The broom was crude—more a bundle of thorny fibers lashed to a splintered stick than a proper tool. Its bristles scratched against the stone like sandpaper across bone. Erasmus had found it buried in the depths of what could charitably be called a storage nook in the church—a pocket of shadow too shallow for a man to hide in, too narrow to store anything of substance. Not a room. A crevice. A place built for secrets, not supplies.
He swept anyway.
With slow, rhythmic movements, he cleared the dust that caked the stone floor like a second skin. He brushed past shattered bits of glass beneath the arched window, dragging them into a pile that whispered of old hymns and forgotten prayers.
The sick sunlight—what little refracted through the thick clouds overhead—cast no warmth through the ruined panes. Even so, Erasmus worked in silence, brushing the floor of a godless church with the kind of care one might give to sacred ground.
He could not mend the cracks in the walls, nor repair the fractured bones of the floor. But he could make it clean. He could make it believable. And sometimes, belief was enough.
The presence watching him had returned ever since he woke up in the Court. Erasmus had already come up with some possibilities as to what it was but he was going to wait first if it was going to do something. He could feel it like fingers brushing the nape of his neck, like eyes just out of sight. It wasn't just a feeling. It was pressure. Purpose. Surveillance with teeth.
Erasmus knew what he was: a trespasser. A stowaway. At the bottom of the hierarchy and already poking around where he shouldn't be. But sometimes things had to be poked, and this was one of them.
His victory over the Circular Vacuum had been circumstantial, not miraculous. An absurdly favorable matchup. Nothingness was fragile—paradoxically so. Any intrusion, any substance, anything that was simply by existing could unravel its principle. A void couldn't handle contradiction. And Erasmus could bring in contradiction to a canvas that was just begging to be used. It was like painting color onto pure white.
Only because the entity had stopped watching him for that one critical moment did he dare press so far with Weight of Judgment. That, and the weakness of his opponent. No glory. Just timing. Just clarity. Just an opportunity.
Now, however, danger still stalked the wind, and Erasmus had no intention of squandering this rare moment of peace—the first true breath since his arrival.
The Circular Vacuum, now a simple sphere, occasionally hummed with a low pulse but there were no observable threats of danger. He was also going to experiment with it when he had time, but now was not the moment.
There was a guest waiting for him.
Erasmus set the broom aside, resting it against a jagged strip of wall where faded scripture had once clung. He approached the door. The aged wood croaked as he pulled it open, its hinges shrieking like they, too, remembered a time when this place had been pure.
Outside, the boy from earlier was standing on tiptoe, trying desperately to peer through one of the church's high-set windows. His ragged clothes sagged off his too-thin frame, and every time he stretched higher, he nearly fell over.
The moment he saw Erasmus, he dropped to his knees with the weight of a falling star.
"Please forgive this insolent one, oh Merciful Prophet!" the boy cried, forehead pressed to the dusty ground.
Erasmus stepped forward with a smile so gentle it could've calmed tempests. He approached like dawn breaking over night-choked land, his golden crow-mask turning darker by the oppressing deep grey clouds above.
"No need to apologize," he said softly, his voice slipping past the boy's fear like balm. "In fact… I have a task for you. One bestowed by the Ascendant Himself."
The boy's eyes widened like suns. He stumbled to his feet as if electrified.
"Oh! What has the Great One asked this mortal?" he asked, chest puffed with sudden purpose.
Erasmus tilted his head and spoke clearly, deliberately—each word a spark struck into waiting tinder.
"He has asked you to gather everyone. Bring them here, to this church. We must discuss our next steps in His divine plan. He would be greatly pleased if all came to listen."
He leaned in slightly, voice lowering with urgency.
"And if I were you, boy… and I wanted to save my mother…"
The boy didn't wait to hear the rest. He turned and ran, his bare feet slapping against the stone, tears streaming from joy, fear, or faith—perhaps all three. He didn't notice the golden beak-mask that had mysteriously formed on Erasmus' face, nor question its origin. His excitement outpaced logic.
As Erasmus stepped back inside, the door—long feeble—groaned, then collapsed from its hinges completely. He stared at it for a second, then calmly picked it up and propped it back into place. It hung askew, like a broken shield against a siege no one had declared.
"I'll have to make do with what I have already," he muttered to himself.
He looked around the dusty interior. It was still cracked. Still broken. Still crumbling.
But it was at least more credible now.
It didn't have to gleam. Just convince.
It just had to be decent. Something he could work with.
A few small and simple improvements could go a long way.