Salted Eyes

Morning had no warmth.

The sun bled through the Parisian haze in a pale, half-hearted glow, casting long crooked shadows over the city. Isabelle stood alone in her apartment, staring at the small tin box she had brought back from the garden behind the opera house, the letter folded neatly inside, as if it were a relic too sacred to disturb.

The night hadn't ended after she fled from the opera house. She had driven in a daze through deserted streets, hands gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles went white, replaying every whispered word of Vivienne's letter in her mind. Every sentence cut deeper than the last.

They made me write this. I am not dead.

Those words had shredded something inside her that she had kept stitched up for too long. Her certainty. Her anger. Her carefully hoarded grief. All of it dissolved into something raw and festering.

She couldn't do this alone anymore.

So she called the one person she trusted to help her shoulder the weight—Jean-Baptiste.

The knock at the door came shortly after sunrise. Isabelle barely heard it over the hum of the city awakening beyond her windows. She opened the door, finding Jean-Baptiste standing there, his face drawn tight with worry, his hair tousled like he'd come straight from a restless night.

He didn't say anything at first. He just looked at her—really looked—and somehow he understood without needing to ask.

Isabelle stepped aside to let him in. The moment the door shut behind them, her composure cracked.

Tears she hadn't even realized she was holding back welled up and spilled down her cheeks. Sobs shook her frame, ugly and guttural, as if some primal part of her had finally surrendered.

Jean-Baptiste caught her before she could collapse completely, wrapping his arms around her. She pressed her face into his chest, gasping for air between broken sobs, his shirt growing damp under the flood of her grief.

"I'm sorry," she choked out between gasps. "I'm sorry—"

"Don't," he murmured into her hair, holding her tighter. "You don't have to apologize, Isabelle. You've carried this alone for too long."

The words unraveled her even further. She wept until she couldn't anymore, until the tears burned tracks down her face and left her gasping and hollow. The apartment around them felt like a different world — distant, blurred by the salt in her eyes.

When she finally pulled away, Jean-Baptiste kept his hands lightly on her shoulders, grounding her. His gaze was steady, unflinching, filled with a tenderness she hadn't expected, hadn't dared to hope for.

"You found something," he said softly. "Didn't you?"

She nodded, brushing at her swollen eyes.

"A letter," she croaked. "From Vivienne. Buried behind the opera house."

His eyes widened slightly but he waited, letting her set the pace.

"She's alive, Jean-Baptiste. She's still alive." The words trembled as they left her lips, part hope, part terror.

He cupped her face in his hands. "Then we'll find her. Whatever it takes."

There was something fierce in his voice, a quiet vow that soothed and terrified her all at once.

Their faces were close now—too close. Isabelle could see the flecks of green in his dark eyes, the faint scar along his jawline she'd never noticed before. The room seemed to shrink, the air thickening between them.

For a moment, the world fell away. There were no clues, no masked strangers, no blood or feathers or dying songs.

Just two broken people, leaning too close to a line neither had dared to cross before.

And then—just before something irreversible could happen—Isabelle stepped back, the movement abrupt and jarring.

"I—" she faltered, pressing a hand to her forehead. "I need... I need to think."

Jean-Baptiste didn't press her. He just nodded once, a shadow passing over his face.

He moved to pick up his coat draped over the back of her sofa. As he did, something small slipped from the inner pocket and hit the floor with a soft metallic clink.

Isabelle's breath caught.

A small cloth pouch, its seams frayed from wear, had fallen open. Tiny crystals spilled out onto the wooden floor—translucent, jagged, and unmistakable.

Salt.

Her stomach twisted violently.

She stared at the pile of salt crystals, identical to the ones the forensics team had found near the missing women, near the bell tower, even in the masquerade club's secret rooms.

Jean-Baptiste followed her gaze and froze.

For a beat, neither of them moved.

The clock on her wall ticked too loudly, marking the beginning of a new, terrible suspicion.

Isabelle forced herself to look up at him, her heart hammering painfully against her ribs.

His face had changed—hardened, closed off. The tenderness was gone, replaced by a cold mask she had never seen before.

"Jean-Baptiste..." she whispered.

He bent down slowly, gathering the spilled salt back into the pouch with steady fingers.

"Let me explain," he said in a voice so calm it sent shivers down her spine.

But the air between them had already shifted.

The bond that had begun to form in the crucible of grief and hope had snapped taut—and now it trembled, dangerously close to breaking.

Isabelle took a step back, instinct screaming at her.

"You knew," she said, voice breaking. "You knew something."

"I never lied to you," he said evenly, though his hands trembled slightly as he tied the pouch closed. "But there are things you don't understand. Things I couldn't tell you."

"Salt," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "Salt to bind. Salt to protect. Or salt to curse."

He looked at her then, and for the first time since they had met, Isabelle saw the full weight of secrets in his eyes—secrets so dark they had twisted the very foundation of who he appeared to be.

"I promised you we'd find her," Jean-Baptiste said quietly, slipping the pouch back into his pocket. "And I intend to keep that promise. But not everyone wants her found, Isabelle. And not everyone is what they seem."

Before she could demand more, before she could scream or run or draw her weapon, he stepped past her, his hand lingering just a second longer on the door handle.

"You need to decide," he said without turning around. "Whether you want the truth. Or whether you want to survive."

Then he was gone, leaving the door swinging open behind him, and Isabelle alone with a floor scattered with salt—and a heart rapidly unraveling under the weight of betrayal.

To be continued...