Morning clawed its way into the city, gray and mean.
The kind of day that made even the stones of London's streets seem tired.
Carmen Vale rose before the sun.
She slipped from the bed in silence, bare feet whispering across the floorboards. Julian stirred once, but didn't wake.
He knew better than to interrupt her when she wore that particular stillness—the one that said something inside her had already snapped, and there would be no sewing it shut again.
She dressed without hurry.
Black skirts.
Black gloves.
Hair twisted into a coil so tight it could have sliced glass.
Across the room, Vivienne sat curled on the window seat, her notebook abandoned, her knees pulled tight to her chest.
Wide, sleepless eyes tracked Carmen's every movement.
Like a child watching a god armor herself for war.
"Where are you going?" Vivienne whispered.
Carmen slid the last button into place. Smoothed the sleeve with surgical precision.
"Out."
Vivienne unfolded herself from the seat, desperate.
"Can I come?"
Carmen paused.
Turned.
Vivienne's face was so open.
So raw.
Begging without even knowing it.
Carmen crossed the room in three strides and crouched before her.
She cupped Vivienne's chin in a gloved hand, thumb brushing tenderly along her cheekbone.
The touch was so gentle it could almost have been love.
Almost.
"No," Carmen said softly.
And she turned away without another word.
The streets were empty when Carmen stepped into them.
The city wore its fear like a second skin, a hush pressed down on the stones.
She walked east, past the butcher's stall where rats gnawed at yesterday's sins, past the bakery where no loaves rose, past the church whose doors hung open onto hollow pews.
There was no destination.
Only the rhythm of her boots.
Only the pull of something unseen, a compass stitched into the meat of her ribs.
The Spiral turning.
Always turning.
She reached the edge of the river.
The Thames writhed, thick and black, slick with rot.
Barges groaned somewhere downstream.
The mist boiled off the water, sour with oil and iron.
And there, standing half-formed in the fog—a figure.
Young.
Pale.
Shaking so hard his teeth chattered like windchimes.
He held out a scrap of parchment with both hands, arms trembling with terror.
Carmen didn't take it at once.
She watched him.
Watched the terror spilling out of him, watched the way his knees quivered when she stepped closer.
Finally, she plucked the message from his hand.
Unfolded it with gloved fingers.
One line, scrawled in rough ink:
"Adrian waits where the light dies."
No address.
No signature.
Only a promise.
Only blood.
Carmen tucked the paper into her glove.
Stepped past the boy without a glance.
He collapsed against the wall, sliding down into a puddle of his own silent sobs.
Carmen didn't look back.
The mist swallowed her whole.
Back at the flat, Julian met her at the door.
One glance at the folded parchment in her hand, and he understood.
He said nothin, Vivienne hovered behind him, barefoot, trembling despite the fire's heat.
Carmen handed Julian the message.
Watched him read it.
Watched the grin peel across his mouth—slow and savage.
"It's a trap," he said.
"Of course," Carmen replied.
He tossed the scrap into the fire without ceremony.
The paper curled and blackened, shrinking to ash.
"What's the plan?" Julian asked.
Carmen peeled off her gloves, setting them carefully on the mantel like relics before a war.
Then she smiled.
The kind of smile that could sour milk and silence churches.
"The plan," she said,
"is to remind him why he feared me the first time."
Outside, the city groaned beneath the weight of what was coming.
And in the darkness where the light died, something began to stir.