Catherine awoke to the gray light of dawn filtering through the grime on the window.
For a disorienting moment, she didn't know where she was. The hard mattress, the smell of dust, the silence… it was all foreign.
Then the memory of the previous night returned to her in a triumphant wave, and the hunger gnawing at her suddenly seemed more bearable, almost a badge of honor. This was the hunger of independence, not of submission.
After years of owning nothing but the clothes on her back, this room, this abandoned sanctuary, felt like a palace. It was the first space in the world that was truly hers, not by right or by purchase, but by the silent conquest of her mind.
She spent the morning exploring her new fortress.
The house was a silent mausoleum dedicated to a finished life. Heavy, dark furniture, a library filled with commercial treatises and books of law, an atmosphere of respectable loneliness.
It was the home of a man who was wealthy but alone, a man who, like her, had understood that the best company was often his own.
But a sanctuary could not feed her.
Her new life required resources.
Rather than risk stealing on the streets again, a thought occurred to her.
If this house had been abandoned in the haste of an inheritance dispute, it was possible that not everything had been found. People, especially the old, solitary, and mistrustful, had secrets.
Catherine closed her eyes and let her vision expand, not outward, but within the walls of the house. She no longer looked for negligence, but for intention.
She searched for the threads of 'concealment,' of the 'fear of loss.' She scanned the ground floor, the kitchen, the living room… nothing.
Then, in the deceased owner's study, she perceived a faint glow. A faint thread, the color of mistrust, led from beneath the large oak desk and sank into the floor.
She knelt. The rug was worn in that exact spot. Lifting it, she discovered a floorboard that was slightly askew. Using a paper knife found on the desk, she pried it up. Underneath, in a small, dark cavity, lay a soft leather purse.
Her heart beat a little faster.
She pulled it out. It wasn't heavy, but the sound it made was the most beautiful of chimes: that of gold and silver coins.
Opening it, she discovered a small fortune. Enough to feed her for months, to buy an entire wardrobe, to rent a room if she so desired. Enough to be free of all immediate necessity. Next to the coins lay a simple silver ring, unadorned but heavy. A final treasure.
Catherine clutched the purse to her chest, a silent laugh shaking her shoulders. She was no longer a beggar. She was no longer a day-to-day survivor. She was a woman of means.
Later in the day, after hiding the green dress and the ring, she ventured out, dressed in the deceased owner's shirt and trousers, her hair hidden under a cap.
She was unrecognizable, just another street urchin running errands. No one paid her any mind. She bought bread, cheese, and a skin of wine and returned to her sanctuary.
The simple act of buying her own food, of paying for it with money that was hers by right of conquest, was an even more transformative experience than the hot bath. Every bite was an affirmation of her new existence.
Throughout the day, she had kept a fraction of her consciousness stretched out over the city, listening to Mathieu's threads. She felt them vibrating with a frantic energy at the Scriptorium. She perceived his focus, his obsessive search, his mind turning her words over and over like a jeweler examining a precious stone.
Then, in the middle of the afternoon, she felt it. A flash of golden light, the color of discovery and eureka, burst from his green thread of ambition.
It was so sudden and powerful that Catherine started in her silent room. He had found something. Her enigmatic bait had borne fruit. He had found a secret in the margins, an unrecorded debt, a lever he never knew he possessed.
Immediately following the burst of triumph came a new vibration, stronger still: a desperate, urgent need.
The silver thread of curiosity he had for her transformed, becoming thicker, brighter. It was no longer curiosity. It was necessity. He had to find her. He had to understand how she knew.
As evening fell, once again casting a cloak of shadow over the city, Catherine stood at her window. She watched Mathieu's threads begin to move.
They left the Scriptorium, vibrating with a new and determined energy. They did not take the path to his home. They crossed the city, a comet of need and hope.
Catherine followed their trajectory with a cold calm. She knew where he was going. He was returning to the scene of their first meeting.
His threads were aimed straight for The Cracked Chalice. He was going to wait for her. He was going to pray for her to return.
A predatory smile stretched her lips in the gloom. He was returning to the web of his own free will. And this time, he would be so desperate, he would beg her to bite.