Danica Horanská's fingers went numb by the time she finished transmitting her calculations from light projector to paper: only a well-tuned reflector could get her off the Spy Guild's hook. In theory, it had to work. In theory, it had to render the Guild's equipment and enhancements useless long enough for her to leave Bratislava and warn Ariadna. But practice warped and twisted theory. Danica had spent two days in her room devising a light reflector, knowing the risks and refusing to give up. Her father lay wasted in the kitchen, and Spy Guild agents snooped around the hive of tall apartment blocks like hungry rats, keeping their eyes on her.

Behind closed doors, Danica's thoughts wandered off to the agitated conversation between her father, Radmila and Jan. Her gaze slid down the empty white wall as she desperately tried to put the pieces of the political puzzle together: "If Radmila wants the Spy Guild to acquire its own military, she must get rid of Arta Rinari, the current head of that wretched Serpentarium. Such a feat cannot pass unnoticed by any Offcast authority. Nobody can ignore her posturing, except..." Danica swallowed her breath, "except for the Natives, who barely see us. If I can't acquire materials to finish my project from fellow Offcats, I will buy them from the Natives."

She barged into the kitchen, reached out to grab her father's old smartphone and stared at it in confusion, wondering why Dalibor owned a gadget so obsolete that it seemed eccentric. Danica browsed through the offers of an obscure electronics shop, picking every meagre scrap she could use. Weighing her options, she wondered if she could alter the conventional batteries of the Natives to pair them with a light reflector. The challenge lay in the technical inferiority of the Natives' gadgets to the Ancestors' devices. She could produce an artificial breach and jump into the future but she was not certain she could return to her Realm. Danica sighed, forcing the gearwheels of her brain to turn quicker: "I guess I can gouge the energy transmitter from dad's light projector."

Diving out of the Veil through a temporary breach, Danica coughed, her fingers dialing a number on Dalibor's phone. She replied to the seller's comments with remarkable restraint: "As soon as possible would be nice." Stifling panic, she bade her good-bye and sprang to her feet with a loud cracking sound. "Five minutes. That's all I need. I will be gone by the time they start searching the perimeter. Once finished, my light reflector will dissipate the Veil's cover and make me look like a Native. Temporary breaches are easy to produce."

Danica spotted a yellow van from the window of her apartment and hit the table in agitation. Her hand passed through the wood, refusing to obey the rules of the breached dimension. Terrified, Danica employed all her willpower to appear less ethereal outside the Veil, focusing on the muted colors that Natives considered natural. A Native who climbed out of the vehicle carried a box and a plastic bag – her order. She rushed to the front door, keys clinging in her hand. When a whooshing sound came from the staircase, Danica did not recognize it. She froze in the doorway as if slapped across the face with a wet towel. She hated that sound.

Guided by anger rather than logic, Danica flung the door open and bit her tongue. A young woman held the courier's head by his thick blond hair, pressing a long glimmer-blade to his neck. Two men flanked her from both sides. Danica could recognize the Spy Guild's agents even from the distance. Terror sneaked into her otherwise defiant expression.

"What does that mean?" She huffed in exasperation. The woman pushed the edge of the glimmer-blade closer to the courier's neck, drawing faint lines of blood that froze in time like a string of rubies. No answer followed, forcing Danica to resort to improvisation.

"He does not even see you properly. He's a Native. Let him go."

"You are not as smart as Radmila thinks," the woman said with a sneer. "Did you think you could disconnect your light-projector while you were working on that little experimental device of yours?" Her words sent shivers down Danica's spine: she suddenly realized the extent of her failure. She was unforgivably sloppy.

"I'm still smarter than you," Danica spat, meeting the horrified and confused eyes of the courier, who mumbled something. He could now discern their figures through the thick cover of the Veil, and he did not understand their nature. The woman grinned.

"You may have transmitted your project to paper, but you finished your calculations and models using our technology." She brushed her long light-brown hair away from her face. "I don't even need your sketches to know your plan."

"How convenient," Danica hissed. The woman shrugged with marked indifference. Danica barely suppressed her desire to claw out the irritating tiny buttons of the woman's eyes. Had she uttered another word, Danica would have strangled her.

"Who the hell are you?" The courier probably understood very little, but Danica knew the rules. She lunged forward to push the Native away, out of the Veil, but she wasn't fast enough. His limp body fell to the dirty floor, dying the dotted tiles in red.

Horrified, Danica darted away. A weird realization dawned somewhere in the back of her consciousness: she could never beat the Spy Guild in their own domain. She was an engineer, he had to act like one. But patience and calculation had left her consciousness with the death of the Native. What remained was unbridled anger.

Without thinking, she punched the woman in the face, grabbing light rays from the dim lamp and sending them toward her cronies. All she wanted was to make them suffer, to make them feel the pain of that Native. A braceter shot stunned her before she could gather enough light to strike. The last thing she heard before fainting was a man's voice. "We leave the girl here. Pani Chlápková hasn't said a word to Rinari about her." Then everything went blank, turning her world into a white expanse of silence.

The mattress felt hard under her tense back, and Danica stirred uncomfortably in her slumber. A knocking sound reached her ears. Soft and quiet like the susurration of a bat's wing, it almost lulled her back to sleep. A wet cloth smelling of rosehip slid from her forehead to her nose. Danica suppressed a sneeze and checked if her golden scarf still covered her neck, turning slowly toward the muffled sound.

A gaunt figure in a dark-red coat was leaning over Dalibor's chessboard, his long white fingers moving the pieces. She could not see the stranger's features behind his blindfold visor and hood, but she recognized the mysterious Offcast who saved Ariadna at the railway station. Danica crawled to the cupboard and grabbed an old vase. When she raised the object above his head, he barely lifted a finger.

"An impulsive decision," he said. Danica froze like a cursed water nymph with the vessel in her trembling hands. The stranger paid no attention to her, moving figures from both sides of the board. His thin lips parted, then twitched.

"Who the hell are you?" Danica demanded, her brown eyes wide and blazing.

"Is this the most pressing question on your mind?" There was neither warmth, nor kindness in his words, only polite interest. Danica stepped aside, staring at his half-covered face with a sharp chin. There was something alien about the man – frightening and captivating like the scent of mint and sandal that clung about him. Danica frowned.

"What else should I ask?"

"Given the circumstances, you could ask me how to avoid the Spy Guild's surveillance," he said, clutching a white knight with his fingertips and overthrowing the black king. "Instead, you chose to break a vase over my head." He swept the figures away, put them back in a woven bag and folded the chessboard.

"I guess I should have been more gallant." Danica folded her arms and leaned on the wall.

"Rational. Not gallant," he replied, ignoring her sarcasm that bordered on desperation.

Danica strongly suspected the stranger saw her the same way he regarded those plastic chess figures. She looked down, shivering: blooded tiles and the Native's wide eyes were never going to leave her memory. They were there to stay.

"The Spy Guild killed a Native," she uttered, brashness and defiance gone from her voice. "He died for nothing."

"That is an understatement." The stranger did not flinch or turn: his words were sharp, precise and utterly devoid of sentiment. "Crude methods, but effective results. You are both appalled and terrified."

"What?!" Infuriated, Danica tried to slap him. To her shock, the stranger moved so quickly that even her sight did not register his motions: he twisted her elbow, pinning her against the wall. Danica shouted.

"They killed an innocent man!"

"Innocent men die all the time. It is a shame when they die without purpose." He leaned over her so that she could feel his warm breath against her hair. "Everyone cannot be saved."

"I wonder what you'd say if you were there in his place?!" Danica's eyes burned with anger: what did that arrogant prick think of himself?

"The same thing." The stranger's calm voice made her blood freeze.

"I doubt that!"

The stranger ignored her outbursts of emotion, releasing her wrist and elbow.

"Chlápková's faction wants to increase the Guild's power, while mustering their own military forces. I can prevent them from doing so." He approached the table, clasping his hands behind his back.

"So... you want me to help you thwart the Spy Guild's military ambitions," she laughed. "You're insane, aren't you?"

Danica could almost distinguish a shadow of amusement in his controlled expression.

"Insanity is a rare extravagance which few can afford. I am not one of them." His long fingers reached out to the folded chess board again, giving Danica an opportunity to study his hands. A noticeable scar on his left wrist caught her eye. As if sensing her stare, the stranger pulled the sleeve over his wrist. Danica lowered her gaze.

"I will not join you." She shook her head. "They want to use me against Ariadna. You want to use me against them." She shrugged. "But none of this is what I want. I hate the Spy Guild. And I will get Ariadna and myself out of this mess. But I am not crazy to think I can destroy them, with you or on my own. My mother died because of them, my father became a spineless vegetable because of them. My friend almost perished because of them."

His spidery fingers tensed, brushing the edge of the table. "I don't plan on eradicating them, only on getting rid of their militarized elements."

"And you seriously think you can send your crony to beat them all to death?" Danica frowned. She felt his heavy piercing gaze on her face but could not see his eyes.

"That is one of the options. Albeit, not the most efficient." He paused, then added, "Pani Horanská, I never choose battles I cannot win."

"It's sweet of you to think you'll get to choose with them around!"

He did not answer. His calm detachment terrified her, and his voice held a captivating power that could silence crowds. Danica trembled when he spoke.

"The Spy Guild consists of information traders. Not intelligence operatives and soldiers. They are interested in using Ariadna Lascari for more than just crushing her skull."

Danica did not believe him. "What if the Council finds her guilty?" she asked.

"Variables will change. Sides will remain."

"But she'll be on the wrong side!"

"'Right' and 'wrong' depend on your viewpoint." His lips twitched for a split second before forming a straight line again.

"And what's your viewpoint?"

"I do not support Chlápková. She is reckless and unpredictable," he replied, his blank expression unreadable. "So is Rinari, the current head of the Guild. But I would have her for an ally because I understand her ambitions and her weaknesses. We all have either moral or physical limitations. Some cannot. Others would not."

"It's easy for you to say! You can escape ten light-benders without breaking a sweat."

A fierce storm of emotions raged in Danica's head when she recalled their first encounter. The stranger lowered his head, as if considering her words. Then he spoke.

"Avoiding a problem is not the same as solving a problem."

"Forgive my disbelief, but you don't strike me as someone who only cares about solving the problems of others." Danica's voice dripped venom. "You see the Spy Guild as your pawns."

"They are pawns. But they are not mine."

"Ha! Do you expect me to become one of yours?"

"I don't expect anything, pani Horanská. I simply give you an opportunity. I could have easily eliminated you, but I found it unnecessary." He paused, then added, "It is as I have said: we all have our limitations."

"Which limitation would this be - physical or moral?" Danica asked, her voice hoarse but firm. He did not answer, his expression controlled and enigmatic. He tossed a brief glance at the papers scattered around and ignored by the agents who had taken away her projector. She could not know whether he understood her calculations, but guessed that he did.

"Your talents could have a better use," he said. "And you could develop them further."

"I will," Danica said. "But not with you. If I want to beat the Spy Guild and set Ariadna free, I need to know their secrets. I will learn them without your help." She wished she possessed the confidence she was trying to project. "You are no better than they are. You are just another monster, nothing more."

The stranger turned away. He clasped his hands with such force that his knuckles turned white at the points where his fingers pressed into the flesh.

"You are not the first one to call me a monster," he said. "You probably won't be the last." He withdrew, clutching the fabrics of his dark-red coat. "I believe you can understand why a monster would keep his face in the dark."

"Because it's ugly and scarred?"

"Because it frightens," he replied. He turned back to her and bowed with perfect courtesy, the features beneath his blindfold visor tense and unreadable.

"Get out," Danica hissed angrily.

He left the room in silence. His steps were so light that Danica could barely hear them. She wondered how this lanky man managed to move with such unlikely, almost feline grace. He stopped in the doorway only briefly, pulling the sleeves of his trench coat over his thin wrists. Then he strode away.

"Danka!" Dalibor's shout startled her. "Who's there? Were you talking to someone?"

"No," she replied, barely hiding her irritation. When she turned back to the door, the stranger and any trace of him was gone. The only thing he had left behind was a slight scent of sandal and mint.