We handed the rim to people who could keep it quiet without us and stepped through the warp to Avalon.
Ouroboros HQ smelled like home and hot copper. Elias met us with a slate and three urgent lines. I didn't read the third, because something wrong rolled over my tongue like old smoke.
Order of the Fallen Flame.
I didn't say it. I opened Grey.
Two flat pages slid apart in my head. Avalon laid itself between them—relations, not streets. Heat to promise. Footstep to intention. Down in the east quarter, under the old catacombs, a thread of pride and blood was waking. In the city's skin, on the surface, another touch burned clean and quiet: the graveyard we tend because someone has to.
I shut Grey. The room came back.
"Rose," I said. She was already watching me.
"Where?"
