Chapter 23

Sancia, Gregor, Orso, Berenice, and Valeria debate their next move against Crasedes, who now has a merchant house’s backing. Valeria identifies Crasedes’s black sigil-wrapped bindings as an improvised vulnerability and argues Clef could dissolve them, specifically by targeting the hand where a bone implant sustains the deception of life.

The obstacle is Clef’s dormancy. Valeria claims time itself can restore control: the key decayed over centuries, shedding constraints, and further temporal manipulation could return its privileges. She suggests they must study a working sample of time scriving.

Valeria reveals Gregor bears a hierophantic time-reset binding that resurrects him to an earlier state at death. To observe its deep commands, she proposes killing Gregor so Sancia can experience the permissions as they execute. The group recoils at the ethics and risk, though Valeria insists the death would not be permanent.

Practical limits halt the plan: Sancia would need to experience and retain several hundred sigils in an instant, which is impossible. Valeria reframes the challenge as a theft requiring a specialist. When asked who could memorize that volume, everyone turns to Berenice as the likely candidate.