Knowledge is a light.
Sometimes, it illuminates the path forward. Other times, it only reveals the true size of the monsters hiding in the shadows. Lord Finch's journal had done both.
Seated in the silence of her library, Catherine looked upon the world with new eyes.
She had no names for the things she had read, no system, but she had a certainty: her power was not unique, it was merely one color in a spectrum of strange and dangerous powers.
She thought back on the forces she had brushed against.
There was the power of Milo, Park's guard, a hard, resilient force, like stone, that left a cold corruption in its wake.
There was the presence of the Inquisitor Micah, a burning white light that hated the dark.
There was Soren's gaze, a clinical black thread that observed without emotion. And there was her own, this gift for seeing secrets, for playing with desires. Four distinct powers. Four different predators in the same jungle.
And then, there was the name from the journal.
Eve.
The adept of a power based on reflection and the theft of identity. That idea was a shard of glass in her mind, a distant threat, but she pushed it aside. One thing at a time. The Rook first.
Her initial plan, the reconnaissance by Mathieu, had been a costly failure. She could no longer send him to the front line. And a direct approach was impossible as long as Jun-Ho Park was protected by Milo. She couldn't lure Park with the promise of pleasure or wealth; a man who has lived in fear for thirty years cares for neither. She had to draw him out using the only thing that still mattered to him: his secret.
She needed a raven to carry a poisoned message. She needed Doctor Thorne.
She once again used young Leo, the kitchen boy.
She entrusted him with a new note and a much heavier purse than the first, containing five gold coins. The message for Thorne was simple:
"New contract. The name is Jun-Ho Park, 17 Spinners' Alley. Let him know that you know the secret of the Dock Fire. Use a detail only an insider would know. Offer him silence, or perhaps a cure for a tormented conscience. Make him come to you, to your clinic. The meeting place must be yours, not Park's. Succeed, and you will receive twenty more gold pieces. Fail, and forget my name."
She did not wait for a reply. She knew Thorne's avarice would compel him to accept.
That evening, Valerius joined her.
He was in an expansive mood. He desired her; it was obvious in the way his emotions coiled around her the moment he entered.
Catherine welcomed him with the mask she had perfected: that of the grateful Oracle, finding in his earthly power a refuge from the shadows she consorted with.
"Your presence… it anchors my mind," she whispered as she kissed him. "It allows me to see more clearly."
He puffed out his chest with pride. She was his anchor, and he was hers. A perfect relationship of mutual dependency.
Or so he believed.
The sexual act that followed was, for Catherine, an exercise in intense focus. Every caress, every sigh, every movement of her body was a calculated decision. She was no longer just an actress playing a role for an audience of one; she was an alchemist testing a formula.
She focused on the principles of her power as she understood it: desire, promise, revelation, possession.
She guided Valerius through waves of pleasure, stripping him of his Magistrate's authority to reduce him to a simple man, a slave to his senses.
She felt that when she played this role to perfection, when she pushed the manipulation of desires to its peak, her own strange gift grew sharper, more potent, more penetrating. It was a terrifying thought: that her power fed on these acts of cold, calculated intimacy.
She watched him, read him while he was inside her, observing the flaws in his soul: vanity, the thirst for control, an underlying fear of losing his status.
She played with these flaws, whispering words in his ear that flattered his vanity while stoking his fear, making him even more dependent on her, the only one who seemed to understand him. It was an exquisite and sickening performance of absolute control.
He reached his peak in a hoarse cry, convinced he had possessed a goddess, when in reality, he had only polished the weapon that would one day be turned against him.
Later, as he slept, she rose and stood at the window, her consciousness stretched out across the city. She had received confirmation from Thorne via Leo: the message would be sent to Park at first light. She waited.
Finally, she felt the ripple. A messenger from Thorne, dropping the letter at Park's door. She focused on the house in the Rook's Nest.
She saw the old man's threads.
First, curiosity. Then, the reading. And then, the explosion. A supernova of pure terror, a black so deep it seemed to absorb all other emotion. The panicked fear of a man whose best-kept secret had just resurfaced. The bait had been taken.
But as she savored this success, she observed something else.
The power signature of Milo, the guard. It showed no surprise, no panic. It simply tightened, growing colder, more alert. And a new thread, as fine as a spider's, extended from Milo and stretched across the city.
It was not heading for a watch post or a barracks. It was heading straight for the heart of The Rook's territory, toward a massive warehouse on the docks she had identified as the center of his empire.
An icy certainty seized Catherine. Milo was not a simple bodyguard assigned to an old man. He was a handler. His function was not to protect Jun-Ho Park from the outside world.
It was to ensure Park never spoke. And by blackmailing the old man, she had not just drawn his attention. She had just tripped the main alarm of The Rook's security system.
The zookeeper's guard had just warned the master of the zoo that one of his most prized animals had become agitated.