After the grim closure of her time at Houndsditch and the murder of Dr. Angus Bumby, Alice Liddell clawed her way into a semblance of normalcy. She found work at the London Royal Opera House, sweeping stages heavy with dust and ghostly arias, repairing costumes tattered from a thousand performances, and slipping quietly between velvet curtains like a shadow. The grand halls echoed with music, but nothing could drown out the questions that clawed at her mind.

What became of Houndsditch after the monster was gone? What happened to the children—the broken, faceless little ones whose names had been replaced by numbers and price tags?

Her dreams were uneasy again. The cries of children, familiar corridors warped with rust and soot, the whisper of a name she had forgotten.

And so, dressed in her threadbare coat and battered boots, with her scarf wound tightly around her pale neck, Alice returned—not as a victim this time, but as a witness. The building loomed over her like a crooked memory, its windows dark, its soul quieter than she remembered.

With a cold breath hanging in the fog, she raised her hand and knocked on the door.