Lambert had asked them to come to the chapel.
The Pendulum had swung east an hour ago, and the chapel of Invictus sat in the darkness. The room had stopped expecting visitors. The candles on the altar had burned low and nobody had replaced them since Lambert’s excommunication. The sun-disk above the lectern was a shape without lustre, waiting for a light that wouldn’t come until morning.
Laila took a pew. Wylan slid in beside her, notebook open on his knee. Isabella settled at the far end, nearest the door. Maximilian had come last and sat apart.
Lambert stood at the front. He let the silence hold. Then:
“I have asked you here tonight under cover of darkness, that we might discuss things unfamiliar to this chapel.”
Laila raised an eyebrow. “Is this an act of piety, Lambert? The twilight hour is not the most auspicious for a house of Invictus.”
Lambert struck a match. The sound was sharp in the stillness. He lit a single candle on the altar, and it threw his shadow long across the chapel wall.
“The smallest lights are best seen in the dark, Laila. That is the lesson for tonight.”
“And what lesson are you wanting us to take from that?”
“We have spent the afternoon chasing guilt and recrimination.” Lambert’s gaze moved across the pews. “Maximilian, you sought blame. Wylan, you sought data. I sought...” He paused. “Justification, I suspect. None of it has brought us closer to helping Aurora.”
Even in the gloom, Lambert could see the scowl that crept across Maximilian’s face.
“Earlier today, we learned that Aurora has a Brand.” Lambert placed his hand near the candle flame, not quite touching. “A fire lit inside her. A small light that holds against the tide of Umbral darkness flowing through all our veins.”
He let that sit.
“More than that, we learned her fire has a draconic element within. And that the fire of Caliburn stokes it, and our own Brands, to higher levels.”
Lambert struck another match and lit a second candle alongside the first. The twin flames leaned toward each other, feeding, and the light in the chapel grew.
“Fire amplifies fire. That is what the sword does. That is what I felt when I held it.” He watched the paired flames lean into each other. “And that is what is happening to Aurora, whether we act or not.”
The chapel held its silence. The two candles flickered in tandem, casting paired shadows that swayed against the walls.
Lambert looked at his hands, at the match he was still holding, and set it down.
“Which brings me to what I owe you.”
Wylan set down his notebook.
“What I did with Caliburn was a choice. I want to be clear about that.” The sermon fell away, replaced by something he had composed in the hours since the nursery. Rehearsed and genuine. “When I held the sword, I felt every Brand in the house. Aurora’s. All of yours. For a moment I understood what Caliburn was for, and I believed I was the one meant to wield it.”
He stopped. Started again.
“I invoked a boon from Invictus before I reached for it. I told myself it was to keep the peace. But the effect was to ensure nobody in the room could object while I took what I wanted.”
The candles guttered in the silence.
“That was wrong. I will not dress that in piety.”
Laila had been still through his confession. Not the stillness of sympathy. The stillness of assessment.
“Lambert,” she said. “I know you mean every word. That’s not what concerns me.”
He looked at her.
“You lit a candle in a dark chapel and gave us a sermon about light before you got to the apology. You can’t help it.” Her voice was warm and completely without mercy. “You picked up a sword because you wanted to, and you used your gifts to make sure nobody stopped you. That’s all it was. You don’t need to make it a parable.”
Maximilian had been watching his brother the way he watched a fire that might spread. “You have jeopardised this house politically with your schism, Lambert, and perhaps physically with what you did this morning.” His voice was quiet. That was worse than shouting. “Nor will I pretend I haven't felt that sword call out to me. When we found it, I moved towards it before I knew what I was doing.”
Lambert met his eyes. Said nothing.
“I’m not going to say I’m ready to forgive you. I still haven’t for how you acted the night you came back from the Dungeon.” Maximilian let that sit. “However. For better or worse, your actions have dragged several ugly truths into the light. Which I suppose is the job of an Inquisitor.” He looked at the altar. “Perhaps taking up the sword for truth and reason should be left in the Church’s past.”
“You’re right,” Lambert said. Quietly.
For a moment, nobody spoke. The two candles on the altar still burned, leaning toward each other.
Wylan broke the silence. “So where does that leave us? We’re sitting in near darkness, conspiratorially, with a legendary sword that is apparently dangerous, that we don’t seem to be able to use, and possibly Valère wants it back.” He paused. “Tomorrow. Did I miss anything?”
“I need to give the Autumn Court my response tomorrow as well,” Isabella said.
Wylan looked at her. “Yes.” Then at Lambert. “Lambert, I’m using an Immolator lamp.” There was a click and a hiss, and a bright phlogiston glow filled the chapel. “I’m fine with discussing this here if we must, but not in the dark.”
The lamp’s light was harsh after Lambert’s careful candlelight. It found every corner, every cobweb, every unlit candle on the altar that Lambert had chosen not to light. The chapel looked less like a place of revelation and more like a room that needed dusting.
“We can’t keep it,” Maximilian said. “Not in the house. Not with Aurora.”
“I’ve been looking into something that might dampen the resonance,” Wylan said. “Theoretically. I have no idea if—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Lambert interjected. “If Espérant is Valère, he’s known where it is since we took it. Whatever Wylan builds—”
“I hadn’t finished.”
“Sorry.”
“—I have no idea if it would work. And even if it did, the broader problem is that we have a legendary weapon sitting in my workshop between three bronze decoys and a half-finished oscillograph, and apparently everyone who touches it loses their mind.” Wylan looked at him. “Present company.”
“So we trade it,” Maximilian insisted.
Faces around the chapel ranged from angry to displeased.
“I don’t know. Caliburn may be one of the few weapons that can actually hurt Aeloria,” Wylan said carefully. “We don’t fully understand what it does yet, but the resonance is old, and powerful. If we give that up—”
“Then Aurora is cured,” Laila said. “Valère lifts the curse, the Brand is gone, and we have no further business with any of them. She lives to see sixteen.”
“We have no further business with this so called Valère. It still leaves us the problem of the dragon cult and not to mention this threat of excommunication. They don’t go away because Aurora is healed.”
“One crisis at a time, Wylan.”
“That’s exactly the problem. We’ve been dealing with a series of crises, each one requiring us to give up something we can’t get back.” He tapped the closed notebook against his knee. “D’Aubigne didn’t need Aurora as a reason to come after us. Vaziri didn’t need Aurora to move against Lambert. The sword might be the only leverage we have against the larger threat, and we’re talking about handing it over to solve the immediate one.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Laila didn’t respond to that. Which meant she was thinking about it.
“We don’t know he can deliver,” Isabella said.
“His word has been technically accurate—”
“Technically accurate.” Isabella let the words hang. “Lambert, we keep sitting across tables from people who’ve been alive for centuries and convincing ourselves we’re negotiating. We’re not. They know more than we do, they want things we don’t understand, and every time we walk away thinking—”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Every time we walk away thinking we’ve gained something, we find out later we’ve been managed. Seraphina gives us exactly enough to keep us coming back. Valère seems to be doing the same from the other side.”
“Then we stop reacting and start building a position of our own,” Lambert said. “While tomorrow might hold an immediate deadline, we can’t forget the death of the Pontifex and our potential excommunication. Esteban would be the only likely alternative, and if we can find him, we might be able to make him Pontifex and avoid that problem. He’d be the one who can reform the Church from within—”
“If he’s alive,” Isabella rebutted, counting off on her fingers. “If we can find him. And if Seraphina knows where the Sepulchre is. That’s a lot of ifs, Lambert.”
“According to legend, the Sepulchre is in Pharelle, and Seraphina didn’t seem coy about her knowledge of it. As you said yourself, she hasn’t lied to us. Not directly.”
“According to legend?” Isabella stared at him. “Are you listening to yourself?”
“It’s no less ridiculous than ‘somewhere out at sea.’ That might as well be another legend.”
“So what?” Isabella said. “We go to Seraphina, ask her to take us to a crypt where Esteban may or may not be hiding?”
“Yes.”
“And in the meantime, we could be using that effort to simply go after the one thing that could make all of these politics redundant. We don’t need to barter with Espérant if we can leverage the one thing Aeloria seems to care about more than her loyalists—”
“That’s enough.” Laila’s voice cut across them both. “We have enough to contend with from outside antagonists. We don’t need to tear each other apart over this.”
The chapel went quiet.
Laila turned to Lambert. “I need to ask you something directly. What is motivating you on this path? Is it because Seraphina told us that Lampetia was the keeper of the Sepulchre?”
Lambert didn’t answer immediately.
“Yes,” he said. “I won’t pretend otherwise. The knowledge that Lampetia might be something to find in the Sepulchre fills me with...” He searched for the word. “Morbid curiosity. If she’s some manner of vampire, that would make a certain kind of sense. But the way Seraphina spoke about her suggested something more.”
Laila held his gaze. “I have another concern with this path. Whatever the Sepulchre is, it’s also where R?zvan is entombed. Or imprisoned. Seraphina’s interest in it has never been about Esteban.”
“She didn’t outright state it,” Lambert said. “But it does seem to be the case.”
“So we’re not just looking for a missing priest. We’re walking into whatever is keeping the, what, Lord of the Umbra contained.” She waved a hand. “Whatever he is.”
“Yes. But R?zvan was the enemy of Valère. If Valère is the immediate threat—”
“So what, you want to trade one immortal for another?” Wylan cut in. “You can’t keep switching sides, Lambert. You can’t curry favour with Valère one moment and then go looking to raise his enemy the next.”
“I’m not proposing we raise anyone. I’m saying we need to understand what the Sepulchre is before we make decisions about Valère’s offer. If R?zvan is imprisoned there, that’s information. If Esteban is hiding there, that’s an ally. If Lampetia—” He stopped himself.
“If Lampetia is there, that’s personal,” Laila said quietly.
“Yes. That too.”
“And what happens if we go looking for a priest and accidentally wake up something that’s been locked away for centuries?” Wylan said. “Because I notice nobody’s addressed that.”
“It’s not about waking anything up. It’s about understanding why it was put to sleep.” Lambert could feel the shape of something. Not a thought. A pulse, like the one he'd felt holding the sword. Push and pull. Fire against darkness. Each one answering the other. It had been forming since the frescoes in the Dungeon, since the frozen Pendulum and the twilight palette that had made his eyes ache. He didn't have it, not yet.
“The problem isn’t who our enemy is. It’s that there’s no balance. Valère is unchecked. R?zvan is absent. The Pendulum swings but something is wrong with the arc. I can’t articulate it yet, but I think the answer isn’t choosing a side. It’s restoring something that’s been missing.”
“That’s not a plan, Lambert,” Wylan said.
“Alright, Lambert.” Laila again, taking the room back. “We go speak to Seraphina tonight and get the answers we need. We may as well hear her out before we have to answer Valère tomorrow.”
“Mother, you can’t be serious.”
“I am entirely serious, Isabella. We are not going in blind and we are not going in trusting. But we are going.”
“What do we tell her?” Wylan asked.
“Nothing about the sword,” Isabella said, immediately. “She doesn’t know we have it, and I’d rather not find out what a vampire does when she learns there’s another legendary weapon in play.”
“She was in the Dungeon,” Wylan said. “She knows it exists.”
“Knowing it exists and knowing we have it are different things. She’s been extremely selective with what she tells us. I see no reason to tell her everything.”
“Agreed,” Laila said. “We ask about the Sepulchre, about Espérant, about Aurora. Nothing she can use.”
“She’ll suspect,” Lambert said.
“Let her.” Laila spoke with finality.
Maximilian stood with a sigh. “That’s all well and good, you heading off into the night again. I’m going to stay here and be with Aurora.”
Lambert watched him go.
“I’ll meet you at Seraphina’s,” Isabella said. “I have something to follow up on first.”
Isabella stood outside the Rogue’s Gallery. She hadn’t expected to be back here so soon. Or at all.
The letter was in her coat pocket. It had arrived that morning with the Freight Expectations seal, which she’d nearly discarded unopened, assuming it was another of Guillaume’s shipping updates. Instead, the handwriting inside was sharp and forward-slanting, the script of someone who wrote standing up.
Mademoiselle de Vaillant — I saw you brighten at mention of the high seas last night, and I recognise the look. I’ll be in Pharelle for a few more days before I head back out. You can find me at the Rogue’s Gallery most evenings. — E. Voltari
Of course, Isabella had thought when she’d read it. The Rogue’s Gallery. Where else would a pirate queen drink?
The front door had the same man on it. He wasn’t large, wasn’t visibly armed, and was doing the same excellent impression of someone who happened to be standing in a doorway. Last time, Isabella had circled the building and come in through a chandler’s hatch. Tonight she walked straight up.
“Isabella de Vaillant. Captain Voltari is expecting me.”
The man stepped aside.
The Gallery was as she remembered it: a tangled arrangement of tables, booths, and shadowed alcoves, each occupied by figures who radiated the quiet menace of people who were very good at one specific thing. The air smelled of pipe smoke and lamp oil and deals being made in undertones.
? Establishments of a certain reputation cultivated ambience the way vineyards cultivated grapes: with patience, careful neglect, and the understanding that too much light ruined the product.
She’d seen it last from the upper gallery, looking down. From here, at floor level, it was louder and closer and considerably more armed.
She had something to return first.
She spotted the wiry man with the permanent scowl behind his desk in the far corner, the same one who’d been arguing with a patron while she’d slipped the pages free. She could return them to him directly. But that would involve explaining how she’d acquired them, and the man didn’t look like he’d improved in temperament.
“Isabella.” Pompadour materialised beside her. Dark hair, sharp features, cultivated disinterest. “I wondered when you’d come back.”
“Madame.” Isabella drew the ledger pages from inside her coat. “These belong to you.”
Pompadour looked at the pages. She didn’t take them immediately. “These were presented at the Tribune hearing.”
“They were.”
“And then everything went sideways.”
“It did.”
Pompadour took the pages. Folded them once, precisely, and tucked them into her sleeve. “Most people who steal from me don’t come back to discuss it.”
“I’m returning them, not discussing it.”
? The distinction between theft and borrowing in the Rogue’s Gallery was largely one of timing. Return something within a week and it was just considered entrepreneurialism.
The faintest suggestion of a smile. “Captain Voltari is in the back. She said you might come.”
Isabella inclined her head and moved on.
Elara Voltari had claimed a corner booth with the easy authority of someone who’d claimed coastlines. She sat with her boots on the bench opposite, a glass of something dark in her hand, and a nautical chart spread across the table weighted down with a pistol and a salt cellar.
She looked up as Isabella approached, and smiled. Not the careful smile of Pharellian society. The smile of someone genuinely pleased.
“You came.”
“You wrote.”
“Sit down. You look like you’ve spent the afternoon arguing with priests.”
Isabella sat. “Close enough.”
Elara pushed the glass across the table. Isabella took a drink. It burned, and it was excellent.
“I meant what I wrote,” Elara said. “I know that look. I wore it for years before I did something about it.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’re in a room full of people deciding the fate of nations and you’re wondering why nobody’s asked what you actually want.” Elara retrieved her glass and refilled it from a bottle that had no label. “When I met Nikolaos, he was still carrying the weight of being a de Vaillant, even years after he’d left. It wasn’t until he stopped trying to be what his family expected and started figuring out who he actually was that he became the man I married.”
Isabella turned the glass in her hands. “My family is remarkable. Truly. But they’re playing a game with immortals and institutions, and none of those things have ever had much use for rangers.”
Elara studied her. “Is that why you’ve come to meet me? To find a way out?”
“Maybe.” Isabella set the glass down. “Not just yet. I came to ask about Captain Navarro. You were the last to see him.”
Elara drew on her pipe and regarded Isabella through the smoke.
“You told us at the Ballroom that you helped Navarro get past the port authorities,” Isabella said. “If we wanted to find him, what would we be sailing into? What are the waters around Fairhaven like?”
She pulled the chart closer and tapped a point with her finger. “Here. Fairhaven. Small, stark, nobody goes there unless they’re lost or hiding. Navarro was the latter.” Her finger traced south and west. “The problem isn’t Fairhaven. It’s what’s past it. Here.”
She tapped a point where the depth markings stopped and the chart went blank.
“The Black Trench. The continental shelf drops away into nothing. Currents pull everything down. Ships that go in don’t come back to complain about it.”
“You’ve sailed near it.”
“Near it. Not into it. I’m adventurous, not suicidal.” Elara leaned back. “The approach from Fairhaven is manageable if you know the tides. There’s a siren freehold on the near side, loosely affiliated with the Autumn Court, which means they’ll either help you or arrest you depending on the day. Past that, open water, and then the Trench.”
Isabella studied the chart. Fairhaven, the freehold, the Trench. Not a plan, but the shape of one.
“How long from Pharelle?”
“Two days if the weather holds and you’ve got a decent ship.” Elara picked up her pipe again.
“You could come. When I sail back out. I could use someone who thinks on her feet.”
Isabella looked up.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
“That’s all I’m asking.” Elara raised her glass. “To the sea. Which doesn’t care about your bloodline, your politics, or whose turn it is to negotiate with an immortal.”