Just then, there’s a bang across the attic as the exit door flies open.

“Amelia, are you all right?” Cleo asks, rushing to my side.

“We came up here to try to meet you, but the door was locked,” Anwar adds. “It took me forever, but I picked the lock.”

“We need to go,” I whisper back to them. “Now.”

“Mom, what are you doing?” Lily asks. “Why did you lock us out?”

“It’s done. The Princess of Cups is ours, floating in the flow of the Isle forever,” Lady Azure answers.

“What?” Lily responds. “You’re not making sense.”

“The card is destroyed. Which means it can never leave. Don’t you see what this signifies? These cards really belong to us, Lily.”

Lily stares back at her mother, looking horrified.

“No,” Lily says. “They don’t.”

Lily’s eyes then flutter, like she is putting the pieces together. Or… listening? Either way, she turns to us next.

“Take the stairs to the basement, then use the exit down there. I texted Seidon to meet you. He’ll take you and the others back.”

“No!” Lady Azure cries. “We have to see the final deck! Now that—”

“If you love me,” Lily interrupts, turning back to her mother with icy intensity, “you will let them go.”

Lady Azure appears thunderstruck. In the same second, Cleo takes my hand and walks forward. She knows this is our window, while Lady Azure is uncertain.

“You have to let this go now,” Lily adds. “It’s enough.”

We make it to the stairs before we can hear Lady Azure’s response, or before we can say anything to Lily. As we rush down through the levels of Coupled Cottage, I can only hope that Lady Azure doesn’t try to follow us.

Click here

I press my hand to this blue door and see it also has an inscription printed in bronze. It’s not just one symbol, though, like the other doors. I recognize this writing as half of the quote for the Princess of Cups listed in Perilli’s booklet. It reads: It’s time to awaken to something new. Whatever else this means, it must mean I’m close.

I walk through and am faced with another room, one that has several other doors leading inside along the near wall. On the far wall, however, is another single blue door—which makes this some kind of funneled outlet. Approaching the final door, I can’t help but wonder if I’m about to find treasure or ruin.

I enter another darkened space and shine my flashlight. There’s not a door in here, just a set of stairs that must lead out of the maze and into the attic. Then I see something that makes my heart stop. Positioned in the center of the room…