Bonus: The Epilogue - The Scarlet Rose

Bonus: The Epilogue - The Scarlet Rose

Three years had passed since that fateful night in the safe house. Three years where time had been nothing but a succession of gray days for Maëlys, spent in the deafening silence of the loft. "Ink and Shadows" remained closed, its machines silent, its walls permeated by an indelible sorrow. The scent of Eliott's ink and skin had finally faded, but his absence had become a constant, heavy presence, a phantom embrace from which Maëlys could not break free.

She lived, she breathed, but the spark that had animated her alongside Eliott had extinguished. Her canvases, once vibrant and tormented, had become dark expanses, monochromes of pain and emptiness. Every brushstroke was a sigh, every color a tear. The anchor and black rose tattoo on her wrist was a constant reminder, an anchor binding her not to life, but to his memory, to his loss.

Then, one morning, as the Casablanca sun tried to pierce the melancholy of her soul, a small box was placed on the doorstep of the loft. Maëlys opened it with a trembling hand, her heart pounding with a familiar apprehension. Inside, on a bed of black silk, rested a single rose. But it was not Eliott's dark, black rose, nor Isabelle's scarlet, ominous one.

It was a scarlet rose, a vibrant, almost blood-red, its petals perfect and velvety. It didn't carry the metallic scent of death, but a sweet, intoxicating fragrance, that of new life. And at its heart, finely engraved on a petal, was the same anchor symbol Eliott wore, but this time, the anchor was surrounded by a new rose, a full, scarlet rose, like a beating heart.

A message, written in elegant, unknown handwriting, accompanied the rose:

"Blood can mark an end, Maëlys. But it can also nourish new blooms. Life always finds a way. The ink of your story is eternal, but yours is just beginning. This rose is not a farewell, it is a promise."

Maëlys dropped the box, the delicate and vibrant rose in her trembling hand. Tears, which she thought she had all shed, streamed down her cheeks. But this time, they were not tears of pure sadness. They were tears of confusion, of a fragile, unexpected glimmer of hope. The scarlet rose. A new anchor. A symbol of resilience that transcended even Eliott's death.

Who had sent this? Who knew the depth of her grief, and the meaning of these symbols? Was it another test, or an unexpected chance for redemption, for re-blooming? Eliott's shadow still loomed, an eternal presence etched into her soul. But the scarlet rose... it was a whisper, an unexpected invitation to a future she hadn't thought possible. The road would be long, painful, but for the first time in three years, Maëlys felt a spark, fragile but tenacious, burning deep within her. The ink on her skin might be dark, but her heart, perhaps, could still learn to bloom.