We left before dawn.

Leander objected to my plan for twelve straight minutes. I timed him.

"You will not trade yourself for the boy."

"That isn't the plan."

"It is the first line of the plan."

"The second line improves it."

He caught my arm before I reached the car. "Tell me you intend to come back."

I looked at his hand.

He released me.

"Intent is unreliable," I said.

"Then promise."

The word hung between us.

Nocturne never promised survival. Rowan had once promised a crying boy no one would touch him.

I took a peppermint from his coat pocket.

"Keep the light on."

The monastery stood beyond dead fields, its bell tower split by lightning. Luca's drone found eleven guards outside, six inside, and heat signatures beneath the chapel.

Leander remained in the command car.

This time, he kept his word.

I approached the front door unarmed.

Adrian's men searched me badly. They found two knives and missed three.

The chapel smelled exactly the same.

Stone. Wax. Bleach.

Eli knelt near the altar with his hands bound. Adrian stood behind him. A woman in white watched from the first pew.

Mara Voss.

My first handler.

She had taught me to shoot, lie, and sleep through screams. She had also slipped extra food beneath my door after the instructors broke two of my ribs.

"You grew beautifully," she said.

I stopped ten feet away.

"You aged."

Her smile remained. "Cruel boy."

"Successful student."

Adrian pressed the gun harder against Eli's skull.

"On your knees."

"You invited me home. Where I grew up, guests got chairs."

Eli's good eye moved toward me.

Three taps of his left thumb against his bound hand.

Old Meridian code.

Two below. Armed.

I let my coat fall.

The distraction lasted half a second.

Eli dropped flat. I threw the knife from my sleeve. It struck Adrian's gun hand.

The chapel erupted.

Luca killed the lights.

I moved through memory.

Two steps left. Stone column. Four steps forward. Confessional.

A guard fired where I had been.

I broke his knee and took his weapon.

Celeste's team entered through the crypt. Cross guards breached the side doors.

Mara vanished.

Adrian ran toward the altar.

Eli swept his legs with the chain between his wrists.

I reached them first.

Adrian lay on his back, my pistol beneath his chin.

"Where are the children?"

He laughed.

"You think this ends here?"

"No. I think you do."

Leander's voice came through my earpiece.

"Rowan."

One word.

Not an order.

I looked at Eli. The boy's face had gone blank. He knew that blankness. So did I.

I lowered the gun.

Adrian smiled.

Eli kicked him unconscious.

"You talk too much," he said.

We found twelve children beneath the chapel.

The youngest was nine.

Leander entered after the building was secured. His coat disappeared around a shivering girl. He crouched rather than tower over her and asked permission before touching her hand.

Across the room, Eli watched him.

"That your boss?" he asked.

"Temporary employer."

"He looks at you like he wants to kill everyone."

"He often does."

"For you."

I glanced at Leander.

He looked up at the same moment.

The distance between us filled with everything neither of us would say in front of children.

Police loyal to Celeste took custody of Adrian. The rescued children went to a protected clinic.

Mara remained missing.

In the chapel office, Luca found one live terminal.

The screen showed a map of Cross freight routes.

Every line converged on the lake.

"Acheron's central archive," he said. "Right under Chicago."

Leander studied the map.

One route ended beneath Cross Holdings.

His private elevator.

The key he never gave anyone had opened their final door.

The rescued children spent the night at a private clinic near Evanston.

I went room to room after midnight.

Most were asleep. One girl watched cartoons with the sound off. Two brothers shared a bed despite the empty mattress beside them.

Eli sat in the hallway wearing hospital scrubs and eating crackers from four packets at once.

"They say I can leave tomorrow," he said.

"You can leave now."

He looked toward the rooms. "They can't."

"Not yet."

"Then I'll wait."

I sat beside him.

For five minutes, neither of us spoke.

"Did you know?" he asked.

"Know what?"

"That it doesn't stop when you get out."

He rubbed his thumb against the inside of his wrist, where restraints had stripped the skin.

"The doors. I keep hearing them."

I handed him a peppermint.

He stared at it.

"This some assassin tradition?"

"Medical treatment."

"For what?"

"Bad questions."

He unwrapped it.

Across the corridor, Leander stood beside the vending machine. He had brought coffee and kept enough distance to let Eli decide whether he existed.

"He knows what you are?" Eli asked.

"Most days."

"And he stays?"

Leander held up one cup.

I nodded.

He approached and gave me the coffee.

"Eli Ward," I said. "Leander Cross."

Eli's shoulders went rigid.

"Your trucks moved us."

Leander sat on the floor opposite him.

"Yes."

"Are you going to say it wasn't your fault?"

"No."

Eli waited.

Leander met his eyes. "It happened beneath my name. I will spend what remains of that name stopping it."

The boy looked down at the peppermint.

"Words are cheap."

"Mine tend to be expensive."

Eli almost smiled.

The nurse's phone rang.

No one had given out the number.

I took the receiver.

Mara breathed on the other end.

"You took twelve," she said. "There are forty more."

The line went dead.