Catherine's blood ran cold in her veins.
The triumphant certainty she had felt a few hours prior had morphed into a cold, suffocating horror. The image of the thin, clinical black thread attached to Mathieu's note was engraved in her mind.
It was the equivalent of a spymaster realizing that all her codes had been broken, that all her communications were being read by the enemy. Her first network, so proudly and so freshly woven, was already infested by the parasite of enemy surveillance. Mathieu, her most crucial pawn, was exposed.
She began to pace her library, a predator suddenly aware that she herself was in a cage.
The silence and security of the room had become a mockery. She was isolated, and her only link to the outside world, Mathieu, was now compromised. Exposed. The enemy knew his face, his name, and his connection to the Square of Scriptures.
The first thought that came to her was cold, ruthless, a survival reflex inherited from the alleys. Sacrifice the pawn. Mathieu was a tool.
A damaged tool is a liability. To let him be captured, to abandon him to his fate, to sever all ties. It was the logical decision. The decision of the Spider's Way.
But another, more complex thought surfaced. Mathieu wasn't just a pawn. He was her only field agent. He was her eyes and hands in the Scriptorium.
And the note he had just deposited contained the name of Jun-Ho Park, her first tangible lead toward The Rook, toward vengeance for the murder of her family.
To sacrifice Mathieu was to sacrifice that lead, perhaps forever. That was a luxury she could not afford. The cold logic of strategy clashed with the burning impatience of her new vengeance.
And then, there was the cost.
She had made a promise to Mathieu, a promise of power and partnership. To betray him so quickly, to throw him to the wolves after his first successful mission… it set a precedent.
What kind of goddess would she be if she did not protect her faithful? Her future "Red Light District" could not be built on a foundation of betraying her own.
The decision was made, not out of sentiment, but out of a long-term calculation. Mathieu was too valuable an asset to be abandoned. The information was too vital to be lost. She had to intervene.
But how? She couldn't leave. Kenji was watching. And even if she could, going to the Square of Scriptures would be walking into an obvious trap.
Soren, the Confessor, was certainly observing the location. She needed a third party, an unsuspected and disposable agent. She needed a new plan.
She spent the rest of the day perfecting her new performance. This would not be the troubled Oracle, but the Oracle whose vision was on the verge of a breakthrough, a vision that required one final, strange ritual.
That evening, she did not go to Valerius's study.
She waited for him in her apartments, near the hearth, her face taut with a focus that seemed to be consuming her. When he entered, she didn't even seem to notice him at first.
"Catherine?" he called, his voice a mixture of impatience and a hint of concern.
She started, her eyes fixing on him as if she were returning from a very distant place.
"The boy… Leo… he brought the ingredients," she said, her voice urgent.
"But it is not enough. The vision is incomplete. The knot of destiny in the square… I misinterpreted it. It was not an object I needed to seek there. It is a message."
"A message?" Valerius repeated, perplexed.
"Yes. A message left by the echoes themselves.
An answer to my query. It is there, I feel it. Beneath a stone, near the third bench.
I must retrieve it to finalize the ritual that will reveal your enemies' weaknesses to you. But…" She paused dramatically.
"It is protected. Spirit guardians watch over it. I cannot approach it myself; my power would interfere. My instrument, Mathieu, is already on another trail for me. Someone else must go. Someone whose strength and authority can impress the spirit guardians and retrieve the message without corrupting it."
She looked at him, her eyes shining with absolute conviction.
She wasn't asking him to send a servant. She was asking him to send soldiers.
Valerius, caught up in her narrative, did not see the manipulation. He saw an opportunity. He was the only one who could provide the strength necessary to help his Oracle.
"My guards," he said, his chest puffing with pride.
"I will send Kenji and a squad. They are the best. They will retrieve your message from the spirits."
"Yes," Catherine whispered, as if the idea had just come to him.
"Kenji. His mind is disciplined as steel. The spirits will respect him. Tell him to retrieve the hidden note and bring it to me. Without reading it. That is crucial."
The plan was in motion. A risky plan.
She was sending Valerius's forces to meet The Rook's spies. What would happen? A confrontation? A discreet retreat from Soren? She didn't know. But either way, she would get the note.
Valerius gave his orders. Kenji, his face impassive, accepted the mission, however strange.
Catherine, from her velvet tower, waited.
The wait was an agony. She risked, once more, to probe the vicinity of the Square of Scriptures, as briefly as possible. She felt the presence of Kenji's squad approaching, an aura of cold, blue discipline. They were almost there.
Suddenly, another presence exploded into her vision.
It was not the cold, clinical black thread of Soren. It was something completely different. A pillar of burning white light. A pure, unbending energy, full of absolute certainty and a searing hatred for all forms of corruption. It was an aura of fanatic zeal.
She recognized it instinctively from the descriptions she had read in Valerius's books.
The signature of an adept of the Pathway of Judgement.
An Inquisitor from the Church of the Purifying Flame.
Catherine's breath caught.
Her diversion, her complex plan to pit two players against each other, had just been interrupted by the arrival of a third, the most unpredictable and dogmatic of all.
The Church was there. But why? Were they following her? Were they following The Rook? Or Mathieu?
The game had just become infinitely more complex. She was playing chess, but a bishop had just overturned the game board.