It was still dark when she awoke, though she could feel the time had shifted.
Not in the world outside, where the sky still clung to night — but within the walls of Greymoor. The air felt… different. Not lighter, not colder — just awake. Like something ancient had turned its head and was now looking directly at her. And Eveline could no longer pretend she didn't feel it too.
She went back to the mirror room. Again.
This time, she brought the letter — the one signed only by a ghost of a name: Rowan.
But before she even crossed the threshold, she paused.
Someone was already there.
She could hear the scrape of a chair being moved across the floor. The sound of breathing— low, steady, human.
"You're here," she whispered, too afraid to speak it louder.
The man turned.
He didn't step out of the shadows at first. Just stood with the quiet patience of someone who had waited a long time and could wait a little longer.
"I've always been," he said.
His face came into view — slowly —like an old photograph dipped in water and allowed him to return.
Eyes the color of dusk. Hair ruffled by sleep and time. A presence that didn't demand the room, but shifted it.
She stepped closer.
"You were a dream," she said.
"You were a story I told myself when everything else stopped making sense."
He tilted his head slightly. "And you still are the girl I watched vanish before the last chime."
"What did I do?"
"You loved me," he said. "And then time took you away."
They sat opposite each other in the quiet, the kind of quiet only found in places that remembered too much. No clock ticked. No bird called. Just the two of them, looking at one another like old books long misplaced.
He reached into his coat and took out a watch.
It was cracked, still ticking—but only barely.
"This was the hour we promised," he said.
"The sixth hour. The golden one. When the past could reach through the veil and say: 'I still remember.'"
"And I…" Eveline hesitated, her throat tight. "I forgot."
"No," Rowan said gently. "You only paused."
She didn't remember the fall. Or the candlelight. Or the moment they kissed the first time in another life. But something in her bones lean towards him. Something in her hands already knew the shape of his.
"Why now?" She asked.
He looked at the mirror, its surface now clear — but quiet.
"Because the hour turned," he said.
"Because the house, the clock, the letters— they all kept hoping you'd come back."
"To you?"
"To yourself."
She stood slowly, heart thrumming with something between fear and wonder.
Outside, the clocktower gave a soft chime— one note only— like the sound of breath before a name.
"We don't have forever," Rowan said quietly.
"We didn't before," Eveline replied. "But maybe this time… we'll know how to hold on."
He smiled—not with certainty, but with reverence. Like he'd heard those words once, spoken long ago, in a ballroom filled with gold.
"Then stay," he said. "At least until the hour fades again."
But somewhere beneath the floorboards, something creaked.
Something old. Watching. Waiting.
Because even in magic, not all forgotten things want to be remembered.