His thoughts drift despite himself. He thinks about the woman who came back from rest just to warn him. About all the other spirits he's helped over the years, hundreds of them, maybe more. People who died confused or angry or afraid, who needed someone to tell them it was going to be okay. Who needed someone to sit with them in the dark and not be afraid of what they were.
He thinks about his parents. They'd loved him despite his magic, had loved him fiercely and without reservation even when they were terrified of what it would cost him. They'd died before they had to watch it destroy him, and he is grateful for that small mercy even though he misses them so badly some nights that the ache is physical and no amount of breathing through it can ease it.
He thinks about the Templar.
That's a mistake and he knows it. Thinking about the Templar, the strong jaw and those amber eyes and the way he'd moved with such lethal grace, the way his voice had been hard when it saidyou're under arrestbut his hesitation had been barely there and gone in an instant, is the last thing he needs. But his mind keeps returning to the cemetery, to the moment their eyes met across the graves and something had flickered in the Templar's face that hadn't looked like certainty at all. It had looked, for justan instant, like doubt. The man had seen something he hadn't expected, and hadn't known what to do with it.
It was probably nothing. August seeing what he wanted to see, the way the dying do, finding meaning in every passing shadow because the shadows are running out.
The Templar had been perfectly clear about his intentions. There was no moment of understanding. No connection. No possibility of anything except arrest or death.
August needs to remember that. He files it away with all the other things he needs to remember: that he's dying, that he's alone, that the world doesn't care about his reasons. It's a long list. He's been adding to it for fourteen years.
He skirts the warehouse district, giving wide berth to the site of the last rift. It still reeks of holy magic even from a distance, the blessings the Templar had left behind burning faintly against August's skin. No Templars on patrol that he can see, but he stays well clear. The residual death magic lingers too, a copper taste on his tongue, a wrongness in the air that makes his own power shudder in recognition. The rift is still open, of course. August hasn't been able to close a single one. He's been running on fumes for weeks, and closing a rift requires the kind of concentrated power he can't spare without it killing him outright.
Merchant's Square materializes ahead. The old fountain at its center is dry and cracked, a relic from a time when this part of the city had been something other than forgotten. The surrounding buildings are a patchwork of abandoned storefronts and struggling businesses: pawn shops, a check-cashing place, an overnight diner with a flickering sign that readsMabel'sand a menu in the window that hasn't changed since the subway closed. The sealed subway entrance is on the north side, a rusted metal gate covered in graffiti and postedwith warnings about structural instability and prosecution for trespassers.
August doesn't go to the main entrance. He circles to the back alley he found six months ago, where a service door hides behind a dumpster that hasn't been touched in years. The door is still there. Still unlocked. Nobody cares enough about an abandoned subway to secure every way in, which means there might be other people down there, but it's not as though they'll bother a necromancer. He just hopes whoever might be sheltering in the tunnels has the good sense to clear out before ten o'clock. He'll check. He'll make sure.
He pulls the door open and stares into the darkness.
This is it. Once he goes down, there's no turning back. He'll either disrupt the rift before it opens, or he'll die trying to hold back the flood of undead, or he'll come face to face with whoever is behind this and fight a battle he almost certainly can't win. The odds are terrible and the best-case scenario is a long shot.
He thinks, one last time, of the Templar. Of amber eyes and a strong jaw and a voice that had been hard when it saidyou're under arrest. He thinks about how, in a different world, a kinder one, they might have met under different circumstances. How August might have explained himself and been heard. How those eyes might have softened with something other than duty. How they could have worked together. How August wouldn't have had to do this alone.
He pushes the thought away. It goes reluctantly.
He conjures a small magelight that flickers weakly in his corrupted hand, barely enough to see by, but it's all he can spare. Every scrap of power needs to be saved for the rift. The light is pale and unsteady, and it casts his shadow long and thin against the tunnel walls.
And he steps inside.
The service tunnel smells of mold and standing water. The walls are slick, the air heavy and close. August moves carefully, following the downward slope, his light showing only a few feet ahead. Shadows curl around his ankles as he walks, familiar and oddly comforting. They've always been his companions, even in places where nothing else would follow. He doesn't reach out to them. Every scrap of power needs to be saved for the rift.
His heart hammers. The black veins pulse with each beat. Pain radiates through his chest, his arms, his neck, and he isn't even casting beyond a light no brighter than a candle. Just existing is costing him now. He's been running on nothing for so long that his body has forgotten what full strength feels like.
But August keeps moving. Down into the dark. Toward whatever is waiting.
He has two hours until the rift opens.
He hopes it's enough.
Chapter 5
It takes Vale longer than it should to see what's been staring him in the face.
He'd spent the afternoon in the archives with Fiora, cross-referencing Voss's personnel file with historical records of the Mortis Cabal's ritual sites. It had been Fiora who finally pulled out a red pen and started drawing on the map Vale had been staring at without processing, connecting the rift locations, drawing the lines between them, until the answer was undeniable. She'd set the pen down and given him a look that said, very clearly,you should have seen this hours ago, and she'd been right.
The next logical site in the sequence is the abandoned Red Line subway station beneath Merchant's Square. Seventeen dead in a cave-in thirty years ago. Massive ambient death energy, the kind that soaks into stone and stays there. Perfectlypositioned on the geometric pattern. If Voss opens a rift there, drawing on that much concentrated power, the surge might be enough to fracture the remaining vault wards in a single stroke. He might not even need to open another rift after that.
If Fiora's calculations are correct, and they always are because Fiora is the kind of person who double-checks her double-checks, it's scheduled to open tonight. Around ten PM.
And if Vale's instincts are right, The Speaker will be there too. He'll have figured all of this out a while ago, probably while half-dead and running on nothing, because that seems to be how the man operates.
Vale leaves headquarters without telling anyone except Fiora where he's going. He knows the smart move would be to bring Knox as insurance in case things go sideways, but he can't risk showing up with backup and scaring off the one person he actually needs to talk to. He already butchered the last meeting badly enough. Drawing a sword on a man and chasing him through a cemetery is not, in retrospect, the ideal foundation for a working relationship. If The Speaker sees two Templars descending into the tunnels, he'll bolt, and this time he might not surface again before the corruption finishes what it's started.
If Cael finds out about this, there will be consequences. It wouldn't be the first time Vale has faced them. Won't be the last.
***
