Tabitha’s lips press into a line. “If you move openly against the Order, you will start a war.”
“I think they started it centuries ago.”
No one argues.
We move.
The church sits at the edge of the grounds, small and old, stone soaked dark by rain. A place mortals go to feel safe from things they can’t name.
The door is locked.
Dastian reaches for it, sparks ready.
I put a hand on his forearm. “Don’t.”
He pauses.
I touch the lock with two fingers and think:Open.
The metal clicks. The door swings inward without a sound.
Dastian lets out a low whistle. “Okay. That’s sexy.”
“Stop saying my power is sexy,” I mutter, stepping into the nave.
It smells like wax and old hymnals. Normal. Harmless.
But underneath, beneath the altar, there is a hum I recognise. A wrongness. A net being woven.
Voren’s cold gathers at my side. “Below.”
Dreven’s shadows slide ahead, not attacking—scouting.
Tabitha walks behind me, silent now.
We find the trapdoor behind the altar. The wood is old. The warding is new.
I kneel and press my palm to the ward.
It tries to resist. It tries to pretend it has authority here.
I let the Crown stir.
The ward line shivers like a nervous animal.
“Mine,” I whisper.
It snaps.
The ward dissolves into nothing, and the trapdoor opens.
Below is a staircase into stone. We descend.
The hum grows louder the deeper we go, until it’s in my bones.
At the bottom is a chamber cut into the earth, lit by lanterns that burn too clean.
And in the centre, etched into the floor in silver lines, is a net.
