Crane fights like a surgeon—precise, efficient, targeting weak points with the clinical detachment of someone who has spent years studying human anatomy. His blade flashes toward my throat, my ribs, the tendons at the backs of my knees. Every strike is calculated to disable, to incapacitate, to put me on his operating table where he can study me at his leisure.

  But I fight like something else. The symbols ignite beneath my ribs—the marks blaze as we clash, guiding my movements, showing me where his blade will be before he knows himself. I see the patterns of his attack in the tension of his shoulders, the rhythm of his breathing, the micro-twitches that telegraph each strike a half-second before it comes. The Deep One's gift, turning me into something faster, something more dangerous, something that exists partly outside normal human perception.

  We trade strikes in the lamplight, blades ringing off each other, dancing between the jars of preserved children. A specimen crashes to the floor—a heart, I think, still perfectly preserved—and Crane's eyes flicker to it with something like regret.

  "Remarkable," he breathes, dodging my counter-strike. "The enhancement is more pronounced than I've seen before. Your reaction time, your spatial awareness—you must have been particularly receptive to the ritual."

  "I was sixteen and terrified."

  "Fear opens the mind. Creates pathways for the transformation that don't exist in calmer states." He slashes at my arm—I twist away, but not fast enough. His blade scores a line of fire across my bicep, cutting through fabric and flesh. "Pain helps too. Pain and fear and the absolute certainty that you're going to die."

  I feel the wound burning. Wrong burning—not just the cut itself, but something spreading from it, crawling through my flesh like liquid fire. My arm goes numb, then heavy, the blade nearly slipping from fingers that suddenly won't respond properly.

  "Poison," Crane says, seeing my expression change. "A compound I developed specifically for subjects like you. Something that interacts with the changes the ritual causes, targeting the enhanced neural pathways. It won't kill you—that would waste valuable research material. But it will slow you down. Make you more... cooperative."

  The room tilts. The marks scream warnings, but they're muffled now, distant, like voices underwater. My blade feels heavy in my hand, and the patterns that showed me Crane's movements are blurring, fragmenting into chaos.

  "Eleanor!" Corrine's voice, somewhere to my left. She's fighting too—I hadn't noticed Crane pull a second knife from somewhere, a smaller blade he's using to keep her at bay while he focuses on me. "His left side—he favors his left side—"

  "Run." The words come out rough. "Get out, get help—"

  "I'm not leaving you."

  Crane laughs—a warm, genuine sound that makes my skin crawl. "How touching. The defector and the survivor, fighting side by side. The congregation's greatest disappointments, united against their betters." He advances, driving me back toward the wall of specimen jars. "Think of what I could learn from you. Think of the research opportunities. One subject who survived the ritual intact, and another who was raised within the congregation's inner circles. Together, you could advance my understanding by years."

  "We're not your subjects."

  "Not yet." Another strike, another dodge that feels too slow. "But the poison will change that soon enough. And then we'll have all the time in the world."

  Corrine's blade takes him across the back.

  He stumbles, crying out, spinning to face her with blood spraying from the wound. For a moment, I see genuine pain in his eyes—not physical pain, though the cut is deep, but the outrage of a man who has spent his life controlling every variable, every outcome, suddenly confronted with chaos he didn't anticipate.

  "You shouldn't have done that," he snarls, and throws something at her face.

  Glass shatters. Liquid splashes. Corrine screams—a sound I've never heard from her, raw and animal, her hands flying to her eyes as she staggers backward.

  The ritual marks throb. Through the fog of poison, I feel something surge—not the Deep One's cold attention, but something older. Simpler. The protective fury of someone watching someone they care about being hurt. Adrenaline floods my system, fighting the poison, pushing it back just enough for my legs to work, my arms to move, my mind to focus on one single thing.

  I don't remember crossing the room.

  One moment I'm pressed against the wall, poison spreading through my veins, the world swimming around me in waves of gray and gold. The next moment I'm on top of Crane, driving him to the floor, my blade at his throat while Corrine claws at her eyes behind us, making sounds that will haunt my nightmares for years.

  "What did you do to her?"

  "Preservation fluid." His voice is calm despite the blade pressing against his neck. "Acidic compound. It's burning through her skin. If it reaches her corneas, she'll be blind within the hour without proper treatment."

  "Where's the cure?"

  "My surgery upstairs. I have the neutralizing agent—always keep some on hand, in case of accidents." He smiles, blood on his teeth. "But you'll have to let me go to retrieve it."

  I want to kill him. The marks are screaming for it, feeding on my rage, demanding blood. My blade presses deeper, drawing a thin line of red across his throat. One more inch and it's done. One more inch and this monster is just another corpse in a basement full of dead children.

  But Corrine is crying behind me, making sounds of pure animal terror, and I can hear the acid hissing against her flesh.

  "Help her."

  "Release me first."

  "Help her or I'll take you apart piece by piece and see how long you can survive with organs removed. I'll give you to the Deep One one piece at a time and make sure you're aware for every moment."

  My voice makes him believe me. The clinical distance in his eyes wavers, replaced by dawning fear—the recognition that I'm not bluffing, that I'm not entirely human anymore, that whatever he created in his basement has found its way into me.

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  He reaches into his apron pocket, slowly, produces a small vial.

  "Saline solution with an alkaline buffer. Pour it into her eyes—it will neutralize the acid before the damage becomes permanent."

  I snatch the vial, roll off him, crawl to where Corrine is huddled against a cabinet. Her hands are over her face, blood and clear fluid seeping between her fingers. Her breathing is rapid, panicked, the breathing of someone convinced they're going blind.

  "Corrine. Hold still. This is going to hurt."

  I pry her hands away. Her eyes are red, swollen, weeping constant tears. The acid has done damage—how much, I can't tell. I pour the solution in anyway, half the vial into each eye.

  She screams—louder than before, body convulsing against the pain—and then goes limp, breathing hard, tears streaming down her face.

  "Can you see?"

  "Blurry. Everything's blurry." Her voice is ragged, broken. "But I can see. Shapes. Colors. Eleanor, Crane—"

  He's gone.

  While I was helping Corrine, he vanished—up the stairs, into the surgery, maybe out into the night. The operating table sits empty, the specimen jars gleam in the lamplight, and the man who filled them is nowhere to be found.

  "I'll find him."

  "You're poisoned." She grabs my arm as I try to stand, her grip weak but desperate. "The compound he used—you can barely stand."

  "Then I'll crawl."

  "Eleanor—"

  "He's not getting away. Not after this. Not after everything he's done." I pull free, stagger toward the stairs. The poison is spreading, making my legs heavy, my thoughts slow. But the marks are still burning, still guiding me, still showing me the path forward even through the chemical haze. "Stay here. I'll be back."

  I climb the stairs. Each step takes forever, the poison fighting me for every inch of progress. The surgery above is chaos—overturned equipment, scattered papers, the signs of a hasty departure. The front door hangs open, letting in the cold night air.

  Outside, the streets are empty, fog-thick, the gas lamps casting halos of yellow light that barely penetrate the gray. I stumble into the street, looking for any sign of Crane's passage.

  Blood on the cobblestones. A trail leading east, toward the river.

  I follow it.

  He's made it three blocks when I catch him.

  He's running, or trying to—the wound across his back is slowing him, leaving a trail of blood that even a poisoned, half-blind hunter can follow. He hears me coming, the scrape of my boots on cobblestones, and turns to face me with knife raised and face twisted with desperation.

  "Stay back. I'll kill you before the poison does."

  "You can try."

  We circle each other in the fog, two broken things measuring each other's weakness. I can barely stand—the poison has spread to my chest now, making each breath a struggle, my heart laboring against whatever compounds are flooding my system. But I can still see where he's going to move. Still feel the patterns of his attack before he makes them.

  "Remarkable," he says again, studying me with clinical interest even now. "Even dying, you're still fighting. The transformation must be profound—far more complete than any subject I've examined. I'd give anything to examine your brain after—"

  I don't let him finish.

  The lunge takes everything I have left. My blade finds his chest, slides between ribs with the precision the marks provide, pierces the heart he's spent so long studying in others. His expression shifts—surprised, even now, that this is how it ends. That all his research and all his knowledge couldn't save him from a dying girl with a knife.

  "The children," I whisper. "They're why."

  He tries to say something. A word, maybe. An explanation. A justification. But nothing comes out but blood, dark and thick, running down his chin as the light fades from his eyes.

  I pull my blade free. He falls.

  For a long moment, I just stand there. Watching him die. Watching the blood pool beneath his body, dark and spreading across the surgery floor. The jars of specimens loom around us—all those children, preserved in glass, finally avenged. Or at least, as avenged as the dead can ever be.

  The poison is still working through my system, making the world swim and blur. I feel it fighting against the marks, two invasive forces warring inside my body. The Deep One's attention sharpens—curious, perhaps, about whether its investment will survive this complication.

  Not yet, I think at it. I'm not done yet.

  I search Crane's body with trembling hands. Find another vial of the antidote in his apron pocket—he'd been prepared for accidents, he said. I drink it without hesitation, tasting copper and something chemical on my tongue. The effect is almost immediate: the fog in my head begins to clear, the numbness in my limbs receding.

  But I'm still weak. Still damaged. Still bleeding from the cut on my arm.

  I tear a strip from Crane's apron—seems fitting, somehow, and bind the wound as best I can. Then I gather his research notes, his journals, every scrap of paper that might contain information about the congregation's operations. Evidence. Intelligence. Weapons for the fights still to come.

  The fog swirls around us, thick and cold, and somewhere in the distance I hear the sounds of the city settling into its nighttime routines. The connection pulses slowly, satisfied, feeding on the kill like they always do.

  Crane is dead. His specimens are evidence. His surgery will burn.

  But the poison is still spreading, and I don't know if I can make it back to Corrine.

  I start walking anyway. One step at a time. The fog pressing close, the marks humming their approval, the void where feeling used to live feeling a little less empty with every step.

  Ten names remain.

  The hunt continues.

  But something is wrong. The poison spreads faster now, blurring my vision, making my legs heavy.

  I need to reach Corrine. Need to get back before the darkness takes me.

  The cobblestones rush up to meet my face.

  The last thing I hear before the darkness swallows me whole is footsteps. Running. Coming closer.

  Friend or enemy? I can't tell anymore.