Vincent's plan was straightforward. Sirius Black had spent years in Azkaban harbouring a burning hatred for Peter Pettigrew. Use that. Strike a deal: Sirius tells Bernadette the full truth of what happened more than a decade ago, and in exchange Bernadette tracks down Pettigrew, captures him, and exposes the wrongful conviction for what it was.
That was an enormous contribution by any measure.
Worried Fudge would refuse to acknowledge it, not wanting to admit the Ministry's old mistake?
Actually, no — Fudge hadn't even been Minister when it happened. Under the current Minister's brilliant leadership, a trusted deputy dispatched to Azkaban had uncovered the truth and corrected a predecessor's injustice. The previous administration would be humiliated, and the Ministry itself would face scrutiny — but Fudge personally would come out entirely unscathed. He had every incentive to take this gift. Fudge's foolishness was in governance, not in politics.
"Something like this actually happened?"
Bernadette listened quietly and then nodded. "I understand."
She seemed to think of something, and said evenly: "So — Sirius Black is Harry's true godfather. And he and Snape have a deep grudge between them."
"Yep."
"You planned for this from the beginning."
Vincent cleared his throat. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Same bad taste as Father."
Bernadette's figure dissolved from the golden mist. She'd left the room.
...
After Miss Justice confirmed that one of the bookmarks in Roselle's display — the one tucked into a hardcover manuscript — was giving off an "abnormal response," Klein quietly laid out several possible plans of action. He settled on one that seemed reasonably safe.
Then ran a divination to confirm its danger level.
At eight PM, Klein used Shadow Jump to slip away from his room and head for the Kingdom Museum to retrieve what he suspected was the Card of Blasphemy.
He didn't tell his bodyguard Stephen. What he was about to do required going above the Grey Fog, and if Stephen followed him there, the anomaly would be immediately obvious.
Frankly, expending so much effort to lose the bodyguard he'd paid good money to hire was painful. But a Card of Blasphemy was worth the inconvenience.
He didn't rush to the museum directly, though. He first went to St. Samuel's Cathedral — claiming concern about being tailed — and exited through a concealed rear door on the other side, changing his appearance before heading on to the museum.
At the same time, in the shadow of a tree on the square in front of St. Samuel's Cathedral, Stephen stood with arms folded and said: "Do we keep following?"
A moment of quiet. Then Amon said, in Stephen's head: "No. Head back."
He'd clearly sensed something: the moment that Witch stepped into the cathedral, the Worm of Time he'd left on her had simply gone dark.
That made the woman even more interesting to Amon. But after careful reflection, He'd decided to hold off for now.
The reason: his current ability to operate openly in Backlund — without the Evernight Goddess noticing and moving against him — was because the two of them had reached a certain implicit understanding. A set of unspoken rules. If Amon violated those rules, the Evernight Goddess would act against him immediately, applying her Concealment — and his Backlund avatar was only at Sequence 4 at most. Even with some borrowed Thief-pathway authority, he was completely powerless before a god.
Stephen's mouth curved slightly. "You're afraid of the Church of the Evernight Goddess, aren't you? I thought you were the God-Defier."
"Is there a contradiction?" Amon was entirely unbothered. "I'm a God-Defier, not an idiot. If there's no compelling reason, why make unnecessary trouble for myself? Come on. Back to sleep."
"You don't need to sleep."
"Someone once told me that sleep can partially slow the erosion of one's humanity. So every now and then I pretend to sleep."
"Does it work?"
"Of course not."
Amon said lightly. "Probably because I was simply born without humanity to begin with."
Stephen was quiet for a moment. Then: "Fear is a human thing, isn't it? And you clearly know what fear feels like. And the last time we encountered that woman in the black dress — when you mentioned 'that person' — there was a very visible emotional response. Doesn't that count as—"
"You talk too much," Amon said, cutting him off. "You don't actually think I parasitised your body because I wanted an intimate friend to share everything with, do you?"
Before Stephen could reply, he lost control of his limbs. His hand moved to the monocle in his pocket, fitted it over his right eye — then reached out and stole the distance back to the hotel.
He lay back on the bed, fingers laced behind his head.
"Pretending to sleep now."
...
9:30 PM. 2 Kingdom Road. The Kingdom Museum.
Klein used self-prayer — sending a prayer to himself and answering it — to project himself as a Spirit Body, drifting through the museum's second-floor administrative area. Once in position, he raised his translucent right hand and snapped his fingers without sound.
In the same instant, a controlled detonation went off in the first-floor bathroom — not enormous, but extraordinarily clear in the silence of the night.
Every security guard in the building sprinted toward it simultaneously.
Klein didn't waste a second. His incorporeal form passed through the floor into the exhibition hall below and made directly for the room displaying Roselle's manuscripts. Half-flying, half-descending, he arrived in front of the glass case surrounding Roselle's desk.
A quick scan — and both his hands lunged toward the glass.
In the same moment, Klein's eyes went wide.
Every bookmark — whether tucked between manuscript pages, slipped into books, or placed separately — was gone.
How?
Had the museum staff collected them after closing? But why only the bookmarks? Everything else was exactly as it had been.
Could they know a Card of Blasphemy was hidden among the bookmarks?
Impossible. They'd have never put it on display if they'd known.
Klein's mind leapt. "That fellow countryman Charles?!"
He'd been here during the day. And if he'd found something in whatever Roselle diaries he'd collected — information about the Card of Blasphemy — he might have moved first.
What Klein couldn't work out was how Charles had managed to slip into the museum and take the bookmarks without alerting a single guard.
"Damn. Empty trip tonight."
He bit down on the frustration and was about to end the projection — when a piercing infant's wail suddenly echoed through the exhibition room.
Klein's Spirit Body froze mid-motion, as though plunged into subzero water. Even his incorporeal form seemed to lock in place.
Waaah. Waaah. Waaah.
With each wave of crying, dark cracks appeared in the air around him — like a broken grid of iron bars encircling him at intervals.
Then one of the cracks split open.
Inside it: an eyeball, threaded with red veins, a deep pupil at its centre — and crawling across that pupil, hair-thin white worms, writhing.
In that instant, Klein could barely sense the Spirit World. Could barely sense that he was in a Spirit Body at all.
A slender, upright figure in black appeared nearby, unhurried. She was holding a handful of bookmarks and swaying them casually.
Her voice was soft, matter-of-fact.
"Are you looking for these?"
To be continued…
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