Émile D'Arquen tightened the collar of his dark coat against the evening chill, his keen eyes scanning the deserted street ahead. The gas lamps flickered as he walked, his boots tapping against the stone with practiced grace. The city, though dressed in grandeur, harbored ghosts in its alleys, secrets in its corridors. He had received a letter that morning—a request inked in trembling strokes. Another case, another whisper of something unnatural lurking beneath Noirvelle's façade of refinement.
A woman had been found in the courtyard of the abandoned Saint-Lysette Chapel. Dead, yet strangely untouched by decay. Her porcelain skin bore no wound, her lips slightly parted as if frozen mid-sentence. But it was the roses—velvet black petals that blossomed from her chest like an eerie bouquet—that sent a shiver down Émile's spine. Death, he was familiar with. But this? This was something else entirely.
By the time he arrived at the chapel, the night had woven itself into something colder, something heavier. The gates groaned as he pushed them open, revealing a courtyard swallowed by creeping ivy and forgotten time. The scent of damp stone, aged wood, and something vaguely metallic filled his lungs. The statue of Saint Lysette loomed above the fountain, its once serene gaze now shrouded in shadows. Beneath its outstretched hands lay the woman, her lifeless body bathed in silver moonlight, a grotesque mimicry of repose.
She lay beneath the cracked marble fountain, her limbs sprawled in unnatural stillness. Around her, scattered like offerings, were the same unnatural black roses, their edges curling as if singed. Candlelight flickered from the ruins of the chapel beyond, and Émile's fingers instinctively brushed against the silver charm hidden beneath his cravat. He was being watched.
"Well, well," a voice murmured from the darkness. "The infamous clock of shadows arrives at last."
Émile turned sharply, his gaze locking onto a figure perched atop a fallen column. The woman who spoke was clad in a gown of twilight hues, her silver hair cascading like liquid moonlight over her shoulders. Liliane Vernisse, the city's enigmatic scholar of the arcane.
"I suppose this means you've taken an interest in our little mystery?" she mused, tilting her head with a knowing smile. The flickering light danced across her features, highlighting the sharp intelligence in her gaze.
Émile exhaled slowly, kneeling beside the corpse. He reached out, touching the rose petals lightly—they were unnaturally cold, brittle yet pulsing with something just beneath their surface. "The Ebony Rose… it's real."
Liliane stepped closer, her lace-gloved fingers trailing the air above the woman's chest, never quite touching. "This is the third body in a fortnight," she murmured. "No wounds, no signs of struggle. Only these roses."
Émile's fingers tightened slightly around one of the petals, crushing it between his thumb and forefinger. It dissolved into ash. "This isn't just murder. This is something deliberate."
Liliane's gaze flickered towards the chapel's darkened entrance. "And something hungry."
A gust of wind rushed through the ruins, snuffing out several of the flickering candles. In the silence that followed, a whisper brushed against Émile's ear, not quite a voice, but something older. Something waiting.
The night, so silent before, carried with it the distant sound of whispering petals.