Outside, the streets of Manhattan swallowed Visenya and Rhaenys whole.
They'd been walking for a while now—aimless, directionless, just moving. The city at night was a different beast from the daytime version they'd briefly experienced. Brighter. Louder. More chaotic.
And people noticed them. Of course they noticed them. Two women who looked like they'd stepped out of a fantasy painting, walking through New York like they owned the place. Heads turned. Phones came out. Whispers followed.
Visenya ignored it all. Her gaze stayed forward, sharp and unbothered. Rhaenys tried to do the same, but she felt the weight of every stare, every whispered word.
One man—drunk, probably—got bold. Reached out to grab Visenya's arm.
He learned a very painful lesson.
Visenya didn't even break stride. Just caught his wrist, twisted until something cracked, and drove her knee into his groin with enough force to lift him off the ground. He collapsed like a sack of bricks, whimpering.
Everyone backed away after that. The phones kept recording, but nobody else tried anything.
They walked until they found a quieter spot. A side street, less crowded, shadows pooling between buildings. It was almost 11 PM now—late enough that foot traffic had thinned, but not late enough to escape attention entirely. People still glanced their way. Still whispered.
Still annoying.
"How long are we going to walk aimlessly, sister?" Rhaenys asked after a while, her voice tinged along a hint of exhaustion.
Her feet hurt. These modern shoes were comfortable enough, but she wasn't used to walking this much on hard stone.
Visenya didn't reply. Just kept walking.
Rhaenys sighed. "Maybe we should have stayed."
"I won't stay in that filthy little place anymore." Visenya's voice was cold.
"If you say so." Rhaenys glanced at her sister's profile. "But you killed him, sister. You should have... I don't know. Handled it better. What do you think that poor man is doing right now? Probably crying. Panicking."
"Are you taking pity on him?"
"Shouldn't I?" Rhaenys met her sister's sharp gaze without flinching. "He gave us a place to stay. Food. Clothes. He tried to help us. I'm not ungrateful, sister. We weren't raised to be ungrateful."
Visenya stopped walking.
For a moment, Rhaenys thought her words had actually gotten through. But Visenya wasn't looking at her. She was looking past her, down a darker side street, her eyes narrowed.
Rhaenys followed her gaze.
"Let go of me!"
A woman's voice. Scared and desperate.
"Come with us, you little bitch!"
"Let's play a little bit!"
Two men. Large, rough-looking, gripping a young woman between them. She struggled, but they were stronger, dragging her toward a darker alley.
"Leave her."
Visenya's voice cut through the night like a blade. She stepped into the street, toward them.
The men turned, annoyed—until they saw her. Saw both of them.
Their expressions shifted fast. Annoyance melted into something uglier. Greed. Lust. They looked at Visenya and Rhaenys like wolves spotting lost lambs.
"Well, well. Look what we've got instead."
"Damn, are those chicks even real?"
"Only one way to find out." The man laughed, releasing the woman and stepping toward Visenya. His companion followed, grinning.
Visenya kept walking.
The first man reached for her.
She caught his wrist and twisted.
Crack.
The man's scream ripped through the night, high and horrified as his arm bent the wrong way. He dropped to his knees, cradling the broken limb.
The second man froze. Took a step back.
Visenya closed the distance in two strides. Her fist connected with his face—not elegant, not fancy, just pure force. His nose crunched flat, and he flew backward like he'd been hit by a car, crashing into a trashcan with a clatter that echoed down the street.
Silence.
The woman they'd been dragging stood frozen, eyes wide, mouth open. She stared at Visenya like she'd just watched a god descend from the sky.
The two men groaned on the ground, not getting up anytime soon.
"I... I..." The woman stumbled forward, her legs shaky. "Thank God! Thank you! Thank you so much!"
She reached for her bag, probably to offer money, reward, something.
"Thanks aren't enough." Visenya's voice stopped her cold.
The woman's hand froze. "Huh?"
Rhaenys caught on before her sister could say anything else. She stepped forward, smiling that warm, disarming smile that had won over harder hearts than this.
"We need a place to stay," Rhaenys said.
The woman looked at her. Really looked. Up close, Rhaenys's face hit her strong. Violet eyes—contact lenses, had to be—silver hair—dyed, obviously—and features so perfect they seemed unreal.
Cosplay, her brain supplied. Really, really good cosplay. The kind that cost thousands.
"A place to stay?" She repeated dumbly.
"Yes." Rhaenys smiled again.
"O..Of course." The words came out before she could think about it. This woman had just saved her from something unthinkable. The least she could do was offer shelter.
She turned, gesturing for them to follow.
Visenya didn't move.
"Sister?" Rhaenys looked back.
"My sword." Visenya's jaw tightened. "I left it there."
Rhaenys's face fell as realization hit. "Oh. Your sword. And..." Her hand flew to her mouth. "Our newly bought silks, sister! All those beautiful clothes!"
The woman blinked, completely lost. "Um... excuse me? What are you—"
"Follow us," Visenya interrupted. "We need to go somewhere first."
"Wh-What? Go where? I don't—"
Rhaenys looped her arm through the woman's, smile back in place, warm and unignorable. "Come on. It'll be quick. We just need to retrieve some things."
The woman sputtered, but Rhaenys was already guiding her forward, back the way they'd come.
Rhaenys glanced at her sister over the woman's head, a small smile playing at her lips.
They'd found a replacement. Someone with a home, a kind heart, and apparently no ability to say no to them.
Leon had served his purpose.
Now they had someone new.
They were absolutely still going to take the clothes Leon had bought for them. That wasn't even a question.
Thanks to Visenya's surprisingly sharp memory—she'd paid attention to the route despite her earlier disdain—they found their way back without too much trouble. The woman they'd dragged along helped too, offering hesitant guesses whenever they hit a confusing intersection based on Rhaenys's vague descriptions of "a crumbling building near some shops" and "lots of trash around."
Miraculously, they made it.
The building looked even worse at night. The woman they'd brought—her name was Emma, they'd learned somewhere along the walk—stared up at it with visible concern.
"Um... wait, are you living here?" Emma asked, eyeing the broken front door and the general air of decay.
"We used to live here," Rhaenys corrected gently. "At someone else's home. We just need to retrieve some belongings. Stay here, okay?"
Sarah nodded immediately. Too quickly, maybe. She didn't understand why, but something about these two women made it impossible to refuse them. They were like magnets—pulling her along whether she wanted to follow or not.
Visenya and Rhaenys entered the building. The elevator took a moment to arrive—Visenya pressed the button the way she'd watched Leon do, filing away the knowledge for future use—and they rode up to the familiar floor.
The apartment door was still slightly ajar. Visenya pushed it open.
She stopped.
Rhaenys nearly walked into her. "What—" Then she saw it too.
Leon wasn't there.
John's body wasn't there.
The blood—all that blood, fresh and dried—was gone.
The apartment was clean. Not just tidy—clean. Like nothing had ever happened. Like a man hadn't died on this floor just hours ago.
Visenya walked in slowly, her eyes scanning everything. The furniture was back in place. The floor gleamed as well.
"He got rid of the body himself," Rhaenys murmured, moving toward the bag of clothes she'd left behind. She picked it up, checking inside. Everything still there.
Visenya retrieved her sword first. Then her own bag of clothes. She stood by the door, ready to leave.
Rhaenys hesitated. She looked around the apartment—this tiny, cramped space that had been their first home in this strange world. Leon's things were everywhere. His books. His notes. His life, packed into a few square meters.
"Should we wait for him to return?" She offered. "At least... say goodbye properly?"
She felt a little bad, honestly. Leaving like this, taking the things he'd bought for them, without even a word. He'd been kind to them. Clumsy and awkward and clearly overwhelmed, but kind.
Visenya stared at the apartment for a long moment. Her expression gave nothing away.
"No."
She turned and walked out.
Rhaenys sighed. But instead of following immediately, she spotted one of Leon's notebooks on the small table. She tore out a page, found a pen, and wrote quickly:
Leon,
We found a new place to stay. Thank you for your kindness and the food. We took the clothes—hope you don't mind.
—Rhaenys
She left it on the table, where he'd see it when he came back. Then she picked up her bag and followed Visenya out, closing the door behind her.
In the hallway, waiting for the elevator, Rhaenys glanced at her sister.
"Do you think he'll ever come back, sister? It's been hours."
Visenya stared at the elevator doors. "Who cares."
"Mmm." Rhaenys studied her sister's profile. "You definitely felt something strange about him too, though. Otherwise you wouldn't have kept giving him those intense looks like you wanted to eat him up."
Visenya's glare could have melted steel. "Nothing."
But she didn't deny it. There had been something. A pull. Strange and unexplainable, like some thread connecting her to that awkward, nervous boy. She'd felt it from the moment she woke up in his apartment. It was part of why she kept watching him—not just suspicion, but something deeper. Something she couldn't name.
Rhaenys smiled, that knowing smile she got when she was right about something. "Besides, you could have killed those men back there. The ones attacking her. But you didn't. Just broke an arm, broke a nose. Very restrained for you, sister."
Visenya's jaw tightened.
"I wonder," Rhaenys continued thoughtfully, "maybe you feel a bit bad about what you did to John or rather to Leon? Trying to... learn from mistakes?"
"Just walk."
The elevator arrived. They stepped in. The doors closed behind them.
Whatever had happened between them and Leon—that strange, brief connection—was over now. A single day. A single night. Just a moment in time, already fading.
Or so they both thought…