Yvette steadied her breathing, piecing together the fractured puzzle.

  The deranged artist Stone had somehow channeled forbidden forces into his masterpiece The Ship of Fools—a canvas now housing otherworldly entities. These beings exploited her visit to the Marino estate, puppeteering her body to transport their crystalline nest into her home.

  Their hubris proved fatal. While sifting through her memories, they stumbled upon the slumbering god whose power had touched Yvette during her aetheric awakening. A flicker of divine attention sufficed—their vast consciousness evaporated like morning dew under the sun.

  She almost laughed bitterly. That boiling abyss she'd envisioned? Merely the closed eyelid of something... older.

  True Elder Gods defied comprehension. Even dormant, their scale froze mortal hearts. Should such entities ever fully awaken, their gaze alone would shatter minds like stained glass under cannonfire.

  Not even the crystal invaders endured that momentary glance. Their terror—screaming through shared perception—still crackled in her nerves. Though most parasites had purged from her system, tendrils of doubt remained. Had any fragments escaped detection?

  After securing the expelled blue residue in a biscuit tin, Yvette summoned allies. Wisely, she omitted the deity's involvement. Let them think some nameless horror overreached while violating her psyche. Truths about interworld souls and lunar-eyed gods invited straitjackets and barred windows.

  The hardening blue gel fascinated her. Earthly mutations like Duran's still bore flesh and blood, but these invaders conducted no crimson rivers through mineral flesh. Sci-fi tales of silicon lifeforms came to mind—carbon's sturdier cousin forming crystal sinews instead of meat.

  Half-formed theories scattered when the raven's wings beat against midnight. Organization-trained, these clever corvids outmatched carrier pigeons—both in wit and talon-strength against predators. Two hours brought carriage wheels on cobblestones.

  Ulysses arrived with Winslow in tow, the latter crossing himself fervently. "Thank heaven you're unharmed! When you wrote 'restricted movement'—"

  "A figure of speech," Yvette deflected, recounting abbreviated truths. She watched Ulysses examine the now-stony fragments—observed veins bulging as his nails reshaped into blackened claws that effortlessly flaked the diamond-hard substance.

  "Extraplanar origin," he concluded, crunching a shard between molars. Yvette swallowed questions. Whatever bizarre metabolic modifications let him process alien minerals weren't worth unpacking now.

  Their destination chilled her more than Ulysses' sudden professionalism. The Tower of London's fortress walls reeked of damp stone and old blood. Passing beneath Traitor's Gate's spiked portcullis, shadowed arrowslits seemed to track their progress.

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  Her skin prickled. "Are we—"

  "Being watched? Yes." Ulysses guided their carriage toward the Bloody Tower's silhouette. "But not hunted."

  The shadow-guard's challenge came expected. Ulysses' contempt came quicker—a flash of insectile eye and predatory grace as he plucked the true assailant from camouflage. Yvette glimpsed the transformation—the compound eye's fractal gloom, the root-like veins—before he schooled his features.

  This revelation settled cold in her gut. Ulysses could mimic more than wolves or songbirds. When required, he wore the shape of nightmares themselves.

  The clatter of hurried footsteps broke the tense silence as a maid emerged from the tower stairs. Unfazed by the violence below, she smoothed her apron and announced, “The Spindle will receive you now, Doctor—and your… companion.” Her gaze flickered to Yvette before settling on the respectful, if uncertain, “Miss.”

  Ulysses released his grip, letting the cloaked assailant crumple. Without a backward glance, he strode into the shadows of the Bloody Tower. Yvette followed, her boots sinking into antique carpets that swallowed every sound.

  The Norman keep radiated a bone-deep chill no fireplace could vanquish. Forgotten by kings centuries prior, its vaulted chambers now served darker purposes. A hearth roared futilely against April’s lingering bite as they climbed spiraling stairs—past empty halls where tapestries whispered forgotten wars.

  At the uppermost landing, Ulysses gestured to an oak door scarred by time. “He’ll see you alone.”

  Yvette hesitated. “How should I address him?”

  “Need-to-know,” Ulysses grunted, relenting slightly. “He’ll scour your soul for taint. Go.”

  Taint. The word coiled in her gut. Those formless horrors weren’t mere beasts—they were scions of elder gods?

  Memories surfaced: Bureau archives detailing sorcerers warped by pacts, biblical tales of fallen angels seeding earth with monsters. Even now, spies hunted vampiric remnants clinging to faded glory. But true progeny? Those belonged to another age.

  Ulysses’s voice intruded. “Stars are cold and distant. What claws at you is a fragment—a half-born thing. But let’s be thorough.”

  The door shut behind her with tomb-finality.

  The chamber defied time—a mélange of Byzantine silks and tarnished silver. No footman attended; the lone occupant waited beyond moth-eaten draperies.

  “Come closer, child,” beckoned a voice as dry as parchment. “My legs object to ceremony.”

  Yvette drew the curtain—and stifled a gasp.

  The man resembled a candle left too near flame—flesh slumped in molten folds across a reinforced chair. Yet his eyes gleamed sharp behind the ruined mask of his face.

  “You’ve met my ugly cousins, I see,” he rasped. “Fear not. My sins were… voluntary.”

  The Spindle. Yvette recalled Fate’s weavers from myth, threads snapped by shears. This broken seer fit the metaphor grotesquely.

  He gestured to her jar. “Let’s see what shadows cling to you.”

  The azure stones glimmered as he lifted one. His pupils dilated into starfields.

  “A crumbling chapel… artist’s hands channeling nightmares. The filth tried to birth itself through him. It failed—but left a door.” The vision faded, leaving him diminished. “You must seal it.”

  “Why me?”

  “The severed thread points only forward.” Each word cost him. “Oracle’s curse: paths glimpsed, destinations obscured. You might succeed. You might die.”

  Yvette exhaled. If eldritch filth sought her once, it would again. Better to face it armed with warning.

  “I’m in.”

  The Spindle’s jowls twitched—approvingly? “Good. I’ll buy you time. Study. Prepare. When the Bureau comes knocking…” A wheeze that might have been laughter. “…knock harder.”