The Last Place It Was Hidden

Jessica traced her fingers along the edges of the file, her breath slow and measured. She didn’t flip the next page immediately. Instead, she let herself feel the weight of it. The weight of knowing..Knowing that once she turned it, there would be no going back.

She had spent her life running from other people’s truths. From Vanguard. From the buried lies of intelligence agencies and governments. From the ghosts of men like Whitaker and Black, men who saw people like her as nothing more than pawns on a board too vast to ever fully comprehend.

But this? This wasn’t someone else’s truth. This was hers.

She turned the page. And the memory hit her like a flood.

She was standing in a vast, hollow space, the scent of cold stone and burning wax thick in the air. The ceilings stretched high above her, vaulted and endless, disappearing into shadow. Candles flickered in iron sconces, their dim flames making the old frescoes on the walls seem alive. She could hear Latin murmurs. Whispered prayers. Footsteps echoing against the marble floors.

She had been here before. Except she hadn’t. Jessica’s breath caught in her throat. She turned. At the center of the cathedral stood a man in Templar robes. His hood was lowered, revealing a face she somehow recognized. Not from her life. From the memory.

His voice was deep, careful. “You were not meant to remember, not yet.”

Jessica swallowed hard. “What is this place?”

The man studied her. “The last place it was hidden.”

She looked down. At her feet, the stone was carved with an inscription in Old French. Her pulse hammered. Because she could read it. Not in translation. Not as a learned language. She knew the words.

“We are but the keepers, not the ones to reveal.”

The knowledge burned behind her eyes. Something inside her was trying to wake up. Jessica staggered back, pressing a palm to her temple. “No—”

“You are the last.”

The candlelight flickered. Her memory fractured.

Jessica gasped, staggering backward, the chair beneath her screeching against the tile. The cathedral was gone. The stone. The candlelight. The man in Templar robes. All gone. She was back in the sterile, dimly lit office. Mr. Black stood across from her, watching her without surprise.

Jessica pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. She could still smell the wax. Still feel the cold of the stone floor under her feet.

It wasn’t just a vision. It was real. A real place. A real memory. Not hers. And yet, inside her.

Her breath shuddered. “What the hell was that?”

Mr. Black was calm. “The beginning.”

Jessica exhaled sharply, forcing her heartbeat to slow. She clenched her hands into fists, grounding herself in the here and now.

The last place it was hidden. The knowledge wasn’t lost. It was buried. Somewhere real.

Jessica swallowed. “Where is that cathedral?”

Mr. Black held her gaze. “You tell me.”

Jessica closed her eyes. She could still see it. The frescoes. The altar. The way the candlelight flickered against the walls. She saw a sigil, a sunburst over a lion’s head, carved into the stone. She had never been there, but she’d seen that symbol once before in a dossier about an abandoned monastery near Avignon. She knew.

Her eyes opened, “The South of France.”

Mr. Black gave a slight nod. Jessica set her jaw.

“Avignon.”