Aven rises from the floor, a little unsteady. The spirits shift around him, giving him room without being asked. He notices and flinches at the reverence before forcing his attention back to us. When he looks toward the map, his expression hardens.
"I can get Ellis to the ward-stone," he says. "Or close enough."
"You don't have to carry every spirit in the city on your back while doing it," I tell him. "Start with the dead vampire and work outward from there."
Ellis gives me a look that would be more satisfying if he had a pulse to offend.
Aven glances at him, then back to me. "He says he heard that."
"Excellent. Then he can also hear that I expect useful directions and no dramatic self-sacrificial nonsense from him either. We're currently over capacity."
Aven's mouth almost moves toward a smile. Almost is enough.
Ira begins listing supplies. Silver wire. Salt. Iron filings. Chalk mixed with ash. Two blades treated for vampire blood. A containment charm I hate because it pinches if tied too tightly. He speaks quickly, and I answer where I need to, building the plan around the lie in my pocket. Aven tracks Cain's thread between each instruction. Ellis feeds him fragments. The map becomes more than paper under our hands. Route. Gate. Corridor. Chapel. Ward-stone. Cain.
The spirits remain too quiet when I pass near them.
I feel their attention follow me as I gather chalk from the cabinet and pull Vera's secondary containment tin from the bottom drawer. The dead know I'm walking into that tower with more truth hidden than I've admitted. They know the absorption rite could carve years off me in minutes. They know the shelf-life secret sits against my ribs, warm from my body, waiting to become betrayal.
They can hate me later too.
Right now, later means Cain is alive enough to be angry.
I slide the containment tin under my arm and turn back to the others. Ira is watching me. Aven is watching the map. Ellis is watching the door.
"Good news," I say. "We have a terrible plan, a worse timeline, and exactly the right number of emotionally unstable people to pull it off."
Ira doesn't smile. Aven doesn't either. But I walk back to the table like the floor isn't shifting under me.
They can hate me later.
Later means Cain is home.
37
Aven
Ellisremembersthetowerin pieces. The first memory gives me the north gate and the scrape of a ruined family crest. The second gives me old brick under newer stone, silver buried where roots should have grown, and a service road that drops below the first ward line before the building can notice a body moving toward it. The third makes Ellis flicker so hard the air around him snaps cold, and I have to press one hand flat to the floorboards until Vera’s library stops tilting under me.
Cain is still in the bond, but not the way he should be. What reaches me now is his terror smoothed until it almost knows how to impersonate peace. I hold on to the difference because the difference is Cain.
I repeat what Ellis gives me, as Ira turns it into marks on the map. "He says the first gate faces north," I tell Ira, keeping my voice steady because if I let it shake, the spirits near the shelves lean closer. "Black iron. Family crest on the center, but scrapeddown. Damaged enough that the shape looks wrong unless you know what it was."
Ira marks the gate. His sleeves are shoved to his elbows, and there are iron filings caught in the dark hair on his forearm. He hasn't stopped moving since Cain was taken. When he isn't drawing, he checks a weapon. When he isn't checking a weapon, he rewrites a route. When he isn't doing either, his eyes cut to me, to Soren, to the windows, to the door.
Soren moves behind him with an armful of books and a face so composed it makes my skin crawl.
He should be snapping at the books. He should be insulting Vera's shelving system or threatening the table for daring to have corners. He should be vibrating with exhaustion and spite, because that's the Soren-shape grief usually takes before it finds somewhere to land. Instead, he moves too neatly. Book to bag. Wire to table. Chalk to cloth pouch. He checks items off a list in handwriting that looks sharper than normal, each mark quick and severe. His sweater hangs off one shoulder, and there's a folded edge of paper tucked too deep into his inner pocket, the corner visible only when he bends.
I see it but I don't have room to understand it because Cain's absence burns too hot.
Ellis looks toward the window as if the city outside is only a curtain. His face has gone thin around the mouth, more like Cain's than it should be when he says, "There's a service road behind the third mill. The family used it when they didn't want the Church delegates seen at the front gate. It curves near the old water tower, then drops. The road is lower than the street. That matters."
I repeat it, and Ira draws the road with one hard stroke. "Why does it matter?"
Ellis's gaze flickers to me. He does that when he knows the answer will hurt in a way he can't soften. I hate that I already know his tells. I hate that I know any dead man this well.
"The wards are buried in the slope," I say, because Ellis is speaking too fast and the images are coming with the words now: wet earth, old brick, something silver threaded under roots that never survived long enough to become trees. "Anyone coming from above trips the outer line early. The service road runs under it for the first stretch. Less visible."
