"The New World…" Yvette mused, her imagination colored by the gold-rush tales currently popular in Albion. Though fascinated, a niggling doubt surfaced. History texts painted the American Revolution as a righteous uprising - oppressed colonists driven to arms, triumphing over tyrannical British rule through their Declaration's damning indictments. Yet now, as a subject of the former colonizing power, would her presence there provoke resentment? The papers suggested Albion's populace viewed their Atlantic cousins with equal disdain.

"Sir," she ventured, "do you think the Americans resent us?"

Ulysses raised an eyebrow. "What gives you that impression?"

"Well... They did throw out our government rather forcefully."

The aging spymaster chuckled. "Politics and personal feelings make poor bedfellows. Parliament's investment portfolios include half the tobacco plantations in Virginia. Even General Gage - our former commander in the colonies - prioritized protecting his shares over pressing military advantage. He was cashiered for reluctance to burn profitable assets. To the upper crusts on both sides, independence was merely a change of fiscal paperwork."

This glimpse behind the patriotic curtain left Yvette reeling. The Revolution as boardroom maneuver rather than heroic struggle?

Having concluded their day's work amidst such discussions, Yvette remembered Lady Alison's morning correspondence. "Sir, the Marquess of Montague invites me to a private opera at Queen's Theater. There being no conflicting engagements..."

"Dress specifications?" Ulysses interrupted with bureaucratic briskness.

"Period costume and masks." She glanced at the Florentine-embossed invitation. In London's foggy streets, such garments might raise eyebrows, but the tradition harked back to Venice's dagger-and-intrigue nights when masks meant survival as much as fashion.

Ulysses' monocle gleamed. "Capital! You'll find that guest list most... illuminating."

As they prepared to depart, Yvette bundled newspapers into neat stacks. The uppermost issue displayed their earlier topic - colliery excavations revealing ancient amber-trapped insects and spiral-shelled fossils. The image resurrected memories of her ascension visions...

Who could comprehend that everything crawling, flying, or blooming traced back to those first lightning-struck amino acids in Earth's primordial stew? Life's great experiment, where success meant survival and failure became limestone strata. The newspaper's philosophical snippet resonated:

【All creatures bear primordial slime upon their backs, hauling birth's chrysalis to death's threshold.

From common abyss we spring, yet each claws toward separate suns.】

Even ammonites, she mused - those spiral architects of Paleozoic seas - were but nautilus cousins who chose evolutionary dead ends. Extinction the price for specialization.

The Kin presented darker implications. Office theorists called them "higher echoes" - cosmic entities requiring blood prices to manifest. Ulysses argued they simply differed, not transcended. But why then their malignant interest in humanity? Neither hypothesis explained their dark symbiosis with Earth...

That night's dream began familiarly - the vast vertical pupil, sunset-gold and pitiless. Down its light-shaft she fell into stygian void.

Primordial lightning cleaved chaos. Again she stood upon infant Earth - skies poison, oceans roiling, thunder without end.

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But no evolutionary parade followed. Only endless lightning strikes illuminating the abiotic world. During her previous ascension's vision, she'd comprehended ascension paths: Serpent's Coil and Flaming Blade described the soul'szigzag climb up Creation's Tree. But lightning? Lightning fell top-down!

As epiphany struck, the thunder stilled.

She floated through cosmic dark until a violet comet materialized - frozen womb of living nightmares. Its shedding ice left bioluminescent trails, like some celestial moth scattering spore-dust. When Earth intersected this stellar spoor...

Yvette awoke gasping.

The revelation burned - Kin sought inverted ascension. While humans climbed from material Malkuth toward spiritual Keter, these beings descended from cosmic heights to plumb physicality's secrets. Hence their endless probing, their harvesting of fleshly knowledge...

The comet itself - Aurora's "Star-Daughter"? Majestic yet diminished compared to her patron deity. Like viewing a candle beside erupting volcano. The Sleeping Creator bore countless serpentine names - Apophis, Leviathan, Jörmungandr - yet remained aloof, only stirring when other celestial vermin required culling.

Here lay the rub - her capricious deity seemed content playing cosmic cat to others' mice. While other gods schemed, this primordial force simply... enjoyed the hunt.

Poor Thomas Gage's predicament suddenly seemed universal - all existence caught between hostilities they scarcely comprehended.

On the designated evening, Yvette donned her invitation-mandated attire and rode to Queen’s Theatre.

For Albion’s elite, nighttime marked the start of refined amusements—ballet, opera, and theater mirrored their upside-down. The street overflowed with noble carriages, their house crests winking under gaslight.

Yet...

Peering through the carriage window, Yvette frowned. Most emblems were strangers to her. Odd, given Albion’s five-tier aristocracy totaled mere hundreds. Even unfamiliar nobles should’ve had recognizable symbols.

The reclusive Vampire Prince—Marquis de Montague—rarely socialized. Combined with Ulysses’ hint about meeting "unusual company," Yvette guessed these guests belonged to the night.

Alighting, she witnessed an overdressed merchant arguing with an usher:

"Apologies, sir. Invitation only."

The man bristled. "You think I can’t afford this?" His glare darted between opulent arrivals—he yearned to rub elbows with power.

Yvette flashed her gilt-edged card and glided past his envy.

Inside, prickling unease gripped her. Masked figures swirled through the lobby like phantoms. Were they staring? She feigned interest in a frescoed ceiling.

Unheard whispers swarmed:

"Mortal intruder..."

"Virgin’s aroma—unclaimed?"

"Careful! Witch-hunters prowl London’s fog."

A masked Randall materialized, scattering shadows with a glance. He led her to a private balcony.

"Prince’s protégé claimed the human," murmured the crowd. "Why invite prey to predator’s den?"

In the velvet-draped box, Yvette pushed her masquerade mask up. "How’d you spot me so quickly?"

"Your scent blazes here," Randall said. "Like roses in a crypt."

So everyone here was... She momentarily forgot her hidden UV device. Suddenly, this theater felt colder.

"None shall harm the Prince’s guest," Randall assured, summoning wine and opera glasses with a silver bell’s chime.

Yvette hesitated. "What opera is this?"

"Agamemnon’s dilemma: sacrifice a daughter to Artemis for war winds, or doom his troops."

Ah—the myth where Artemis swaps Iphigenia for a doe. Was Montague staging coded pleas for his progeny’s case?

Vampires now occupied half the seats—impressive numbers for immortal recluses. The overture swelled.

Greek choruses sang as stage pirates enacted family treason: Agamemnon’s ambition, Clytemnestra’s revenge, Orestes’ matricide. Superb vocals, masterful orchestration—but every performer moved like marionettes. Compelled thralls? Yvette shivered.

Amidst divine wrath plot twists, Prince Montague himself prowled center stage—Agamemnon incarnate. His voice rolled like thunder:

"Must I drench altars with my child’s lifeblood? How else save the fleet?"

Enter Aurora: pale, flower-crowned, trance-stepping toward doom. Yvette’s nails dug into velvet armrests. Publicly parading his fugitive daughter?

Ritual crescendoed. Aurora lay on the altar, bound for Artemis’ mercy/butchery. Blade flashed—smoke erupted. A deer’s head thunked down.

Yet vampires gasped. Some recoiled; others trembled.

Sudden silence. The Prince stepped forth:

"Kin! We harbor a viper: my child Aurora—defiler of blood, breaker of laws. She dies tonight. Let her ashes warn all—the Masquerade stands inviolate!"

Flames engulfed the animal corpse. Not stagecraft—vampiric Final Death.

Yvette froze. That "doe" had been Aurora.

This wasn’t opera—it was execution theater.