The message on the wall didn't move.
REMEMBER.
But it didn't need to. The letters were burned into Raziel's vision whether his eyes were open or not.
[MENTAL STATE UNSTABLE] [WARNING: Critical Cortisol Levels]
'Calm down. Calm down, dammit!'
He forced himself to breathe.
Then he was on his knees in the Main Chapel, thirty minutes later, scrubbing the stone floor with an old rag.
Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.
The floor was clean. There was nothing on it.
But his hands kept moving because if they stopped they would start shaking and they wouldn't stop.
The smell of iron from the library was stuck in his nose.
A sensory loop his brain couldn't shut off. Fresh blood. Seraphina's blood.
'Could've been someone else's blood, could've been animal blood, could've been staged.'
He didn't believe any of those.
"Come out," he muttered, pressing harder against the stone. "It has to come out."
'Think! Think like the man who survived sixteen years. Not the boy who wants to scream.'
He'd run the calculation on his way from the library to the chapel.
The Option one was to go to Marius.
Report the blood, the message, Seraphina's absence, the problem was if Marius gave the order, Raziel just walked himself into a cell.
The second problem was even if Marius didn't give the order, Raziel was the last person seen near the restricted section.
The novice who plays hell music, the one with ink-stained hands and too many questions.
He was the perfect suspect.
But the option two was to hide. Survive the night, gather information and act when he had leverage instead of panic.
He chose option two.
"Raziel?"
His whole body locked and his right hand went for a knife he didn't have.
Lara was at the chapel entrance, holding a candelabre, warm light on her face but with concern in her eyes.
"You're still here?" she asked. "Dinner ended a while ago."
Raziel forced the mask back on.
"Lara." He coughed to clear his throat. "Yeah, just extra penance. Marius said I needed guidance."
Lara looked at the immaculate floor he'd been pressing the rag into, then at his hands that were red from scrubbing.
"You're pale," she said as she stepped closer. "And you smell like iron."
His heart skipped. 'Is it that obvious?'
"My nose bled," he lied. "Exam stress."
Lara narrowed her eyes.
She didn't look convinced but something in the air was too heavy for her to push, and she read it correctly.
"Be careful, Raziel," she whispered. "St. Celeste isn't a place to keep secrets."
'If you only knew, Lara.'
"I will," he said. "Go to sleep. I'll be in my room soon."
She hesitated but then she nodded and turned.
The sound of her footsteps fading down the corridor was the first relief Raziel had felt in hours. He let himself drop against a column.
[MISSION TIME REMAINING: 05:00:00]
"Five more hours."
Then he heard voices.
They didn't come from the hallway.
They came from the sacristy through the wall.
Low and careful, the kind of conversation that happened in rooms where the speakers believed no one else was listening.
Raziel moved, not walked.
Moved with his weight on the balls of his feet, keeping his body against the stone, the way he'd learned to move in another life when moving wrong meant a crossbow bolt in the spine.
He reached the sacristy doorway but didn't enter.
Pressed himself flat against the frame and leaned one eye past the edge.
Two figures. One candle.
The first he recognized immediately, it was Brother Reth, the History instructor.
Reth's hands were in his sleeves but his fingers were moving inside the fabric, he was nervous.
The other wore a hooded robe that seemed to eat the candlelight.
His face was hidden and his voice was wet, scraped, like something that had spent too long in damp stone.
"The Inquisitors are sniffing around," Reth was saying.
He kept glancing toward the door but not far enough to see Raziel.
"Marius is nervous about the boy. Says his song was unnatural."
"Let Marius pray his prayers and shut up," the Hooded One replied.
"The girl is no longer a problem. Her Echo has been harvested."
Raziel bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. 'Seraphina? They took her Echo.'
Not dead, not necessarily but harvested meant they'd ripped something out of her.
Something she couldn't get back easily, if at all.
"And the boy?" Reth insisted.
"He was in the library. He could have seen something or worse, what if he remembers?"
The Hooded One turned slightly. The candle caught a silver ring on his finger.
Raziel recognized the symbol.
The Order of Silence.
"He's a novice, Reth. A traumatized kid." The contempt in the voice was thick.
"Even if he saw the truth, who would believe him? But if he becomes a nuisance, we'll use him. The Pact needs young blood to feed the Shadows."
Raziel felt the cold go through him.
They weren't talking about expelling him, they were talking about sacrificing him!
He took one step back, very slowly. Weight shifting to his back heel.
Creeeeak.
An old pew under his boot and the sound was enormous in the silence.
Both figures froze.
"Who goes there?" Reth barked.
Raziel pressed himself against the column.
He held his breath until his lungs burned and his heart was hammering so loud he was certain they could hear it through the stone.
"It's just a rat," the Hooded One said, stopping Reth with a hand.
"This church is full of vermin looking for crumbs."
Silence. Raziel counted five seconds.
"Let's go," the Hooded One finally said.
"We have work in the basement." He turned to Reth.
"Watch the boy. If he shows any sign of Awakening, rip his head off."
Footsteps moving toward a hidden door. A click, the sound of stone shifting.
Then nothing.
Raziel waited a full minute before he let himself slide down the column to the floor.
His back hit the cold stone and he sat there, shaking.
'It's not just corruption, It's a cult. They have people inside the Church, they have access to the basement, and Seraphina found something they didn't want found. That's why they took her.'
He looked up at the altar at the giant cross hanging above him.
"Survive the night," he whispered and a broken smile crossed his face. "Piece of cake."
[MISSION UPDATED]
[NEW OBJECTIVE: Locate the entrance to the Basement without being detected]