"I have access credentials. I'm allowed to be here. Technically."
"Does 'technically' cover bringing a necromancer?"
"It doesn't explicitly exclude it."
August gives him a look that suggests he finds Vale's relationship with institutional rules both alarming and, against his better judgment, slightly impressive. "What are we hoping to find?"
"Historical records on the Mortis Cabal. Organizational structure, known members, ritual practices, and most importantly, a complete inventory of their artifacts." Vale had spent the afternoon making discreet inquiries within the Order and had hit dead ends at every turn. Someone had restricted all access to Cabal information, sealed the files, locked the cross-references, removed the indices. Which means someone doesn't want people asking questions, and given what Vale knows about Voss's years of insider access, it isn't hard to guess who laid the groundwork. "The university's collection predates the Order's. Less curated, less controlled. There may be information here that's been purged from our archives."
"Or whoever restricted the Order's records thought to do the same here."
"Maybe. But it's worth checking."
The last staff member exits, locking the main entrance. Vale nods toward the building. "Side entrance. Staff access. Come on."
They cross the street quickly. The side door requires credentials, and Vale's badge, a relic he rarely uses but that opens most institutional doors in Haven, makes the lock click open with a chime.
"Show-off," August mutters, but there's no heat in it. "That get you in everywhere?"
"Works better than my people skills," Vale says flatly, holding the door.
The library interior is dark and silent, emergency lighting casting long shadows that bend toward August as he passes, reaching for him, curling around his ankles. Vale navigates from memory, leading them through the stacks and up the stairs to the third floor.
Their silences have changed. In the beginning, quiet between them had been charged with wariness, August bracing for threat, Vale assessing for danger. Now the silence is companionable, broken only when one of them has something worth saying. Vale is a man of few words by nature, and August is accustomed to moving through the world without drawing attention, so quiet is their default. Vale has come to value the moments when August speaks unprompted, small observations, dry asides, pieces of himself offered without being asked for.
August moves silently beside him, jacket trailing, steps a fraction slower than they should be. He's still drained from the gymnasium, even with the extended healing, and the fatigue accumulates regardless. He keeps close to Vale without being asked, maintaining a proximity that keeps him within the radius of Vale's aura, but it's not the same as touch.
Vale's hand finds August's shoulder as they climb the last flight of stairs. August doesn't flinch. Doesn't tense. Just walks a little steadier.
The restricted section is behind a locked glass door marked with glowing warning symbols. Vale's credentials open it, and the door swings inward on silence.
"This is impressive," August says, looking around at the rows of ancient texts, leather-bound, cloth-wrapped, some sealed behind glass, the air heavy with the dust and weight of centuries. "Are the Order's archives like this?"
"Less extensive. Better organized. But you can't access anything without the archivist's approval and a documented reason." Vale moves toward the section markedHistorical Dark Arts, Pre-Order Era. "Here, there are no such restrictions."
August trails his fingers along a tome's spine with the reverence of someone who understands what books are worth. "I thought you were supposed to document what you research and why."
"I'm supposed to do a lot of things I don't do."
"Like turn in illegal necromancers?"
"That's not something I've made a habit of." Vale pulls a heavy volume from the shelf. "You're a unique case."
A pause. Long enough that Vale thinks it's the end of it. Then August asks, his voice quiet in the dusty stillness: "How many necromancers have you killed?"
Vale looks at him across the narrow aisle. August is backlit by the emergency lighting, dark hair slightly disheveled, features serious. The grey veins on his hands are barely visible, kept at bay by hours of Vale's touch. He looks young and tired and guarded, and something in Vale's chest turns over. The question isn't idle. It's a calculation. August is measuring the distance between himself and the seventeen people who came before him, trying to figure out which side of the line he's standing on.
"Seventeen," Vale says. He owes August the truth.
August's expression doesn't change, but something behind his eyes shifts. A recalculation. A reassessment of the man he's chosen to trust with his life.
"They weren't like you, August." Vale is surprised by the gentleness of his own voice. "They were practitioners who used death magic to prey on the living. Who raised the dead as weapons. Who sought power at any cost, including the suffering of others." He pauses. "You're not like them. You've never been like them."
He knows it probably doesn't help. Knowing that the necromancers Vale killed were monsters doesn't change the arithmetic: August is a necromancer, Vale kills necromancers, and the only thing standing between August and that pattern is a connection neither of them can explain and a choice Vale could reverse at any moment. August knows that. Lives with that knowledge every time he lets Vale put his hands on him, every time he falls asleep in an apartment with a Templar in the next room. The trust August has placed in him is an act of faith so enormous that Vale isn't sure he deserves it.
August bites his lip and turns back to the stacks without a word.
Vale lets it sit. Some truths need time to be absorbed, not argued.
