The map of Gotham lay sprawled across Jonathan's desk, corners weighted down with mugs and old books.
The flicker of a lantern cast its uneven glow, throwing
shifting shadows across the tattered parchment.
Jonathan had traced the burned blocks of Brewer's Row in thick charcoal. Beside them, he marked the locations of the ritual murders from police records, the alleys where bodies had been
found, the crypt where the Harbinger had first appeared.
At first st glance, it was chaos dots ßcattered across the city like blood on broken glass. But the longer he stared, the clearer it became.
"They form a circle," Jonathan muttered under his breath.
Isadora leaned over his shoulder, her hand resting lightly on the desk. "Not a perfect one," she said. "But close enough. Like someone's… drawing on the city itself."
Jonathan éxhaled sharply. "Sacrifice points. Fires, bodies, warnings all of them feeding ínto a shape. A ritual map."
Crane, ßitting slouched against the wall with a half-drunk flask, frowned. "You're saying someone's turning Gotham into a giant altar?"
Jonathan looked him in the eye. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
The theory gnawed at him for days. Each new crime reported seemed to align with the widening circle: a fire in South Docks, a body pulled from the canal near founders' Bridge, the sudden vanishing of three children in Miller's End.
Every piece fit too neatly.
Scrap, perched on a stool, pointed to the center of the drawn circle. "Here. Old Gotham Square. That's where the circle closes."
Jonathan felt a chill. The square was Gotham's beating heart the courthouse, the mayor's office, the cathedral all looming there.
If the pattern was truly ritual, then the final act would not be hidden in shadows or alleys. It would be staged for the city
to feel.
That evening, Jonathan met quietly with William Ashford, the journalist.
Ashford's office was crammed with ink-stained papers and the smell of lamp oil. He listened intently as Jonathan laid out the map.
Ashford's eyes widened. "You've just confirmed what I've suspected for years." He pulled open a drawer, scattering loose pages. "Old plans of Gotham. Early maps, older than this city hall." He laid them side by side with Jonathan's chart.
The resemblance was uncanny. The founding families had plotted Gotham's earliest streets in a radial design spokes
converging on Gotham Square.
"It was built for it," Ashford whispered. "A ritual city. Not just by accident. By intent."
Jonathan's jaw tightened. "The founders were in on it."
Ashford nodded grimly. "And their descendants still are. I've tracked names, records, inheritances. The same bloodlines sit in power the Blackthorns, the Graye family, even the Vale name. They built thisplace with sacrifice as mortar."
Jonathan clenched his fists. "Then it's no longer just a murder investigation. It's a war against the very bones of Gotham."
But even as Jonathan's resolve hardened, doubt spread like mold through his allies.
Crane grew restless. "We're chasing ghosts, Wayne. A circle, feathers, some priest muttering doom it's all smoke. And if
you keep pushing, the Chief's gonna hang you for insubordination."
Jonathan turned on him. "You've seen the bodies. The fires. You think that's chance?"
Crane drank deep from his flask, eyes weary. "I think Gotham's always been rotten. You're not gonna purify a sewer by digging deeper into it."
The words stung more than Jonathan expected.
That night, Jonathan walked alone through Gotham Square. The air reeked of coal smoke and damp stone.
Gaslamps glimmered faintly against the looming figures of
the courthouse and cathedral.
He stood at the center, imagining the circle closing in, picturing the rituals hidden in basements, in tunnels beneath the cobblestones.
He felt small, like a man staring up at a stormcloud that had been gathering for centuries.
"Feels heavy, doesn't it?"
Jonathan spun.
A woman leaned against a lamppost Kora Wells, the East End bartender, her eyes sharp and knowing.
"You've been looking in the wrong places," she said coolly. "The Owe don't just kill and burn. They recruit. They whisper. And the circle you're tracing? It's not just for sacrifice. It's for binding."
Jonathan's brow furrowed. "Binding what?"
Kora's smirk was grim. "Power. The kind you can't unmake. Gotham itself." She leaned closer, her voice low. "You want the truth, you'll have to walk into their circle.
But once you step in, you may not walk back out."
Jonathan held her gaze. "Then tell me where to start."
Kora slipped a folded scrap of paper into his hand. "The Owe meet at the old grain tunnels beneath the docks. Midnight, two nights from now. You didn't hear it from me."
When jonathan looked down to unfold it, she was already gone.
At home, Jonathan spread the note beside the map.
The circle's lines seemed to grow darker in the lanternlight, as though the city itself was daring him
forward.
Isadora entered, her hair undone, her face pale from worry. "Jon, if you keep chasing this, it won't just be you in danger. It'll be us. Me. Abe. Everyone you love."
Jonathan turned to her, his voice steady but hollow. "It already is."
Later, in the silence of the house, Jonathan couldn't sleep. He stepped onto the porch, watching Gotham's skyline chimneys coughing black smoke, towers rising like jagged teeth.
The wind carried ash even here, tiny flecks that clung to his coat.
Above, a single crow circled against the moonlight, its wings black against the pale glow.
It cawed once, sharp and echoing, before flying toward the square.
Jonathan gripped the railing. The circle was growing. And soon, it would close.