Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YJ5PVTKHX25JTNANHN7NB1

The fog had swallowed Blackthorn Manor before Detective Mara Voss discovered the first footprint on its freshly polished hall floor. It pointed toward the library, where a grandfather clock had stopped at midnight and someone had left the door ajar. Inside, Lord Blackthorn lay beneath his portrait, a silver letter opener buried deeply in the dark velvet of his waistcoat. His eyes stared at the ceiling, but his right hand clasped a chess piece carved from remarkably pale, smooth bone. Mara knelt beside him, noticing that the white queen was warm, although the body had already begun to grow cold. Behind her, the butler cleared his throat and said the household had gathered for dinner precisely an hour earlier tonight. Nobody had entered the library since, he insisted, while his gaze drifted toward the portrait hanging above his murdered employer. Mara followed his eyes and saw a fresh slit in the canvas, directly over the painted heart of Lord Blackthorn. Then, from somewhere inside the wall, a woman began to laugh, and the butler dropped his candle onto the floor.