On the other side of Varant, a certain knight was visiting the city’s greatest sanctum: its cathedral.

Kylian’s reputation had, unfortunately, preceded him. He did good work, and his superiors recognized it. Regrettably, the consequence was that he was given more work—to say nothing of the fact that the expectations upon him seemed to be multiplying as well.

The inquisition had left an impression on the knights, suggesting to their minds that Kylian was the obvious and proper replacement for the man he had bested. Not only did Kylian contest this notion of ‘besting,’ he questioned whether he’d played a significant role in that intellectual match at all.

Really, by that logic Ailn should be high marshal. And not a single person wished for that, Ailn least of all.

Lately, Sir Fontaine had been dropping hints and laudatories so often it was starting to seem obsequious. Kylian sympathized with the sudden doubling of Fontaine’s workload, but he was not so compassionate that he’d let himself be cajoled into assuming an office he didn’t want.

Just because Kylian was willing to do the thankless jobs that others avoided, it didn’t mean he sought it out. He had zero desire to be trapped in the mire of desk work.

And though the rest of the knights had written off Sir Envont’s fate as a mere footnote to Aldous’s heinous crimes—content to assume his body was buried somewhere deep in the snow waiting to surface come late spring.

No useful leads had emerged from interviews with those who had known the missing knight, and Aldous claimed he’d played no role in his disappearance. None in the Order believed him, and yet he’d rejected the notion with such nonchalance that Kylian couldn’t help but think he’d been speaking truthfully.

After all, the gallows awaited him regardless.

There was something deeply disturbing still hidden in the mire. With no solid foothold in Envont’s case, however, Kylian reluctantly turned his attention to the higher-level matters of city security with which Fontaine tried to tempt him.

He felt torn. Varant was a large enough city that there was never a shortage of murders that needed solving. But he couldn’t deny an intellectual attraction to crimes of broader scale and complexity.

In theory, at least. Listening to the dubious warnings of Father Cieucout, Kylian did not have high hopes for his current dispensation.

“Sir Kylian, I am not trying to convince you of a cult, I am trying to convince you of a plot!” Father Cieucout implored the knight. “The nature of the conspiracy matters not—I only speak to its existence and aim. Malefactors are planning a heist of a priceless portrait!”

“I never accused you of zealotry, Father. I merely wish to suggest,” Kylian paused, looking for polite phrasing, “that an erudite mind may be prone to looking for puzzles that are not there. Were you not conferred a magister in philosophy from the College of ark-Chelon?”

“God help me,” the priest muttered. “The bishop believes I am disingenuous and ambitious. My confreres think I am a fanatic. And now this knight thinks I am overeducated!”

The knight and priest sat in a vestry, a room for storage and administration meant for one of the cathedral’s secondary chapels. As such, it was sparsely furnished, with merely a low table and cabinets.

The vestry was dimly lit, and the low height of the table forced Kylian to peer down at Ciecout’s already heavily slanted handwriting.

He couldn’t help but wonder if the strain and toil of conducting scholarly work in such unsuitable conditions had not tinged the priest’s mind toward paranoia.

“Brother Clarence has suggested that you have not found enough stimulation of the mind in Varant,” Kylian said, reasonably. “It seemed to me he spoke with earnest concern.”

“Brother Clarence has taken a vow of abstemiousness which has made him a worrywart,” Cieucou kept a mostly even temperament, but failed to fully restrain the irritation in his voice. “He is ceaselessly pessimistic because he is perpetually famished.”

“Father Zucaisse has spoken of your excessive engagement with a heretical text,” Kylian gestured calmly to ‘The Book of Hidden Paths’ which sat on the table.

“Father Zucaisse has taken a vow of silence and should not be speaking at all!” Cieucout hissed. “It is plain as day, Sir Kylian!”

He pushed a list of decoded messages toward the knight.

‘Atrium vestry key, switched’

‘Vestment cabinet two’

‘On the wolf’s day, the lady in ivory.’

And more.

The cathedral kept a large bulletin board in its lobby. The bulletin board was open to the public—even non-worshippers—and served as a public sounding space. Parchments contained announcements for events, notifications of missing pets or items looking for new owners, and, most notoriously, simple written opinions that somehow managed to be louder than words.

Once the cathedral’s worshippers realized they could write what they wished, largely with impunity, some had even taken to leaving their thoughts on liturgies and services. These commentaries, left alone by the cathedral so as to encourage critical explorations of faith, more often than not were simply thinly veiled reviews.

Father Ciecout, in his boundless paranoia that his confreres had it out for him, had a habit of searching the bulletin board for unfavorable comments.

He’d been convinced for some time that one of the other priests had been penning false commentaries as if they were one of the worshippers. Anything negative that had ever been said about Ciecout, he’d read at least thrice.

For the last few weeks, however, he believed he’d stumbled onto something far more sinister: coded messages, meant to coordinate a conspiracy, hidden in scathing criticisms toward his liturgies.

“What should I find last week then, Sir Kylian, when I went to confirm? Vestment cabinet two was left unlocked, for someone to come in and take the uniform!” Ciecout said breathlessly.

“Why would they post the key to their cipher upon the door of the church?” Kylian asked exasperatedly. “It would have made more sense if you believed this was an act of heresy.”

“Arrogance? Ignorance? I hardly know, and it is not my domain of study,” Ciecout said.

“And these conspirators decided to veil their secret messages in provocative attacks upon the cathedral’s most neurotic priest,” Kylian mumbled, holding his face with one hand. “Knowing that he reads them closely and ceaselessly.”

“Perhaps they wish to discredit me, and it appears they’ve managed to! Are you not already calling me a ‘neurotic?’ Listen to me, Sir Kylian!” Ciecout wrestled himself back to calm, as he once more made his case. “All I understand is that the chance I should reveal such cogent messages, merely by coincidence, is akin to finding a specific grain in the desert. Many times in a row, at that!”

Kylian leaned back thoughtfully to consider the approach. He also felt, intuitively, that such a coherent message would not appear by accident.

Indeed, Kylian himself confirmed that the cipher did produce the messages Ciecout claimed. But he simply wasn’t versed enough in ciphers nor cryptology to properly query Ciecout’s conclusions: was it not possible that subtle biases in his method had brought about a result he wished to see?

Even if Kylian couldn’t imagine how, he would be remiss to take these messages at face value. And recent experience had only deepened his skepticism towards the supposed noble intentions of those who specifically sought him out.

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He’d trusted Aldous deeply. Not just as a mentor, and a knight, but as a friend. The hurt of betrayal he could deal with, yet the blow to his trust in the goodwill of men was draining. His was a profession based in the use of doubt, a tool which drew out truth when judiciously applied.

Having fervently pursued an innocent girl in his most recent case, without ever suspecting the true culprit, Kylian found that tool turned inward. His chief doubt was now his own judgment.

Unfortunately for Ciecout, it meant Kylian was now a little too skeptical. His misgivings, ironically, were exacerbated by the two’s prior friendship.

“Why did it even occur to you to apply the cipher?” Kylian asked. “Do you typically scrutinize the bulletin in that manner?”

“I was already in deep study of ‘The Codex of Hidden Paths,’” Ciecout said, nonchalantly. “When I came upon a clear allusion to its exegesis, I was struck by inspiration.”

“...Which is why your confreres have already harbored skepticism that you engage with heresy yourself,” Kylian sighed.

“What?” Ciecout blurted out, aghast. “Who said that? Was it Father Zuicaisse? Just how often does he break his vow of silence?!”

“It was almost all of them,” Kylian said testily.

“Then I’m better served ignoring the chatter,” Ciecout said, standing up. “Come, I’ll show you the aim of our conspirators. The truth of my claims will become self-evident.”

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Ailn laid there for a few minutes, still dazed from the blows.

“I should’ve brought my sword,” he muttered, heaving himself up from the floor of Ceric’s room.

Then again, he was in an awkward position. Ailn got the sense that Varant didn’t have enough peacekeepers to worry about good-for-nothings who didn’t pay their debts, whether or not the extortion was legal.

If it was illegitimate, it was a moot point, and he wouldn’t get any help. And if it was legitimate, and Ailn hurt someone… well, that could be the end of his reincarnator-finding mission right there.

Still, the idea of Ceric getting sold off into slavery or paying his debt in fingers didn’t sit right with Ailn. As soon as he was able, Ailn got up and dusted off his wounds, ready to go save the ‘explorer.’

Right at the hostel’s threshold, though, a voice stopped him.

“I wouldn’t be chasing after him, if I were you, dearie,” the middle-aged woman said. She was stoking the hearth, without even looking at Ailn.

“I can handle a fool,” Ailn frowned. “But I wanna know if he did anything unsavory.”

The woman slowly stepped away from the hearth, setting herself down in a wicker chair a fair distance from it. At first Ailn thought she was taking her time, but he realized she had a limp.

“I drew up the lone me’self,” she said, matter-of-fact. “Two and a half per hundred, weekly.”

“Two and a ha—?!” Ailn nearly choked, repeating the ridiculous rate. “Compounding?!”

“I knew the poor man wasn’t any good with figures,” her face souring like milk left out too long, “but I never imagined anyone could mix up a weekly rate for a yearly one.”

“Are you telling me those were your lackeys?” Ailn asked, fiddling with his wrist.

“Do you think a little old lady like me could control rough looking men like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Could you?” Ailn narrowed his eyes.

She waved her hand dismissively.

“All us hostel owners, we run the same little game, my dear. And those boys play along with all of us,” she said. “First time in so many moons I’ve been forced to call them.”

“Yeah? I’d like to hear all about this game.” Ailn said. “I’m guessing I can find them in the industrial quarter.”

“It’ll be awfully hard to play if the boys get too rough and break your leg,” the woman said, raising an eyebrow.

“What’s your name?” Ailn asked.

“You apt to do something with it?” the woman glared.

“Could you stop me if you wanted to?” Ailn asked, pulling down the hood of his cloak to show his noble visage clearly. “Let’s just say I like to remember people.”

“Maria,” the woman said. Ailn’s identity didn’t seem to surprise her. “I’ll have you know, I’m running a perfectly upright business, Your Grace,” Maria spit the words out. “It was my husband’s dream to be a real burgher. Silly me just wants to make it happen, even though the old man’s dead.”

“I’m not here to moralize,” Ailn shrugged. Turning to leave, he gave her some parting words. “I’m just letting you know: I’ll remember you.”

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Exiting the vestry, Father Ciecout and Kylian came out into the chapel itself.

“I’m still amazed to see it every time,” Kylian muttered, glancing at the dome above.

The chapel they’d entered was the chapel of the sun—though chapel was too meager a word for it. Wide-eyed tourists fawned at the dome, while irate worshippers tried to ignore them.

No matter the time or weather outside, the dome always resembled a window catching dawn, the sun grazing its eastern edge. Even in a typhoon, sunlight would seem to gently filter in and highlight the altar.

“If I’m being entirely honest, eventually one gets used to it,” Ciecout said, sounding a little bored. “The glare is bothersome when I deliver sermons.”

“That… is extraordinarily curmudgeonly, Father,” Kylian frowned.

“I’m merely saying, I feel the dwarves have lost their touch for practicality,” Ciecout shrugged. “Some of us must use these facilities every day.”

The cathedral had been constructed with the help of artificers—a handful of master craftsmen dwarves who hailed from the capital. Apparently, they’d applied techniques of paint and lighting popularized in the capital’s theaters.

Pushing into the crowd, Kylian and Ciecout passed into an ambulatory where it got even thicker; streams of people jostled into each other, flowing out of the three different chapels.

“My goodness, has it already gotten this late?” Ciecout clicked his tongue.

“You… spent quite a while explaining your cipher,” Kylian said. He decided to be honest.

The chapel of the sun had pretended at a beautiful morning, but as they stepped outside the chapel the true time of day was revealed: a bright noon.

It was easy to lose one’s sense of time, given that all three chapels shared the same conceit: that their domes were windows portraying the sky at a perfect moment.

To the left, the chapel of the sun, which they were now leaving; to the right, the chapel of the moon; and in the center the chapel of the stars.

Always dawn. Or a night milky with stars. Or a perfect full moon. Pilgrim and prodigal alike could seek the divine in the luminous—whether they found themselves guided north by sunlight, starlight, or moonlight.

All these chapels sat north of the ambulatory, like jewels in the arches of a crown. But the crown sat on top of the true pièce de résistance—the main cathedral, south of the ambulatory.

Exiting down from the ambulatory, Kylian and Ciecout entered the main cathedral.

If the three chapels were the heavens, then the cathedral was the sky just beneath. The clouds the pews seemed to sit on softly were always shifting. From floor to ceiling, the gradient of darkening blues matched the transitional colors of the sky, till they converged into a glowing white dome.

Just as he had in the chapel of the sun, Kylian looked up toward the dome as he passed underneath it. Struck by the beauty, he couldn’t help himself.

At its very oculus, the dome glimmered iridescently.

That oculus, as was so often sermonized, was not meant to represent the apex of the firmament. It was the space between: the point where the very edge of the mortal coil met the foot of the heavens, just as Saintess Cecilia interceded between humans and divinity.

All this lofty architecture, however, seemed already lost on the priest who saw it every day.

“Has Varant not recently been suffering from a string of robberies upon treasuries and strongrooms?” Ciecout whispered to Kylian. His ardent tone made his whispers loud enough to disturb the faithful, currently trying to worship. More than a few glares accosted the passing priest and knight.

“Father, people are trying to pray,” Kylian said as quietly as he could. How did Ciecout even know that?

“More than a few merchants have suddenly found religion after the mysterious losses of fortune,” Ciecout said, ignoring Kylian. “Surely it would take a master thief—no, an organization of master thieves—to break into these storerooms and leave no trace?”

It was true: several significant burglaries had occurred. Kylian wasn’t one to see patterns where none existed, but the nature of these heists was undeniably suggestive.

Most of the victims were merchants—wealthy enough to require treasuries rather than strongboxes. The treasuries were almost always in their private residences, and the thefts were inconspicuous enough that the merchants never noticed until they’d reviewed their accounts.

Hence, Kylian’s peacekeeper colleagues were wont to believe the merchants just needed to pick their associates better—it was surely just opportunistic embezzling.

Their skepticism wasn’t completely unfounded, either: the targeted residences were scattered over an exceptionally wide area. In Kylian’s experience, repeat burglars usually kept their string of robberies to a narrow area they knew well: their ‘haunt,’ so to speak.

Yet, the similarities between the burglaries were too striking for Kylian to dismiss them as unrelated. He couldn’t quite piece together how it was being done, and Ciecout’s concerns only deepened his unease.

The cathedral, however, didn’t fit that pattern.

“There are as many knights here as protect the castle,” Kylian said. He and Ciecout walked out, through the cathedral’s corridors into an open arcade, where dozens of knights could be seen standing guard at every possible entrance. “I can hardly see how it would be vulnerable to petty criminals.”

“Is that not the perfect attitude for the intelligent criminal to exploit?” Ciecout looked back at Kylian with rebuke, as they came to the cathedral’s gallery.

“...Be that as it may, my point still stands,” Kylian said. “I can only imagine one ‘lady in ivory,’ and she seems exceptionally well guarded.”

Right by her were two guards this very moment. There were guards at her sides, and by every doorway into the gallery.

The ‘lady in ivory’ of course, was Saintess Celestia, captured in portrait alongside the silver wolf of Varant—both framed in ivory.