The Brooklyn address was not on any active business roll. Only coordinates on a delivery receipt and a fifteen-year-old zoning permit that had long since expired. Ivy found it by plugging the latitude and longitude into a city utilities map and overlaying it on vacant lots.
It led them to a church.
Or what remained of it.
The building loomed half-burned, its front stairs cracked and overgrown with weeds. A rose window suspended in shards above the door, its stained glass bleeding reds and golds into the shattered frame. One side of the steeple had fallen. Pigeons nested in the rafters. A rusty "FOR SALE" sign leaned against an ivy-covered stone pillar.
The aroma of wet stone and old incense filled the air.
Ivy shoved on the wooden door.
It creaked open.
Inside was thick silence.
Elias followed her, boots crunching over broken tile. "Are you sure this is it?"
She nodded. "This building was bought and 're-purposed' by Vortan Solutions in 2010. But no renovation record. No sales since then."
"Which means someone's still holding it unofficially."
"Exactly."
They entered warily, flashlights slicing through the blackness.
Shattered pews filled the aisles like skeletal husks. The altar had been split in two. There were scorch marks on the far wall. Whatever was going on here hadn't been holy.
But the strangest thing was the smell.
Past the rot and damp—there was coffee.
Fresh.
They followed the scent down a side passageway behind what remained of the vestry. Ivy hesitated at a wooden door, half-opened, light flickering inside.
She turned to Elias. He indicated his head in a nod.
They went inside.
It was an office.
A strange one.
Spick-and-span. Well-organized. Out of place.
The area had been cut out of the church like a leech—new furniture on ancient stone. Metal filing cabinets. A gleaming computer. A corkboard tacked with threads and pieces of paper, newspaper clippings, and red yarn linking faces together in a suspicion web.
And in the middle of it all: a photo.
Of Ivy.
Younger. Maybe eighteen. Standing in front of the old community center on the Lower East Side. Holding a clipboard. Smiling.
At the bottom of the photo, in red ink:
"Casella is the fracture point."
Elias drew air slowly, stunned. "They've been watching you for years."
Ivy's throat closed. "Why?"
He looked around the room. "Because you're no longer just discovering pieces. You are one."
They searched the room hurriedly. On the table was a thick binder with "Urban Redevelopment Psychological Profiles" written on it. Elias flung it open.
Dozens of names. Faces. Markings. Rankings.
All of them measured people by how far they could influence public opinion without the power of office. No title. No authority. Just Presence.
And Ivy ranked highest.
Page after page documented moments from her past. Helping older tenants in her apartment complex battle illegal evictions. Organizing peaceful demonstrations at the age of sixteen. Getting a janitor who had been fired at her old high school rehired.
And always—unobtrusively. Gently. In the background.
Elias looked at her with something else in his eyes.
Not admiration.
Awe.
"They watched you," he breathed. "They measured you. You were never supposed to become visible. And yet you did."
Across the room, Ivy saw that at the far end there was a locked cabinet.
No key. No tag.
Only a name etched into the side in pale letters: "Carradine."
She dug into her coat pocket and produced the worn envelope from her mailbox—the one that had instructed her to ask Elias what he had deleted.
She hadn't questioned him yet.
But something within her compelled her. She thought this was related.
The cabinet blocked her at first. Then creaked apart with a groan.
There was no one. Just one journal. Leather-bound. The initials MC etched into the cover.
She opened it.
The first page said, "If you're reading this, then I failed."
Her hands trembled.
"Carradine's journal," she breathed.
Elias stepped forward. "Read it."
They sat on the shattered altar steps and read the journal from cover to cover.
Carradine had once been a Stillpoint member. Not only a member—one of the founders.
The magazine followed his evolution from idealist to tactician. He believed systems could not be torn down directly. He thought real change needed an emotional catalyst—someone who could mobilize crowds, reshape stories, and make people loyal without asking.
He'd discovered that person in Ivy.
He'd seen it from the start.
Nurtured it. Fed it. Watched her develop.
Not to control her—but to protect the potential of what she could become.
The last entries were frantic.
He had talked of a betrayal.
Someone in Stillpoint was betraying them.
He wrote, "They'll use her if I don't stop it." But how do you stop a storm built out of silence?"
When Ivy lifted her head, her eyes blurred at the edges with tears.
Elias touched her shoulder lightly.
"I didn't know," he said. "About Carradine. About this."
She nodded but did not speak.
Instead, she turned to the back page.
A map.
In pen. Labeled: "Echo Facility."
Coordinates. Annotations. A red "X."
Elias squinted. "That's upstate."
Ivy's tone was steady. "We go next."
They emerged from the church and into the fading late afternoon.
Neither of them noticed the figure standing atop the building across the street.
Dark jacket. Lens of the camera.
Mumbling into a mic:
"She found the archive. And she found Carradine. We move now."