But it’s time for them to find their own way out.
“Agestalt,” I whisper, my hands beginning to shake. I glance up at Agrippina, my heart pounding. “Agrippina. He’s agestalt.”
She startles, leaning across the table toward me, one hand clenched like she might snatch this truth out of the air and shove it back into the papyrus, where at least we will not know of its terror.
“It cannot be,” Agrippina replies in a low, hoarse voice. “Ophelia, how would we ever kill Him? How would we know whose eyes He is looking out from?”
I close my own eyes, my jaw grinding, andthink. The strangeness that consumed Renault, that feverish heat of his skin. The way Carina rebuked me despite so many anni of lovebetween us. The pack-like behavior of the High Ecclesia in the Devoriarum.
And then, all at once, I understand.
“The High Ecclesia,” I say, opening my eyes. “Agrippina, the High Ecclesia.Of course. The High Ecclesiaisthe First Son. That’s why there’s no Fatum left. Because He either made them part of the Ecclesia or feasted on their long lifespan, their power. That’s why the Tithing started—because He ran out of Fatum.”
There’s more, I realize, additional implications of the words in this papyri, but Agrippina speaks before I untangle it, shattering my fragile concentration. “All those High Ecclesians,” Agrippina mutters. “All those bodies, one mind. Even a powerful Fatum might not be able to contain Him, not on their own. But an entire cohort?”
“Not just the High Ecclesia,” I say in horror. “Mainly Them, yes, but who knows how many of the Host He’s puppeting, peering out from their eyes?”
The scene in the Devorarium barrels into my mind—that pale corpse-light, that widening eye, Nyatrix brought forward like a sacrifice. I fly to my feet, reaching for my cane and almost knocking it over by accident.
“Agrippina!” I shout, feeling like I might crawl out of my skin, half-mad with revelation and terror. “He didn’t know Nyatrix existed until she was captured. He thought He’d devoured all the Fatum left in this world. He wantsher.”
Agrippina rises to her feet, pale as the undyed linen of her apron. “In the name of the Creatrixes, He will not have her,” she mutters.
“Can you get me to Nyatrix?” I ask, tugging on one of the spare sets of Cult robes she left in our chambers a few nights ago. “The Mater Dea are healers, aren’t they? Surely you go to the front lines during attacks?”
Agrippina goes even paler, if possible. “The Host hasn’t attacked us like this in so many anni,” she mutters, one hand clenching into a desperate fist.
“Well, they arenow,” I shout, stuffing the papyrus into a deep pocket of the robes. “Agrippina, get me to Nyatrix. You have to get me to Nyatrix. He knew she’d defend her people. He knew she wouldn’t forsake me. All of this is a trap for her.”
She nods, though I can see she’s shaking, and pulls the door open, revealing the shadowed chambers of the Conclaves. I snatch my cane from the wall and take a deep breath, pleading with my body to cooperate, just this once.
“We’ll reach her,” Agrippina tells me as we slip into the dark. I drape the lace veil over my head, pulling the billowing hood up, too. “We’ll reach her in time, Ophelia.”
The way she speaks—so sure, so even—reassures me as I limp through the winding corridor beside her. Something that might be hope blooms in my chest, and I nod, pushing my body into a stiff-legged jog despite the pain.
“Oh,” I say, looking over my shoulder at her. “I’m not sure if you’re Sepulchyre. If any of us are.”
Agrippina’s sure stride falters, and I consider that this may have been poor timing. “What?” she asks weakly, taking a tight turn into another claustrophobic corridor.
“That papyrus,” I reply, wincing in pain when I take a bad step. “It says the Sepulchyre Court left with the Creatrixes almost a hundred anni ago. So who, then, are we?”
The Sepulchyre’s seat of power is burning. Instead of weak sunlight and pale, shimmering dust, the place I walked through just a few days ago is marred with smoke, blood,and rubble. People race past us, fleeing toward the sea—the same place the real Sepulchyre went, all that time ago.
Though it pains me not to stop and help wounded people, Agrippina and I keep going, following the sound of crashing weapons and shouted commands and terror.
“They really did breach the wall,” she whispers with horror as we slow to a walk, surveying our surroundings. Buildings are toppled. Fires burn. A Hexen races down an alley up ahead, in pursuit of a meal, no doubt. Through the black fog, I see a glimmer of bronze, and my stomach drops.
Without a word, Agrippina grabs my sleeves and drags me into a winding side street, so much like the one Nyatrix and I strolled down beneath a calm sky when I first arrived. It feels like a thousand anni ago. It feels like it happened to someone else entirely.
Agrippina weaves through the streets, more than once shoving me into the shadows as Host knights march by, clearly searching for something.Someone, I fear. We creep into the city center, navigating through rubble and fallen bodies of both Sepulchyre and Host. Or whatever we really are.
I push these revelations from my mind. They are useless. I am looking for only one person. One woman. One wolf of a woman who says my name like it’s a prayer strong enough to heal the Sundered Lands.
From behind the hunched shoulders of a villa torn in half, I peer into the fray of the worst fighting. Mysterium hums hard enough to make my teeth rattle. The mortals on both sides, I see, are mostly using simple Blessings to strengthen their armor, guide their weapons—which means that thrum is from something else entirely.
An equus races out of the pit of bloodshed and corpses, and I recognize him instantly. Argento. He is a thing of legend, surgingforward with singular intent, his long, loose mane a dark banner against the night sky. And on his back—the Lupa Nox.
Her helm is gone, her braid streaming behind her. Her sword isn’t drawn, I can see, and for a long moment, my mind can’t process why she’s runningaway.
