CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE – AN OLD LETTER

The sheer...realness of it had been unmistakable. The wild, feral ecstasy scraping free from the participants' very psyches. Like they had ceased being themselves, their polished society veneers subsumed by something bestial and primal. Cassie shuddered, pulling her robe tighter around her slight frame. She suddenly felt very small, very alone and vulnerable within these hallowed walls. As if she'd glimpsed through a cracked shutter at eldritch things better left unseen by mortal eyes. That glimpse had stranded her on the precipice of waking madness, sanity splintering in the face of such blasphemous forbidden truths. For the first time since arriving at the von Steiner estate, she was truly afraid - not of what she knew or understood, but of the untold depths of mystery still left to unravel. How much farther did the vein of secrets go, this sinister undercurrent churning beneath the family's civilized facade? After witnessing that crazy cult ritual in the courtyard last night, Ca