A narrative illustration rendered in calligraphy gouache, its pigments laid down with a scribe’s precision, edged in flaking gold leaf that catches candlelight within the crumbling nave of Gormenghast’s chapel. Lord Sepulchrave stands gaunt and distant beside Countess Gertrude, Sourdust intones the mystic rites from an ancient tome, his robes powdered with dust of a hundred rituals; Flay lurks rigid in shadow, Swelter’s bulk looms beside him, and Nannie Slagg cradles the infant Titus. Fuchsia watches, apart and unseen by most. A crow observes from the periphery, calculating. Stone walls weep ​- splendor entwined with decay, ritual as both anchor and cage.