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Maybe it was the drug, or maybe it was that more days had passed in Sanctuary’s walls than he had counted, but their bodies looked more skeletal than they had when he’d arrived. Faces hung gaunt with shadows, fine clothing clinging to bones in loose flaps, and those gestures returned—a prayer or a ward or…or an omen, all directed at him.

Orpheus stumbled again, hobbled leg an aching pulse, re-broken bone crunching with every limping step. The drug Atticus gave him kept the worst of the pain at bay, but when he was shoved towards the steps of the cathedral, he nearly fell to his knees. The Architects stood tall, wizened faces staring from cowled hoods, pale eyes a mirror to Atticus’, and so different from the woman who knelt at their feet.

From across the square, Red stared at him, un-bandaged eye hardened, her mouth a thin line. Beside her, Farris stared at Gwen, expression awed, like he couldn’t believe there was another sorcerer undiscovered by Lore. But Red…

She blames me, for Fenrir’s death—for what would soon become her own. But was she wrong? If he hadn’t run off into the fairgrounds, none of them would be in this mess—or, at least, they’d be in it together.

Instead, he stood at the center of the square entirely alone.

When the song began, Orpheus couldn’t help but look for Gwen. The haunting hymn threaded through the crowd like a siren’s wail, and he watched Gwen cower with it, their attention no longer on him but her, the savior Atticus had positioned her as, despite what the Architects had planned for her all along.

Did she know? She couldn’t—not with how fiercely Atticus protected her. But the way her eyes diverted, quickly slipping past his with an unease that tasted of fear, made Orpheus suspect.

Ga-gong. Ga-gong. Ga-gong.

Overhead, the cathedral’s bell tolled, a herald to the grisly fate about to befall him. Only then did Gwen meet his eyes.

Duluth dragged him forward before Orpheus could mouth: “I’m sorry.”

Soot left over from the pyres coated the flagstones, cleared at the center to make space around something Orpheus had seen once before, but did not have time to study. Furrows, narrow and deep, carved into the city itself. A spell, previously prepared for this very moment.

All it was missing was the modality that would set it alight.

His blood.

Orpheus took a step back directly into Duluth.

Atticus appeared at his side. “Hold him.”

Hands landed on his shoulders, held him up when he would otherwise fall. His crutch clattered to the ground.

“To the center, if you please.”

“Duluth, please, don’t.” Orpheus wrenched around, trying to meet Duluth’s eyes. He’d never addressed the Myrkur directly before, but Gwen called him her friend, so surely—

An empty amber stare glanced off his. Duluth’s hands dug into his shoulders as he obediently dragged Orpheus towards the sigil, oblivious to his plea. Orpheus’ legs abruptly stopped working when Duluth hauled him over the center of the furrows. Fear numbed the pain but also made standing no longer an option. He hung from Duluth’s hands like a puppet with its strings cut, whatever drug Atticus had given him only succeeding in making his heart hammer a hole through his chest, as if that was the whole point. A building rhythm that would ensure every last drop would bleed out into that infernal sigil in order to bring Sanctuary back to life.

That’s if his blood was strong enough to fire the spell at all.

Beneath him, the sigil spiraled out from the center where he hung, fissures rutted deep, like the stone was flesh, and this sigil was meant to scar. His vision swam with the drug but tears too, the pulse-beat of his heart thrumming through his entire body, like his blood had been thinned into water, rushing through him with the strength of a riptide when Duluth abruptly let him go.

There, at the center of the cathedral’s square, under the shadow of Sanctuary’s spires, Orpheus fell to his knees.

What do I do? What do I do—

Orpheus clawed through the buzzing in his head, trying to think, a short-lived endeavor when Atticus crossed the square to crouch before him.

“Do you know what the Myrkur call people like Duluth?”

Orpheus blanched. What kind of question was that?

“Iro. The translation is rough, but essentially it means at peace. The punishment is used only in extreme cases of criminal disobedience. The murder of an innocent, the betrayal of a person’s autonomy, the breaking of an oath. It wipes away every memory of the life they knew before, then suppresses their higher cognitive functions. They understand language and they rebuild memories of faces and names. But the rest…well, it’s quite the mystery. Duluth can’t explain it himself, you see; muteness is another facet of a very complex enchantment. But…he seems happy, wouldn’t you agree?”

Over Atticus’ shoulder, Duluth’s empty stare remained half-hooded as it always did. There was no indication he understood Atticus was speaking about him, only that constant vigilance. Orpheus had always presumed Duluth a gentle giant, born into his muteness, not made that way.

Then he thought of the man sitting at the table that first day he arrived in Sanctuary—the emptiness of his gaze Orpheus had assumed was blindness. And he thought of the janitor always sweeping Sanctuary’s halls, empty of anything but the task assigned him. A walking corpse, Orpheus had thought, when reality was so much worse.

They’ve done this before. But Atticus wouldn’t—he can’t—