The climb looked shorter on the map.

  In practice, it was a steep, narrow path cut into the mountain's shoulder, the kind of route that punished anyone who tried to take it quickly. The city lights had long since fallen away behind us. The Grand Cathedral was a distant glow now, its terraces reduced to a pale smear against the dark.

  This pilgrim path was older than the road it branched from.

  Stone markers stood at irregur intervals along the ascent, each no higher than my knee, their surfaces worn smooth by weather and touch. Some bore shallow carvings, geometric and repetitive, their lines softened by centuries of fingers tracing them in passing. Others were bnk, repaired with different stone where cracks had been filled and filled again.

  Lumiere did not slow.

  Neither did I, really. Not until my lungs started to burn and the straps of my pack bit into my shoulders and I realized I had made a mistake not asking Lumiere to carry anything. By the time the path leveled into a stony shelf, my breath was ragged.

  Lumiere stopped at st, just inside the shadow of a cliff that rose like a wall. She turned, looking back down the path at me.

  "Are you sure you don't want me to help?" she asked.

  I was bent forward, hands braced on my knees, trying to breathe without sounding like I was dying. In my pack, our st-minute camping supplies shifted: rolled bnkets, dry ration bread, a small pot, flint, and a bundle of oiled cloth.

  I waved my hand unconvincingly. "I'm fine," I huffed. "Don't worry about me."

  Lumiere adjusted her grip on the satchel slung across her front. I knew what was in it without needing to ask.

  The writ, bearing the Synod's permission.

  Or, more accurately, their leash.

  We rounded the final bend.

  The shrine was little more than a recess cut into the stone, its edges squared with care. Inside, a sb served as an altar, its surface scarred by the marks of repeated use. Wax had dripped and hardened there, yered thin and uneven, scraped back and renewed countless times.

  Beyond it, the sealed entrance waited.

  The City of the Vaulted Dead did not announce itself with grandeur. It did not have gates like the cathedral. It did not have banners, or saints carved into the fa?ade with serene eyes and lifted hands.

  It had a wall.

  A smooth, dark pne of stone fitted into the cliff as if the mountain had grown a scar. A narrow ledge ran along its base, worn by time and the boots of the faithful. There were carvings, but they were older than the Church's aesthetic: geometric lines that suggested doors without offering handles, arches without openings, an idea of an entrance preserved like a memory.

  The air here was colder, sharper, as if we had stepped into a pocket the sun never reached. Wind moved along the cliff face, carrying with it a low, uneven sound that rose and fell without pattern. And something along with it.

  Voices.

  Raised voices.

  I straightened despite myself, my fatigue snapping into something cleaner. On the ledge, nternlight flickered across bodies drawn up in a hard knot. Doug and Dougs were there, their dark Night Warden cloaks thrown back, hands up as if they were trying to argue their way through the wall. Rocher stood between them and the padins, palms open, his posture the strained patience of a man attempting to hold a door closed against a stampede.

  One of the padins had his hand near his hilt. Another had stepped forward, blocking the line between the Night Wardens and the entrance with a calm that felt like provocation.

  Doug's voice carried first, loud and offended. "You can't just say no," he barked. "We have a sworn duty."

  "It's a mandate," Dougs added. "From the Crown Prince himself."

  "We're not the ones telling you," a padin said. "It is the order of the High Synod."

  He held something up. Paper, stiff with fresh wax, the sigil catching nternlight.

  Doug's shoulders rose, bristling.

  Rocher stepped between them, hands raised. "Stop. This isn't helping things."

  Doug pushed past him. A padin mirrored his movement. There wasn't enough room on the ledge for both men and their pride.

  A shadow detached itself from the path below and brushed past us with zy confidence.

  Evelyn.

  A dark cloak wrapped around her shoulders, her hood down, her hair loose and wind-tangled. She looked like she had just stepped out of a tavern.

  She took in the scene in one gnce. Doug's posture. Dougs's wounded indignation. Rocher's exhausted diplomacy. The padins' stillness.

  "Doug," she said finally. "Stand down."

  His mouth opened. Closed. He looked at her as if she had betrayed him personally.

  "But we're on duty," he said, weaker now. "We're supposed to protect..."

  "I said—stand down," she repeated.

  Dougs lifted a hand, hesitant. "Even if it's the will of the Church, we do not have to take orders from—"

  "But," Evelyn cut in, "you do take orders from me."

  Doug let out a harsh breath. "I don't understand. We didn't have such issues when we were Mercenaries. It's a change in title only."

  "But it's not just a title," a padin with amused eyes replied. "It's new management."

  Another padin spoke. His voice was older, steadier.

  "I'm afraid the exclusion holds for you as well, midy," he said.

  Evelyn turned her head toward him slowly. The nternlight hit her face and did not soften it.

  The padin held up the writ again.

  "The High Synod's writ forbids entry to Night Wardens," he said.

  He paused, almost polite.

  "Naturally, as their Guildmaster, that also applies to you."

  Evelyn's lips twitched, not quite a smile. Her hands lifted, palms out, empty.

  "As you can see, I've not come here to fight it," she said. She and Lumiere exchanged gnces. "I've seen the writ. I never had any intention of joining you."

  Doug looked outraged. Dougs looked confused.

  "I simply came by to wish my friends good luck."

  Evelyn let the st word sit there a moment. Then she tilted her head toward the padin with the writ.

  "You are the w in this city," she added mildly. "I understand what that means."

  Her gaze flicked to me, sharp.

  It was not a warning in words. It was a warning in the way her eyes held mine for a beat too long.

  These men are not on your side, that look said. Do not forget it.

  Then Evelyn dropped her hands and turned back to her men.

  "Doug. Dougs," she said, and there was iron in her voice now. "Let's be on our way."

  Doug took a half-step forward as if he meant to argue. Evelyn's stare pinned him.

  "You have other business," she said. "Attend to it."

  Doug's face reddened.

  Dougs nodded quickly, eager to obey now that obedience was simpler than confrontation. He grabbed Doug's sleeve.

  "Come on," he muttered. "It's probably... important. Probably."

  Doug yanked his arm free with offended dignity, but he did not step toward the padins again. He gnced once as if to say this wasn't over, and then he turned, stomping down the path with enough force to make his boots loud on the stone.

  Dougs followed, muttering under his breath. Something about unfairness. Something about not getting to see the inside of a sacred site.

  Their nternlight bobbed and diminished as they left. The ledge felt rger after they were gone.

  Evelyn followed behind them in short order. She turned and bowed, making a show of deference, before disappearing around the bend.

  Rocher watched her go, apology and gratitude tangled together.

  The older padin sighed and turned toward Lumiere and me. He set his ntern slightly higher, bringing us into clearer light, and for a moment I felt as if I had been pced on dispy.

  "We've been briefed on who all of you are," the older padin said. "But we had better introduce ourselves."

  He touched his fist to his chest in a gesture that was almost respectful.

  "Sir Ard," he said. "Padin of the Third Choir."

  The title meant little to me. The tone meant more. A man at the end of his service, or close to it. A rare elder in a profession where men died young.

  The padin with the faintly amused eyes stepped forward next, smiling as if he had been invited to a party.

  "Benet," he said, and his gaze slid too easily over Lumiere before nding on me. "Fourth Choir. It will be a pleasure to ensure your safety."

  I frowned at his tone. It held the sort of politeness that assumed its own welcome.

  "And this... is Sir Veyne," he continued, as if presenting an object. "He doesn't talk much."

  The standoffish one did not step forward as much as allow his name to be spoken. He had that look. The controlled distance. The suspicion dressed up as discipline.

  He looked away, uninterested. "Fifth Choir," he said ftly.

  The st padin hesitated a beat before speaking, as if he were unsure whether he was allowed.

  He was younger than the others. Not a boy, but young enough that his armor still seemed new on him, the straps not yet worn into the shape of his body. His gaze kept flicking, not nervous exactly, but alert in a way that suggested he had been taught to watch for mistakes and was terrified of committing one.

  "Sir Tomás," he said, stumbling over his own name. "Second Choir."

  He gnced at Lumiere as he spoke, then away, as if meeting her eyes directly would be disrespectful.

  Ard watched Tomás with something like weary fondness. Benet watched Tomás with amusement. Veyne did not pay Tomás any mind at all.

  A set, then. A design.

  I looked at Lumiere, and she met my gaze briefly.

  Four was not an accident.

  Just enough to seem reasonable, to seem like protection rather than occupation.

  But now, with Evelyn outside by decree and Seraphine deyed somewhere beyond the mountain with whatever complications had snagged her, our numbers were wrong.

  Rocher, Lumiere, and me.

  Three against four.

  The imbance was quiet, but it pressed on us all the same.

  Lumiere reached into her satchel and pulled out her copy of the writ.

  The parchment was thick, sealed with the High Synod's mark. Even in the night, it seemed to carry weight, as if authority were physical.

  Ard stepped closer, extending his hand. Lumiere did not give it to him. She held it herself, as she had held everything tonight.

  "Let us not waste time," she said.

  She moved to the face of the wall.

  Up close, the sealed entrance did not look like a door. It looked like a refusal. The carvings were shallow, more suggestion than structure. The stone was seamless, fitted so precisely into the cliff that it was hard to see where the mountain ended and the door began.

  Lumiere pressed the writ ft against the stone.

  Nothing happened at first.

  For a moment, I felt foolish, as if we had dragged supplies up a mountain for nothing. Then the air changed. Not a wind, not a sound, but a pressure shift, subtle and undeniable.

  The High Synod's seal on the parchment warmed, just enough that I could see Lumiere's fingers tense.

  The stone face shuddered.

  Lines that had looked ornamental began to glow, steady like embers under ash. The geometry of the carvings deepened, the suggestion of an arch becoming real.

  A seam appeared where there had been none.

  The wall drew back, not swinging like a door but sliding into itself with the smooth inevitability of an old mechanism waking after long sleep. Stone moved without grinding, without compint. The opening revealed darkness beyond, dense and absolute, as if the night itself had been stored inside and sealed away.

  Cold air spilled out, sharp with stone and age, heavy enough to feel on the tongue.

  Tomás swallowed. Benet leaned forward, interest brightening in his eyes.

  Rocher stepped closer, his face unreadable in the nternlight.

  Lumiere lowered the writ and turned back to us. Her expression was composed, but there was tension at the corners of it, the effort of holding herself steady.

  "Let's go," she said.