Blackthorn Hall always smelled faintly of candle smoke and wet stone after rain.

Seraphina noticed it the moment she stepped back inside.

The monastery corridors were quieter than usual at this hour, though silence inside the Order rarely meant peace. Somewhere deeper in the eastern wing, recruits still trained beneath the muted rhythm of practice blades striking hardwood. A priest crossed the hallway carrying archive boxes without looking up.

Normal movement.

Routine.

Which somehow felt stranger now.

She walked through the cathedral corridor with damp hair still clinging faintly to the collar of her coat, exhaustion settling deeper into her shoulders with every step.

The night had been too long.

The ballroom.

Matthias.

Lucien.

The almost-kiss she absolutely refused to think about again.

Unfortunately, her brain appeared uninterested in cooperation.

“You’re distracted.”

Seraphina looked up immediately.

Father Aldric stood near the library entrance holding a ceramic coffee cup in one hand and several sealed documents in the other. Calm as ever. Elegant as ever. Like the entire world politely arranged itself around his composure.

She hated how difficult he was to read.

“Good evening to you too,” she replied.

Aldric glanced briefly toward the rainwater still dripping from the hem of her coat.

“You missed curfew.”

“I’m thirty years old.”

“And still remarkably bad at sleeping.”

That almost sounded affectionate.

Which made it worse.

Because Aldric weaponized warmth better than most people weaponized knives.

He gestured lightly toward the cathedral study behind him.

“Walk with me.”

Not a request.

Seraphina followed anyway.

The study occupied one of the oldest sections of Blackthorn Hall, lined floor-to-ceiling with dark wooden shelves and ancient theological texts nobody under the age of seventy actually read voluntarily.

A fire burned low in the stone hearth.

Tea steamed quietly on the desk.

Everything about the room felt carefully designed to lower defenses.

Aldric moved toward the window overlooking the rain-soaked monastery gardens below.

“You attended the masquerade.”

Not a question either.

Seraphina removed her gloves slowly. “You already know I did.”

“I know there was gunfire.”

“There usually is around vampires.”

Aldric smiled faintly into his coffee.

“You sound defensive.”

“I got shot at.”

“That tends to affect people.”

The conversation moved too smoothly already.

Seraphina recognized the rhythm.

Aldric never interrogated directly at first.

He let people settle into themselves long enough to reveal things accidentally.

“You sent me after Lucien,” she said. “Did you know the Church had mercenaries embedded inside vampire courts?”

Aldric turned toward her then.

Measured.

Thoughtful.

“As opposed to hunters?”

“As opposed to unofficial assassins.”

“Is there a meaningful difference anymore?”

The answer irritated her immediately because she still didn’t know.

And worse—

Aldric noticed that hesitation instantly.

There.

A flicker of interest behind calm eyes.

The priest set his coffee cup down carefully before speaking again.

“You’re beginning to understand the scale of this situation.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It’s meant to.”

Rain tapped softly against cathedral glass behind him while shadows from the fireplace moved slowly across old stone walls.

Seraphina folded her arms loosely.

“Matthias was infected.”

“Yes.”

“You already knew.”

Aldric didn’t deny it.

That alone tightened something sharply beneath her ribs.

“How many?” she asked quietly.

The silence afterward lasted too long.

Finally:

“Enough.”

Not an answer.

Never a real answer with him.

Seraphina took a step closer.

“The Church is experimenting on people.”

“The Church is trying to prevent catastrophe.”

“By creating monsters?”

Aldric’s expression shifted slightly then.

Not anger.

Disappointment.

Like she was asking a naive question during a war briefing.

“You still believe morality survives cleanly inside systems of power,” he said gently. “That’s a luxury history rarely permits.”

The sentence sounded dangerously similar to something Lucien would say.

Seraphina noticed that immediately.

And apparently Aldric noticed her noticing.

Interesting.

“You’ve spent too much time around him already,” the priest observed quietly.

Her pulse reacted before she could stop it.

Aldric’s gaze sharpened almost imperceptibly afterward.

God.

He really did notice everything.

“He’s manipulating you,” Aldric continued.

“That’s convenient coming from you.”

The priest laughed softly under his breath.

Not offended.

Possibly impressed.

“I taught you better than blind obedience, Seraphina. I expected skepticism.”

“You also taught me vampires lie.”

“They do.”

“So does the Church apparently.”

That landed.

Not dramatically.

But enough that Aldric looked at her differently afterward.

More carefully now.

Like recalculating.

The fire cracked quietly behind them.

Somewhere farther down the monastery corridor, cathedral bells marked the late hour.

Aldric walked slowly toward one of the archive shelves lining the study walls before pulling free an old leather-bound file.

“Do you know why Lucien frightens the Church?” he asked.

“Because he’s powerful.”

“No.” Aldric handed her the file. “Because he remembers.”

Seraphina opened it carefully.

Inside sat photographs.

Old ones.

Black-and-white Church excavation teams.

Underground chambers.

Ancient symbols.

And Lucien.

Always in the background somewhere.

Watching.

The oldest photograph looked nearly ninety years old.

Lucien hadn’t changed at all.

Something about that made her chest tighten unexpectedly.

Immortality again.

Not beautiful.

Lonely.

Aldric studied her quietly while she flipped through the images.

“He’s been interfering with Church operations for centuries,” the priest said. “Every containment project. Every relic recovery. Every attempt to keep the gates closed.”

“Gates,” she repeated.

Aldric’s expression remained unreadable.

“There are older things than vampires beneath Europe.”

The room suddenly felt colder.

Seraphina closed the file slowly.

“And Lucien’s trying to stop them?”

“He believes he is.”

“That sounds deliberately vague.”

“Because certainty gets people killed.”

Aldric returned to the window afterward, one hand resting lightly against the stone frame as rain blurred monastery gardens beyond the glass.

For several moments neither of them spoke.

Then quietly:

“Your mother trusted him once.”

Seraphina went still.

The words hit harder than she expected.

Not because of what he said.

Because of how casually he said it.

She looked up sharply.

“What?”

Aldric kept his gaze on the rain outside.

“Evelyne worked with Lucien during the Prague containment incident.”

Her throat tightened immediately.

“You told me she died during a raid.”

“She did die during a raid.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No,” Aldric agreed softly. “It isn’t.”

Seraphina stared at him.

Every answer lately felt like opening another locked door only to discover ten more behind it.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Aldric finally turned back toward her.

And there it was again.

That terrible calmness.

The composure of someone who knew exactly how much truth to release at a time.

“Your mother believed Lucien could be trusted.”

The sentence sat heavily between them.

Seraphina almost laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because somehow hearing it aloud made the last several weeks rearrange themselves into something far more dangerous.

Lucien recognizing her instantly.

The archives.

The way he looked at Evelyne’s name in the cathedral library.

The almost unbearable sadness that kept surfacing whenever her mother entered conversation.

Aldric watched the realization unfold behind her eyes in complete silence.

Then finally:

“That,” he said quietly, “is why I need you close to him.”

Seraphina’s attention snapped back toward him.

The manipulation arrived so smoothly she almost missed it.

Almost.

“You want me to spy on him.”

“I want you to learn the truth.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No,” Aldric admitted. “But both require proximity.”

Rain slid slowly down the cathedral windows behind him.

The fire crackled softly.

And suddenly Seraphina understood something deeply uncomfortable:

Aldric had anticipated this from the beginning.

The ballroom.

The assignment.

Lucien.

Her.

All of it.

“You planned this,” she said quietly.

Aldric tilted his head slightly.

“I planned for possibility.”

“That’s a politician’s answer.”

“It’s a priest’s answer.”

Seraphina looked down at the old photographs still resting in her hands.

At Lucien standing motionless in the background of history like someone haunting every century at once.

Then back toward Father Aldric.

“And if I refuse?”

Aldric smiled faintly.

Not cruel.

Which somehow made it more unsettling.

“You won’t,” he said gently.

Exactly the same answer as before.