Maxim’s jaw tightened. He remembered the night his arm was taken. Valerica had watched. She had smiled . “Then we burn her cathedral to ash.”

“Don’t,” came Maxim’s voice, heavy as a tombstone. He loomed behind her, his obsidian arm crackling with residual energy. “Mother put that lock there for a reason.”

Eva stood, her steelweave skin glowing with blue circuit lines. “We’re not your children anymore.”