"I'm rarely as certain as I'd like. We should move." August nods toward the guards. "The sentry change is in ten minutes. That's our window."
Vale leads the way across the street. It would be nothing for him to walk straight up to the main entrance and gain them entry, since his authority as an investigating Templar would override any questions, but he can't risk anyone seeing August. The Templars on duty would report a civilian presence to Cael without thinking twice, and August had been explicit about the involvement of other Templars. Vale is committed to honoring that, even when the practical difficulties of sneaking around his own people feel faintly ridiculous.
The warehouse looms ahead, glowing crosses etched into its walls marking it as an Order investigation site. The two Templars on guard duty are positioned at the main entrance, wearing the expressions of men who'd rather be literally anywhere else. Vale can't blame them. Standing guard over ahole in reality while the dead press against a barrier on the other side is not, in his experience, anyone's idea of a good posting. They don't notice two figures slipping around the side of the building.
"Side door," Vale murmurs. "No wards on this one."
They enter the warehouse in silence, Vale leading with his sword drawn in case there are any Templars stationed inside.
The rift is exactly where Vale left it, a tear in reality hovering above the center of the warehouse floor, its jagged edges shimmering with sickly green light. It's smaller now, maybe three feet tall instead of the six-foot gash it had been, but it's still breathing. Still pulling. The air around it is markedly colder than the rest of the space, and the wrongness radiating from it scrapes along Vale's nerves. A reminder that the veil is fracturing, and all his scrambling hasn't stopped it.
His blessing ring still glimmers around the perimeter, pale holy light holding back a handful of undead that have emerged from the rift since he sealed the area. They gnash and press against the barrier, the stench of rot and decay filling the warehouse, and Vale has to resist the urge to cover his nose. Three centuries and the smell still gets him. Some things you never get used to.
August doesn't seem nearly as bothered. He moves forward through the warehouse toward the rift without hesitation, one hand raised, shadows already gathering in his palm. The darkness pooling in the warehouse's corners seems to shift toward him, drawn to a familiar presence, and his jacket stirs in a wind that shouldn't exist indoors. He walks toward the rift with the quiet certainty of a man who has accepted the cost and decided the work is worth it.
"You'll have to drop the circle," August says, glancing back at Vale over his shoulder. "I can't cast into it."
"I'm not sure that's true," Vale says, thinking of the impossible way his holy magic heals August instead of destroying him, thinking of what other impossibilities might extend from that, but he extends his left hand anyway. His rings flare with light. The blessing circle flickers once and vanishes.
The undead surge forward. August is ready. He releases the death magic building in his hand and the tendrils find their targets, punching through skeletal remains and ragged flesh with a wailing discharge that sets Vale's teeth on edge. The bones collapse into piles around the rift. Quick, precise, controlled. The work of someone who has been biding their time for years and doesn't waste a single drop of power.
"I'd be interested to know how far your immunity to holy magic extends," Vale says, watching the last of them fall. "I have a theory you could cross a blessing ring without harm."
August gives him a wary look. "We don't know if the immunity applies to holy magic in general or just your touch specifically. I'm not interested in being your test subject."
Vale wants to point out that his touch is holy magic, that his very presence exudes sanctification that should cause August discomfort by proximity alone, but pressing the point will push August further into his defensive posture, and Vale has already spent enough goodwill for one evening. He shrugs and steps closer to the rift, unsheathing his sword.
The blade shimmers in the green-tinged air, holy energy perpetually present even at rest. The rift pulsates, as though it senses the blessing ring is gone and is considering what to do about it.
August removes his jacket and sets it on the warehouse floor.
The sleeveless shirt underneath exposes more skin than Vale has seen: the lean architecture of his arms, the sweep of his collarbones crackled with dark veins, the elegant line of his neck where corruption and tattoo ink intertwine. Vale's gaze tracksthe veins down from his jaw, across his clavicle, to where they disappear beneath the shirt's neckline, and he has to remind himself, with more effort than he'll ever admit, that he is working. That August is a dying necromancer who has explicitly told him not to touch without permission. That the thoughts forming in the back of his mind about following those veins with his hands have no place here.
He reminds himself. It doesn't help much.
August takes a deep breath and steps into the rift.
The moment he crosses the threshold, Vale feels something he has never experienced in his life.
Absence.
It's not dramatic enough to make him visibly react. Not alarming enough to cause real concern. But it's there, a sudden, distinct hollowness, as though something that had been quietly present has been removed. A sound he didn't know he was hearing until it stopped. A warmth he'd stopped noticing until the cold rushed in to replace it.
Had touching August established a connection between them? Vale hasn't put a hand on him since the kitchen, hours ago, but the withdrawal of August's presence is unmistakable the moment he crosses the veil. August is only three feet away, clearly visible through the rift's green haze, but he feels as though he's on the other side of the world.
Vale files the sensation away and keeps watch.
August moves carefully within the rift space, his hands glowing with death magic as he works on the first anchoring point. His concentration is total, hands tracing precise patterns in the air, unlocking the magical structure that holds the breach open. Tendrils of darkness coil around his wrists, held under tight control, but otherwise the corruption doesn't appear to be spreading rapidly. He's upright. Moving. Steady.
Vale watches the warehouse, the rift, the shadows. The undead that had accumulated are dealt with, which should keep August safe while he works. But with the blessing ring down, there's nothing preventing the rift from expanding. If it grows while August is inside, does that push him deeper into the underworld? What if he goes too far to come back?
The thought sits in Vale's chest and refuses to move.
The first anchoring point shatters with a sound of breaking glass.
August moves to the second without pausing, slower now but not stopping. The rift bucks violently under the disruption, pulsing, and then expands to twice its previous size. The temperature plummets. Air rushes through the void with a sound of the world inhaling, and Vale barely gets his sword up before the next wave of undead comes pouring through.
These are faster than the ones caught in the blessing ring. Vale catches the first mid-charge, his blade shearing through bone in a burst of white light. The second lunges and he spins with it, using the momentum to take its head off in a single arc.
