Some songs can only be played once before the melody turns sour.
---
It was late morning inside La Marquise, in the once-grand ballroom-turned-rehearsal space. Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, scattering fractured ribbons of gold and garnet across the aging hardwood. But the air was heavy. No one was rehearsing.
Veritas stood in the center of the room, coat still buttoned, gloves still on, speaking to the others like a general briefing soldiers. On a velvet chair nearby, Mr. Black sat silently, staring into nothing.
"She's not coming to us," Veritas said. "So we'll go to her."
Chéri, slouched near the piano, muttered, "You already tried that. Didn't work."
"Because we played soft. Gentle. Courteous," Veritas snapped. "That ends now."
He dropped a thick folder onto the piano bench. Papers slid partially loose, revealing photographs, notes, scribbled addresses. Names. Familiar ones.
"We track her through her contacts. She's spoken to two musicians, a bookstore clerk, and one washed-up critic. I want them watched. Pressured, if needed."
Chéri frowned. "That's not what we do. We're not—what, shaking people down now?"
"Don't be dramatic," Veritas replied. "We don't need to threaten them. Just remind them what happens when they interfere."
"That is threatening."
Rouge, leaning in the archway with his arms folded, let out a quiet, disapproving breath.
"You're escalating, V," he said coolly. "She's not a prisoner. She's a woman. One we already hurt."
Veritas didn't hesitate. "We didn't hurt her. She made choices. And if she's hiding, that's her guilt—not ours."
Across the room, Chéri's eyes shifted toward Mr. Black, who still hadn't spoken. He was hunched slightly in the chair, head bowed, lost somewhere in memory or misery.
"Boss?" Chéri asked softly, "This isn't what you wanted, right? You just wanted to see her again. That's what you said."
Mr. Black didn't answer.
Veritas seized the silence.
"We find her. We bring her in. No more waiting."
The doors creaked open. Lune stepped in halfway through, sensing the tension immediately.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing that concerns you," Veritas said, too quickly.
"No, wait," Chéri interrupted, standing straighter now. "Lune should hear this. If we're about to hurt people to chase a ghost—he deserves to know."
Veritas turned, sharply. His voice dropped low, a venom-laced whisper.
"You were brought here to sing and smile. If you want to be more than that—prove it. Or stay out of the way."
Without another word, he turned on his heel and stormed out, the heavy echo of his boots trailing behind like a warning bell. The folder remained, its contents spilling.
Silence fell like velvet over the room.
Lune stepped closer and picked up one of the photos. It was a picture of a young woman — Lyselle, smiling at a festival years ago. The kind of smile that wasn't posed. A memory caught mid-laugh. Free. Unaware she'd ever be a target.
"This isn't about love anymore," Lune whispered.
"I don't think it ever was," Chéri replied.
---
Rouge slipped away into the back smoking lounge — a quiet relic from the building's more decadent days. Faded velvet drapes hung loosely from the corners, and an old upright piano stood against the wall, dusty and out of tune.
He lit a cigarette and leaned back in the window frame, staring out at the street below as early afternoon haze curled through the air.
He didn't speak. Wouldn't. To speak would be dangerous. But the thought clawed at him anyway:
"Kidnapping a girl over old debt. Spying. Bribing. All for some man's broken heart? That's not what I signed up for."
He adjusted his cuffs, slicked back his hair with lazy precision.
"The game was supposed to be elegant."
He thought of Chéri, pacing at night. Of Lune, confused and sad. Of Veritas, becoming colder by the day. Of Mr. Black, unraveling in silence.
"Too messy," Rouge muttered, flicking ash into a cracked crystal tray. "And she's not a pawn. Not anymore."
The door opened softly. Chéri stepped in, his face drawn and tired.
"You think Veritas is serious?"
Rouge didn't answer at first. He simply offered the cigarette case.
"Want one?"
"I don't smoke."
"Good. It's a filthy habit."
Chéri lingered, hands in his coat pockets.
"You don't like it either, do you?"
"Like what?"
"The plan. What they're doing."
Rouge gave his signature smile — smooth, disarming, practiced.
"Darling, I don't like anything before noon. You should know that by now."
But when Chéri left, the smile slipped away. He stubbed the cigarette out slowly, the ash trailing.
"If this turns ugly," he whispered to the empty room, "I'll vanish before the curtain drops."
Outside, the city bells began to chime noon. Rouge closed the door gently behind him — but the smoke lingered, curling like unspoken doubt.
---
The greenroom was quiet — soft lamplight flickered against gold-framed mirrors. Veritas sat in front of one, polishing a silver pocket watch that no longer ticked.
The door creaked. Lune stood there, hesitant.
"Can we talk?"
Veritas didn't look up. "If it's about the new setlist, I've already cleared it—"
"It's not the setlist."
"Then it can wait."
Lune stepped forward.
"It can't."
Finally, Veritas sighed and closed the watch. He turned toward him.
"Well? Speak."
Lune took a breath — shaky, unsure, but sincere.
"I know what you're doing. The spying. The watching. The pressure. I'm not a kid anymore, Ver."
"No one said you were."
"Then stop treating me like one. Stop pretending this is still about love, or art, or legacy. It's not."
Veritas's jaw tightened, but Lune stepped closer still.
"You're scaring people. You're using people. I saw the folder. The names. She's not a criminal. She's a girl who got hurt."
"You have no idea what was taken from Mr. Black."
"I don't care," Lune snapped. "Not if it means becoming this."
Veritas stood slowly, smoothing his gloves. His voice turned to ice.
"You think this is about feelings, Lune?"
"I think it's about control."
"You think I'm cruel?"
"I think you've forgotten how to be kind."
A long, brittle silence. Then Veritas turned and walked past him toward the door.
"Don't follow me into matters you're not ready to understand."
Lune's voice cracked.
"I understand enough. I understand that I miss my brother. The one who used to protect me."
Veritas paused — just for a moment. His shoulders shifted. Something nearly surfaced. But then—
"That brother doesn't exist anymore."
The door closed gently behind him.
Lune stood alone, surrounded by mirrors that reflected a boy too young to fix what was broken — and too old to pretend it wasn't.
---
It was a private room above La Marquise. Once used by a famed actress in the 30s, it still smelled faintly of faded perfume and dry rot. Velvet drapes had been drawn shut for days. Mirrors were covered with linen. The gramophone played the same haunting instrumental over and over again—until the record crackled into silence.
---
The city moved without him.
Downstairs, rehearsals stumbled on. Veritas barked orders. Rouge disappeared during the afternoons. Lune had stopped knocking on the door.
But Mr. Black—Rémy—remained where the shadows clung thickest.
He sat at a writing desk littered with dried ink and torn letters. Some addressed. Most unfinished. All unsent.
A single lamp hummed low on the side table, casting his silhouette long across the peeling wallpaper.
He hadn't changed his coat in three days.
The fire had burned out hours ago.
The windows remained shut.
He murmured to himself—barely audible words, broken halfway through thought:
"She wouldn't… no. She wouldn't have left. Not like that. Something stopped her. Or… she was told to."
His fingers shook as he unfolded the same photograph he kept tucked inside his coat pocket—Lyselle, seated at a summer café, smiling at someone just out of frame.
"She was happy. I remember. We were—"
A pause.
"—We were going to leave."
He pressed the photo to his lips. Kissed it. As if that could summon her back.
On the wall hung the outline of a mirror, long since veiled in fabric. But sometimes, he'd still turn to it, expecting to see her.
He didn't.
He only saw movement in the fabric — as if something behind it was trying to look back.
The voices came late now. Just past midnight. Echoes of her laughter in the floorboards. Her perfume in the creak of the wood. The click of her heels outside his door — though no one was ever there.
He no longer trusted time. He no longer trusted mirrors.
He had started speaking to Veritas less and less, and even then, only in vague demands:
"Keep looking. Don't scare her. But make her come back."
Veritas had once asked: "And what if she doesn't want to?"
Mr. Black hadn't answered.
Because that thought was unbearable.
---
One night, he tried composing a letter. One last letter. Hands trembling over the keys of an old typewriter.
My dearest,I would have waited. I would have burned every stage for you. I would have—
The keys jammed.
He struck the machine once. Twice.
It didn't matter.
She wasn't reading.
Outside, the city lights flickered against rain-soaked cobblestone.
Inside, Rémy whispered her name until it meant nothing anymore.
---
In the quiet above the theater, Mr. Black sat perfectly still—surrounded by love letters, dead roses, and ghost music. He no longer knew if he was waiting for her… or her shadow.
---
At a side street near the canal district of Amorélline.Dusk rolls in early under slate-colored clouds. The glass lamps hum to life above shuttered cafés. Street musicians begin to pack up, and the crowd thins like a sigh. It smells of rain and old jasmine.
---
Lyselle walks alone — gloved hands tucked around a letter she didn't send. Her eyes flick once behind her.
No one.
Still, she keeps her head low.
She turns down an alley that should lead to the bookstore. Her friend awaits. A quiet discussion, maybe a hug. Maybe closure.
Instead—
A hand wraps tightly around her wrist.
She gasps, but it's already too late.No scream — just a sharp twist, a black coat, and a voice like velvet over ice:
"I'd advise against that, mademoiselle."
Veritas.
He doesn't strike her. He doesn't even raise his voice.But something in his posture makes her still.
"You know who I am," he says."You know why I'm here."
Lyselle glares.
"I told you all to stop."
"Oh, but we're just getting started."
He presses something into her gloved hand — a photograph. It's of her. Smiling. Laughing. Taken this week.
"You've been spotted more times than you think."
"You were following me?"
"Protecting our interests," he corrects, smooth and sharp."You don't want to hurt him, do you?"
She shudders. It's not fear — not exactly. It's the realization that this man doesn't care about feelings. Only results.
"He doesn't even know you're doing this, does he?"
Veritas doesn't blink.
"He doesn't need to."
Then:
A black car pulls up to the end of the alley. Sleek. Silent.
She steps back instinctively. He steps forward.
"Come willingly," he says. "Or I make it messier."
She looks around. No one in sight.The city is blind. The people busy. The world full of noise.
No one will help her.
She breathes deep. Trembling.
"Does he really want me like this?""He wants you," Veritas answers. "That's enough."
---
She enters the car without another word. The door closes behind her like the click of a coffin lid. Outside, the jazz plays on — but inside the car, there is only silence and a single gloved hand resting on the lock.