Pitch found the Council pods near the back of the chamber.

At first, they looked like upright coffins built by bureaucrats—tall iron cylinders set into the wall in a row, their fronts made of reinforced glass and their bases wired into humming mana lines beneath the stone. Cold blue light pulsed through the tubing at their sides. Each one bore the old prison sigils the Council used for containment and extraction, the same kind of devices whispered about in labour pits and military cells, where prisoners were treated less like people and more like living batteries.

Plum stared at them, pale.

“Oh, that’s vile.”

“Very,” said Silver quietly.

One pod was empty.

Another had dried blood in the bottom tray.

The third held a person.

Diana reached the glass first.

For one second, the Supreme Paladin Commander vanished completely.

There was no armour.

No rank.

No Church.

Only a mother staring through reinforced glass at the daughter she had been searching for.

Inside, half-curled in the dim blue light, was Crystal Lockhart.

Her silver-white hair had been hacked short at one side where electrodes had been fastened. Bruises mottled the line of her jaw and throat. Thin mana cables ran from the braces at her wrists into the back of the pod, feeding readings into a Council regulator fixed above her head.

She looked wrong in that sleep.

Too still.

Too carefully arranged.

Like someone had posed her into helplessness.

Diana’s hand touched the glass.

“Crystal.”

Her voice broke on the name.

Pitch was beside her a heartbeat later, already looking over the seals.

“Arcade.”

“On it.”

Arcade dropped to the lock panel, fingers flying. C.H.I.P. hovered at his shoulder, projecting the internal pod schematics in sharp blue layers.

“Council containment model,” Arcade muttered. “Old. Nasty. Overdesigned by people who thought empathy was a firmware error.”

“Can you open it?” Diana asked.

Arcade’s eyes did not leave the panel.

“I’m insulted by the question.”

The seals hissed as he bypassed the system. One by one, the clamps disengaged with a heavy, sucking clunk. The glass front lifted two inches and then juddered upward fully, releasing a breath of stale, chemically chilled air.

Diana reached in.

Carefully.

So carefully.

She unhooked the cables from Crystal’s wrists with hands that were almost steady, then gathered her daughter against her chest and lifted her out of the pod.

Crystal was limp at first, her head falling against Diana’s shoulder.

Then she stirred.

A sharp, frightened jolt passed through her whole body.

Her hands clawed weakly at Diana’s armour.

Her eyes flew open—not fully aware, not focused, but terrified.

“They controlled my mind,” Crystal gasped, voice cracked raw. “I didn’t do it—I swear, I didn’t do it—”

Diana’s face crumpled.

Only for a second.

Then she held Crystal tighter.

“Crystal. Crystal, it’s me.”

Crystal blinked.

Her eyes struggled to focus.

Then they found Diana’s face.

“Mum?”

The word was tiny.

Broken.

Diana made a sound like something inside her had split open.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

Crystal’s face collapsed.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop them, I tried, I tried—”

“No.” Diana sank to her knees with Crystal in her arms, holding her like she could shield her from the entire cathedral by force of will alone. “No, darling. No. You don’t apologise. Not for this.”

Crystal clung to her.

“I hurt people.”

“They hurt you.”

“I couldn’t stop—”

“I know.” Diana pressed her cheek to Crystal’s hair. “I know. I’ve got you now.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

There were some things too sacred to interrupt, even in a room full of stolen relics and prison machinery.

Pitch moved closer, quieter now.

His eyes had locked on something at Crystal’s throat.

“Diana.”

Diana looked up sharply.

Pitch pointed.

Around Crystal’s neck sat a narrow metal collar, almost hidden beneath bruising and the torn edge of her uniform. It was not a suppression rune. Not exactly. Its casing was thinner, sleeker, threaded with tiny receiver pins and a black tracking node at the base.

Arcade’s face changed.

“Oh, that is disgusting.”

Ray stepped in, jaw tight.

“What is it?”

Pitch carefully angled the collar without touching the active seam.

“Control collar. Or something close.”

Arcade scanned it with his bracer.

His expression went colder.

“Tracking detail embedded in the back casing. Destination tag attached.”

Ray’s eyes narrowed.

“Destination?”

Arcade looked at the reading.

Then up at her.

“Godiad.”

Diana’s arms tightened around Crystal.

Silver’s expression went blank in that dangerous way it did when too many things started lining up.

Plum had gone to the nearest table, sorting through transport orders with shaking hands.

“Here,” she said.

Everyone turned.

Plum lifted a sealed transfer directive.

Her voice shook as she read.

“Subject: Crystal Lockhart. Condition: Zygurr consumption confirmed. Recommendation: Testing pending transfer to Godiad containment.”

Ray’s face darkened.

Plum’s eyes moved further down the page.

“There’s another order.”

Arcade stepped beside her and scanned it.

His mouth went dry.

“Retrieve Knight-Commander Celeste Astallan,” he read. “Interrogate under theological authority. If relic is confirmed, transfer subject to Godiad for containment and further study.”

The chamber went dangerously quiet.

Ray took the page from him.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

Her fingers curled around the edge until the paper crumpled.

“They were going to send Celeste there.”

No one answered.

Because the order was sitting in her hand.

Because Crystal was sobbing in Diana’s arms.

Because the collar around Crystal’s neck had already proved what “transfer” meant.

Ray’s ears lowered.

Her voice came out low and furious.

“They were going to put Celeste in one of those.”

Silver looked away first.

Arcade did not.

His hedgehog mind went rigid with fear: hide. hide. hide. put up walls. block the doors. make a den out of wires and steel and never come out. also we are hungry again, which is frankly rude timing.

His chupacabra mind was worse—colder, meaner, practical in all the wrong ways: bury the evidence. bury the trail. bury anyone who saw too much. we are smarter than them. faster. we can survive this if we stop being sentimental.

Arcade clenched his jaw so hard it ached.

“C.H.I.P.,” he said, voice low and sharp. “Download everything.”

The little robot bobbed.

“With pleasure and a growing sense that all of us are in appalling danger.”

“Correct.”

Files began streaming into Arcade’s bracer and backup drives in layered bursts of light.

Evidence folders.

Transfer records.

Relic logs.

The names of the disappeared.

Crystal’s pod registry.

Council authorisation chains.

Church seals overlapping with prison battery protocols and Godiad medical transfer orders.

Every second they stayed felt louder.

And then the sound came.

Voices.

Not in the chamber.

Outside.

Raised.

Angry.

Close.

Pitch’s head snapped toward the stairs.

Silver looked down immediately at his arcbracer, where silent priority notifications were stacking one after another in red.

His expression changed.

“The Council,” he said. “They’ve arrived.”

Before anyone could move, the chamber doors opened.

An old owl priest stepped inside.

He was tall despite his age, his feathers gone silver-white around the face, his eyes dark and polished behind half-moon lenses. His robes were layered in formal black and gold, the vestments of the upper confession courts. A heavy chain of office hung at his chest, each link engraved with a saint’s name.

Behind him came armed paladins.

Not many.

Enough.

The old priest looked at Diana first.

Then at Crystal in her arms.

Then at the open pod.

His expression did not change.

“Supreme Paladin Commander Lockhart,” he said. “Step away from the prisoner.”

Diana rose slowly, keeping Crystal behind her.

Her voice was ice.

“Crown Confessor Egan Agapetus.”

Ray’s eyes flicked toward him.

Crown Confessor.

Of course.

Because apparently this day had not yet finished collecting awful titles.

Egan’s gaze moved over the others.

“The Knights of Clawdiff are hereby detained under suspicion of theft of Church property, obstruction of theological inquiry, and harbouring unstable mana assets.”

Silver’s face tightened.

Ray lifted the transfer order.

“You signed this.”

Egan glanced at it.

Not with fear.

With mild irritation.

“That document is restricted.”

Plum stepped forward, still clutching the copied records against her chest.

“No,” she said.

Everyone looked at her.

Even Egan.

Plum’s face had gone pale, but her voice did not shake this time.

“No, don’t do that. Don’t stand there and talk like this is tidy.”

Egan’s eyes narrowed.

Plum lifted one of the files.

“Why are there pod registries linked to Godiad? Why are there records of priests in here?” Her voice sharpened. “Not criminals. Not unstable mana assets. Priests. Clerks. Paladins. People who filed objections. People who asked questions.”

Egan said nothing.

That silence was answer enough.

Crystal stirred weakly in Diana’s arms.

Her eyes were half-open, unfocused, but she had heard.

“They sent them,” she whispered.

Diana bent over her at once.

“Crystal, darling, don’t—”

“They sent dissenters to Godiad.” Crystal’s voice cracked, thin and raw from disuse. “For experiments. Anyone who got in the way. Anyone who saw too much. Priests. Paladins. Workers. Hybrids.” Her breath hitched. “Almost twenty years. Maybe more.”

The room went cold.

Plum stared at the files in her hands.

“So hundreds of people just… gone?”

Crystal’s eyes filled with tears.

“I don’t know.”

Plum looked back at Egan.

“You made people disappear.”

Egan’s feathers lifted slightly around his throat.

“We removed those who stood against the Artist’s vision for unity.”

Plum’s expression twisted.

“No. Your control.”

Egan looked at her then.

Really looked at her.

And with perfect, awful calm, he said, “The same thing.”

Ray went still.

Not quiet.

Still.

The kind of stillness that came before fire.

Silver’s face had lost every trace of colour.

Arcade’s hand curled around his gauntlet.

Diana held Crystal closer, eyes fixed on Egan with murder behind them.

Plum lowered the file slowly.

“You’re not holy,” she said. “You’re just organised monsters with better stationery.”

For the first time, Egan’s polite mask thinned.

“You ordered Celeste retrieved, interrogated, and sent to Godiad.”

“The Knight-Commander is a matter of grave concern.”

Ray took one step forward.

“She is a person.”

“She is an instability.”

Diana’s voice cut across the chamber.

“You knew.”

Egan looked back to her.

Diana’s eyes burned.

“You knew what was happening here. You knew about the collars. The pods. The transfers. My daughter.”

Egan’s feathers shifted once around his throat.

“I knew enough.”

Diana’s hand went to her sword.

“Traitor.”

The word cracked through the chamber.

Several paladins flinched.

Egan did not.

“You speak as though loyalty belongs to sentiment,” he said. “Silas had a vision. Order above chaos. We are completing it.”

Silver went very still.

Ray’s face twisted with disgust.

Diana looked like she might kill him where he stood.

“You call this order?”

Egan lifted his chin.

“I call it necessity.”

Pitch, meanwhile, had already moved.

Not dramatically.

Not visibly enough for most of them to notice.

He slipped backward into the shadow of one shelving unit, one hand lowering to his side as darkness gathered around his fingers.

Then a shape formed in his grip.

Short-barrelled.

Heavy.

Ornate.

A shotgun of black metal and old charmwork, its barrel engraved with tiny crescent moons and card-suit sigils.

Lady Luck.

Pitch’s eyes went flat.

Egan lifted one hand.

“Seize them.”

Pitch fired.

The blast did not roar like an ordinary gun.

It cracked like fate losing patience.

A pulse of shadow-shot slammed into the first paladin’s knees, dropping him instantly. Pitch moved before the body hit the floor, shadow-jumping behind the second and striking him hard across the back of the head with the shotgun’s reinforced stock.

The third turned.

Too late.

Arcade flung one hand out.

Electricity discharged from his gauntlet in a jagged burst, snapping across two paladins at once. They convulsed and collapsed, armour clattering against stone.

“Non-lethal?” Plum shouted.

“Emotionally no!” Arcade snapped.

Another paladin lunged toward Diana.

Ray intercepted him.

Her blade flashed once, knocking his weapon wide before her fist caught him hard under the jaw. He dropped like a sack of flour.

Diana did not move from Crystal’s side.

Not one inch.

Egan stepped back, robes flaring.

His old eyes widened—not in fear of violence, but in outrage that anyone had dared answer authority with it.

“You are condemning yourselves.”

Pitch appeared beside him from a strip of shadow.

“No,” he said quietly. “You are.”

Lady Luck’s stock cracked against the back of Egan’s skull.

The Crown Confessor went down hard.

Silence followed.

Only for a second.

Then C.H.I.P. chirped, “Well. That escalated with admirable efficiency.”

Arcade was already back at the console.

“Downloading faster.”

“Can you remove the collar?” Diana asked.

Arcade glanced at Crystal, then at the device around her neck.

“Not here. Not quickly. It’s wired into a failsafe.”

Diana’s face tightened.

“What kind?”

“The kind designed by people who should have been pushed into a canal as children.”

Ray picked up Egan’s fallen orders and shoved them into Plum’s satchel.

“All of it,” she said. “Every page. Every signature.”

Plum nodded, pale but focused.

“Already doing it.”

Silver stood over Egan’s unconscious body, staring at him with an expression no one could quite read.

“Silas,” he said quietly.

Ray looked at him.

“Later.”

He nodded once.

Not arguing.

That alone told her how badly the name had landed.

Crystal whimpered softly against Diana.

Diana bent over her at once.

“I’m here. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” Crystal whispered again.

Diana kissed the top of her head.

“No more of that. Not one more apology.”

Pitch checked the corridor.

“We have to move.”

Ray turned.

“Everyone accounted for?”

Arcade glanced around automatically.

Pitch.

Plum.

Diana.

Crystal.

Silver.

C.H.I.P.

Ray.

His expression changed.

“Where’s Lumina?”

The chamber seemed to drop beneath them.

Ray’s head snapped around.

“She was just—”

No Lumina.

No small figure by the crates.

No stack of slates almost too big for her arms.

Nothing.

Ray closed her eyes.

For exactly one second.

Then opened them.

“I’m going to kill those kids.”

Silver’s face had gone pale.

“Kids?”

Ray was already moving toward the door, fury and panic tightening every line of her.

“Skye ran off to talk to his father. Lumina’s vanished in a cathedral full of prison pods, religious lunatics, and Godiad transfer orders.”

She grabbed the nearest evidence bundle and shoved it into Silver’s arms.

“Move.”

Silver looked down at the bundle.

Then at her.

For once, he said nothing clever.

They ran.