Cardinal Theresa kept her smile perfectly in place.

It was a skill she had honed over decades — the ability to wear grace like armor, to let nothing of substance show on her face while her mind worked through the angles of a problem. She had smiled through assassination attempts. She had smiled through heresy trials. She had smiled while signing execution orders.

She could certainly smile through Mortressa.

'How does she know?'

The question burned behind her calm exterior as she walked alongside her fellow Cardinal, their entourage trailing behind them through the cathedral's great doors. The cool interior air washed over them, carrying incense and the distant murmur of prayer — sounds that usually brought Theresa comfort. Today they felt like a funeral dirge.

Two Thorn Sisters were dead. The Inquisitor returned alone, half-burned and she didn't even know where he had gone — whether the Head church or just continuing his job. All of it had happened barely a day ago. The bodies were still being prepared for transport back to the Grand Blue Order, their armor being cleaned of the ash that had consumed them from within.

And yet Mortressa had arrived as if she'd known before it happened.

'Who told her? Who is feeding her information from my diocese?'

Theresa's fingers curled slightly within the folds of her habit, the only crack in her composure. She smoothed them out immediately.

"The cathedral looks well-maintained," Mortressa observed, her voice carrying that infuriating warmth. She glanced at the vaulted ceilings, the stained glass windows throwing colored light across the stone floor. "You've done wonderful work here, Sister. The Seat of Radiance speaks highly of your administrative capabilities."

"The Eternal Sun provides," Theresa said. "I merely tend to His garden."

"Humble as always." Mortressa's hand found Theresa's arm, a gentle pressure that somehow felt like a vice. The older woman's fingers were soft — uncalloused, perfumed with lavender — and yet Theresa felt the threat in them as clearly as if they'd been wrapped around her throat. "But we both know that's not entirely true, don't we? Gardens don't tend themselves. Someone must decide what grows and what gets pulled out by the roots."

The scarred Paladin — the one with the iron mask bolted to his face — walked three paces behind them. Theresa could feel his single burning eye on her back like a brand. The female Inquisitor flanked him, those unsettling pink-luminescent eyes sweeping the corridor with predatory attention. Neither had spoken since arriving. They didn't need to. Their presence spoke volumes about what kind of visit this really was.

They reached Theresa's private study. She opened the doors herself, a small assertion of control, and gestured for Mortressa to enter.

The room was modest by Cardinal standards — dark wood furniture, a single window overlooking the courtyard, shelves lined with theological texts. A crucifix of the seven-rayed sun hung on the wall behind her desk. Everything was precisely arranged, precisely clean. Theresa had always believed that order in one's surroundings reflected order in one's soul.

Today, the precision felt like a mask stretched too thin.

Mortressa settled into the chair across from the desk with an easy grace that made Theresa's teeth ache. The visiting Cardinal smoothed her robes, adjusted her position, made herself comfortable in a space that wasn't hers to claim. Then she folded her hands in her lap and waited, that patient smile still firmly in place.

'She wants me to speak first. To reveal my position.'

Theresa would not give her the satisfaction.

She moved to her own chair, taking her time, adjusting her habit, pouring water from a crystal decanter into two glasses. Every motion was deliberate, unhurried and perfectly controlled. The water caught the light from the window, casting rippling shadows across the desk.

The silence stretched.

Through the window, Theresa could hear the distant sounds of the courtyard — novices at their afternoon prayers, the soft scrape of a gardener's tools against stone. Ordinary sounds. The sounds of a diocese functioning as it should. Nothing that suggested the corpses in the preparation chambers below, or the unconscious Faith recovering in the infirmary, or the Cardinal across from her who had come to pick apart the lies holding everything together.

Finally, Mortressa's smile widened just slightly. "You've always been skilled at this, Theresa. The waiting. Most people can't bear it — they rush to fill the quiet with words that betray them." She accepted the water glass with a graceful nod, raised it to her lips, and didn't drink. Just held it there, watching. "But you and I, we understand the value of patience."

"I learned from the best," Theresa said.

Something flickered in Mortressa's eyes. Then she smiled.

"You did." Mortressa set the untouched water aside. "Which is why I'm concerned."

'Here we go.'

"The Thorn Sisters were on active Crusade in the Northern Reaches. A holy mission sanctioned by the Grand Blue Order and blessed by three separate Cardinals." Mortressa's voice remained gentle, almost motherly — the tone she used when delivering death sentences. "Yet somehow, they ended up in your diocese. Pursuing a single heretic. An F-ranked summoner, according to the initial reports."

Theresa's expression didn't flicker. "The reports were inaccurate. The target demonstrated capabilities far beyond his registered rank."

"So I've heard. Sister Mercy and Sister Judgment are dead. Sister Faith is... damaged, I'm told. And the Inquisitor you borrowed — Templar Light — returned with burns covering half his body." Mortressa tilted her head, the gesture somehow making her look more predatory. "Quite a lot of damage for one F-ranked summoner to inflict."

"A tragedy," Theresa said. "One I intend to answer for."

"Do you?" Mortressa leaned forward slightly, and for the first time, something cold flickered behind her kind eyes. The warmth had been a costume, and now it slipped just enough to show the steel beneath. "Because from where I sit, it looks rather like you've been running an operation outside your authority. Moving pieces that weren't yours to move. For reasons you haven't seen fit to share with the Seat of Radiance."

The accusation hung in the air. Outside, the gardener's tools had gone silent. Even the novices' prayers seemed to have faded. The room felt suddenly smaller, the walls pressing closer.

Theresa measured her response carefully. Too defensive, and she'd look guilty. Too aggressive, and she'd look desperate. The Paladin and Inquisitor waited in the corridor just beyond the door. She could hear the faint creak of armor as one of them shifted position.

'She doesn't know about the otherworlders. She can't. If she knew, she wouldn't be fishing — she'd be arriving with chains.'

"I was addressing a threat to my diocese," Theresa said evenly. "A heretic burning civilians in the streets. Killing church personnel. The Inquisitor was already in the region on separate business — I merely requested his assistance. The Thorn Sisters..." She paused, as if considering her words. "I called in a favor. Perhaps unwisely, in retrospect."

"A favor." Mortressa's tone was flat. "You pulled three Crusaders from an active holy mission because of a favor."

"They owed me a debt."

"What debt could possibly justify—"

"That," Theresa said, and her voice cooled by several degrees, "is not your concern, Your Eminence. The debt was personal. It has been paid — in blood, unfortunately."

The two Cardinals stared at each other.

Theresa could see Mortressa calculating, weighing the response against what she knew, against what she suspected. The visiting Cardinal was good — one of the best political operators in the Church hierarchy. But she was operating on incomplete information, and she knew it. The question was whether she would push harder or retreat to regroup.

'She came here hoping I would crumble. Hoping the deaths would shake me into revealing something.'

Theresa would give her nothing.

The silence stretched again, but this time it felt different. Charged, like a test of wills with neither side willing to lose.

"The heretic," Mortressa said finally. "Who is he?"

"A summoner. Just a random man we had high hopes for."

"Name?"

"Cade Marlowe."

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