Catherine returned to her sanctuary, the name "The Gilded Cage" resonating in her mind like a death knell.
She closed the door to her room and leaned against the wood, the calm of the space a violent contrast to the storm that had risen within her.
It was one thing to manipulate a desperate clerk like Mathieu.
It was another entirely to voluntarily venture into a place that was the very embodiment of everything she had fled.
A place where women were "collections."
Rare birds with clipped wings, displayed for the pleasure of powerful predators. She knew this concept intimately.
She had lived it, not in the luxury of silk and velvet, but in the filth of alleys and low-end brothels, where for a few copper coins, any man could buy the illusion of owning another human being. The cage may have been gilded, but the bars were made of the same metal.
A wave of memories threatened to overwhelm her: faces, hands, whispers. The feeling of being an object, a thing. Anger, cold and familiar, rose in her, closely followed by her old friend, fear.
But Catherine was no longer the same.
She did not let these emotions drown her. Instead, she did something new.
She welcomed them.
She sat on the dusty floor, closed her eyes, and let the ghosts come.
She dissected the fear, studied its texture, its weight. She analyzed the anger, felt its cutting edge. She realized that these feelings were not weaknesses.
They were sources of energy, fuel.
Her past was not an anchor meant to hold her back; it was a forge that had tempered her spirit in steel.
She would not enter The Gilded Cage in spite of her past. She would enter because of it.
The next day, with a portion of the deceased owner's money, she set to work. Her first task was reconnaissance.
She could not approach The Gilded Cage herself; her face was still unknown, and it had to remain so until the moment of her choosing.
She went out, once again disguised as a street urchin, and made her way to the slums, a territory she knew better than anyone.
There, she found Rick, a young orphan with sharp eyes and nimble fingers whom she had sometimes protected from brutes in her former life. For a silver coin, a sum that represented an unimaginable fortune to him, she gave him a mission.
"I want you to watch a door," she told him, her voice low and anonymous under her cap.
"The entrance to The Gilded Cage, in the Embassy Quarter. Don't get close. Stay in the shadows. Tell me who enters and who leaves. The carriages, the guards. And above all, Rick, describe to me the women who go inside. Their dresses, their jewels, their demeanor. Do this for two days, and there will be another silver coin for you."
The boy nodded, his eyes shining with greed and a loyalty born of past recognition. He disappeared into the crowd, her best asset.
While her little spy worked, Catherine used her time to sculpt herself.
She got rid of the dead man's clothes and, with infinite caution, bought what she needed to create her new persona.
She didn't buy opulent gowns, but fabrics: fine silks the color of night, silver, and indigo. In the solitude of her room, she began to sew.
She created a dress that was not that of a noblewoman or a courtesan, but something else. Something strange and ethereal. A dress that looked as if it had been woven from moonlight.
She practiced.
She learned to walk with a deliberate slowness, as if her feet didn't quite touch the ground. She modulated her voice to be a whisper, forcing people to lean in to hear her.
She practiced looking not into people's eyes, but just past them, as if she were seeing something they could not. She was transforming herself into an enigma of flesh and blood.
On the evening of the second day, Rick returned, trembling with excitement. He told her of the lacquered carriages, the liveried guards, the powerful men whose faces he recognized. Then he spoke of the women.
"They're not like the girls from around here," he said, his eyes wide.
"There was one, she arrived in a closed carriage, and I heard a guard say she has a voice… a voice that can make stones cry.
Another one got out, and she had markings on her face, like the lost tribes of the South. It's not just that they're pretty, boss.
They're… weird. Special. The fat magistrate, Valerius, he came last night. And the woman he brought in… everyone said she could dance on the point of a needle without falling."
Catherine absorbed the information. Her initial plan, to simply be a beautiful and mysterious woman, was insufficient. Valerius didn't collect pretty faces. He collected unique talents. Masterpieces.
She thanked Rick, gave him his second silver coin and a third for his silence. Once alone, she stood before the broken mirror.
She did not have the voice of an angel. She knew no exotic dances.
Her beauty was a weapon, but not a rare enough weapon for this hunt.
For a moment, doubt brushed against her. How could she compete?
Then, she looked at her own hands. Hands that had known filth, labor, and now, power. Hands that could feel the invisible threads of the world.
A slow smile stretched her lips, a genuine one this time, full of a cold and sharp certainty.
Her rarity was not in an artistic talent. It was far deeper. She was not going to offer Valerius a song, a dance, or a poem.
She was going to offer him a glimpse into the abyss.
She would be the Oracle, the Seer, the woman who could read the secrets of a man's soul as others read books.
It was a talent that no other "bird" in that cage could ever possess.
It was a rarity of absolute power.
And she knew, with a certainty that thrilled her soul, that a man as vain and arrogant as Valerius could never resist the temptation to possess such a marvel.