The sky over Lantern Court had just started turning gray when Vane said, "Time."
Bodies still lay under shrouds near the infirmary wall.
Miri.
Tams.
No one had touched the cloth in ten minutes because everyone was pretending that ten more minutes could change what had happened.
Varen stood between the dead and the living, one hand pressed to his bandaged ribs, and felt the compact mark at his wrist pulse in short, cold beats.
"You asked for a choice," he said to Vane. "Here it is. I won't walk into your debrief while Thane moves donor lists and buys children with our delay."
Vane's jaw tightened. "You think I don't know the clock?"
"Then stop talking like we have one."
Sera stepped up before either man could push harder.
"We can do both," she said. "Immediate strike on Red Harbor cell under mixed command. Then debrief." She looked at Vane. "You get your legal structure. We get breathing people."
Prell arrived from the east stair with six wardens and a face that had not slept.
"No field action without council vote," he said. "No one leaves this court until governance reopens."
Jak laughed once, humorless.
"Governance reopened around the time your vault exploded."
Prell ignored him and looked at Varen.
"You are still under compact."
"Compact said witness protection and interdiction," Varen said. "I did both while your chain moved my people into cells."
Prell's nostrils flared. "You think this is about ego. It's about collapse control."
Rill, wrapped in fresh bandages and leaning on a splint, spoke from the steps.
"Control already collapsed," she said. "Only question is who profits."
Halren came out of council wing with two scribes, robe thrown over night clothes, eyes bloodshot and angry.
"Enough," he barked. "All command disputes to chamber now."
Vane did not move.
"Treaty clock does not pause for chamber theater," he said. "At sunrise, my authority to contain external Inquisition cells expires unless Kross enters formal debrief custody."
Halren rounded on him.
"You don't dictate terms inside this mountain."
"I don't need to." Vane held up a folded decree stamped black and white. "Three hunting companies are already staged at lower ridges waiting for my signal. If treaty lapses without signed containment, they come in under anti-cult emergency doctrine. They won't ask your vote."
Silence dropped hard.
Elya stepped beside Varen with Iven tucked under her arm like she could physically keep him from being taken again.
"Say yes to his debrief," she whispered. "But not without leverage."
Varen looked at Vael, bound to a restraint chair near the stair rail, mouth split from the fight and eyes fever-bright.
"We have leverage," he said.
He walked to Vael and ripped the chair's side satchel free. Inside were two blood-sealed chits and one slate strip with quartermaster marks.
He held the strip up where everyone could see.
"This is Vael's transfer authority," he said. "Signed to release witness cargo to Red Harbor Cell Seven at second bell." He turned to Halren. "Cargo means Elya. Iven. Rill. Maybe me if your vote went right."
Halren paled.
"Forgery," he said too quickly.
"Maybe," Varen said. "Then let's verify at the harbor while it still matters."
Prell reached for the strip. Varen pulled it back.
"No private handling," he said. "Mixed chain."
Vane gave one sharp nod.
"Correct."
Halren looked from Prell to Vane to the two bodies under cloth and understood he had already lost the room.
"Fine," he said through clenched teeth. "One action window. Ninety minutes. Then Kross returns for debrief under observed custody."
"Two hours," Sera said.
"Ninety."
"Then we only recover corpses."
They stared at each other until Halren snapped at a scribe.
"Record emergency writ. Two hours. Mixed authority. Any breach voids all parties."
Prell hissed, "Rector-"
"Do it," Halren said.
---
They moved in less than eight minutes.
Strike team: Varen, Sera, Jak, Elya, Rill on route guidance, Vane with two Inquisition operators, Prell with four wardens, Sol and Bryn as scouts because everyone else was either dead, injured, or guarding the dead.
Red Harbor sat below the old fish markets where smoke houses met river mud, a neighborhood of tilted roofs and narrow alleys built for smugglers and tax liars.
Jak led through laundry lines and roof bridges, never slowing enough for anyone to ask how he knew every weak beam.
"Cell Seven is not on the water," he muttered. "Too obvious. It'll be inland warehouse with fake fish permit and real underground door."
Bryn signaled from the next roof: two fingers, then a circle.
Two guards. Rotating.
Vane tapped Varen's arm and pointed to a gutter pipe that ran down to street level.
"My pair takes front bait," he whispered. "You go sublevel."
Prell bristled. "No unsupervised split."
"Then follow us and stop arguing," Sera said.
They dropped into an alley that smelled like salt rot and coal smoke. Ahead stood a warehouse with three painted fish signs and no actual fish.
Good cover. Bad lie.
Vane's operators stepped into the street and knocked openly.
A slit opened in the door.
"We're late pickup for lantern wax,"
one operator said in dock cant.
The guard started to answer.
Jak, already at the side wall, slid a thin blade into the drainage seam and lifted the hidden latch.
"Subdoor," he whispered.
Varen went first into the dark.
The cellar stairs were steep and slick. At the bottom, six crates sat stacked beside two iron cages.
The cages were empty.
The crates were not.
Sera knelt, touched one lid, and pulled back with a hiss.
"Fresh blood lock. Four signatures. Choir standard."
Elya ran her fingers over the hinge groove.
"Not donor blood," she said. "Courier blood. They used transport runners as disposable keys."
Above them, shouting burst from the main floor.
Vane's voice: "Weapons down!"
Prell's voice, colder: "Seal the back!"
Then a gunshot.
Varen moved to the first crate and cast a thin lattice despite his shaking hand. The pattern slipped twice before settling.
"Cut on my mark," he told Sera.
She drove a marrow pin through the lock seam.
The lid sprang.
Inside lay ledger spines wrapped in waxed cloth and, beneath them, tags tied in bundles.
Children's names.
Ages.
Blood types.
Transfer windows.
Iven made a choking sound and turned away.
Elya did not turn away. She kept reading until her eyes went glass-hard.
"These are selection lists," she said. "Not donors. Inventory."
Rill grabbed the second crate, split it with a hook, and swore.
More names. More age markers.
Sol dropped to one knee at the stair, listening.
"Footsteps coming down," he warned.
Varen covered the stairs with a blood thread and saw three pulses descending, one too light for armored stride.
Courier.
Jak melted into shadow beside the wall.
A hooded man came first, hand on satchel clasp. Two armed guards behind him.
Jak hooked the courier's wrist, twisted, and stripped the satchel before the first guard could shout.
Sera pinned that guard to the banister.
Varen anchored Veinstep to the ceiling bolt and dropped behind the second guard. His right hand failed on the follow-through, but his shoulder check did the job.
The courier bolted toward the back tunnel.
Elya sprinted after him and hit him low at the knee, both of them crashing into stacked barrels.
The satchel burst.
Bone cylinders rolled across the floor like dice.
Vane appeared at the stair top, coat torn and blood at his temple.
"Main floor clear," he said. "We have two dead guards, one live clerk, one runner escaped east."
Prell came behind him and froze when he saw the crates.
"By the Saints," he breathed.
Varen did not miss it.
Real shock.
Not performance.
"You didn't know," Varen said.
Prell glared. "Save your insight for later."
The courier on the floor laughed through broken teeth.
"Doesn't matter," he said. "Cell Seven was cleaning station. Core moved before dawn."
Varen crouched beside him.
"Where?"
"Mercy Spire. Noon conclave." He coughed blood. "Moderates and zealots. They'll decide who owns the lists by sundown."
Rill went still.
"Mercy Spire is sanctuary ground," she said. "No blade law."
Vane answered without looking at her.
"No blade law exists where child ledgers are sold."
The courier spat at his boots.
"You Inquisition dogs always say that right before burning everyone."
Vane did not react.
Prell took the bone cylinders and began stacking them into a lock case.
Elya slapped his hand away.
"Mixed chain," she said.
He started to argue, saw Varen and Sera both watching, and stopped.
"Fine," he said. "Witness every transfer."
The floor above groaned.
Jak looked up. "Not good groan."
Sol shouted from the stairs, "Fire at south wall!"
Orange light flashed through cellar cracks. Someone had lit lamp oil outside.
Varen grabbed two ledger bundles and shoved them into Iven's arms.
"Move!"
They fought up through smoke and heat into the alley where three masked men were already retreating toward the market bridge.
Bryn took an arrow in the thigh and went down hard.
Sera hauled him behind a barrel and snapped the shaft.
Vane's operators chased the arsonists. One slipped on fish slime, slammed into a wall, and did not rise.
Prell dragged the lock case through flames with his bare hands until the skin on his palms blistered.
Varen saw it and for the first time that morning believed Prell might be many bad things but not indifferent.
They got out with six crates, nine bone cylinders, one live courier, and one burning block behind them.
Not enough.
Never enough.
---
They returned to Lantern Court under full watch.
Halren waited at the top of the stairs with a document table and two witnesses like this was a graduation ceremony.
"Time window complete," he said. "Kross enters debrief custody now."
"After chain inventory," Varen said.
"Now."
Sera stepped in front of Varen.
"He is bleeding through his bandage."
"Medical can attend during debrief."
"You're deaf," Jak muttered.
Vane raised a hand and all side arguments died.
"Debrief proceeds under my writ and his conditions," he said. "Conditions are as follows: one, no isolation cell; two, one chosen witness present at all times; three, active operation authority retains mixed sign requirement; four, no transfer of named minors while debrief is open."
Halren's expression soured. "You don't get to rewrite our process."
"I get to decide whether my signal flags stay green on your ridge," Vane said.
Halren signed.
Prell signed.
Varen signed last, blood mark unsteady but legible.
He looked at Elya.
"You sit in," he said.
She nodded once.
The debrief chamber was a former archive room with no windows and three lamps turned too bright. Vane sat opposite Varen with no table between them. Prell and one Inquisition recorder took the back wall. Elya stood at Varen's shoulder, arms folded so tight her knuckles stayed white.
Vane began with simple questions.
"When did you first learn the name Quartermaster Thane?"
"From Jak."
"When did you first suspect Vael?"
"Before Khaross. Confirmed at Scriptorium Nine."
"What is Mother Rill's relation to active Choir cells?"
"Opposed to Patriarch line. Protects willing-donor enclaves."
"Can you prove that?"
"No. I can prove she saved two children and stopped a bleed in my court while your legal documents argued about ownership."
Vane wrote nothing.
He listened.
As the questions narrowed, Varen realized something.
This was not only an interrogation.
It was mapping.
Who trusted who.
Who could be moved without breaking the whole structure.
Who would burn first when pressure hit.
After one hour, Vane dismissed Prell and the recorder, keeping only Elya in the room.
"Off record," he said.
Prell hesitated. Vane repeated, "Now."
The door shut.
Vane leaned forward.
"There is a second directive attached to my treaty," he said quietly. "Not from my office. From High Inquisition Continuity. It instructs me to secure the grimoire by any means if internal governance loses control."
Elya went rigid.
Varen felt his pulse slam.
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning if this place fractures publicly, someone above me wants your book in chains before lunch." Vane held his gaze. "I did not execute that directive. Yet."
"Why tell me?"
"Because Mercy Spire happens at noon and if you walk in blind, you die and I inherit a mountain full of liars."
He stood and opened the door.
Outside, Jak waited with soot still on his face and a folded scrap in his hand.
"Message came while you were inside," he said. "No sender mark."
Varen took it and unfolded once.
Three lines in tight courier script:
NOON CONCLAVE MOVED.
ASH MARKET, UNDER GLASS.
BRING THE SOVEREIGN OR THE CHILD LISTS START SHIPPING.
Vane read over his shoulder.
"Then we don't have until noon," he said. "We have whatever time is left before the first wagon rolls."
