Midnight in the cloister, and somewhere in the monastery above us, Ashworth is finishing his prayers.

  The killing ground is exactly where Corrine described—a covered walkway surrounding a frozen garden, Gothic arches casting silver bars of moonlight across the flagstones. Stone saints watch from alcoves, their expressions eroded to blankness, their empty eyes patient and unsettling. A place for contemplation, once. Before the congregation claimed it for darker purposes.

  Now it's where I'll face the man who hunted Mei for twenty years.

  Mei positions herself beyond the garden wall—our extraction point, covering the route we'll use to disappear once the killing is done. She wanted to be inside, wanted to face Ashworth herself, but we agreed: if something goes wrong, we need someone outside who can get Corrine to safety. Twenty-two years of hunting have taught her when to lead and when to let go.

  Before she slipped into the darkness, I caught a glimpse of her right hand on the blade grip—the two missing fingers, the ones Ashworth took years ago when she was young and foolish enough to face him alone. She told me that story once, voice flat, flexing the remaining digits like she could still feel the phantom weight of what she'd lost. He left me alive as a message, she'd said. Tonight you send my reply.

  I take the far corner, where shadows pool deepest beneath a half-collapsed arch. The stone is cold against my back, the moisture in the night air making the marks sing with anticipation. From here, I'll have a clear line of approach once Ashworth commits to his nightly walk.

  We settle in to wait.

  Minutes stretch into an hour. I count them by the pulse of the marks, each beat marking another second closer to what I've come to do. My hand finds the locket beneath my collar—that tarnished silver weight I haven't been able to take off since the ferry. It's warm against my skin, always warm, as if something inside it is waiting. Your mother is alive. The woman's words echo in my mind. Another mystery. Another answer I'm hunting toward. Somewhere in the main building, lights go out one by one as the household settles for the night. The guards change shift—I hear their voices, distant and muffled, as the midnight rotation moves into position.

  The cold seeps through my clothes, into my skin, into my bones. I embrace it. Let it sharpen my focus, hone my attention to a fine edge. The emptiness in my chest feels larger tonight—a vast empty space waiting to be filled with violence.

  Then—footsteps.

  Slow, deliberate, the measured rhythm of a man lost in thought. A door opens at the entrance to the cloister. A figure steps through, silhouetted against the dim light from inside.

  Ashworth.

  He's larger than I expected. The documents described him as formidable, and Mei's sketches, drawn from memory of their last encounter, captured his weathered face precisely, but seeing him in person gives the word new meaning. Broad-shouldered, heavy, built like someone who's done hard labor all his life—or like someone who's made violence his profession and practiced it until his body became a weapon. His face is weathered, scarred, the face of a man who's seen violence and dealt it in equal measure for longer than I've been alive.

  He moves with the careful economy of someone who knows exactly how dangerous he is. No wasted motion. No hesitation. The easy confidence of a predator who has never met anything that could challenge him.

  I understand now why Corrine ran. Why everyone runs, when Ashworth comes for them. He carries death in his posture, in the set of his shoulders, in the way his eyes sweep the cloister even as he appears lost in contemplation.

  He walks the perimeter of the cloister. Pauses at each statue, touches them briefly, the gesture of a man performing a familiar ritual. His lips move—prayer, maybe, or just habit worn so deep it's become instinct. Then he moves on, deeper into the shadows.

  Closer to me.

  I hold my breath. Feel the blade against my thigh, cool and patient. Feel the ritual scars singing their eager rhythm, ready for what comes next.

  Ten feet. Five. He stops.

  "You can come out," he says conversationally, as if discussing the weather. "I've known you were there since I entered."

  The words freeze me in place. How? How did he—

  "Their hunters learn to sense threat," he continues. He hasn't turned around, hasn't looked in my direction. He's standing perfectly still, hands loose at his sides, the posture of a man who knows exactly where he stands in the hierarchy of violence. "It's a survival skill. The Deep One doesn't protect us—never has. We protect ourselves, or we die."

  I step out of the shadows. No point in pretending anymore.

  His face is calm when he turns to face me. Unsurprised. He takes me in with a long, assessing look—my age, my build, the way I hold myself. The trained stillness that marks someone prepared for violence.

  "The Tide," he says. "The one who drowned and came back."

  The name sends a chill through me. I hadn't known they were calling me that—hadn't known the congregation had given their failed experiment a title. The Tide. Rising and falling. Inevitable.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "You've heard of me."

  "Everyone's heard of you. Five dead in seven months. The congregation hasn't faced a threat like you in decades." Something like respect flickers in his eyes. "Most of them thought you'd burn out, make a mistake, end up dead in an alley somewhere. I knew better."

  "I know what you are. The congregation has been hunting you since Garrett." He tilts his head slightly, studying me like a specimen. "Five of ours dead in seven months, counting Mercer. You're efficient, I'll give you that. More efficient than most hunters I've faced."

  "You've faced hunters before?"

  "Dozens of them over the years. The congregation has enemies—always has. People who want to expose us, destroy us, avenge some perceived wrong." He almost smiles, the expression strange on his weathered face. "They always fail. Not because we're invincible, but because we're patient. We've been doing this for centuries. We know how hunters think, how they move, how they eventually make the mistake that kills them."

  "I haven't made a mistake yet."

  "Everyone makes mistakes. The question is whether you survive them." He takes a step toward me. I tense, but he doesn't reach for a weapon. "You're young. Younger than I expected from the reports. They said you were just a child when they took you."

  "I was sixteen."

  "Old enough to understand what was happening. Old enough to hate." He nods slowly, grudging respect in his voice. "That's good. Hate is useful. It keeps you focused, keeps you moving when everything else fails."

  "I'm not here to discuss philosophy."

  "No. You're here to kill me." He says it matter-of-factly, without fear or resignation. "The same way you killed Garrett and Webb and Cross and all the others. One by one, working through the list the Deep One gave you."

  "How do you know about the list?"

  "I'm the congregation's senior hunter. I know everything about our enemies—their methods, their motivations, their weaknesses." His eyes meet mine, and I see something unexpected in them. Recognition. "I know what happened in Dover. I know what the Deep One showed you when it looked into your mind. I know that you carry eighteen names branded into your memory, and that you won't stop until every one of them is dead."

  "Then you know why I'm here."

  "Yes." He pauses, something shifting in his expression. "But you don't know why I'm still standing here, making no move to defend myself."

  The observation catches me off guard. He's right—he could have called for guards, could have attacked me while I was in the shadows, could have done any number of things to protect himself. Instead, he's standing in the moonlight, having a conversation with the person who's come to kill him.

  "Why?" I ask.

  "Because I'm tired." The words come out flat, exhausted. "Twenty years of this work. Twenty years of hunting and killing and enforcing the will of men who believe they're doing holy work when they're really just playing at power. I've seen too much. Done too much. Crossed lines I didn't even know existed until I was standing on the other side."

  "You want me to believe you have a conscience?"

  "No. I lost that a long time ago." He shakes his head slowly. "What I have is weariness. The bone-deep exhaustion of someone who has done terrible things for so long that he can no longer remember why he started."

  "It was pointless. All of it. The Deep One doesn't care about your devotion."

  "I see that now." The admission seems to cost him something. "I've suspected for years. The rituals and centuries of sacrifice—none of it matters to something that exists on the scale the Deep One does. We're ants trying to get the attention of—"

  "A god. Yes." I've heard enough. "Philosophy won't save you."

  "Then why continue?"

  "Because the alternative is worse." He meets my eyes. "If the congregation's work is meaningless, then every child I've helped sacrifice died for nothing. Every defector I hunted down was murdered for nothing. Every terrible thing I've done in the name of the Deep One was just... cruelty without purpose."

  "It was."

  "Yes." He nods slowly. "And I can't live with that."

  Silence stretches between us. The marks stir below my heart, waiting. That primordial awareness has sharpened—curious, perhaps, about this conversation. About the human drama playing out in its shadow.

  "You mentioned my list." I keep my voice level. "Eighteen names. You're one of them."

  "I know."

  "I'm going to kill you tonight."

  "I know that too." He spreads his hands—empty, weaponless. "I could fight. I've killed hunters before, as I said. Killed them with my bare hands, some of them. But there's no point anymore. You're right about everything—the Deep One's indifference, the futility of our work, the meaninglessness of the sacrifices."

  "That sounds like you're asking for absolution."

  "No. There's no absolution for people like me. Just endings." He straightens his shoulders, squaring himself to face what's coming. "I have one request."

  "I'm not in the business of granting requests."

  "Hear me out anyway. You're going after the others—Celeste, Marsh, all of them. When you find them, don't offer them the choice I'm offering you. Don't give them the chance to explain, to justify, to make excuses. Just kill them."

  "Why?"

  "Because they'll use your mercy against you. They'll lie, manipulate, say whatever they need to say to survive. They're not like me—they still believe. They think everything they've done is righteous, that the suffering they've caused serves a higher purpose." His jaw tightens. "Don't give them the chance to corrupt that belief into something that helps them escape."

  I consider his words. The marks seem to hum their agreement.

  "I wasn't planning to offer mercy," I murmur.

  "Good." He nods once. "Then we understand each other."

  He reaches for his belt, and I tense—but he's not drawing a weapon. He's pulling out a folded paper, offering it to me across the space between us.

  "What's this?"

  "Names. Locations. Information about the congregation's operations that I've been collecting for years. In case someone like you ever came along." He almost smiles. "Consider it my final contribution to the cause."

  I take the paper. Unfold it. The carvings burn as I scan the contents—dozens of names, addresses, connections. More intelligence than we could have gathered in months of hunting.

  "Why?" I ask again.

  "Because I'm tired of being the villain in other people's stories." He meets my eyes, and I see something there that might be peace. Acceptance. The resignation of a man who has finally stopped running from what he deserves. "Do what you came here to do. End this."

  I draw my blade.

  Twelve names remain.

  The paper burns in my pocket as I wait for him to make his choice. Names and locations and secrets that could unravel decades of congregation work. Information he gathered not for them, but against them—a man slowly turning traitor in his heart while his body went through the motions.

  I wonder if he's been hoping for this. Hoping someone would come who was strong enough to end it.

  The marks pulse beneath my ribs. The Deep One watches from its eternal depths. And somewhere in the darkness beyond the cloister walls, Corrine waits with Mei, ready to run or fight depending on what happens next.

  Ashworth reaches for his blade. So do I.