Before Shade set out using the key, Sister Devlin had deliberately covered the accessory on her wrist with her left hand.
But now Shade saw it clearly. It was a familiar golden bracelet—one he had given to someone else only about twenty minutes ago.
"This..."
He listened to his own heartbeat, his eyes widening. He wanted to sigh, but his head was buzzing.
He tried not to think about why this was, but Sister Devlin spoke first:
"After you first mentioned that senior from the Fifth Epoch, I searched for her in the Great Library of the Cult. About half a week ago, I found records concerning Sister Belen and located her grave in the mountain cemetery beneath the Sacrificial Ground."
"A grave..."
The Fire Guardian Sisters did not leave behind corpses. They were already part of the First Fire, and their bodies would be burned away after death. There would not even be ashes, much less an intact corpse.
Sister Devlin had once taken Shade to see the sisters' graves. The cemetery was down the stone steps from the entrance to the Sacrificial Ground. Those graves had only tombstones, though a few had some of the sisters' personal belongings buried behind them as mementos.
Galina looked at Shade with some concern, while Sister Devlin continued:
"The tombstone was badly weathered, but her name could still be seen. It recorded that she was a Thirteenth Order Witch, who ultimately died during a containment mission involving an Unknown Level Relic that suddenly went out of control near the Sacrificial Ground.
"When I instructed the other sisters to restore the tombstone, they discovered a small box buried beneath the old one. A message had been left inside it with flames. She instructed me to give you the items in the box after