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Le Jeu de Paume was emptying, and as the last clattering footsteps departed, Robert looked up into the vaulted ceilings, with their ornate detailing, and questioned what he was about to do next. He felt himself jerked back to the present moment by his mounting fear, which prickled atop his skin. He endeavored to inhale, and thereby to collect himself but his breath was shallow. He glanced at the flickering sconces and frantically adjusted his wig.

As the last torch winked out,  Robert’s twinges of dread solidified and the shadows pooled about him, seemingly coursing from the deepest corners of the hall, licking at his feet, his hose and even his britches . He expected a geyser of darkness to erupt and for its mass a coalesce into a gaunt, Mephistophelean figure. It did not.

Instead, there were yet more footsteps, echoing not merely from the floors, but from the walls, the ceilings and even the very air itself. They seemed to move in no particular direction, to stumble over one another but never to fall. The air seemed to sweat spite, and was filled with pointed whispers that were evidently vulgar.

Impossibly, the whispers began to sit, filling the seats around the court. Robert could sense their relative positions changing, inclining toward or away from each other. Then, the pool of shadow hissed something eldritch and called a meeting to order. Perfect. “The matter of Robert Montague,” the seething mass intuited, “He wishes to leave his arrangement with Belphegor, shall we permit him?”

There was deliberation, a humming in the air, then silence. They had reached a conclusion. Robert did not have time to divine what it was, as the shadows fell away, or he fell into them, and they climbed ever further up.