James sits on a dusty counter, the manila folder in his hands looking somehow wrong in this place where reality doesn't quite work right. The darkness behind my eye has settled into an expectant throb, like it knows whatever he's about to say will change everything.

"Before I show you this," he says, "I need you to understand something. Finding these records... it wasn't an accident. Mother Superior wanted me to find them."

"Why?"

"Because it changes everything we thought we knew about the resistance. About Marcus."

My skin prickles at his tone. "What about Marcus?"

He opens the folder, pulls out a photograph brown with age. "This is where it all started. Where the Church really began."

I take the photo and for a moment my mind refuses to process what I'm seeing. A much younger Mother Superior – maybe in her twenties – standing next to a man I know too well. Dark hair instead of grey, smooth face instead of lined, but undeniably Marcus. They're smiling, his arm around her waist, looking completely in love.

"No," I whisper, but James is already laying out more evidence.

Photos of them together through years. Marriage certificate. Deed to the first Church property in both their names. Research notes in Marcus's familiar handwriting, detailing early experiments with dimensional barriers. All of it painting a picture that makes my stomach turn.

"He founded the Church," I say, the words tasting like ash. "With her."

"More than that. They were partners in everything. Discovered Their realm together, developed the first rituals. Everything the Church became started with them."

The darkness behind my eye pulses with growing rage. All this time, every word of guidance, every moment of supposed understanding – all of it coming from the man who helped create the very thing that destroyed my life.

"What happened?" My voice sounds distant to my own ears.

"They split over methods. Marcus wanted to study it slowly, carefully. Elizabeth – Mother Superior – wanted to push harder, go further. Started experimenting on people." James pulls out newspaper clippings. "It turned ugly. There was a fire at one of their facilities. Eleven dead, including children."

"Let me guess. Marcus set it, trying to stop them."

"Yeah. Elizabeth used it to destroy him publicly. He disappeared for almost twenty years before starting the resistance."

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I look at the photos again, seeing them with new eyes. Seeing all the little mannerisms I know from Marcus, all the ways Mother Superior's elegant cruelty might have been learned from him.

"But here's the thing," James continues. "She's known where he is this whole time. Could have stopped him any time. Instead she's been... playing with him. Letting his resistance irritate the Church but never quite destroy it."

"Because she's still in love with him." The words come out flat, certain.

He hands me a letter, written recently in Mother Superior's elegant hand. It's supposedly about their plans for mass seeding, about the Convergence, but underneath... the intimacy in it makes my skin crawl. She writes like she's still talking to her husband, still trying to impress him.

"Everything she's done," James says quietly, "has been building to a moment when he'll finally see she was right. And she's going to use you to do it."

The darkness pulses as pieces click into place. "That's why he found me. Why he took me in, trained me, helped me control my power. I'm not his redemption – I'm his damnation. The proof his wife was right all along."

"Vesper..."

"All those times he talked about fighting the Church, about stopping them..." My laugh sounds hollow even to me. "He wasn't trying to save people. He was trying to save himself. Trying to prove he made the right choice when he left."

"We don't know that."

"Don't we?" I pick up another photo – newer, showing Mother Superior's private chambers. Her wall is covered with surveillance photos of Marcus. Years worth. Every stage of grey in his hair, every new line in his face, documented and preserved. "She's obsessed with him. And he... he what? Never noticed? Never realized? Or never wanted to admit what he really is?"

James is quiet for a moment. "There's more. About your mother. About why they chose her..."

"No." I stand up, power crackling around me. Reality ripples in response to my anger. "I don't want to hear any more secrets. I'm done being everyone's pawn."

"What are you going to do?"

I think about Marcus in his office, probably still running his resistance, still pretending to be the hero. Still lying with every breath.

"I'm going to get some answers." I head for the door, the darkness behind my eye pulsing with purpose. "Real ones this time."

"Vesper, wait. There's more you need to know..."

"Later." The night air feels electric against my skin. "Right now, I need to have a conversation with the man who helped create everything he claims to be fighting."

"At least let me come with you."

"No." I look back at him, feel the way reality warps around me in response to my emotions. "This needs to be between me and the founder of the Church of the Eternal Eye."

I leave him there, standing in the ghost town where I first learned to change reality. Fitting, really. Another moment of transformation, another truth that changes everything.

The drive back to headquarters passes in a blur of rage and betrayal. Every memory of Marcus's guidance takes on new meaning. Every piece of wisdom he shared becomes tainted by knowledge of its source.

The darkness pulses stronger with each mile, hungry for confrontation. Good. I'm done being careful. Done being controlled.

Time to find out if Marcus still remembers how to touch Their realm. Time to see if the man who helped create the Church remembers what real power feels like.

Time for truth, no matter what it costs.

The night bends around me as I drive, reality rippling in sympathy with my anger. Behind me, James's other revelations wait their turn.

But first, a reckoning.