Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s Cards on the Table

For the past four months, you’ve worked at Benedict Cassian’s estate, hired as a junior sous chef after the head chef, Étienne Morel, threatened to quit without help. You work under Étienne in the kitchen, but your job description has since dissolved into whatever needs doing. Between food preparation, serving, driving Benedict on errands, and picking up housekeeping duties, you’ve become the household’s unofficial jack-of-all-trades—and everyone seems to think they have the authority to tell you what to do. The pay is good, but being everyone’s favorite person to order around is starting to wear thin.

October has been especially exhausting. Benedict has spent the month hosting increasingly elaborate Halloween festivities, from extravagant parties and a masquerade ball to an unsettling séance. Now the household is scrambling to prepare for his infamous Halloween dinner. You aren’t a guest, a confidant, or even an afterthought. You’re staff: there to keep the food coming and the evening running smoothly, no matter what the guests get up to. And tonight, something tells you that keeping your head down might not be enough.

The Five Guests at Benedict Cassian’s Halloween Dinner

- Warren Hayes: A retired police sergeant who has spent his career learning that the truth rarely arrives without a price—and that the people with the most to hide aren't always the ones who look guilty.

- Eleanora Whitechapel: Benedict’s former partner, now a widow who has long since built a life beyond him; she accepted his invitation out of curiosity, but she may recognize more about the man behind tonight’s hospitality than anyone else at the table.

- Reid Swanson: A wealthy young heir who treats his inheritance as an inevitability, unaware that the security he takes for granted may be far more fragile than he believes.

- Charity Callaway: A self-made businesswoman who fought hard for her success and has even more to lose protecting it, making her careful composure difficult to distinguish from genuine innocence.

- Father Thomas: The priest whose last-minute cancellation leaves an unexpected vacancy at the table—one Benedict has decided Lydia Bell will fill instead.