The woman beneath the chandelier smiled at someone out of frame. The same smile. The same tilt of her head. The same dark eyes, endless and knowing.

Elizabeth.

Y/N had found it in an archive of old society pages. A gallery opening in Prague, 1962. There she was, unmistakable, untouched by time.

Then another. A theater premiere in London, 1987. A charity ball in Paris, 1999. A gala in New York, 2005. Always the same face. Always alive.

The penthouse address had taken months to uncover. Layers of shell companies, false names, and quiet wealth. The kind of anonymity that cost a fortune and required absolute discretion.

Now Y/N stood in the center of it all. Dark velvet draped the walls. Antique furniture gleamed beneath soft lamplight. Priceless art hung in careful arrangement, and black roses spilled from crystal vases. The scent of expensive perfume lingered in the air—something heavy and floral, with notes of amber.

Everything felt like Elizabeth.

Footsteps echoed from the hallway. Deliberate. Heeled.

Four hundred years apart, and Elizabeth looked exactly as she had the last time Y/N saw her alive. The same face. The same guarded stillness. The same eyes that went wide with recognition the moment they landed on Y/N.

The crystal glass in her hand slipped. She caught it before it could fall—but only just.