Grace stood on the rooftop of a crumbling apartment in Naples, breathing in smoke and city sweat.
She hadn't slept.
Not really.
Luciano leaned beside her, bruised, silent.
They weren't lovers tonight.
They were two loaded guns aimed at the same storm.
> "Tell me about her," Grace said.
"My mother."
Luciano hesitated.
> "She was fire," he said finally. "The kind you didn't survive."
> "Then why did you lie about her death?"
He met her gaze.
> "Because I promised her I'd protect you. Even from her truth."
---
Meanwhile, inside the Vatican's sublevels, Father Rinaldi oversaw the child in Cryo Tank 04.
He murmured prayers with shaking hands.
> "Why resurrect this?" he whispered to the Cardinal beside him.
The Cardinal answered without blinking:
> "Because Grace Moretti has returned. And she is the only one who can awaken it."
---
Back in Naples, Grace received a message.
One word.
One location.
"Avellino."
No sender.
But she knew.
It was from the woman who tried to kill her in the monastery.
---
Grace arrived at an abandoned church in Avellino.
Candles already lit.
Pews broken.
An old piano bleeding rust in the corner.
And there, on the altar, sat Salomé.
Unarmed.
Smiling.
> "You're not ready for what you're chasing, Saint," she said.
> "Then teach me."
Salomé stood.
Slid something across the altar.
A vial.
With her mother's initials engraved on the metal cap.
> "Project Thorne wasn't meant to create a weapon," Salomé said.
"It was meant to preserve a soul. Her soul."
> "My mother's?"
> "She died. But they didn't bury her. They preserved her."
Grace gripped the vial.
Her knees shook.
Her chest burned.
> "Why me?"
> "Because you're not her daughter," Salomé whispered.
"You're her host."