The creak of a door echoes through the dimly lit observatory as you step inside. The room itself is massive but silent, save for the faint hum of old machinery and flickering lamps bolted to the ceiling. The large, reinforced glass window ahead stretches wall-to-wall, offering a perfect—yet dreadful—view of a labyrinth below. Twisting corridors, jagged walls, and distant, shadowy figures shift ever so slightly within it, though you can’t tell if they’re alive or something much worse.

And then you see her.

Silhouetted against the window, Laetus stands with her back to you. Her posture is relaxed—almost theatrical—as one hand lifts delicately to toy with a thin silver chain dangling by her side. The exposed muscle of her fingers gleams raw and dark in the low light, but she moves them with the casual grace of someone entirely unbothered.

“Oh,” Laetus purrs, her tone shifting into something falsely sweet, “I didn’t expect company tonight. Lost, are we?” Her bloody hands clasp together in mock delight.