The black door closed behind me with the sound of a soft, deliberate lock. The room was high and cold, and the morning could not reach it. One tall window faced the courtyard, but the fog had swallowed what little light there was, leaving only a grey smear against the glass. Candles burned along the black oak table, their flames too still, as if the air itself was afraid to move. Archdeacon Selwyn Croft sat at the head. His black cassock looked pressed by hands that had never known rain. His fingers were long and dry, stained at the tips, and his round steel spectacles reflected the candle flames like two small empty moons. At the far end, half-hidden in the shadow of the window, sat Bishop Marlowe. He was thinner than I remembered, or the room made him seem so. He did not look up when I entered. He was signing something with a pen that made no sound. Sister Honoria Mace sat on the left, her back straight, her grey habit damp at the hem. She did not acknowledge me. Zeke Okafor sat lower down, his chair too small beneath his shoulders. Brother Lome Carrick stood near the wall, his burned neck turned away from the light. No one offered me a chair. I took the empty one anyway. Croft waited until I had settled, then opened the ledger before him and ran one ink-stained finger down the page. "Father Greaves," he said. "You have returned from Yorkshire." "I have." "Without orders." The word hung in the cold. "The village requested help," I said. "I am a parish priest, Archdeacon. We answer." Croft did not look up. "The Blackwood estate was not under ecclesiastical jurisdiction. There was no sanctioned hunt. You involved your verger. You buried two bodies on private land. And you returned with no harvested stone for the treasury." "No harvested stone," I repeated. "The Troll's stone was shattered in the fight. The other was lost in the wood. There was nothing to bring back." The lie did not flicker in my voice. I had grown used to it. Croft turned a page. "The housemaid. The one found in the wood." He paused, his pale eyes rising. "She bore an unusual mark." "Decay makes many marks." "Not like this one." I said nothing. He let the silence stretch, then closed the ledger with a quiet finality. "The Church is prepared to treat Blackwood as a private tragedy. A parish matter, handled poorly but handled." He folded his hands. "However, there is the question of your verger." My jaw did not move, but something behind my ribs did. "What did he see at Blackwood? What did he carry back?" "Vestments," I said. "And grief." "He was seen speaking with the housemaid who fled. Maeve Hart." "Briefly. She gave a statement. That is all." Croft watched me for a long moment. "We will speak to him separately." "I would expect nothing less." From the far end of the table, Marlowe raised his eyes for the first time. It was only a glance, calm and unreadable, but it stayed on me a heartbeat too long. Then he looked back down and signed another paper. Croft cleared his throat. "There is another matter. One that requires a man of your particular experience." Zeke shifted in his chair. Wood creaked. Croft opened a thin folder and withdrew a single map, which he laid flat on the table. The coast. The northern edge of England, where the land broke into cliffs and the sea worked at the stone like a patient knife. "Saint Aldric's," Croft said. "A parish above the cliffs at Crawmoor. Old, isolated, and now half-broken by the sea. Three weeks ago, the crypt beneath the nave was exposed after a landslide. The local priest reported that the tomb had been opened." He slid one finger to a mark on the map. "Two field exorcists were sent to inspect the site. They have not reported in eleven days." No one moved. "One week after the crypt opened, the daughter of Lord Rydell went missing. She was last seen along the cliff path above the church, near sunset. The local constables found nothing. The tide took whatever tracks there might have been." The map stayed open between us, its inked coastline like a scar. "The parish priest has reported a sound from the crypt at low tide. He was careful in his letter. He called it singing." Croft paused. "He wrote that it was not human." The word fell into the room and did not echo. Zeke broke the silence. "With respect, Archdeacon, he's barely standing. Greaves just came back from Blackwood. Give him a week." Croft did not raise his voice. "You were not asked, Brother Okafor." Zeke's hands pressed flat against the table. I saw the muscles in his jaw move. He looked at me, and for the first time there was something close to guilt in his face. I knew what he was thinking. The newspaper. The clipping. The body in High Moor. I could see him putting it together like a debt he could not repay. "Crawmoor is not a field assignment," I said. "It is a place of penance." "Yes," Croft said. "Which is why we are sending you." He did not smile. I did. "A church with a broken crypt, two exorcists missing, and a lord's daughter taken by the tide. Tell me, Archdeacon, what exactly do you expect me to find?" Croft considered the question as if it were a legal formula. "We expect you to find the two exorcists. Failing that, you will find the source of the singing. Failing that, you will seal the crypt and bring word to the bishop." He paused. "The child is a secondary matter." "Children are never secondary." The words came out before I could stop them. Marlowe's pen stopped moving. Croft's smile returned, thinner than before. "You were offered a place behind this table once, Greaves. A senior chair. Not in the field. You refused it." "I remember." "Then perhaps this is what it looks like when a man refuses the Church and is still asked to serve." The words settled like frost. Zeke started to speak again. "Archdeacon—" "Brother Okafor." Croft cut him off. "Your concern has been noted. This meeting is closed." Zeke closed his mouth. His hands drew back from the table. He would not look at me again. Brother Lome's voice came from the wall, low and ruined. "The sea keeps what it takes." Croft ignored him. Marlowe finally spoke. "This is not punishment, Father." His voice was soft, uninfected by the cold. "This is an act of faith." He folded his hands over the papers. I looked at the map, then at the black window, then at the faces around the table. "Faith," I said. "Of course." I took the assignment. The paper was thin, already damp from the room. Croft slid it to me like a gift. "The Church has arranged passage. You leave in three days." I stood. The chair made a sound against the stone. As I moved toward the door, I saw Zeke's reflection in the window. He looked like a man who had handed a friend a loaded pistol without knowing it. The door opened before I touched it. --- The corridor outside was colder. Caleb was waiting near the outer gate, his back against the wall. A deacon stood a few feet away, watching him with a patience that felt rehearsed. Caleb straightened when he saw me. "They asked me about Blackwood," he said quietly. "About a black book. About stones." "And you?" "I told them I carried vestments." His voice was steady. "Nothing else." "Good." We walked toward the street. The deacon did not follow. Before we reached the gate, Honoria passed us like a cold wind. She did not stop. She did not look at me. "That is not a mission, Greaves," she said. I did not turn. "That is a closed casket." She was gone before I could answer. Caleb pulled his coat tighter. "What did they give you?" I looked out at the street. The fog had begun to lift, but only a little. Across the road, beneath the dead gas lamp, there was only wet pavement and a scatter of straw. "The coast," I said. "A drowned church. Two missing exorcists. A child." I paused. "And a casket I'm meant to fill." He said nothing. I did not tell him about the senior chair. I did not tell him that the Church had once wanted me behind the table, that I had refused, and that now they were sending me to the edge of the map to earn back something I never wanted. That was not his weight to carry. But as we walked, I felt it settle across my shoulders all the same.

Chapter 21: A Closed Casket