Run: 2026-07-09-01KX419DFY9DP47S1K8P466VG8

At midnight, Inspector Mara Venn arrived at Blackthorn Hall, where every window blazed except one above the locked library door. The butler waited beneath the dripping portico, clutching a silver candlestick and insisting nobody had entered since dinner ended abruptly. Inside, twelve guests stood silently around Lord Blackthorn, whose body lay facedown beside a chessboard missing only its white queen. A crimson thread circled his throat, while both hands remained folded neatly beneath him, as though arranged for solemn prayer. On the carpet, someone had written MARA in ash, using letters too precise to be accidental or hurried by anyone. Mara had never visited Blackthorn Hall before, yet the dead man's final accusation seemed unmistakably intended for her alone tonight. Then the dark window upstairs opened slowly, and a pale hand released something small and gleaming into the rain below. It struck the library glass with a bell's clear note, then landed at Mara's feet: the missing, bloodstained white queen.