The first letter arrived a week after the Paris show closed.
Handwritten. No return address.
Tucked inside a velvet envelope, sealed with wax.
Isabelle almost tossed it without opening. She'd grown used to threats disguised as fan mail. But something about the handwriting stopped her — too precise. Too deliberate.
Inside, only two sentences:
> "You think you've told the whole story. But the gallery was never the whole theatre.
There are still rooms you haven't entered."
No name.
Just a symbol drawn beneath: a red moth, wings open, body aflame.
—
Elijah tried to brush it off.
"Crank," he said. "Performance artist with too much time."
But Isabelle knew better.
She'd seen that moth before.
Once. Years ago.
Painted on the underside of a table in Lucian's private collection. The room guests weren't allowed to enter. The one he kept locked even from her — even when she was his obsession.
She remembered asking about it once, drunk on absinthe and praise.
Lucian had only smiled.
> "Not all collectors want to be seen," he'd said. "Some feed on secrets. Some… commission them."
She hadn't understood then.
She did now.
—
The second letter came inside a box.
Unmarked.
Inside: a photograph.
Black and white. Grainy.
It showed a girl — maybe fifteen — sitting on a chaise lounge. Eyes dazed. Body limp. Lucian in the background, blurred but unmistakable. One hand holding a paintbrush. The other... resting on her bare knee.
On the back, a date: 2008.
And a name: Lia Marceau.
Isabelle's hands trembled.
Not from the image.
But from the knowledge that she had never heard that name before.
And she should have.
Because Isabelle had believed — foolishly — that she was Lucian's beginning.
But maybe she was just the first who escaped.
—
She spent the night digging.
The name led to nothing.
No social media. No records. Not even a birth certificate.
Just a single news clipping from 2010:
> "Teen runaway confirmed dead in fire at abandoned vineyard outside Marseille. No foul play suspected."
No photograph.
No family quoted.
No further investigation.
Isabelle stared at the article until the words blurred.
Then she whispered, "They erased her."
Elijah watched from the doorway.
"You think Lucian—?"
"No," Isabelle said. "I think someone much bigger."
—
The third letter arrived not by post.
But by hand.
A courier in an all-black suit. No badge. No courier company name.
Just a locked briefcase.
A note attached:
> "Midnight. Room 613. Hôtel D'Obscure. Come alone."
"You've shown them your fire. Now show them your fear."
Elijah begged her not to go.
"This isn't performance anymore," he said. "It's not art. It's a trap."
"I know," Isabelle said. "But the only way to beat a trap…"
She slipped on her gloves.
"…is to spring it first."
—
The Hôtel D'Obscure wasn't listed on any booking site.
It stood like a relic from another century — stone façade, no lights in the windows, ivy curling like claws over its face.
Room 613 was at the very top.
No elevator.
Just a winding staircase that groaned with every step, like it was remembering too much.
She reached the door just before midnight.
Knocked once.
The door opened by itself.
Inside: candlelight. A velvet chair. A projector screen.
And a woman.
Late sixties. Hair pinned back in a crown of gray braids. Gold rings on every finger. A cigarette holder perched between her teeth like a dagger.
"You're late," the woman said. Her accent was impossible to place. Her eyes were not.
Predator's eyes.
"Who are you?" Isabelle asked.
The woman smiled.
"I'm the one who made Lucian famous."
She gestured to the projector.
"Shall we watch how?"