At dawn after the watchtower fight, Gabriel rode with Chloe Sauvage, Dior Lachance, Saoirse and her lioness Phoebe, Père Rafa, and soothsinger Bellamy Bouchette through a dead, fungal-choked forest. Gabriel assessed each companion and sparred verbally with his captor Jean-François in the framing present about music and silence, revealing his self-loathing. The group forded the Ūmdir and turned toward the Volta across the Ossway, with Gabriel hoping to draw out Danton Voss.

Seeking clarity, Gabriel pressed for why Voss hunted them and how he knew about the Grail. Père Rafa detailed his four decades in the Order of San Guillaume as a linguist and astrologer, and how, after Daysdeath, he and Chloe corresponded for a decade researching its end. Rafa discovered an Old Talhostic poem that prophesied: “From holy cup comes holy light; the faithful hand sets world aright. And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight, mere man shall end this endless night,” which Chloe took as Grail proof.

Chloe said Abbot Khalid eventually allowed her to depart with Frère Theo Petit and apprentice Julién, but they were later ambushed by the Blood Dyvok in the Ossway; Theo and Julién died, and Chloe now carried Theo’s silversteel blade. Rafa added that he informed Abbot Liam of San Guillaume, who notified Pontifex Gascoigne, and they now suspect a leak in the Pontifex’s inner circle alerted the Forever King. Over the past year, Bellamy joined in Sul Ilham and Saoirse three months prior; Gabriel, under the alias Lachance, was the newest.

When Dior asked about Danton’s epithet, Gabriel recounted Voss’s atrocities at Vellene—mass slaughter and hunting virgin girls for sport—underscoring the danger in pursuit. Moments later, Gabriel’s spyglass spotted a dozen riders in crimson tabards closing from behind: an Inquisition cohort led by twin, veiled sisters wearing Naél’s red flower-and-flail and black gauntlets.

The cohort ordered them to halt, and the group fled. As the inquisitors gained, Gabriel readied Ashdrinker, but Saoirse deftly led the party off-road through shadowed deadwood into a narrow gully. With Phoebe scouting above, they hid while the riders thundered past, evading capture. Dior revealed courage rather than fear, earning Gabriel’s notice.

After regrouping, Dior accused Gabriel of knowing the inquisitors, and Gabriel admitted he had shot one in the back and stolen their horse during an earlier encounter, to Chloe’s shock. Back in the present frame, Gabriel explained to Jean-François that the Inquisition is a Naél-sworn sisterhood devoted to “bliss” through torture, notorious for sadism and grudges, and he speculated the cohort’s earlier presence near Dhahaeth was not coincidence.

The chapter closed with Gabriel recognizing their peril had deepened: Chloe’s band now faced pursuit from both Danton Voss and the Inquisition, raising the stakes of their journey toward the Volta.