Chapter 3
The door opened on the world beyond, and dawn spilled its pale gold across the threshold. For a heartbeat, the family saw her as she truly was—radiant, eternal, blazing with the majesty of Radzimira Zoryanna Andrevna Svyatokrov. But the moment her foot crossed the threshold, the air rippled, and the veil closed once more. Her wand shifted in her hand, lengthening, reshaping—until it became a long black obsidian cane, sleek and beautiful, veined with silver lines like lightning frozen in stone. The wind itself seemed to bend around it, as if the world knew to bow before its bearer.
The illusion descended, weaving itself around her like a cloak. To the world beyond, she was only Mira Anna Petrillo, stooped with age, shawl drawn close, an old grandmother stepping into morning air. Yet those left inside knew the truth: the goddess had not gone, only hidden.
The hinges gave a soft sigh as the door closed behind her, leaving the family hushed in reverence, as if the echo of her true form still lingered in the very beams of the house. None spoke—not out of fear, but because words could not yet bear the weight of what they had seen. Her lullaby still seemed to tremble faintly in the air, as though the house itself whispered after her, unwilling to let her go.
Outside, the streets of New York in 1848 were already stirring. The pale sun was climbing higher, gilding the brick and cobblestone in a haze of summer's promise. The air carried the faint tang of the harbor, mingling with the earthy scent of horse-drawn wagons and coal smoke rising from distant chimneys. The city was not yet at its midday roar, but the early hum was unmistakable: the thud of cartwheels, the clipped call of vendors setting their stalls, the chatter of neighbors leaning from windows to trade news before the heat grew heavy.
Summer was at the threshold, and it showed in the city's attire. Men wore their coats unbuttoned, some already slung over shoulders as the warmth pressed in. Women in muslin dresses and wide bonnets moved briskly, their hems skimming the dusty cobbles. Children darted barefoot through alleyways, chasing one another with shrill laughter, their feet blackened but their spirits unburdened. Street urchins loitered on corners, offering shoe shines or clutching newspapers under their arms, their calls rising thin against the bustle.
Mira moved among them with the quiet poise of a figure half-forgotten by the world. To every passerby, she was only an old woman with a cane, a shawl, and a steady gait—one more grandmother among the city's countless faces. The cane itself was plain enough to mortal eyes, yet in truth it was black obsidian veined with silver, a hidden scepter disguised as wood. The veil held strong, turning away all notice, ensuring none saw the fire beneath her skin or the gold in her eyes. Yet every step she took carried the majesty her family had witnessed. Though cloaked in illusion, she walked like one who bore the weight of centuries, her shadow stretching long even in the morning light. The spell was absolute—neither Carnal nor wizard could pierce it. Her true self was sealed, hidden, unreachable.
The street unfolded before her in layers of life, each step carrying her deeper into the heartbeat of the city. Carriages rattled past, iron rims biting against the cobblestones, drivers snapping reins as horses stamped and snorted in the rising warmth. Vendors were already lifting their awnings, spreading apples and loaves of bread across wooden tables, their voices loud with practiced cheer as they drew the morning's first customers. Children darted underfoot—bare-legged and laughing, their pockets jingling with marbles or scraps of string.
Yet at the corners, shadows lingered. Beggars stirred—thin men wrapped in coats too heavy for the season, women clutching infants with faces hollowed by hunger. Some watched with envy as clerks in crisp shirts hurried past, papers tucked under their arms, bound for counting houses. Others turned away, their dignity clinging to them like threadbare cloaks, refusing to beg though their eyes betrayed their need. The city made no room for them, and so they pressed against its edges like forgotten prayers.
Mira walked on, the veil secure, her figure no more remarkable than any grandmother in the crowd. Yet something about her passage tugged at the air. Children turned their heads without knowing why, hoops and sticks forgotten for a heartbeat as their eyes lingered on her. A vendor broke off mid-call, his voice faltering as if he had momentarily lost the word "apples." Even the horses seemed to quiet as she drew near, stamping less, ears flicking as though catching a sound no Carnal could name.
None could pierce the illusion—neither Carnal nor wizard, had one even stood among them—but still, her presence pressed against the world like light behind stained glass. A sense of gravity clung to her, unspoken yet undeniable, as though the street itself leaned toward her steps. She was, to all eyes, an old woman with a shawl and a measured gait. And yet to the bones of the city, to the breath of the air itself, she was something more: a sovereign hidden in plain sight, timeless majesty cloaked in mortal frailty.
The further she walked, the more the city seemed to part for her without knowing it. Apprentices carrying baskets shifted aside instinctively, murmuring apologies they did not understand. A cart stalled briefly as its driver reined in the horses to let her pass, though he could not have said why he yielded. Even the gossiping women at the well paused their chatter for a single breath, as though silence had brushed across their tongues before they resumed. Mira did not command it—she needed no gesture, no spell—but her very being carried a weight that bent the noise of the world around her.
And still, she kept her eyes forward, her stride steady. For all the echoes of reverence her hidden self inspired, her thoughts were not on the city, nor its people, nor even the veil that cloaked her. Her thoughts were on the boy—her boy—out there in the sprawl of streets, unknowing of how tightly fate's net sought to close around him. Each step she took was not merely through New York's morning but through the weave of destiny itself, cutting her way toward him with the quiet force of inevitability.
The street thickened with motion the further Mira walked. On the docks, Irish immigrants wrestled with trunks, their voices sharp with the lilt of home and the strain of new beginnings. Children clung to skirts while fathers hoisted crates onto weary shoulders, their faces lined with both fear and hope. A few blocks over, a German baker stepped into the sun, dusting flour from his apron as he set warm rolls in the window. The smell curled through the air—yeast and comfort, so ordinary it almost masked the harsh clang of a nearby blacksmith's hammer striking iron.
Wealth moved here, too. A polished carriage rolled past, wheels gleaming with fresh lacquer, horses clad in shining brass harness. Within, a lady in silks fanned herself despite the morning's mild warmth, her gaze fixed forward, blind to the beggars crouched in shadow. A barefoot boy darted after the carriage, his hand reaching out, but the driver snapped the reins and the horses surged, leaving him coughing in the dust.
Mira watched none of it. She felt it all, though—every tremor of hunger, every note of ambition, every sigh of fatigue bleeding through the cobbled streets. Her veil kept her unseen, but her presence stretched like roots through soil, tasting the city's pulse. It was a chorus of lives: rising, falling, colliding. Yet beneath it ran one thread she could not ignore—the thread of her boy.
She reached into her shawl and drew out a pocket watch unlike any that ticked in the counting houses. Its case, wrought in blackened silver, shone like a mirror of midnight. Every curve bore engravings of roses and thorns, their petals blooming outward to frame the face. The dial itself was no simple measure of hours: it was a lattice of gears gilded in copper fire, their motion visible beneath the glass. Roman numerals curved around it, marking not only time but something deeper, each etched line shimmering faintly as though inked with starlight.
The watch's hands moved of their own accord, not bound to seconds but to purpose. They spun, paused, tilted, and pointed—not north, not east, but toward the heart they sought. Toward Micah. To any Carnal's eyes, it was no more than a beautiful trinket, an heirloom perhaps, a grandmother's keepsake. But in Mira's grip, it pulsed faintly, alive, each tick not of hours but of destiny.
She held it with reverence, the chain coiling like a serpent through her fingers. The watch glimmered against the morning light, and for a moment the world seemed to hesitate, as if even New York itself bent to glimpse it. This was no ordinary instrument. This was a relic of her own making, bound by spells older than the city's stones, tuned to her blood, her will, her vow. Its face reflected her eyes like twin suns, fire upon fire, and she knew—Micah was near, but nearer too was the danger that stalked him.
Around her, the streets pressed on. Peddlers shouted prices for strawberries and cherries brought in from the countryside, their red gleam vivid against rough baskets. Laundry flapped from tenement windows, the shirts and skirts of working folk who lived too many to a room. A sailor reeled from a tavern door, singing off-key, while a priest passing by tightened his lips and crossed himself. All the while, the city throbbed with contrasts—poverty shadowed by wealth, toil shadowed by leisure, despair shadowed by faith.
Yet wherever Mira stepped, a subtle hush followed. A child stopped mid-game of marbles, watching her until she passed. A vendor's call trailed into silence before he shook his head, as though startled from a dream. Even a street dog trotting by turned its head, ears perked, tail low, before slinking away. They could not see beyond the veil—neither Carnal nor wizard could pierce it—but some fragment of instinct told them she was more than what she appeared.
Mira glanced once more at the pocket watch. Its hands trembled, then steadied, pointing straight ahead, deeper into the veins of the city. Her lips curved into the faintest smile, though it held no mirth. "I am coming, Micah," she murmured, her voice nearly lost to the clamor of wheels and hooves.
Her pace quickened, though her gait remained measured, each step carrying her with the certainty of a tide. She wove through the bustle without ever colliding, as though the city itself bent around her, granting her passage. The watch gleamed in her hand, chain swinging like a pendulum of fate, its ticking soft but resolute. And in her eyes, though hidden from the world, blazed the will of Radzimira Zoryanna Andrevna Svyatokrov: majestic, unbroken, unstoppable.
A cluster of newsboys crowded the corner near a print shop, their arms stacked with papers still damp from ink. Their voices rang shrill and insistent above the clamor: "Extra! Extra! Revolutions in Europe! Uprisings in Paris and Vienna!" The headlines shouted of distant fires, but their hunger was closer—their feet bare, their jackets torn, their eyes sharp as blades. They lunged into the street to press papers into passing hands, only to be shoved aside by clerks in clean coats who barely looked at them. One boy caught sight of Mira, but his shout faltered. He blinked, as if struck dumb, and lowered his voice without knowing why. The others paid him no mind, and she passed like a shadow through their clamor.
A hush fell over the street ahead, not from quiet, but from sorrow. A funeral procession wound its way past, black carriages drawn by dark horses with plumes nodding in grim rhythm. The mourners followed on foot, men with stovepipe hats removed, women with veils drawn low. Some wept openly, others walked stiff-backed, pride holding grief in check. The carriage windows reflected Mira as she passed—her stooped figure of an old woman, shawl clutched close—but for a flicker, just for a heartbeat, her true eyes blazed back golden in the glass. A child within the crowd saw it, tugged at her mother's sleeve, but the mother hushed her and pulled her along.
Beyond the mourners, the city's pulse surged again, sharper, louder. On a wide corner square, a gathering swelled—workers with rolled sleeves, immigrants with tired faces, voices raised in anger. A man stood on a crate, fist thrust high, shouting against the factories, against landlords, against the hunger that chained them as surely as iron. "They bleed us dry while their houses grow fat!" he cried, and the crowd roared in answer. Police loitered at the edges, batons heavy in hand, their gazes hard and wary. The air smelled of sweat, of smoke, of storm. Mira paused at the fringe of the crowd, her watch warm against her palm. She felt the ache of their cries, the echo of every family crushed beneath powers too vast to fight. For a moment, her gaze softened. Then the hands on her watch shuddered, tugging her onward, and she left the square behind.
A line of carriages rattled past, wealth on wheels. Within, merchants and their wives leaned back on velvet seats, the morning light catching jewels at their throats and rings on their fingers. They did not look to the streets, did not hear the newsboys or the protestors, did not smell the sweat of laborers. One child, pale and powdered in lace, peered through the glass, his gaze meeting Mira's for the briefest instant. He saw only an old woman. But when he blinked, his hand pressed to the glass, as if something unseen had brushed against him. His nurse tugged him back, scolding softly, and the carriage rolled on.
Mira's walk carried her past all these moments—grief, rage, hunger, wealth—each one a verse in the song of the city. The illusion held her veiled, but the world could not help but tremble faintly at her passing. Dogs stilled, children stared, laughter faltered, whispers rose without reason. She was both present and apart, woven into the city's morning yet untouched by it, like a ghost of something older than its stones.
She glanced again at the watch. The hands, which had circled and pointed in shifting directions through the maze of streets, now aligned sharply, quivering like a compass near its true pole. The metal gleamed brighter, its etched roses catching the sun as though kissed by flame. Her breath drew deeper, her step lengthened. The trail was sharpening—Micah was close.
Around her, the city pressed on in its clamor: bells chimed from a church tower, vendors cried of fresh fish from the harbor, children ran with shrill laughter across the cobbles. But to Mira, all of it seemed to fall away, thinning into silence as the watch's ticking grew louder in her ears. Every beat was his heartbeat. Every turn of the gears was the turn of his fate. She tucked the chain once around her fingers, her eyes narrowing with resolve.
"I have you now," she whispered, though none around her heard. "I am coming, Micah. And nothing—fate, shadow, or death itself—will keep me from you."