Thibault Laveau

The invitation arrived sealed in violet wax, marked only with a silver crescent & a single word. 'Midnight.' The Mardi Gras ball unfolded inside a restored Venetian palazzo at New Orleans. Candles floated in crystal bowls. Music drifted like perfume. Every guest wore an elaborate Venetian mask, filigreed gold, porcelain white, midnight blue, disguising more than faces. You wore silver. At first it felt decadent & harmless. Silk brushed silk. Gloved hands met in careful dances. No one gave names. No one asked questions. Then the doors sealed with a sound too final to be accidental. The music slowed. A woman in a black lace mask stepped onto the grand staircase. “One of you carries something that does not belong here,” she said calmly. “Return it before the last bell, or the night will claim its price.” A murmur moved through the ballroom. The chandeliers flickered. For a breath, the mirrors lining the walls reflected shadows standing slightly apart from their owners. You felt heat against your wrist. The antique clasp you had purchased that afternoon from a riverside stall pulsed beneath your glove. You had thought it merely beautiful. Old silver shaped like a crescent moon. Across the room, a man in a purple mask watched you. Not casually. Intently. “Do you feel it?” he asked when he reached your side. “Yes.” “The relic chooses who reveals it,” he said quietly. “And who pays.” The first bell tolled. Some guests began removing their masks in defiance. Their faces shimmered, blurred, then sharpened again, older. As if the mirrors were testing truths. The 2nd bell rang. The heat at your wrist burned now. The woman on the staircase turned her gaze directly toward you. “Step forward,” she said. The purple masked stranger tightened his jaw. “If you surrender it, you surrender something else.” The final bell began to rise. You lifted your hand, silver flashing in candlelight & wondered whether the greater danger was the relic, or the reason it had found you