Read Chapter 10: The Auction at the Catacombs

The invitation’s seal was warm against Julien’s palm, the ancient wax humming with a frequency that made his teeth ache. Beneath the archway leading into the Catacombs’ hidden passage, the air changed—thicker, older, carrying the faint mineral tang of limestone and something else, something sweetly decayed that the ossuary’s usual musk couldn’t account for.

Romy walked beside him, her heels silent on the uneven stone. She’d traded her Section-issued coat for a floor-length gown of deep emerald, and she moved with a practiced elegance that belonged to someone who had once worn such clothes for more than disguise. Julien had opted for his best suit, the one his father had worn to his mother’s funeral—a small, purposeful choice he hadn’t told Romy about.

“Nervous?” she murmured, not looking at him.

“My great-uncle’s name is probably on the seating chart. And mine right after it.”

“Then we’re in the right place.”

The passage narrowed, then opened into a cavern so vast that Julien’s breath caught. The Catacombs had always been a place of orderly death—neatly stacked femurs and skulls arranged in decorative patterns. This was different. The bones were gone, replaced by candlelit alcoves carved into the living rock, each one housing a relic displayed on black velvet. The air hummed with protective wards so dense they made the hairs on his arms stand up. A circular gallery descended in tiers, ringed with masked attendees—dozens of them, their identities obscured by porcelain and silk, their collective attention fixed on a central dais where a man in an ivory suit was presenting a glass case containing what looked like a withered hand.

“That’s the living glove of the Boneless King,” a voice said from behind them. “Charming, yes?”

Julien turned. A woman in a rust-colored gown and an ornate birdcage mask regarded them with eyes the color of amber wine. She held a glass of something pale and fizzing.

“We’re just here for the grimoire,” Romy said smoothly.

“Ah. Then you’re competing with half the gallery.” The woman’s gaze drifted to Julien’s wrist, where the edge of the invitation had slipped from his pocket. “And you’ve come up the long way. Interesting.”

“The long way?”

“The sealed entrance.” She tilted her head. “That’s been shut since before the archives existed. Whoever sent you knows what they’re doing. Or they’re dead already and just haven’t noticed.” She laughed, a tinkling sound that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and drifted away into the crowd.

Romy touched his elbow. “She’s been watching the door since we came in. I saw her before she approached.”

“You made us.”

“I made her *us*.” Romy’s lips curved. “Theatrical types love a mystery. We’re the mystery now. That buys us time.”

The auction proceeded through a series of grotesque objects: a vial containing the last breath of a sphinx, a chipped amphora that had once held the dreams of sleeping saints, a ringshard of bone that the auctioneer described as a feather dropped by a fallen angel. Each item fetched sums that made Julien’s detective salary feel like an insult. He scanned the room, looking for any face he might recognize beneath the masks. He found none. But his pocket watch vibrated against his ribs, a low thrum that intensified whenever he moved his gaze toward a figure seated at the far edge of the second tier—a man in a plain black suit, his mask simple, unadorned, covering only the upper half of his face. He wasn’t looking at the dais. He was looking at Julien.

The watch grew hotter.

“I’ve got eyes on someone,” Julien said, keeping his voice low. “West side, second tier. Black mask, no ornamentation.”

Romy followed his gaze without turning her head. “I see him. Nothing in his posture says buyer. He’s watching us, not the auction.”

“Let’s see how he reacts if I move.”

Julien casually stepped to the left, drifting toward the edge of the gallery. The man in the black mask mirrored the movement instantly, shifting his chair just enough to maintain sight lines. But he wasn’t trailing them—he was waiting for them to come to him.

The auctioneer’s voice rose. “And now, for the final piece of the evening: the 1874 grimoire of the Opéra de Paris, bound in leather from the workshop of a man history forgot. Few know what it contains. Fewer still have asked the right questions. We ask for a starting bid of two hundred thousand.”

The man in the black mask raised his hand.

Julien didn’t think. He moved.

Romy’s hand shot out and caught his arm. “What are you doing?”

“Following the bait.”

He crossed the gallery floor at a pace that drew attention, ignoring the murmurs of the masked patrons. Up the short stairs to the second tier, past a cluster of men in feathered domino masks who pointedly turned away. The man in black watched him approach, and when Julien was three steps away, he rose, not out of alarm but with the deliberate calm of someone who had been expecting exactly this.

“Moreau,” the man said. His voice was low, dry, with an accent Julien couldn’t place. “You’re early.”

“You knew I was coming.”

“I knew someone would. The invitation in your pocket was a copy. I have the original. I was starting to wonder if you’d ever show.” The man glanced past Julien to where Romy was weaving through the crowd. “Your friend moves well. But she didn’t need to come.”

“She stays.”

“Very noble. I don’t have time to test it.” The man reached into his coat—

Julien grabbed his wrist, slamming it down on the stone railing. The motion was reflexive, trained, every instinct screaming that this man was about to produce a weapon. The hand he’d grabbed was ringed with a heavy signet band, and the stone caught the candlelight.

Silver. Encased in what looked like wax-hardened resin under a worn patina of age. The Moreau crest, engraved with such care that he could trace the individual leaves of the family oak.

The man went very still.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” he said, and there was no malice in his voice, only a strange pity. “That ring is older than Section 13. Older than the Brotherhood’s public face. And you’re holding the wrist of your own cousin.”

Julien’s grip loosened, but he didn’t release. “Cousin?”

“Théo Moreau. Fourth son of Armand’s sister’s line. We keep to the shadows—the family’s defenders do. The guardians of the name.” Théo’s eyes flickered to Julien’s wrist, to the pocket watch hidden beneath his jacket. “You have the timepiece. So you’ve been chosen. I should have known when I saw you enter—the watch always finds its bearer. It’s a fool’s inheritance, cousin. It eats lives for breakfast and calls it loyalty.”

“Then explain it. Now.”

Théo opened his mouth—

And seized. His eyes widened, his throat jerking as if he’d been stung. Julien caught him as he crumpled, pulling him back from the railing. A thin dart was protruding from the side of Théo’s neck, no larger than a sewing needle, its tip stained black.

Romy reached them in three strides, already scanning the opposite gallery. “I don’t see the shooter. Wards block tracing—” She knelt beside Théo, pressing her fingers to his pulse. “He’s fading. Fast.”

Théo’s lips moved. Julien leaned close, and the dying man’s voice was a cracked whisper, barely audible over the murmur of the auctioneer resuming the bidding on the grimoire as if nothing had happened.

“Find… missing archivist. She holds the key.”

“Claire?” Julien’s blood ran cold. “Claire Delacroix? What does she have?”

Théo’s eyes fixed on him with terrifying intensity. “She’s not missing. She’s hidden. The Brotherhood… doesn’t put its secrets in archives anymore. They put them in people.” His hand grasped Julien’s collar, pulling him down until their foreheads nearly touched. “Your mother knew. She ran. They found her anyway.”

“My mother died in a car accident.”

Théo’s smile was bloodied. “You’re a detective, cousin. Check the axle.”

His body went limp.

The watch blazed hot against Julien’s chest, so fierce that he gasped, fumbling for it. When his fingers touched the cold silver casing, he felt something new—a pull. Not toward the watch, but from it. A directional tug, like a compass needle swinging east, aimed through the cavern walls, past the ossuary, up toward the city where the evening traffic was winding down and somewhere, in an abandoned corner of the 19th arrondissement, a desk had been cleared of every trace of a woman who was not missing but hidden.

“He’s dead,” Romy said, rising. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. “We need to move. The auction house will have security here in minutes.”

“They won’t bother.”

“Why not?”

Julien looked down at his cousin’s body—his last living blood connection to the men who guarded the name. The ring still gleamed on Théo’s finger.

“Because they already got what they wanted. They killed the messenger, and they let me watch.” He pulled the ring free, and the watch against his chest thrummed in recognition. “They wanted me to know someone in my own family was protecting me. And now they know I know.”

The watch tugged eastward. Insistent. Directional.

“Let’s go,” Julien said, and began to run.