Chapter Summaries

Lillian visited the Mourning Poetry Society after receiving a handwritten letter from Young Master Elliot, while Vanessa explained that she had healed Flora through sacrifice. Lillian and Flora left together to write Elliot a scolding letter.

• Lillian asked to join the Mourning Poetry Society, but Damian called her trouble; she introduced herself as a dancer with the Rose Troupe.
• Eli told Damian that he had promised to join Lillian's troupe, and Damian learned the society could not afford theater tickets.
• Dorothea questioned Vanessa about slapping Damian and healing Flora, and Vanessa said she used the same method as when she treated Allen.
• Flora came upstairs and met Lillian, who cheerfully invited her to a Rose Troupe performance and teased her about Young Master Elliot's letter.
• Lillian said Elliot had invited her to visit and praised Flora, then took Flora away to write him a scolding letter.

Vanessa learned that Randall Aldrich wanted to meet her and went with Dorothea to the university, while Elliot planned letters and a gift to keep Flora from becoming dissatisfied. At the Mourning Poetry Society, Lillian finished a letter Flora refused to send, and Lillian left with Eli for the Rose Troupe.

• Damian told Vanessa that Randall Aldrich was looking for her and explained Miskatonic University's supernatural side and its Aldrich Club reading group.
• Dorothea invited Vanessa to the university to meet Randall, and the two left while Allen stayed with Alice and the others.
• Elliot asked Conrad to arrange several handwritten letters and then tried to think of a gift for Flora.
• Lillian came out of the room after finishing a letter, but said Flora refused to send it because she had never received a letter herself.
• Lillian decided to take Eli to the Rose Troupe for odd jobs, and Damian told Eli to return for Holy Communion the next day.

Flora received Elliot’s handwritten letter and discovered that, along with two hundred gold pounds, he had sent her a card featuring a drawing inspired by her hair. The card’s poetic description left her blushing as she wondered what Elliot meant.

• Damian brought Elliot’s thick letter to Flora, who hurriedly snatched it from him and shut herself in her room.
• Flora secured her door, removed her veil, and happily read Elliot’s extravagant handwritten letter.
• Flora found two checks for one hundred gold pounds each and felt both amused and disappointed by the gifts.
• Flora discovered a card titled “Flora’s Breath,” recognized its drawing as resembling her hair, and blushed at its poetic inscription.

Elliot planned to win Flora’s loyalty by giving her the Supernatural item [Flora's Breath], while Flora and Elliot both entered a dream that night. Flora awoke in an abandoned house beside a sleeping Elliot and realized she was dreaming about him.

• Elliot decided to give Flora [Flora's Breath] and imagined that the gift would earn her loyalty.
• Elliot went to bed exhausted, while Flora reread his letter and smiled at [Flora's Breath].
• Vanessa asked Randall about Dream Entry, and Randall explained that practitioners could explore dreams and find Supernatural items to use as sacrifices.
• The Difference Engine sent Flora’s and Elliot’s cards into the [Dream Entry] slot.
• Flora awoke in an abandoned house beside Elliot’s bed, mistook his presence for an ordinary dream, then blushed when she realized she was dreaming about him.

Flora found herself in a dreamlike ruined place with Elliot and discovered she could see a weakness at his throat. After Elliot mistook her for a supernatural-materials source and she slammed him into the headboard, he decided they were in a dungeon and challenged her to fight.

• Flora got out of bed, crossed the gravel on her blanket, and went to look at the sleeping Elliot.
• Flora noticed a black fissure at Elliot’s throat and reached toward it, but Elliot woke when his spirituality warned him of danger.
• Elliot recognized Flora by the scent of her hair, grabbed a lock, and told her not to leave.
• Elliot tried to pull supernatural materials from Flora’s head, but she grabbed his collar and slammed him into the headboard.
• Elliot declared the place a dungeon and challenged Flora to show him how strong she was, while Flora suspected she had entered the dream through her spirituality.

Elliot and Flora found themselves together in the Dream World, where Elliot used Spirit Vision to lead them to a bone whistle in some ruins. The chapter ended with Flora asking whether her scarred face had frightened him.

• Elliot realized that he and Flora were in the Dream World, and Flora explained how supernatural beings entered it.
• Flora said they could remain in the dream until their Spirituality ran out, and Elliot asked what they could explore.
• Elliot spotted a faint glow with Spirit Vision and persuaded Flora to follow it through the ruins.
• Flora tore her blanket into strips so they could wrap their bare feet and walk across the ruins.
• Elliot found a bone whistle in a dilapidated church, but Flora could not tell whether it was supernatural.
• Flora asked if her unveiled, scarred face had scared Elliot, and he switched off Spirit Vision.

Elliot reassured Flora that her scars did not make her unworthy of admiration, and urged her to explore the dream realm with him. Flora regained her curiosity and joined him in wandering the moonlit ruins through the night.

• Elliot looked at Flora's scarred forehead and tried to comfort her, but she accused him of dismissing the price she had paid for power.
• When Flora assumed Elliot would reject the same sacrifice, he joked that he would cut his whole face if it truly granted him power.
• Elliot compared Flora's veil and his family name to cages, telling her they were free to explore together in the dream.
• Flora's gloom lifted, and she agreed to investigate the ruins and the mysteries of the Supernatural with Elliot.
• Elliot and Flora wandered through the moonlit ruins together for the entire night.

Elliot brought three objects back from the dream ruins and scanned them with the Difference Engine, discovering that the bone flute was a Relic. He used a Card on Flora, who woke with a strand of her hair and realized it had become supernatural material.

• Elliot and Flora discussed whether they would meet again in the dream and planned to meet at Sterling Manor.
• Elliot woke with a bone flute, a rusty brooch, and a broken pocket watch from the dream, and confirmed with Spirit Vision that they were supernatural.
• Elliot scanned the three objects in the Difference Engine, producing Cards including [Relic · Pale Bone Flute], whose note said blowing it in a dream might attract some gazes.
• Elliot used [Flora's Breath] with [Flora Belenga Lancaster], causing Flora to wake and discover her blanket was missing.
• Flora found a strand of her hair by her pillow and realized it had become supernatural material.

Dorothea learned that Vanessa had been offered a paid investigation of Cosmog Dynasty ruins, while Dorothea discussed a royal visitor and her plans to enter the Supernatural through a sacrificial ritual. When Vanessa suddenly entered a trance and dragged Dorothea out of the dorm, her uncanny timing helped them evade everyone and leave unnoticed.

• Vanessa told Dorothea that Director Randall had offered her a high-paying assignment to investigate Cosmog Dynasty ruins and write a paper.
• Dorothea told Vanessa about an important visitor from the royal capital and said she had decided against the [Investigation Investigator] Path in favor of a sacrificial ritual.
• Vanessa abruptly entered a trance, began drawing a blood ritual in the dorm room, and then took Dorothea toward the basement.
• Vanessa repeatedly hid Dorothea from approaching students, including by squeezing them both into a storage cabinet.
• Vanessa guided Dorothea through the increasingly busy dormitory and out the front entrance without anyone noticing them.

Vanessa received a supernatural material through a bestowal, learned to activate it, and used it in a series of sacrifices. Elliot used the resulting resources to advance her to the first tier and examined her new talent choices.

• Vanessa dragged Dorothea to the basement and drew a Ritual that produced a [Stilled Pocket Watch] without an offering.
• Vanessa tested the bestowed Card, discovered that she alone could activate it, and transformed it into a Brass Pocket Watch.
• Vanessa sacrificed the pocket watch and continued the Ritual with the resulting materials while Dorothea and Allen watched from behind a table.
• Elliot used the supernatural materials to fill Vanessa's Golden Threads and inserted her Character Card into the first-tier Silver Card Slot.
• Vanessa became a first-tier Supernatural person, and Elliot reviewed her three new talent options.

Elliot chose [Spirituality Pressure] for Vanessa, who advanced to tier one and regained all her fingers. Dorothea discovered that Vanessa could switch to her reliable personality on command and wondered whether she could control her.

• Elliot weighed Vanessa's three options and chose [Spirituality Pressure], rejecting the tempting growth of [Debauched Revelry] and the costly power of [Trigger Volley].
• Vanessa completed the ritual and announced that she had become a tier-one Supernatural person.
• Vanessa discovered that the advancement had restored all ten of her fingers, surprising Dorothea.
• Dorothea asked whether Vanessa had gained a new ability, but Vanessa said she did not know.
• Dorothea ordered Vanessa to switch to her reliable personality, and Vanessa immediately became calm and focused.
• Dorothea wondered whether she could control Vanessa.

Vanessa demonstrated her new [Spirituality Pressure], terrifying Allen and Dorothea before Dorothea asked to bring her disabled younger sister into the Society. Elliot considered why the ability was stronger when he controlled Vanessa, then learned that Sir Ryan Dalton of the Troy Society had come to visit.

• Vanessa activated [Spirituality Pressure], and its overwhelming force made Allen and Dorothea collapse until she managed to turn it off.
• Dorothea asked Vanessa to let her disabled younger sister join the Society, and Vanessa agreed to have her brought in for consideration.
• Elliot wondered why [Spirituality Pressure] was stronger when he controlled Vanessa and instructed her to have Allen and Dorothea keep hunting stray dogs for sacrifices.
• Conrad told Elliot that Sir Ryan Dalton, a renowned Difference Engine scholar from Saint Clair, had arrived to visit.

Elliot learned that the third prince Sidney was openly criticizing the emperor’s Poor Law and prepared to meet Sir Ryan Dalton, who explained the Troy Society’s difference engines. The chapter ended with Elliot noticing an austere experimental model designed for projection.

• Conrad warned Elliot about Sidney’s controversial politics and declining imperial health, while confirming that Sir Ryan would visit at lunchtime.
• Elliot learned that Miss Elegy had also sent a visiting card, and Conrad scheduled Miss Flora’s visit for that evening.
• Elliot used [Spirit Vision] on Ryan and spotted a faint thread leading to the monocle in his breast pocket.
• Ryan explained that the Troy Society’s Type II difference engines imitated human thought, unlike the Type I calculating machines made by the vanished Hammer Brotherhood.
• Elliot noticed an austere experimental difference engine in Ryan’s catalog, and Ryan said it was best at projection.

Elliot learned that his custom Difference Engine would arrive in three days, then saw a new event unfold as Vanessa encountered Old Razi at the cemetery. Old Razi begged her to save his child, bringing a minor figure back into Elliot’s view.

• Ryan promised Elliot that the custom-made Difference Engine would be delivered within three days and explained that it would temporarily share a core with Elliot’s existing machine.
• Vanessa and the others went to the cemetery to hunt stray dogs and met members of the Wild Dog Gang clearing corpses from the Harbor District.
• The Wild Dog Gang told Vanessa that Boss Bryce wanted Allen to come see him, and Allen agreed to go with Vanessa.
• Old Razi rushed to Vanessa and begged her to save his child, whom Vanessa had never heard him mention.
• Elliot reflected that Old Razi was a living person with a life beyond the events he had already seen.

Old Razi begged Vanessa to save Lily, offering her his hoarded money, and Vanessa agreed after praying to her Lord. As they reached the asylum’s basement, Dorothea revealed her own painful history with the Genesis School, and Vanessa entered the room where Lily was being kept.

• Old Razi knelt before Vanessa and offered her all his money if she would save Lily.
• Vanessa prayed for guidance, then agreed to help Old Razi and set off with Allen and Dorothea.
• Old Razi told them Doctor Norman could not treat Lily because her illness involved the Genesis School.
• Dorothea revealed that the Genesis School had abducted her daughter decades earlier and that she had rescued her from one of its hideouts.
• Old Razi led Vanessa into the basement of the New Scandinavia Asylum, leaving Alice and the other Orphans outside before opening the room where Lily was kept.

Vanessa saw that Old Razi’s daughter Lily had been fused with the cultist who sacrificed her, leaving a monstrous body inhabited by the cultist’s will. Vanessa silenced the cultist and agreed to try to help, while Dorothea explained that the Genesis School’s rituals created new lives through the deaths of both sacrificer and victim.

• Vanessa and Old Razi found Lily as a mass of flesh that mocked him with the cultist’s voice.
• Dorothea explained that the Genesis School fused children with cultists, creating Bone Men or Flesh Men, and that Lily and her sacrificer could not be separated normally.
• Vanessa’s eyes glowed with white light, and she commanded the cultist to shut up, silencing its curses.
• Vanessa agreed to attempt to help Lily, warned Old Razi that success was unlikely, and asked him to explain what had happened.
• Dorothea explained that the First Law required spirit and flesh to be unified, and that Genesis School sacrifices created a new monster through the deaths of both people involved.

Vanessa and Dorothea learned that Old Razi had kept Lily’s Sacrifice going for thirty years by offering his own flesh, but the Ritual could not be stopped without killing her. Lily chose to end it so she could embrace her father in her own body, and after their brief goodbye, Old Razi carried her corpse out of the hospital.

• Dorothea explained that a Sacrifice could not be stopped once it began, and Old Razi revealed that he had been offering his flesh every three days for thirty years to keep Lily alive.
• Elliot repeatedly tried to sacrifice Lily’s Card but received a message that she was already undergoing Sacrifice.
• Dorothea said ending the Ritual would kill Lily, while Old Razi admitted he could no longer afford to keep making offerings.
• Vanessa heard Lily’s thoughts and told Old Razi that Lily wanted to end the Ritual and embrace him one last time.
• Vanessa destroyed the cultist as the Ritual ended, and Lily emerged from the flesh to embrace Old Razi before dying in his arms.
• Old Razi thanked Vanessa, refused her offer of money, and carried Lily out of the hospital.

Vanessa learned why Dorothea was trying to restore her sister Elsa’s flesh and worried that Eli might have been taken by the Genesis School. As Vanessa and Dorothea went to visit the Rose Troupe, Elliot tested how the Difference Engine followed the laws of sacrifice and began preparing for Miss Elegy’s visit.

• Dorothea told Vanessa that her sister Elsa had been rescued from the Genesis School after the cultists took her flesh, and explained that Elsa had once led them away from Dorothea.
• Vanessa wondered whether Eli’s sudden adoption by Lillian was connected to the Genesis School, and Dorothea agreed to visit the Rose Troupe with her.
• Elliot realized he could not access Lily’s Card after her sacrifice, and suspected another sacrifice had occupied it.
• Elliot tested the Difference Engine by pulling Vanessa’s Card from the Rose Troupe task, then saw that the task resumed when he put the Card back.
• Elliot left Vanessa and Dorothea to visit the Rose Troupe and made preparations for Miss Elegy’s visit.

Elliot met Flora and learned that her family, the Lancasters, had once been prominent nobles, so he ordered Conrad to seek official recognition of her title. As Elliot prepared to discuss medical aid, Conrad announced a visit from Garrett of the Trenchard Family, and Elliot agreed to receive him after learning the family was connected to the Troy Society.

• Elliot welcomed Flora and planned to steer their conversation toward medical aid for the Harbor District.
• Elliot asked Flora for her surname, and she revealed that she was Flora Belenga Lancaster.
• Conrad explained the Lancaster family's history, and Elliot ordered him to send a formal inquiry to City Hall about Flora's title.
• Conrad announced that Garrett of the Trenchard Family had arrived to pay his respects.
• Conrad said the Trenchard Family had ties to the Troy Society, and Elliot inferred that Garrett had come to make peace after the Society's earlier incident.
• Elliot decided not to turn Garrett away and asked Conrad to show him in.

Elliot used Flora’s account of the Harbor District’s suffering to prompt a large charitable donation, while drawing Garrett into revealing the Troy Society’s ties to the Circle of Vitas. He left the meeting suspecting he had uncovered a significant connection.

• Garrett arrived while Elliot was meeting Flora, and Elliot deliberately left him waiting before introducing them.
• Flora described the Public Security Bureau’s conduct, the hardships of the poor, and United Mining’s actions, prompting Garrett to condemn the company.
• Elliot asked whether United Mining belonged to Garrett’s family, and Garrett explained that the Trenchard Family funded the Troy Society without controlling it.
• Flora spoke of injured people lacking medical care, and Garrett impulsively offered money and medicine.
• Elliot proposed donating a hospital, and the old butler agreed to arrange a Sterling Family hospital as a matter of family pride.
• Garrett offered to have the Troy Society ensure the Circle of Vitas did not obstruct the hospital, and Elliot realized he had uncovered an important connection.