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Ashford’s nerves are on edge. Since their arrival, Ryan’s men have trampled through the manor like a pack of dogs. Nothing escapes their frenzy. Room after room, they have wrecked everything, even her office has not been spared.
Meanwhile, she sits in the Indian room, a shawl around her shoulders as a thin protection against the surrounding chaos. A cup of cold tea rests in her hands; she drinks only to give herself an air of composure.
She listens to the heavy footsteps, the sharp orders, the careless banging of furniture. And Ryan, in the midst of it all, impassive and methodical, coldly supervises the preparation of the reception hall. A decision has been made regarding Mr. Hall’s spirit, and Ryan, she senses it, is also settling old scores.
Ashford has learned that Ryan and Fred know each other. Jenks had dug through Atlas’s affairs, through those of Paul Rand, Ryan’s father and former partner, now deceased for several years.
He also led the investigation that resulted in the arrest of Rebecca, Ryan’s wife, accused of murdering an Atlas student. The case sparked scandal, as Rebecca had wrongly suspected the young woman of being her husband’s mistress.
On this point, Ashford could almost thank Jenks: he had removed an obstacle from her path, even though Ryan still has not filed for divorce. But after tonight, everything will be settled. They will finally have what they both want.
Then, like the swing of an axe, the security lights go out.
Ashford jolts violently, letting out a strangled cry. Cold panic tightens around her throat. She cannot take this house any longer. Now, only the trembling beams of flashlights pierce the darkness. Ryan’s men move in relative silence, their nervousness palpable.
And then, the noises begin.
Heavy knocks strike against the walls, as if the walls themselves breathe, alive, creaking with impatience. Ashford clenches her fists to calm herself. The spirits have no power without a vessel. She repeats it like a mantra. They can do nothing.
But she senses something is wrong. And the knocking continues to echo like warnings.
The armed men follow the sounds, flashlights raised, running from corridor to corridor, lost in this absurd ballet. Suddenly, a gunshot cracks through the silence. Sharp. Piercing. A shattering of glass follows immediately. Ashford springs to her feet, the shawl sliding from her shoulders, the cup crashing to the floor.
“Mr. Rand!” she hears someone shout in the chaos. “You need to see this. It’s… it’s behind the mirrors.”
And then, the order falls. Sharp. Intransigent.
“Destroy them all.”
The air fills with the sharp sound of shattering glass; each explosion echoes inside Maya’s head as if she herself stands in the room of this new vision imposed upon her.
Euphemia Hall stands at the center of the small Indian room, gasping, her bare feet on the glittering shards of porcelain and glass. Her white nightgown clings to her damp skin, her long disheveled hair dripping, and her eyes—hollow, ringed, feverish—sweep across the room with a kind of contained madness.
Terrified maids cower in a corner, frozen like wax statues, hands pressed over their mouths. They flinch at every crash, every overturned object, every cracked vase, every rare trinket hurled against the wall, the metallic clatter of fragments raining to the floor.
Euphemia staggers, breathless, her chest heaving with frantic breaths. She frantically searches for another object to destroy, her hands trembling, her lips murmuring incoherent words under her breath.
The door bursts open and Edith enters, soaked to the bone by the rain, her dripping hair plastered to her cheeks, her black coat streaming with water. Her gaze immediately scans the scene. With a sharp yet calm gesture, she signals the maids to leave. The young women obey without hesitation, slipping through the room, dodging debris, nearly crawling as if to avoid being seen.
Edith remains alone with Euphemia, approaching slowly, cautiously, as one would try to tame a wounded and frightened animal.
“Effie…?”
Euphemia turns abruptly, still panting. For a moment, she stares at Edith without recognizing her. Her dilated pupils gleam feverishly, her breath forming faint trembling clouds in the cold air.
Then suddenly, something breaks inside her. Her expression cracks. Like a veil lifting, recognition fills her eyes.
“Edith…”
Her voice fragments just as her knees give way. Euphemia collapses into her friend’s arms, clinging to her tightly, burying her face against her shoulder.
“Oh, Edith… I’ve destroyed everything. All the cursed objects Father brought back from his travels… All those trinkets, those statues, those talismans… I smashed them one by one. But it does nothing! The spirit is still here. It watches me! And the other trinkets… the others are locked in the storage room. They must be destroyed! Everything must be destroyed!”
Her sobs shake her frail body. She clings to Edith desperately, her face flooded with tears, her body burning with an inner fever.
But something in Edith has changed. She stands still, upright, her arms loosely holding Euphemia, more as a learned gesture than one of genuine feeling. Her features are tense, her eyes fixed on a point behind her friend. She says nothing. Above all, she does not look at her.
“Effie…” she finally murmurs, her voice low and tight, “This can’t go on…”
Euphemia lifts her head, her eyes red and her face ravaged.
“The maids told me you no longer eat. You don’t wash. You avoid mirrors. You scream at night. They’re terrified, Effie.”
“Because that’s where I see it!” Euphemia cuts her off in a shrill voice, gripping Edith’s arms tighter.
“Who?”
Euphemia steps back, her gaze lost for a moment in emptiness. Then she whispers, her voice quivering with terror.
“The demon.”
“Where? In your mirror?”
“IN ALL THE MIRRORS!”
Edith says nothing. She lowers her eyes, unable to meet her friend’s gaze. Her fingers barely tremble, and everything in her betrays the inner conflict she desperately tries to contain.
Euphemia seems ablaze. Her eyes shine with a disturbing glow, as though the fever of obsession has entirely consumed her. Suddenly, she seizes Edith’s face in her clammy hands, her fingers almost digging into her cheeks. Her gaze locks onto hers, vast, starving, haunted.
“Let’s run away together,” she breathes, panting, her voice low and trembling. “My darling. My love. Let’s burn this house… burn it to the ground, with all its secrets, its curses, its lies.”
She moves closer, their faces now separated by only a breath.
“The demon will burn with everything else. And we will be free. We’ll be together… forever.”
And without waiting for a response, she presses her lips to Edith’s. A sudden, burning, possessive kiss. Euphemia clings as one would cling to the edge of an abyss. She slips her tongue, seeking an echo, a response, a refuge.
Edith remains frozen, paralyzed by surprise. Her eyes widen, her breath catches in her throat. She doesn’t immediately comprehend—or perhaps refuses to comprehend—what is happening.
Then Euphemia’s hands become frantic, feverish, urgent. One hand impatiently slides beneath Edith’s skirts, climbing along her thigh, her palm burning, possessive, trembling.
“Effie, no—stop,” Edith stammers, still stunned.
But Euphemia is elsewhere. Her gaze is glassy, fevered. Her breath short, her movements hurried. Only when the hand ventures higher does Edith finally react. She pushes her friend away violently.
“Have you lost your mind?!” she cries, jumping to her feet, cheeks flushed, eyes brimming with tears.
Euphemia, lips parted, breathless, steps back.
“I don’t care if we’re caught. I don’t care what people will say. I—”
“Not me!!” Edith screams, her voice breaking with emotion. “It’s… it’s… it’s unnatural! I’m not supposed to have these thoughts! I just want to be normal! I want to find a fiancé, get married, live a life without…”
Euphemia suddenly pales. All color drains from her face, her gaze fracturing like glass under pressure. She stands there, arms limp, as if the ground has opened beneath her feet. Then she breaks.
“No… no, no, no, NO! You said you loved me! You promised! You said you’d never leave me!”
“I love you,” Edith sobs, shaking her head in distress, “but not like this… not like this… It’s forbidden, we can’t. I’m sorry, I… Effie!”
Euphemia sways. Her body suddenly tenses, as if struck by an invisible jolt. Her arms stiffen, her fingers spasm open and closed uncontrollably. Her gaze turns vacant, wide, lost in emptiness.
“Effie? Effie!” Edith leaps toward her, hands reaching just in time to stop her from collapsing onto the floor.
But Euphemia is already convulsing in her arms. Her body twists in violent, irregular, uncontrollable spasms. Her head jerks backward, her legs hammer the ground with dull thuds, and from her open mouth escapes a strangled gurgle, as if something inside her is trying to break free—or enter.
“Help! Someone, quickly!” Edith screams, her voice shattered by panic.
She holds Euphemia tightly, trying to steady her, to calm her, to bring her back—but the spasms intensify, shaking the frail young woman’s body like a puppet dangling from invisible strings. From her hand, tightening and releasing erratically, slips the small copper mirror she kept in her room, strangely familiar now.
Then, suddenly—nothing. The vision cuts off abruptly, like a curtain violently drawn. Darkness falls again, heavy, absolute. Maya remains still, her breath caught.
It seems that the more the host resists the spirit’s presence, the tighter its grip grows, rooting itself deeper. Like a dark ivy, it coils around hearts and minds, strangling if necessary. Rage, despair, madness: all belong to it.
A question drills into her skull, insistent and painful: and if, in another time, another world, with gentler customs… Edith and Euphemia’s love might have been enough to save her? Madame Kali had said it—that this spirit could be defeated by an act of love.
Yet something catches her attention. A detail. She senses Edith’s presence again, like a faint mist around her.
“Edith? I just saw Euphemia have a seizure… in your arms. What happened?”
The white mask worn by Simon appears before her, the voice rising from it weak and broken.
“It’s my fault… I let her believe I loved her… But I… but… not like that… Or maybe I did, but… I lacked the courage. I just wanted to be normal. To find a fiancé, a home, a future…”
She pauses, and Maya imagines her there, invisible, her voice trembling, tears held back for centuries.
“So I confessed everything. That she believed herself possessed, that she wanted to run away, that she desired the bodies of other women. And her father… eventually locked her in a sanitarium. I had heard what they did to women in there. I thought… maybe it would help her anyway. I was wrong…”
The same nagging detail returns to Maya’s mind.
“I saw a mirror Euphemia was holding. What was it?”
“It’s called an Aranmula mirror… She cherished it deeply. Her father brought back an entire collection from India, but she especially loved that one.”
“Did she destroy it too?”
Only silence answers. Edith doesn’t know. But why can’t Maya shake the feeling that she has seen that kind of object before? Where?!
“When you said you were wrong to believe the sanitarium could help her, does that have something to do with the Aranmula mirror?”
“I should have destroyed it when I had the chance. I should never have stopped believing this might all be true…”
A sudden, blinding light strikes Maya’s eyes. She blinks, momentarily blinded. When she opens them again, a new vision imposes itself.
Euphemia’s bedroom reappears, bathed in golden, warm light. From below, the sounds of a party rise to the room. Sitting at her vanity, the young woman appears radiant, incandescent. She adjusts an earring with slow, sensual care.
There is no more fever in her gaze, no more distress, only confidence—almost arrogance. She looks at herself with cold admiration, smiling at her reflection as one smiles at a conquest. Is this truly the same woman Maya saw, broken, screaming, consumed by fear?
A discreet knock sounds at the door. Edith enters. She too has changed. No more youthful curls or flowing dresses. She wears a sober, elegant, almost austere outfit. Her hair is pinned into a flawless bun. Her gaze is graver, her posture stiffer. All lightheartedness has vanished from her face.
“Good evening, Effie…” she whispers, almost timidly.
Euphemia does not respond right away. She barely glances away from her reflection to look at Edith through the mirror. A faint, imperceptible smile curls her painted lips. Cold. Mocking.
Then she resumes adjusting a bracelet around her delicate wrist without even turning her head. The consuming love, the pain, the fevered kisses, the screamed promises — all seem to have been swept away like a distant dream.
“Effie, please don’t be like this…” murmurs Edith, her voice strained with contained sadness.
She takes a step forward, as if about to fall to her knees before her friend, her face drawn with regret. Her eyes search Euphemia’s, begging for a trace of warmth, a sign that some piece of their former bond remains. But Euphemia rises smoothly, deliberately avoiding her.
“I heard you got married,” she says, perfectly calm, smoothing her dress with her fingertips. “My congratulations.”
Edith freezes, mouth slightly open. Her face tightens. She searches for words, struggling to speak.
“I wanted to visit you during your confinement… but my parents… they forbade me…” She looks away briefly, ashamed. “I should have insisted. I should have…”
“Will you have a drink with me?” Euphemia interrupts lightly.
She steps toward a small lacquered cabinet, takes out two crystal glasses and a slender green bottle, which she uncorks silently. She pours the liquid slowly, with care. Edith stands helpless, lost.
“Effie… I beg you… I don’t want to lose your friendship…”
Euphemia turns, a look of offended surprise suddenly on her face.
“Lose my friendship? Oh no, no, how absurd…” Her smile is smooth, perfect, but her eyes glisten with a troubled light. “You are—and will remain—my dearest friend. Always.”
She steps closer, offering one of the glasses with a gleam in her eyes. Her smile widens. There’s something charming, feline… dangerous.
“Come now… this party celebrates my return to society. It would be terribly rude not to toast with me.”
Edith hesitates. Something feels wrong, but Euphemia insists, her eyes gleaming, her smile frozen. Reluctantly, Edith reaches out, takes the glass, and lets it clink against Euphemia’s in a crystalline chime. She brings it to her lips. Euphemia watches her without blinking.
Edith drinks. All of it. In one gulp.
Euphemia’s smile stretches, transforming into something carnivorous. A small curl forms at the corner of her mouth, twisting her face with icy slyness.
“On the contrary, dear Edith… I should thank you. It’s thanks to you that everything became possible. If we hadn’t locked ourselves in this place… I would never have been able to take control.”
Edith stares at her, stunned, confusion flickering across her face. Euphemia turns on her heels without another word, calmly crossing the room to retrieve her Aranmula mirror from the vanity.
Suddenly, Edith starts coughing, first lightly, as if she had simply swallowed wrong. But quickly, the fit worsens, gripping her throat like an invisible claw. She tries to straighten, to speak, but already lacks air. Her face twists, her hands tremble. She staggers.
Euphemia returns to her with slow steps, a serene smile on her lips as though nothing unusual is happening. She looks down at her, amused, almost tender.
“If only you hadn’t been so talkative about poor Euphemia… If you hadn’t confessed everything… maybe her father would never have thought to commit her,” she pauses in front of her, observing with the slow delight of a predator. “And what she endured there… oh, Edith… so much pain, so much rage…”
Edith tries to speak, to call out, but only a strangled gurgle escapes her lips. Her legs buckle beneath her. She leans against the bed, gasping, eyes brimming with tears. Euphemia crouches gently beside her. With a tender, almost affectionate hand, she caresses Edith’s cheek, now red and damp from asphyxiation.
“If only you had been capable of truly loving her… Who knows… maybe you could have saved her.”
Then, with a delicate motion, she turns Edith’s face toward the Aranmula mirror she holds. In the reflection, Euphemia’s face appears hollowed, aged, her eyes black voids, her lips cracked, her hair sparse. A mask of death.
Edith begins to cry, her sobs shaking her weakened body. She lifts her eyes toward the one standing before her and whispers, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You… are… not… her…”
The entity smiles. Somewhere within, Euphemia remains, buried alive in the prison of her own flesh. And in that heavy silence, the creature softly recites:
“And I answered: ‘Farewell, go and remember me.
You know how we cared for you.
If not, I would remind you…
of our wonderful times.’”
She leans in and gently kisses Edith on the lips. The young woman collapses, half-conscious on the velvet sheets, her fingers curled, her gaze lost. The vision blurs, wavers, dissolves into a golden mist. Then all fades into darkness. Silence returns.
Maya no longer trembles. She knows now what she must do. No doubts, no hesitation. She must see this through—to the end—for Edith, for Simon… and perhaps for everyone. The tears will come later. For now, she rises inwardly, determined, her heart heavy but resolute.
“Edith… I just saw you collapse. You struggled to breathe. What happened?”
“There was something in the glass. Euphemia… or rather, what was wearing her face… disposed of me. Everything went black, freezing cold. I remember nothing after that. I know what she claimed: that I took my own life, unable to bear her rejection. She twisted everything I had said and turned it against me. And part of it… part of it was true. I loved her, but I was a coward. If only I had loved her enough to save her… It’s my fault…”
Maya wants to contradict her, to reassure her, perhaps to absolve her. But she knows now that this is not why the dead speak. So she remains silent, her gaze fixed on the white mask suspended before her.
Something still holds them here. Something else. A different guilt. She turns her head. An intuition guides her. At her feet glimmers a small silver medal. She bends down to pick it up, discovering a keychain inscribed with Saint Bernard of Menthon and the saint’s profile.
“It’s my fault…”
“Simon?”
He appears suddenly, without his mask this time, his features drawn, his shoulders slumped. He seems almost surprised to be here, but also resigned.
“It’s my fault…”
Maya freezes, her gaze locked on his. She hadn’t expected to see him—not like this—but a part of her understands. Perhaps these ghosts have not chosen their hosts by chance.
“Why do you say that?”
“I was a coward. I had everything to be happy… always. And I ruined it all.”
He lowers his eyes, ashamed. He no longer resembles the charming, boastful young man. He looks drained, almost extinguished.
“Tell me.”
“It’s too late now…”
“It’s never too late. Even for the dead.”
Simon lifts his gaze to her, misted with bitterness.
“I always wanted to be… more. The best. The first. But it was never enough. One day, I discovered a passion for cooking. I was good, you know? But my roommate back then was even better. He won contests, and I… I gave up. At university, I met Emma. She was perfect. Talented. An incredible voice. And instead of being happy to have her in my life, I thought I had to be better than her. That’s how I ended up at Atlas. There, they said you had to get rid of fear, doubt, guilt. That you could become anyone, as long as you believed hard enough. I believed it. Damn, I believed it.”
Maya says nothing. It’s no coincidence all roads lead here. He didn’t arrive by accident either.
“And then?”
“A girl died. And Jenks thought it was me. I didn’t do anything, but Atlas hinted I was guilty. Probably to cover themselves. So I ran. With nothing. I abandoned Emma. Like a coward.”
“And where did you go?”
“To the other end of the UK. Odd jobs, fake identities, scams. I started committing insurance fraud, staging incidents in restaurants and hotels. Then I arrived at the Sea View Hotel. At Christmas. The irony, right?”
He shakes his head, sickened by his own memories.
“That’s where you met Jimmy and Hugo…”
“I’ll remember that Christmas my whole life… But I don’t want to talk about that. It was my fault, like everything else. After that, prison. And when I got out, Phoenix reached out. My probation officer was thrilled.”
Maya raises her eyes to him, serious.
“They’re not here to help us, Simon. Phoenix IS Atlas.”
He stares at her, stunned.
“That’s… impossible. No, I left all that behind.”
“But not them. Jenks isn’t here by chance. He was investigating.”
“The morning of the seminar… he wanted to talk to me. I thought he was going to scold me… But Ryan Rand…”
“Is here. And he’s after Hugo. I have no reason to lie to you. And we need you.”
She gently hands Simon the small medal, his eyes suddenly shining with emotion as he recognizes it immediately.
“Emma gave it to me during a holiday… He’s the patron saint of mountaineers.”
Maya tilts her head, a faint smile on her lips.
“Then it’s perfect… because we’ve got one hell of a mountain to climb. Are you ready to face your past for good?”
He doesn’t answer. His gaze remains fixed on the medal, his lips slightly parted. The suspended space around them slowly dissolves. They return to the small hidden room behind the manor’s walls.
And suddenly, with a sharp crack, the white mask Simon wears shatters and falls in pieces at his feet. Edith has finally found peace. The dead can rest. Only the living remain.
Simon seems drained, almost absent, his eyes vacant. Maya watches him in silence, then slowly releases his hands, leaving the small medal in them. He needs time. She rises, ready to rejoin the others, to see where the rest of the group stands. But something halts her.
The woman in the red veil is still there, motionless, behind Simon. And she simply raises a pale finger toward the hallway, just behind Maya.
“Too late…” she whispers, barely audible.
Maya has no time to understand. Her brow furrows, she turns around… and a flash of blinding white light strikes her.
“Chief! We found them!”
Beams of flashlights slice violently through the darkness, armed men surge forward, determined. Ryan’s men descend upon them. And in that strangely bright light blinding her face, she suddenly remembers where she has seen the little bronze mirror before.