Never did get around to writing this part down when it happened. Gabriel’s faithful about his notes near every night — bless him, keeps better records than I do. Mine’s coming out of memory now, all in one sitting. Hope it holds together.
We climbed on past the empty crib into a proper master bedroom — a good bed gone to ruin, a cold hearth, a mirror carved fine with vines and berries, stained glass doors onto a dead balcony. Found where the nursemaid must have washed up mornings, once, then a northern bedroom with a rotted tiger skin and another portrait of that same joyless mother. A jewelry box gave up two gold rings and a platinum necklace with a topaz pendant — Amanodel, bless her adventurous little heart, had it clasped round her neck before any of us thought to slow her down, and now can’t get it off. First happy trouble any of us has had in this house, and I’ll take it gladly.
An empty closet, a dead dumbwaiter, and a broom with opinions of its own — knocked Gabriel and then Atwaad flat before either saw it coming. Small mercies: at least the thing had the decency to only go after two of us. We rested right there, and Amanodel had the whole room laughing before we’d even caught our breath — something about all of us getting “swept up” in it. Bless that girl, she can find the light in a room even when the room’s trying to kill you. Gabriel came to first, rubbing his head and swearing the broom started it, bless him — I didn’t have the heart to argue.
Her map-sense found a hollow behind the walls — a passage behind a carved mirror, a second door onto the landing. We set what alarms we could and went back to finish the second floor. I looked harder at the carvings by the stairs this time and saw children running from bats, not playing. Karku said the same the moment he saw it — no mother carved that. He doesn’t waste words, that one, but when he speaks up, I take it to heart.
South, a conservatory too fine for a house this sick, hooded shapes worked in secret among the mantle’s little dancers. North, a library that told us more in an hour than the house had in days — a windmill seal, the Durst family mark, an iron key that would matter more than we knew yet. Behind a hidden shelf, Karku found a sealed room: a skeleton, three darts in him, a letter still in his dead hand.
Signed by something calling itself Strahd von Zarovich. Cold, deliberate, naming the dead man’s own sins back at him — souls bled on some hidden altar, a love traded for madness, a son born dead — and refusing him any mercy for it. I’ve prayed over a great many wrongs, darlin’, and I’ve never read one laid out so plainly cruel.
The papers beside him filled in the rest — a deed, a windmill, a will signed by Gustav and Elisabeth Durst, leaving everything to their children. Rosavalda and Thornboldt Durst.
Rose and Thorn. Real names. Real parents. A house that was theirs long before it was ever ours.
Nothing left downstairs but ash where a kitchen used to be. By the time we’d walked every room the lower floors had to give us, there wasn’t anywhere left to go but up.
Welcome to the Realms 