Whispers of Abandoned Innocence

The nursery answers their knock with silence. The crying stops the moment the door opens, and in the crib is a doll stuck through with needles. On the floor is Corso's cloak. Nearby, still ink-stained, is one of his fingers. The house has taken their storyteller, and Fiadh wraps what's left of him in a handkerchief.

In a mirror, Fiadh finds the ghost of Klara, the family's nursemaid, who can only answer yes or no. The children are upstairs. The Lady of the House killed her. Behind a padlocked attic door, two starving children beg them to stop sending food up the dumbwaiter: Rose and Thorn Durst, who lay down to sleep when the food stopped coming and never woke. They only want to be buried outside, in the garden. Thorn asks to ride in Helliax's heart, and Rose in Leona's.

The house pays them back in its own coin. They find Klara's body folded into a chest, her mouth sewn shut. A bolted rocking chair traps Leona with the Lady of the House, and only Helliax's holy power drives her screaming through the ceiling. An amber shard from a smashed lockbox opens a ram's-head door to the crypts below.

In the shrine at the bottom, shadows tethered to a statue of the Dark Lord feed on Leona until she can't lift her greatsword. Twice Rose begs to give up her own soul so Leona can live, and twice Leona refuses. With her last action she passes Rose to Fiadh. Then she drops the blade, and the shadows take what's left. Helliax breaks the statue's arm and the shadows scream away. They will not leave her in this place.