Knowledge without means is just a form of torture. Catherine understood this with brutal clarity as she looked at her murky reflection in a shop window.
The mind that had dissected Mathieu's soul was housed in the body of a slattern. Her hair was matted, her dress a simple canvas tunic was stained and worn to the thread, and a smell of misery and damp alleys clung to her like a second skin. Mathieu was a man obsessed with status and appearance. He would never cast a second glance at a creature like her, except to chase her away.
Her plan, as brilliant as it was, required an initial investment. She needed a bath, clothes that didn't scream poverty, a perfume that would suggest mystery rather than despair. She needed to build herself a mask.
The few coins she had gathered would never be enough. Begging was too slow, and selling her body now, just as she was on the verge of rising, felt like a profanation, an unbearable regression. The power she had discovered could no longer be used to find lost coins. It had to be used to create opportunities.
Her gaze, sharpened by a new determination, swept the street. She no longer looked for loss, but for negligence. Distraction. She used her vision and saw the street as a vast web of threads of attention. Most people were diffuse beams, but some, caught in arguments or intense transactions, became beacons of concentration, leaving everything else in shadow.
That is how she spotted her chance. In front of a high-end dyer's shop, the owner was engaged in a heated discussion with a delivery man.
Their threads of anger and frustration were so bright they eclipsed everything else. Behind them, on a cart, sat a neatly wrapped package.
The thread of 'belonging' that connected it to the owner was weak, stretched thin by his rage. Another thread, that of 'destination,' pointed to a wealthy home on the other side of the city. It was an order for a noble lady, momentarily forgotten in the heat of the conflict.
Catherine didn't hesitate. Becoming the shadow she had always been, she slipped behind the cart. Her movements were fluid, silent.
No one noticed her. In a split second, the package was in her hands. She walked away without hurrying, melting back into the anonymous flow of the crowd. It was not a theft. It was a requisition. A redistribution of assets.
In an isolated alley, her feverish fingers undid the strings. Inside, folded in tissue paper, was a dress. It was a day dress, of a simple but undeniably elegant cut, made of fine wool in a deep green, almost black.
The color of mystery and the forest. It was accompanied by a fine silk chemise and stockings. It was more than she could have hoped for. It was a perfect costume.
With the silver coin she had found, she paid for an hour in a public bathhouse, in one of the private stalls usually reserved for merchant women.
The hot water was a luxury so intense it was almost painful. She scrubbed her skin until it was raw, scouring away the grime and the memories of a thousand unwanted touches. When she stepped out of the water, she was no longer the same. The past had been washed away, or at least, put to sleep.
She slipped on the silk chemise. The sensation of the fabric against her clean skin was a revelation, a caress that demanded nothing in return.
Then came the dress. It fit her almost perfectly. Standing, looking at herself in the fogged mirror, Catherine struggled to recognize herself. The very posture of the woman in the mirror was different: her back straighter, her chin slightly raised. The clothes were not just a disguise; they were armor and an injunction. They demanded she live up to them.
The final piece was a cheap vial of perfume bought from a stall, a simple scent of lavender and sandalwood. It was not the perfume of a noblewoman, but that of a respectable, discreet woman.
The transformation was complete. Now, she had to choose the stage.
The answer was obvious: The Cracked Chalice. Mathieu's hunting ground. Approaching him there wouldn't be suspicious; she would simply be another patron.
Evening was falling when she pushed open the tavern door. The place was noisy, filled with the smell of ale and stew. It was exactly as she had imagined: a place for men who wanted to feel important.
She chose a small table in a dark corner, which offered a view of the entrance while keeping her in relative obscurity. She ordered a glass of watered-down wine, holding it with a grace she didn't know she possessed, and waited.
She was the spider at the center of her web. Every minute that passed was an eternity. Then, the door opened.
It was him. Mathieu. He looked even more pathetic than the day before, his shoulders stooped under the weight of another day's humiliation. His threads of despair and shame were a dull gray, vibrating weakly. He scanned the room with a hollow gaze, likely looking for a quiet corner to drown his failures.
And then, his gaze landed on her.
He did not see a prostitute from the alleys. He saw a woman alone, dressed with sober elegance, sipping her wine with calm composure.
An anomaly.
A woman who clearly did not belong here, and who was, therefore, the most intriguing thing in the entire room.
Their eyes met across the smoky room. The first thread had just been woven in the physical world. The trap was set. The game was beginning.