Read Chapter 25: A Specter's Demand

The dressing room was silent except for the drip of a faucet and the distant murmur of the departing crowd. Élodie sat before the mirror, still in costume, the gold chain warm against her collarbone where it had fused with her locket. Her throat ached in a way that felt foreign—not from singing, but from being *used*.

Julien appeared in the doorway, two glasses of champagne in hand. "You were extraordinary."

"I don't know if I was the one singing," she said quietly.

He set the glasses down and knelt beside her chair. "Céleste guided you. But the voice—the *control*—that was yours. She can't make you sing what you don't have inside you."

Élodie touched the fused jewelry. The metal was seamless now, as if the locket had grown the chain. "She said to sing for her. She didn't say I'd be her puppet forever."

"Then we end this properly." Julien squeezed her hand. "We give her what she wants."

A knock rattled the door. Before either could respond, a man in a meticulously pressed suit pushed inside, trailed by a flustered stagehand. He was silver-haired, with the easy confidence of someone who bought things rather than built them.

"Mademoiselle Marchand." He extended a card. "Henri Beaumont. I represent a consortium interested in cultural preservation."

Élodie took the card without reading it. "The theater isn't for sale."

"Everything is for sale, mademoiselle. But I'm not here to buy—I'm here to invest." Beaumont's smile was polished. "I saw your performance tonight. Remarkable. The acoustic potential of this house is—" He paused, something flickering behind his eyes. "—significant."

Julien rose. "The theater needs structural work, new rigging, restoration of the fly system. We have estimates—"

"I have no interest in estimates," Beaumont interrupted. "I have interest in outcomes. Opening night was a triumph. But I have a condition."

Élodie felt cold despite the warmth of the dressing room. "What condition?"

The investor's smile thinned. "I've heard rumors. Whispers about this house. Unusual sounds. Unusual *appearances*." He glanced at the mirror, then back at them. "My consortium requires certainty. The theater must be clean. No séances, no superstition, no"—he waved a hand—"ghosts. Can you guarantee that?"

Julien opened his mouth, but Élodie caught his arm. "The rumors are exaggerated. Old buildings make noises. Shadows play tricks."

Beaumont studied her for a long moment. "Then we understand each other. If the theater remains... uneventful... for the remainder of the run, I'll have my lawyers draw up papers by week's end." He turned and left without another word.

The door clicked shut. The stagehand fled.

"He's lying," Élodie whispered. "He *knows* something. His eyes—"

"He knows the theater is haunted, and he doesn't care," Julien said. "He wants it cheap. Whatever he pays, he'll flip it for triple."

Élodie's fingers found the chain again. "Or he's not a buyer at all. Mademoiselle Delacroix said she'd use what she saw. What if Beaumont is hers?"

A shriek of feedback ripped through the theater's speaker system—but the system had been powered down after the performance. The sound warped, rising into something that wasn't static. It was a *voice*, layered and ancient, grinding through the wiring.

*"Truth must be spoken."*

The lights flickered. The mirror fogged from the center outward, frost spiderwebbing across the glass despite the warmth of the room.

Julien stepped back. Élodie didn't.

"You already have your truth," she said to the air. "We found your bones. Auguste confessed. What more do you want?"

The mirror cleared, but not to reflection. For a moment, Élodie saw a different room reflected—an office with dark wood paneling and a massive desk. A man in early twentieth-century dress sat hunched over papers, signing something with a trembling hand. On his finger, a signet ring glinted: the Vautour crest.

The image rippled. The man looked up, and his face was Édouard's—not old, not young, but the same bloodline twisted in terror.

The voice came again, softer now, like a mother explaining something to a child.

*"The confession is not enough. The truth must be witnessed. All of it."*

The mirror shattered.

Élodie shielded her face as glass rained down. When she lowered her arms, a single shard remained embedded in the frame—intact, and in its reflection she saw not herself, but the sealed room on the third floor. The door stood open. Inside, a child sat on the floor, playing with a music box that played a lullaby Élodie recognized from her own childhood—a song her grandmother used to hum.

"Céleste had a child," Élodie breathed.

Julien's face went pale. "What?"

"The ghost—she's not just a victim. She's a *mother*. The sealed room—" Élodie grabbed Julien's arm. "That's where they kept the baby. That's why the room was sealed. That's what Auguste buried with her."

The dressing room grew cold. The gold chain tightened against Élodie's throat, not choking her, but pulling—toward the stairs. Toward the third floor.

"She wants us to find the child's remains," Julien said. "To reveal them publicly."

"To reveal the *truth* publicly. She said it herself." Élodie's voice dropped. "Auguste didn't just steal the theater from her. He stole her *daughter*. He buried Céleste with the secret of what he did to the child, and the confession in the safe deposit box—Édouard never told us everything because he doesn't *know* everything."

The music from the shattered mirror shard faded. But Élodie could still hear it echoing in her skull—the lullaby, haunting and incomplete, as if missing a final verse.

She looked at Julien. "If we tell the public the theater is built on murder and a missing child, Beaumont's consortium vanishes. No investor. No restoration. The theater dies."

"If we don't, Céleste never rests. And she's already shown what she'll do when she loses patience."

Élodie touched the fused locket. Through the metal, she felt a heartbeat—not hers. A thin, cold pulse that matched a rhythm she didn't know.

"She's not asking for justice anymore," Élodie said quietly. "She's asking for *legacy*. She wants her daughter named. She wants the world to know the Vautours stole a child along with everything else. And she wants me to be the one to say it."

The chain warmed against her skin, pulsing once—an affirmation.

"Then we tell them," Julien said. "We make it part of the opera. Before the final aria, we speak the truth from the stage."

Élodie looked at him. "You'd risk everything? The theater, the restoration, your own money?"

Julien's jaw tightened. "The theater was never really mine to save. It was Céleste's. And if she wants the world to know—" He met her eyes. "Then the world will know."

The distant sound of a child's laughter echoed through the walls. Not haunting. Almost joyful. But the temperature didn't rise, and Élodie knew the ghost's pleasure was not peace.

It was anticipation.

She reached for her costume change, her mind already racing ahead to tomorrow night's performance. Beaumont would be there, watching. Delacroix would be there, scheming. But the woman who would command that stage would not be Élodie Marchand alone.

She would be Céleste Laurent's voice, finally speaking the words that had been buried for a century.