Contents
Chapter 26
Overview
Awaiting Gregor’s death-triggered reset, Sancia and Berenice are pulled into sensory echoes from the night his temporal scriving was installed: Ofelia’s sobs, Ottaviano’s mangled corpse, Domenico dead, and Crasedes’s moths. The hierophantic commands sear into them, but complete.
Gregor resurrects in a violent frenzy until Orso sedates him. Berenice retains the sigils, and Sancia and Berenice infer the Dandolo “accident” was orchestrated by Ofelia.
Summary
In the basement, Sancia, Berenice, Orso, and Valeria wait by dying Gregor for his death-triggered temporal scriving. Valeria admits uncertainty about timing, aggravating tensions. When the scriving stirs, Sancia and Berenice hear fluttering wings and a woman’s hysterical sobs that Valeria and Orso cannot perceive.
Valeria theorizes they’re experiencing echoes from when the scriving was first defined. Crasedes’s voice—embedded in the scriving—queries for a presence and reviews bindings. Visions intrude: a bloodstained bed, Ottaviano Dandolo’s mangled body glittering with glass, and Ofelia Dandolo weeping over a dead boy, likely Domenico. The room fills with moths, signaling Crasedes’s arrival that night.
As the reset builds, hierophantic sigils slam into Sancia and Berenice, agonizingly rewriting the terms of time around them. Ofelia’s echo tells the young, injured Gregor she meant to save him “from what I did to you,” implying the carriage crash was deliberate. Berenice grasps that the reset compresses the present, expanding the chosen past instance.
The process completes and Gregor erupts from the chair, roaring and straining against restraints. At Sancia’s urging, Orso drives a dolorspina dart into Gregor, sedating him after a frantic struggle. Gregor sags, semi-conscious and contained.
With Gregor secured, Berenice, shaking but lucid, records the retained sigils. Sancia and Berenice privately conclude the Dandolo “accident” was engineered by Ofelia. Their success yields the hierophantic sequence they need, but exposes the traumatic origin of Gregor’s reset.
Who Appears
- Sancia GradoMaintains contact with dying Gregor, endures the hierophantic assault, witnesses echoes, coordinates Orso to sedate Gregor, infers Ofelia’s culpability.
- BereniceShares the visions and pain of the sigils, analyzes the reset’s mechanism, retains and copies the crucial hierophantic commands.
- Gregor DandoloDies to trigger the reset, briefly appears as a child in echoes, resurrects violently, then is sedated.
- ValeriaAdvises to maintain contact, explains echo theory and cautions against probing, checks if the sigils were retained.
- Orso IgnacioObserves, reacts to Gregor’s frenzy, sedates him with a dolorspina dart, refuses to untie him afterward.
- Ofelia DandoloAppears as an echo, grieving over Ottaviano and Domenico; implies responsibility for the ‘accident’ while invoking Crasedes’s aid.
- Crasedes MagnusHis voice powers the scriving, reviews bindings, and unleashes the overwhelming hierophantic commands during the reset.
- Ottaviano DandoloAppears as a mangled corpse in the echo of the accident night, confirming the tragedy’s setting.
- Domenico DandoloSeen dead in Ofelia’s lap; his death underscores the night’s devastation and Ofelia’s motive.