He was standing in the middle of a past version of the Vault.

  The place looked largely the same as it had when he’d made his many, more mundane visits. Almost. But there was something about the atmosphere that seemed off. Lowe idly wondered if his most recent experience here was playing tricks on him? Adding a colour to this memory which, pre-slaughter, it might not have had? Lowe didn’t know enough about this sort of memory transfer to comment either way, really.

  But, regardless, the feeling in the Vault right now was wrong.

  People were moving around the lobby, clearly locking up for the night. There were no customers, just a bunch of clerks, assistants and low-level functionaries completing their tasks. He didn’t think he recognised any of them - either from his own past or from reading the reports on the bunch of employees who had been replaced by the Shimmerskins.

  He wondered how long ago this had been …

  Then he had his answer as one of the women caught his eye for no reason other than the dress she wore. Ah. That trend. It had burned fast and ugly, a brief, humiliating blip on the fashion radar before vanishing forever.

  Necro-Chic.

  For a few breath months, the wealthy and tasteless had decided that looking recently deceased was the height of sophistication. It was all high collars and trailing black lace. Corsetry so rigid it might creak. Layers of bone-white silk deliberately crumpled to mimic grave shrouds. Accessories had included pearl-trimmed mourning veils, jewelry fashioned after memento mori, even gloves that mimicked skeletal hands. The truly committed - as it smelt like this woman was - had doused themselves in perfume meant to evoke freshly turned soil and dying lilies.

  He remembered that, once, Arebella had worn something like it. Mocked it even as she bought it, stalking around his flat in a ridiculous floor-length number like a widow waiting to faint onto the nearest chaise lounge.

  "I look like I died dramatically in an opera house," she’d said.

  Lowe had agreed.

  And now here he was, seeing it again. Most importantly, though, it helped to give him a rough date for when he was. He must be in a Vault of just under six years ago. When all these people were still alive. Still here. Still moving through their evening like nothing was coming.

  Beyond contemporary fashion commentary, Lowe’s focus snapped back to what he was witnessing. Because the tempo of all the movement in the room had shifted. The quiet hum of end-of-day duties had been replaced by something approaching frantic. Almost frenetic, Lowe thought. The workers were moving faster, their conversations moving beyond idle chit-chat and becoming more pointed. It looked like something had happened, and they weren’t just closing up for the night anymore.

  It seemed a message had come through that they were expecting someone.

  Then came the knock.

  And it wasn’t a timid, excuse me, may I please come in? sort of knock. Nope. This was hearty, I have arrived knock with all sorts of authority weighted behind it. This was a knock that was expecting to be answered.

  It was a knock that boded.

  Then a voice - a touch muffled, but still very understandable - called through from the other side of the sealed door.

  “Lead Clerk, please grant us access.”

  Lowe stiffened at those words and turned to look toward the counter just in time to see a figure emerge from behind it. And he thought knew that man.

  Jaron Whitlow.

  Lowe had read this man’s file. He had sifted through his past and examined every inch of his life after finding his body torn open like some grinning, hollowed-out puppet.

  In the current version of Soar, Whitlow might be dead, but right now, he was standing there, alive and well, reluctantly stepping forward to grant access to whoever was knocking. Lowe couldn’t help but find that weird and, for a moment, had an irrational instinct to want to warn the Lead Clark about his future prospects . . .

  As if sensing Lowe’s worry for him, Whitlow hesitated on his way to the door. Just for a fraction of a second. There was a little flicker of something in his gait, but then the Lead Clerk squared his shoulders and moved to the Vault’s entrance, pressing his palm against a runeplate. As he did so, there was a burst of mana, and the massive locking mechanism disengaged with a deep, rolling thud.

  The Vault doors swung open.

  And, as Lowe had kind of anticipated, the Mayor of Soar walked in.

  Considering the time gap, Lowe might have expected him to look a bit different from when he had, most recently, threatened all of his friends and family. But he didn’t. Even his clothes looked exactly the same, with not a wrinkle out of place. Someone was working some impressive Aesthetic Skills on this guy.

  The same couldn’t be said for the person who followed him in. So much so that it took a third and fourth look for Lowe to realise who it was. The intervening years had not been kind to the Warden of the Reserve. The man Lowe had visited the other morning was a slab of fat wrapped in too much flesh, with a sprinkling of gluttony on top. But here? Here he was a lean bundle of energy. While not being a fan of cod Psychology, Lowe imagined that a case might be made that whatever was about to happen, this guy had taken to comfort eating to get over it . . .

  And then came the Justicars.

  Lowe took a half-step back, instinctively, even though he knew—knew—that none of the six giant soldiers that came next could see him. As he watched, the Justicars piled into the Vault, flanking a chest between them, big, meaty hands gripping the thick iron handles.

  Lowe frowned. What was so important that the Mayor had exclusively chosen Tower of Law enforcers for tonight’s little escapade? It was hardly a secret that there was no love lost between the two major pseudo-military factions in Soar. The Justicars and the Temple Warders might have been on the same side in theory, but in practice, they were two rival arms of authority, forever jostling for primacy. That the Mayor and Warden had chosen only Justicars to protect whatever they were bringing into the Vault said something.

  And it said it loudly.

  The Lead Clerk, Whitlow, cleared his throat, adopting the same tone of quiet professionalism that had, according to the file Lowe had read, pretty much defined his entire career. “Sir. Sirs. It is a pleasure to welcome you both to the Vault. I was not, erm, informed to expect a deposit this evening.”

  The Mayor made an easy gesture. “Well, you’d hardly expect us to make a delivery of this importance public, would you?” He took a step forward, glancing around the lobby as if assessing whether or not it met his standards. Apparently, it didn’t. “I would hope I do not need to explain to you that the fewer people who are aware of our arrival this evening, the better. The Warden has repeatedly assured me that the Vault is the most secure site in the whole of Soar. Is he correct in this?”

  It was phrased like a question. It clearly wasn’t one.

  “Of course, sir,” Whitlow said, guiding the newly arrived group to one of the secured storage chambers deeper inside the lobby. He, as best as he could, trying to wave the rest of his team away and back to their duties. There was no doubt there was an awful lot of interest in this out-of-hours arrival. So much so, Lowe was amazed he hadn’t heard a whisper of this.

  “Just for clarity,” the Mayor said, raising his voice as the rest of the employees began to disperse. “Should anyone feel the need to share the details of this little visit, the Council will ensure that both you and your entire family will be erased. The Warden assures me you have all given the appropriate Confidentiality Oaths. That is so, no?” he said, turning to look at Morholt.

  Well, maybe not so amazed, then. Bloodline genocide tended to buy all sorts of silence.

  The thin - soon to become very fat due to all the stress-eating - face of the Warden of Reserves blanched. “Indeed, sir. It is a prerequisite for all employees of Sovereign Bank who are transferred here to undertake the appropriate rituals. But such a thing is, of course, just a formality. There has never been any record of the Vault failing in its protections.”

  “Which is, after all, why we are here, Aven, is it not?”

  “Indeed.” Morholt gestured for Whitlow to continue. “Indeed it is.”

  “We have several security options available,” the Lead Clerk said. He glanced nervously at the Justicars and the chest they were carrying. “Though I assume you may well have your own specifications?”

  “The strongest you possess,” the Mayor replied. “It is absolutely essential that what is within this chest is placed under impenetrable conditions. It will need to lie wholly undisturbed. This chest does not get looked at. It does not get examined. It does not get touched. Am I clear on this?”

  The Warden smiled, trying to dissipate some of the growing sense of doom.“What my colleague means to say is that discretion is paramount.”

  The Mayor positively exploded at the word ‘colleague’. “No, what I mean Aven, is that if I even get the slightest hint that one of your fucking bean counters has taken a peek at what is in this chest I will firebomb this place so thoroughly not even your own gods will recognise you. That’s correct, colleague dearest, is it not?”

  The Warden nodded and dipped into his pocket for a sweet to crunch. So it begins, thought Lowe.

  In the awkward silence that followed, Whitlow led the group toward the rest of the inner chambers, passing through reinforced archways lined with ancient inscriptions. Lowe fell in behind them, unseen, slipping through a closing blastdoor just before it sealed behind them.

  The final room they reached - one behind a plethora of further protections - was small and lined with storage compartments reinforced with layers of mana sigils. Whitlow gestured towards one of the largest of these, a containment unit warded so heavily it was positively humming. “This would be the most powerful of our safes. I - well, actually - I don’t think we have ever had cause to make use of it. before The cost to maintain the wards is entirely prohibitive.”

  “Fine. We’ll take this one,” the Mayor said.

  Whitlow glanced at Morholt.

  “Don’t look at him,” the Mayor said. “He is not in charge here. I am. Are you questioning my creditworthiness?”

  Morholt popped another sweet and gave a slow nod. “Please ensure the Mayor is granted every consideration.”

  Without waiting for any further sign, the Justicars came forward and, lifting the chest easily, maneuvered it into place in front of the storage compartment. Lowe thought he wanted to see what was inside that chest more than he had anything in his life..

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Come on, open it.

  But they didn’t. The chest remained locked as they pushed it into the safe.

  Whitlow worked fast to lock the unit, hands moving with long practice, but - Lowe thought - there was something a touch uncertain about about him now. A tremor at the edges of his efficiency. A flicker of nerves in the way he checked and re-checked each sequence of motions, as though afraid that one misstep might unravel the entire security matrix.

  “The thing about personal storage,” he said, the words coming out in a rush, “is that it’s only as secure as the person holding it. People tend to think their inventories are inviolate—locked away. Untouchable—but that’s just because they haven’t run into the wrong kind of people. Yet. And let me tell you, gentlemen, as I think we all know, the wrong kind of people very much exist.”

  His voice had taken on a lecturing cadence, as though he were giving a prepared speech, trying to drown out his own anxiety with the comfort of something he knew very well. He gestured, activating the first layer of warding around the chest. The symbols carved into the containment unit flickered, burning bright as mana rushed in before sinking back into the material, reinforcing themselves in a spiral pattern.

  “Most assume an inventory is a perfect vault. A bag of holding but better. Entirely free from theft, looting, or prying hands. That’s true… to a certain extent. But we know that Classes exist with Skills that bypass those protections.” He glanced up as if expecting the Mayor or the Warden to argue, but neither did. So he pressed on. “Looters,” he continued, “can extract from inventories—sometimes with restrictions, sometimes without. Likewise, certain Rogue archetypes have Shadowfinger, a high-tier Skill that lets them reach into an opponent’s inventory so long as the person is stunned or in some other way incapacitated. Indeed, some with the Cursed Thief Class can bind themselves to another’s possessions and actually claim them outright. There are even Ritualists with blood mana Skills that let them strip a dying man of his stored goods before the body’s even cold.” His voice dropped. “And, of course, there are some who don’t even need you dead to take what they want.”

  The Warden made a noise at that, but Whitlow hurried on with his work, activating another ward. The sigil work snapped into place alongside all the others, locking in around the chest tighter.

  “This, however,” he said, gesturing toward the containment unit, “is different. This is true security. No inventory access. No Skills that can pull from it. And no curses that can leech it. Not even someone with the highest-ranked authority at the Bank itself will be able to override this lock once it’s set.” He forced out a chuckle. It was dry. Too dry. “Why, even with all of us dead on the floor, any incursion would still not gain access to this compartment.”

  Lowe couldn’t help but think that was some of the most blatant jinxing he’d ever heard in his life. He wondered if, in his final moments, Whitlow had thought of those words and wished he hadn’t tempted fate quite so openly.

  Lowe’s gaze flicked to the Mayor and Warden. If they were bothered about the doomful phrasing there, it didn’t show. The Warden shifted on his feet, crossing his arms tight over his chest, glancing toward the Justicars. The Mayor’s expression remained entirely unreadable.

  Whitlow, oblivious or too rattled to care, pushed on. “This is, without question, the most secure place in Soar.”

  His hands moved again, tracing a final set of patterns in the air, solidifying the last of the layered protections. The containment unit hummed as the mana shield completed.

  “The access sigil for this unit will be attuned to both of you,” Whitlow said. “No one else, not even myself, will be able to open it without your say so.”

  But the Mayor still didn’t look satisfied, which Whitlow obviously noticed. “Is… is something not to your liking, sir?”

  “I am not sure, Lead Clerk. I am, after all, trusting this Vault with something entirely irreplaceable. Something that simply must not fall into the wrong hands. Tell me, if I were to, gods forbid, die, what would happen to this safe? Would it automatically be opened?”

  “No, not at all. If either of you were to pass, the compartment would, of course, remain keyed to the other. Should you both leave this world, well, there is no override. No backdoor access. Not even Council authority would be enough to break the binding once it was locked. We have a number of such safes within the Vault where the owner is no longer with us. None with this level of protection, of course, but the theory holds.”

  “What about a god?” the Mayor said.

  Was it Lowe’s imagination, or did the memory . . . flicker at that?

  A strange sensation prickled at the back of his skull, not a sound exactly, but a pressure—something that resonated deep in his core. It was as if the marrow of the world itself had been disturbed. The light in the memory of the Vault didn’t dim, not really, but for a fraction of a second, it felt thinner. Like someone had purged all the air from the room.

  Like something vast had turned its attention here, just for the barest of heartbeat.

  The coldest of cold trickles ran down Lowe’s spine.

  Then the walls of the memory shivered, and its edges became wrong in a way he couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t a distortion of vision, nor a trick of the light or an inconsistency in the playback. He’d actually experienced all of those in Grid View before, especially when he was running low on mana. It was far deeper than that. A structural warping, as if reality itself had momentarily doubted what it was supposed to be.

  Then, the memory of the Vault reasserted itself. The echo of people solidified, and the moment continued.

  But Lowe thought something external to the clay disk had reached in and touched it. Or someone?

  Whitlow didn’t seem to notice, but the Mayor definitely had. The Warden looked liked he’d shat himself, Lowe thought, but the Mayor was much calmer. Just a minute movement, a gentle shifting of weight, and a tightening at the corners of his mouth. That was the only sign that he, too, had felt something.

  “Why, look at the pair of balls on you,” Lowe said aloud, not that anyone heard him, of course. “A fucking god is glaring right at you and and you don’t even bat an eye lid.”

  There was a pause, stretched too long.

  Then, Whitlow laughed. A short, nervous little sound, the kind that slipped out when a man wasn’t entirely in control of his faculties. He adjusted his cuffs, a pointless gesture that did nothing to hide the slight tremor in his fingers.

  “Ah. Well. Yes. That would—ah. That would be a different matter entirely.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve never tested our protections against a god…”

  Something moved in the air.

  Not a sound. Not a shift in temperature. Just a feeling. A slow, crawling awareness that something else was listening. Lowe felt it again—that strange weight. That sense of attention bending toward them. The walls of the memory pressed inward, distorting at the edges, as though the past itself was straining under the burden of an unseen force.

  “Humour me,” the Mayor said.

  Whitlow hesitated. His eyes darted toward the Warden, looking presumably for direction. The Warden’s expression was dark and thunderous, but after a moment, he nodded.

  Whitlow licked his lips, then spoke carefully. “It would, of course, be blasphemy for Sovereign Bank to create something a god could not access. There are treaties in place with those in the Celestial Temple that make that very clear.”

  Another flicker. Another epic ripple in the memory. Lowe wasn’t sure whether the interference was back then. Or now. Neither would exactly be a joy.

  “There are no dwellers from the Temple here,” the Mayor said, gesturing toward the Justicars. “You can speak freely. And, of course, there’s no need to harp on and on about the treaties. I signed all of them, for fuck’s sake.”

  The Lead Clerk had been rattled before, but this was different. This wasn’t just nerves. This was fear. He didn’t want to answer. Not because of politics. Not because of bureaucracy. But because of what it meant.

  “So answer me,” the Mayor said. “Will this Vault keep a god out?”

  “In theory… yes, sir.” Whitlow swallowed. “These protections were built against every known incursion. Mortal and otherwise. The sigils do not discriminate between man and beast. Between thief and—” he hesitated, voice dropping, “—and the divine.”

  Another ripple, and Lowe felt a migraine start at the base of his skull. One which Roll with the Punches was absolutely not going to touch.

  Whitlow clenched his hands. “Why, even if a god were to stand in this very room and demand entrance, the Vault would hold. It does not recognise divinity as authority above either you or the Warden.”

  “Of this you are certain?”

  “No, sir,” Whitlow said. “Because, as I said, we have never had cause to test it.”

  For a moment, everything was still. Then the room shuddered. Lowe’s vision blurred, his senses distorting, the whole world tipping sideways without moving at all. And just for a moment—so brief it might not have happened at all—he thought he heard something. A whisper. Not words. Not even sound.

  The memory . . . winced.

  Lowe felt it.

  Like the world itself had curled in on itself for an instant, retreating from something it shouldn’t have dared to exclude. Then it passed.

  Whitlow was clearly unsettled but was determined to pretend otherwise. “The Vault will hold,” he said. His voice didn’t shake, but something behind his eyes did. Lowe wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.

  The light thickened even further. Lowe felt it pressing against him, like he was standing beneath something enormous, something vast enough that its presence bent almost all light around it. He wanted to move, to shake it off, but there was no he to move. In this memory, he didn’t have a body to command.

  Just the memory.

  And the moment.

  He saw it now—the tiny, almost imperceptible distortions in the Vault. The way the shape of the people weren’t quite crisp. How the light didn’t seem to behave properly around the Mayor. How the air seemed to hold the echo of something unspoken.

  Not words.

  Not sound.

  Just rage.

  The Warden’s jaw worked as he chowed down on another sweet. He turned back to Whitlow. “Yes, that’s all fine. Just lock the damn thing up so we can be on our way.”

  Whitlow jolted slightly like he’d forgotten there was anything left to do. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  His fingers twitched through the final sequence. The containment unit hummed as the final sigils locked into place.

  The moment passed.

  The pressure eased.

  The light returned to normal.

  “Good,” the Mayor murmured. His fingers tapped against his arm. “And, Lead Clerk . . .”

  Whitlow straightened as the Mayor’s voice dropped a fraction.

  “You will forget everything about this transaction. You never saw us here. You never handled this.”

  Whitlow hesitated. That was a mistake. A Justicar took a half-step forward. Not a threat. Not yet. Just… a shift.

  Whitlow swallowed. “Of—of course.”

  He turned quickly, adjusting the final sequence of the containment unit, as if trying to put distance between himself and the moment. Lowe caught the barest flicker of a glance. Uncertainty. Dread. The realisation that he had just agreed to something far deeper than he had anticipated.

  And something else.

  A seed of knowledge buried just beneath his expression. Because despite the Warden’s warning—despite the demand to forget—Lowe knew.

  Whitlow wouldn’t stay quiet.

  Couldn’t.

  The existence of this memory disk proved that.

  And that inability was going to get him, and a whole lot of his colleagues, killed.

  “Good,” the Mayor said. His fingers twitched at his side. “No one gets near this. No one. Especially not the Temple.”

  The Warden didn’t contradict the statement. He looked like a man who had just locked something away but wasn’t sure if that was enough.

  Lowe took a step forward, studying him, the way his fingers curled, the way his gaze flickered over the containment unit like he was already second-guessing the decision to leave it here at all.

  There was something in that box that terrified him.

  Then the Vault shuddered. Not in the way a place should—no tremor of stone, no groan of shifting foundations—but in a way that made no sense at all. Like something in the fabric of reality itself had tensed, twisted, and recoiled. The air turned thick, pressing against Lowe like unseen hands, and for one single, unbearable second, the memory seemed to… resist.

  Then, the walls of the moment folded in on themselves. Crumpling like wet paper as all sound cracked and warped. The Mayor’s mouth moved, but his words stretched too long, slowing into something unrecognisable, the syllables twisting in his ears like they weren’t meant to be heard.

  Then the world ripped, and the Vault was gone.

  And Lowe was back in the Museum.

  The chair beneath him was solid. The fire in the hearth crackled low, and the scent of old books and burned wood filled his lungs. And, of course, Grackle Nuroon was watching him.

  The Director of the Museum sat with perfect stillness, one hand resting against his desk, the other steepled against his chin. His dark eyes, sharp and unreadable, studied Lowe like he was examining something extremely valuable. Or potentially useless. Certainly one of the two.

  “Can I assume that you have what you need, Inspector?”

  Lowe’s head still felt like it was somewhere in the Vault, but he was here. He was here.

  “No. Not at all, actually.” He stood. “But at least now I have a proper question to ask. And, more importantly, who to ask it to.”

  Nuroon lifted a brow. “And what, pray, is that?”

  “I need to ask Arkola what the Mayor took from him.”