Hughes legged it down the corridor.

The warning from Pitch still burned in his ears.

Avoid the left hall. 

Which, naturally, meant the cathedral had been very considerate and built every corridor down here to look like the left hall.

Stone walls blurred past him. Mana-lamps flickered overhead. Somewhere behind the old plaster and sanctified stone, the cathedral groaned under the strain of too many secrets being disturbed at once.

Then he saw them.

Mezzo stood ahead in the middle of the corridor.

Perfectly still.

Celeste was in his arms, limp against his chest, pale hair spilling over one sleeve. Mezzo’s head was turned slightly, mouth parted as if he had been about to shout something.

But he did not move.

Not a twitch.

Not a breath Hughes could see.

Hughes slowed at once.

“Mezzo?”

Nothing.

His grip tightened around Everstill.

The weapon’s old wood and metal warmed beneath his hand, responding to the sudden cold crawling up the back of his neck.

“Lad?”

Still nothing.

He took one step forward—

Then stopped.

Something was wrong with the air.

Not visibly. Not at first. But his instincts had survived too many battlefields, too many ambushes, too many rooms where the quiet had teeth.

The corridor ahead felt empty.

Too empty.

Hughes lifted Everstill.

“Right,” he muttered. “Let’s have a look at you.”

He turned the grip.

Time slowed.

The world pulled thin.

Dust froze in the air like flecks of glass. The flicker of the mana-lamps stretched into long ribbons of gold. The distant hum of the cathedral deepened into a low, dragged note.

And then Hughes saw it.

The trap.

A field of mana hung across the corridor in a near-invisible sheet, fine as spider silk and layered with geometric rings. It was not a barrier. Not exactly.

An invitation.

One more step and he would have walked straight into it.

One more step and he would have frozen beside Mezzo, caught in the same suspended stasis with Celeste still helpless in his arms.

Hughes’s jaw tightened.

“Clever little bastard.”

He looked around, careful not to move too far forward. There had to be a switch. A projector. A focus point.

Something.

The field had to be held from somewhere.

His eyes swept the walls.

Stone.

Saint carving.

Old sconce.

Cracked tile.

There.

A tiny projection sigil glimmered behind the carved wing of a saint, almost invisible unless time itself had been slowed enough to see the pulses feeding the field.

Hughes shifted his stance.

Then time snapped forward.

Sound crashed back into the corridor.

And the air turned.

Not colder.

Not warmer.

Wrong.

The mana-lamps dimmed for half a heartbeat, then burned too brightly. The hairs along Hughes’s arms lifted. A dry metallic tang slid across his tongue like the taste before lightning struck. Even the silence changed, tightening until it felt thin enough to cut.

Then someone clapped.

Slowly.

Politely.

The sound echoed down the corridor with dreadful neatness.

Hughes turned.

Maven Eldritch stepped around the corner.

She moved without hurry, dark robes whispering over the stone, her silhouette tall and elegant against the gold spill of the corridor lamps. Her expression was composed, almost pleasant, but there was something deeply wrong in the stillness of her face—as if every smile had been studied, measured, and sharpened into an instrument.

Her eyes gleamed.

Bright.

Unblinking.

Interested.

Not like a soldier finding prey.

Like a surgeon finding a new way to open something alive.

“Well done,” she said.

Her voice was smooth and level, and somehow that made it worse.

“I’m impressed. Most people don’t see it until it’s much too late.”

Hughes raised Everstill.

“I’m not here for your approval.”

“No,” Maven said. “People rarely are. It makes giving it feel wonderfully invasive.”

She glanced past him at Mezzo, still frozen with Celeste in his arms.

“Your friend there was very loyal. Very fast. Very easy to catch.”

Hughes’s eyes hardened.

“I’m only interested in Celeste and Mezzo.”

“How limiting.”

“This interview is over.”

Maven’s smile widened.

“Oh, no.”

The words came out soft.

Almost delighted.

“No, I don’t think it is.”

She walked closer, and with each step the pressure in the corridor seemed to deepen, as if the cathedral itself knew better than to get in her way.

“I was irritated at first,” she said. “All that noise. All that panic. The usual institutional embarrassment. But then something happened.”

Her eyes shone.

Not with calm curiosity now.

With hunger.

“I was inspired.”

Hughes’s grip tightened.

Maven pressed one hand lightly to her chest.

“Enlightened, even. And I do not use that word lightly. It has paperwork attached.”

“You’re rambling.”

“Yes,” Maven said, pleased. “That’s new for me. I’m enjoying it.”

She looked toward Celeste.

For the first time, the smile on Maven’s face was not clinical.

It was reverent.

“I saw it. Reflected in the glass before I lost consciousness. Not metaphor. Not doctrine. Not one of the little lies priests tell children so they behave during sermons.”

Her voice trembled.

Only slightly.

Enough to make it worse.

“A sign.”

Hughes stared at her.

“You’re crazy.”

Maven’s head tilted.

The movement was sharp.

Birdlike.

Almost offended.

“Possibly. But one must be open to professional development.”

“Hurt her again and I’ll put you through the floor.”

“Oh, Mr Hughes.” Maven’s eyes brightened further. “She was sent to us.”

“She was tortured by you.”

“She revealed something.”

“She screamed.”

“Revelation often does.”

It was reverent.

“I saw it. Reflected in the glass before I lost consciousness. Not metaphor. Not doctrine. Not one of the little lies priests tell children so they behave during sermons.”

Her voice trembled.

Only slightly.

Enough to make it worse.

“A sign.”

Hughes stared at her.

“You’re crazy.”

Maven’s head tilted.

The movement was sharp.

Birdlike.

Almost offended.

“Possibly. But one must be open to professional development.”

“Hurt her again and I’ll put you through the floor.”

“Oh, Mr Hughes.” Maven’s eyes brightened further. “She was sent to us.”

“She was tortured by you.”

“She revealed something.”

“She screamed.”

“Revelation often does.”

Hughes stepped forward.

Maven’s hand moved.

A pole snapped out from beneath her sleeve, extending with a metallic crack into a long black staff capped with silver conductors.

Hughes barely had time to lift Everstill before she struck.

The blow rang against his guard hard enough to jar his shoulder.

Fast.

Much faster than she looked.

Maven spun the pole with precise, surgical grace, striking at his ribs, knee, throat. Hughes blocked the first two, ducked the third, then drove his shoulder forward and slammed her back a step.

She laughed.

Actually laughed.

Breathless and bright.

“Oh, excellent. You’re durable.”

“Been called worse.”

He swung Everstill low.

Maven vaulted back, pole scraping sparks across the stone. She landed light on her feet, robes snapping around her.

“You know,” she said, “I spent years extracting lies from sinners. Thieves. False prophets. Corrupt paladins. Desperate mothers. Priests with very sticky private accounts.”

She struck again.

Hughes caught the pole against Everstill and shoved her sideways.

Maven twisted with the momentum rather than resisting it.

“But I was thinking too small.”

Her pole cracked against the wall.

Blue-white electricity spat along its length.

Hughes narrowed his eyes.

The metal split.

Shifted.

Reformed.

The straight pole bent at one end, unfolding in sharp, elegant segments until a curved blade of crackling mana ignited from the top.

A Pureblood electric scythe.

Old duelling tech.

Illegal in at least four districts.

Maven lifted it with both hands, the blade humming beside her face.

“Sin is not in the answer,” she said softly. “Sin is in the design.”

Hughes exhaled.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all.”

Maven lunged.

Maven lunged.

The electric scythe came down in a screaming arc.

Hughes threw himself aside as the blade tore through the stone where he had been standing, leaving a smoking groove across the corridor floor. The smell of burned mana filled the air.

“Lovely weapon,” he grunted.

Maven spun it once, the curved blade humming beside her cheek.

“Thank you. It belonged to someone who answered questions poorly.”

“Comforting.”

She smiled.

Then attacked again.

Hughes blocked the shaft with Everstill, stepped into the strike, and drove her back with a heavy shoulder-check. Maven slid across the stone, boots scraping sparks, but recovered almost immediately.

Too clean.

Too fast.

Too interested.

Hughes narrowed his eyes.

“Right,” he muttered. “Let’s see how you handle timing.”

He slammed Everstill into the ground.

The impact cracked through the corridor.

A faint duplicate of the strike lingered in the air behind it—a shimmering afterimage of force caught in a small delay bubble, humming where the blow had landed.

Maven’s eyes lit up.

“Oh.”

Hughes jabbed forward.

Fast.

Precise.

Chrono energy snapped around the tip of Everstill as he drove the strike toward her ribs.

Maven twisted aside, scythe flashing up to deflect it.

The first blow missed.

Exactly as Hughes intended.

Behind her, the delayed echo of the ground-slam suddenly released.

A second force struck from the wrong angle, cutting through the space where she had dodged.

For one split second, Maven’s smile became genuine.

“Fascinating.”

Then she lifted her wrist.

A narrow bracer hidden beneath her sleeve snapped open.

It fired a flat pulse of dull grey light into the echo.

The delayed strike died.

Not exploded.

Not blocked.

Died.

The mana unravelled in mid-air, the echo collapsing into harmless sparks before it could touch her.

Hughes’s eyes sharpened.

“Mana nullifier.”

Maven tilted her head, pleased he had noticed.

“Anti-mana field injection. Very rude little device. It interrupts the structure of spells before they finish believing in themselves.”

“That’s cheating.”

“That’s theology with better engineering.”

Before Hughes could reset his stance, Maven’s other hand flicked.

Three throwing knives flashed from between her fingers.

Hughes jerked back.

One knife cut across his cheek.

Another sparked off Everstill’s haft.

The third buried itself in his shoulder just below the earlier burn.

Pain punched down his arm.

He hissed through his teeth and staggered half a step.

Maven advanced at once, scythe dragging electric light across the floor.

“You make little time traps,” she said, voice bright with manic curiosity. “How charming. A practical man’s solution to being slow.”

Hughes ripped the knife from his shoulder with a grunt.

Blood darkened his sleeve.

“And you talk too much.”

“Yes,” Maven said. “It’s been a revealing day.”

She swung.

Hughes caught the scythe against Everstill, but the nullifier bracer flared again. Grey light spat across the contact point, chewing into the mana around his weapon and making the old enchantments sputter.

Everstill bucked in his hands.

Maven leaned closer over the locked weapons, eyes fever-bright.

“You are going to be very interesting to open.”

Hughes bared his teeth.

“Try it.”

He kicked her hard in the stomach.

Maven stumbled back, laughing breathlessly as she skidded toward the broken stasis sigil.

Hughes rolled his injured shoulder and lifted Everstill again.

The echo trick would not work while that bracer was active.

Fine.

He had other ways to ruin someone’s day.

Her scythe came down in a screaming arc.

Hughes threw himself aside as electricity tore through the stone where he had stood. The blast shattered a row of tiles and sent fragments skittering under the frozen shimmer of the stasis field.

Mezzo remained locked in place.

Celeste remained limp in his arms.

Hughes’s eyes flicked once to the projection sigil.

Maven saw it.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You noticed the release point.”

Then she attacked harder.

Hughes blocked, retreated, turned the next slash aside with Everstill’s haft. Sparks burst between them. The scythe’s blade snapped close enough to singe the edge of his sleeve.

Maven moved with frightening control.

Not wild.

Not sloppy.

The mania was in her eyes, not her hands.

Her strikes were clean, exact, trained down to the bone.

“She was sent,” Maven said between blows. “Not to save us. No, that was the old mistake. Everyone wants salvation. So needy. So inefficient.”

She feinted high, then swept low.

Hughes jumped back just in time.

“She was sent to show me how to remove sin at the source.”

Hughes barked a grim laugh.

“By cutting people open?”

“If necessary.”

“You need a healer.”

“I had one strapped to a chair. You interrupted.”

That did it.

Hughes stepped into the next swing instead of away from it.

The electric blade scraped past his shoulder, burning cloth and fur. Pain flashed white-hot down his arm.

He ignored it.

Everstill slammed into Maven’s ribs.

She staggered, breath knocked out of her.

Hughes followed with a hard strike to her wrist.

The scythe dipped.

Not enough.

Maven recovered with a snarl that looked wrong on her polished face and drove her knee into his stomach. Hughes grunted, stumbled back, then caught the scythe’s shaft under one arm before it could carve up into his throat.

For a second they were locked together.

Close enough for him to see how wide her pupils were.

How alive she looked.

How utterly gone.

“You saw a reflection,” Hughes growled. “That’s all.”

Maven smiled inches from his face.

“I saw a command.”

“No,” Hughes said. “You saw what you wanted.”

Her smile faltered.

Just enough.

Hughes twisted Everstill.

Time dragged.

Not fully.

Not like before.

Just a stuttering half-second.

Enough.

He let go of the scythe, dropped low, and hurled Everstill end-over-end toward the wall.

The weapon struck the tiny projection sigil behind the carved saint’s wing.

The sigil shattered.

The stasis field collapsed with a sound like glass inhaling.

Mezzo sucked in a violent breath.

His knees buckled.

For one terrifying second, Celeste nearly slipped from his arms.

Then instinct took over.

Mezzo clutched her tighter, blinking hard, head snapping from Hughes to Maven to the ruined trap.

“What the—”

He saw Hughes locked in battle with Maven.

Saw the scythe.

Saw the blood on Hughes’s shoulder.

“Oh shit.”

Maven turned her head toward him.

Too slowly.

Hughes slammed into her before she could lift the blade.

“Run!”

Mezzo did not argue.

Not this time.

He shifted Celeste higher against his chest and bolted down the corridor, red spiky hair flashing under the mana-lamps as he ran.

Maven tried to follow.

Hughes caught her scythe with both hands around Everstill’s haft and drove her back.

“No,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “You wanted an interview?”

Maven’s eyes glittered.

Hughes bared his teeth.

“Ask me something.”

Behind him, Mezzo disappeared around the corner with Celeste in his arms.

For the first time since she had stepped into the corridor, Maven looked annoyed.

Then delighted.

“Oh,” she said, lifting the scythe again.

“How heroic.”

The blade screamed back to life.

Hughes set his feet.

The corridor filled with electric light.