The city was drowning.
Not in fire.
Not in blood.
Not even in bodies anymore.
It was drowning in fear.
The streets emptied after sunset now.
Markets closed early.
Shutters slammed shut without a word.
Even the rats grew bold, scurrying down alleys abandoned by men who once believed they ruled their little corners of the world.
Carmen watched it all unfold from the rooftop.
She stood barefoot on the cold stone, her coat fluttering around her calves, her hair pinned in loose, careless knots — as if she had all the time in the world and none of it mattered.
And it didn't.
Not really.
Because fear was only the beginning.
The true masterpiece had not even started yet.
Julian joined her after a while, his boots silent against the rooftop, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat.
His hair had grown too long, falling into his eyes when he tilted his head, making him look almost boyish.
Dangerous.
Charming.
Forgettable — in the same way poison forgets to warn you before it kills.
They stood there without speaking, letting the city exhale its last fragile hopes beneath them.
Finally, Carmen spoke.
"We need a new voice."
Julian smiled around the cigarette hanging from his lips.
"I already found one."
Her name was Lottie.
Seventeen.
Smart.
Pretty.
Bitter.
A girl who had learned too early that love was just a handful of broken promises, and survival meant smiling with blood still between your teeth.
She had a soft face — the kind strangers wanted to trust — framed by a halo of unruly curls that never quite behaved.
But her eyes were wrong.
Too sharp.
Too knowing.
The kind of eyes that noticed what should have stayed unseen.
The kind that didn't forget.
She sold newspapers down by the docks, shouting headlines about deaths she did not grieve, bodies she had not buried, crimes she secretly admired.
Carmen watched her for three days.
Julian only needed two.
By the third night, they agreed.
She was perfect.
The first contact was casual.
Carmen bought a paper.
Lottie smiled — wide, bright, cheeks dimpling.
Carmen didn't smile back.
She simply held Lottie's gaze a second too long.
Long enough for the hook to set deep.
Long enough for the curiosity to bloom in Lottie's chest like a bruise.
The second contact was a little louder.
Julian passed by in the market's dust and noise, slipping a silver coin into Lottie's palm and whispering something low and wicked against her ear.
Lottie blushed.
But she didn't let go of the coin.
She didn't look back.
She didn't run.
She already knew, somewhere deep in the marrow of her cracked little bones, that her life had already changed.
And she wanted it.
She craved it.
That night, Lottie followed the trail they left for her.
A crumpled newspaper in the alley.
A silver ribbon tied around a lamp post.
A trail of breadcrumbs that only a certain kind of hunger could recognize.
She found the door propped open by a single stone.
She pushed it open.
Stepped into the dark.
And found them waiting — Carmen and Julian — seated like gods in a chapel no prayer could reach.
Carmen tilted her head, studying Lottie like a sculptor surveying raw marble.
"Are you ready?" she asked, her voice soft, dangerous.
Lottie swallowed.
"Ready for what?"
Julian smiled — all teeth, no kindness.
"To matter."
Lottie didn't hesitate.
Not even for breath.
"Yes."
Carmen smiled then — slow, certain — the kind of smile that promised nothing but endings.
"Good."
She tossed Lottie a knife, easy and casual.
Lottie caught it without flinching.
And the spiral turned tighter.
Hargreave felt the shift immediately.
Not a name.
Not a face.
Just the sense of something new moving through the city, something fresh and feral stepping into the space Callum had burned out.
He sat before the red-threaded map of London, feeling it breathe beneath his hands like a wounded beast.
He wasn't chasing ghosts anymore.
He was chasing something alive.
Something that smiled when you bled.
And for the first time in months, Hargreave understood just how badly he had already lost.
Later, Carmen returned to the rooftop.
Lottie lay asleep inside, curled around her new knife like a child clutching a favorite toy.
The city howled beneath them.
Julian handed Carmen a cigarette, the fire flaring briefly between their fingers.
"They always think they're different," Julian said, exhaling a slow curl of smoke into the black sky.
Carmen nodded.
"And they always die the same."
Julian smiled, sharp and lazy.
Carmen didn't.
Because this wasn't a game.
This was gravity.
This was inevitability.
And inevitability did not need to laugh to be cruel.
It simply existed.
And soon —sooner than anyone realized
even the city itself would understand that it was already too late.
Already lost.
Already hollow.
Already kneeling to the spiral it never even saw coming.