The Bellfounder’s Chapel did not match the street around it.
Where Viremoor stacked quarried blocks like trophies of ambition, the chapel stood in timber and packed earth, its walls lime-washed pale against the soot of the docks. No carved stone. No ornamental arch. The lines were clean. Practical. As if the builders had taken care not to wound the ground beneath it.
A narrow bell tower rose above the roofline, iron framework exposed but intact, the bell silent in its cradle. No banners. No gilded crest. Only a simple Totemic mark burned into the wood above the door, not carved. Branded.
Across the street, they watched in silence. A lantern blinked out behind warped glass. A shadow crossed a narrow window. Somewhere inside, a chair scraped against the floor.
Silas’s gaze lingered on the foundation. His thumb brushed the seam of his coat cuff without him seeming to notice. “Built right,” he murmured. “They didn’t cut stone for it.”
“You’d think the two of you would be perfect for sneaking,” Septimus muttered, still watching the chapel. “But they already know we’re here.”
He rolled his shoulder. The weight of the reforged shield settled into place. “I say we walk in. I’ll do the talking.”
Silas exhaled. Nodded once. “You lead. We follow.”
Lottie’s voice was dry. “And if it’s a trap?”
Silas looked at her. Calm. “Then it’s a very polite one.”
As the last streaks of sun vanished behind the skyline, a faint click echoed from the gate. Unlocked. As promised. A single lantern flared to life inside. Long shadows sprawled across tarnished metal and rows of rotted pews. They stepped forward.
The chapel doors opened without a sound. The air inside smelled of wax. Ash. Aged brass. Near the altar sat a woman in a black cloak lined with green silk. Hands folded over a brass-bound book. Gloves. No rings. Eyes sharp. Stillness like expectation.
“Septimus,” she said. “Thank you for accepting the invitation.”
She gestured to the front pew. “Sit, if you’d like. I don’t believe in wasting time. Let’s speak plainly.”
He didn’t sit. “I assume the Cragwolf wasn’t yours. Wouldn’t make much sense inviting us here otherwise.”
Something flickered behind her eyes. Not offense. Not surprise. A brief calibration.
“No grudge,” she said, “That was an error. Yours, for being in the wrong place. Ours, for failing to contain it.”
She stood. Moved with the kind of grace taught in courtrooms. Or crypts. Places where silence killed louder than noise. “I don’t mourn the beast,” she said, walking toward a brazier. “But I mourn what it means.”
She didn’t raise her voice. But the space felt smaller now. “I believe you’ve already seen what these things become if left unchecked.”
Her gaze shifted to Silas. “Your companion certainly has.”
Silas said nothing. His shoulders were taut, coat stretched across tension. But he didn’t look away.
She adjusted the flame. The brazier flared once, revealing a map of Viremoor laid across a brass table behind the altar. Three obsidian markers rested atop it.
“I’m not here under Church orders,” she said. “Let’s be clear. I represent an official arm tasked with identifying and containing anomalies. Particularly, dangerous Aberrants.”
Silas’s arms crossed tighter.
She turned to face them fully. “There are fractures in the aura. Aberrant patterns showing up in city-bred animals. In relics. In people. Not just out on the wild edges. Right here, in Viremoor.”
She stepped closer. “I’m offering something rare. A chance to help. Quietly. Cleanly. Off the books. Help us trace the source of these ruptures before they grow unignorable.”
Silence stretched. No one moved. “Or walk out and pretend the Cragwolf was a fluke.” Something in her words rang wrong. Not loud. Not false. Just... too balanced.
“Everyone on the Frontier knows,” Septimus said, “if you’re doing work the Church doesn’t like, you go to the sanctuaries Cyrus set up. After what he pulled, they couldn’t shut him down.”
He stepped forward. Even. Unhurried. “And just because you know about Silas doesn’t mean you know him. Don’t act like you didn’t just read his file before we walked in.”
Her pupils narrowed. The corner of her mouth tightened. Barely. “You’re sharper than most the Church writes off as mercenaries,” she said. “Good.”
She stepped back. Not out of control. Just clearing the board. She knew the weight of a single misstep. “You’re right. Cyrus’s sanctuaries are safe. But they’re loud. Hopeful. And increasingly... obvious.”
Her hand hovered near one of the obsidian markers. “We work in the silence. We are not the Church. We are its shadow.”
She turned to Silas. “I don’t know who he is. Just what’s written. I’d rather hear it from him.”
Silas’s voice came low. “You’ll get nothing from me if you treat me like a file.”
She nodded. Not apology. Acknowledgment. “Then don’t act like one. Work with us instead.”
Her gaze returned to Septimus.
“I’ll make this plain. Something is festering in Viremoor. You’ve seen one. There were two others. Inside city limits. Six weeks. I believe another is imminent. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe two nights from now. I need eyes. Steel. People who won’t run to the Council.”
She slid a folded slip of parchment across the altar. “You want in?” she said. “Follow this. You’ll be paid. Clean coin. No trail. You want out?”
She gestured toward the map. “Take it. Walk away. I won’t chase you.”
Lottie turned one of her marbles in her palm. Silas stared at the map. Expression unreadable. Septimus exhaled once. Measured.
“Before I agree... you’re saying you’re not the one making these things. You’re cleaning them up.”
The woman’s mask cracked. Not wide. But enough. “No,” she said. “I’m not making them. I’m trying to contain them.”
She moved back to the brazier. Picked up one of the obsidian markers. Rolled it in her palm like it meant something. “They don’t match wild resonance. Not poisoning. Not drift. They’re shaped. Designed.”
She watched the flame twist. Then looked back.
“I think someone’s twisting Totemic energy. Channeling it through broken glass. Pipes. Relics. Maybe even people. And the Church won’t admit it. Not while they’re preaching purity.”
She tossed the marker across the map. It landed on the word. Ashwell.
“I don’t need loyalty,” she said. “I need results. Quiet ones.”
Septimus studied her posture. The economy of motion. The space she gave. And didn’t. You’d put me down without blinking, he thought.
Lottie leaned toward Silas. Whispered. “She’s either honest or terrifying.”
Silas’s voice didn’t rise. “Both is usually what gets things done.”
C watched them all. Not blinking. Septimus waited until her eyes locked with his. Then he answered. “Fine. Tell your people discretion costs extra. We’ll do your dirty work. We’ll play dumb. But don’t try to spin us.”
He glanced at Lottie. Then Silas. Then back. “My friends notice everything.”
She closed her eyes for half a breath. Not relief. Recognition. “Discretion will be paid for.”
She reached beneath the table. Pulled a cloth pouch. Tossed it underhand. The pouch landed in his hand. Solid weight. Old cloth. No crest. He didn’t count it. Didn’t need to. It was enough for silence.
“You’ll be approached by no one else,” she said. “If someone claims to speak for us, they’re lying. Or we’ve been compromised.” Her gaze swept across them one last time. Silas. Lottie. Back to him. “I don’t screw with people I can’t afford to lose.”
She stepped into the dark behind the altar. The brazier dimmed like the air had turned against fire. Behind them, the door creaked open. Outside, the moon had risen past the smokestacks.
Lottie sighed. Rolled one of her marbles between two fingers. “Was hoping for a bath and some sleep.”
She slid it back into her sash, the iron sphere clicking into place beside the others. “Guess we get cursed glassworks instead.”
Silas adjusted his coat. Eyes still on the map. “If this gets worse,” he said quietly, “I’ll want my hands on the Totem's core.”
As they stepped into the night, Septimus shook his head. “Schemes on schemes. I didn’t get much of a read on her. Trusting words feels like asking to be fooled.”
The air had shifted. Sharper now. Wet and cold. Clinging to the stone like a second skin. Behind them, a bell rang off-beat. Too late for prayer. Not urgent enough for alarm.
Lottie sparked her firestarter, coaxing a brief swirl of flame into the dark. It twisted in her palm. A flickering cyclone of heat and light.
“You don’t trust her? Good,” she said. “I trust people who don't trust just anyone.”
Silas stepped beside them. His coat brushed dry stone with every movement.
"She’s not telling the whole truth,” he said after a moment. “But she believes the part she is playing.” He glanced back toward the chapel. “That’s usually worse.”
Septimus passed the folded map into Silas’s hand. “Alright. Let’s see what really goes on in this city while the good folk sleep.”
They moved through Viremoor’s sleeping arteries like smoke. Quiet. Unwelcome.
Ashwell Glassworks sat heavy in the dark, wedged between shuttered forges and the skeletal remains of old kilns. Most of Furnace Row went still after sundown. But this one… The lanterns still burned. The furnaces still roared. The front gate, meant to be locked by dusk, hung ajar.
Beneath their boots, a low hum vibrated through the stone. Not mechanical, not rhythmic. Just pressure. Waiting.
Lottie slowed. Her flame collapsed into smoke at her fingertips. “Feel that?” she said, “That’s not bellows pressure. I can feel air and fire both surging from here.”
Silas moved ahead, slipping past a row of broken crates stacked near the fence. Cracked Totemic lanterns filled them, each one pulsing faintly. Like embers trapped in glass. He crouched beside one. Fingers tracing the ruined housing. “They’re channeling the Totem’s aura. No sigils to regulate. No venting. Just pressure in a closed loop, waiting to blow.”
Septimus narrowed his eyes. “Is that safe?”
Silas didn’t blink. “No.”
A grounding sigil curled across the lantern’s face. It had split down the center, burned through. From deeper in the yard, a figure drifted between the stacks. A man in stained work-clothes. A heavy toolbox hung from one hand.
But his steps didn’t belong to him. They stuttered and dragged, like the ritual was moving his body from the inside out.
Lottie reached for her sash. Fingers closing around a marble. “So... how we playin’ this, Sep?”
Septimus didn’t answer right away. He turned to Silas. “If we interrupt whatever this is, what happens?”
Silas studied the sigil. Lips moving. Silent calculations. “If they’re pushing unstable aura through cracked channels—pipes, runes, crystal repeaters—rupturing the flow could vent the mana immediately. Whatever was channeled would expel with force.”
He looked up. “Worst case? That worker isn’t a worker anymore. Just a shell. Consumed by the ritual. And if the wrong thread snaps, it could lash out. On us. On itself. Or everything in a one-block radius.”
Lottie let out a low whistle. “Great. Like a powderbarrel filled to the brim with mana.”
Silas straightened. His shadow stretched across the rusted fence. “If we stay unseen long enough, I might be able to trace the source. Disable it, maybe. But if they’re too far gone...”
Septimus nodded once. “We’ll know soon enough.”
He gave the order quietly. “Alright, Silas. Trace it down. No more talk until you see for yourself.”
Silas didn’t answer with words. He pulled his coat tighter. Slipped between the stacks. A flicker of movement. Then shadow. His voice came once, soft. Just before he vanished. “If I don’t signal in five minutes, assume it’s gone bad.”
Septimus and Lottie waited just beyond the fence. Breaths held long enough to sting. The forge hummed lower now. Like something exhaling through heat. Through soot-black glass, Septimus caught a glimpse.
Silas, moving fluidly, methodically. Eyes alight with his power. Shadow curling at his feet. At one point, he hovered near a runed pipe. He didn’t touch. He listened.
Then, a faint click. Silence. The hum dipped, just enough to make the breath catch.
Silas reemerged, cloak lightly smoking from ambient heat. His hands stayed low, deliberate. “The glyphs are carved inside the pipes,” he said. “Etched with fused Totemic crystal dust. No chalk. No active casters.”
He nodded toward the stone beneath them. “There’s a focus crystal under the floor. Huge. Scavenged, maybe. Old sanctum tech, judging by the resonance. It’s soaking up leyline current like a basin.”
He pointed to the far chamber. His voice stayed calm. Measured. “The pipes carry it outward into stations across the Glassworks. It’s all wired together. Every workbench, every ring. A closed circuit.”
No tremor in Silas’s voice. Just the truth, laid bare.
“A man named Dray Merns is at the center of it, if the name on his bench is his” He met Septimus’s eyes. “I don’t think he meant for it to get this far. But he’s stabilizing it now. Or trying to. He’s too deep in.”
He let that sit. Then continued. “I think he was trying to power the whole place off the leyline. No recharge. No containment. Just pull and push. Constant flow.”
He glanced toward one of the flickering lanterns. “An industrial mana loop. If it had worked, he’d have built a Glassworks that never slept. Powered by the Totem itself.”
He exhaled through his nose. “But this isn’t a system. It’s a siphon. The aura doesn’t circulate. It builds. No regulation, no venting. It’s pulling more than it can store, and it doesn’t know when to stop.”
Septimus’s gaze lingered on the pipes. On the faint thrum beneath the stone. “If we break it?” he asked.
Silas’s voice lowered. “If he’s still linked, the pressure could surge back through him. Blow the pipes. Shatter the crystal. Burn him out from the inside. Or worse.”
He weighed their footing, the pressure in the air, the rhythm of the hum. No perfect moment. Just this one.
Septimus glanced between them. “On my signal, kill the ritual.”
Then he stepped into the open and raised his voice. “Hello?! Dray! Where are ya? Got a delivery here. Name says Dray Merns?”
Everyone waited. Breath held. Then a voice. Hoarse. Dry. Like wind dragged over old glass. “Didn’t... didn’t order anything. Not tonight. Not... not this shift.”
The pipes pulsed. Not louder. Tighter. Like something holding its breath. Heat crawled up the back of Septimus’s neck. Even the shadows seemed to recoil.
Lottie crouched low. “He doesn’t sound gone. But he’s not all here either.”
Silas, beside him, whispered. “He’s stalling. Or something’s stalling through him.”
A hiss of steam. A clatter of metal. Then Dray stepped into the light. Late forties. Sweat-slick. One eye bloodshot. The other faintly aglow. His limbs twitched with uneven rhythm, like the bones inside didn’t match the body. Behind him, the chamber flickered. Totemic glass alive with fractured light. Sigils pulsing like an erratic heartbeat.
“Whatever you brought... drop it and go,” Dray rasped. “It’s not safe. I’m not safe.”
Silas leaned in. Voice tight. “The core’s overdrawn. If I sever the chain of sigils wrong, it could blow the array. I need time.”
Lottie didn’t blink. “So we talk him down. Or we put him down.”
Septimus raised one hand behind his back. A gesture from the Common Hand. Index finger pointed forward. The rest gently curled. Lottie caught it first. Silas, a breath later. Silas vanished into shadow. Lottie moved wide. Hands already flickering with heat.
Septimus stepped forward into the light.
“Dray,” he called, voice firm but not unkind. “Don’t you remember me? Thought your name rang a bell. I was younger then. Fewer scars. Who’d’ve thought I’d end up delivering to you after all these years?”
Dray flinched, not from pain, but from confusion. His eyes searched the air. Not him. Recognition clawed behind his expression, caught in the gap between memory and control. “I... I knew someone. From the fields. You... worked the ash line, right?”
He took a clumsy step forward. One hand grazed a scorched rail. The glow behind him dimmed. Just slightly. “Your voice is wrong. But the name... the name fits.” His jaw flexed. Breath caught. Something fought inside him. “I didn’t mean to. They said it would help. The glass was singing. The light told me to listen.”
A jolt snapped through the room. Glass cracked. Lightning arced between pipe joints. Dray spasmed. But didn’t fall.
Septimus stepped closer. “Hey. Don’t you remember when I botched that weld line? You barked so loud I thought I cracked the tank from fear alone.”
“Get your head on straight! What are you thinkin’, boy?”
It landed. Dray reeled. Like the words hit him square. The glow surged, then flickered.
“That voice...” he breathed. “You were a bastard. But you... gave a damn.”
The pipes pulsed once. Silas moved. Shadow streaked across the floor. He slid to the central array. Dagger in hand. Not to shatter. To carve. One clean drag through the anchor glyph.
At the same moment, Lottie unleashed her breath. Fire from one palm. Air from the other. A controlled surge.
It swept through rafters and vents, pulling the pressure away from the core. A flash. A reversal. The array exhaled. Light folded inward. Mana collapsed like a forge drawing breath.
Dray dropped. Septimus caught him before he hit the stone.
Silas staggered upright, pale with strain.
“The draw’s broken,” he said. “The ritual’s done.”
Septimus exhaled. Not relief. Just the breath he hadn’t realized he’d held since Silas vanished into the dark.
Dray stirred. Voice rough, fading. “Tell them... I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to see what the glass was hiding.”
From the upper landing, Lottie dropped down. Both hands still burned faintly. One flickering with emberlight. The other trailing wisps of air. She landed in a soft gust. Boots striking stone like a dancer. Breath still quick, skin flushed from venting the system.
She crossed to Dray’s side. Fingers brushing his neck. “Stable,” she said. Then looked up. A grin tugged at the edge of her mouth. “You got through to him. Didn’t know you had such people skills.”
Septimus watched her hands move. Steady. Sure. There was always fire in her after a fight. Not wild. Not reckless. Just alive. Focused.
He cleared his throat. Kept his voice low. “You’re still burning hot. That control’s gotten sharper.”
Lottie raised a brow. Eyes glittering. "Oh? Maybe we should talk about it some more.”
She held the moment, then let it smolder. Then, with that flicker of heat only she could carry. “Later.”
Septimus carried Dray in his arms, wrapped tight in the Aberrant wolf pelt. The man was light. Brittle with exhaustion. But still warm and breathing.
“Alright,” Septimus murmured. More to himself than anyone else. “Job’s done. Sorry for the deception, pal. You weren’t thinkin’ straight.”
Dray let out a faint, ragged sound. More breath than voice. A ghost of a laugh. “No… no need to be sorry,” he rasped. Eyes fluttering shut. “That voice of yours pulled me out. Better than any sermon ever did…”
Then he went still again. Not rigid. Not Hollow. Just... resting. No spasms. No aura surges. Just slow, steady breaths.
Silas stepped up beside him. His gaze flicked toward the fractured glyph lines still faintly glowing. The light inside them had dimmed to a low ember.
“We got lucky,” he said, voice low. “That thing was on the verge of blooming.”
Lottie exhaled. Rolled her neck. Her hair stuck to the back of her collar, damp with sweat. “Alright. Spooky done, curse avoided, factory intact.” She cracked a grin. “We really are the boring kind of heroes.”
It was a joke. But there was pride behind it. Worn and tired, but honest.
Silas glanced toward the moonlight struggling through the smoke-drenched sky. “She’ll want a report. But…” He let the thought trail. “Maybe we don’t give her all of it.”
Lottie nodded once. She was already tucking Dray’s arm back into the fold of the wolf pelt.
“Yeah. I like keeping a few aces for ourselves.”
Septimus shifted his grip. Felt the man’s weight settle against him. Familiar, now. Like any other burden worth carrying. "She expected us to kill him. Let’s make him her problem instead.”
He paused, his voice quiet. “You don’t really know the shape of someone until you rattle ’em.”
That earned a sharp, fleeting smile from Silas, like something honed too long finally showing its edge. “You think she’s playing chess and you just threw a goat on the board. I approve.”
Lottie fell in beside Septimus as they walked. Her steps matched his. Unhurried. Assured. “Hope she likes goats,” she muttered, brushing a soot-smudge from Dray’s brow. “This one leaks and mumbles about singing glass.”
They returned under midnight’s shadow. The Bellfounder’s Chapel opened without a sound. The brazier still burned, low and steady.
C. was already inside. Her eyes found them, then locked on Dray. Her mouth tightened. Barely. Just enough to register calculation. “You brought him back.”
Silas stepped forward. He placed the scorched conduit shard beside her altar. “And we shut the loop. No flare. No breach. No deaths.”
Lottie flicked ash from her sleeve. “Unless you count poor Dray’s dignity. But hey, I’m no clerk.”
C. approached. Eyes narrowing. Not in judgment. In study.
Her gloved hand hovered near Dray’s temple. Careful not to touch. Like a scribe near forbidden ink.
“I expected you to stabilize the site,” she said. “I didn’t expect mercy.”
Her gaze slid to Septimus. “That complicates things. But complications can be useful.”
She made a small motion with two fingers. A panel in the wall shifted. Subtle. Old.
Two silent figures emerged. Hooded. Unarmed. They took Dray from Septimus’s arms without a word. Careful. Clinical.
Lottie’s gaze lingered as they disappeared with Dray. Her jaw tensed. A rush of air curled around her boots, low and sudden. It hit the brazier. The flame flared once. sharp, bright, then steadied. She didn’t speak.
C. turned back to them. “The conduit is gone. And now we have a witness.”
The stillness hung wrong. Like a thread pulled too tight. Like the quiet before glass breaks. “You’ve exceeded expectations.”
She reached into her cloak. Drew out a coin. Pressed obsidian etched with an ivy-wrapped Totem. She held it out. “Use this if you want answers. Or leverage.”
Her hand lingered just long enough to let the weight of the offer set in. No warmth, no promise. Just consequence. “You’ve earned a week of peace.” The words settled like a knife set gently on the table. “After that... we’ll speak again.”
She stepped past them. Unhurried. Unbothered. Already finished. The brazier dimmed. The chapel’s light followed her out. The door closed behind her.
Outside, the air was different. Not safe, but clearer. Like a storm had passed and left its teeth behind in the gutters. Septimus looked up at the dark sky, where stars tried to outshine smoke.
“Well,” he muttered, “it’s all but certain she’s scarier than any bandit boss I’ve ever worked under.”
Lottie stepped up beside him, spinning the obsidian token between her fingers like she couldn’t decide whether to pocket it or skip it into the harbor. “Yeah. Bandit bosses don’t usually know your aura signature, your star chart, and the last time you bled for someone else.”
Behind them, Silas stood still in the moonlight, watching the rooftops like they might start whispering. He didn’t smile. “She could’ve killed him. Could’ve killed us.”
“People like her don’t play for power,” he said quietly. “They play for endings. And right now… we’re part of the story she’s writing.”
Lottie was still spinning the coin with a controlled gust of air, moving it in lazy circles with precise flicks of her finger. “You think we gave her a problem?” she asked. She looked back toward the chapel. “I think we gave her a gift.”
They were all quiet for a while.
Then Septimus said, “I misjudged C. We exceeded her expectations, not the other way around. Dray’s not free. I just changed who’s holding the chain.”
And together, they disappeared down the narrow street, just three figures in the dark, walking toward the fragile promise of silence.