A Torch Against the Night

Elias confronts the Warden, Sisellius, whom he knows from the two years he served at Kauf. The Warden reveals a captive Scholar child and uses the boy as a hostage to force Elias’s cooperation. To protect the child, Elias surrenders his weapons. A group of Masks, led by a guard named Drusius, confiscates his scims, boots, and a vial of Tellis extract before binding him in manacles.

The Warden questions Elias, mentioning that an informant alerted him to the plan. The Warden observes Elias’s empathy for the Scholar child as unusual for a Mask. Citing Elias’s past at Kauf, during which he spent time training in the interrogation block and came to hate it, he orders Elias to be taken to the interrogation block for study, intending to exploit his psychological vulnerabilities.

In her quarters at the Antium barracks, Helene Aquilla is visited by her lieutenant, Avitas Harper. He brings a message from their fellow soldier, Dex Atrius, revealing that Elias traveled north with Laia. In response, Helene sends a coded message to summon a secret contact. Shortly after, Cook appears outside Helene’s window.

Cook warns Helene that the Commandant is executing a much larger plan than anyone suspects.