The Chapter house was quieter than the sanctum, though the distant clash of Evelina’s battle still rolled through the stone walls like muffled thunder.

Vivianne pressed herself against the corridor wall, her borrowed spymaster’s cloak drawn tight around her shoulders. The fabric was enchanted, or so she’d been told, made for slipping into shadows and swallowing sound.

Useful, really, for someone about to do what the church would no doubt call sacrilege.

A few feet away, Kevin knelt with one hand braced against the floor, violet magic threading through the stone in thin, searching lines.

"No guards," he murmured. "The spell worked. Everyone below the High Council is frozen."

"How can you tell?" Lillian asked from behind them, her voice low and even.

"There’s nothing recent. No footsteps. No heartbeats. Just..." He opened his eyes as the violet glow faded from his fingertips. "...silence."

Vivianne let out a slow breath. She had seen what Cael’s grey tide had done to the main cathedral. Thousands of pilgrims frozen in the middle of a breath, fear and confusion trapped on their faces, only to be turned to ash when the flames followed.

She tried not to linger on the thought.

"Then the vault should be unguarded," Lillian said, already moving past them. "The High Council is occupied with Marcellus and Julius. The Grand Cleric is fighting Evelina. Anyone else is either frozen or dead."

"Cheerful," Vivianne muttered.

They moved through the corridors without another word.

The grey had reached even this part of the Chapter house, dusting the walls in ash and softening the sound of their steps. Frozen figures stood in alcoves and open doorways, their eyes wide, their hands lifted in gestures that would never be finished.

An acolyte caught in the middle of a stride. An older priest with his mouth open around a warning that would never be spoken.

Kevin looked away.

Vivianne didn’t.

She made herself take in every face, every expression. If they were going to carry out this work, then someone ought to carry the weight of it too. Cael certainly wouldn’t. Evelina wouldn’t care.

"If we’re not here to fight guards," Kevin said after a while, "then why are we here?"

"The relics," Lillian replied. "The secondary arrays. Marcellus wanted them destroyed."

"He could’ve sent anyone."

"He sent us because we’re expendable."

Vivianne gave a short laugh. "Well. That’s honest."

"It’s practical," Lillian said, not looking back. "The prince values our lives, but he values success more. If something in the vault went wrong, if there were traps or protections the grey hadn’t touched, then better for us to trigger them than Evelina or Cael."

"So we’re bait."

"We’re insurance. I’m sure he trusts that none of us would actually die to a few traps."

The eastern corridor opened into a broad chamber lined with doors that had been sealed for centuries. At the far end stood a pair of iron gates, their surface etched with runes that glimmered faintly in the dim light.

The vault.

Kevin stepped forward and studied the markings. "Old warding magic. Strong, too. The grey didn’t make it this far."

"Can you break it?"

"Not exactly." He lifted a hand toward the gate. "But I can borrow from it."

His palm touched the iron, and violet light spread from his fingers, slipping into the runes like water finding cracks in stone. The glow wavered, dimmed, and then vanished altogether.

The gates swung inward. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Lillian glanced at him. "Has anyone ever told you you’re a genius?"

"Frequently," Kevin said.

The vault beyond was smaller than Vivianne had expected, a circular room ringed with shelves of dark wood. Resting on them were objects that seemed to breathe with their own light.

A chalice shimmering with trapped starlight. A sword whose blade looked forged from frozen fire. A crown set with gems that wept silver tears.

They were relics from a much older age, things that had likely been collected long before the current generation of church leaders had ever been born.

"The church has been busy," Kevin said quietly.

"Take what we can carry," Lillian said. "Destroy the rest."

She stepped toward the nearest shelf with her wand already raised.

Vivianne crossed the threshold of the vault, and the hunger rose at once.

Not the hunger of the relics this time, but something older than that. Something that recognized the grey waiting outside, that understood what Cael had done and approved of it.

She forced it back down.

"Destroy them," Lillian said again.

Wind rushed from her wand, and the chalice shattered first, then the sword, then the crown, its silver tears scattering over the floor like frozen rain.

Kevin worked beside her, violet magic eating through enchantments like acid, while Lillian moved from shelf to shelf, tapping each object until it crumbled into dust.

Soon the floor was strewn with fragments.

"How many did they have?" Vivianne asked, her arms aching now, her magic beginning to strain.

"Enough to power a ritual that would have killed millions," Lillian said. "That’s what matters."

Then she turned to the final shelf.

A mirror rested there, small enough to hold in one hand, framed in tarnished silver. Its surface reflected nothing at all, only a darkness that shifted slowly, like deep water in a well.

Kevin caught Lillian by the wrist. "Don’t."

She looked at him. "Why not?"

"Because it’s looking back."

Lillian’s gaze settled on the mirror. The darkness rippled, and something pressed against the other side, something straining to get through.

She raised her wand.

The mirror shattered.

Darkness spilled across the floor like ink, writhing and hissing as it reached for their ankles in tendrils that had no real substance and yet still felt cold. Kevin’s violet magic burned through it. Vivianne’s wind scattered the rest.

"Creepy..." Lillian said. "Is that all of them?"

Kevin let his magic sweep over the vault, brushing across every remaining shelf and surface.

"That’s all of them."

"Then we’re done here."

They passed back through the iron gates, leaving the vault silent and empty behind them.

By then they could feel the ritual beginning to fail, a tremor moving through the stone, a faltering in the pressure that had been grinding against the grey since the moment they arrived.

"The Grand Priest is losing control," Kevin said. "Without the relics, without the fuel from the pilgrims..."

"He’s already dead," Lillian said. "He just doesn’t know it yet."

Above them, the ceiling shuddered.

Somewhere high over the grey city, Evelina was still fighting.

And from the sound of it, she was winning.