At dawn, Ulysses traced the spindle’s guiding pull to the inn where the Doomsday Clock’s fallen agent had lodged. He combed the vacated room but found nothing—no journals, no artifacts. Whatever the man possessed had likely vanished when the spindle snipped his thread of fate.

  By mid-morning, he returned home to find Yvette prodding listlessly at her breakfast, a hand pressed to her temple.

  "The Crown’s interrogator unsettled you?" he asked.

  "Not the questioning—Her Majesty’s man was civil enough." She winced. "I… forged a new channel between aether layers last night. The visions left me raw." She omitted the dreams of dead adepts’ memories, those stolen glimpses that sometimes cracked open her mind like lockpicks. Best to stick to half-truths.

  "Malacath’s library," she offered. "All that time among esoterica must’ve sharpened my senses." A flimsy lie. In reality, she’d spent hours there feeding mackerel scraps to the resident cat while skirting actual study. Books were landmines compared to purified aether—an irony, given last night’s transgression.

  Sketching the pirate’s scalp runes had been reckless. The tattoo’s spiraling vortex crowned by a Pearl Idol, encircled by malformed worshippers—it reeked of sacrificial rites to some drowned abyss-god. Even now, recalling her drawing made the air taste of salt. When phantom bloodstains crept across the page, she’d slammed the sketchbook shut, only to gag on her suddenly briny drinking water.

  Forbidden knowledge warped reality. A lesson she’d intellectually grasped, but experiencing it? That left her trembling. She’d locked the page away, resolving never to reopen it.

  "Ease your studies," Ulysses warned over coffee. "Those who ascend too swiftly often drown."

  His own night’s labor showed in the shadows beneath his eyes. Yet here he was, caffeine in hand, shrugging off sleep. "Kent business," he deflected when pressed.

  "Canterbury’s reliquaries?" Winslow arched a brow. "Seeking absolution or just morbid curiosity?"

  "Medical codices. The Church’s old plague notes hold… insights."

  As Ulysses beat a hasty retreat, Yvette mentioned her missing mirror—stolen, she realized, by some klutzy intruder who’d left glass shards as calling cards. She’d slept through it all, drugged into oblivion. Surviving merrow-kin only to be offed by a common cutpurse—what a farcical epitaph that’d make.

  Winslow’s glare could’ve frozen the Thames. "Sir. I trust you’ll confess this transgression thoroughly. The angels might spare you—I shan’t be so lenient."

  Ulysses’ toast-dangling escape—so much for dignified esquires. Yvette shook her head. Between cryptic eldritch perils and domestically challenged mentors, normality seemed a foreign shore.

  When Ulysses returned to Canterbury Cathedral, the porter—who remembered him vividly from before—hastened to deliver the Holy Seat’s message.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “His Holiness instructed that you needn’t wait hereafter. Proceed directly to his chambers.”

  Ulysses followed the arched Romanesque passage. Before reaching the office, the aged pontiff’s voice carried through the door, intoning scripture:

  “And God said, Let us make man in our image… male and female He created them.”

  It was a passage from Genesis, cornerstone of the Trinity faith—a doctrine claiming humanity’s divine origin, shaped by a rational God’s wisdom.

  Yet this was illusion. The Trinity religion, the Holy Seat knew, was mankind’s mirror: a shield of idealized morals against the Old Gods’ encroachment. A necessary lie.

  Without it, the dread reflections of immortal horrors from higher realms would have shattered his sanity long ago.

  The higher one climbed the Sefirot ladder of the Tree of Life, the truer—and crueler—those reflections became.

  Ulysses’ knock halted the recitation. Only one man bypassed protocol. The Holy Seat’s smile didn’t waver as the door opened.

  “Twice in a week? This must be glad tidings.”

  “The Doomsday Clock agent is dead. Stand down the alert.”

  The Holy Seat’s mirth faded. “Your doing?”

  “No. I tasked ‘Spindle’ with tracking him. He chose… drastic measures. Severed the target’s worldly ties entirely.”

  Unexpectedly, the Holy Seat relaxed. “Frederic acted wisely. Our mandate demands extreme measures against that cult. He shares his power’s toll—yes, it’s dire, but no leader would risk your exposure over it.”

  Europe’s high clergy often hailed from aristocratic second sons. The Holy Seat’s own blood tied distantly to the Lancasters; he addressed their kin with familial ease.

  “So you approve?” Ulysses arched a brow.

  “Human minds are brittle. Awakened ones wage war against the Old Gods’ marks festering within. Isolation breeds rot. We are reeds in the fissure—too blind to ascend, too scarred to return. Some rebels lash out, but their hatred is directionless. Be grateful they don’t know of you.”

  “And your own fear of death, Pagitt?”

  “Death terrifies all mortals. You, perhaps, can’t fathom it—your kind transcends endings.” The Holy Seat shut his Bible, eyes clear as springwater. “Life and death are entwined. Our fleeting existence gives the world its beauty. The Old Gods’ undying spawn? Mere husks split from hollow deities. I fear death… yet without it, I would never have been. So I cherish this fragile spark.”

  Though aged, the old man’s spirit burned undimmed—a prerequisite for leading the Special Missions Bureau. Wisdom, not raw power, steered their order.

  “I depart Albion after the Season. Two months at most.”

  “So soon? Ten years was your custom. Where next?”

  “Travel.” At the Holy Seat’s skeptical glance, Ulysses amended: “Private matters. I return by autumn.”

  “Safe journeys, then.”

  …

  London’s Season ended. Balls and dinners ceased; Mayfair’s grand homes emptied. Nobles retreated to estates like autumn swallows, while lovestruck youths clung to letters, dreaming of hunts and reunions.

  Yvette bid Alison farewell, urging her to seek aid from Club allies if trouble arose. Trunk in hand, she joined Ulysses.

  Even the ever-dapper peacock adapted to travel. This age demanded sartorial sacrifice: no quick changes, no army of valets to launder lace trims. Ulysses donned a practical cloak, though it hardly dulled his radiance.

  Winslow, duty-bound, stayed behind. Yvette vowed souvenirs.

  They boarded Cunard’s SS Silver Star—a hybrid steamer-sailer boasting 14 knots and 500 berths. Speed trumped luxury; maritime contracts fined delays ￡1 per minute. Blue Riband honors crowned the fastest Atlantic crossings—a trophy Cunard clutched tightly. Though outclassed by newer ships, Silver Star’s crew still preened over her maiden voyage ribbon.

  No grand ballrooms here. First-class meant narrow cabins and set menus.

  As summer skies gilded the horizon, London dissolved behind them. Sails billowed, propelling the steamer into open waters. Two weeks to a new continent.