"The second thread."
Raphael turned it over. The system entry had described Vigo’s arrangent with Evelyn as fulfilling her deepest wishes in her place. That phrase carried real weight.
Charva, a witch of unknown power and unknown current whereabouts, was almost certainly one of those wishes.
"The hair clip."
In the mory he’d just watched, Evelyn had quietly taken Sasha’s clip and hidden it. But in all the ti he’d known her, Black Gloves, Red Gloves, all of it, she’d never worn it. Not once.
Evelyn is a very nostalgic person.
He knew that better than most. The absence didn’t fit, unless she’d lost it before she lost the mories.
The most likely mont: the Red Monastery Incident. Age fourteen. Whatever that had been.
Crack.
The scene broke apart again, and while it rebuilt itself, his thoughts kept moving.
"Why would Evelyn let Vigo fulfill her wishes instead of doing it herself?
Given everything she went through, she should want to handle it personally. Unless..."
A strange possibility surfaced.
"Vigo is stronger. At least more ruthless. But she’s supposed to be a reflection, how does a mirror image diverge from the original in actual capability?"
One word ca to him.
"Cardinal Sin."
It was the only explanation that fit. Eva’s account of Vigo had been specific, openly flirtatious, tactile, operating on emotion and impulse, sharply different from Evelyn’s asured warmth.
And Evelyn’s sin was ’Luxuria’.
The description she’d given herself: emotional experience over material satisfaction, desire expressed or suppressed.
"The closer to the sin, the stronger the witch?"
It was a hypothesis, not a fact. But it was consistent with everything he had.
The theological definition of Luxuria, from what he’d read in church texts, wasn’t the crude version.
It described an intense emotional fixation on particular individuals, attachnt carried to the point of obsession, the physical dinsion inseparable from the emotional.
That fit Vigo’s behavior. The way she’d refused to harm Eva, refused to carry out the original plan even when it would have made everything easier.
She didn’t want to break sothing she found interesting.
The scene finished assembling.
---
A day later, by the look of it.
Charva stood while Golana signed the parchnt, the contract shimring faintly as the ink dried, the binding taking hold. The witch folded it away with visible satisfaction.
"Wait."
She reached into the air in front of her and drew her hand sideways.
The space tore, not violently, just parted, the way a curtain parts, the space between here and sowhere else briefly visible in the gap.
She pressed both hands to the edges and widened it until it was large enough to walk through.
She stepped in. Vanished.
A short pause.
She ca back through carrying a large burlap sack, which she dropped on the floor without particular care.
The knot at the top had co loose, and white bread rolled out across the grey concrete, soft and warm, the sll of it filling the room imdiately.
"Goddess..."
Maria swallowed hard, her body responding before her mind caught up. She bent down and began gathering the loaves carefully, dusting each one off, pressing them back into the sack.
Two hundred, roughly, by a quick estimate. Enough for real als over a aningful stretch of ti.
The joy ca first, reflexive and animal.
Then the grief ca after it, and it was heavier.
These loaves existed because Sasha had.
Golana stood looking at them for a long ti, swallowing repeatedly, holding herself still. Then she put her hand on Maria’s shoulder and they turned to face Charva together and bowed.
"Thank you."
Charva lifted her chin and smiled coldly.
"Don’t thank . This is what you traded for. Rember what it cost. And if the opportunity presents itself again." She let the sentence end on its own. "Don’t forget ."
Neither woman responded to that.
They watched her step back through the door. It closed behind her.
The room exhaled.
Maria went to gather the other children. Golana reached into the sack and took out a single loaf, warm and giving under her fingers, and handed it to Evelyn.
"Eat, child. You’ve witnessed too much for soone your age. Your emotions..." She stopped. Shook her head. "Just eat."
Evelyn took the bread and bit into it. The softness of it, the wheat, the warmth, things her body rembered even when nothing else did.
She felt none of it. The capacity was gone.
Golana went very quiet.
That day, the children ate with the single-minded intensity of people whose bodies had been waiting a long ti for this. The adults ate slowly, making it last, hoping it would last.
---
One month later. The calendar on the wall had turned a page.
Maria was pacing. Golana sat motionless before the Goddess’s statue. Evelyn held Sasha’s hair clip and stared at nothing.
"The cold is getting worse. We can’t afford winter clothing for the children. Just buying food at these prices takes everything we have. They won’t starve now, but they’ll freeze. The building doesn’t keep the wind out."
On the table beside Golana, the stack of parchnt contracts had grown. Four more. Each one representing a transaction. Each transaction representing a child who hadn’t survived to see the bread arrive.
"Warm padded clothing for twenty-six children. We can’t afford it."
Golana’s lips moved. Her voice ca out rough.
"There is one other option. Charva noticed our situation when she was last here. She gave a contact. A baron. Generous, she said, willing to pay well."
She paused. "He wants a special al prepared. If we provide it, he’ll pay enough to cover everything we need."
Maria stopped pacing.
"A special al. We have nothing to cook with. What are we supposed to season it with, mud from outside?"
"He said he preferred things simple. Natural. The ingredient only needs to be roasted over a fire. Nothing complicated." Golana’s voice dropped to almost nothing.
"As for the ingredient. We have it. We are the only ones who have it."
Maria’s expression went still.
"What are you saying? We’ve stripped every piece of edible vegetation for kiloters. What ingredient could we possibly..."
The thought arrived and her legs went out from under her. She caught the Goddess’s statue on the way down and held on, sliding to the floor.
"You’re insane. You’re completely insane. You can’t be suggesting...?"
Golana didn’t look up. She kept her eyes on the floor.
Maria sat against the statue’s base and pressed both hands over her face. The tears ca through the gaps in her fingers.
"Goddess. Please. Help us. Soone...please help us!"
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