Lumiere left without another word.

  Not the measured retreat she had perfected in the Church, where every step was evaluated for composure. This was a stomp. Mantle snapping. Ivory striking stone hard enough that the sound carried.

  For a second I froze. I stood there with forge-heat still on my skin, with Danzig's frozen grin burned into my mind, with the feeling that I had just admitted something that could not be taken back.

  I could feel the others shifting.

  "Let me," I said, not looking back.

  Then I went after her.

  The corridor beyond the forge was cooler, though the air still carried the faint tang of metal. Blue runes pulsed steadily in the walls, indifferent to our problems.

  I huffed. Lumiere could be fast when she wanted to be. She moved like someone trying to outrun her own thoughts.

  "Lumiere," I called.

  Her shoulders tightened, but she didn't turn.

  "Please don't follow," she said, voice ft.

  I kept pace. "You know I can't do that."

  She stopped so abruptly that I nearly collided with her back. She turned, eyes bright with heat that was not the Forge.

  "You can," she said. "You're just being stubborn."

  I hesitated.

  "You're being targeted, remember?" I said. "I can't simply leave you alone."

  Her jaw flexed. Then she looked away.

  She drew a long breath through her nose and steadied her grip on the staff.

  "I wanted a moment," she said.

  "I know."

  Silence stretched. The runes hummed faintly around us.

  "Let me stay," I said. "I'll listen. Whatever you need to say, I'll hear it. I won't interrupt. I won't argue unless you ask me to."

  Her eyes lifted slowly.

  "In exchange," I continued, "promise you won't walk off alone."

  She considered that. Really considered it.

  "That is not a fair bargain," she said at st.

  "No," I admitted. "It isn't."

  A breath passed between us.

  Then she nodded, once, small.

  "All right."

  We walked a little farther until the corridor widened into a shallow alcove. A stone bench ran along one wall. Lumiere lowered herself onto it at st, the motion careful, as if she were finally allowing herself to feel the weight of everything.

  She rested her staff across her knees instead of gripping it.

  I remained standing for a moment. Then, slowly, I sat beside her, leaving space between us.

  She did not look at me when she began.

  "I always knew you were strange," she said.

  My throat tightened.

  "Usually when children come to the Church," Lumiere continued, "they come anxious. Afraid of what will be demanded of them. What might be taken away. Sometimes, it's the adults in their lives who have taught them that. Sometimes, it's the world."

  Her fingers brushed absently over the worn grain of her staff.

  "But you weren't afraid," she said. "You were curious. Bright. And headstrong."

  A faint, sad smile touched her mouth.

  "It was what drew me to you," Lumiere said. "I told myself it was obligation. That I was doing my duty. But in truth, it was curiosity answering curiosity. I found myself wanting to know what you would do next."

  "I remember being surprised," I murmured. "I was the one who sought you out. But you ended up being the one who approached first."

  "You made sure I would notice you," she said. "You waited with the patience of someone who already knew how it would unfold."

  I flinched. "No, I—"

  "So many other things make sense now."

  I faltered and let her continue.

  "All those things you knew," she said. "The magic you could name but not cast. The rites you understood without being taught. The monsters you described that were never in our texts."

  Her gaze dropped to her hands.

  "I assumed you had run from somewhere with books. A merchant's household. Or a schor's." She smiled sadly. "But I never knew. You wouldn't tell me."

  "I..." I forced myself still. "I didn't know how."

  "And I respected that," she said. "I did not press. It was yours to keep. Your pain. Your past. Your choice."

  She let that hang there for a moment. We just sat, the cool stone steady beneath us.

  Finally, she broke the silence.

  "The others gave you a wide berth," she said. "All it took was one of Mother Superior's tongue shings for being associated with your mishaps. Sometimes I got caught up in it too."

  I winced. "I didn't mean to."

  "I know," she said. "It was my choice to stay with you anyway. Not because I thought you harmless. But because you were kind."

  She looked up at me.

  "For that reason alone," she said. "I stayed."

  My chest tightened painfully.

  Lumiere drew in a breath and steadied herself.

  "That is why," she said, "even now, even after learning everything you withheld... I was willing to let it go."

  My throat ached. "Lumiere..."

  "Please, Sister," she said. "Listen."

  I went still.

  "It is not the fact that you did not trust me with your knowledge," she said, voice tight, "Nor the fact that you engineered circumstances so that we would meet. My life... even though you set its course... I have never once felt you steer me wrong."

  I felt heat climb my neck. Shame, sharp and immediate.

  "I could have endured it," Lumiere continued, "I could have swallowed everything and called it providence. Because you are here, now. Because you have bled with us. Because you have seen us through so much."

  She turned fully toward me now.

  "But this is different."

  Her fingers tightened on the staff.

  "This time, let me be the one to give you direction."

  She straightened slowly, not in challenge but in resolve.

  "I cannot support a choice that knowingly risks innocent lives."

  I swallowed.

  "Breaking the seal," Lumiere said. "Freeing the old Demon Lord. Whatever pn you have convinced yourself is necessary. Even if the intention is mercy... the cost of miscalcution would not fall on us alone."

  Her voice grew quieter.

  "All those people in the Duchy. People in vilges we have never seen. Children who will never know your name. You'd put all of them at risk."

  The words nded clean. There was no pce to hide.

  I drew a slow breath.

  "I am not being reckless," I said quietly. "There is a reason for this."

  She did not challenge me. She simply waited.

  "We are nearly capped," I said. "In terms of power, in terms of options. Without the Goddess's favor, there are only so many avenues left to grow. Some equipment here and there. Seraphine's orb. Maybe there's something out there I haven't seen yet, but I cannot pin our strategy on that hope alone."

  Lumiere listened, hands folded loosely over her staff.

  "If we can't beat this weakened former Demon Lord," I said, "then we have no chance against the current one at full strength. We need to restore Rocher's memory. His experience. His fluency with magic."

  I heard myself, and something ugly shifted under my ribs.

  I did not need Lumiere to say anything. The truth rose anyway, uninvited.

  Rocher's memory.

  I had said it like it was a tactical resource. Like it was a weapon we could pick up and swing.

  It wasn't.

  I swallowed, and the next words came out lower.

  "Now that I'm saying it out loud, it feels dishonest," I admitted, more to myself than her. "His experience can be trained. He has already demonstrated he can ignite it unconsciously. All he needs is practice. Some guidance. He does not need his memories for that."

  Lumiere's expression did not soften. If anything, it sharpened, because she could tell I was finally being precise.

  "The only value," I said, and my voice almost broke, "is restoring the time we'd spent together."

  The silence that followed carried no anger. Only weight.

  Lumiere's expression softened with something like sorrow.

  "If there is even the smallest chance something goes wrong," she said gently, "is that risk worth it?"

  I opened my mouth. Closed it.

  "If it fails," she continued, still steady, "it will not be a mistake we can correct. The damage would not be contained to this dead City here."

  I looked down at the runes beneath our feet. Lines that had held for centuries.

  "I know," I said.

  She reached out and took my hand.

  "I need to know that you feel the weight of that now," she said. "Not as something you once saw unfold. Not as a story you remember. But as something that would truly happen."

  The question struck deeper than any accusation.

  "I don't even have the old plot anymore," I said with a breath that was almost a ugh. "Not after the ways things have diverged."

  She studied my face.

  I forced myself to continue.

  "I always intended us to clear a path into the castle," I said. "We'd have to deal with the monsters anyway. And I was already intending to help Rocher relearn control. Since it would improve our odds."

  Her brows drew together slightly. "What are you saying?"

  I met her eyes fully.

  "If, in the time we have remaining, Rocher can demonstrate deliberate control," I said, carefully, "if he can show that he can ignite and sustain his magic by choice, not by accident... then there is no reason to break the seal."

  The words left me slowly.

  Like setting down something sharp.

  "You would bind yourself to that?" she asked breathlessly.

  "Yes."

  "No contingencies I cannot see? No hidden paths?"

  "No," I said. "You have my word. And this time, it's your choice. Not something I already decided in advance."

  Her gaze held mine for several heartbeats.

  Then she looked down, exhaled, and closed her eyes briefly.

  When she opened them, the tension in her shoulders had eased—not vanished, but steadied.

  "Very well," Lumiere said.

  Relief hit me so hard my knees almost went loose. I nodded once, like she had granted me a tactical concession instead of trust I did not deserve.

  "Thank you, Lumiere," I said.

  She nodded, then rose from the bench and began walking back toward the forge.

  I followed, not behind her now, but beside her.

  When we returned, the doors were still open.

  The heat rolled out again. The forge-chamber glowed with the molten pool still hovering in its controlled bowl.

  Evelyn and Rocher and Seraphine stood in a loose cluster. None of them were looking at the pool when we entered.

  That alone told me everything.

  I stopped a few paces inside the threshold and let my gaze move, slow and deliberate, from face to face.

  Evelyn's eyes were fixed on a point over my shoulder. Rocher was staring at the floor with too much concentration. Seraphine had her chin lifted in a way that pretended innocence but did not quite manage it.

  Phymera watched us all without expression.

  "So," I said, voice even, "was everything comfortable with the arrangement?"

  No one spoke.

  Then Seraphine cleared her throat, quietly.

  "Of everyone here," she said, "I am the only one who fully believes we can beat it. The seal can be broken and the Demon Lord ended. That is what we came here for, whether we knew it or not."

  She paused, then continued, careful.

  "But if the rest of you do not want it," she said, "I will not push for it. Not at the cost of tearing this party apart."

  That was as close to humility as Seraphine ever got. I accepted it with a nod.

  Evelyn finally looked at me. Her expression was guarded, but there was respect in it too. "If you and Lumi have an agreement," she said, "I'm fine with whatever you decide."

  Rocher lifted his head at st. His eyes moved to Lumiere first, then to me.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "For putting you in this position. For having you consider something like this for my sake."

  He hesitated, just for a fraction.

  "I'll learn," he said, more firmly now. "If that's what I have to do."

  I nodded, then looked at all of them.

  "We have two weeks," I said. "A little over. We spend it preparing. And then we decide with our eyes open."

  No one contradicted me.

  Phymera tilted her head, as if she were watching a decision tree resolve into a single branch.

  "Proceed as you wish," she said in my voice, tinged with disappointment. "I only offered because you reminded me of them."

  She sighed, waving a hand over the pool. The image of Danzig's frozen moment began to distort, then dissipate.

  "I just thought you'd be the ones to set him free."