The note containing Jun-Ho Park's address was warm in Catherine's hand, but an icy sweat trickled down her back. Victory tasted of ashes. She had retrieved her lead, but at what cost?
The chessboard no longer had two colors, but three, and two of them were targeting her.
The Rook, with his psychic spy, Soren. And now, the Church, with its fanatic Inquisitor, Brother Micah.
She locked herself in her library, her violated sanctuary, and tried to think. Panic was a luxury she could not afford. She forced her mind into the coldness of analysis.
The first, most urgent problem: the Church.
The fact that Brother Micah had picked up the scorched sycamore leaf was no accident.
It was a message. The Church had its own methods of investigation, and if an Inquisitor was capable of sensing the trace of an aborted plan, it meant they had a trail that led directly to Rick. Rick, the street urchin, the innocent spy.
What did Rick know?
Not much. The name of an establishment, The Gilded Cage.
Catherine's face, but her face as Cat, the girl from the slums, not that of the Magistrate's Oracle. However, under the torture of an Inquisitor, this fragmented information could be enough to trace back to her. Inquisitors were experts at assembling the pieces of broken puzzles. Rick was a loose thread, a liability, a weakness.
Her first thought was to save him, to find a way to get him out of the city.
But how? Any communication was risky. Trying to contact him would be to potentially lead him straight into a trap set by the Church, or to attract Soren's attention. She was trapped, unable to act directly.
Another, colder, darker thought then crept into her mind. The thought of the predator. In a war, you cauterize wounds to prevent the gangrene from spreading. You cut off infected limbs. Rick was a wound. A wound that threatened to fester and destroy her entire operation.
The face of her sister, Anne, came back to her.
A five-year-old girl, consumed by flames. The hatred she felt for The Rook rose up in her, a wave of white-hot fire.
She would let nothing and no one stand in the way of her vengeance.
Not even her own conscience. Not even the life of another child. The pain for the one became the ruthless justification for the sacrifice of the other.
It was monstrous, and she knew it. But in this world, monsters survived. Saints ended up on the pyre.
The decision left her empty and glacial. She had to eliminate the threat that Rick represented. But she couldn't do it herself. She would have to, once again, use the hand of her lover.
This time, the performance she prepared for Valerius was the most difficult of her life.
She didn't just have to act; she had to push her acting to its darkest extremes, to manipulate him into ordering the death of an innocent.
When he joined her, she was in a feigned state of trance, trembling, her eyes fixed on an invisible point.
"Catherine?" he said, his voice full of genuine concern. "Are the spirits tormenting you again?"
"Worse," she gasped, turning to him, her face contorted by a fear she drew directly from the memory of her own terror. "The leaf… the ritual… it was a trap! A trick of dark forces!"
"What? The Inquisitor?"
"Him, or others. They sensed my power. They tried to corrupt my ritual."
She gripped his arm, her nails digging into the velvet of his sleeve. "The boy, Magistrate… the boy I saw in a vision, Rick… I thought his innocence was a key, but I was wrong.
It was bait! He is not innocent. He is… tainted. An open door. A conduit through which these rival powers can observe you, you!"
She had turned the situation around. It was no longer about her, but about the Magistrate's safety. She had transformed Rick, a street urchin, into a mystical threat against one of the most powerful men in the city.
Valerius's face darkened. Fear and paranoia overcame his desire. The idea that someone could be spying on him through a mystical channel he did not understand terrified him.
"A conduit? What must be done?"
Catherine looked at him, her eyes filled with feigned tears. "This door… must be closed. The link must be severed. Permanently. As long as that boy breathes, he is a breach in your spiritual defenses. They can see everything. Our plans. Our secrets. Our… intimacy."
The last word was the final blow. The idea that Inquisitors or other mages could be observing his most private moments with his Oracle was an unbearable violation of his ego.
"I see," he said, his voice now hard as stone. He turned away from her and walked to the door. He did not ring for a servant. He called directly for his most trusted and lethal instrument.
"Kenji!"
The captain appeared almost instantly, silent and attentive.
"There is a street urchin, an orphan named Rick. He loiters near the Serpent's Coil. He represents a threat to the security of this house and to my person. Find him."
Valerius paused, his gaze meeting Catherine's, who held her mask of a terrified victim. "And ensure that he can never again serve as a conduit for anyone. Be discreet."
Kenji asked no questions. He showed no emotion. He simply bowed. "As you command, Magistrate."
Then he was gone.
Catherine remained motionless, listening to the sound of Kenji's fading footsteps. She had just ordered the death of a child who had trusted her, and she had done it using the man who slept in her bed. She felt nothing. No guilt. No remorse. Just the icy cold of a problem being solved. A threat eliminated. A loose thread cut.
She walked slowly back to the reading table. She picked up the note Mathieu had left, the paper that had caused so much chaos. She unfolded it, smoothing the edges.
Jun-Ho Park. Landlord, 17 Spinners' Alley, Weavers' District.
She had the address. Her quest for vengeance could continue. The price for this information was a boy's life. A price she had paid without hesitation.
She whispered to herself in the silence of the library, her voice empty of all emotion.
"One less loose thread. Now, for the captain."