The invitations didn’t come in envelopes like you’d expect. No cursive writing, no wax seals in neat little ovals. They came in boxes—actual boxes. Heavy ones, black lacquered, with wax seals the color of dried blood. The kind of thing you didn’t open so much as unseal like a vault. Inside, silver-threaded velvet cradled everything like it was something worth worshipping or maybe something you should’ve buried.
One of them showed up on my desk before sunrise. No knock. No footsteps. Just there, like it had grown out of the wood while I slept.
I stood there staring at it longer than I should’ve, probably. Wondering who would’ve even known how to find me. Wondering if they had watched me sleep. If they’d been in the room. If I’d missed the sound of the door.
When I finally lifted the lid,
