Eliza led them into the sitting room—an old, cozy space that smelled faintly of parchment and lavender. The fire crackled in the hearth, casting flickering shadows across the round mahogany table where she motioned them to sit. She took her place opposite Victor and Lorenzo, folding her arms over the back of her chair as if bracing herself.
"Tell me," she said evenly, her eyes sharp behind her curls, "what have you found about the murders?"
Victor exchanged a glance with Lorenzo, then leaned forward. "The pattern's consistent. All three victims—no visible wounds, no struggle. Just… faint bite marks near the neck and collarbone. And that same phrase carved into their skin. Latin. Sanguinem vocat umbras."
Eliza nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. "The blood calls the shadows," she whispered. Then her voice lowered, almost like she was speaking more to herself than to them. "The last time I was connected to that graveyard… was five years ago. When my sister went missing."
Victor's brows drew together, but he said nothing.
"We were very close," Eliza continued, her tone softening. "She was barely ten. Bright, stubborn, always getting into trouble, always getting out of it, too. We had this unspoken rule—wherever one of us went, the other followed."
She paused, her eyes distant.
"One evening, we passed by the graveyard. She saw a stray puppy just beyond the gate, wagging its tail like it belonged to her. I told her not to go—warned her about the stories, the things people said—but she was too young to understand fear the way I did. I must have dozed off under the tree nearby... When I woke up, she was gone."
Her voice cracked slightly. "The flower seller on the corner said she saw her walk in. But no one ever saw her come out."
A silence fell over the room, thick and pulsing with unspoken grief.
"I went back every day for months," she whispered. "Calling her name, searching every inch of that place until my legs gave out. But the spirits in the graveyard doesn't give back what it takes."
Victor's jaw tightened. Lorenzo looked down at his hands.
Eliza straightened, her gaze turning hard. "So if this thing that's killing people is the same thing that took her—I'll find it. And I'll burn it out of that soil if I have to."