Chapter Four
The earrings feel colder now.
Like they've been sitting in snow, waiting for me to touch them.
I stand in front of my mirror, my reflection caught between the dim yellow of my desk lamp and the soft silver leaking in from the moon outside. The world feels smaller. Quieter. As if the city itself is holding its breath.
In the glass, my own eyes stare back — wide, uncertain, but… curious.
---
A faint hum runs through my fingers as I brush the metal. It's subtle, like the echo of a voice in another room. My chest tightens.
"Are you… alive?" I whisper.
No answer, at least not in words. But the silence shifts — heavy and expectant, the way a forest feels just before a storm.
---
My thoughts spiral.
I think of Chloé's smirk, of her perfume that made the air feel like poison.
Of the whispers behind my back.
Of being invisible until someone wanted to laugh at me.
The Miraculous seems to pulse in time with each memory, as if feeding on them.
---
The girl's voice from the alley replays in my mind: You have power inside you. But no one sees it.
I clutch the earrings tighter.
What if she's right? What if this is my way out?
What if I could finally stand in the light — and not be stepped on?
---
A faint sound snaps me out of my thoughts.
It's coming from the corner of my room.
At first, I think it's just my imagination — the tick of the old clock, maybe. But then something moves.
A tiny shape steps forward from the shadows, no bigger than my hand. Its wings shimmer faintly in the lamplight, though they look nothing like a butterfly's. More like shards of midnight glass, sharp and beautiful.
Its eyes, deep and red like dying embers, lock with mine.
"So," the creature says, voice smooth as velvet, "you're the one who called me."
---
I freeze. My heartbeat stutters.
"You… talk?"
The thing tilts its head, the corner of its mouth curling.
"I do many things. But I'm here for one reason, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."
It hovers closer, the air around it growing heavier, warmer — almost suffocating.
"You've been wronged," it says softly, "and I can make it right."
---
The earrings in my palm are burning now, though the heat doesn't hurt. It feels… intoxicating. My knees almost give out.
"What do I have to do?" I hear myself ask.
The creature smiles wider.
"Say the words I give you. Let me in. And together, we will change everything."
It places a clawed fingertip on the earrings, and the hum becomes a deep, vibrating thrum in my bones.
I open my mouth —
—and then everything goes black.