"Always," Doctor Noire answered Danae. "Not one of us would ever give up on a patient. This is not a labor mill, mademoiselle. What we do is real science of the psyche. I have cured every hopeless case brought before me of psychosis. Every one."<br/>Emphasis, but no passion. Doctor Noire could be brought to feel nothing, even now.<br/><br/>"I do not know the names of your crew. The woman you disarmed was number fifty-one. She has proven difficult to handle. You will find her in the attic chambers, or else in the cells subterranean, if Doctor Heinfroth has undermined me."<br/><br/>"You will see a thin sliver of red, as though one has looped a red ribbon about her wrist or ankle or waist and carelessly dragged it through the corridors of the asylum. It is<em>not </em>a sign of favor. I know not where the ribbon ends, but there is a limit to its reach. You<em>must flee </em>from the ribbon."<br/><br/>In the heart of the withdrawing room, surrounded by luxury, half-disguised by floral paneling to resemble an ordinary stretch of wall, was another of those antique locks set into the wall. Once Doctor Noire had pointed it out, the seam of the door was plain to see, and her surrendered key fit flawlessly. With a turn and awkward pull, the way up to the attic was revealed in steep, narrow steps, railed with sturdy brass on either side.<br/><br/>These were old, disused steps, and creaked with each step. At the halfway mark, the attic stairs encountered the naked brick of the chimney column, and switched back climbing higher still, into the highest unfinished eaves of the house, where the rain pattered hard against the roof.<br/><br/>Humid air and an odor of mold greeted the foolhardy explorer at the very top of the steps. A single long room, half the width of the parlor below, was ringed with metal-shod prison doors eight in all, each with a sliding window for the orderlies to peer. In the light of a lantern they were labeled,<em>A</em>through<em>H</em>.<br/><br/>Sitting with the light of the lantern at a card table, on the far side of the chimney column, were a pair of women in drab clothes and masked in porcelain faces not quite accurate to humanity.<br/><br/>The pipes of the manor began to whine, and shake, and shudder the manor walls even so high up the attic. The cacophony of it, thankfully, went some way to conceal the creaking of footsteps.<br/><br/>Attic:<br/>(https://i.imgur.com/yXcNUQJ.jpg)