Faust burst through the hidden doorway behind the tapestry of Saint Michael, stumbling into the vast, candle-lit sanctuary of Saint-Eustache.
He was a walking nightmare—nearly naked, his muscular frame smeared with blood and soot, his left eye bound in a torn tunic strip, and his white-and-black greasepaint sweat-streaked into a ghostly visage.
A startled murmur rippled through the few clergymen and priests tending to the altar. Seeing a wild, half-dressed man emerge from the holy vaults, a senior priest stepped forward, his robes rustling as he held up a wooden crucifix.
"Stop!" the priest commanded, his voice echoing off the high vaulted ceilings. "The church is under sacred quarantine. No one can exit the—"
He didn't have time to finish.
With cold, mechanical precision, Faust snapped his right arm up. The heavy, polished barrel of the Bohemian Revolver leveled directly between the priest's eyes. It was a complete, desperate bluff; the cylinder was entirely empty, devoid of a single grain of powder or lead. But the unblinking, aristocratic ice in Faust's visible eye carried a lethal promise that no man of the cloth dared to test.
The priest gasped in high tone and froze, words dying in his throat. The other clergymen slowly raised their hands, backing away into the shadows of the nave.
Keeping the weapon raised, Faust backed out of the heavy oak doors of the cathedral and broke into a dead sprint into the damp Paris night.
He ran until his lungs burned, his feet taking him instinctively back to the outskirts of the city where El Gloriosa had pitched its tents. But the peaceful, festive circus he had left hours ago was gone.
The turmoil beneath Paris had clearly sent ripples to the surface. The campsite was a frantic hive of activity. Shout and curses filled the air as acrobats, jugglers, and stable-hands threw heavy trunks into carts and harnessed the horses. They were pulling up stakes early, fleeing the invisible shadow that was settling over the city.
Faust slipped through the shadows, avoiding the torches, and darted straight into Wunder's large wagon.
Fortune favored the desperate; the wagon was empty. Wunder was likely outside, barking orders at the troupe to hasten the retreat.
Faust didn't waste a second. He ignored the basin of water—there was no time to scrub the stubborn white and black greasepaint from his skin. Instead, he ripped off his soiled undergarments and frantically pulled on a set of ordinary traveler's clothes: a simple linen shirt, sturdy leather trousers, and his riding boots.
Searching through Wunder's trunks of props, his hand brushed against a plain, expressionless porcelain theater mask. He snatched it up, tying it securely over his face to hide both the grotesque star-painted greasepaint and the bandaged, secretly glowing left eye.
As he reached for his travel pack, his gaze fell upon the trunk in the corner of the wagon. Resting right on top was his spare crimson-and-gold fool costume, the silver bells catching the faint light of the wagon's lantern.
Faust froze.
Over the last three months, he had grown to love the chaos of the ring. He had liked being a mentor, liked learning the Alchemist's Flourish from a grumpy master, and for the first time in a century, he had felt a strange, fleeting sense of family among the outcasts of El Gloriosa.
Now, his academic prying into the Ars Goetia had brought the Inquisition, high demons, and blood to their doorstep. He was a infection, and if he stayed, he would drag Wunder and the others down into the pyre with him.
A profound, bitter ache tightened in his chest.
Faust bit his bottom lip, pressing down so hard with his teeth that the flesh turned a sharp, bruised red.
With a low, ragged breath, he grabbed the spare fool costume, shoved the velvet and the jingling bells deep into his pack alongside Weyer's iron-bound tome, and strapped it tight. He picked up his empty revolver, pocketed his silver Tarot cards, and stepped out onto the wagon's wooden ledge.
He didn't say goodbye.
He didn't look back at the main tent.
Faust leapt from the wagon and dissolved into the absolute of the Parisian night.
Mephisto had left El Gloriosa.
For good.