Catherine stared at the postscript at the bottom of Thorne's report, and the world, for the second time in a few weeks, ceased to turn.
The name on the parchment was not ink. It was a branding iron.
Anne.
Her sister's name.
A name she had only known since discovering the file on the Fire, but which was now seared into her soul like a fresh scar.
The fortress of ice she had built around her heart cracked.
A wave of pure, violent pain washed over her, leaving her breathless.
The actress vanished, the Oracle's mask fell away. In the silence of the library, all that remained was a broken young woman, confronted with the ghost of a five-year-old child.
This was no longer a piece of information, a clue in her great war of vengeance. It was her sister. A little girl whose last terrifying moments, thirty years ago, had become the delirious ramblings of a guilty old man.
She had to sit down, her legs giving way beneath her.
The pain was so intense, so personal, that it made her nauseous. This was a weakness. A gaping flaw in her armor.
And Aris Thorne, that cold and greedy man, had, by pure chance, just planted his flag right beside it.
He didn't know what he had found. He thought he held a simple word, a symptom of his patient's madness. He had no idea that he was actually holding a hostage: the very heart of Catherine's motivation.
If he ever made the connection between the name Anne and the Elmer victim list from the Fire, he would uncover her identity.
He would understand her true mission. And at that moment, he would cease to be her employee and become her blackmailer.
The balance of their precarious relationship was on the verge of tipping.
The fear was brief, but sharp. Then, the alchemy of her broken soul took over once more. Fear morphed into a cold fury. Pain transformed into ruthless calculation.
She could not let Thorne investigate. She could not show him that this name held any importance whatsoever.
On the contrary, she had to take his innocent question and turn it into a weapon, a new instruction for him, another turn of the screw on Jun-Ho Park's mind.
She spent over an hour drafting her reply, every word weighed, every sentence polished to perfection. It was the most important written performance of her life. She used young Leo to send her missive to Thorne's clinic.
The message read:
"Doctor,
Your report is excellent. Your skill is equal to your reputation. The name you heard is of capital importance, but not in the way you imagine.
'Anne' is not the memory of a real person. It is the name that the collective consciousness of the Fire's victims has given to their pain. It is an egregore, a spirit of suffering born from trauma. It is this entity that haunts the mind of Jun-Ho Park, feeding on his guilt. He is not suffering from paranoia; he is being haunted.
This is our leverage. During your next visit, you will speak to him of this spirit. You will tell him that you understand his suffering, that you know the spirit of Anne torments him. Tell him that you alone possess the knowledge to appease this ghost and offer him rest. This will break his final defenses.
I am sending you, by this same messenger, the ingredients for a 'potion of clarity.' In truth, a simple powerful sedative mixed with a light truth drug. You will administer it under the pretext of 'purifying his mind' to prepare him for the appeasement ritual. Once he is under its influence, ask the questions. I want to know everything about the night of the Fire. The orders he received. The names. Above all, the name of the one who pulled the strings.
A final warning, Doctor. Do not seek to know more about this 'spirit' on your own. To touch such concentrations of grief is dangerous for the unprepared. This is my domain, not yours. Content yourself with playing your role as a physician. Your payment depends on it.
The Oracle."
It was a masterpiece of manipulation. She had transformed her greatest vulnerability into a credible mystical explanation, she had given Thorne a powerful tool to manipulate Park, she had warned him away from any personal investigation, and she had reasserted her authority as the Oracle.
She had turned a hostage into a weapon.
After Leo's departure, a new thought, cold and clear, formed in her mind.
Trust was a luxury. Dependency on a single man like Thorne was a strategic weakness.
She needed leverage on all her agents, without exception.
Gold was a good start, but the fear of revealed secrets was a much stronger chain.
She took a new sheet of parchment.
She wrote a second, much shorter message. She sealed it and waited for Leo to return. When the boy came back from his errand to the clinic, she entrusted him with this new letter, along with another purse.
"One last run for me tonight, Leo," she said, her voice soft but firm.
"This is for the herbalist's shop. For the madam of Madame Lin's network. It is urgent."
The boy, exhausted but too frightened to refuse, nodded and ran off.
Catherine watched the note she had just sent disappear into the night.
It was concise, containing only a single instruction for the new spy network she had established, a new target to be observed, analyzed, whose weaknesses must be found.
The note contained only three words.
"Doctor. Aris. Thorne."