Clara stood at the base of the first flight of stairs and watched, trying to make sense of the tangled mess before her. It’s a filing system, so there has to be an order to it, she told herself. It can’t be worse than some of the due diligence software on the market. It’s like they try to make those as frustrating as possible. Looking at you, Intralinks.
After a few minutes, she’d achieved some semblance of understanding. The stairs shifted in a tier-based cycle, with each moving between the upper landings in a certain order. They never appeared to stop in midair with no exit point, so she was reasonably confident that she wouldn’t be left stranded.
Well, what’s the worst that could happen?
She went up, gripping the railing and squinting at each step. She missed her wand more than ever, because a single fiat lux would have made this trivial. Or a phone’s flashlight. I’m surprised that wasn’t my first thought.
After two full flights of stairs, the shelves began. They ran high along the walls, and Clara paused at each landing to read the spines while she waited for the next flight to come around. So far, they seemed to be mostly tithe records, sorted by parish and year, each ledger fatter than the last. She pulled one at random—from Valois, two hundred years ago—and found a marginal scribble about how the ducks in a certain village yielded the best meat.
On the next tier, there were expenses and receipts: ledgers for grain, meat, even candles, dating back hundreds of years. Then she stopped at a large shelf full of diaries, hoping to uncover some sort of secret or mystery. But the writings were mostly personal, like complaints about one priest being annoying or another being unfaithful, grumblings about who got assigned the best parishes, and even a very long love poem about the bosom of Pope Lucilla II.
It became clear that the Church had never met a piece of paper it was willing to throw away. They need to hire someone to implement a retention schedule. And a right to be forgotten, because some of this stuff is just embarrassing. Maybe my next bill should be an Arcadian GDPR.
She continued her climb up the shaft. After a while, she heard faint hooting, which she did her best to ignore. There aren’t even any windows here! Leave me alone!
The next landings had correspondence, sermon drafts, and a collection of relic transfer records. She thought of Mother Radegund and her goat bones theory, and was tempted to stop and read. But Clara couldn’t afford to spend her last night at Mont Sainte-Michelle indulging her curiosity, so she kept going.
In the upper section, she found a full shelf of research journals on magic. ‘Deciphering the Sacred Tongue’, ‘Studies on the Decay of Magical Enchantments’, ‘The Limits of Resonance Fields’, ‘On Memory Magic, Volume I’. And at this point, she was even more tempted to stop.
Later, if there’s time after I finish exploring.
After what felt like two dozen flights of stairs, the shelves stopped. The last staircase was fixed, leading her to a bare landing with nothing on it but a set of double doors, dark oak reinforced with iron, with quartzes mounted on the handles.
She looked at it, then down at the golden key resting against her chest.
So there’s an even more restricted section with another key-checking mechanism. Since the previous one was probably silver, this one should be gold.
Which might mean the information past this point was more sensitive, and therefore closer to what Clara had been looking for.
She put her hands on the handles and twisted them smoothly. There was no shock.
After the baffling magical shaft of moving stars, the room beyond the doors was a letdown, which came as a relief.
It was a long, low chamber, laid out with practical, decidedly mundane office logic. There were writing desks with lamps hanging overhead, filing cabinets with rows and rows of wooden drawers, and some crates at the end, presumably full of files yet to be archived.
Whoever built this place was far more sensible than the stair designer.
Clara pulled open a random drawer near the entrance, and inside were binders with names on their spines. She flipped through some. A sister who died in the year 423, then a deacon who had been moved to accounts because of ‘unsuitability for preaching’. The next drawer was the same thing, but for names starting with a different letter.
They were personnel records. Eight hundred years of them, all sorted alphabetically.
Clara traced along the cabinets, counting letters in her head, and it took her only a few tries to find the drawer she was searching for. There was a surprising number of binders labeled ‘Leofric’—apparently it was a popular name among the ordained clergy—but only one of them was three times as thick as its neighbors.
She pulled it out, carried it to the nearest desk, and opened it under the lamplight.
‘LEOFRIC. High Inquisitor. Veiled.’
The first few pages were unremarkable. His date of entry into the Church, his seminary grades, his ordination, then his elevation to inquisitor-in-training. But after that, a different handwriting took over.
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‘Relic Hunter. Veiled.’
That was his next post. Then a list of locations and dates: two seasons in the Byzottoman Empire, one in Istantinople and one in Misraegia; three separate entries for Norravia. Then a long stretch with no location at all—only a list of expenses and a note of ‘matter concluded satisfactorily’.
She wet her thumb and turned the page. The section after that was more recent still, written by a third hand and in darker ink.
The first line read, ‘Killed in action. Confirmed involvement of House von Rhenia. Suspected use of corrosion.’
Then the next: ‘SUBJECT OF INQUIRY opened at the request of His Majesty King Diarmuid IV and His Grace Duke Maximilian von Rhenia, with approval from Her Holiness Pope Aurelia I. See Inquiry Register, entry 1095-A.’
And there was nothing after that.
She sighed. Of course it wouldn’t all be neatly packed into one file. But a cross-reference is still a lead. I’ve subpoenaed worse.
She put Leofric’s file back, then went back to the drawers. It took her thirty minutes to find the location of the Inquiry Register, and then another ten to sort through its volumes and find the one with entry 1095-A.
She opened it and leaned in, her hand twitching for a pen she didn’t have.
It was mostly a report of the things Duke von Rhenia had already told her—that Leofric had practiced forbidden magic and misused Church orphanages. That several Veiled Keys under him had been questioned, and that none of them had identified anyone above him. Their names were listed, and alongside each, a simple statement of ‘Penalty: Death’ and a signature. The next section contained the interrogation notes of the five public-facing high inquisitors, in which they denied any knowledge of or involvement in his activities.
But at the end, a single note: ‘Sensitive inquiry notes not retained in Inquiry Register. See Ecumenical Council minutes, file 1307-F.’
Clara gritted her teeth. Where are my interns when I need them?
She found the Ecumenical Council minutes three cabinets down and carefully pulled out file 1307-F. The files were organized by date, so she considered also searching for the ones with dates near Leofric’s trial to see what they’d discussed about the Blessing, but decided against it for now. One thing at a time—and this file seems juicy.
‘SENSITIVE INQUIRY NOTES ON THE MATTER OF HIGH INQUISITOR L. For the Ecumenical Council only. Reported directly to Her Eminence Grand Inquisitor Valentia and Her Holiness Pope Aurelia I.’
She raised an eyebrow. If this is for the Ecumenical Council only, why is it in a room that Helena’s key has access to?
After that was where things got interesting.
The inquiry had identified a co-conspirator—a second high inquisitor attached to the Veiled Keys, referred to only by the initial ‘O.’ The record read, ‘Detained, questioned under the Blessing by the Grand Inquisitor, and put to death within the walls of Mont Sainte-Michelle, along with all five directly subordinate Veiled Keys as per standard process.’
They found one. And they killed him and told nothing of it to the King or Duke von Rhenia.
On the one hand, this confirmed the duke’s fear that the Grand Inquisitor had withheld information from him. On the other, at least it seemed like the Church was taking the conspiracy seriously and acting against it. Or maybe they were just tying up loose ends.
Clara kept reading. A paragraph had been thoroughly crossed out, but what came after it was clean.
‘The inquiry additionally notes that the Warden’s Anchor in L’s possession was not found among his effects or in his quarters at Mont Sainte-Michelle or Westwick. It is presumed intact and in unauthorized hands. Considering that the body was turned over by House von Rhenia, it is thought probable that the relic is in their possession. Recommendation: deployment of the Veiled Keys for recovery.’
Warden’s Anchor? Recovery? Does that mean the Veiled Keys are planning an operation against House von Rhenia?
Hoo.
She pushed the worry and the annoying hooting aside and made herself keep going. She’d have time to ponder all this later.
The final paragraph was the shortest in the entire section on the investigation, at the very bottom of the last page.
‘It is noted that the inquiry was not able to identify the ultimate goal of the subject’s illegal actions. Given the involvement of House von Rhenia, the possibility exists that the present matter is continuous with the matter investigated by Inquisitor Mildine.’
Even the conclusion is a cross-reference. At this point, I’m impressed.
Clara went back to counting drawers. Before she reached ‘M’, she took a detour through ‘H’, but there was no file for Helena Rosewood. Which makes sense, considering that she’s not clergy.
Fortunately, there was only one Mildine, and her file was thin. She had apparently been an ordinary inquisitor in charge of ordinary cases, and had died an ordinary death of old age around a decade ago. The file had a list of over a dozen inquisitors-in-training she’d mentored: Zacharias, Orson, Alfred, Aelfwyn, Wulfric, Roderick, Cuthbert, Severina, Godric, Cedric, Valerius, Miles, Belduke…
And Leofric.
So he’d once been her disciple. And this Orson might’ve been the co-conspirator referred to as O. in the other file.
Hoo. Hoo.
At the end of the file, there was a list of trials in which Mildine had represented the inquisition. The names of the defendants were in one column, and the trial’s result in the other: ‘Conviction for robbery. Conviction for tax evasion. Conviction for robbery. Acquittal of theft. Conviction—’
Clara stared.
‘Accused: Franz von Rhenia. Result: Conviction for treason, heresy, and corrosion. Sentence: Death.’
She read it again, then a third time, just to be sure.
Hoo. Hoo. Hoo.
A von Rhenia, executed by the Church. And on rather spectacular charges.
The trial had been thirty years ago, so was it the previous duke? No, I’m pretty sure the duke’s father was called Ludwig, and his grandfather was Leopold. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Franz in the family, though it fits the Habsburg vibe they’ve got going. At least they got only the names and not the jaw.
A heretic among House von Rhenia wasn’t exactly a shocking prospect, but going as far as executing him would have had immense political implications. Even Iris was only ever threatened with house arrest when they thought she tried to kill Helena. There has to be more to this.
Clara put Mildine’s file back, deciding to look for trial records next.
Hoo. Hoo. Hoo. Hoo. Hoo. Hoo—
Clara’s head jerked toward the outer wall as the hooting grew more and more frantic. Goddess, what is up with this owl? It’s like it’s trying to warn—
Then she heard something else beneath the noise.
A slow and uneven shuffle, coming from the other side of the doors.
Footsteps.
Clara's body reacted faster than her mind. Her lungs locked mid-breath, and she ducked behind the crates in the back.
The oak doors swung open.
A tap, followed by a creak as someone came inside. Then the scrape of a chair being pulled out.
After a moment of silence, she risked leaning just enough to peek through the finger-width gap between the crates.
An old woman sat under the lamplight, her eyes clouded and her habit faded. And hanging against her chest, where Clara had seen a silver key only a few hours ago, was now a gold one.
Mother Radegund sniffed the air twice.