Page 18 of Dark Night of the Soul

When she slept, I stayed alert. Senses tuned outward. Waiting.

Waiting for Silas to check in. Knowing that sending him was a signal.

I stared at the ceiling, replaying the agreement we’d made hours earlier in the library moments before she walked in. No questions. No hesitations. Silas understood the stakes as well as I did. Silas was the only one who could act. Silas understood the Brotherhood’s first move would be subtle. A test. Which meant I couldn’t wait.

There were no safe spaces anymore.

I’d showed him the note. The four lines that were burned into memory.

What do you want to do? he’d asked.

And I’d told him without feeling. The risk was high. He merely nodded once.

Once this starts, there’s no turning back, he’d said. Not trying to talk me out of it. Stating fact.

I knew. I didn’t care.

There was never turning back after declaring war. I’d slid the note into the drawer.

I eased out of the bed. Slow, so as not to wake her. I crossed to the window, parted the curtain and looked out at the grounds. It was shortly before dawn. The grass was covered in a fine layer of dew. No breeze to ruffle the trees of the nearby woodlands.

This was the calm before the plunge.

Somewhere beyond the trees, the first threat was neutralized.

I dressed. Silent. Not even the swish of material.

She slept on as I eased out of the room, closing the door with a soft snick behind me. In the hallway, heavy silence. The creak of the stairs was the only sound under my boots as I made my way through the old manor.

In the kitchen, I exited the door into the pre-dawn hours and crossed the dew-covered grass behind the manor. The low stone structure was nondescript in a way that indicated there was nothing there. But there was something there. It was partially buried in the ground, tall grass growing around it to conceal it. As if the groundskeeper never even noticed it was there.

Edward Walker, though, never liked relying on wards alone. He always had a contingency in his back pocket.

The old wood door with iron hinges creaked when I opened it. I took the stone steps down into the cellar where there was nothing but shelves lining one wall. One was empty. One held old jars. Pottery that shouldn’t still be around. Wooden boxes. Everything covered in fine dust.

Edward was a collector of everything from antiquities to things that looked like junk but wasn’t.

I moved to the back wall where one stone was smoother than the rest. A weathered carving of a cross in the center. Invisible to anyone who didn’t know it was there.

Taking the knife from the sheath at my waist, I pricked my thumb to draw one drop of blood. Then smeared it over the cross.

A hiss and then the empty shelf clicked open.

I swung it open to reveal a narrow recess hidden behind it shrouded in darkness. And sitting in the center, a strongbox made of acacia wood. Symbols etched into the top worn smooth by time and handling. The script wasn’t Brotherhood. It was older than Sebastian himself. Older than the war that broke me.

Edward’s words came back in a rush.

They can’t track what predates their system. They forget the things that no longer serve them.

He hadn’t just given me a box. He’d given me a blind spot. A place to hide what I’d built in silence for years.

Because he knew—even then—the world would break again.

I lifted the box, placed it gently on the stone floor. Flipped open the lid. Inside, the leather-bound ledger I’d kept hidden for years. Worn. Scuffed. Not a Brotherhood ledger. Not a record of ownership. A record of reclamation. Names gathered, one by one, so they could live beyond the Brotherhood’s grasp.

I pressed my bloodied thumb over the cover.

The names didn’t appear right away. They emerged. One by one.