I slid the needle free and pressed my thumb to the puncture site, holding steady until the bleeding stopped.

  Benet did not stir.

  I preferred it this way.

  If he were awake, he would have tried to speak. Like he always did. Except with the fungus riding his nerves, it had turned grotesque. Clinging. Desperate in a way that made the skin crawl.

  Evelyn had sedated him, and I'd doubled the dose, more for his own safety than ours.

  Seraphine had been prepared to end it outright.

  She had stood over him earlier with the orb in her palm, gaze ft, voice mild in the way it got when she was deciding whether something deserved to continue existing.

  I covered the needle and tucked it back into my kit.

  That was the st dose.

  Next to Benet y Tomás.

  Sprawled on his back, broad chest bare where his armor had been hastily stripped away. Even unconscious, he looked imposing. One hand was curled into the fabric of his bedroll hard enough to wrinkle it.

  He had been the st to fall.

  I had not seen any signs when I left him. No pses. No confusion. Nothing beyond the usual exhaustion and pain he carried with him everywhere. At the time, I had assumed it was his constitution. He was built like a fortress, all muscle and mass, the kind of body that absorbed strain meant for other people.

  Watching his chest rise and fall now, slow and steady, I wondered if it had been something else.

  The sedative.

  I had dosed him more than once over the past several days. Small amounts, meant to take the edge off, help him sleep through the lingering pain in his ribs. It may have severed the fungus's access to him during its most aggressive phases, buying him time the others never had.

  Either way, when Tomás finally turned, the dey came due all at once.

  Evelyn's usual methods barely slowed him. Even through multiple doses, he fought like an animal cornered, strength amplified by panic and infection alike. Whatever tolerance he had built up rendered the sedative almost useless by the end.

  In the end, Seraphine had to step in.

  Sleep.

  The demonic spell dropped him where he stood, lights out in an instant, his body folding in on itself like a marionette with its strings cut.

  I finished packing my things and stood, rolling my shoulders once to ease the stiffness creeping into them. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old stone. Lanternlight flickered against the walls, casting shadows that made the space feel more crowded than it was.

  At the doorway, Ard stood waiting.

  He looked exhausted, but he had not sat down. His hands were csped in front of him, fingers worrying at a signet ring worn smooth by years of use.

  "How are they?" he asked quietly.

  "They should be fine," I said. "With some bedrest and fluids. The worst of it is over."

  His shoulders sagged with relief he did not try to hide.

  He had been the only one who came quietly.

  Even under the grip of the infection, even when his thoughts had started to fracture, Ard had stayed anchored to the same two things: the memory of his te wife, and the daughter he had left behind. He had spoken their names like talismans, returning to them whenever the pressure built too high.

  "I'm going to ask you to stay with them," I said. "Just for now. Watch for fever, confusion. If anything changes, wake them gently and come find me."

  He nodded at once. "Of course."

  I hesitated, then added, "This isn't a punishment."

  "I know," he said. "And... thank you."

  I inclined my head and stepped past him into the corridor.

  The rest of the party was already preparing to leave.

  They looked wrecked.

  Evelyn had colpsed onto a crate the moment Benet was secured, head tipped back against the stone, eyes closed. Seraphine y slumped over her rucksack, which seemed entirely too big for her. Rocher leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching the both of them with concern.

  No one had spoken for a long while.

  When I approached, Lumiere straightened immediately.

  "I'll stay behind," she said before I could say anything. "I can help Ard. See to the padins."

  "No," I said.

  The word came out sharper than I intended.

  Her brow furrowed.

  "Right now, you're the one in the most danger," I said. "The safest pce for you is with us."

  Rocher pushed off the wall and raised an eyebrow. "Aren't we walking straight into it?"

  "Yes," I said. "But that's danger I'm prepared to deal with."

  I gnced out the doorway. "The one I'm talking about is something else."

  There was a pause.

  "Let's get moving," I added. "I'll expin on the way."

  We moved along the outer perimeter of the City, where the avenues widened and the ceilings rose high enough to make the dark feel distant rather than crushing. Rocher and Evelyn ranged ahead, scouting intersections. Seraphine fell back without comment.

  That left Lumiere and me.

  We were quiet. Painfully so.

  There were things I could have said, and didn't.

  I had shaped enough of her life already.

  This choice had to be hers.

  All I could do was stay close, close enough to be there when she was ready.

  Too close.

  She noticed almost immediately.

  "Stop hovering," she said, irritation edging her voice. "I'm not a child."

  "I know," I said.

  She slowed just enough to force me to match her pace. "Then why are you acting like one wrong step will shatter me?"

  I hesitated.

  She waited.

  "I'm not worried about you falling," I said finally. "Or getting lost. Or freezing up."

  "Then what?" she asked.

  I exhaled. "I think you might be getting targeted."

  She stopped walking.

  I took another step before I realized she wasn't beside me anymore, then turned back.

  Her face had gone very still. Like she was bracing herself for something she already half-expected.

  "Expin," she said.

  "Between what Evelyn told us about the padins," I said, "and what you found—or rather didn't find—in the archives, something doesn't add up."

  She said nothing, but her grip tightened on her staff.

  "In the game," I continued, choosing my words carefully, "there were four antidotes. One for each of you. They weren't manufactured. They were relics, recovered from this City. Hard to repce. Harder even to justify losing."

  "And yet," she said quietly, "I found none."

  "None," I confirmed. "Not the antidotes. Not even the recipe."

  Her mouth twitched. Just once.

  "Very few people would have had access to both locations," I went on. "The Cathedral's apothecary and the synodal archives. You. The High Synod. And..."

  "Bishop Halbrecht," she finished.

  I nodded.

  "During the hearing," I said, "he called the City by its old name. Marrud-Vael. That was when I started paying attention."

  She drew a slow breath through her nose. "It's not a name that's taught."

  "No," I said. "It's studied."

  Not just the history, but the dangers that came with it.

  We resumed walking, but something in her posture had shifted. Straighter. More guarded.

  "According to Evelyn," I continued, "three undesirables were sent down with us. And possibly one witness. Veyne."

  Her fingers curled more tightly around the staff.

  "He vanished the moment it became clear that Evelyn and Seraphine were backing you," I said. "And it's suspicious how immacute his service record is."

  "That could mean he's simply that competent," she said.

  "It could," I agreed. "Or it could mean someone had deliberately scrubbed it clean."

  Silence stretched between us, heavy but contained.

  "What happens now?" she asked at st. "Now that we've contained the infection?"

  "I'm not entirely sure," I said. "But if I had to guess, Halbrecht may come down here himself. Under the pretext of reinforcement."

  Her steps faltered.

  "Should we not have warned Sir Ard?" she asked. "The others?"

  "No," I said immediately. "They may still feel loyalty to him. Even asking for reassurance would tell him we suspect something."

  "What about their safety?" she pressed.

  "They're unlikely to come to harm," I said quietly. "They're only colteral. There to make the story convincing."

  She stopped again.

  "What story?" she asked.

  I turned to face her.

  "The martyrdom of the Saintess," I said. "Your sacrifice."

  For a moment, she could not breathe.

  I saw it in the way her shoulders locked, the way her gaze unfocused as the implications raced ahead of her.

  "It's politically convenient," I continued. "For Halbrecht. And for Corveaux. We know they've been corresponding. And we know they share a common goal: galvanizing a compcent Synod."

  Her face had gone pale now.

  I closed my eyes, forcing myself to think like him. To think like a man who saw people not as people, but as pieces on a board.

  "To Corveaux," I said slowly, "without the Goddess's favor, your greatest remaining asset is political. And you've been resisting him. Helping me to resist as well. Cutting ties this way lets him extract the st of your value."

  She swayed, just slightly.

  "The only good news," I added quickly, "is that they don't seem perfectly coordinated. Corveaux would never have endangered the party like this. Especially not Rocher."

  "So this is Halbrecht's doing," she said.

  I nodded. "As far as I can tell."

  She did not speak for several steps.

  Then I said, "I won't let it happen."

  She looked at me.

  "I'll protect you," I said. "With my life, if I have to."

  Something flickered across her face then. Not relief. Not gratitude.

  Guilt.

  And something older. More complicated.

  She opened her mouth, as if to say something else. Something she'd been sitting on, longer than this danger. Her hands curled beneath her sleeves.

  "Sister, I—"

  "Cire!"

  Ahead of us, Evelyn raised a hand.

  "This the pce?"

  The Forge loomed out of the gloom, runes etched deep into its stone, still faintly glowing after all these years.

  We had arrived.