Chapter 03 Session 07 Wrap Up
What Happened — Narrative Recap
The morning of August 8th found the investigators battered and sleepless after the Nightgaunt attack at Palais Kinsky. Charlotte Thorne, too wounded to be moved, remained upstairs under sedation. Into this grim tableau arrived Katherine Ward — Mrs. Catherine Ward in public, Catherine Langley to those who needed to know — an Order of St Aelfric operative reassigned from Kraków on Lord Percival Harcourt’s direct orders. She presented her letter of introduction, established her cover as a chaperone for the Wentworth sisters, and laid out her skills plainly: lockpicking, stealth, information gathering, and moving through the world as though she barely existed. Thomas Wyndham checked in on the meeting; the party accepted her with skepticism gradually giving way to pragmatic relief.
While Katherine made introductions, Adrien de Montferrand and Freddy Cavendish slipped out to the Goldener Hirsch to brief Leopold Fischbein on the full scope of the threat — the Brotherhood of the Open Measure, the Harmonic Engine, the harvesting of musicians’ body parts, and the approaching ritual. Fischbein listened with the expression of a man who had stopped being surprised by the world, then advised them in his capacity as their lawyer to get the fuck out of town. When asked if he was coming, he admitted he was intrigued enough to stay.
The party then executed a coordinated relocation. Brotherhood watchers — including a sniper positioned three floors up across the street — had been surveilling Palais Kinsky. The men split up to draw tails in different directions: Adrien ducked through a bookstore and bribed the proprietors for the back exit; Thomas shook his tail by means he declined to explain, returning with a small amount of blood on him; Freddy went back to the bar. Varrio Harrowmont, wounded leg and all, had already hobbled out and secured rooms at the Gasthof Weisser Ochsen on Wipplingerstrasse under assumed names. The party’s luggage was moved while the Brotherhood watchers were distracted by their own internal confusion over the lost tails.
At the White Ox Inn, the party settled into two sleeping rooms, a shared sitting room, and a third-floor single for Adrien, with the coachmen stationed as a first line of defence. Thomas and Varrio collapsed onto the couches and were snoring before anyone could argue about it. Charlotte remained at Palais Kinsky under Pemberton’s watch. Katherine visited Charlotte there, and through a quiet conversation with the heavily sedated woman, obtained a full accounting of everything the group had endured across London and Lyon — the Orphean Society, the Aeternum Choir, the horrors in the sewers, and the larger conspiracy driving them across the continent.
That afternoon, Emma Wentworth, Georgiana Wentworth, Adrien, and Katherine attended a musical afternoon at the Countess von Thun’s townhouse on the Minoritenplatz. Around thirty guests were assembled, including Madame Delacroix, who waved from across the room, and Baron von Kaunitz, who watched from near a window with predatory stillness. Adler stood at the back in a grey coat, Anna Lindqvist beside him in pale blue.
When Anna rose to sing, the room changed. The windows vibrated. A wine glass cracked. Those who had felt the resonance of the cult’s great machine recognised it immediately — Anna’s voice carried the same frequency, inverted and complementary, as though she were the missing piece the Engine had always required. The aria climbed to a note that hung impossibly in the air, and the pressure in every chest intensified — that bone-deep sensation of being observed by something vast and indifferent. Then it passed, and Anna stood trembling as the room erupted in applause, and the full horror of what the party had witnessed settled over them.
After the performance, Georgiana Wentworth approached Anna and saw what the fashionable collar was designed to conceal: dilated pupils that did not respond to light, deep purple-grey bruising along her throat and jaw consistent with repeated trauma at an inhuman level, and persistent tremors in her hands. Anna admitted the training had been taxing, began to say something more — then Adler materialised behind her, took her arm, whispered something low and vehement, and steered her toward the door. One sharp glance back at the Wentworth sisters. Carriage called. Gone.
The session ended with the party understanding that whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen that night, at the masquerade.