Manuscript III: Midnight and Mistrust

Night draped itself over Château Beaumont like a velvet cloak, veiling its secrets in shadows and moonlight. A fire crackled quietly in the hearth of the west salon, where Élodie found herself pacing restlessly, her thoughts tangled in the scent of aged paper and Julien's lingering words.

Across the room, Julien sat on the edge of the velvet settee, thumbing through another journal. Candlelight played over the sharp lines of his face, throwing flickers of gold in his dark eyes.

"I didn't mean to unsettle you earlier," he said without looking up.

"You didn't," she lied.

He glanced at her then, gaze unreadable. "You walk like your father when you're thinking. Sharp turns. Long strides."

She stopped mid-step. "Is that your idea of flattery?"

He chuckled softly. "No. Just an observation."

She walked to the window, the curtains billowing gently with the winter breeze seeping through the cracks. Snow had begun to fall again — gentle and endless.

"You knew him differently," she said. "As someone brave. But I knew him as a man who locked his study for hours, who once shouted at me for touching his maps. He was more shadow than father."

"People wear masks," Julien said. "Especially in war."

"And what mask are you wearing, Julien?"

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stood and walked toward her, slow and sure, as if navigating delicate terrain.

"I came here to write about your father," he said, voice low. "But then I saw you again… and it stopped being just about him."

Her breath caught in her throat.

"Julien…"

"You don't have to say anything," he interrupted. "But when we were children, I gave you a daisy. Do you remember what you did?"

She turned toward him, eyes glistening. "I pressed it between pages of my diary."

"Yes. And you wrote above it — 'a promise is a seed.'"

She smiled faintly, tears threatening. "I never thought you'd remember."

"I never forgot," he whispered.

The fire crackled louder for a moment, filling the silence that fell between them. And then slowly, like the falling snow outside, Julien reached for her hand.

Their fingers met — and this time, neither pulled away.

But even as warmth bloomed between them, Élodie's gaze drifted past his shoulder to the pile of journals stacked on the table. One had fallen open, its pages displaying an unfinished sentence:

"—Betrayal came not from the enemy, but from within."

A chill swept through her.

"Julien," she murmured, pulling back. "Look at this."

He turned, brows furrowed as he read the passage.

"What does it mean?"

"It means," she said, her voice tightening, "that whoever betrayed my father… might have been someone close to him."

Outside, the wind howled through the trees.

Inside, two hearts beat faster — for love, for truth, and for the danger they had only just begun to uncover.