Gabriel eased back from the edge and moved along the ridge until the quarry dropped out of view. He did not descend right away. He studied the road instead, the way the terrain narrowed movement and forced travellers toward a single bend.

A checkpoint sat there.

Two guards flanked a small table. A ledger lay open. A Church clerk in grey robes sat behind it, writing without lifting his head. Workers returning from supply runs stopped, spoke briefly, and were waved through.

That meant records.

Records meant names.

Either the apprentice existed on a page somewhere, or he had been removed from it.

Both led to the same place.

Gabriel tightened his cloak and began his descent.

He moved carefully, using broken stone and sparse trees for cover. His footing followed the same habits he had used in the gorge. He did not rush. A fall here would not kill him, but it would be heard.

At the tree line, he stopped and listened.

Wind off the river. Lift chains. The distant strike of tools.

No voices nearby.

He moved again.

As the next bell rang, he reached the lower access path. The guards rotated and the overlap began.

Gabriel stepped out on the first breath of the gap.

He crossed open ground at the same pace as the workers. Not slow. Not fast. Fast enough to belong. His head stayed down. His hood broke the line of his face. The sword belt stayed hidden beneath the cloak.

He reached the shadow under the scaffold as the gap closed.

Nothing followed.

No call. No shift in posture.

The quarry kept working.

He waited beneath the scaffold for three breaths, then slid to the right as the lift chains rattled and drew attention upward.

Workers looked at the load. Guards watched the path in case someone tried to slip behind it.

No one looked down.

Gabriel moved.

He slipped between the stacked stone piles and pressed into the narrow channel they formed. The stone smelled dry and sharp, dust clinging to his boots. He passed within fifteen feet of the guard at the storage sheds.

The guard did not see him.

His attention was fixed on a worker arguing with the foreman over a cracked block.

Gabriel continued on.

The cliff wall rose close ahead, stone sheer and unbroken. The low building sat against it, half-hidden, as if it had been placed to avoid notice rather than invite it. The front approach was watched. The rear was not.

He followed the cliff instead.

A narrow strip of shadow ran along its base where water had cut grooves into the rock. Gabriel kept to those grooves and reached the timber stacks that concealed the rear door.

He stopped.

He listened.

Sound came from inside the building.

Not voices.

Movement.

Chain shifting. A single scrape of metal. A chair dragged, then set.

Silence returned.

Gabriel waited.

A worker passed nearby with a cart. One wheel squealed as it turned. The guard near the path glanced toward the noise, then looked away again.

The cart rolled on.

Gabriel remained where he was.

Watching.

He stepped to the rear door and placed his fingers against the wood. The door did not give. It was barred from the inside, not the outside, which meant the building was meant to keep people contained rather than protected.

He traced the latch line and pressed gently to test it. The wood flexed a little under his touch, old boards repaired once and then left to age again.

He could force it if he wanted to, but noise had already been accounted for. There was no margin for it here.

His hand slid down to the lower hinge.

Iron pins sat in place, rusted and neglected, the kind made to endure years rather than intent. He reached into his cloak and drew out a thin strip of metal taken from the forge yard on his way out of Bridgedon. It was not a tool, only scrap, but flat enough to slide and strong enough to work.

He set it into the hinge seam and applied pressure once, then again, slow and controlled. The pin shifted slightly without sound.

Gabriel held it there and waited as the quarry bell rang again above, guard rotations beginning as bodies moved and boots scraped across stone.

Murmured voices blended into the background and carried away what little noise he might make.

He worked the pin the rest of the way free and caught it before it fell. He held still and listened. Nothing moved inside the building.

The upper hinge yielded the same way. Gabriel lifted the door just enough to relieve the weight on the interior bar, then eased it outward by degrees, allowing time for the wood to settle.

When the opening widened enough, he leaned forward and looked into the darkness.

Stone walls closed the space in tight. The air smelled of dust, sweat, and iron. A lantern burned low somewhere deeper inside, its light unsteady, as if the air itself was different beyond the threshold.

Gabriel slipped through and drew the door shut behind him without letting it click. Darkness closed around him, and he waited until his eyes adjusted.

The interior formed a narrow corridor carved into the cliff and reinforced with timber. Damp clung to the walls. The floor was packed dirt, worn smooth by traffic, with a thin line of water running toward a drain cut into the stone.

Breathing reached him from ahead. Not a single source, but several, layered and uneven. Some were deep and controlled.

Others shallow and strained.

Gabriel moved forward without speaking.

The corridor bent left and ended at a second door. This one was iron-banded and newer than the rear entrance, built to hold. A heavy padlock secured the bar on the outside.

He examined it without touching at first. Church workmanship, clean and recent. When he finally gripped it, he tested the shackle with a slow turn. It did not yield. Breaking it would echo through stone, and sound here would travel farther than it should.

He released the lock and shifted his attention to the frame.

The support beams were bolted into the rock with iron fasteners, and one bolt sat slightly proud, not fully seated. Gabriel stepped closer and eased his fingers beneath the head. He drew it free with steady pressure and no sound. The second bolt followed.

With the beam loosened, he lifted it away and set it down carefully. The door sagged without its support, leaving space where the frame no longer held tight. The lock remained intact, but the structure around it no longer was.

Gabriel wedged his fingers into the gap and applied pressure slowly. The frame creaked once, faint enough to vanish beneath the quarry's rhythm above, and he stopped to listen.

Nothing approached.

He pressed again, widening the opening a fraction at a time, controlling the strain so the wood bent rather than snapped. The bar inside warped just enough to slip free of its notch.

The door loosened.

Gabriel caught it before it could swing and eased it inward. Dim light spilled into the corridor, followed by sound.

Breathing grew louder. Feet shuffled. A sob surfaced and was cut off before it could rise.

Gabriel stepped through.

The work had moved beyond observation.

Now it was inside.

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