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“How close are you to a solution?” he asked, not looking up.

Orpheus caught Gwen’s eyes and explained. “The Architects want the chasm reopened or they’re going to kill me.”

“What?” Gwen shrieked, Soot mimicking her cry with a yowl from the windowsill. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably because I did this.” He gestured dramatically at Sanctuary, twilight already approaching, the gonging of the cathedral bell not yet started but it was simply a matter of time.

Ten days. They’d given him ten days when ten years wouldn’t be enough time to achieve what they wanted. It took a whole world war to stir up enough power to summon Sanctuary. All the Netherflame Gwen could create over a lifetime wouldn’t be enough, even if cast all at once.

“They aren’t exactly wrong,” Atticus said from his place at the table. “At this rate, Sanctuary will die of starvation before we get her back online. They likely intend to move it to more fruitful pastures and they can’t do that without full power.”

Move it? Sanctuary could move?

Of course it can. Their ancestors had summoned it to this exact spot, after all.

“I still have some secrets,” Atticus murmured. “Your Empire is in more danger than you know, my unfortunate mage, if simply for your fertile farmland.”

“Sanctuary can’t mount an assault like that. Its people are half dead.”

“No, but if you think dropping Sanctuary on your Empire’s land and then sitting back while the city’s siege craft take care of your army won’t work, you truly do not have the imagination I assumed you did.”

Orpheus sneered. “Why do you care?”

“I may seem cruel to you, but I am not heartless. It seems to be the whole reason we’re in this mess now.”

Atticus had opened Orpheus’ grimoire up to the pages with his magic-stealing spell. Panic nearly swept Orpheus away but Atticus flipped past them without comprehension.

All hells, was this his solution? Was stealing Gwen’s magic the only way he could save not just his own life, but everyone in the Empire too? Because if he did—he could—Sanctuary would be—but then he’d be—and Gwen would—

No, no, no.

“What if we killed them?” Orpheus blurted.

“You want to kill the Architects?” Gwen squealed while Atticus looked at him like he’d donned a fascinating new hat.

A knock came at the door before he could comment. Duluth arrived holding Atticus’ bag and a book.

No, not a book. A tome.

A grimoire.

“What is that?”

“And here I thought you were the mage.” Atticus slammed the book down on the table with a heavy thump.

Dark stains were burned into the leather, the pages old and yellowed, the ink faded to a delicate dove gray. Orpheus did not overlook the murky brown smudges splattered across its pages when Atticus opened it up.

Blood magic—a whole grimoire of it.

“Why do you have that?”

Atticus gave him that grim look and pushed the book towards him.

“Perhaps there is something in there which you can use.”

Oh, Atticus had no idea.

They spent the next hour going through the work Orpheus had already begun instead of the book sitting like a dead weight at the center of the study’s table. It was a pathetically little amount. The thought exercises he’d half-heartedly indulged were not the serious attempt of a man fearing for his life, not anymore. It became clear after the moon had risen and Sanctuary’s hymn had long died off that what he’d come up with was not going to work, at least not in its current iteration.