“Max.” Laila was already moving toward the stairs. “Aurora. We need to—”
“Wait.” Lambert dropped to his knees beside Divina, hands glowing with soft light. “Give me ten seconds.”
Laila stopped. Her fingers drummed against her thigh, counting each heartbeat.
“She’s fine,” Lambert said, rising. “She just needs to sleep it off.”
“This is a full invasion.” Laila’s voice cracked like a whip. “The fire was a distraction. The bomb was a contingency. Aurora is the target.” She was already turning, already moving. “Ursula, get Divina to the parlour. Elariana, scout the lower floor. The rest of you, with me.”
She didn’t wait to see if they followed. She took the stairs two at a time, her shorter legs working twice as hard to keep pace with her racing thoughts.
A beat later, footsteps fell in behind her. Isabella, Lambert, Wylan. And Phaedra, hovering at her shoulder, loyal and watchful.
Below, Ursula gathered Divina with surprising gentleness, while Elariana drew her blade and moved toward the darkened corridors.
“The traitor,” Laila said between breaths as they climbed. “They’ve played their hand. We just cleared Divina, Elariana, Ursula—”
“Then who?” Wylan’s voice was tight. “Who’s left?”
One step. Two. Then: “I saw something. Early this morning. Before the fire.”
“What?” Laila didn’t slow.
“Percival.” Lambert’s words came in bursts. “At a window. Speaking to a cloaked figure. On the roof.”
Percival. The footman. Quiet, efficient, unremarkable. A servant who faded into the background so completely you forgot he existed until you needed something fetched. The man who had taken a knife meant for Maximilian, years ago. That act of loyalty had bought him a long leash. Heroic acts of self-sacrifice tended to do that, which was precisely why intelligence services recruited people willing to collect them.
Why protect him then? What was the plan? What do they have planned for Max?
“Where is he now?” Laila managed.
“Don’t know.” Lambert was wheezing. “Haven’t seen him. Since we returned.”
The corridor stretched ahead of them, deliberately dark. The lamps were unlit, which was either an oversight by staff distracted by the evening’s chaos or evidence that someone had methodically ensured there would be no witnesses. In Laila’s experience, the distinction rarely mattered until it was too late.
“We deal with Percival later,” Laila said. “Aurora first.”
They moved on, footsteps quickening.
Nothing.
The sound of their footsteps vanished. The creak of floorboards, the rustle of fabric, the rasp of breath. All of it swallowed into a void.
Laila’s lips moved, but no words emerged. She could feel her voice in her throat, could feel the vibration of speech, but the sound simply... wasn’t.
She examined its edges with an Enchanter’s eye. Not a muffling ward: those had seams. Not illusory dampening: that would leave echoes. Monastic silence, then. Decades of sacred contemplation repurposed for home invasion.
She caught Wylan’s eye, saw him reach the same conclusion. Lambert’s hand went to his holy symbol, knuckles white. Isabella’s mouth was moving, cursing from the shape of it, but the words were swallowed before they could form. Wylan tried snapping his fingers near his ear, the universal gesture of someone hoping the problem was localised. It wasn’t.
They pressed on, into the silence, toward Maximilian and Mirembe’s room.
The door stood ajar.
A dome of silence.
Laila pushed through.
Maximilian lay crumpled near the door, unconscious. A small ember glowed on the carpet beside him, the last remnant of whatever fight he’d managed. She stamped it out without thinking, her eyes already moving past her son to the scene beyond.
Two figures stood at the centre of the room. A pale monk, stillness radiating from him like cold from ice. And an elf, shadow-wrapped, his attention fixed on the bed where Mirembe and Greta lay in unnatural sleep. Greta’s arms were curled around Aurora, the toddler’s black hair with its distinctive red streaks visible against the nursemaid’s chest.
The elf reached down and lifted Aurora from Greta’s arms. The child stirred but didn’t wake.
No.
Laila’s magic surged. She shaped the command, felt it form on her lips, threw it at the elf with all the force of her will.
Put her down. Put her down NOW.
Nothing. The words died in her throat, swallowed by the void. She could feel them, could feel the power behind them, but the silence ate everything.
The elf didn’t even look at her.
Laila caught Isabella’s eye. A gesture, quick and subtle. One they’d developed over years. The monk. Take him down.
Isabella moved like water, blade drawn, closing the distance in perfect silence. No footfall, no whisper of steel. A killing stroke aimed at the monk’s back.
He turned.
His hand came up, caught Isabella’s wrist, and redirected her momentum. She flew sideways, hit the wall, slid down. Still silent. Even the impact made no sound.
Lambert didn’t hesitate.
He stepped forward, holy symbol raised, and light erupted from his palm. The sunbeam caught the monk full in the chest, and for an instant his form went translucent, edges wavering like smoke. Then he was hurled backward, crashing into the far wall.
Still no sound. The silence held.
The elf’s eyes flicked to the monk, crumpled against the wall. To Isabella, rising. To Lambert, light still flickering at his fingertips.
He drew a knife and pressed it to Aurora’s throat.
Everyone stopped.
No. No no no.
Laila’s hand was already moving to her sleeve, to the pouch of red pigment she kept there. She couldn’t command the elf. She couldn’t reach Aurora in time. But she could reach Aurora’s mind.
Forgive me.
She flung the pigment. It caught the light like rust, like dried blood, and where it touched Aurora’s skin her magic followed.
The child’s eyes snapped open. Not with fear. With rage.
Aurora erupted. Kicking, scratching, biting. A sound halfway between a shriek and a snarl tore from her throat, inaudible in the silence but visible in every straining muscle. Her small fingers found the elf’s face, his eyes, and he recoiled.
He threw her.
The infant arced upward.
Laila’s legs were moving before she gave them permission. One step. Two. Arms reaching. Aurora tumbling against the silence, small limbs pinwheeling, the red streaks in her hair catching the lamplight.
The monk was rising from the wall.
He was closer. He was faster. He would reach Aurora first.
Laila pushed harder. Her lungs burned. Her vision narrowed to that single point: her granddaughter, falling.
The surge of water that overtook her streamed towards the falling child, passing Laila in a heartbeat. It resolved into a water elemental catching Aurora mid-fall, cradling her in currents that somehow knew the difference between holding and drowning.
A heartbeat later the elemental folded in on itself and flowed back to Wylan, looking as smug as a creature without a face could manage.
Laila turned. Isabella was barely holding her ground against the elf, who flickered in and out of visibility, appearing behind her, beside her, gone again. Not safe. Not safe here.
She caught Wylan’s eye and signed: Get her out.
Wylan stared. Made a gesture like fingers walking downstairs.
Laila nodded. Yes. Exactly.
The elemental flowed toward the door, Aurora still cradled in its centre, and poured itself down the stairwell toward the parlour.
The monk watched it go. He smiled.
Then he fell backward through the floor, arms crossed over his chest in serene disregard for the fundamental solidity of architecture, and vanished.
Sound rushed back into the room.
“Finally,” Isabella gasped, ducking as the elf flickered behind her again.
Lambert was already raising his hand, light gathering at his palm. “A little sunlight will reveal all.”
A hand burst through the floorboards and seized his ankle.
Lambert had time for one startled cry before he was dragged down, vanishing through solid wood as though it were water.
The floor sealed itself behind him.
Lambert hit the dining table and kept going. Wood splintered. Crystal shattered. He tumbled through centrepieces and candelabras and came to rest in a shower of silverware. They had survived three generations of de Vaillant dinner parties, only to meet their end beneath an airborne cleric.
? This was not the first time porcelain had been the first casualty of a fight inside the de Vaillant estate. It was, however, the first time a clergyman had proved its undoing.
Silence.
Not the muffled quiet of a distant room. Silence. The same suffocating void from upstairs. He couldn’t hear his own impact, couldn’t hear the cutlery settling around him, couldn’t hear his desperate gasping breaths.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The monk. The silence follows the monk.
Lambert scrambled upright, holy symbol clutched in one hand. The dining room stretched around him, dark and unfamiliar from this angle. Chairs overturned. Shadows pooling in corners. The great windows shuttered against the night.
He turned, searching. Nothing.
Turned again. The shadows shifted, but that could be his eyes adjusting. Or not.
Where are you?
His lips moved in prayer, but the words died before they could form. No sound meant no invocation. No holy light without holy speech. He was a cleric without a voice, armed with faith he couldn’t express.
Movement. The edge of his vision. Gone when he looked.
Lambert spun, symbol raised. Empty air. The sideboard with its silver service. The portrait of a long-dead de Vaillant ancestor who had clearly anticipated this sort of behaviour and wished it known that he disapproved.
Behind you.
He knew it before he felt it. That prickling certainty, the weight of attention on his back. He started to turn.
Too slow.
Arms locked around his throat.
The monk had materialised from nothing, cold and solid and strong. Lambert clawed at the forearm crushing his windpipe, but his fingers found no purchase. He tried to throw his weight forward, to break the hold. The monk simply adjusted, patient as stone.
Can’t breathe. Can’t speak. Can’t—
His vision was darkening at the edges. The holy symbol slipped from his fingers, bounced silently off the carpet. He kicked backward, connected with something, but the grip only tightened.
Invictus. Lord of the Unconquered Sun. I have tried to walk in your light.
The darkness was closing in. His struggles weakened. His hands fell away from the arm around his throat.
If this is my end, let it mean something. Let the others—
Shudder.
The arms around his neck convulsed. The pressure vanished.
Lambert dropped, hit the floor, and breathed. Great whooping gasps that tore at his bruised throat. Sound crashed back into the world: his own ragged breathing, the clatter of something metal hitting hardwood, footsteps approaching.
He looked up.
Ursula stood over the crumpled form of the monk, cast-iron skillet in hand. The skillet was well-seasoned, as any professional cook’s should be, and had clearly seasoned the monk in turn. Ursula wore the expression of someone who had found vermin in her kitchen and dealt with it.
“Your spiritual guidance didn’t seem to be reaching him.” She looked down at the unconscious monk with professional satisfaction. “Fortunately, I’m a firm believer in the restorative power of a well-seasoned skillet.”
Lambert lay on the carpet, breathing. Just breathing. The ceiling above him was painted with cherubs. He’d never noticed that before.
The monk hadn’t moved. Ursula gave him another look, skillet raised, but he was well and truly out. Up close, he looked younger than Lambert had expected. Gaunt, pale, with a face that might have been serene in different circumstances. Who are you, under the cloth? Who were you before someone pointed you at my family?
“Can you stand?” Her face appeared in Lambert’s field of vision, creased with concern. “The little one came down by water. She’s safe in the parlour with Elariana, and Divina has started coming round.”
“You three stay down here and protect Aurora.” Lambert’s throat burned with every word. “I’ll head back upstairs and see what I can do.”
Lambert reached for his holy symbol, found it near his hand, and let Ursula haul him to his feet.
“Thank you, by the way,” he managed. His voice came out as a croak.
“You can thank me by not dying,” Ursula said. “Your mother would be insufferable about the catering.”
Lambert took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the fire in his throat. His body had opinions about this pace, all of them negative, but bodies could be overruled in emergencies and apologised to later.
The nursery door hung open. Inside, chaos in freeze-frame: Isabella had the elf pinned against the wall, his arm wrenched behind his back at an angle that promised breakage if he moved. Wylan stood nearby, hands raised and crackling with something volatile. Laila stood in the centre of the room, her face pale with exhaustion.
And the elf kept flickering. Shadows rippled across his form, trying to pull him elsewhere, but Isabella’s grip held.
“He won’t stay solid,” Isabella said through gritted teeth. “Every time I think I’ve got him—”
“Allow me.” Lambert raised his holy symbol. His voice was a ruin, but faith didn’t require volume. It required conviction.
“Invictus,” Lambert rasped. “Lord of the Unconquered Sun. Let there be light.”
Golden radiance erupted from his palm, flooding the room. Every shadow burned away. Every corner revealed. The elf’s flickering stopped as though someone had thrown a switch, and he sagged in Isabella’s grip, suddenly solid, suddenly visible, suddenly caught.
“There,” Lambert croaked. “No more hiding.”
Isabella adjusted her hold, and the elf let out a sound that could have been pain or resignation. Either way, he stopped struggling.
For a moment, no one moved. The silence felt fragile, like glass about to shatter.
“The monk?” Laila asked.
“Unconscious. Dining room floor. Ursula introduced him to her skillet.” Lambert moved to check on Maximilian, still crumpled near the door. “Aurora is safe in the parlour with the others.”
Something shifted in Laila’s expression. Relief, perhaps.
“We need to wake them.” She gestured to the sleeping forms: Max, Mirembe on the bed, Greta curled protectively around empty air where Aurora had been. “Max is a competent fighter.” A pause. “Usually. And Mirembe and Greta are less of a liability awake than asleep.”
Phaedra stepped forward. “Is that wise, Madame? The danger hasn’t passed. Your magic has already proved unreliable tonight. Perhaps it would be better to secure the area first and tend to them after.” Her tone carried the careful neutrality of someone offering advice they fully expected to be ignored but wished to have on record, nonetheless.
Laila shot her a look. “I’ll manage.”
She knelt beside Maximilian first, her hand on his forehead, and Lambert saw the faint shimmer of enchantment as she worked to undo whatever had put him down. It took longer than it should have. Her hands trembled with the effort.
Max’s eyes fluttered open. “Aurora—”
“Safe.” Laila’s voice was firm. “Downstairs. Protected. You will stay here.”
“But—”
“Maximilian.” The steel in her voice could have cut glass. “I need you functional, not charging off half-cocked. Your daughter is safe. Your wife needs you here.”
Max grimaced, but he nodded. The instinct to argue with his mother and the instinct to recognise when she was right had learned to coexist through years of practice. He pushed himself upright, taking in the scene: Isabella pinning the elf, Wylan on guard, Lambert looking like something the household had swept up and not yet disposed of.
“What did I miss?”
“Everything,” Wylan said. “I’ll catch you up.”
Laila moved to Mirembe next, then Greta. Each waking was harder than the last, each taking more from her reserves. By the time Greta gasped awake, Laila was swaying on her feet.
“Aurora—” Greta’s voice cracked.
“Safe,” Lambert said, before she could bolt. “I promise. She’s with Ursula and the others in the parlour. The best thing you can do for her right now is stay here and stay calm.”
Greta looked at him, wild-eyed, then at Laila, then at the captured elf. Her expression hardened. She stayed.
Mirembe had moved to Max’s side, checking him over with quick, professional touches. “He’s bruised but functional. What’s the situation?”
“One prisoner.” Laila’s gaze fixed on the elf. “And questions that need answering.”
A look passed between her and Lambert. He knew what she was thinking. She was an Enchanter. She could reach into the elf’s mind and pull. After what he’d tried to do to Aurora, Lambert suspected she wanted to.
“I’m an Inquisitor,” Lambert said quietly. “Interrogation is... something I’m trained for.”
“As am I,” Laila said. “In my own way.”
“You could rip it out of him.” Lambert didn’t flinch from the truth. “But you’re exhausted, and that kind of magic leaves marks. On both parties.”
“Some marks are deserved.”
“Perhaps. But we need information, not vengeance. Not yet.”
Isabella cleared her throat. “I could just break his fingers until he talks. Low magic. Very efficient.”
“I have compounds that loosen tongues,” Wylan offered. “Side effects may include honesty, nausea, and a persistent ringing in the ears. I’ve been looking for a test subject.”
The elf’s laugh was thin and brittle, though noticeably less confident than it had been a moment before. “You think I’m afraid of—”
A noise from below cut him off.
Armoured footsteps. In the entry hall. Many of them.
Laila reached the balcony rail first.
A warp shimmered in the centre of the entry hall, its edges rippling like a wound refusing to close. Through it she glimpsed white marble, impossibly pristine, columns rising toward a ceiling lost in golden haze. And for the briefest moment something vast shifted in the background: golden, serpentine, scales the size of shields catching light that had no earthly source. An eye, perhaps. Or perhaps not. The mind refused to hold the shape of it. The faint whisper of impossible movement sent ice down her spine before the warp snapped shut.
The house was no longer secure.
Elizabeth stood at the centre of the hall, scarred face serene, power crackling at her fingertips like a promise.
Behind her: the blackguard from d’Aubigne’s dinner party, the one who styled himself Ser Thornwood despite being no knight at all, because titles were aspirational and swords didn’t check credentials. Others she didn’t recognise. And slumped between two of them, barely conscious and considerably worse for wear, the pale monk.
He got out. Of course he got out.
But that wasn’t what made Laila’s hands grip the rail until her knuckles went white.
Elizabeth was holding Aurora.
The child hung limp in the warlock’s arms, black hair with its distinctive red streaks spilling over her sleeve. Behind her stood Ursula and Elariana, their eyes glassy, their movements wooden, their expressions emptied of everything that made them, them.
No. No, that’s not—they were in the parlour. They were safe. How did—
“Madame de Vaillant.” Elizabeth’s voice carried easily, pitched for an audience. “I believe we have something of yours.”
Maximilian was at the rail beside her, flame already kindling at his fingertips. “You dare—”
“I dare a great many things.” Elizabeth’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Your granddaughter is unharmed. For now. Whether she remains so depends entirely on your cooperation.”
“What do you want?” Laila’s voice came out steadier than she felt.
“Our companion returned to us. Safe passage from this house. Your word that you will not pursue us. And your silence regarding tonight’s events.” Elizabeth stroked Aurora’s hair with mock tenderness. “In exchange, you get to keep your granddaughter. A fair trade, I think.”
It was, Laila noted distantly, a professionally structured ransom demand. Whoever had trained Elizabeth had understood that successful extortion required clear terms, reasonable-sounding conditions, and the implication that any alternative would be considerably messier.
Max’s flame blazed brighter. “I’ll burn you where you stand before I let you—”
“Maximilian.” Laila’s voice cracked like a whip. Think. Think. Something is wrong here.
The parlour. Lambert said they were in the parlour. Ursula, Elariana, Divina. Aurora safe with them.
How did Elizabeth get past all three of them without a sound?
She looked at Ursula and Elariana again. Those glassy eyes. Those wooden movements. When Elizabeth had controlled them before, they’d moved with alien purpose, but they’d still looked like themselves. This was different. Obvious. Almost theatrical.
Why would she make them look so obviously wrong?
The answer crystallised like frost on glass.
She didn’t. Because that isn’t them.
Laila’s fingers found the pouch of umber at her sleeve. A pinch of the dark pigment, a whisper of will, and attention slid away from her like water from oiled cloth. She stepped back from the rail while the others continued their exchange with Elizabeth, her presence fading from notice.
Mirembe waited in the corridor, having wisely stayed back while the Heroes rushed to confront whatever fresh catastrophe had arrived. Her eyes widened as Laila seemed to materialise beside her.
“I need you to trust me,” Laila said quietly. “Pretend to be Countess d’Aubigne.”
“What?”
“Be indignant. Like you want to slap Maximilian.”
She saw a fire in Mirembe’s eyes she typically saw only in Max’s.
“Oh.”
Laila’s hand went to the viridian. The green dust scattered from her fingers, catching the dim light, and the illusion took shape around Mirembe like a second skin. Countess d’Aubigne materialised where Mirembe had stood, wide-eyed and trembling, her aristocratic features pale with terror.
She drew a knife from her sleeve and pressed it to the illusion’s throat. Beneath the glamour, Mirembe held still.
“Follow my lead,” Laila breathed. “And whatever happens, don’t speak.”
They stepped forward to the rail together.
The effect was immediate. Max’s head snapped around, confusion warring with recognition. The operatives below shifted, uncertain. Even Elizabeth’s composure cracked, just for an instant.
“Your employer.” Laila’s voice rang out across the hall. “I wonder how she would feel about you failing so publicly.”
A long moment of silence. Laila could feel her magic guttering, could feel the illusion threatening to fray at the edges. She held it through sheer will.
No one moved. The operatives below had gone still, watching their leader. Max’s flame crackled, the only sound in the hall. Even the air seemed to be waiting to see which way this would fall.
Elizabeth tilted her head, studying the tableau above. Then her smile returned, slow and knowing.
“Impressive work, Madame de Vaillant. But I know d’Aubigne. And that isn’t her.”
Laila looked at the child in Elizabeth’s arms. Really looked. The black hair, the red streaks, the small sleeping face. Perfect in every detail. Almost.
“And that isn’t Aurora,” Laila said.
For a moment, everyone stood frozen.
Then both illusions dissolved at once. The false d’Aubigne shimmered and vanished, revealing Mirembe beneath. The child in Elizabeth’s arms flickered and disappeared, along with the glassy-eyed puppets of Ursula and Elariana.
Empty hands. Empty threats. Neither side had anything.
“You have no leverage,” Laila said quietly. “Or you would have used it already.”
“Well.” Elizabeth’s voice had lost its warmth entirely. “It seems we’ve reached an impasse.”
“Not quite.” The halfling with the painted grin stepped forward, one hand dipping into her coat. She emerged holding a card. A joker, its painted face grinning up at the gallery with knowing malice. “We have one last card to play.”
Laila stepped back, exhausted, seeking the reassurance of an ally amidst the chaos.
Phaedra was right there. “I have you, Madame.”
A sharp prick of something cold pressed against her neck.
For a split second, confusion reigned. Then pain exploded across her vision, blotting out the room, her thoughts, everything. Her balance faltered.
She turned, her hand grasping at nothing. Phaedra. The syringe. The gleam of something emptied into her blood.
“I told you there was a traitor in your house,” Phaedra said.
The ground rushed up to meet her.
Sitting at her writing desk. The letter to the Marquise d’Amboise, Alexisoix offering suggestions. The word Eclipse with its capital E, buried in the text where only someone who knew the Society would notice. A secret signal. A warning.
And all with Phaedra watching.
Phaedra delivered that letter. Phaedra has always delivered my letters. How long? How long has she been—
The thought scattered. Phaedra’s silhouette swam above her, ghostly against the chaos.
Behind her, a second warp tore open. Smaller than the first. Precise. A door made just for her.
Phaedra stepped backward into it without looking.
Then darkness.