The gunshot cracked like lightning across cobblestone, fortunately it didn't catch anyone.
Elena's breath caught in her throat as the sound of the bullet, which had only just missed her pale round face left her with a mouth wide open. Johnny was already barreling into the mist after the masked shooter, gun in hand.
"stay here and keep your head down!" Lysander scouted the area to ensure there weren't any other surprises as he shot past her, coat catching the wind like a cape.
But Elena didn't stay.
Not because she wanted to disobey.
But because as the chaos swallowed them, she saw it—a second man, darting into a side alley barely wide enough for a cart to squeeze through. Nobody else saw him. No one was even looking
Yes she was scared, but she feared running away and hiding even more.
The man moved fast, clutching something beneath his coat.
Elena's instincts didn't ask for permission.
She ran.
The alley smelled of fish, soot, and something rotten beneath the brick. Her boots slipped once on damp stone, but she pushed forward, heart hammering like mad. Every step screamed don't be stupid—but something inside her screamed louder.
She had read something like this before. Or close to it. The alley. The second man. The missing thread.
He was nearly at the exit when she reached for a loose brick lying by a broken crate. Without thinking, she hurled it—not at him, but just ahead, where it clattered noisily against a stack of iron buckets.
The man froze. Looked back.
Too late.
Lysander Vale appeared like smoke and snapped the man to the wall with one smooth pivot. His forearm pressed against the man's neck, a pistol drawn in the other hand.
Johnny followed seconds later, breathing heavy but grinning, the other man cuffed and unmasked standing next to him.
"Well, look at that," Johnny wheezed, "strange girl saved the day."
Elena leaned on the wall, trying to catch her breath. Her hands were shaking.
Lysander didn't speak at first. He cuffed the man, shoved him into Johnny's grip, and turned.
Then his eyes found her.
"You're bleeding," he said flatly, pointing to her palm.
She hadn't noticed. A small scrape from the crate. Nothing major.
"I'm fine," she muttered.
He walked toward her. Slowly. Like he was angry—but not sure where to aim it.
"I said stay put."
"I saw him," she said, standing straighter. "No one else did."
"You could've gotten hurt."
"So could you," she fired back.
That silenced him. For a moment.
The alley went still. The captured men cursed in the background, but the sound faded into the thick, fogged-in quiet that seemed to gather between them.
"I knew that alley," she whispered. "Before I got here. I knew it. Like I've seen it all before."
Lysander studied her—not like a man dismissing nonsense, but like someone flipping through a mental journal, cross-referencing.
"I know you don't believe me."
"I haven't said anything yet."
Elena exhaled sharply, hugging her coat tighter. The adrenaline was fading, leaving only ache and silence.
"I'm not from here. Not just Brighton. Not just this time…."
She swallowed.
"I think I'm inside the book. Your book."
That caught him.
His eyes sharpened—not in disbelief, but in consideration.
"You think someone wrote me?"
"I read about you," she said softly. "About this place. The Order. You were fictional. A story. But then I ended up here. And things started matching. Then shifting."
He stepped closer. The lamp overhead buzzed faintly, throwing soft gold across his cheekbones, the shadow of his old scars barely visible beneath his collar.
"Is that why you fainted?" he asked.
"No," she said. "I fainted because you weren't supposed to be real. And because you looked at me weirldy."
That earned a smirk. He looked away for a second, exhaled smoke through his nose.
"I don't like the idea of being fiction," he muttered. "I've worked too hard to stay inconveniently real."
A silence passed. This one gentler.
Elena leaned back against the wall, brushing dust from her coat.
"You believe me?"
"I believe you're either mad," Lysander said, lighting another cigarette, "or you're telling the truth. And if it is the truth, well—" he shrugged—"madness will come anyway."
She chuckled softly.
He glanced sideways at her. "You really threw a brick at a guy who had a gun?"
She nodded, a smile of embarrassment and satisfaction tugging at her lips.
"That's it. Promotion. You're now officially head of our 'reckless decisions' department."
Elena smiled.
For the first time since waking up in this strange, cold world, she didn't feel lost.
She felt like maybe—just maybe—she was exactly where she was meant to be.
The man they dragged back looked more annoyed than afraid. His lip was bleeding, his coat ripped, but he sat with his arms crossed like a man waiting on a late lunch—not a cell.
"I'm not talking to anyone but your superior," he said flatly, wiping his chin with his sleeve.
"Lucky for you," Johnny muttered, "he's in a constant state of disinterest."
The holding room at the Brighton branch was dimly lit, its walls lined with iron filing cabinets, ticking clocks, and a dozen crumpled attempts at modern plumbing. Elena stood just outside the door, watching from behind the glass.
She'd been ushered out the second they arrived.
Too young. Too foreign. Too strange.
She could hear the argument.
"the young lass got wounded, what were you thinking" one officer blurted
"She shouldn't have been there in the first place," another senior officer grumbled.
"She made the arrest," someone else replied.
"She's a child."
"but she sure is sharper than most of you in this room."
That last voice, to her surprise, was Johnny's.
Lysander hadn't said much at all. But she saw him — leaned against the doorframe, pipe in hand, green eyes distant. Always observing. Always cataloging.
She hated how he made silence look so dignified.
And then, just as she turned to leave, she felt his hand gently close around her arm.
"Come with me."
"What about the interrogation" she enquired, her voice barely audible
"You'll be surprised by how persuasive those men can" he reassured her, the tone of his voice ever confident
They stepped outside into the Order's courtyard — a wide, enclosed space with ivy-covered arches and soft lanterns casting long shadows across the cobbled floor.
Elena sat down on a stone bench near one of the arches, brushing dust from her skirt. Lysander remained standing, watching the snow come down in droplets through the glass above.
She finally spoke.
"I felt like I did something that mattered today."
"You did."
"But I'm still the strange girl no one trusts."
He turned slightly, finally meeting her gaze.
"You scared them," he said. "A girl with answers and no origin tends to rattle men with soft egos."
She folded her arms. "So what now? I sit in a room and wait to be forgotten?"
He flicked ash from his pipe and exhaled.
"I think you should go to school."
Elena blinked. "What?"
"There's a new girl's institute in town. Good building. Good cover. Keeps ya outta of trouble."
"Let me guess," she said. "Proper uniform. Chapel bells. Classes on how not to throw bricks?"
Lysander cracked a smile. "Probably."
She stood up, voice sharp. "You're trying to get rid of me."
"Not in the least," he replied calmly. "I'm trying to keep you alive."
She stared at him—long and hard—searching for the crack behind the charm. And there it was, just barely: the worry behind the wit.
"You think I'm weak," she whispered.
"I think you're seventeen. And very very confused."
That quieted her.
The courtyard was still. A bell chimed somewhere far off. A bird scattered above them.
He added, gently, "You deserve a place to think. To be normal. Even if just for a moment."
Elena sat back down, hands gripping the bench's edge.
"I don't want normal."
"I didn't say you did."
She looked up at him.
"I'll go," she said finally. "But only because I think you'll miss me."
He gave her a long look.
"You're not as clever as you think."
She smiled faintly. "I'm exactly as clever as I need to be."
He turned, walking toward the door, coat sweeping behind him.
"Come, as you've probably already guessed you'll be staying at my aunt's place for the mean time, strange girl," he called back.
She didn't follow at first.
She just sat there a while longer, letting the chill soak in, watching her breath fog and fade.
But just as she stood to return—
A young officer came jogging down the hall, file in hand.
"To Detective Vale."
Lysander took the folder with one hand and flipped it open mid-stride.
He stopped.
Elena saw his brow twitch.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Told you the men could handle things" he replied with a sense of ease
He turned the folder around.
And there, stamped in red across the top, was a single name:
Adrian Blake.
She stepped back. "That's not possible."
Lysander looked at her sideways
"I had a feeling you'd say something like that".