"Into the reflection. Into the place where masks begin to slip, and the truth no longer hides in shadows—it stares back from the mirror."
There's a kind of silence that doesn't just fill a room—it inhabits it. Breathes with it. Watches you.
The villa had that silence.
I returned the next night.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I needed to.
Lucian was already waiting. Sitting in front of the mirror again, barefoot this time, a small stack of books beside him and a single candle lit at his feet. He didn't look up when I entered. Just gestured to the floor across from him.
Like this was normal.
Like we'd done this before.
And maybe, in some twisted way, we had.
"Why flowers?" I asked, sitting down carefully.
He smiled, but didn't look at me.
"They decay beautifully. More honest than people."
He picked up a white chrysanthemum and rolled the stem between his fingers.
"Did you know these used to mean truth? In some cultures, they still do. But in others… they're used at funerals."
He finally looked at me.
"I like the duality."
We sat in silence a moment. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of asking more. But he was already unspooling his thoughts like thread, and I couldn't help but follow.
"You used lilies for your third," he said. "But mixed them with hellebore. That was intentional."
My pulse kicked up. No one should know that.
"I never said anything about hellebore."
He nodded. "I know. But you meant it."
He leaned forward, elbows on knees. "It's poisonous. Subtle. Beautiful. And the victim died slowly. Very slowly. That's what you wanted, wasn't it? You wanted him to feel it."
I didn't respond.
I couldn't.
He was right.
"You're not just a killer, Aesira. You're a composer. That's what I saw in you."
"And what—you're my audience?" I said, voice colder than I expected. "You think this is some kind of performance?"
He tilted his head, like the thought pleased him.
"No. I think it's a collaboration."
That word. It hung in the air like smoke.
I stood.
But he didn't move. Just said, "You've felt it too, haven't you? The itch. The hunger. You're solving cases with your left hand while your right one still remembers the blade."
I froze.
Not because it wasn't true.
But because it was.
"You're not like them," he continued, softer now. "The detectives. The forensics teams. The ones who flinch at blood. You look at a corpse and you don't see tragedy. You see potential."
I stared at him.
He was peeling me apart with every word.
"You read me like a case file," I said. "But what are you, Lucian? A tribute act?"
He smiled. "A mirror."
He stood then, slow and deliberate, and walked to the wall behind the mirror. He reached up and pulled down a canvas covered in black cloth. Set it on an easel.
"I made something," he said. "For you."
He pulled the cloth away.
It was a painting.
Me.
My face—haunted, half in shadow—staring directly at the viewer. But the eyes weren't mine.
They were his.
And in the background…
Bodies.
Arranged like flowers.
Or maybe flowers arranged like bodies.
I don't know.
All I knew was that something inside me shifted.
Cracked.
And maybe… welcomed the break.
"You're sick," I whispered again, but it sounded weaker now.
He turned to me, voice gentle.
"So are you, Aesira. You're just better at hiding it."
When I left that night, I didn't bring the painting.
But I remembered every detail.
The brushstrokes.
The way the petals bled into the eyes of the dead.
The way I didn't hate what I saw.