Reeve snatched a torch off the wall and thrust it closer before Kane had finished speaking.
"Read it," Reeve said. "All of it, now."
Kane's hands trembled slightly as he smoothed the ancient paper, the faded ink barely legible in places, and began reading aloud.
*"To whoever holds the Ashbourne name when this reaches them. If you are reading this, the debt has come due, and something old has come looking for what our bloodline promised generations ago. I write this not to explain the pact fully, for even I do not know its complete shape, only that my own ancestor made a bargain to protect something the world was never meant to find, using the excuse of a plague to hide the true reason help was needed. What we guard is not blood. It is a seal, buried beneath the old chapel grounds, keepi
