Sanctum No More
Lucien
The air inside Saint Estienne had changed over the past few hours. It had not cleared—I doubted it ever would. It still tasted of mildew and old blood, of salt from the sea below being dragged in on damp cloaks and bones rattled from ancient crypts below. But the stillness had gone; it had morphed into something else. And that something moved beneath the stone now. A thrum, low and steady, like the cathedral had a heartbeat again.
Or maybe that was mine.
I stood high above the others in the remains of what had once been the choir loft, far above the apse, watching them work. Below, the witches carved sigils into the cracked marble flooring, their voices rising and falling in a guttural cadence. One of the demons was painting a ward symbol across the threshold in
