The lingering horror from another's eyes still gripped Yvette's bones as she woke.

In her dreamscape, gales shrieked between racing clouds. Something ancient waited - not for her, but for a younger version of Moore. The pumpkin-sized mollusk with writhing tentacles they'd encountered might be but a nerve-ending of some cosmic predator. Since time's dawn, such inconceivable horrors had festered in the dark reaches beyond mortal comprehension. How paltry humanity's rational constructs seemed against these truths.

Why do men instinctively fear the dark? Perhaps the void's chill echoes our primal understanding - that existence itself is but a flicker against infinite, lightless eternity.

She shook the thoughts away. Better to examine the iceberg's tip than ponder its submerged bulk, she reasoned.

Was Leon, the boy whose memories she'd invaded, truly the villain she'd slain as Blackjack? If so, when had their paths diverged - childhood allies both granted powers, or separate encounters in adulthood? Were they aware of each other's gifts? Could some hidden cabal bind them?

The questions spun unanswered, yet certain truths crystallized: Moore's powers undeniably sprouted from that meteor-borne entity - likely a fragment of some Elder God. Winslow's testimony confirmed an identical creature had slithered from her childhood home. Had it clung to Moore's shadow all these decades?

Blackjack's hedonistic villainy contrasted sharply with Moore's zealous devotion. The Bureau typically tolerated rogue talents content with bourgeois comforts, intervening only to prevent disaster. But Moore's fanaticism placed her among history's most dangerous archetypes - the true believer and the reckless scholar, ever prying at locks better left sealed.

Exhausting these threads brought no revelation. The visions were relics of bygone years; practical matters demanded focus. With the Bureau aware of the entity, priority shifted to its capture. Success there would answer all.

Curiously, after this latest nightmare, her powers surged as if augmented by another crystal dose. Why? Only three had ever triggered these perspective visions: robed Hydra, Durand of the Boiling Lake, and Moore (who still breathed in custody). Blackjack and the Barnacle Hierophant's deaths left no such echoes. What hidden pattern governed this?

Their victory over Moore's monstrous form owed much to the incendiary cloak elixir obtained at the witches' market. Though impractical for covert use, this portable inferno granted exponential combat boosts. Now diminished reserves necessitated procurement plans.

Days of convalescence complete, Yvette returned to society's whirl. Her self-imposed isolation had worried companions. Now, clubmates gathered at their beloved Café Mitre amid clinking crystal and silver-domed platters.

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"To Mandrake's restored vigor!"

As attendants relayed whispered requests between diners, Yvette fielded endless toasts until Oleander intervened: "Cease this barrage! The man's just risen from sickbed!"

Wolfsbane leaned close. "I'd meant to call during your confinement - left card at Hampstead gatehouse. Sir Ulysses' man turned me away most gruffly."

"Your uncle's medical wisdom guided many through last winter's pestilence," Oleander reassured the table. "His prescription of rest proved sound, no?"

Before Yvette could respond, a commotion erupted. Across the cobbled avenue, atop the Woolsack Assurance offices, a figure swayed at the roof's edge.

"Another desperate soul?" Oleander mused. "That banker last month - remember, Mandrake? At the races? Left his watch and note upon the ledge."

Yvette's chair scraped empty as he spoke.

Short stared into the maw of London's gray-stoned gullet. The Hunt's rules were absolute - by becoming prey, his family might yet escape creditors. One step ended their suffering. But oh, Amelia's eyes shared this street's gentle silver...

As gravity beckoned, a force like storm-winds seized him.

“You’re…?” Short blinked up from the cobblestones, vision swimming, as a striking youth with long foreign locks studied him.

“Just passing through.” Yvette offered a hand.

The man’s attire told a story—tailored waistcoat, frock coat cropped at the latest fashion, trousers without a crease out of place. His walking stick, though finely carved, showed the scuffs of use.

A prosperous man, she noted, but that shabby pipe reeks of penny tobacco. Fortunes change.

When he declined to share his woes, she didn’t press. Some griefs needed silence.

“Why not ask why I…” His voice frayed.

Yvette adjusted her tricorn. “Men don’t leap off roofs for simple reasons. But traffic accidents kill more than despair—mind your step next time.”

As she left, commotion bubbled below. Reporters scrambled upward until her glare stalled them: “Give him air.”

On the roof, Short steadied himself. That boy’s velvet cloak had kindled mad hope—Perhaps wealth could salve my ruin? Foolishness. Strangers owed no miracles.

Tomorrow, he resolved, sell the machinery. Mortgage the townhouse. Start anew. Three generations’ rise—artisan to clerk to factory owner—crumbling to dust. Yet life remained.

His fingers found the keepsake knife, its hidden Stanhope lens preserving a memory: his wife’s stiff smile during the interminable portrait, infant squirming in her arms. I nearly orphaned them.

Relief, sharp as grief, pierced him.

“Three cheers for Mandragora!”

The tavern erupted as Yvette returned. Strangers sent wine, admirers begged introductions.

“Like a bloody osprey diving!” A clubman slapped her back. “Thought you’d both go over!”

He never heard me, she mused. Perks of silence.

Amid the hubbub, a card caught her eye—black-bordered, gilt-lettered.

“Death’s Gallery?” Oleander whistled. “VIP passes! They’re dissecting a mummy at dawn!”

“Fowler’s collection?” Ulysses sniffed when consulted. “Competent, if ghoulish. His ‘Veined Arm’—”

“How shrunken heads?”

His scalpel flashed. “Otter skulls. Pass.”

Yvette dangled the tickets. “Medical anomalies. A pharaoh’s kin unwrapped…”

Ulysses’ nostrils flared. “Purely as escort, mind you. Ghastly business, corpses…”