The mishap in the side chamber was like a bucket of icy water—shocking Eleanor into sharper clarity, tempering her into something colder still. She had played the role of a frail wife perfectly, earning a few days of gentler treatment from Nanny Martha and even a few kind words of consolation from Lady Anna. Yet deep within, that fleeting lapse had warned her: hatred is molten, and unless encased in the hardest shell, a single crack could unleash annihilation.
So she grew even quieter, more observant. She needed more information. She needed to understand her enemies—and just as much, to understand the machine she had to manipulate in order to survive and to take her revenge. Especially the hidden gears that turned beneath sacred doctrines, the ugly truths dressed up as divine order.
The opportunity arrived soon enough.Father Pete returned from his illness, but his hands trembled too much for paperwork. The clerks had grown accustomed to Eleanor's silent efficiency, and so they began entrusting her with minor archival work—dusty records and outdated lists no one else cared for. To others, these documents were refuse. To Eleanor, they were windows into the inner workings of power.
In one stack of drafts marked for destruction, she found fragments of heavily amended disciplinary records. They concerned a deceased bishop's former valet, who had accused the man of "inappropriate familiarity" and hinted at "rumors harmful to the church's dignity." In the resolution column, only one line had been scrawled: "As evidence is insufficient and the involved parties are no longer present, the matter shall not be pursued. Records destroyed."
Eleanor stared at the words for a long while.Look at this, whispered a voice in her ice-bound heart, mocking. A man's appetites—even when draped in a bishop's robes—are dismissed with a neat not pursued and destroy the record. But she and Seraphina, who had harmed no one, who had only loved beneath the light of day—had been branded with fire as witches. How many such hidden channels twisted beneath this holy edifice, sluices opened only for certain men?
She slipped the sheet back among the pile marked for burning, as though she had never seen it.
Another day, she overheard two clerks muttering about an ill-tempered priest."…always scolding the choirboys, puts his hands on them whenever he pleases…""Shh. Keep your voice down. Hans was reassigned to the storeroom just for saying something similar. The higher-ups insist that Father Camilo is old and has served the Church for decades. A few indiscretions are nothing to fuss over. Better to preserve his dignity."
A few indiscretions. Nothing to fuss over. Preserve his dignity.
Each phrase pricked into Eleanor's chest like an icicle. When it was men—priests, especially those with rank—crossing boundaries, it was treated as minor. To be shielded for the sake of dignity. But when it was women—women like her and Seraphina, powerless, voiceless—suddenly it became a crime against God, a sin demanding fire. The double standard curdled her stomach with nausea.
And she began to see Lucien's terror more clearly. He feared disgrace, the stripping away of his position, the ruin of his reputation. A heavy fear, yes—but nothing compared to the raw, burning fear of death that she and Seraphina had known. The institution's rot was always gentler to its own worms.
These discoveries did not breed despair. They sharpened her purpose. Lydia was her enemy, yes—but the true adversary was larger: this entire edifice of hypocrisy, a system that judged men and women with different scales, hiding behind scripture. Eleanor would learn its rules, its weaknesses, its secrets, and she would make them turn against it.
While she sifted through icy records, gossip reached her from Lady Marjorie, whose sharp tongue was as quick as her needle."…I hear that red-haired Miss Lydia Fleming is positively radiant these days," Marjorie said, lips curling as she stitched. "She's attending every salon, charming the wives of several inquisitors no less. Knows exactly how to climb."
Lydia.Eleanor's hands remained steady with the thread, but her heart skipped a beat. Lydia was thriving, weaving her web, consolidating power. This proved Eleanor's suspicion: Lydia's betrayal had never been a whim. It was deliberate, strategic, long in the making.
And then came word of Gabriel Thorne."That wastrel dueled again," sighed Lady Anna. "Left his opponent wounded, had to pay dearly to settle the matter. He's squandering what little remains of his family's fortune."
A ruined knight. Desperate for money, desperate for dignity. Eleanor filed the thought neatly away. Gabriel's weakness was plain as daylight.
As for Lucien, after his panic over the tea-room incident had ebbed, he seemed almost relieved that Eleanor hadn't pressed him further. But he grew more sullen, more shadowed, flinching at every rumor of increased Inquisitorial patrols. He had cut visible ties with Gabriel, yet the dread in his eyes proved he hadn't truly severed what bound them.
Beneath the calm surface, currents shifted.
Eleanor Croft—the revenant cloaked in a forgettable wife's body—was assembling a map. She sifted carefully: the institution's hypocrisies, her enemies' maneuvers, her potential pawns' vulnerabilities. Piece by piece, the design of power and rot came into focus.
And in her hand, the first token lay waiting: Lucien Croft, fearful and weak, already trembling on the board.
It was time to nudge him—toward the currents he dreaded most.
She needed entry to a trial. Not as a spectator. But as the assistant to a recorder.