
Her fingers hesitated over the mirror's cloth.
She unwrapped it.
There he was.
He wasn't there in the way people were. Not solid. Not fully formed. But the glass shimmered faintly—and in it, his silhouette.
Elena dared to speak. "Who are you?"
Nothing.
Her own reflection blinked back at her. Ordinary. Unchanged.
Then—
The mirror fogged slightly. From within. Like breath on glass.
A single word appeared.
Carved slowly, as if by invisible fingertips.
"Julian."
Elena stumbled back, heart hammering in her chest.
She looked around. No breeze. No tricks. No explanation.
Just a name.
It faded.
She stepped closer again. "Julian… what do you want from me?"
The mirror remained silent.
Then, from somewhere deep in her room—or perhaps only in her head—she heard it.
A voice.
Low. Velvet-smooth. Hers.
"You already know me."
Downstairs, Lily paced.
When Elena finally came down, pale and dazed, Lily rushed forward. "You didn't sleep."
"No."
"What happened?"
Elena looked up slowly. "His name is Julian."
Lily froze. "You talked to him?"
"I don't think it was talking," Elena whispered. "It was… like he wrote it. On the glass. With fog." Her voice trembled. "Lily, I think he's trapped."
Lily grabbed her arm. "Then leave it alone. Whatever this is—curse, ghost, haunting—just leave it. Don't dig deeper."
But Elena's eyes said it all.
It was already too late.
She needed to know.
That evening, as the sun set behind Rosehill Manor, a storm gathered.
And in the mirror, Julian's silhouette became clearer. Stronger.
He stood in a hallway of his own. Dark wood. Candlelight. A time long past.
He looked at Elena's reflection with eyes that had waited centuries.
And he whispered her name for the first time.
"Elena."
She felt it in her bones.
Elena sat on the edge of her bed, fingers clenched around the edge of her blanket. The storm outside had darkened the sky to near-night, casting long shadows across her room. Thunder rumbled—soft, but steady. Like footsteps pacing.
The mirror stood still in the corner.
But inside, he was watching.
The moment their eyes met through the glass, her breath caught. Julian wasn't just a presence anymore. He had form. A face. Hands folded behind his back, posture regal, every inch like a man from a time long gone.
But those eyes…
They ached.
Like they remembered her.
Like they needed her.
"Julian," she whispered again.
The surface of the mirror trembled, almost like water, as if her voice had rippled through it. And then—it changed.
The bedroom behind her disappeared from the reflection.
Now she stood in a long, candlelit hallway. Walls draped in wine-colored tapestries. Old portraits lined either side. A flickering chandelier hung above, swaying ever so slightly.
She wasn't alone.
Julian stood at the far end, gazing at her with sorrow that didn't belong in the living world.
"Elena," he said again, his voice deeper now. Clearer.
She gasped.
This time—she heard it with her ears. Not in her mind.
He took one step toward her.
And suddenly—the candles in her real bedroom extinguished themselves.
Lily screamed from downstairs. "Elena?!"
Elena leapt back as the mirror darkened again, returning to its dormant state.
Her reflection stared back, wide-eyed and trembling.
But in the center of the mirror, etched faintly into the glass, one sentence had appeared.
"Not everything that dies stays gone."