The Warning

The words were gone, but I could still feel them in my chest, like ink drying beneath the skin.

Don’t trust the servant.

I stepped back from the mirror. Nothing moved except my pulse. The glass showed only me—my face too pale, my eyes too wide, the candlelight behind me stretching like claws. I told myself it was a trick. A reflection of fear, not of truth.

The violin stopped. Silence rolled through the castle, thick as fog. Then the air shifted—the faintest tremor, as if the house had turned its head to listen again.

I needed daylight. I fled the library, closing the door behind me. The corridor was brighter than I expected; the morning sun managed to find a thin slit of window near the stairs. It looked ordinary enough to make me laugh under my breath. Ordinary—what a beautiful word.

Elias was waiting at the landing.

“You shouldn’t walk the halls before breakfast,” he said softly. “The house hasn’t decided what it is yet.”

I stared at him too long. “Did you move the mirror?”

“The mirror?” His brows lifted. “No. Why?”

“It’s in the library now.”

“That isn’t possible.” He stepped past me, frown deepening. “Show me.”

When we reached the library, the far wall was empty. The mirror had vanished. Shelves, books, and dust—nothing more. Only the faint scent of iron and roses proved it had ever been there.

“You see?” he said quietly. “The castle likes to lie.”

“Or you do,” I said before I could stop myself.

Something flickered in his expression—hurt, then exhaustion. “It told you not to trust me.”

I froze. “How did you—”

“It says that to everyone.” His voice turned flat. “Sometimes it’s right.”

He went to the window and pulled the curtains open just enough to let in gray light. “You’ve seen too much too soon. He’ll know.”

“He always knows,” I said. “Why warn me at all if it never matters?”

“Because once you start to care, it always matters.”

He looked at me then, really looked, and for a moment the world shrank to that patch of cold light between us. There was sadness in him, yes—but something warmer beneath it, something that terrified me more than the dark.

“Elias—”

He shook his head. “Don’t. Whatever you think you’re feeling, it isn’t safe here.”

Before I could answer, a low knock sounded on the library doors. Two measured taps, like a question already answered.

Elias went pale. “He shouldn’t be awake yet.”

The doors opened on their own. Candle flames sprang up along the sconces, driving the daylight away. Dracula stepped inside, black coat unfastened, eyes too bright for morning.

“Miss Blackthorne,” he said, smooth and calm. “And my faithful Elias. How industrious you both are.”

The air in the room changed; it felt like standing between thunder and lightning. Elias bowed, barely. “My lord.”

Dracula’s gaze slid to me. “The house says you found a mirror.”

“It moved,” I said. “Then it wrote to me.”

“What did it write?”

I hesitated. “A warning.”

“For whom?”

“For me.”

He smiled slightly. “The house likes drama.”

“Do you?” I asked before I could think better of it.

He laughed once—quiet, real. “Only when it’s honest.”

He circled the table, every movement deliberate. “Elias, the east roof leaks. Go see to it.”

“The storm has passed,” Elias said.

“Then you’ll have no trouble.” Dracula’s tone never changed, but it was no longer a suggestion.

Elias bowed again, lower this time, and left. The door closed with an echo that sounded too final.

Dracula turned back to me. “You doubt him.”

“You told me to stay out of the west wing. The mirror told me not to trust him. I’m running out of people to believe.”

“Good.” His smile was small and sharp. “Doubt keeps you alive.”

He reached for a book from the nearest shelf and flipped it open. The pages were blank. “Do you know why my library has no dust?”

I shook my head.

“Because the books breathe,” he said. “They exhale what others forget.”

He offered the book to me. The pages shifted—faint outlines forming, fading, forming again. Names, dates, a line of ink that moved like a pulse: Evelyn Blackthorne arrived under a waning moon.

I slammed it shut. “You’re writing my story.”

“I’m recording it,” he said softly. “So I remember what I almost lost.”

“What do you mean, lost?”

He stepped closer until the book pressed between us. “Every century, Whitestone chooses someone to remind me that I was once capable of wonder. Most run. Some stay. You stayed.”

“I haven’t chosen anything,” I said, though my heartbeat disagreed.

“You have,” he whispered. “You walked through every door.”

His hand brushed the edge of my sleeve—barely contact, yet every nerve answered. The candlelight bent toward us; the air smelled faintly of roses and smoke.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because you ask why,” he said. “And because you’re brave enough to listen.”

His other hand rose, slow, deliberate. I didn’t move. His fingers traced the air beside my cheek, never touching. “Do you fear me now?”

“I’m not sure what I feel.”

“Good,” he murmured. “Fear is only the first translation of desire.”

For a moment the world held still. Then the house groaned—a low, angry sound that made the books tremble on their shelves.

Dracula’s eyes flicked upward. “She’s jealous again.”

“She?”

“The house,” he said. “She doesn’t like competition.”

The candles flickered blue; the temperature dropped. Somewhere deep inside the walls, the violin screamed one discordant note. Dracula caught my wrist, his grip firm but not cruel.

“Do not move,” he said.

The shelves rattled, and the far door burst open. Elias stood there, breathless, rain on his coat though the sky outside was clear. His gaze went straight to Dracula’s hand around my wrist.

“Let her go,” he said.

Dracula’s tone stayed calm. “I warned you not to interrupt.”

“And I warned you what would happen if you touched her.”

For a heartbeat neither moved. The house went silent, waiting.

Then the candles flared white. The book in my hand fell open again, its blank pages filling fast, letters racing like blood through veins. One line burned brighter than the rest:

The servant defies the master.

I looked from one man to the other. Both already knew what the words meant.

“Elias,” I said, “please—”

But he had already stepped forward, between me and Dracula, as if the act itself could change the story the house had just written.

The flames bent sideways in the same breath that Dracula’s eyes darkened to crimson.