The rain had stopped, but the air over Blackglass still hung heavy—
 as if something, just beyond the edge of breath, was waiting for the right moment to strike.

Edrick stood in Tomas Valner’s abandoned studio, now sealed off by the police.
 The paintings were gone, but the room still watched him.

One table remained untouched, almost calling to him.

Beneath it, he found a small iron box. Locked with an old mechanism.
 He opened it carefully.

Inside: a key — heavy, forged in black iron — and a handwritten note.

“Not all traitors lie.
 Some hide… to survive.”

Engraved into the metal below: an emblem.

A rose, pierced by a dagger.

Edrick didn’t recognize it.

But some buried part of him felt like he’d seen it in a dream.

“I’ve seen this before,” Lira said, when he showed her the emblem.
 “Old scrolls. During a heist. Years ago.
 It was linked to… a secret cult.
 One that guards portals. Or seals them.”

Following a quiet, shared instinct, they arrived at an abandoned church, half-consumed by weeds and silence.

The key fit perfectly into a hidden hatch behind the altar.

They descended.

The crypt was cold and silent. A circular chamber carved from living stone.

Twelve stone thrones formed a ring.

Each one bore a name.
 No faces.
 Only titles—long forgotten.

Edrick brushed his fingers across the worn letters.

“A secret council,” he whispered. “Twelve… disciples?”

The eleventh throne was shattered.

The twelfth, intact, bore a single mark:
 A.

Later that night, in the hidden library beneath the city, Lira met with Eliah:
 a former thief turned archivist of the occult.
 An old man with too-sharp eyes and a missing tooth—or perhaps a missing part of himself.

They spoke in hushed tones, in half-code, like two criminals who didn’t even trust their own shadows.

Eliah slid her a sealed book.

“If you're looking for the Traitor,” he wrote,
 “start with the mirror.”

The book’s title:

“The Masks of the Inverted Vow.”

Meanwhile, Edrick met with Inspector Renner.

An old contact. Usually calm. Tonight—tense.

Edrick asked for access to the forgotten cult registries.

Renner refused. “Too dangerous. It’s out of our hands now.
 The External Division has the case.”

But Edrick noticed something.

The cuff of Renner’s jacket. A red stitch—identical to those seen in Valner’s canvases.

Either someone was copying…

…or Renner was far more involved than he let on.

That same night, in the forgotten crypt, a hooded figure entered alone.

He sat on the broken throne.

Wore a white mask. Blank. As if waiting to be written.

In front of him: a man. Bound. Bleeding. Gasping.

A council member?
 Or just a witness?

The figure spoke in a metallic, hollow voice.

“You are not loyal.
 You… remembered.
 And now… you will forget. Forever.”

The pierced rose was not just a symbol.

It was a vow.

And those who bore it… once swore never to betray.

Now the question was:

Who broke the vow?

And why did every truth now spiral back to a single letter—

A.