Chapter 279

• Elysia
• Mira agreed to meet again, this time somewhere less symbolically haunted than a crumbling chapel, choosing instead a quiet room above Velmora's headquarters that I'd had swept for surveillance three separate times before allowing her inside.
• "I'll help you against the Warden," she said, settling into the chair across from my desk with the same unhurried patience I remembered from childhood lessons that had once felt endless. "But I have a condition, and I want you to consider it seriously before agreeing."