The Ravenwood Palace

The Phantom Parlor

The door closed behind him with a final click.

Lucas blinked against the sudden brightness. The room before him was no ruin, no decay. It was warm, alive, dressed in velvet curtains and golden light. A great piano stood at the far end, its ivory keys glinting beneath a chandelier that burned too steadily to be real.

And there—sitting at the piano—was Emily.

Her small hands rested on the keys, just as he remembered, playing the lullaby she had always returned to. The melody drifted soft through the parlor, notes heavy with sorrow. She turned her head when she noticed him, her face pale and shining with that familiar crooked smile.

“Luke,” she whispered.

For a heartbeat, his throat closed. The revolver dipped in his grip. “Emily…” His voice cracked on the name.

But before he could move closer, the door at the far side of the room opened.

A second figure stepped through.

Anna Fletcher.

Her hair was tangled, her clothes torn, her notebook clutched tight against her chest. She looked pale, fevered, her eyes darting around the room until they landed on him. Relief flickered across her face. “Detective! You found me—”

Her words faltered as she noticed Emily.

Lucas’s stomach twisted. His cigarette ash tumbled onto the carpet. He looked from Anna to his sister, the two figures standing on opposite sides of the room.

“Emily,” he said again, louder, needing her to answer.

But Anna stepped forward, shaking her head. “Detective—she’s not real. Don’t listen.”

Emily’s hands froze on the keys. Her eyes darkened, too black, too deep. Her smile held but wavered at the edges, as if it belonged to someone else entirely.

“Why don’t you believe me, Luke?” she asked softly, her voice a child’s and a woman’s at once. “You couldn’t save me. But you can save her. All you have to do is stay.”

The room pulsed. The air thickened. Shadows crawled along the walls like living things.

Anna clutched the notebook to her chest, voice urgent. “It’s the house—it’s using her face. You have to fight it. This is what it does. This is how it traps people.”

Lucas staggered back, torn between them. His sister’s face—his heartache—his guilt—blurred with Anna’s desperate eyes. He could feel his grip on reality slipping, as if Ravenwood itself had sunk claws into his mind.

The piano struck a discordant chord. Emily’s hands slammed down on the keys, and the sound rolled like thunder. The chandelier swayed though no wind touched it.

Lucas raised his revolver, trembling, caught between the two women—the one he had lost and the one he had sworn to save.

And as the shadows closed in, he heard a whisper behind his ear, cold and intimate:

Choose.