The invitation wasn't written.
It was carved — faintly — into the inside wall of a matchbox, delivered inside a bundle of paper slips, passed through three middlemen, and finally handed to Sattu by a half-mute boy who disappeared before anyone could ask a name.
Vikram turned the box slowly in the candlelight.
The matchbox came from a brand he didn't recognize — "Agni Flame, Nagpur."
Inside, carved with a blade too thin to shake the cardboard, were three words:
"Patriots remember you."
On the back: a date. A time. A temple ruin beyond Mehrauli.
No signature. No claim. No flag.
But Vikram knew who it was.
Abhinav Bharat.
One of the last threads of resistance from the early 1900s. Founded by the Savarkar brothers, trained underground, beaten down by police raids, and slowly swallowed by the fear the Empire seeded in every living thing.
He had never spoken to them.
But they had seen the pamphlets. The press signatures. The subtle shift in rhetoric that swept through the local stalls.
And they were watching him.
He arrived without a guard.
He didn't carry a blade. No pistol. No coded message.
Only a folded cotton shawl, dust on his feet, and his memory open — Magicnet alert, humming beneath the skin.
The ruin sat like an open jaw in the forest. Three walls remained. The fourth had collapsed years ago. A banyan tree wrapped its roots through stone like veins holding a broken body together.
He saw two shadows before he stepped close.
They didn't speak. Just watched.
Vikram stepped past the banyan roots and entered the space.
Four men waited.
Three seated. One standing.
The one standing was the only one younger than him.
"You came alone," the man said.
Vikram didn't answer.
"Brave. Or foolish."
Vikram met his eyes. "I wasn't told I'd need to be afraid."
That earned him a glance from the man seated at the center — a face old enough to have seen plague, partition, and prison. His beard was thin. His shawl frayed. But his spine was straight.
"You write like someone with purpose," the elder said. "But purpose can be a mask."
Vikram walked forward and sat.
"I don't wear masks," he said calmly. "But I do build them for others. When needed."
The elder smiled.
"Good. Then we speak plain."
They didn't ask who he was.
They already knew.
The leaflets, the underground messages, the printing patterns. His name had been whispered for weeks.
But hearing it was different from seeing him — the man without a title, who left no official trace, yet moved like a quiet river through Delhi's core.
The standing man spoke again.
"My name is Amar. We're what's left of the Delhi ring. The others are scattered. Hiding. Broken. Some gave up. Some were taken. Some turned."
Vikram nodded.
The elder leaned forward. "And yet... the air smells different lately. We know that's you."
Vikram's gaze didn't waver.
"I'm not here to impress you," he said. "I'm here to offer you one thing."
"What's that?"
"Relevance."
The word echoed.
For thirty minutes, Vikram laid out nothing specific — but everything clear.
He spoke of how pamphlets had shifted public rhythm. How press records were being altered before British eyes. How rail schedules were being tracked before the officials who issued them even signed the pages.
"We don't blow whistles," Vikram said. "We redirect trains."
They listened. Silent. Still.
"I don't want to lead you," Vikram added. "I want to use you — wisely. Like a loaded rifle. You've got veterans. I've got channels. We don't need to wear the same colors. But we need to know we're not in each other's way."
"And what would you ask of us first?" the elder asked.
Vikram reached into his shawl and pulled out a folded paper.
A list of names. Thirty-seven.
"British sympathizers. Upper-tier collaborators. Men who've escaped police raids for years. Every one of them passed through British-controlled contracts. I want to know who their families are. Where they sleep. What they're afraid of."
Amar raised an eyebrow.
"You planning arrests?"
Vikram's voice was even.
"I plan continuity. For Bharat. Not mercy."
Before he left, the elder touched Vikram's hand briefly.
"Whatever you're building," he said, "don't build it alone."
Vikram didn't answer.
But in his mind, another thread formed.
The elder was old. Slow. But beneath the surface, his mind still carried:
Advanced Urban Disguise
Intermediate British Evasion Tactics
Advanced Propaganda Writing
Master Espionage Recruitment
Vikram pulled those into Magicnet.
Not to use now.
But to build something far larger than the Black Threads — a future army not made of boys, but of ghosts, actors, and old flames.
Abhinav Bharat would not be absorbed.
It would be reborn.
Silently. Completely.