The rain had not stopped.

Evander rose with a weight behind his eyes—not exhaustion, but something deeper. The fire in his dreams had not gone out, nor had the whispering beneath it. The scent of scorched petals still lingered in his nose.

He dressed in silence. Outside his quarters, the hall was dim, torches sputtering low. The Inquisition had once been a place of order, but even stone could rot. Whispers moved faster than the flames these days—names traded like currency, loyalties bought and discarded. The Serpent Conclave, once nothing more than a rumor, now bled into the streets above. Gold disappeared. People vanished. Justice, too, had learned how to hide.

In the refectory, no one had seen Loran.

Evander asked again. A shrug. A muttered “sleeping in.” But the apprentice’s bed was untouched, his robes still neatly folded. His lantern—missing.

Evander’s boots echoed sharply as he passed down into the lower halls. Something tugged at him—a memory of Halbrecht’s warning, or perhaps something older.

Then he saw it.

The door to the vault was open.

Not wide. Just ajar. A breath’s width. But enough.

Evander drew his blade before he drew breath. The iron lock, built heavy with wards, had not been broken—it had been unsealed. How, he didn’t know.

The torch hissed in his hand as he descended.

Time meant little in the old dungeon. The passages were far older than the Citadel above—stone eaten by salt and cold, carved not by Inquisitors, but something else. Some said it had been a refuge. Others, a prison before a prison. No maps were kept. No torches were placed. The light was yours alone to carry.

He passed four locked cells, each silent.

Then six more.

Then—

A flicker. A glint of brass. A figure hunched near the base of a collapsed archway, knees drawn to chest, lips moving without sound.

“Loran,” Evander called. His voice cracked.

The boy didn’t move.

Evander approached slowly, torch held high. Loran’s eyes were open, but unfocused. His lips trembled with words that would not come. His hands bled from clawing at the wall.

Evander (harshly):
“Why are you here?”

No answer.

Anger rose, sharp and bitter. But as Evander reached for the boy’s shoulder, he paused. Loran flinched—not from touch, but from light.

Evander (softly):
“You shouldn’t have come alone.”

Still, no reply. Only a whisper. Not from Loran—but from the dark behind them. A shiver passed through the torch flame.

Evander did not look back.

He carried Loran.

The boy weighed little. A shell. Something had been taken—not blood, not magic, but certainty. When they emerged from the vault, the hall was already filling with voices.

“Where did you find him?”
“Why wasn’t the door sealed?”
“Did she speak to him?”

Halbrecht stood among them, arms folded like a coffin lid.

Halbrecht (cold):
“Put him in chains.”

Evander (curt):
“No.”

“He trespassed.”
“He’s a child.”
“He heard her.”

Evander turned. The voices rose. One priest suggested a memory charm. Another offered silver bindings. Halbrecht said nothing, but his eyes sharpened with every word.

Evander knelt, wiping the blood from Loran’s fingers with a cloth. The boy did not speak.

Evander (quietly):
“You’re safe. You’re here. You hear me?”

Loran blinked once. Slowly.

Evander (to the others):
“He stays with me.”

And somehow, they listened.

Loran never told them what he saw. He never asked about the door. In the weeks that followed, he did not return to the refectory, nor the scriptorium. He slept little, and when he did, he wept. Quietly. As though afraid someone might hear him.

Evander saw to him, day after day.

But some part of the boy had stayed in the dark.

And that part never came back.