Three days after the dead drop, Corrine appears at our hotel in Lyon.

  The intelligence we retrieved has been spread across every surface in our room—pages of names, schedules, locations. Mei has been analyzing it methodically, building connections I would have missed, while I've been watching the streets below for any sign that the congregation knows we accessed their network. So far, nothing. The custodian either didn't report us, or Ashworth hasn't acted yet.

  Either way, we don't have much time.

  Corrine arrives at dusk, dressed in traveling clothes, a single bag over her shoulder. Her face is pale but composed, her gray-green eyes steady as they meet mine across the small room. She's cut her hair shorter since we left the village—a practical choice, or perhaps a symbolic one. Shedding the last traces of the governess she pretended to be.

  "The Beaumonts think I've gone to visit a sick aunt in Marseille," she says by way of greeting. "I have two weeks before they expect me back."

  "Two weeks is enough." Mei gestures to a chair. "Sit. We have plans to discuss."

  Corrine sits. I watch her take in the room—the maps spread across the bed, the documents pinned to the walls, the careful organization of a hunt in progress. Her expression doesn't change, but I see her hands tighten briefly on the arms of her chair.

  "You've been busy," she says.

  "The dead drop provided excellent intelligence." I tap one of the documents—Ashworth's schedule, marked with times and locations in Mei's precise handwriting. "His movements over the next month. His security arrangements. The locations of his safe houses across the region."

  "Then you're going after him."

  "We're going after him. All three of us." I meet her eyes. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? To be there when we take them down?"

  Something flickers in her expression—surprise, maybe, or something more complicated. "I didn't think you'd actually—"

  "You passed the test. Your information was good." I pause, let the words sink in. "That earns you a place at the table. But understand this—if you hesitate at the wrong moment, if you can't do what needs to be done, you'll get us all killed. I won't carry someone who can't carry their weight."

  "I can carry my weight."

  "We'll see."

  We travel by carriage to a village outside Lyon, where Mei maintains a safe house.

  Our journey takes most of a day. The roads wind through countryside that's preparing for winter—bare orchards, dormant vineyards, fields stubbled with the remains of harvested crops. The air is cold enough to see our breath, cold enough to make the marks against my ribcage pulse in response to the moisture.

  Corrine sits across from me, watching the passing scenery with an expression I can't quite read. She's been quiet since we left the city—withdrawn, thoughtful. Processing everything that's happened, perhaps. Or preparing herself for what's coming.

  "You're staring," she says without looking at me.

  Heat rises to my face—an unfamiliar sensation. When did I last feel embarrassed? When did I last feel anything this... simple?

  "I'm wondering what you're thinking."

  "I'm thinking about the last time I traveled through France." She turns from the window, meets my eyes. "Six years ago. Running from Celeste, from Ashworth, from everything I'd ever known. I took routes like this—back roads, small villages, places where strangers didn't ask questions."

  "Were you scared?"

  "Terrified. Every day, I expected to see them behind me. Every night, I dreamed about what they'd do when they caught me." She pauses. "But I'm not scared now. Isn't that strange?"

  "Maybe. Or maybe it's just that you're not running anymore."

  "No. I'm not." She almost smiles. "I'm hunting instead. That changes things."

  Our carriage jolts over a rough patch of road. We both grab for the handholds, our fingers brushing. Neither of us pulls away immediately. Contact is fleeting, but the marks go still beneath my ribs. That strange quiet that I'm beginning to associate with her presence. The locket pulses once against my chest—the same stillness, the same unexplained silence. Two quietings now, two things I don't understand. When we finally separate, I find I'm reluctant to let go. Something is happening between us, something I don't have a name for yet.

  "The congregation trains its people to run," Mei says from her seat by the window. "When threatened, when cornered—run. Hide. Survive. They don't train people to fight back."

  "They never imagined anyone would need to," Corrine says. "The congregation seemed rather invincible. Too powerful, too well-connected, too deeply embedded to be seriously threatened."

  "Until now."

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  "Until now." She looks at me. "You've changed their calculations. For the first time in decades—maybe centuries—they're actually afraid. The Tide is something they never planned for, never prepared for. And they don't know how to respond."

  I turn to look out my own window, watching the countryside roll past. The congregation has existed for centuries, feeding children to the Deep One in exchange for... what? Power? Knowledge? The favor of something that doesn't care about human concerns? I've never understood what they think they're getting from the bargain. Maybe that's because there is nothing to understand. Maybe they're just mad, all of them, driven by faith in something that answers their prayers with silence and their sacrifices with indifference.

  Or maybe they know something I don't. Something that makes the horror worth it, in their minds.

  We stop at an inn in Beaune to change horses and gather supplies.

  It's a small place—half a dozen rooms above a common room that smells of wood smoke and roasting meat. The kind of establishment that caters to travelers who want a hot meal and a dry bed without too many questions asked.

  The marks prickle as we enter. Not the sharp warning of immediate danger—something subtler. A suggestion of wrongness, like a note played slightly off-key. And beneath it, something else: an awareness of the people in the room, their positions, their heartbeats. I know there are fourteen people here before I've counted them. Know the man by the fire is dangerous before I've looked at him.

  That's new. I file it away, uncertain what it means.

  "Keep your heads down," Mei murmurs as we approach the counter. "Order food. Nothing memorable."

  The innkeeper takes our money without comment, gestures toward an empty table in the corner. We take it. Position ourselves with our backs to the wall, sight lines to both doors.

  And one other.

  He's sitting alone near the fire, nursing a glass of wine that he hasn't touched in the twenty minutes since we arrived. His clothes mark him as a merchant—traveling coat, quality boots, the grooming of someone who does business with respectable people. But his eyes are wrong. Too still. Too watchful. The eyes of someone cataloging every face in the room.

  "Don't look at him," Corrine breathes. "Near the fire. Gray coat."

  "I see him."

  "He's congregation. The way he's sitting—the angle of his attention. They teach it. How to watch without being obvious."

  "How sure are you?"

  "Certain." Her voice has gone flat. Controlled. "I spent sixteen years learning to read those signals. He's one of them."

  I let my gaze drift across the room, casual, unremarkable. The man near the fire continues his patient vigil.

  "He's not here for us specifically," Mei says quietly. "He'd have reinforcements if he were. This is surveillance—watching the road, noting travelers, reporting anything unusual."

  "We're three women traveling together. That's unusual."

  "Unusual but not unprecedented." She pauses. "Unless he recognizes Corrine."

  I look at Corrine. She's kept her face turned away from the fire, but she's visibly tense—her shoulders rigid, her breathing shallow.

  "Can you relax?" I ask.

  "I'm trying."

  "Try harder. He hasn't identified us yet. But if you keep acting like someone who expects to be caught—"

  "Yes." She takes a breath. Forces her shoulders down. "It's just—six years. Six years of running, and they're still everywhere."

  "You're not alone anymore." The words come out soft. "Whatever happens, we handle it together."

  The stew arrives. We eat without tasting it. The man near the fire watches without appearing to watch. When we finally rise to leave, I make a point of laughing at something Mei says. Just three women, traveling together, nothing unusual at all.

  The man doesn't follow us out.

  But the encounter settles into my mind, heavy and inescapable. They're watching the roads. The congregation's net is wider than I thought.

  Our safe house is small, isolated, surrounded by dormant fields.

  No neighbors close enough to hear anything. The kind of place where three women could disappear for weeks without anyone noticing.

  We establish a routine within the first day. Mei analyzes intelligence. Corrine provides context. And I train.

  Corrine needs to learn to fight. Not the careful violence I've been taught—there isn't time for that. But enough to defend herself. Enough to not be a liability.

  "Your stance is wrong," I tell her on the second day. We're in the barn behind the house, the cold seeping through the walls. "You're putting your weight on your heels. One good push and you'll fall."

  She adjusts. Better, but still not right.

  "The congregation doesn't train its women to fight," she replies. There's bitterness in her voice. "We're supposed to be subtle. Manipulative. The knife in the dark, not the sword in the light."

  "Then we'll teach you the sword." I demonstrate the stance again. "Most confrontations are won before anyone throws a punch. If you look like you know what you're doing, people hesitate."

  "And if they don't hesitate?"

  "Then you use the techniques I'm about to show you. Find the soft spots—eyes, throat, groin. Don't fight fair."

  She practices. Hour after hour. By the end of the first week, she's moved from hopeless to adequate. Not good—that would take years—but adequate.

  At night, we plan.

  Night before she goes into Ashworth's compound, Corrine finds me on the roof.

  I've been sitting there for hours, watching the stars, feeling the marks hum in my chest. The cold doesn't bother me anymore—another change, another sign that I'm becoming something other than human.

  "You should be sleeping," she says, climbing up to sit beside me.

  "So should you."

  "I can't. Every time I close my eyes, I see the monastery. The walls, the guards, all the things that could go wrong." She pulls her coat tighter. "I keep wondering if I'm making a mistake."

  "Do you want to back out?"

  "No." The word comes quickly. "I'm tired of being safe. I'm tired of hiding. At least this way, I'm choosing my own fate."

  "That's not nothing."

  "No. It's not." She turns to face me, her gray-green eyes bright in the starlight. "Eleanor—if something goes wrong tomorrow. If I don't come back—"

  "Don't."

  "I need to say this." Her voice is steady. "If I don't come back, I want you to know that this was worth it. Being part of this. Fighting back instead of running."

  "You'll come back."

  "Probably. But if I don't—don't blame yourself. Don't let it stop you. Finish what you started. Burn them all down."

  I look at her—at the fear she's trying to hide, at the courage she's found beneath the guilt and grief. At the void in her eyes that matches mine.

  "I'll burn them all down," I say. "With or without you."

  "Good." She almost smiles. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear."

  We sit in silence, watching the stars, until the cold drives us back inside. But something has shifted between us. Something I don't have a name for yet.

  Something dangerous.

  Her shoulder presses against mine as we climb down from the roof. A small touch, probably meaningless. But I find myself wanting more of it. Wanting the warmth of another person against the cold that's taken root in my bones.

  That's the dangerous part. Not the monastery. Not the guards. Not even Ashworth himself.

  The dangerous part is that I might be starting to care whether I survive this.

  And caring makes you careless.

  Which is why I almost miss the figure in the treeline below—a silhouette that doesn't belong, watching our rooftop with the patience of a hunter who has finally found his prey