Just FYI, this should now be patched!
Cool!
Also I encounter something else and I'm not sure if it's a bug. I accidentally brought Death the wrong way in the last area, and they disappeared and didn't respawn in the gaol. I'm worried because I think maybe they are supposed to "activate" the special item I found (which has a question mark next to it in the inventory)? Is that behavior intended, or am I maybe missing something?
Yep, that's a bug! I actually patched it out this morning in a 1.3.2 patch, but that patch will only affects saves that haven't caused him to disappear yet. That said, the patchnotes also describe how you can reset the Gaol room to fix things, so I'd say to first download the latest update, and then try the method described there. If you have downloaded version 1.3.2 and had this issue anyway, let me know, because that's an issue!