I look at the woman-shaped blur near the mourning cards. Her hands stay locked at her throat, fingers clawing at something I can't see yet. "And this?"
"This is pressure," Soren says. "Something's holding her in place or pulling from the other end. I need you to look close enough to tell which."
Cain's thumbs press once against my hips, steady enough to remind me where my body ends before I look too closely at hers.
I focus, letting the blur of the shop fade until the woman in the corner becomes the only thing in high definition. I see her now. She's kneeling, translucent hands clawing at her own throat. Then I see it. Cain’s hands keep the static down but hey don’t stop me from looking where I choose to look.
The chain.
It isn't iron or steel. It's a gossamer line of golden light, pulsing with a rhythm that feels sickeningly familiar. It's the same hue as the incense at the Seminary, the same glow that used to emanate from the high altar during the Feast of the Martyrs.
"That light," I whisper. "I know that light."
The chain isn't metaphorical. It's a tether, a parasitic link draining her essence and sending it somewhere else. Every time she flickers, something travels up that line, thinning her further before vanishing into the ceiling.
"Gathered divinity," Soren says, and the words come out scraped raw. "That's what the old text called it. Binding what should have moved on and making it useful."
Ira shifts, his boots creaking on the floorboards. I can feel the surge of his exorcist magic, a wall of static energy that reinforces the room, keeping the external world out so I can work within it. Cain's grip on my hips tightens, his thumbs tracing slow pressure into my bones. His blood magic settles heavier around me, muting the rest of the dead so this one thread doesn’t drag me under.
"Only look at the link," Cain says softly. "Stay with my hands. Don't follow it anywhere else."
"That sounds like advice from a man who's never met my self-preservation instincts."
"Precisely."
I reach out.
My fingers tremble as they pass through the cold, wet air of her manifestation. I find the golden wire. The moment my skin brushes the light, the world breaks open.
It isn't just a vision. It's an immersion. I'm her. I'm dying in a sterile hospital room, and there's a man in a black collar standing over me, promising peace while he wraps a prayer around my wrists. I feel the moment of binding: the snap of the lock, the cold realization that the light I was promised has teeth. I feel the long thinning after, the ache of being pulled smaller and smaller until my name frays at the edges.
I scream, or maybe she does. The sound is a jagged glass shard in my throat. I grab the chain with both hands, whatever the church calls celestial surging through my blood, a white-hot fire that tries to burn through the golden lie. I feel the link groan. I feel the tether fray under the weight of my fury.
But the backlash is a physical blow. The magic isn't just a lock. It's a trap. The moment I damage the chain, everything it's takenfrom her tries to rush through the break, using me as the easiest open door. My knees hit the floor. The shop spins, rows of dried herbs and jars of salt blurring into a kaleidoscope of gray and gold.
I've broken a link, but I haven't freed her. The woman is no longer vibrating. She's weeping, a sound like dry leaves skittering over pavement. The chain is jagged now, glowing a bruised purple, but it's still there.
And I'm empty.
I can feel the essence draining out of me, poured into the vacuum I just created. My vision tunnels. The last thing I feel is Ira's massive hands catching me before my head hits the mahogany, and Cain's voice, no longer smooth, but ragged with a fear I've never heard before.
"He's cold," Cain says. "Ira, he's going gray."
"Upstairs," Ira says, voice a bark of command. "Now. We aren't letting him slip."
Movement reaches me in pieces after that. Ira’s arm under my shoulders. Cain’s voice somewhere near my ear, too sharp to be calm. Soren’s magic flickering against my skin and then pulling back before it can become another open door.
The shop tilts away. Stairs pass under us in heavy, uneven rhythm. My head rolls against Ira’s shoulder, and I catch the scent of ward-metal, cedar, lavender, and the cold iron edge of Cain’s panic. I try to help by staying conscious, but my body has become heavy in a way that feels borrowed.
They put me on the bed. The mattress dips under the weight of all of us, and for one second the ceiling swims above me like another surface I might fall through. I try to make a joke, something about saving the dead apparently requiring better core strength, but all that comes out is a wet, rattling breath. My hands are shaking so hard I can't even curl them into fists.
"Don't," Soren says. He's hovering over me, face pale, green eyes wide with a frantic, stuttering light. "Don't you dare try to be funny right now, Aven. You almost let that thing hollow you out."
"Terrible bedside manner," I rasp.
His mouth twists like he wants to snap back and can't make his face obey.
Ira sits at the head of the bed, his large hands framing my face. His thumbs stroke over my cheekbones, grounding me with terrifying focus. "You're open," he says. "Too open. If we leave that space empty, something else will find it."
