Three days of silence.
Three days of watching the Inquisition sweep through the harbor district, of avoiding patrols and maintaining cover, of pretending to be nothing more than a humble healer while the world he had built trembled on the edge of exposure.
Three days of wondering if Old Gregor was still alive.
Evander maintained his routine with mechanical precision. He opened the clinic at dawn. He saw patients. He healed the sick. He smiled and nodded and played the role of Dr. Ashcroft so perfectly that even his own servants might have been fooled. All the while, his mind churned with questions that had no answers.
Who was the traitor? How much did they know? Where was Gregor?
On the fourth day, the answers came.
He felt the presence before he saw it. A ripple in the death magic that permeated his underground domain, a disturbance in the wards that should have been impossible. Someone had entered his sanctum. Someone powerful enough to bypass protections that should have killed any intruder.
Evander descended through the hidden passages, his hands gathering shadows that solidified into weapons. If the traitor had come to finish what they started—
"Put those away, boy. You'll hurt yourself."
Old Gregor sat in the war room, looking exactly as he had four days ago. The glamour that made him appear human was intact: weathered face, rheumy eyes, the kindly grandfather expression that concealed a skull three centuries dead. He was drinking tea from a cup that Evander didn't remember leaving on the table, his posture as casual as if he had stopped by for a social visit.
"You're alive." Evander let the shadow weapons dissolve, relief and anger warring in his chest. "Your message said you were going to ground."
"And so I did. Underground, specifically. There's a crypt beneath the old cemetery in the Temple District that the Church forgot about two hundred years ago. Very comfortable, if you don't mind the company." Gregor sipped his tea, watching Evander with eyes that held far more awareness than any living gaze. "I spent three days watching, listening, making sure I wasn't followed. Only then did I come here."
"The warehouse—"
"Lost. Along with three of my best agents and a considerable investment in alchemical components." Gregor set down his cup, and for the first time, weariness showed through his facade. "The Inquisition moved before we could act. Someone gave them exact timing, exact location, exact inventory. This wasn't a lucky guess, Evander. This was betrayal."
Evander pulled out a chair and sat across from his mentor. "Who?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" Gregor's glamour flickered, deliberately, Evander suspected, to emphasize his point. The skull beneath showed through, empty eye sockets dark with old regret. "I've spent three centuries building networks, cultivating contacts, learning who can be trusted. I would have bet my continued existence that no one in my organization would sell us to the Church."
"But someone did."
"Someone did." Gregor restored his human appearance. "I've narrowed it down to five possibilities. Five people who knew enough about the operation to betray it. Three are already dead. The Inquisition moved on them within hours of the warehouse raid."
"Which three?"
"Merchant Callow. Sister Therese. The dockmaster who arranged our supply chain." Gregor's voice was flat, clinical. "Burned as collaborators with death magic. The Church didn't even bother with trials."
Evander processed this with cold efficiency. "If the Inquisition is killing them, they're not the traitor. The traitor would be protected."
"Exactly my thinking. Which leaves two possibilities." Gregor reached into his robe and produced two small portraits, painted miniatures no larger than his palm. "Helena Vance. Bernard the Scholar."
Evander studied the faces. Helena Vance he knew, a middle-aged woman who served as housekeeper in the Archbishop's residence, feeding information about Church movements to Gregor's network for years. Bernard the Scholar was less familiar: an older man, academic-looking, who apparently worked as a records keeper in the capital's central archives.
"I don't know Bernard."
"Few do. That's rather the point." Gregor tucked the portraits away. "He's been my source for Church documents for the past two decades. Very reliable. Very careful. Very expensive."
"And Helena?"
"She's been in place longer than you've been alive. Never gave us anything that turned out to be false. Never hesitated when asked to take risks." Gregor's expression darkened. "But she has a nephew in the Inquisition. A young man who recently received a significant promotion."
"You think she turned to protect him?"
"I think people will do terrible things for family." Gregor met Evander's gaze directly. "You should understand that better than anyone."
The words hit harder than they should have. Evander thought of his mother, of the lengths he had gone to avenge her, of the person he had become in pursuit of that vengeance. Yes. He understood what people would do for family.
"How do we confirm which one?"
"I have a plan. It requires your assistance." Gregor stood and moved to the map table with the careful precision of someone who had practiced appearing alive for three hundred years. "We feed them different information. Give Helena one version of a planned operation. Give Bernard another. Whichever version reaches the Inquisition tells us who the traitor is."
"Classic misdirection."
"Classic for a reason. It works." Gregor traced a finger across the map, stopping at the Cathedral District. "Helena, we tell that you're planning to move against Archbishop Thorne during the Harvest Festival blessing next month. Bernard, we tell that you're targeting Bishop Marcos at his estate in the countryside."
"And if neither piece of information leaks?"
"Then we have a third possibility. One neither of us wants to consider." Gregor's finger moved to a point on the map much closer to where they stood. "Someone inside this organization. Someone who knows enough to betray the warehouse operation but not enough to know about Helena or Bernard."
The implication was ugly. Someone inside Evander's own network. One of the Masked. One of the Watchers. Perhaps even one of the Council, the twelve ancient spirits who advised him on matters of strategy and politics.
Or perhaps someone even closer.
"You're suggesting it might be me," Evander said quietly. "That I've been compromised without knowing it."
"I'm suggesting that true paranoia leaves no one above suspicion. Including yourself." Gregor's glamour shifted again, revealing the skull beneath with deliberate emphasis. "The death magic we practice is not without risks, boy. The things we bind, the spirits we command, the power we channel, all of it comes from somewhere. And the creatures that dwell in that somewhere are not our friends."
"The Death Gods."
"Among other things." Gregor moved away from the map, his skeletal fingers steepled before him. "You've grown powerful, Evander. More powerful than any practitioner I've seen in three centuries. That kind of power attracts attention. It creates connections. And sometimes, those connections go both ways."
"You're saying something might be controlling me? Using me to betray my own people?"
"I'm saying it's possible. The Death Gods are patient. They've been imprisoned for three hundred years, waiting for someone to weaken their chains. A necromancer of your strength, properly manipulated, could be exactly the tool they need." Gregor's empty eye sockets fixed on him with an intensity that needed no flesh to convey. "Have you had any unusual dreams lately? Moments where you lost time? Impulses that seemed to come from outside yourself?"
Evander considered the question seriously, examining his memories with the rigorous attention he brought to medical diagnoses. The truth was... yes. There had been moments. Dreams of endless darkness, of chains that rusted and broke, of voices whispering promises in languages that shouldn't exist. He had dismissed them as stress, as the natural consequence of maintaining his double life for fifteen years.
But what if they were something more?
"I've had dreams," he admitted. "Nothing concrete. Just... impressions. Feelings of anticipation. As if something was waiting for me to accomplish something."
"Describe them."
"Darkness. Always darkness. And a sense of pressure, like standing at the bottom of the ocean. Then chains, massive chains, stretching across distances I couldn't comprehend. And voices, speaking words I couldn't understand but somehow knew were important."
Gregor's glamour had gone completely, revealing the skeleton that sat across from him. Three centuries of existence wearing a concerned expression that transcended the limitations of bone. "That's them. The Death Gods. They're using your power as a window, Evander. Looking through your eyes. Feeling through your magic. Waiting for the moment when you're strong enough to serve their purposes."
"And what purposes are those?"
"Freedom. What else?" Gregor rose from his seat, the click of his bones against the stone floor impossibly loud in the sudden silence. "Three hundred years ago, the first Inquisition sealed the Lords of the Grave in their prison. It cost them everything: thousands of lives, the destruction of an entire civilization, sacrifices that no one today could imagine. And even then, the seal wasn't perfect. It weakens with time. It weakens with every use of death magic in the mortal world."
"You're saying I'm breaking them out. Every time I use my power."
"I'm saying you're contributing to a process that has been underway since before you were born. Every necromancer does. Every raised corpse, every bound spirit, every phylactery created feeds into those ancient chains, corroding them bit by bit." Gregor moved closer, placing skeletal hands on Evander's shoulders. "But you're special, boy. You have more raw power than any practitioner in three centuries. The things you do with death magic, the armies you command, the reach of your network, it's unprecedented. And the Death Gods know it. They've been waiting for someone like you."
Evander stared at his mentor. All his plans for vengeance, all his careful preparations for the destruction of the Inquisition. Had they been serving a purpose beyond his own? Had the rage that drove him, that had shaped him into the weapon he had become, been planted by forces that saw him as nothing more than a tool?
"What do I do?"
"For now? Be careful. Be aware. Watch for those dreams and report them to me." Gregor withdrew his hands, restoring his glamour with visible effort. "The connection isn't complete yet. They can observe, but they can't control. You're still you, Evander. Your choices are still your own."
"And when the connection becomes complete?"
"Then we'll have bigger problems than a traitor in our midst." Gregor moved toward the passage that led out of the war room. "Find the leak. Deal with Bishop Marcos. But don't forget what I've told you today. The Inquisition isn't wrong about everything. The Death Gods are real, they're dangerous, and they're paying very close attention to what you do next."
He paused at the threshold, looking back with eyes that held three centuries of regret.
"I taught you to be powerful. Perhaps I should have taught you to be careful instead. The difference may determine whether the world survives what's coming."
And then he was gone, leaving Evander alone with the maps and the plans and knowledge that changed everything.
Above, the Church bells tolled the evening hour.
Below, in chains that had held for three centuries, the Death Gods smiled.
Their chosen vessel was beginning to understand.
