Chapter Thirty-Seven –What They Already Know

Chapter Thirty-Seven –What They Already Know
The air inside the cathedral smelled like ash and old stone. Not rot. Not blood. But something older. Something abandoned and left to watch everything pass it by. Light filtered through broken stained-glass windows, casting fractured color across the dusty floor. The silence wasn’t empty. It was waiting. Three figures stood near the altar—hoods down, faces visible. They made no move to approach. They simply watched as I entered. Gabriel flanked me to the right, quiet but simmering. Sebastian stayed to my left, just far enough that he could intercept, if necessary. None of us spoke first.

The one in the center was tall, dressed in slate-gray robes tailored with surprising precision. Not ceremonial. Functional. Understated in a way that said, I don’t need flash to make you uneasy. His face was lean, his hair white at the temples, though his posture betrayed no age. He smiled without warmth.

“Miss Marlowe,” he said. “Or should I say… Eva Elira Marlowe. Granddaughter of Rhea. Descendant of Elira the Vanished. That’s what they used to call her, isn’t it?”

My spine stiffened.Gabriel shifted beside me. I didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to mind.

“We’ve been watching the bloodlines for a long time,” he continued. “There are patterns. Recurrences. Cycles that were never broken—only hidden.”

Sebastian’s voice was low, even. “You don’t open with a name like that unless you’re trying to provoke a reaction.”

The man inclined his head slightly. “Observation, not provocation.”

I took one more step forward, enough that my coat whispered against my legs.

“You sent for me.”

“We requested a meeting,” he said. “It was your choice to come.”

“I brought company.”

“As expected.”

His gaze shifted briefly to the brothers. No disrespect. But no fear either. That, more than anything, made me wary.

The two flanking him—one younger, the other silent as bone—remained unmoving. Eyes on us. Neither breathed loudly enough to notice. Vampires, maybe. Or something older. I couldn’t tell. But they weren’t ornamental.

The leader gestured toward a long table near the front pews. “Shall we sit?”

I didn’t move. “You called me here,” I said. “You can speak from where you stand.”

A pause. Then, softly, “Very well.” He folded his hands behind his back.

“You returned with something that should not have woken. We aren’t here to take it. We’re here to understand why it responded to you.”
I said nothing.

Sebastian stepped forward. “How do you know it responded?”

“Because it made noise.” His voice was calm, almost amused. “And when things like that move, everything listens.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “You’ve seen it?”

The man didn’t flinch. “We’ve studied it. Or what’s left of its records.”

I raised my chin. “Then you know what it can do?”

“No,” he said. “That’s why we’re here.”

One of the silent ones finally spoke. A woman, barely older than me. Her voice was dry, flat, factual.

“Varek Cain wrote of the disc in his last bound journal. He believed it would choose only once every three generations. The last bearer died unrecorded. The sigils were meant to erase their name from the ledger.”

Gabriel’s head snapped toward her. That journal had never been public.

Sebastian took a step forward, voice low. “How did you get that information?”

The leader answered. “We don’t steal from Cain. We intercept what he discards.”

“Which is the same thing,” I said.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Perhaps.”

I took a slow breath. “What do you want?”

“Knowledge,” he said. “And a seat at the table when what’s coming begins.”

“What do you think is coming?”

He walked around the side of the altar, slowly, hands still folded. “Cain’s old line awakening. The Ashbournes remembering their purpose. A bearer chosen by both. And something older stirring beneath all of it.”

“Something older than Cain?” I asked.

He nodded once. I didn’t like how certain he seemed.

“You called me an interruption,” I said. “So let me be clear—I’m not your solution. I’m not a prophecy. And I’m not opening anything for you.”

“You already did.”

My jaw clenched. “Then you’ve gotten what you came for.”

He looked at me long and quiet, then finally said, “We’ll be watching what you awaken. And what awakens in you.”

That was the end of it. He gestured to the side door. Permission to leave, like we’d been guests at a private recital instead of summoned like weapons. We didn’t thank him. We didn’t bow. We turned and walked back the way we came.

Outside, the sky had shifted. Rain threatened at the edges. The cold had crept in again, biting through the coat like sharp breath. None of us spoke until we were in the car.

Only then did Sebastian murmur, “That wasn’t a conversation.”

“No,” Gabriel said. “That was a countdown.”

I pressed my back into the seat, fingers curled around the artifact’s case beneath my coat. The pulse had gone still again. But my skin hadn’t forgotten how it felt when it stirred.