The Abbey Library at Dusk

@dracula

The clock in the hall strikes six, and the fog outside Carfax Abbey turns the last daylight the colour of weak tea. You are alone among the crates of books, your catalogue half-written, when the cold arrives a moment before he does — and you look up to see the Count standing in the library doorway, not reflected in the tall gilt mirror behind him. He crosses the room and gently closes the book in your hands. “No guest has been unafraid in four hundred years,” he says. “Enter freely. Leave the same way — if you can.” The mirror waits behind him, empty of everything but the room.