I approach the foot of the steps with her at my side as the light flickers and wavers and recedes, exposing the silhouette of the figure. Of a man. One clad in well-made cobalt robes and finely crafted boots. One who uses an ornate cane just to walk, and smiles at the sight of me, his golden eyes alight.

‘Hello, Ahri,’ my father says, his voice carrying easily across the hall.

‘I followed the eagle,’ I tell him. ‘Just as I was meant to.’

‘You walked with her to the place she would die,’ my father says.

I look backwards momentarily to Sister Evangeline, lying still on the stone. To Sister Ashava, frozen in the moment of running to help her, her eyes wide and wounded.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I did.’

I look away from Sister Evangeline’s still form. From her Sisters’ grief.

‘This place is a Resonance,’ I say. ‘Just like the one I found on Hellebore.’

My father nods. ‘Built by those who believed as you do,’ he says. ‘A place where the walls between worlds are thinner. Where deeds and words have power.’

He smiles.

‘It has been sealed for centuries,’ he says. ‘Bolted shut by blood-lock because of what happened here.’

Images stutter before my eyes as Sofika’s fingers wind tight around mine.

People in white robes kneeling on the dais.

A psyker suspended in chains as a gateway opens overhead.

Devils descending in droves.

The images vanish as quickly as they come, leaving me reeling, my nose bleeding down my face. Sofika’s breathing is laboured now. Her head is lolling forwards, her eyes half closed. As I watch, the display on the carapace of my dream-taker’s machine depletes again. I look up at my father, flickering on the dais.

‘Those who came before failed because they didn’t have all of the pieces,’ he says. ‘But we do.’

I shake my head. ‘No,’ I reply. ‘We still need the Conduit. You told me it would reveal itself when I brought Sister Evangeline to this place, but I see nothing.’

He smiles patiently. In a way that makes him look quite unlike himself.

‘Then you are not looking closely enough,’ he says.

I blink. ‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘Where is it?’

‘Where she has always been,’ he says. ‘Right beside you.’

His words hit me like a blow to the chest. Like a blade to the heart. My eyes fall to Sofika, struggling to breathe in the grip of her machine.

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘Not her. It can’t be her.’

‘It can be no one else,’ my father says.