Paranoia is a cage whose bars are made of doubt. Catherine, for the first time, felt herself locked in such a prison.
The library, her sanctuary, now seemed to have invisible windows through which a cold eye could spy on her at any moment.
Every creak of the manor's floorboards, every distant whisper from a servant, became a potential threat. She, who had made a weapon of reading the secrets of others, was now terrified by the idea that her own thoughts could be read.
The threat of Soren, The Rook's "Confessor," had changed the rules of the game.
She spent the following day in near-total stillness, fighting the urge to cast out her consciousness to follow Mathieu. It was torture.
Operating blind was contrary to her nature, but using her powers risked once again attracting the attention of that psychic hunter.
She forced herself to trust the plan, the loyalty of her agent, and the sturdiness of the instructions she had given him.
She spent hours reading Valerius's books, not for their occult knowledge, but to force herself into a state of mental discipline, to occupy her mind with the cold logic of commercial law and history a bulwark against the fear that threatened to overwhelm her.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Mathieu was living through the most terrifying hours of his life.
The drawing of the rook and the certainty of having been chosen by his Oracle had instilled in him an audacity he never thought possible, but this audacity was a thin veneer over the soul of a bureaucrat kneaded with fear. Armed with his new mission
"Jun-Ho Park. Former Captain. Locate him. Dead or alive." he dove into the administrative bowels of the City Watch.
He knew a direct search would be suspicious.
So, he used cunning. He initiated a routine archival audit, a process so boring that no one ever paid it any mind, using the pretext of verifying pension records for veterans.
This was his domain: bureaucracy. He drowned his true search in an ocean of legitimate paperwork. For hours, he consulted hundreds of files, his heart pounding every time another clerk walked past his desk.
Every glance was a potential accusation, every question about his work, an interrogation.
The threads of his own fear were a black and vibrating tangle, but the golden thread of his devotion to Catherine kept him focused, an anchor in his personal storm.
He was looking for one name in a sea of names, a man who had retired almost thirty years ago.
The archives from that period were poorly kept, the inks faded, the parchments brittle.
Finally, after a full day of methodical searching, he found it. The file was thin, innocuous.
Park, Jun-Ho.
Captain of the Watch, 3rd Precinct. The report indicated an exemplary career, punctuated by citations for bravery.
Then, a surprising note.
Just one year after the Great Dock Fire, Captain Park, then at the height of his career, had requested early retirement, citing nervous exhaustion and a desire for tranquility. The request had been approved with unusual speed.
Mathieu's heart accelerated.
There it was.
The first crack. Such a decorated man does not retire for "exhaustion." He dug further, into the financial records of the Watch. Park's pension was standard. But by cross-referencing the information with the city's land registries an access his status at the Scriptorium afforded him he found the missing piece.
Six months after his retirement, Jun-Ho Park, a man with a modest captain's salary, had paid cash for an entire block of tenements in the working-class, ill-reputed Weavers' District. A district the common folk, in their colorful language, ironically nicknamed The Rook's Nest, due to its proximity to The Rook's dockside activities.
A chill ran down Mathieu's spine.
The corrupt captain hadn't fled. He hadn't squandered his money. He had invested it, becoming a reclusive landlord in the very shadow of the man who had paid him. And the last entry in the registry indicated he was still the owner and primary resident of one of the buildings.
He was alive.
He was there.
Night had fallen when Mathieu left the Scriptorium, the piece of parchment on which he had noted the address burning in his pocket.
He crossed the city, every shadow seeming like a threat. He finally arrived at the Square of Scriptures, now deserted and swept by a cold wind. The site of his first meeting with Her.
Heart pounding, he approached the third marble bench.
He looked around. The square was empty. Feeling both ridiculous and like an actor in a sacred drama, he bent down and slid his fingers under the bench until he found the loose stone.
He deposited his note, then put the stone back in place.
An immense relief washed over him. Mission accomplished. He stood up, dusted himself off, and turned to head home.
As he walked away, he felt a sudden cold on the back of his neck, as if a winter wind had abruptly picked up. He glanced over his shoulder. Nothing. Just the empty, silent square. He quickened his pace, attributing the chill to fatigue and fear.
On the other side of the city, in her library, Catherine could resist no longer.
The need to know was stronger than the fear of being seen.
She risked a single, brief projection of her consciousness, a vision targeted not on Mathieu, but on the hiding spot itself, at the precise moment she sensed he must be there.
She saw the scene.
She saw Mathieu's hand place the note. She felt his fervor and his relief. And then, she saw something else.
The black thread.
It was there. Cold, thin, clinical. It was not attached to Mathieu, nor to her. It was attached to the message itself, to the piece of parchment.
The unknown observer, Soren, hadn't followed her. He hadn't followed Mathieu. He had followed the information. He had tagged the first message, the drawing of the rook, and had waited to see where it would lead.
The dead drop was compromised.
Her agent was identified. And the enemy now knew that they were communicating.
Catherine severed the contact, her breath short, a cold sweat beading on her forehead. She had made a mistake. She had underestimated the subtlety of her opponent. She had just led her most loyal pawn directly into the hawk's gaze.