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Fenrir closed his eyes and allowed himself one more moment of cool stone against his skin. One more memory of Orpheus curled up against him, cold fingertips stroking over his bare waist, calm and safe and content…

Then he lurched upright and spun towards the stairs.

Light spilled from the corridor above, golden and waiting. A beacon in the darkness that he no longer needed, because Fenrir knew where he was headed, and what needed to be done.

What came next for him, but also those in his life who really mattered.

I’m leaving. I’m going after him. Them. Orpheus and Red.

Fenrir may only be a man, but he was also a hero because in his heart, that’s what he wanted. He simply didn’t want to be a hero for everyone, not anymore.

And that was okay.

That felt right.

Chapter XXXII

Shattered

Days passed in a rush, hours bleeding together with only Gwen’s visits to bookend each, Atticus overseeing in grim silence during the hours he was able to steal away. Two notebooks were felled by his and Gwen’s scribblings. Two notebooks filled end to end with the markings of a madman and his assistant, sigils and equations and drawings blackening each page, margin to margin. The solution was there, right outside his grasp. But with each iteration of his sigil, he scraped at the barrel of his knowledge, unable to close the final gap between theory and practicality. Lacking the single thing he needed, that Gwen’s magic could never provide.

Power. Raw power—his power.

“It’s close,” Gwen breathed, when Orpheus slid his latest iteration to her. A shattering spell he thought could break through the layers of spacetime, powered by the recycling spell he’d used on the sphere. “The closest we’ve gotten.”

“We’ll need to cast it somewhere in the open. The potential backlash could bring a building down on our heads.” He thought of his drill and Ohm and the scar that spell had left in its wake.

“The cathedral’s square,” Atticus suggested. “Is this it, then? Your best guess?”

“Without trying it we won’t get any closer.”

“Tonight, then. After evening prayer.” Across the table, Atticus’ head hung, his hands folded together tightly, like evening prayer had come early, though the pull of his mouth looked anything but serene. “Gwen, can you give us some privacy?”

Gwen looked back and forth between them before her face hardened and she sat up straight.

“I’m not a child, you know.”

Atticus closed his eyes and sighed. “Yet I can’t help but think of you as my own daughter. Please, Gwen. Come to my rooms after prayer time, then we’ll try this spell together.”

“Fine,” Gwen huffed, turning. Orpheus caught her eyes for a brief moment before she swept off, study door closing behind her.

“There’s something you need to know,” Atticus said once enough time had passed that, had Gwen been lurking outside to eavesdrop, she’d have grown bored and left. “About the Architects and their plan.”

“I’m not sure what more I need to know other than they plan to kill me.”

Atticus unfolded his hands and placed his palms flat atop the scattered pages of their work. “Death would be the merciful fate, I’m afraid, but this is a different matter, if related. This has to do with Gwen.”

Orpheus’ blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

Atticus met his eyes. “Come with me.”

They left the study to the song of Sanctuary’s hymn, night falling over the city in a clear spray of stars. The route Atticus took returned them to the scent of soap and wet that Orpheus recalled from the bath, the stonework more ornate here, walls carved with scenes from another world entirely. The faces of Hell’s beasts standing in stark relief to the obsidian’s iridescent glimmer like a contingent of guards lining the hallway’s path.

The door they came to loomed larger than the rest. It opened with a low groan, revealing a room that did not possess the grandeur of Sanctuary’s halls, or the austerity of his prison cell. Atticus’ room was home to a scholar, covered in books and papers and charts and maps, with a bed that hadn’t been made in weeks and windows open to the cathedral’s three needly spires. Vials lined his desk, some filled, others empty, his leather bag slouched open at the edge rather than meticulously tucked away like Orpheus expected.

“Make yourself comfortable.” Atticus gestured at a pair of velvet chairs set before a low, marble top table.

Setting his crutch aside, Orpheus sat, gripping the handrests tightly while Atticus set two glasses down atop the table and filled each with a finger of golden liquid and a few drops of water.