The laugh still echoed in the courtyard, thin as a blade’s edge. Catalina pressed Gabriel tighter against her chest, but the boy’s lips twitched, his breath rising and falling with a rhythm that didn’t belong to him.
Lucien lifted his gun toward the shadows. His voice cut through the night.
“Camilla, show yourself.”
Nothing. Only the creak of the broken monastery cross and the whip of the wind.
Then—her silhouette stepped into the pale moonlight. The nun’s habit was gone, replaced with a dark cloak, soaked from the tunnels. Her eyes glowed with fevered devotion.
“You carried him out,” Camilla whispered. “The vessel. The chosen boy.”
Catalina spat the words out like venom. “He’s not a vessel. He’s just a child.”
Camilla tilted her head, smiling. “Children are pure. Untouched. That’s
