The night in the Catskills was no longer a landscape; it was a slow, rhythmic execution.
Evelyn gripped the damp rappelling rope, her body swaying like a dead leaf in the biting wind. Below her, the Aether facility was a bleeding wound of fire and sparks; above her, the sky was a void of obsidian and ice. The rope bit into her palms, drawing hot blood that flowed into the sleeve of Silas's oversized cashmere sweater before turning to ice against her skin.
When her feet finally struck the frozen earth, she didn't look back. She knew that to look back was to invite the ghost of the man she had left behind to swallow her whole.
"Live," she whispered into the fog, her breath a ragged plume of white. "Live, and then kill him yourself."
She plunged into the thick pine forest, the snow reaching her knees, every step a brutal tug against the leaden weight of her exhaustion. She was dressed in nothing but a torn silk robe and a dead man's sweater, her ankles already numb to the world.
Two miles into the woods, the silence changed.
It wasn't the silence of nature. It was a high-frequency, metallic shimmer in the air—as if thousands of bytes were colliding in a vacuum. Evelyn leaned against an ice-clad pine, her lungs burning with the scent of pine needles and blood.
Then, she saw it.
Between the shadows of two ancient trees, a violet glow pulsed. It had no physical form, yet it held a human silhouette. Those eyes—brilliant, glowing violet—stared at her with a terrifying, digital clarity.
"Who are you?" Evelyn rasped, pulling the small silver screwdriver from her boot.
The glow flickered, and a voice erupted from the static—a distorted, ethereal version of Rose Vance's voice, tuned to a clinical, haunting key.
"...The clock... is... calibrating... Evelyn..."
"Mother?" Evelyn's sanity frayed at the edges. She wanted to scream, to cry, but the wind froze the tears before they could fall. "Is it you? Or is this another one of Victor's traps?"
The glow didn't answer. It vanished into the dark like a bolt of violet lightning.
Left with no choice, Evelyn followed. In this world without signals or servers, the 'Mercury' ghost was her only compass.
Back at the ruins of the Aether, Silas Nightwood crawled from the wreckage.
His left arm hung uselessly at his side, his tuxedo shirt a tattered rag soaked in soot and blood. The scars on his back were raw, glowing red in the light of the dying fires. He didn't look like a billionaire anymore; he looked like a god that had been cast out of heaven and crawled through hell to get back.
He stood up, his legs shaking, his spine screaming in protest. He looked at the edge of the observation deck where Evelyn had disappeared.
Victor Thorne sat nearby, perched on a piece of twisted steel, his gold-headed cane still clutched in his hand. He looked amused. "She left you, Silas. She threw the Mercury into the dark and left you to die in the dirt. Your 'wildfire' just burned you out."
Silas let out a jagged, hollow laugh. He grabbed his left arm with his right hand and, with a violent, sickening crack, forced the shoulder back into its socket. The agony made his vision go white, but it gave him back the only thing he needed: control.
"You're wrong, Victor," Silas hissed, standing tall despite the blood dripping from his brow. "She isn't leaving me. She's carving her own path. And as long as she has that drive, she isn't a pawn anymore. Not yours... and not mine."
"So? Are you going to kill me?" Victor asked, a dozen red laser dots appearing on Silas's chest from the snipers hidden in the trees.
"I don't need to kill you," Silas said, stepping toward the older man. "The Aether's self-destruct is linked to my heart rate. If I die, your precious Chrysalis backup dies with me. Now, take me to her. I'll bring her back. But the next time we meet, Victor... I'm going to tear your 'architecture' down brick by brick."
Deep in the forest, Evelyn found the cabin.
It was a derelict hunter's shack, smelling of mold and ancient dust. She collapsed inside, her body finally surrendering to the cold. She wrapped the frozen silk of her robe around her feet, shivering so violently she could hear her teeth chattering.
In the absolute silence, the violet glow appeared on the windowsill. It shifted, morphing into the shape of a six-year-old girl—Evelyn as she had been before the world broke.
The child pointed to the floorboards beneath the heavy oak cabinet.
Evelyn moved the furniture with the last of her strength. Beneath the wood, she found a lead-lined safe. She had no key, but in her world, every lock had a logic. She listened to the tumblers, her mind recalling a nursery rhyme her mother used to hum.
Three turns for the moon, one for the sun, stop at the day the war was won.
The safe clicked open.
Inside was a single cassette tape and a yellowed envelope addressed to Silas. Evelyn's heart stopped as she read the handwriting: Julian Nightwood.
"To Silas: If you have brought her here, it means the world has finally turned to ash. Remember, the Mercury isn't an antidote; it's a mirror. It will show you the thing you fear most."
Evelyn let out a sharp, hysterical laugh. Silas knew this place. He had planned for this. He had known she would find this cabin, these secrets, and this mirror.
Suddenly, the sound of heavy engines broke the silence of the woods. Searchlights swept the windows, blindingly white against the dark.
Evelyn grabbed the tape and the screwdriver, her eyes turning into shards of ice. She stood by the door, a silhouette of defiance as the door was kicked open.
Silas stood there, framed by the falling snow and the black forest. He was covered in blood, his eyes dark with a mix of fury and soul-deep exhaustion.
"Evelyn," Silas whispered, his voice trembling. "Come back."
Evelyn held up the cassette tape, her lips curling into a cruel, beautiful smile. "Back where, Silas? To the cage you burned? Your father's letter says you're afraid of what's in this mirror. Do you want to know what I see when I look at you now?"
Silas didn't move. The tension between them was a physical weight, more intense than any fire.
"I see a pathetic man," Evelyn laughed softly, tears finally tracking through the soot on her face. "A man who thinks love is just another contract to be forged with lies."
The snow fell between them, a cold curtain over a war that was only beginning.