They called it the Truth Room.

Not because it forced confessions from unwilling mouths, but because the stone refused to cradle lies. Every syllable spoken here bled into the walls, and the walls remembered.

The corridor narrowed as Max followed the guard down into the Burrow's lowest levels, the air cooling with every step. The hum of the Institute's machinery faded, replaced by a stillness that felt cultivated, as though silence itself had been trained to linger here. By the time the iron door came into view — circular, runes etched deep into its surface — Max felt the weight of the place pressing on his chest.

The guard keyed a sequence into the lock. Metal ground against metal, and the door rolled aside to reveal the chamber.

It was smaller than he expected. A perfect circle, walls lined in smooth memory-stone veined with faint etchings that pulsed like a heartbeat whenever sound touched them. The air was thick, muffled, as though every breath risked being recorded. In the centre rested a low obsidian table, so polished it seemed to drink the light, and around it, only two chairs.

One was already occupied.

Dr. Helmut Grimm sat with the composure of a man who might have been waiting forever. His crimson-lined coat was draped neatly over the chair's back, gloves folded beside a slim tablet. Between them rested a decanter of something thick and dark — wine, perhaps, or something older — with two glasses set, untouched, like a ritual offering.

Max lingered at the threshold, shoulders rigid, his pulse hammering in his ears.

Grimm didn't look up from the tablet. "Enter," he said, his voice smooth, clipped, pleasant as glass.

Max stepped inside. The door sealed shut behind him with the soft hiss of stone sealing stone. He took in the room with a glance, eyes moving over the table, the chairs, the faint shimmer of the runes at his feet. There was no window, no camera, no witness. Just him and Grimm.

The runes along the curved wall flickered faintly as Max crossed the threshold, their glow shifting toward a pale blue, like stone catching memory of fire. The air thickened around him, not hostile, but aware — as if the room itself remembered what he had done in Singapore. Grimm's eyes didn't move, but his voice carried the weight of notice. "The walls already know you, Mr. Jaeger," he said. "They remember flame."

Max's throat tightened. For a heartbeat he was back in the motel room — April's scream already fading under the roar of fire, Liz's face pale beneath hospital lights. His palms itched with heat that wasn't there, a reminder that fire had never asked his permission.

The memory cut deeper than the stone around him. April's hair catching fire in a single violent flare, the sound of her scream already hollow by the time it reached his ears. He had carried that silence ever since — a silence louder than any truth these walls could pull from him.

Grimm didn't look up at first, fingers scrolling across the tablet with a detached grace. Then, almost idly, he set it aside and lifted his eyes. Calm, precise, the kind of gaze that measured rather than looked.

"You wanted to talk," Grimm said, his tone clipped, edged like steel dragged slow across stone. "So, talk. Or shall I assume you came here only to posture?"

Max stepped into the room, the door hissing shut behind him. "Posturing's your thing, not mine." His fists flexed at his sides, fire pressing faintly under his ribs.

Grimm's mouth curved faintly, almost a smile, almost not. He reached for the decanter, poured with deliberate care, and slid a glass toward the opposite chair. "Not trust," he said, voice smoothing again, almost pleasant now. "Truth."

The word hung in the air, catching against the runes in the wall. The faint etchings shimmered, as if the stone itself approved.

The sound didn't echo — it collapsed. Every syllable seemed to fall inward, devoured by the memory-stone, leaving the chamber thick with the aftertaste of speech. Max shifted uneasily; even his breaths felt stolen, catalogued, as though the room itself fed on truth the way demons fed on flesh.

Max didn't sit. His fists clenched at his sides, fire pressing faintly under his ribs.

The room seemed to lean inward, waiting for the first real move.

***

The chair opposite Grimm stood like a dare. Max didn't take it. He remained on his feet, pacing once around the table before stopping with his palms braced against the obsidian edge. The stone was cold, too cold, as if it had been waiting for him alone.

Grimm poured a measure of the dark liquid into his glass, though he didn't drink. The scent carried faintly through the chamber — sharp, metallic beneath its sweetness, like wine laced with iron. He set the decanter down with deliberate care, his gaze never leaving Max.

"You've spoken with Dr. Adisa?"

Max leaned back, jaw tight. "Enough to know she doesn't like me much."

Grimm's mouth shifted, not quite a smile. "She doesn't like anyone much. But she tolerates brilliance, even when it's wrapped in arrogance. That is her gift." He clasped his hands loosely. "She is the reason this Institute still stands. She invented soulfield technology — the detectors that pick out demons from the dark, the barriers that bend soulfire away instead of letting it burn us alive, the weapons that can wound things no blade should touch. Every defence you've seen here, every shield that lets humanity claw one more day out of this war — it all began in her mind."

Max let out a rough breath, shaking his head. "You talk like she saved the world. Maybe she did. But you make weapons out of souls and call it progress. Where I come from, that sounds like you're playing God."

The runes along the walls shimmered faintly at his words, as though even stone acknowledged their truth.

Grimm's gaze lingered on the memory-stone walls as he spoke, as though the chamber itself owed her its survival. "Do not mistake her for merely a scientist. She built a language from the resonance of souls, a framework that bends light, gravity, and will into something that shields the living. Without her, this Institute would be a mausoleum."

He shifted his eyes back to Max, the faintest curve at his mouth. "You are fire. She is stone. One burns bright and fades. The other endures."

Max's fingers curled against the obsidian table. "Does she know what it costs? To turn souls into weapons? What it does to her?"

Grimm tilted his head, the faintest trace of pity in his eyes. "Of course she knows."

He leaned forward, voice dropping lower, each word smooth and precise. "Genius is a contract, Mr. Jaeger. Not signed in blood, perhaps, but in obsession. In sleepless nights. In hunger that devours everything until you carve something new into the world. And unlike you, she did not stumble into her bargain. She signed hers willingly."

Max's fire stirred hot and restless under his ribs. "You make it sound like she sold herself the same way you did."

Grimm's eyes narrowed slightly, their gleam catching the faint light of the runes. "I respect her more than myself. Fire survives by accident. Knowledge survives by choice. And choice, Mr. Jaeger, is always the sharper blade."

The silence that followed pressed close. Max sat rigid, every muscle tight, while Grimm's words lingered like smoke that refused to clear.

***

Grimm swirled the dark liquid in his glass, watching it catch the lamplight. "You don't trust me," he said, voice mild, as though commenting on the weather. "Good. Trust is the easiest mask to slip behind. Truth is harder."

Max leaned forward. "Then start with yours."

For a moment, silence. The walls seemed to breathe, runes pulsing faintly in the quiet like veins under skin. Grimm finally set the glass down without drinking. His eyes fixed on Max, steady, unblinking.

"I didn't ask for power," he said. "I asked for understanding. That was my mistake."

The words landed like a stone in water — flat at first, then rippling outward.

Max's jaw tightened. "Understanding of what?"

"Of everything." Grimm's voice did not rise, but the timbre thickened, filling the small chamber with the weight of a confession long rehearsed. "The demons. Their laws. Their patterns. The mathematics of damnation, yes — but not only that. I wanted to know what lies beyond the veil, what remains of us after the last breath. I wanted wisdom entire — the sum of all things men have reached for and broken themselves against."

His gaze didn't waver, and Max felt the certainty in it, the raw, unapologetic hunger of a man who had once believed no question should remain unanswered.

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"My peers thought me mad. My superiors thought me dangerous. But knowledge…" Grimm let the thought hang, like a blade held steady above the heart. "Knowledge was worth the price."

He turned the glass in his hand, not drinking, only watching the liquid shiver as though his words alone had disturbed it. His reflection bent in the surface, fractured by the swirl, a man broken into pieces even as he spoke.

Max's fingers curled against the table. "And what did you get?"

Grimm's eyes sharpened — not cruel, but pitiless, carrying the edge of a truth no one sane would want.

"Almost all of it."

The chamber seemed to tighten around them, the runes bleeding a low hum that Max felt in his teeth. The air smelled sharper, metallic, as though the walls themselves had cut open old scars.

Grimm's mouth curved, not in satisfaction but in bitterness. "Every human skill, every craft, every answer men have written in books and buried in stone — all of it came with me the moment I made the Contract. I built this place because of that knowledge, because I could. But the demon I bargained with…" His voice thinned, just slightly, like old glass under strain. "It still hunts me. It gave me the answers and withheld the cure. It let me see the pattern but not break it. And now it wants back what I took. Every night, it remembers me."

Max's throat burned, his fire pressing up, demanding he challenge it. "Half a soul."

Grimm's reply was quiet, unyielding. "Less now. And still falling."

He swept one hand across the circular walls, the etched runes glowing faintly like a cage. "That is why the Burrow exists. This Institute is not just sanctuary, Mr. Jaeger. It is my warding circle. My prison. I leave rarely, because the world outside belongs to it. Here, I can hold it at bay. Outside…"

The pause landed hard, sharper than anything he could have said.

Max's fire pressed harder in his chest. "So, all that knowledge, and you're still hiding in a cage."

For the first time, a crack in Grimm's composure showed. His eyes narrowed, voice tightening with an edge that had not been there before. "Better a cage of my own design than a leash held by them."

The walls pulsed once at his words, as if even the stone had marked the bitterness beneath them.

Grimm leaned back slightly, his posture still precise, but the faintest shadow crossed his face. "The demon I bound was clever. Cruel. It gave me knowledge, yes — but not control. It showed me the disease without the cure. And every night since, it has returned. To remind me."

The runes on the walls dimmed, holding their silence like judges watching two men argue the same case.

Max pulled back, his fire pressing to the surface, demanding release. "Why are you telling me this?"

Grimm's answer was slow, deliberate, a blade unsheathed one inch at a time.

"Because you're the first I've seen who didn't pay."

***

Max's voice cut through the chamber. "Why did you send people after me?"

Grimm did not flinch. He folded his hands on the obsidian table, his tone almost courteous. "Because the Institute has ways of listening. To signals. To fractures. To the tremors in reality when something pushes against the veil. That night, the alarms sang louder than I have ever heard. A summoning spike, vast enough to register half a world away. For a moment, we thought a Lord had stepped through."

His gaze sharpened, weighing Max as though confirming the reading against the man. "As it happened, I had freelancers in Singapore. Not our best. But close enough to move before the trail cooled."

Max's jaw tightened. "So, you tried to have me killed."

"I was attempting to have you killed before you killed us all," Grimm corrected softly. "If something had come through you, if you had been a doorway and not a man, then putting you down was the only sane response. It should have been clean. Simple." He paused, a flicker of calculation passing behind his eyes. "But you survived. That was not expected. That was… chance."

Max's fire snapped to life, blue light spilling across the obsidian. "You sent killers after me while Liz was hooked up to tubes. While I was clawing just to keep her breathing. And you sit here in your stone bunker calling it 'chance'?" His voice cracked, a snarl caught between rage and grief.

Grimm's tone sharpened, the clinical edge slipping into disdain. "Do not mistake survival for strength. You lived because my hunters were incompetent, not because you triumphed. Nothing more."

Max leaned forward, fire tightening under his skin. "And yet I lived."

For the first time, Grimm's lips twitched into something resembling a smile, thin and humourless. "Yes. And that makes you infinitely more dangerous."

Grimm leaned in slightly, his voice lower now. "So tell me, Jaeger. What really happened in that room?"

Max's hands curled on the table. He forced himself to meet Grimm's eyes. "I don't know. I wasn't asking for strength. Or money. Or even to live. My Contract… it was to gain the power to awaken what others needed most. That was all. Liz was dying. I couldn't think straight. I didn't care what it cost me, only that she had a chance."

The faintest shift crossed Grimm's expression, something between interest and disquiet.

"You believe you survived Aamon because you were strong," Grimm said. His tone was calm, almost weary, but each word cut. "Because you fought harder, burned brighter. That is the lie you tell yourself so you can keep moving. But that is not the truth. You survived because you stole. You didn't sign. You didn't bargain. You didn't pay. You devoured."

Max's voice rasped in his throat. "And what does that make me?"

For the first time, Grimm hesitated. His gaze did not falter, but the weight of it shifted, as though measuring something beyond even his own knowledge.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Few Contractors survive their bargains. None complete them. And no one has ever rewritten the terms as you did. Even I cannot say what that means yet."

The runes in the walls pulsed faintly red, their glow unsettled, as though the stone itself shared his uncertainty.

Max's jaw clenched. "And now?"

Grimm's mouth curved faintly, a smile without warmth. "Now? You are a flare."

The word lingered like smoke. The runes along the walls pulsed once, dimming into a faint red glow, as though the stone itself recoiled at the truth spoken aloud.

"You are not dangerous because you are unstable," Grimm went on, his voice steady, surgical. "You are dangerous because you shine. Every demon can see you, Jaeger. They can smell you. Taste you. The Soulfire in your veins burns like meat on a spit. To them, you are not a man — you are a signal fire. A beacon screaming across the dark."

Max felt the heat coil in his chest, his fire pulling tighter, defensive. "I'm controlling it."

Grimm shook his head, the gesture small, absolute. "Control is irrelevant. Visibility is not. In a world of dying candles, you are a bonfire."

His voice did not rise, but the imagery pressed heavier with each word. "You are not just a flame, Mr. Jaeger. You are a lighthouse on a starving sea, and every shadow hungers for the light you cast. They move toward you whether you fight them or not."

The runes on the wall trembled red, the chamber shivering as though echoing his words.

Grimm leaned forward slightly. "And your daughter…" His eyes fixed on Max, unblinking. "She is brighter still."

Liz's face tore through his mind — eight years old, tugging at April's sleeve, begging for another story before bed. Now Grimm's words painted her not as a child but a flare in the dark, a target pinned for monsters. His fire clawed up his throat, but beneath it was something colder: guilt. He had done this to her.

Grimm's gaze sharpened, and his voice softened, almost gentle. "You did this to her, Jaeger. Not I. You lit the fire in her veins. Do not look at me as though I am the villain for seeing the blaze you set."

Grimm continued. "Alyssa. Chloe. The others. Every one of them you awaken adds another torch to the hill. Another invitation."

He leaned back, the faintest trace of satisfaction in the stillness that followed. "You are not hiding from Hell, Mr. Jaeger. You are summoning it."

The chamber held its silence after, oppressive and close.

Max's fists stayed tight against the obsidian table, but the weight in his chest was not only fire anymore. It was the cold knowledge that every choice he had made for Liz had lit her path into the jaws of Hell.

***

The runes along the curved walls had dimmed to a dull ember glow, but the weight of the chamber had not eased. Max stood rigid at the far side of the obsidian table, his fists clenched, blue fire licking faintly at the edges of his hands.

"I don't trust you," he said, his voice raw, jagged. "Not with me. Not with them. If I even think you're using my family as variables in your experiment, I'll burn this Institute down to the stone. And I'll make sure you go with it."

The fire flared brighter for a heartbeat, casting Grimm's face in fractured light.

But Grimm did not move. He sat perfectly still, his gloved hands folded neatly, his posture relaxed as if Max's rage were nothing more than a change in temperature. When he finally spoke, it was with calm precision.

"Then we understand each other," Grimm said, his tone light, almost amused. "This is not about trust. It is about necessity. And necessity does not care whether you approve of it."

Max's breath came hot through his teeth. "You think I'll play along with you? After everything you've just admitted?"

"I think," Grimm replied, leaning forward slightly, "that you already are. You cannot do this alone. Not against them. And not while your daughter shines like a beacon in the dark." His eyes sharpened, gleaming with calculation. "You need my walls. My instruments. My people. Without them, Liz will not survive the month."

Max froze at that name, his fire stuttering in his palm before collapsing into smoke.

Grimm saw the hesitation and pressed. "Work with me, Jaeger. Train the others. Hone them, make them into something sharper than accidents of resonance. In return, I give you what you want — protection for your daughter. The Institute will shelter her, shield her, guard her with everything we have. Even demons hesitate before soulfield barriers. Do you truly wish to gamble her life on your stubborn refusal to cooperate?"

Max's jaw locked. "You'd cage her."

Grimm tilted his head. "I would keep her alive."

The words hung there, iron in their simplicity.

Grimm steepled his fingers, calm once more. "You can storm out of here and rage against me, and leave your daughter naked in the dark. Or you can use what I've built. My walls. My instruments. My soldiers. Train them. Teach them what you've done by accident — how to make them into more than victims of resonance."

His eyes gleamed faintly, cold but calculating. "If you will not trust me, then at least use me."

The words hung in the chamber, weight pressing from every etched rune.

Max dragged a hand over his face, pacing once across the chamber before stopping at the table. "I don't want your leash. I'll fight with them, train them, because it's the only chance we have. But if you so much as look at her like she's another one of your variables—" His voice dropped to a growl. "I'll tear these walls down myself."

Grimm's mouth curved faintly. "Good. Defiance sharpens the edge. I would expect nothing less."

Max leaned across the table, his eyes hard. "I'm not here for you. I'm here for Liz. For Alyssa. For Chloe. The moment you forget that, I'm gone."

"Noted," Grimm said smoothly, as if cataloguing an observation. He reached for the decanter at his side, pouring the dark liquid into a glass with quiet precision. "But do not mistake me, Jaeger. We stand at the edge of something greater than either of us. You want to shield your family. I want to understand the rules of the game we're playing before Hell changes the board entirely. Our interests, for now, align."

Max leaned across the table, voice low, shaking with the effort not to ignite. "You think this is a game of ideas. For me it's Liz's life. That's the only board I'm playing on."

Grimm's smile was faint, unreadable. "And yet, that is why you will stay at the table. Because the game does not care what you want, Mr. Jaeger. Only whether you survive it long enough to matter."

Max turned toward the door, shoulders still taut with coiled fire. "We'll see how long that lasts."

At the threshold, he stopped, just long enough for his words to carry. "Help me protect Liz. Or everything you've built won't stand a chance."

Then he was gone, the heavy door shutting behind him with a muted thud.

Grimm lingered, swirling the glass in his hand, watching the dark liquid catch the faint red pulse of the runes. He did not drink. Instead, he whispered something to the walls — words too quiet, too sharp for any ear but the stone.

The runes flared, crimson, then dimmed again, as though sealing the vow for later.

Grimm sipped at last, exhaling slow. Alone, he smiled.

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