The Mirror of Crows: The Death of Belle

In 1789, during the French Revolution, revolutionaries raided the Château de Villeneuve — said to belong to a reclusive scholar known only as “La Bête.”

Inside, they found journals filled with anatomical sketches and philosophical rants about “soul transference.” His last entry read:

“If beauty can’t last, then let it stay trapped within the glass.”

In a hidden room, investigators discovered dozens of mirrors containing faint silhouettes of human faces — each frozen mid-scream. In the largest stood a woman in a torn yellow dress, her hand pressed against the inside of the glass.

When torchlight hit the mirror, her lips moved. One guard fainted. Another swore he heard:

“He loved me too much to let me leave.”

After the mirrors were removed to Paris for study, the building burned to the ground.

The mirrors disappeared en route.

Centuries later, one surfaced in an auction house in Prague — still fogged from the inside.