The rain in the alley had softened to a fine, cold mist that clung to their clothes and beaded on their skin. The tension, however, had not lessened. It coiled in the narrow space between them, a palpable thing, sharp and brittle. Zara Demir stood before them, not as a journalist or a casual observer, but as a predator who had finally cornered her prey. Her calm deconstruction of their methods had been more unnerving than any open threat.
"So, we'll try this again," Zara said, her voice dangerously soft. "You're going to tell me exactly what you're doing sniffing around my investigation. And this time, we will have honesty."
She raised her hand, palm open. A flame blossomed in its center, but it was unlike any fire Liam or Ronan had ever seen. It was a pure, unwavering white, tinged with ethereal blue at its edges. It cast no heat, but it radiated an intense psychic pressure. The flame didn't burn the air; it burned away deception. The alley's grimy brick walls were thrown into sharp, dancing relief, the shadows they cast unnaturally stark and absolute.
This was her Concept made manifest: the [Flame of Truth].
Liam felt it instantly, a searing wave of clarity that washed through his mind. It was an invasive, violating sensation. The little white lies, the carefully constructed mental walls, the very instinct to obfuscate or mislead—all of it felt like trying to hold smoke in his fist. Deception wasn't just difficult; it felt physically painful, like pressing on a fresh burn.
Ronan gasped, his hand flying to his temple. For him, a man who lived in a world of maybes and probabilities, this absolute, singular truth was an agony. The branching paths of fate he so often perceived seemed to collapse into one single, glaringly bright line.
"Let's start from the beginning," Zara commanded, her eyes, glowing in the flame's light, fixed on Liam. "Elias Vance. The schematics. Why were you there?"
The words tumbled out of Liam, stripped of any of his own hesitation or interpretation. The compulsion was absolute. He described the initial mission from Borin, finding Vance's body, and the strange, empty feeling of the Redactor's touch on the documents. He had no choice but to recount every detail, every feeling, with perfect, unblemished accuracy.
As he spoke, Zara's expression remained a mask of focused intensity, but he could see a flicker of something in her eyes. Recognition. Confirmation. This wasn't new information to her; she was using them to verify the pieces she already possessed.
"The paper mill," she said, her gaze shifting to Ronan. "How did you find it?"
Ronan, grimacing against the psychic pressure, explained Liam's discovery of the watermark and his own subsequent search through the Pact's archives. He described their infiltration of the abandoned mill, the oppressive atmosphere, and the discovery of the secret ledger.
"The second ledger," Zara murmured, almost to herself. A nod. "I knew Silas was keeping a private record. I just could never find the echo of it."
Her knowledge of the mill owner's name sent a fresh jolt through Liam. She wasn't just investigating the Legion; she was steps ahead of where they had been. She was a ghost who had already walked the path they were just now discovering.
"And this ledger led you to the Doomsday Chronicle," Zara continued, her gaze returning to Liam, pinning him in place. "You concluded there was a spy inside. A ghost in the machine."
"Yes," Liam said, the word feeling stark and naked under the flame's light. "We believed the Legion had an agent on the inside, manipulating the city's historical record at its source. We were trying to identify them."
At this, Zara finally moved. She took a step closer, the white flame in her hand pulsing once, brightly. The pressure in their minds intensified to a near-unbearable degree.
"Here," she said, her voice sharp as cracking ice. "Here is where your trail ends, and my trail begins. Your logic was sound, but your premise was flawed."
She closed her hand, and the flame vanished, plunging the alley back into its natural, gloomy state. The release was so sudden and absolute that both Liam and Ronan staggered, gasping as the familiar comfort of mental privacy and potential falsehoods rushed back in. The psychic silence that remained was deafening.
"There is no Legion spy inside the Chronicle," Zara stated, the words hanging in the damp air.
"But the deliveries," Ronan protested, shaking his head to clear it. "The ledger was specific. That special parchment was being sent there regularly."
"It was," Zara confirmed. A grim, knowing look crossed her face. "But it wasn't being delivered to a traitor."
She met their confused stares, letting the weight of the revelation settle before delivering the final, paradigm-shifting blow.
"It was being delivered to me."
The world seemed to tilt beneath Liam's feet. Every assumption, every theory they had built over the past weeks, shattered in an instant. They hadn't been hunting a ghost. They had been clumsily stumbling through the web of another, far more competent hunter. The feeling was a nauseating mix of relief and profound humiliation.
"You…" Liam breathed, trying to process the implications. "You've been investigating them from the inside."
"Not from inside," Zara corrected him, her tone softening slightly, the predator's edge giving way to a weary professional's. "From the edges. I have a contact, a terrified archivist who knows something is wrong but is too scared to act. He smuggles me copies of the documents the Legion 'redacts'—the history they erase. I get their raw material. I study their methods. I learn what they are trying to make the world forget."
She looked them over, a new assessment in her eyes. The tension in the alley had broken, replaced by a strange, awkward uncertainty. They were not enemies. But they were not yet allies.
"You two are loud," she said, though it lacked its earlier venom. "You blunder through temporal echoes like bulls in a china shop. But you found the ledger. That's more than I've been able to do in a year." She crossed her arms. "Borin has finally decided to take the Legion seriously, it seems. You're coming with me. It's time we all had a talk with your master."