“The Abbot doesn’t get scared.”
“He does now.” I remember the crack in Verantus’s composure when Zrynok forced himself upright, when the executioner proved harder to break than expected. “He used the concentrated spores because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t. That’s not confidence. That’s desperation.”
Circe absorbs this. Processes it. Her arms tighten around her knees, but some of the rigid terror has bled from her posture.
“What happens now?”
“Now we rest. Plan. Figure out how to treat his infection before it gets worse.” I squeeze her arm once, then let go. “And then we finish what we started.”
“We?” Her brow furrows. “I can’t—I’m not a fighter. I’m not anything. I’m just?—”
“You’re a survivor.” I hold her gaze. “That’s not nothing. That’s the hardest thing there is. And right now, I need you to survive a little longer. Stay here. Stay quiet. Don’t leave this room no matter what you hear.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find treatment for the infection.” I push to my feet. “The lower gardens have what I need. If I’m careful?—”
“You’re leaving me alone?” Panic edges her voice. “With him?”
I look at Zrynok. At the man who killed half a dozen Keepers to save a girl he’d never met. Who collapsed under the Bloom’s assault and clawed his way back rather than surrender. Who’s fighting against his own infected desires right now because losing that fight would mean becoming something he refuses to be.
“He won’t hurt you.” The words come with a certainty I didn’t expect to feel. “He’d hurt himself first.”
I explainmy plan to Zrynok in quick, clipped sentences. The lower gardens. The herbs that counteract Bloom exposure. The route I’ll take—servant passages, maintenance corridors, paths the Keepers rarely patrol.
He listens without interrupting. His eyes are open now, fixed on a point somewhere past my left shoulder—deliberately not looking at me.
“You should stay.” His voice has steadied. Flattened back toward the detachment I first heard in the forest clearing. “I can manage.”
“You can manage until you can’t.” I check the candle—still burning, enough wax left for another hour or two. “I’veseen what happens when Bloom infection goes untreated. The physical transformation starts within days. By the time they’re flowering through your skin, there’s nothing left of who you were.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. “And if you get caught?”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t know?—”
“I know these halls better than anyone alive. I know the Keepers, the schedules, the blind spots.” I move toward the passage that leads out. “Years of mapping every inch of this place while I waited for a chance to burn it. This is that chance. I’m not going to let you die before we finish the job.”
He doesn’t respond. But when I glance back, his attention has shifted—fixing on me now, intensity bleeding through the careful control he’s trying to maintain.
“Be careful.” The words sound like they’re being torn from him. “I can’t—” A pause. A breath. “Be careful.”
My pulse kicks. I crush the reaction before it can spread.
“Watch Circe. Don’t let her leave this room.” I stop at the entrance. The passage yawns open behind me, dark and patient. “I’ll be back before the candle burns out.”
I should leave. Should slip into the dark and be done with words.
Instead I turn back.
“For what it’s worth—” The words escape before I can stop them. “I’ve spent a long time around men who wanted things from me. Who took what they wanted without asking. Who disguised violence as devotion.” I meet his gaze across the small chamber. At this orc who collapsed to his knees under the Bloom’s assault and clawed his way back up rather than surrender. “You’re not them. Whatever the infection is doing to you—you’re not them.”
I don’t wait for a response. I slip into the passage and let the darkness swallow me.
I move on instinct, on memory, on years of desperate preparation finally paying off.
Behind me, I leave an infected executioner and a traumatized girl in a hidden chamber no one else knows exists.
