Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
ARWEN
The servant passages beneath the monastery are exactly as I left them.
I lead Zrynok through narrow corridors that smell of mold and forgotten things, following paths I memorized during countless midnight wanderings.
The passages connect the kitchen to the laundry, the laundry to the dormitories, the dormitories to a dozen places the Keepers rarely think to patrol.
The cult’s hierarchy depends on keeping prisoners too afraid to explore.
Those of us who explored anyway found routes the faithful never knew existed.
“This feels wrong.” Zrynok’s voice is barely above a breath. Even that carries further than I’d like in these stone tunnels. “Too easy.”
“It’s not.”
“And Cael?”
“I showed him. Years ago, before his transformation.” The memory surfaces—Cael finding me in the kitchen passage after a particularly brutal conditioning session, asking if I was hurt, offering water from his own ration.
I’d shown him the servant routes as payment for his kindness.
“He never told anyone. Even after he became a Keeper.”
“That you know of.”
Fair point. I don’t know what Cael has or hasn’t revealed since his transformation. The boy who kept my secret might be gone entirely, replaced by an enforcer serving the Abbot without question.
But Circe’s message came back coded correctly—the cipher I taught her specifically for communicating with people we couldn’t trust completely. Cael agreed to meet. Alone. In the eastern storage cellar where the spore concentration stays low enough for extended conversation.
Either he’s genuinely doubting his masters, or he’s setting an elaborate trap.
“If this goes wrong,” I say without stopping, “you get out. Don’t wait for me. Don’t try to save me. The mission is more important than—”
“No.”
The word lands hard. Final. I glance back at him—his bulk filling the narrow passage, his scarred face set in an expression I’ve learned to read as stubborn refusal.
“Zrynok—”
“I said no.” He doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t need to. The conversation we started in the storage chamber—the one Circe interrupted—hangs between us, unfinished but not forgotten. He’s not leaving me behind. That’s not negotiable anymore.
Warmth flickers in my chest. I crush it down. Focus on the mission.
“The cellar is ahead. Stay out of sight until I signal. If Cael is genuine, your presence might spook him. If he’s not—”
“Then I kill him before he can raise alarm.” Matter-of-fact. The voice of someone who’s eliminated countless threats without hesitation.
I nod and move forward. The passage opens into a wider space—storage cellars that haven’t been used in decades, their shelves empty, their air thick with dust and the ever-present sweetness of the Bloom.
I can feel the spores in my lungs with every breath.
Familiar. Almost comfortable, in the way prisons become comfortable to those who’ve been caged long enough.
A figure waits in the shadows near the far wall.