The crimson rose pulsed in Élise's hand like a living heart. Back in Paris, rain blurred their perfumery's windows. Lucien's arm—where Vesper's blade had cut him— itched.
"It's nothing," he insisted, bandaging the wound. But black veins snaked beneath his skin. Élise placed the rose in a lead box. "Vesper called it 'the seed of new beginnings.' I don't like beginnings that bloom from graves."
That night, Lucien woke screaming. Élise found him clawing at his arm. The wound had split open. From it grew crimsonthorns—razor-sharp, dripping viscous sap.
"Cut them off!" Lucien begged. Élise grabbed shears. Snapped a thorn. It screamed like a child.
The lead box on the shelf rattled. The rose inside glowed blood-red. Vesper's voice echoed: "The Dubois women aren't dead. They're seeds. And you've watered me."
Lucien's thorns lashed out— —pinning Élise to the wall. "I can't control it," he gasped.
Thorns pierced her shoulders. Agony burned. But deeper than pain: memories flooded her mind: - Vesper dissecting her great-grandmother in 1673 - Anya as a child, crying as Václav injected her with crimson fluid - Clémence's birth—the midwife whispering, "Another battery for the machine"
The thorns retracted. Lucien collapsed. Élise stumbled to the mirror. Where thorns pierced her, rosepetals now bloomed under her skin. Vesper's corruption was spreading.
Clémence burst in. "I dreamed of a red garden. It sang Mother's lullaby—" She froze. Saw Lucien's thorns. Élise's petal-scars. "What's happening to us?"
Élise gripped her sister's hands. "Vesper's using our bloodline to resurrect himself. We have to find where Mother hid her research. There must be a cure."
"I know where," Clémence whispered. "The dream… it showed me a cellar under the river. Our river."
Pont Neuf. Where their mother vanished years ago.
As they slipped into rainy streets, Lucien's thorns scraped the cobblestones. "Hurry," he rasped. "I feel him growing inside me."