Page 104 of Veil of Dust

He doesn’t look at me. Just stares at the flames.

“It mattered yesterday. But yesterday’s dead.”

I nod.

Another file goes into the growing blaze. This one smells like burnt sugar and ink. The paper curls like dry leaves. A corner of the Elder’s seal melts and sticks to the scorched wood.

We don’t flinch.

“We’re killing history,” I murmur.

“No,” he says. “We’re gutting the lie it wrote.”

I step closer.

The desk snaps as the fire eats through its center. Sparks leap up. Tiziano just looks on.

I glance down at the Elder’s body again. Still sprawled. Still human.

Almost.

I crouch and yank the chain from his neck.

At the end hangs a ring. The sigil of the Order—bronze, shaped like a double-faced mask. One side noble. The other grotesque.

I slip it into my coat pocket.

A trophy. A warning. Maybe both.

Tiziano watches me rise.

“You keeping that?” he asks.

I shrug.

“He stole decades. I’ll take a trinket.”

The chandelier creaks above. A panel near the wall collapses. Fire has reached the inner beams.

The building won’t last long.

Tiziano turns away from the desk and walks to where I left the tarot card—Death—lying face up, half-burned at the corner.

He steps around it.

Not on it.

Respect, maybe.

He joins me at the body. Looks down at the Elder. Then looks at me.

“You did it?”

I nod.

“He see it coming?”

“He invited it.”

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