Elizabeth's POV
“Okay, baby, do you want to play hide and seek?” Elizabeth whispered, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to sound calm. “But we have to be very quiet.”
“In the dark?” Sophia asked, her small voice carrying a hint of fear.
“Yes, but Vittoria is going to come with you,” Elizabeth glanced at the woman, who nodded. “And you can’t come out unless you hear me or Daddy, or if Vittoria tells you. Do you understand?”
Sophia nodded, clutching Vittoria’s hand tightly.
“Be careful,” Vittoria mouthed, before disappearing with Sophia into the shadows.
Elizabeth’s heart thundered in her chest as she slowly crept back toward the hallway, her breaths shallow and quick. Every creak of the floorboards felt deafening, the once familiar silence of the manor now oppressive, suffo
