Chapter 4 – Vera #2
The bread is stale, the crust tearing at my teeth.
I chew slowly, forcing myself to look ordinary.
Ordinary is survival. I drift through the square, scanning faces in shop windows rather than turning my head.
Twice, I catch sight of the same man: tall, coat too heavy for spring, gaze that never settles on the goods in front of him.
He isn’t here to buy. He’s here to follow.
I duck into a church. Its doors groan open, spilling me into silence scented with wax and stone.
Candles flicker before a row of saints. A priest kneels at the altar, unmoving, lips whispering words I can’t hear.
My steps echo as I move to a pew halfway down.
I bow my head, hands folded, satchel pressed to my side. A disguise within a disguise.
The man in the heavy coat doesn’t enter. Through the crack of the door, I see him linger, uncertain, waiting. Fear lances through me. He knows. He’s patient. The kind of hunter who waits for you to step back into the light.
I sit for nearly an hour, unmoving, until my legs ache.
When I finally rise, the priest looks up, eyes kind but searching.
He doesn’t speak. I nod, a silent prayer of thanks for his silence, and slip through a side door that leads into the cloisters.
Narrow passages, cold air, shadows thick as smoke.
I vanish through them, leaving the hunter behind.
By afternoon, I find myself in a crowded boarding house near the edge of the city. The walls are thin, the rooms barely wide enough for a bed and a basin. But it’s cheap, and cheap is anonymous. I lie on the mattress, staring at the ceiling stained with damp. My mind drifts to Lucian.
I don’t know if he’s alive. Rumors of purges, whispers of executions, cities burning.
And yet, sometimes, when the night is quietest, I feel him.
As if the thread between us hasn’t snapped, only stretched.
He was always the storm to my reason, fire to my stone.
If he’s moving toward Old Vienna too, then the city will not contain us both quietly.
Sleep finds me at last, heavy and dreamless.
When I wake, the satchel is still against my side, my arm looped through its strap.
Relief is a bitter thing. I wash my face in cold water, braid my hair, and prepare to move again.
Old Vienna draws closer with every mile, and the eyes on my back grow heavier.
The hunter will not give up. Neither will I.
I leave before dawn, blending into the tide of workers heading for trains and trams. The city smells of bread ovens and coal smoke, of horses and damp iron.
I board another eastbound train, smaller this time, with wooden benches and rattling windows.
It feels less official, less watched. But danger travels even here.
A man two rows down keeps glancing at me, his eyes flicking from the satchel to my face.
His hands tremble as if he’s rehearsing a choice.
Perhaps he’s desperate, or perhaps he’s paid. Either way, I tighten my grip.
The train cuts through rolling fields, then forests that seem endless, the trees pressing close against the tracks.
Shadows flicker across the windows, quick as thoughts.
I let the rhythm of the rails steady me, but my mind never stills.
Old Vienna is near now. Every mile tastes of inevitability.
The summit will be a masquerade, a theater of power.
And I—I will walk into it carrying a truth sharp enough to slice through silk.
The train slows as twilight deepens, the horizon bruised purple and gold.
Old Vienna lies ahead, its silhouette jagged with spires and domes, a city that hides daggers beneath velvet gloves.
My stomach knots tighter with every passing mile.
The satchel feels heavier than ever, as if the truth inside it is swelling, straining against the leather, begging to tear free.
The train hisses into the central station.
The crowd disembarks in a rush, a flood of shoes striking marble.
I move with them, carried on a current of chatter and clattering luggage.
Chandeliers blaze overhead, too bright, too polished, their light reflecting off polished brass and glass.
Guards patrol in pairs, eyes sweeping the hall with the disinterest of men convinced their authority is enough to quell rebellion.
I keep my head bowed, scarf tight around my hair, and step into the city.
The air is different here, perfumed, expensive, layered with smoke and vehicle grease.
Streetlamps glow against cobblestones slick from an earlier rain.
Music drifts faintly from open windows: strings, laughter, the rise and fall of cultured voices. Old Vienna wears opulence like a mask.
I rent a room in a boarding house near the river.
The walls are thin, but the window looks out over the water, and the sound of its current steadies me.
The landlady doesn’t ask questions, only takes cash and pushes a key across the counter with a tired hand.
Upstairs, I lock the door twice and sit on the bed, the satchel on my knees. For a moment, I simply breathe.
Then I open it. The ledgers, the files, the pages covered in Declan’s networks. The handwriting in the margins, mine, scrawled during sleepless nights. Proof of rot buried under silk. Proof the world will not want to see. I run my fingers over the ink, as if touch alone could keep it safe.
A noise outside snaps me back, the creak of stairs, footsteps pausing at my door. My pulse spikes. I blow out the lamp, plunging the room into shadow, and press my back to the wall. The footsteps linger, then retreat. Wood groans, then silence. I don’t move until the city bells strike midnight.
Sleep is impossible. Instead, I plan. Tomorrow I’ll scout the opera house, where the summit will be staged.
I’ll learn its entrances, its shadows, its blind spots.
Somewhere inside those walls, Declan will walk in comfort, believing the stage belongs to him.
But he is wrong. If Lucian still breathes, if the thread between us still holds, then Old Vienna will become a trap of our making.
I glance at the window. Rain has begun to fall again, streaking the glass, blurring the city lights.
The satchel rests beside me, a silent reminder that truth is not enough on its own.
It must be placed in the right hands, wielded at the right time.
Until then, I keep moving. I keep breathing.
I keep carrying the blade disguised as paper.
When dawn finally arrives, I rise with it. The river runs gray, and the city stirs awake. Somewhere beyond these walls, hunters wait. Somewhere within them, allies may linger. And somewhere in the heart of Old Vienna, the storm that is Lucian might already be walking toward me.
I whisper to the empty room, to the satchel, to myself: “Hold steady.” Then I step out into Old Vienna, into the mouth of the masquerade.