The Game Eats Its Bait First

"Hey Jazz! Did you find your card?" Misha called out, waving cheerfully from across the hallway.

But Jazz didn’t even glance back. He stormed past her like a man possessed, his tattered cloak whipping behind him like a shadow alive with rage.

Misha’s hand froze midair.

"What the hell got into him?" She muttered, her fingers drifting to the folded origami paper in her pocket. "First Lio, now Fanfar? Don’t tell me he—"

A cold shiver crawled up her spine. The hallway smelled like wet iron.

Without another thought, she bolted toward Fanfar’s door—the heavy oak slab etched with runes that pulsed like a heartbeat.

She kicked it open.

Darkness swallowed her whole.

"Hello?" Her voice vanished into the void.

No answer.

The air reeked of blood and dying roses, the copper tang curdling into something cloying and sweet—wrong.

Her stomach twisted. "Maybe Jazz butchered him in the bathing chamber..."

CRACK.

Ru’s card—Mod—flared to life.