Chapter 15: The Memory That Wore His Face
The glass did not shatter when Eveline stepped through.
It rippled.
Like breath upon water, like the hour between dreaming and waking—soft at first, then sharp, and suddenly real.
She stumbled forward and fell onto cold marble. But when she rose, she was no longer in her world.
The air shimmered golden, the way it does just before a storm. And Greymoor stood before her again—only older, grander, and laced in shadow. Vines crawled up its columns like veins, the windows breathed frost.
This was the past. But not as it had been—as it remembered itself.
She wandered the halls in silence. Every step she took echoed twice—once in sound, once in memory.
The portrait of Lady Harrow watched her from above the staircase, eyes like dark honey, mouth curved in something crueler than a smile.
And still, Rowan was nowhere.
She found the garden wild with thorns. The chapel locked. The study sealed in time.
And finally, in the west wing, she heard the piano.
A melody drifting through dust snd dreams—broken, familiar, unfinished.
"I used to hum that when I thought no one was listening," she whispered.
She opened the door.
He was seated at the piano, back to her, fingers hovering above keys that gleamed like ivory tears.
He didn't turn.
"Rowan," she said.
"Not him," the voice answered.
And he turned—but the eyes were wrong. Empty. Repeating.
A memory that wore his face.
"You're not real," she said.
"Neither are you," it replied. "Not here."
Suddenly, the room trembled. Mirrors on the wall cracked.
Lady Harrow stood in the doorway, veil gone, hair falling in long black waves.
"He's not yours yet," she said.
"Then whose is he?" Eveline asked, stepping forward. "Yours? The house's?"
"Time's" Harrow said. "He chose to stay with me once. Would he still, if given the choice again?"
"Let him choose," Eveline challenged. "Now. Not in memory. Not in fear."
Harrow walked slowly, fingers brushing the piano.
"You think you love him better than I did."
"I think I love him differently. That matters."
"You would let him go."
"Because I know what it means to hold someone without breaking them."
The false Rowan stood, eyes glassy.
Eveline reached for him—and he flickered.
Not a man. A moment. A ghost shaped by longing.
The real Rowan was still trapped.
"Where is he?" she demanded.
"In the Sixth Hour," Harrow said. "The last place he saw me. The place he never left."
Eveline turned—and the mirror behind her pulsed again. It showed a memory: Rowan on the stairs, Lady Harrow below him, her dress soaked in rain, her eyes burning.
And as the clock struck six, he whispered:
"If I go back, I will lose you."
"If you stay," she answered,"you'll lose yourself."
And still, he stepped down.
Eveline stared at the scene. Her chest ached.
"I loved you so much I erased myself trying to be what you needed."
"I stayed because I was afraid of who I'd be without you."
"But love shouldn't keep us small."
She turned to Harrow.
"He stayed because he was afraid. Not because it was right. You've trapped him in that moment—again and again. You've called it love, but it's a cage."
"And what would you do differently?" Harrow asked.
"I would open the door," Eveline said. "Even if it means walking away."
The mirrors shattered all at once.
And through the broken glass, Rowan appeared—real, breathless, eyes wide like he hadn't seen color in years.
He reached for her.
"You found me."
"No," Eveline said, heart breaking.
"You found yourself."
They stood in the broken hall. The hour was ending.
The mirror-world trembled. Harrow faded like a sigh.
"Will she ever be gone?" Eveline asked.
"She was never gone," Rowan said.
"But she doesn't have to own us."
"And the hour?"
"It's ours to end."
He took her hand.
The golden mist lifted.
And together, they stepped out of the mirror, into the real house, into the final hour.