While Ulysses stood lost in thought, the gatekeeper’s voice interrupted: "Sir Ulysses, His Holiness requests your presence in his study. Allow me to—"

"I know the way."

The gatekeeper stared at the blond man’s retreating figure, mystified. After two decades of service, he would’ve remembered such a striking visitor. Yet this man moved with the certainty of someone who’d walked these halls countless times.

Three precise knocks echoed at an ancient oak door.

"Come." The voice within was parchment-thin yet firm.

Ulysses entered to find the Archbishop of Canterbury already rising—an unsteady movement for a man whose white beard brushed his sacramental robes. Ulysses raised a staying hand.

"Spare the courtesies, Your Holiness."

The old man chuckled. "Ten winters have aged me to kindling, yet you? Still spring’s bloom. What ill wind brings you here?"

"A shadow moves through London."

All warmth drained from the Archbishop’s face. "The Grey Estate incident. Our fallen brethren’s handiwork?"

Few knew the Special Missions Bureau’s leaders wore miters before crowns. Born from the Inquisition, the Bureau’s power still flowed through cathedral arteries. Ulysses’ next words needed no embellishment.

"Grey’s mind shattered. We traced a name through his coffers—a dead man now. The Lady of Funerals tried reading the corpse... and found a poisoned gift. She’ll haunt no graves this season."

Ulysses paused. Death’s arithmetic unfolded: "Apothecary records showed a vigor tonic laced with bromide. Harmless alone—until reacting with strychnine. The killer transformed daily doses into an hourglass. Final sip, final breath. He mixed this death-schedule weeks ago."

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The Archbishop leaned forward. "Meaning...?"

"The curse on our Lady? A taunt. He knows our methods, mocks them. Leaves breadcrumbs seasoned with arsenic." Ulysses’ smile held no warmth. "Classic."

Bony fingers scrubbed aged eyes. "Your counsel?"

"Study Grey’s circle. Chemists. Herbalists. But..." Ulysses produced a small vial. "The cultist’s stench? Cod-laced. Track any Nordics or Rus in their company."

The Archbishop nodded slowly. A chessboard spread between them, its pieces carved from bone and shadow.

Yvette’s carriage rattled through London’s fog, her thoughts tethered to the Earl Grey affair’s sinister echoes.

Miss Schaal’s letter had arrived like a shadow. A curse seized during their investigation now bound her friend to isolation—no visitors, no pitchforks, no risks. A Sleeping Beauty farce, Yvette mused. But the Organization, ever meticulous, would outwit such parlor tricks. Still, unease gnawed at her.

Fell-beings. Even in death, their malice lingered.

As Julius played the Earl’s doppelgänger, investigators flocked to Yvette for answers. The Fell-thing’s flesh, they’d learned, bred a cannibalistic madness. Consume it, and you ached to be consumed—a grotesque parody of horsehair worms driving crickets to drown. The gluttonous lord who’d gorged on cursed tea sandwiches met his end beneath carriage wheels; lesser offenders now donated fortunes to orphanages, their memories scrubbed clean. Only the ritual’s inner circle—those who tasted the fish-monster’s rot—were ash in unmarked graves.

And the fox? Yvette remembered the creature stumbling into the hunt—perhaps infected, luring hunters where wolves no longer prowled. But the investigators shrugged. “Higher minds corrupt lower,” they’d said. Rats leaped to cats’ jaws, but cats stayed cats. A grim hierarchy: human to rat, never reverse.

Kittens dining under observation… She envied the Tower’s researchers their furry lab assistants.

Bond Street’s bustle shook her from brooding. A patisserie’s flyer promised salvation: OPERA CAKE—eight layers of Parisian sin. Inside, a lemon-spritzed aperitif arrived, its ice suspiciously pristine. “Wynham Lake’s finest,” the waiter sneered, spitting vitriol at Norwegian “frauds” peddling counterfeit ice.

Next door, Wynham Ice Co.’s window dazzled with a crystalline block—and a foreign newspaper beneath. Dead fish carpeted a Nordic shore. “Proof Norway’s ice kills!” the clerk crowed.

Yvette’s pulse quickened. Norway. Ice. Pieces aligned.

“Where,” she demanded, “do these Norwegian liars hide?”