Lurking Marrow

The night was a breathing, restless thing as Isabelle left Estelle's apartment.

She wrapped her coat tighter around her body as she hurried down the street, the revolver hidden in her pocket weighing heavy against her side. The rain had started again, a thin mist that slicked the cobblestones and blurred the streetlamps into dull halos.

The whispered warning Run still pulsed in her ears.

She didn't run—not yet. But every step she took was coiled with a readiness to bolt, every glance over her shoulder sharpened by fear.

She found Jean-Baptiste leaning against a lamppost two streets over, half-shrouded in the mist. His figure seemed half-formed by the fog, his features more shadow than man.

"Isabelle," he called out softly.

Against her better judgment, against every nerve in her body screaming to turn away, she approached him—slowly, cautiously.

He held up his hands, palms out. "I'm not here to hurt you. Please. Listen."

"Why were you at Estelle's?" she demanded, voice tight.

"I wasn't," Jean-Baptiste said. "I saw you leave your building. I tried to follow—to keep you safe—but when you slipped into Estelle's, I... waited. I knew you'd be safer there."

"You were following me?"

Jean-Baptiste's face twisted with frustration. "Isabelle, they're watching me too."

She hesitated, heart hammering. "Who?"

He glanced around, as if the very fog might be hiding eyes and ears.

"I don't know," he muttered. "But... things have been happening. In my flat. I think they're trying to break me."

There was something ragged in his voice, something that reminded Isabelle of a wounded animal.

"I didn't want to drag you into it," Jean-Baptiste said, his voice low. "But you deserve to know. Maybe together, we can figure it out."

Isabelle studied him in the dim light. He looked exhausted—worn to the bone. His coat hung loosely from his shoulders, dark circles hollowed under his eyes. He wasn't the polished, unshakable man she remembered. This Jean-Baptiste was cracked open.

"Show me," she said finally.

Without a word, he led her down the street and into the twisting back alleys, eventually reaching a narrow, decrepit building sandwiched between two shops. Jean-Baptiste unlocked the rusting door and ushered her inside.

The interior of his flat was stark and cold, the air sharp with the scent of metal and damp plaster. It was clear he hadn't lived comfortably for weeks—clothes strewn about, papers scattered, every surface coated in a thin layer of dust.

He locked the door behind them and turned to her.

"In the vents," he said. "Come."

He guided her to the small sitting room. The heating vent was already unscrewed, its cover tossed aside. Jean-Baptiste reached inside, his hands trembling slightly, and pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle.

He unrolled it carefully on the coffee table.

Inside were bones—small, yellowed, almost brittle-looking. Fragments of something once human. Tiny scrapes and etchings marred the surfaces.

Isabelle's stomach turned.

"Dear God," she whispered, kneeling closer.

"I thought they were animal bones at first," Jean-Baptiste said hoarsely. "But... I couldn't lie to myself for long."

Isabelle reached out with gloved hands, her fingers ghosting over the fragments. Something caught her eye—a cluster of deliberate scratches along the curve of one splintered piece.

She leaned closer.

No—it wasn't random.

It was letters.

Small, sharp, and painstakingly carved:

Isabelle Laurent

Her heart stopped.

She jerked back, her breath catching in her throat. "My name," she choked out.

Jean-Baptiste paled further. "I didn't see that before."

"How could you miss it?" she snapped, panic bubbling up.

"I swear, Isabelle. I swear to you," he said, voice breaking. "I didn't know. I never would have—"

He cut himself off, sinking down onto the floor beside her, burying his face in his hands.

Silence swallowed the room, except for the wet breathing of the storm outside.

Slowly, Isabelle's mind raced through possibilities. The bones. The salt crystals. The buried letters. The masquerade club's grotesque elegance. Belmont. The opera house. Vivienne's whispers in the wind.

They weren't just being toyed with.

They were being written into something. Shaped. Forced down a path.

As if someone—or something—was crafting a story with real blood, real lives.

Jean-Baptiste finally looked up, his face ashen. "I think they're using us, Isabelle. Moving us like pieces on a board."

"But why?" she whispered.

He gave a hollow laugh. "Because we're the only ones who can't see the whole picture yet."

She stood, trembling, stepping back from the coffee table as if the bones might leap up and bite her.

"We have to get out of here," she said.

"Where would we go?" Jean-Baptiste asked bleakly. "If they're watching—"

He stopped, tilting his head sharply.

Isabelle heard it too.

A soft sound from the vent—like something scraping metal.

Jean-Baptiste lunged forward, reaching into the vent again. His hand came back bloody, a fresh gash across his palm—but this time he pulled out something different.

A scrap of parchment.

The edges were burned, blackened, and the words scrawled across it were almost illegible. But Isabelle could make out enough:

"One will live. One will die. Choose by dawn."

She staggered back, the blood roaring in her ears.

To be continued...