Evangeline's tiny chest raised as she stared up at her father or what used to be her father. The duke's eyes, once warm crimson, now swirled with darkness. His grip on her arm didn't loosen, even as her pacifier's glow flickered uncertainly between pink and warning red.
"D-da…?" she whimpered, the first almost-word she'd ever spoken.
The corrupted duke tilted his head, broth-black tears streaking down his face.
"The Black Broth… hungers."
Behind him, the nursery door creaked open. Shadows combined across the floor as broth-zombified servants marched forward, their hollow moans harmonizing with the distant bubling of the cauldron below.
Sir Loin rolled into the hallway with surprising speed, his spongy size flattening two zombies instantly. Cedric rode above him like a knight of old, his sword flashing as he cut through a third.
"For Evernight!" he roared right before a zombie's broth-coated hand grabbed his ankle and yanked.
Lucien, pinned under a fallen curtain, coughed, "Priorities, brother! The baby—"
A zombie jumped for him.
Then—
"WHAM."
A jeweled chamber pot courtesy of Whiskerton's spa demands crashed onto the zombie's head. The duchess stood over Lucien, wielding a candlestick like a mace.
"No one," she panted, "corrupts my family."
Ebony had Whiskerton cornered in the treasury, her venom-tipped claws poised over his prized golden litter box.
"Surrender," she hissed, "or I will destroy it."
Whiskerton's tail twitched.
"You monster."
For a heartbeat, silence.
Then—
"Fine." He sighed dramatically. "I'll help you briefly."
Ebony's eyes narrowed.
"…Why?"
"Because that—" He jerked his head toward the nursery. "—is my human. And no one makes her cry except me."
They raced toward the chaos, an uneasy truce in place.
The pacifier's glow stabilized golden.
Evangeline reached up, tiny fingers brushing her father's cheek. The prophecy mark on her wrist flared, and for the first time, the pacifier's voice spoke clearly in her mind.
"Purge or Protect? Choose."
She didn't hesitate.
"Pwotect!"
Light exploded. The Black Broth screamed as it burned away from the duke's eyes. He collapsed, gasping, just as Whiskerton and Ebony enters the room.
"Well," Whiskerton sniffed, "that was anticlimactic."
The hooded figure staggered back as their cauldron cracked, black broth leaking like blood. "Impossible! The Broth is eternal!"
Behind them, the crypt's shadows deepened. A new voice, honey-smooth and terrifying, purred.
"Oh, darling. Nothing is eternal."
Aunt Seraphina—the real Pirate Queen—stepped into the torchlight, her cutlass gleaming.
"Except my grudge against bad soup."