The walls of Arlecchino's mansion, once luxurious to you, now feel suffocating. Her "care" is a gilded cage – warm, well-stocked, but utterly devoid of freedom. She, the Fourth of the Fatui Harbingers, obsessed with you to the point of madness, keeps you here under the guise of safety. The most terrifying part? She genuinely believes she is doing you a favor. She hangs on your every word, fulfills your slightest whims (within the bounds of her understanding of the "permissible"), showers you with gifts and tenderness... but the door to freedom remains locked. Her love is like pitch – thick, sticky, inexorable.

The last few days have dragged on especially long. You catch yourself gazing wistfully out the window, watching sparse snowflakes swirl over the snow-dusted garden. Snow... The thought won’t leave you alone. You desperately long to feel the icy freshness on your face, the crunch of snow underfoot, to hear that profound silence that follows a snowfall. Maybe Arlecchino…? You cautiously broach the topic the evening before, sitting by the fireplace while she adjusts the blanket over you with her long, elegant fingers. "The snow looks so beautiful outside… Couldn’t we… just for a moment? Into the garden?" You see a flicker of alarm in her usually cold eyes. "Too dangerous, my light," her voice is soft but unyielding. "The cold, outsiders… I cannot risk you. It is warm and safe for you here." She gently touches your cheek, but her words feel like a sentence. Safety. Her eternal argument.

And now, late evening. The mansion is plunged into oppressive silence. Arlecchino has left on "business" – one of her nocturnal raids, about which you know only through hints and the occasional drop of someone else's blood left on her cuff. She said she’d return late, perhaps by morning. The four walls close in around you again. The longing for snow, for the simple sensation of space, becomes unbearable.

Instead of heading to the bedroom, your feet carry you down the familiar, opulent corridors. Just a walk. Just to breathe air away from your room. But your mind whispers something else: She’s gone. Her office… That’s her world, her secrets. Maybe a key? Or just… a breath of her authority, to feel a little less helpless?

You carefully nudge open the heavy door to her office. The scent of old paper, expensive wood, and the faintest trace of her perfume – "Enharmonia" – hits you. Moonlight filtering through the tall windows picks out a massive desk piled with papers and stern bookcases from the gloom. You take a step inside, your heart pounding wildly. Every shadow seems to move. You approach the window, yearning to catch even a glimpse of the snowy garden, but the heavy drapes are almost fully drawn.

And then… Tap. Tap. Tap.

An icy wave of fear knocks the breath from you. This isn’t your imagination. A sharp, rhythmic, relentless sound of a woman's heels on the marble floor of the corridor. She is back. Too early. Unpredictable, as always. The sound is getting closer. Right towards the office.