The look Knox gives him is a masterwork of restraint. His mouth is a flat line. His eyebrows are perfectly level. His grey Templar coat is buttoned with military precision, his posture is parade-ground straight, and his eyes are communicating at a volume that would shatter glass.We are going to discuss this, that look says.We are going to discuss this at length, in private,at a time and place of my choosing, and you are going to sit there and endure every single question I have.
Vale meets his gaze without flinching. He's endured worse interrogations than whatever Knox is planning. Probably.
Knox looks away first, shaking his head in the particular manner of a man who is adding this to a very long list of his partner's catastrophically poor decisions and is running out of space in the margins. Then he pulls out a chair and sits down at the table, adjusting the hang of his mace so it doesn't catch on the chair leg with the practiced ease of a man who has been armed at kitchen tables before.
"Right," Knox says, accepting the tea August brings him with a warm smile that he does not extend to Vale. "Bring me up to speed."
Vale sits across from him. August takes the chair between them, angling it slightly toward Vale in a way that's probably unconscious. Their knees don't touch under the table, but they're close enough that Vale can feel the warmth of him.
"The railway rift is closed," Vale begins. "That leaves one active rift, the subway station, and one or two possible rifts Voss hasn't opened yet."
Knox nods slowly, processing. "So the binding circle is compromised. Three of the original nodes are destroyed."
"Compromised, not neutralized." August sets down his cup and leans forward, pointing to the map. "Voss has been planning this for years. He'll have contingencies. The most likely scenario is that he pushes all remaining power through the remaining rifts, overcharges them to compensate for the missing nodes. The binding circle completes, but messier. Less controlled. More dangerous for everyone involved, including him."
"Including the vault," Knox says.
"The vault most of all. A brute-force completion of the binding circle won't surgically disable the wards the way the originalplan would have. It'll hit them with overwhelming force. If the wards hold, the energy has to go somewhere, and it'll discharge into the surrounding area. The Cathedral. The streets around it." August's jaw tightens. "If the wards don't hold, Voss walks into the vault and takes what he came for."
"Which is what, exactly?" Knox looks between them. "Do we know what he's after specifically?"
"The Mortis Crown," Vale says. "Primary Cabal relic. Grants dominion over death within a localized area, effectively negates the corruption cost of death magic. He puts that on, the corruption stops killing him, and he becomes a necromancer with unlimited power and no price."
"A necromancer with a hundred and seventy-three years of Templar training," August adds quietly. "Who knows the Order's defenses, tactics, and weaknesses from the inside."
Knox is silent for a moment. He picks up his tea, takes a deliberate sip, and sets it down with the careful precision of a man selecting his next words.
"All right," he says. "Then the way I see it, we have two problems, and we need to address them both before Voss makes his move." He holds up one finger. "First, we need to know exactly what's in that vault. Not just the Mortis Crown or what you've discovered so far. Everything. Because if Voss gets in, he's not going to limit himself to one artifact. We need a complete inventory so we know what we're protecting and what happens if any of it falls into his hands."
Second finger. "And we need the vault itself fortified. Additional warding, barriers, contingency measures, whatever can be layered on top of the existing defenses to buy time if the binding circle completes. The current wards were designed by the Order centuries ago, and Voss has had a hundred and seventy years to study their weaknesses. We need protections he hasn't had time to plan for."
"Agreed on both counts," Vale says. "Which is why we need Fiora."
Knox nods. He'd been expecting the name. Fiora, the Order's archivist and ward specialist, the woman who'd helped Vale piece together the binding circle pattern, who knows more about the Cathedral's defensive architecture than anyone alive. She's meticulous, discreet, and, more importantly, she's the only person in the Order who Vale trusts to help without immediately running to Cael.
"Fiora has access to the vault inventory," Vale continues. "She maintains the catalogue. And she's the best ward specialist we have. If anyone can design emergency protections that Voss hasn't already accounted for, it's her."
"Does she know about August?" Knox asks.
"Not by name. She knows of him and she knows about the rift pattern and the binding circle. She helped me identify the Cabal sites. But she doesn't know about the necromancer helping us close them."
"She'll need to know." Knox says it simply, without judgment. "If you want her help at the level we're talking about, vault access, emergency warding, the full picture, she needs to understand the complete scope. Including the fact that a necromancer has been closing rifts from the inside."
"I'll go to her," Knox offers, when the silence extends a beat too long. "I can brief her on the situation, gauge her reaction, and bring back whatever she's willing to share about the vault inventory. If she's amenable to helping, and I think she will be, since Fiora's always cared more about results than regulations, then we can bring her in fully."
"Do it," Vale says. "Today. We don't know how much time we have before Voss opens the final rift."
Knox stands, tucking the chair back under the table with the same precision he applies to everything. He pauses, glances atthe research spread across the surface, at the two cups of tea still steaming, at the way August and Vale are sitting close enough that their proximity speaks for itself.
Then he says, carefully and without particular emphasis: "Vale. A word."
Vale follows him to the door. August stays at the table, watching them go, and Vale can feel the weight of his gaze on his back.
Knox steps into the hallway and pulls the door half-closed behind them. In the hallway's dim light, the red Templar's mark on his coat is vivid, a reminder of exactly what they're all risking. His voice drops to a register that's meant for Vale's ears alone.
"Cael is not going to be dissuaded much longer."
Vale's jaw tightens. "How much time?"
