“Convenient because the Abbot doesn’t expect attack. He believes he’s untouchable. That the Bloom makes him invincible.” Cael’s lips twist—the ghost of bitter amusement on his inhuman face. “He’s wrong. He’s been wrong for eighty years. Eventually, someone was going to prove it.”
The words hang in the cellar’s heavy air. Promise and threat intertwined.
“Tomorrow night,” I say. “Midnight. We hit the barracks, take the armory, and burn the Garden before the ceremony completes.”
“And if the Abbot deploys the Crimson Seed before you reach him?” Cael asks.
I look at Zrynok. He looks back at me. An understanding passes between us that doesn’t require words—acknowledgment of risk, acceptance of stakes, the shared knowledge that this might kill us both.
“Then we burn anyway,” I say. “Whatever it takes. Whatever it costs.”
TWENTY-ONE
ARWEN
Cael leaves first.
He melts into the shadows with an ease that reminds me how thoroughly the Bloom has changed him—moving without sound, without the normal rhythms of human motion, disappearing into darkness like he was never there. A monster by any reasonable definition. But a monster who chose to help us.
I wonder how many others like him exist. Hidden inside the Keeper ranks, questioning their masters, remembering fragments of who they used to be. Cael suggested others might defect if given the chance. Proof that transformation isn’t permanent. That humanity can survive even the Bloom’s consuming influence.
Hope is dangerous. But I let myself feel it anyway—just a flicker, just enough to fuel what comes next.
“We should go.” Zrynok’s voice pulls me back to the present. He’s already moving toward the passage entrance, blade sheathed but hand resting near the hilt.
I follow. Don’t speak until we’re deep in the servant corridors, away from any ears that might be listening.
“How bad is it?”
He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. His stride falters—just for a step, just barely perceptible—before he continues forward.
“Manageable.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Silence. The passage walls press close, forcing us into single file.
“The treatment slowed it. It didn’t stop.” The words come out reluctantly, each one dragged from somewhere he doesn’t want to access. “The concentrated exposure in the chapel gave the Bloom a foothold it refuses to surrender. Every hour, I feel it spreading. Taking more ground.”
“You need treatment tonight.” The frame is tactical, not tender. He can hear it. “Tomorrow we assault the barracks. You need to be functional. Not fighting your own blood while also fighting Keepers.”
“I’m functional.”
“You’re hiding how bad it’s gotten. That’s not the same thing.”
He doesn’t deny it. Can’t deny it. The evidence is written in every too-precise movement, every unnaturally focused glance. We walk the rest of the passage in silence.
Circe is asleep in her corner, curled beneath a stolen blanket, her young face smoothed into peace by unconsciousness. I check her breathing—force of habit from years of watching over initiates who might not wake up—then turn to where Zrynok has settled against the far wall.
He’s watching me. The Bloom’s red tendrils are visible at his collar, climbing higher than they were this morning—red threads tracing paths along his muscles, following veins toward his heart.
Worse than yesterday. Worse than this morning. The infection is accelerating, pushing past the treatment’sboundaries, claiming ground with every hour we spend planning instead of fighting.
I apply the treatment without discussion. He holds still and doesn’t speak.
“What I feel,” he says finally, when I’m done, “is complicated.”
“Tell me.”
