The sky over Soho Square resembled an old, over-washed gray flannel, leaking a drizzle of fine needles. I sat at a rickety table in a Viennese café, where the air was thick with tobacco smoke and the acidic tang of coffee grounds. If the "House" was watching me, they were doing so with truly British indifference.
I pulled a silver Zenith on a heavy chain from my waistcoat pocket. The spring snapped. 11:55 AM. The metal was cold. It was time. The bird was about to escape its "mother" again in search of the freedom that everyone in this decade was obsessed with—from suffragettes to street urchins.
With the first booming stroke of Big Ben, which reached the square as a heavy copper echo, a massive white swan spiraled down right onto the wet pavement, nearly clipping a passing bright-red Type K bus. Pedestrians scattered: ladies in hats shrieked, and a bicycle courier nearly flew from his saddle.
I stood up, grabbing my leather rucksack. A net whipped through the air in a short blur and descended upon the bird. The swan was exhausted. It barely resisted, only beating its clipped wings powerlessly against the cobblestones. Just a domestic bird escaping a golden cage.
"Latest news! Extra!" a newsboy in a tilted cap dashed past. "Escaped swan! Miss O'Reilly promises a reward!"
As if rising from the earth, a constable appeared—monumental in his high helmet, smelling of damp wool. "Much obliged for pinning him down, mister!" he said, producing a notebook. "That’s the runaway from Ivy House. Third time this month they’ve been ringing the station off the hook. Had the whole shift chasing him last week."
"Don't worry, officer, I'll deliver the fugitive to the address." The constable paused, eyeing my suit and my strange confidence with suspicion.
"You don't seem much surprised by it, sir? Your name for the report?"
"No more than my appearance surprises you," I replied with a slight tilt of my head. "The name is John Vei Lin. Good day."
I raised a hand, hailing a free carriage. "Cab!"
An old driver pulled to the curb, his mare’s hooves clopping dully on the slick stone. I settled onto the leather seat, cradling the netted swan against my knees. The bird had managed to nip me—a fresh scratch stung on my cheek.
"Easy, boy, almost there," I whispered.
The old man with sideburns that screamed Victorian era squinted at me over his shoulder, lifting his cap's visor.
"Ivy House, you say? To Madam Pavlova herself?" He chuckled, exhaling a plume of tobacco smoke. "They say her birds go mad from her dancing. Reckon it's Jack on the run again? Third time, people don't lie!"
I feigned polite confusion. "Pardon me, friend, but the notice said the owner is a Miss O’Reilly."
"That’s her housekeeper!" The old man broke into a raspy laugh. "Clear as day you’re not from 'round here, if you don't know how lucky you've been!"
"I suppose we 'cabmen' drive our own luck!"
I bit my tongue just in time, nearly blurting out "taxi drivers." I had to be careful. Here, calling a hansom driver a "taxi man" could earn you a lash of the whip; the traditional cabbies' disdain for the rising popularity of motorized taxis was legendary.
"Ha! Young man! I’ll remember that one!" The old man was clearly pleased. "But I’d give half my life just to peek through a crack and see Madam Anna drinking tea in her garden..."
"I have other plans," I cut him off, staring out the window at the passing brick facades of Hampstead.
The old man simply shook his head, looking at me as if I were a madman rejecting a holy relic. We rolled through the thickening fog. I remembered Charlie's eyes—we had shared enough Armagnac to make its distiller jealous. His story... his women... his tear. Men don't cry? He had the right. He had been loving her without answer for three years. But did Anna love him? How to find out? No matter. I’ll think of something.
The cab came to a halt at the gates of the Georgian mansion. The garden breathed of damp earth, roses, and wild ivy that hugged the walls as if trying to smother the house in its embrace.
At the porch, I was met by Miss O’Reilly—a woman in a strict black dress with a face carved from Irish granite.
"Good day, sir. You’ve caught our Jack?" she spoke with a lyrical accent. "The Mistress is out, but please return at five o'clock. She will certainly wish to thank the savior herself."
Together we freed the swan from the net. A gardener in a soiled apron hurried over and carried the bird toward the pond.
"Thank you," I touched a finger to my cap. "I’ll stop by if I’m free. Business waits for no one. Allow me to take my leave."
I tipped my cap and set off toward Hampstead Heath, feeling their eyes on my back. I was the first man who wasn't thrilled at the prospect of an audience with Pavlova. But what were their balls and tea parties to me, when I myself was merely a reflection in the mirrors—one that had long since forgotten who it belonged to?
Hampstead Heath. The Pearl Mist.
Hampstead Heath, the "lungs of London," was gasping today in the embrace of a pearlescent fog. A fine spray of rain settled on the carved chestnut leaves, turning the paths into a treacherous slurry of red clay and rotted foliage from the year before. The air was motionless, smelling of ozone and wet dog fur.
Anna moved down the alley as if the sodden earth beneath her soles were the waxed parquet of Covent Garden. Her age was sealed within an impeccable posture. She wore a long ivory-colored wool coat, fastened with massive mother-of-pearl buttons that shimmered dully, like the eyes of deep-sea fish. A wide-brimmed hat with a thick veil obscured her face, leaving only a sharp chin visible. Over the coat lay a silk scarf, where embroidered lilies hid her initials. In her hand, she gripped an ebony cane with a silver knob—not a support, but a scepter, a reminder of triumphs and years lived.
Beside her, trying not to sink into the mud, scurried Elsie—a young maid in a uniform coat, clutching an empty willow basket to her chest. They were headed to the grocer's on High Street, but the park was behaving strangely today.
Anna froze. Her keen ear, trained to catch the slightest discord in an orchestra pit, extracted a foreign rhythm from the patter of the rain.
The maid shrieked, dropping the basket. The wicker hit the ground with a dull thud.
The sound repeated—sharp, metallic, furious. This was not the ringing of the elegant sporting foils that gentlemen played with in clubs. This was the heavy, "fleshy" rasp of steel on steel, the kind of sound that makes one's teeth ache. The rhythm of the duel was jagged: a frantic gale of strikes followed by a dead, ringing silence.
"Lord, ma’am, what is that?" Elsie clutched at the sleeve of Anna’s expensive coat, bunching the flawless fabric.
Anna did not flinch. The inner cold that always helped her hold her poise before a stage entrance now paralyzed her movements. She knew: boys do not play like this.
"Don't be afraid, Elsie. Perhaps... workers repairing the fence," her voice was steady, but her knuckles on the silver cane knob had turned white.
The sounds cut off as abruptly as they had begun. The silence of the park became oppressive. And then, from the milky-white soup at the edge of the thicket, a silhouette slipped out.
A woman.
The trouser suit on a lady in the park was a provocation, nearly a scandal, but the stranger wore it like armor. Her dark hair, shorn into the latest "bubikopf" style, was disheveled. On the left shoulder of her jacket, a dark, almost black stain was spreading.
Blood?
With the precision of a trained predator, she slid her hand beneath her coat, concealing the steel. She cast a quick, piercing glance at Anna and Elsie. Without a word, the woman turned and strode toward Kensington Road. Her boots hammered a rhythm into the yielding earth. A moment later, her cloak flared like a raven's wing, and the fog closed behind her back.
Anna took an involuntary step forward, driven by a professional interest in such frightening expression.
"Ma’am, no!" Elsie yanked her back with the strength of a drowning person. "Don't! This is devil's work, let’s get away from here!"
Pavlova frowned. She stared at the spot where the wounded Amazon had just stood. Her intuition, bred through years of intrigue at the Mariinsky and tours through a restless Europe, screamed: blood had just been spilled in Hampstead, and this blood was unusual.
"You are right, Elsie," Anna said softly, adjusting her scarf. "Come. We still need to buy the cinnamon."
The fog on the Heath had shifted from a "pearl mist" into a suffocating shroud, thick with the soot of London’s industrial fringes. The ancient oaks looked like skeletal fingers clawing their way out of the earth.
Andy moved with the shadow of a predator whose species had gone extinct before the pyramids were even blueprints. Her soft leather boots barely whispered against the sodden clay. She had been leading them for a long time—these hounds of the League. But today, they had changed their tactics.
She froze at the edge of a clearing where the gray haze was particularly dense. Her hand slid habitually beneath the folds of her heavy wool cloak, finding the leather-wrapped grip. Four. She felt them with her skin, the way one feels a change in the wind. But the League always worked in triads. The fourth was a splinter in her flawless intuition.
"Come out," Andy’s voice was low, possessing that guttural accent no Oxford linguist could ever identify. "I’m tired of waiting."
Two figures stepped from the fog. Dark broadcloth cloaks, masks hiding everything but the fanatical glint of their eyes, and curved blades—shamshirs whose sweep promised a swift end. A third lingered in the branches of an old yew, drawing a bow.
Andy let out a predatory smirk, baring her teeth. "You aren't the first. And god knows, you won't be the last."
An arrow whistled an inch from her temple, thudding wetly into wood. Andy was already in motion. The air was sliced by the hiss of heavy steel—her double-headed axe, a labrys, ancient as war itself, caught a dull glint from the sky. A flash of sparks, the rasp of metal. A parry, a short step to the side—and the attacker’s head, before it could even register death, rolled into the ferns, leaving a thick crimson trail on the grass.
The second tried to take her from behind, but Andy pivoted with her whole body, putting every ounce of her strength into the swing. The axe sheared through cloak, bone, and flesh. The mercenary collapsed without a sound.
"Slow," she spat, wiping blood spray from her face and scanning for the archer. "Too slow for those who call themselves god-killers."
The next arrow never came. Instead, a dull thud and the sound of a falling body echoed from the tree’s canopy. Andy glided toward the tree. The archer lay on his back, eyes glassy, his skull crushed by a heavy, blunt object.
She slowly raised her eyes and met mine. I was standing a few paces away, hands tucked nonchalantly into the pockets of my heavy leather coat.
"How the hell did you get here?" Andy tightened her grip on the axe, her eyes narrowing. "I thought there were four. Was it you who dropped him?"
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I simply spread my hands, donning a mask of boyish bewilderment. "I was just passing by, heard a scuffle in the bushes. I walk over, and this gentleman falls right at my feet. Already in this... unappealing state."
"Dead?" She quickly frisked the body. She wasn't surprised by the death, only by my inconvenient presence.
"Who’s to say?" I smiled my most innocent smile.
"And did he bash his own brains in with a rock?" she persisted, nodding at the archer’s shattered occiput.
"No idea. Gravity in London is harsh on those who climb trees."
Andy straightened up, measuring me with a long, heavy stare. "Were they following you?"
"I’m not sure," I mused, glancing at the fog. "Thanks. Are you hurt?"
She smirked, touching her torn shoulder where blood was seeping through. "Trifles. It’ll heal by the wedding that’s never happening. I see you’re a modest fellow. But what the devil are you doing here?"
I nodded toward the path where silhouettes were fading into the mist. "See those ladies? Keeping an eye out."
Andy followed my gaze. When she recognized Anna, the eternal severity left her face. "Pavlova? There’s a contract on her? Damn, if I’d known, I’d have protected her for free."
She looked at me again, respect mingling with suspicion in her eyes. "Fine, traveler. Let’s act as though we never saw each other. But know this: while I was following them, they were following you. You’re a student of Sun Tzu, I see. You can hold your own."
She adjusted her cloak, concealing the archaic axe. "You walk around the city with that?" I couldn't help asking. Even though the steel strapped to the inside of my own coat was chilling my ribs.
"Ever since they burned the city where I was born," she threw back, dissolving into the fog. "I don't even remember what it was called..."
I watched her go, a living fossil, and a very dangerous one at that. Then I approached the bodies. On the forearm of the first blackened a broken Ouroboros—the mark of the House of the Returned. Old friends.
But curiosity goaded me to check the other arm.
A chill ran down my spine. There, emblazoned on the skin, was a demon’s head entwined with three threads. The Triple Thread League. Two orders in one place? This wasn't just a "contract." This was a war, and a fragile ballerina was caught right in the epicenter.
Andy... was she against them? Or was she playing a game of her own?
Hampstead Heath. The Parting.
The rain turned the alley into a mirror of liquid clay. Moisture soaked through the heavy leather of my coat. A dark stain spread across the sleeve—a memory of that mercenary's throat. I pulled out a linen napkin with a café's monogram; it instantly bloomed deep crimson. Mud, blood, and the coal dust of London.
I adjusted my cap—that hybrid of a mariner’s flat cap and a detective’s slouch—trying to hide the fresh nick on my temple.
And then she called out to me.
Anna.
The "Swan," frozen on the muddy park path.
As a boy, looking at her photographs, I thought she was woven from moonlight. But standing before me was a woman in a sodden coat. Her lily-embroidered scarf was heavy with water. Beside her, shivering like a ruffled sparrow, stood the maid with her basket.
"Good day, madame," I nodded to them both.
"Did you see a woman here? In a man’s suit?" she asked.
Lying would have been like spitting into the well I’d been drinking hope from.
"She went down the alley," I pointed toward the thickest cluster of fog.
"I thought... was she hurt?" Anna’s voice wavered. She was always looking for something to save, be it a bird or a lost soul. "Does she need help? What happened back there?"
"She’s fine, madame. She simply... encountered some old acquaintances. By the time I saw them, the conversation had concluded."
The maid glared at me, her eyes screaming for every Bobby in London. But Anna studied me like a complex score. The rain intensified; my polished army boots were slowly sinking into the Hampstead muck. I saw how she held her cane—nonchalant, but perfectly balanced. If she had been a fencer, her lunges would have been lethal.
"A strange place for a rendezvous, don't you find?" her Russian accent was soft, like old fur. "Here, in the wilds, under such a downpour... And yet, you don't look like a man easily surprised by it."
"Ma'am, we must go! They're waiting at Sadler's Wells!" Elsie interjected, but Anna didn't budge. She was waiting. For me to introduce myself, ask for an autograph, or offer an escort. But I remained silent. To her, I was just a passerby who hadn't bowed in mute adoration.
"Forgive my boldness," she continued, her fingers twitching at the edge of her scarf. "But I heard sounds... And your appearance... Do you need assistance? May I know your name?"
In the distance, the rhythmic clatter of hooves approached—a cab emerging from the mist. I slowly removed my cap. The rain instantly cooled my nearly shaven head, crisscrossed with scars like an old battle map. I shook the water off and put it back on.
"I see nothing strange in 'good people' choosing a secluded park for their walks," I said, intentionally emphasizing the turn of phrase. "Rain is London's middle name, madame."
I gave a crooked smirk. "My name is Vei Lin. But I won't ask for yours. And I won't ask you on a date. Not because you aren't attractive, but because being with me is... unsafe. Therefore, I have no need to know your name."
The word "therefore"—stalo byt—hung in the damp air of Hampstead like a password. Anna froze. Her eyebrows arched. The veil clung to her cheek, revealing a face beautiful in its exhaustion, with a web of fine lines around eyes that had seen too many stages and too many goodbyes.
"Vei Lin..." she repeated, tasting the name. "These 'good people'... they must be quite unusual."
"Ma’am, please, let’s go!" Elsie was nearly weeping with fear.
"You are right," Anna picked up my game with the rain. "But I don't believe in chance encounters. I’ve seen the world from Australia to America, Mr. Vei Lin, and I know when I’m not being told everything. If there is danger in the thicket..."
I adjusted my rucksack.
"I wouldn't recommend the thicket. Once, in a place like this, I nearly stepped into a bear trap. If not for luck, you’d be meeting a man with a wooden leg today. And I wager you’d take me for a pirate."
I saw her eyes try to dart behind my back, searching for the truth.
"Follow your own path, madame. Your companion will be soaked to the bone... and you’d best not... catch a cold yourself. My respects."
I tipped my cap, turned, and strode away. The cab pulled up beside me, bringing the scent of wet horse. I waved the driver back toward them.
"Pick up those women on the road!"
The ring of a coin—and I vanished into the fog before they could even board the carriage.
The cab smelled of old leather, horse sweat, and damp wool—a heavy scent that contrasted sharply with the faint jasmine trailing from Anna. She sat motionless, watching the raindrops trace crooked lines on the glass. Elsie sat opposite, clutching her empty basket, her teeth chattering from the cold and the lingering fright.
"A strange man," Anna’s voice was a whisper, barely audible over the dull thud of hooves on cobblestone. "He speaks like an actor, but moves like a soldier. And yet... Elsie, I feel he is not an enemy."
"Ma’am, just forget him!" Elsie sniffed crossly, tucking a loose strand of hair back under her cap. "He’s got more scars than a butcher's block! A rogue, nothing less. We’re late for Sadler's Wells as it is!"
The driver, in a heavy oilskin coat dripping with water, deftly flipped a gold sovereign in the air. The coin flashed like a tiny sun in the gray day.
"That gentleman told me to pick you ladies up," he rasped, lifting his visor. "Said it wasn't right for roses like you to be getting wet. Strange fellow, but pays like a king."
Anna leaned back against the seat. Her wet coat left dark, spreading patches on the leather.
"John Vei Lin..." she repeated, and the name echoed in the cramped space of the cab like something foreign. "Who is he? And why is he here, in London?"
She fell silent, her slender fingers in kidskin gloves fretting over her silk scarf, bunching the embroidered lilies.
"For the first time in years, someone didn't look at me like an icon in a gold frame..." She gave a bitter smile. "To him, I was just a woman who might catch a cold..."
"Oh, forget about him, madame! The city's full of madmen!" Elsie huffed.
But Anna continued, her gaze fixed on the rainy distance of Gloucester Road.
"And yet... there was one other. Long ago. A man who spoke to me as an equal, unafraid of being burned. Но его имя..." she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, "for some reason, I am afraid to say it aloud."
She shook her head.
The cab jolted over a pothole, and the rhythm of the hooves felt to her like the beating of a heart she had thought long dead to everything but the dance.
The Spaniards Inn
I had been sitting for half an hour in a small, smoky joint by the fireplace, a thirty-minute walk from Ivy House at the junction of Hampstead and Highgate. It felt as though time here had frozen in the 18th century. Dark wood panels, low ceilings, tiny windows—a brigand’s spirit. The perfect place for those playing their own game. The fog seems thicker here, and the shadows longer. Damp logs crackled in the hearth, spitting sparks onto the soot-stained stone. I was finishing my second cup of what they called coffee, which in reality was just burnt barley swill.
Andy materialized beside me almost soundlessly. But this time I heard her—the barely perceptible rustle of steel beneath her cloak. She looked as though she’d just finished unloading barges on the Thames: a stained coat, bruised knuckles, and a gaze like cold lead.
"Those three were definitely after you, John," she said, clapping me on the shoulder. To the regulars, we were just two friends killing a rainy afternoon.
I didn't bat an eye, continuing to study the flames in the fireplace.
"And?"
"We talked on the embankment," Andy said, taking my cup and winced after a sip. "One of them took one look at me and committed hara-kiri on the spot. The second was more talkative. Before he slit his own throat, he said: 'He shouldn't be here.'"
She leaned closer.
"I’ve been tracking them for an eternity, John. The League of Assassins. 'The Demon’s Head.' But it’s the first time I’ve seen them so nervous over a single man."
It meant nothing to me.
"Wait, you mean the tattoo?"
"League fighters wear that mark: a demon’s head and three threads."
"And did you check the other arm?"
Andy looked at me as if I’d forced her to read an obscenity scrawled on a fence.
"What’s on the other one?"
"You didn't know? A broken Ouroboros."
"Doesn't surprise me. They always have other tattoos. The Demon rents out his fighters as security to others. The Ouroboros is the emblem of one of the clients."
"You’ve never seen it before?"
A shadow fell over Andy’s face. For a moment, her eyes filled with pain.
"The Judge. The one who passed the sentence... on my sister."
Andy quickly recovered.
"I can help, since I know who they are."
She gave a bitter smirk and rubbed her temples.
"You won't rid me of this headache anyway... I followed them, and I saw Anna. She might be in danger."
"What caught your attention about her?"
"Her impresario. Victor. He’s considered her husband, but no marriage certificate exists. She is chained to him as if to a gallery. There is everything between them—except love."
"And what is her love to you, Andy? Or do you prefer women?"
I made the letter "L" in sign language. Andy chuckled.
"I like blunt men. Но я не из 'этих'."
She mirrored my gesture.
"A long time ago, people spoke of feelings for both genders freely. And you know, there was significantly less of 'that' in the world. Do you know why?"
"Forbidden fruit is sweet." I grinned as if I had personally held the throat of the one who invented that manipulation.
Andy answered with eyes that flashed for a moment with cold fury.
"My people are empathic. Since I first learned of her—she comes into my dreams when I don't see my sister... and she begs for help. Anna has a right to happiness. I’ve followed her for days—but until today, I didn't know how I could help."
"What else do you know about Dandre?"
"They don't share a bed. But he has no other women. He behaves like a cultist. Where Anna is his religion. And I’ve seen too often where cults lead their followers. Such men kill their idols at the zenith of their glory. To keep the legacy from being tarnished by the first fall on the stage."
I felt it myself—that there was something off about Anna’s death. But I hadn't even considered that Victor could have killed her physically. I thought he had simply worn her out. And then—the illness just did its job.
"Yes, he certainly has a motive," I cut in. "Especially if he finds out the bird might fly from the cage."
Andy nodded.
"A woman like her—she shouldn't live without feelings. The age of humans is too short."
I ordered more coffee.
"Tell me about the League."
"They are fanatics who believe in purifying the world through chaos and death. I... have a different opinion on that matter."
I told her what I knew about the House, omitting the time travel.
Andy offered her hand.
"To our acquaintance, then?"
She drank whiskey like water and didn't get drunk. But I had a meeting with Anna.
"Tomorrow. I have a rendezvous at Ivy House today."
"Do you love her?"
The question came like a bolt from the blue.
"I’m no leading man, Andy." I sighed. "I’m the one who knows the price of an absence of love. It’s rejected for the glare of spotlights and the applause of strangers. And I want to understand why, when I look at her eyes in photos—I read a plea for help. Just as you do in your dreams."
She smiled.
"I’ll cover you."
Andy stood up and walked out of the bar just as quietly as she'd entered.
Soon I, too, stepped out into the fog that was blanketing the city. With faith in a small, stubborn chance that, over the years, becomes everything I have. But will Anna be able to believe in it, if for her, to love means to suffer? How can I teach love, when I have never once heard a woman say, "I love you"?
But to save a person, you don't need to be loved—you just need to kick the cage door in.