Rooms Full of Suspects

Once the guests passed Queef Tower's entrance, the masquerade opened into smaller rooms and sharper conversations. The estate was no longer only a grand hall under Baron's watch. It became a network of side rooms, corridors, glances, introductions, and half-private exchanges. Everyone important seemed to be somewhere, and almost nobody was standing still for only one reason. Lady Marnette Duskshade moved through the room with social ease, bantering with Timberlake and Dallas as if nobility, fame, and danger were all part of the same game. Timberlake was present as more than a guest; his place in the Von Queef household made every public interaction feel like a performance happening under Baron's shadow. Nymeria questioned Lucian Vale, drawing another thread into the evening's web. Selene Blackquill prepared as the music guest of honor, positioned near the center of the spectacle before anyone knew how violently the performance would turn. Eveline Pringle crossed paths with Ash, and their reunion carried the awkward charge of old connection meeting new circumstance. Elsewhere, Havyk created a psychic link with I.J. and Rice Hands. That choice was not casual. I.J. had appeared on a Graven Scourge assassination list, and the link gave the group a way to keep contact in a house where privacy and danger were both unreliable. The masquerade looked formal from a distance, but under the surface people were already guarding each other against threats that had not yet shown themselves. Maine found the clearest warning. In the east wing, he discovered a locked door guarded by the sign of a grim fey claw. It was not just a locked room. It was a boundary marker, the kind of detail that turns architecture into foreshadowing. Something hostile, hidden, or forbidden had already placed itself inside Baron's perfect evening. Before the explosion, before the murder, before the darkness spread, the clues were already in the house. The guests had been arranged. The witnesses had been placed. The wrong door was already waiting.