The apartment was dark when Aurelius returned.
He lit a single candle and sat at his workbench, staring at the blank page in front of him.
Julian Croft. Scholar. Information gatherer. Threat to stability.
Why would he do it? What drives a man to collect knowledge that can destroy?
Is he greedy? Ambitious? Ideological?
Or does he have a reason I can't see yet?
Aurelius picked up his pen and began to write. He wrote everything he knew. Everything he had observed. Every detail, every suspicion, every question.
The poison. The letter. The shop. Seraphine Voss.
The photograph. The fire. Elias.
He paused.
Don't think about that. Focus on the present.
What do I know about Julian Croft?
He searched his memory. The name was familiar, though he couldn't place it immediately.
Scholar. Works at the University of Veridora? No—resigned. Three years ago. Rumors of impropriety. Never proven.
What was his specialty?
He closed his eyes and let his mind wander through the archives of his memory. He had an almost photographic recall—a gift that had served him well in countless investigations.
History. He was a historian. Specialized in ancient artifacts. Pre-Imperial texts.
Why would a historian gather dangerous information?
Unless...
Aurelius's eyes snapped open.
Unless he found something. Something that someone doesn't want found.
He reached for a blank sheet of parchment and began to sketch.
The hours passed. Aurelius worked through the night, building connections, mapping relationships, creating a web of possibilities. By dawn, he had constructed a comprehensive outline of everything he knew—and everything he didn't.
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Step one: Find out where Julian Croft is hiding.
Step two: Find out what he found.
Step three: Find out why it matters.
Step four: Decide what to do about it.
He sat back and rubbed his eyes.
Easy, he thought. Four simple steps.
This is going to be a nightmare.
Morning found Aurelius standing in front of a small, nondescript building in the academic district. The sign above the door read: The Athenaeum—Private Archive.
He pushed open the door.
Inside, the building was quiet. Shelves stretched into the distance, filled with scrolls and tomes and manuscripts. The air smelled of dust and old paper and secrets.
A woman sat behind a small desk, reading a book. She was older—perhaps sixty—with gray hair and sharp eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles.
"You're early," she said without looking up.
"I'm not here to read," Aurelius replied. "I'm here to ask questions."
The woman finally looked up. Her eyes narrowed.
"You're the Eight-Minded Man," she said.
"I prefer Aurelius."
"I prefer not to be disturbed. What do you want?"
"Julian Croft," Aurelius said. "I need to know where he is."
The woman's expression flickered. "Julian Croft is dead."
"No, he's not."
"He is to me. He's dead to anyone who knew him. He's dead to the university, dead to his colleagues, dead to—"
"Mrs. Seraphine Voss sent me," Aurelius interrupted. "She wants to make sure he stays dead."
The woman stared at him for a long moment. Then she laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound, like paper crumbling.
"Seraphine Voss," she repeated. "That woman never gives up, does she? She's been chasing Julian for years. And now she sends a boy to do her dirty work."
"I'm not a boy," Aurelius said quietly. "And I'm not her agent. I'm a problem solver. Right now, Julian Croft is a problem. I intend to solve him."
The woman studied him. Her eyes were sharp, analytical, peeling away his layers.
"You have the look of someone who's lost too much," she said finally. "Someone who's trying to save everyone else because they couldn't save one person."
Aurelius didn't flinch. "Your assessment is accurate. It's also irrelevant. Where is Julian Croft?"
The woman was silent for a long moment.
Then she reached into her desk and withdrew a folded piece of parchment.
"Julian is in the Sunken District," she said. "Living in a basement beneath the Old Temple. He's been there for six months. He's paranoid, frightened, and convinced that someone is trying to kill him."
"Is someone trying to kill him?"
The woman smiled. It was a sad smile.
"Everyone is trying to kill him. That's what happens when you discover the truth."
She handed him the parchment.
"This is a map of the tunnels beneath the Old Temple," she said. "They're dangerous. Unstable. You could get lost down there. You could die."
Aurelius took the map.
"I know," he said.
He unfolded it and studied the lines, the markings, the warnings.
"Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me. Just bring him back alive. He's a fool, but he's also the only person who knows what I lost."
Aurelius looked up. "What did you lose?"
The woman's eyes flickered with something—pain, perhaps. Or regret.
"Everything," she said. "Everything I loved. Everything I believed in. Everything that made life worth living. Julian took it all."
"Then why do you want me to save him?"
The woman smiled again. This time, there was nothing sad about it.
"Because I want to kill him myself," she said.