Chapter 78: The Ones Who Wouldn’t Listen
They tracked the two remaining clergy through nearly two weeks of careful, patient investigation, Seraphina’s intelligence network eventually identifying their location as a remote monastery in the same northern hill country where Wexford had once hidden his own faked death, and Ethan found the coincidence carrying its own particular, uncomfortable weight as they approached the isolated structure.
"Brothers Aldwin and Cassian," Cecilia said, consulting the identification Verity’s inquiries had eventually confirmed. "Both served under Kellen for nearly a decade before his network’s dissolution. Aldwin apparently trained as a scholar of ritual mechanics before joining the Order proper. If anyone within Kellen’s former circle actually possessed the technical knowledge to attempt genuine reversal, it would be him."
They found the monastery’s interior considerably more chaotic than its exterior’s careful, ancient stillness suggested, scattered papers and half-completed diagrams covering every available surface within what had clearly once been a modest scriptorium, and at the room’s center, a partially constructed ritual circle, its configuration carrying an inverted, unsettling quality compared to every previous configuration Ethan had encountered.
"You shouldn’t have come," a voice said, and Ethan turned to find an older clergyman, presumably Aldwin, standing in the scriptorium’s doorway, his expression carrying genuine, exhausted desperation rather than the calculated fear Kellen had once demonstrated. "We’re close. Considerably closer than Kellen ever believed possible, given his own limited technical understanding."
"You’re attempting to reverse the Cycle’s transition," Ethan said carefully, keeping his voice level despite the fresh alarm the partially completed circle’s inverted configuration provoked. "I need you to understand, Aldwin, that even if this works, even partially, it doesn’t simply stop the instability. It undoes every restoration we’ve achieved. Iris. Samuel. Ophelia’s peaceful release. Tobias. Thessaly."
Aldwin’s expression carried genuine, difficult conflict, his exhausted composure cracking, fractionally, at the weight of Ethan’s words. "I’ve considered that," he admitted. "I’ve spent considerable time telling myself the greater stability justifies that particular cost. I don’t know if I still believe it, honestly, watching you stand here, willing to walk directly into whatever danger this circle represents, simply to try reasoning with me first, rather than immediately resorting to force."
"Where’s Cassian," Aurelia asked, her voice carrying watchful, focused attention as she studied the scriptorium’s chaotic disarray.
Aldwin’s expression carried fresh, genuine alarm. "He’s not here," he said slowly. "He left three days ago, convinced my own careful, methodical approach was taking too long. He said he’d found a faster path, something involving direct confrontation with the source of the instability itself."
"The source," Ethan repeated, a cold, focused dread settling through him. "You mean Iris."
Aldwin’s exhausted composure carried genuine, mounting horror. "I told him that approach was reckless, that direct confrontation with a fully restored subject carried unpredictable risk neither of us properly understood. He left regardless. I don’t know exactly where he intended to go, only that he mentioned Nocturne Vale, believing Iris’s continued presence there, and her connection to Vivienne Nocturne’s considerable political influence, made it the most likely location to actually reach her directly."
’She’s not at Nocturne Vale,’ Ethan thought, fresh panic threading through his focused resolve. ’She’s here, at the Frostspire townhouse, with Marcus and whoever else stayed behind while the rest of us pursued this lead.’
"Aurelia," Ethan said urgently, "send word immediately, to the townhouse, warning them Cassian may be searching for Iris there instead, if his information about Nocturne Vale proves outdated."
Aurelia was already moving, dispatching the fastest courier Seraphina’s network could provide, and Ethan turned back toward Aldwin with fresh, focused urgency. "I need you to help us," Ethan said. "Whatever you’ve learned about ritual mechanics, whatever might help us stop Cassian before he does something we can’t undo, I need it now."
Aldwin’s exhausted expression carried genuine, difficult resolve. "I’ll help," he said quietly. "I should have stopped him myself, before he left. I told myself, at the time, that my own more careful approach represented the wiser path. I understand now that wisdom without genuine action to back it simply becomes another form of comfortable, cowardly delay."
They departed for Nocturne Vale within the hour, though Ethan found himself, during the urgent journey, turning over Aldwin’s information with fresh, careful attention, understanding, with growing unease, exactly how uncertain Cassian’s actual location and intentions genuinely remained.
’If he’s not actually at Nocturne Vale,’ Ethan thought, watching the northern countryside blur past his carriage window, ’if his information’s outdated the way Aldwin suggested, he might already be at the townhouse. He might already have reached Iris.’
Ethan closed his eyes, focusing on the familiar, practiced sensation of dream-contact, though this time, rather than reaching toward the liminal garden, he reached instead toward Iris’s own waking presence, uncertain whether such direct, immediate contact was even genuinely possible outside their previous, carefully structured sessions.
To his considerable surprise, something answered, a faint, fragmented sense of Iris’s presence, carrying fresh, urgent alarm that confirmed his worst fear before she’d even properly formed words.
He’s here, Iris’s fragmented voice carried, distant and strained. At the townhouse. He’s already begun something, some kind of ritual, though I don’t fully understand its configuration. Ethan, I don’t think Aldwin’s caution was warranted. I think Cassian’s attempt might actually be working, at least partially, and I don’t know what that partial success is actually doing to me.
"Change course," Ethan said urgently, relaying the danger to Aurelia and the others. "He’s not at Nocturne Vale. He’s already at the townhouse, and he’s already begun whatever he’s attempting."
They redirected immediately, the carriage’s considerable speed pushed to its absolute limit, and Ethan spent the remaining journey in focused, urgent silence, maintaining whatever fragmented contact with Iris’s fading presence he could manage, understanding, with fresh, mounting dread, exactly how much danger this final, desperate gambit actually represented.
I can feel something pulling, Iris’s fragmented voice carried, considerably weaker than her earlier contact. Not the full reversal Aldwin apparently feared. Something smaller, more targeted. I think he’s attempting to sever my connection to the physical world specifically, rather than the broader Cycle’s entire structure. I think, whatever his actual technical understanding lacks, he’s found something considerably more dangerous to attempt instead.
’He’s trying to erase her again,’ Ethan thought, fresh horror settling through him as the carriage finally, gratefully, approached the townhouse’s familiar silhouette. ’Not reverse everything. Just her, specifically, believing that alone might be enough to settle the instability he fears.’
They arrived to find the townhouse’s garden already disturbed, a faint, unsettling amber glow visible through the study’s windows, and Ethan moved without hesitation, sword drawn, Aurelia and the others immediately beside him, understanding, with grim, focused resolve, that whatever waited within, they weren’t going to lose Iris a second time, not after everything this entire investigation had already cost to bring her properly, fully home.