All Chapters of The Outcast Theory: Chapter 61 - Chapter 64

"There's a tenth node," Eli said. "And I don't think it's empty."Zara stopped halfway up the stairs. Caius was a step behind her, and she felt him go still too, the way he always did when something shifted the shape of the room."How do you know that," she said.Eli held the book against their chest like it was the only steady thing left in their hands. "The architect who designed this level trained under the same firm as the one who designed Bellward's annexe. I recognized the joinery pattern in the stonework three years in. Recreational, at first counting bricks keeps a mind from unraveling." They paused. "The firm only had one other active commission in the region during that period. A private residence in the eastern hills. Registered to a trust, not a person."Caius's expression sharpened. "A residence, not an institution.""That's what made it invisible," Eli said. "Everyone's been hunting buildings with names. Nobody's been hunting a house."Zara felt the floor of her plan til

"Who is this," Zara said, sitting up straighter in the passenger seat. Caius glanced at her, then back at the road, one hand tightening slightly on the wheel."My name is Thaddeus Okafor," the voice said. "I was your great-grandmother's driver for eleven years, and after that, her caretaker, and after that, the only person alive who still remembers what she actually built." A pause, the specific pause of a man choosing his next words with the care of someone who has been saving them a very long time. "Eleanor's Mercy isn't a chamber, Miss Voss. It was never meant to hold a person the way the others did."Zara felt something in her chest go very still. "Then what does it hold?""Come and see," Thaddeus said. "I'm too old to explain it over the telephone, and some things shouldn't be explained that way regardless." He gave an address in the old quarter of Crestmoor, a part of the city Zara had walked through only once, on her second day, before she understoo