Since childhood, Bolton had been gifted with a robust physique and strength befitting his appearance. Whether in fights or arm-wrestling for money, he had never lost. Because of his wrist strength and generosity, he was seen as a grassroots leader among the lower classes who admired physical power.

  But now he was staring in disbelief at a dagger dancing up and down between a pair of pale, delicate hands as smooth as cream cheese.

  This very knife had just been in his own grip moments ago, yet somehow, with a lightning-fast move, his opponent had seized it. He felt an irresistible force pulling at him, and the knife was effortlessly snatched away. Only the burning friction on his palm reminded him that the sensation of wrestling a dragon was all too real, not some illusion born of distraction or a sudden ambush.

  What was even more despairing was that he had been gripping the cloth-wrapped hilt for better traction, while his opponent had taken hold of the smooth, dangerous blade and overpowered him with sheer strength. It would have taken at least ten times his own force to accomplish that.

  Yvette found the robber’s reasoning quite amusing. Glancing at the glimpse of a crucifix around his neck, she remarked, "The Seventh Commandment of the Trinity’s faith—‘Thou shalt not steal.’ I thought it included robbery, extortion, fraud, and the like. Perhaps that was merely my misunderstanding?"

  Bolton caught the mocking undertone in her words. He was a devout believer himself, always generous with donations when neighbors or fellow workers were in need, earning everyone's admiration. Otherwise, he couldn't have established his authority as a workers' leader. He couldn’t tolerate his faith being questioned by what might be a Catholic heretic Frenchman, so he glared back defiantly. "The true thieves are the rich! You lot use legal means to rob the poor of their hard-earned fruits. I’m just taking back what was unjustly taken—even the Holy Spirit would see my actions as just!"

  "I thought at least you’d show some remorse," Yvette sighed. The man was stubborn, still justifying his crime despite knowing he was no match for her.

  "Why should I regret?! I’ve got a healthy body—sitting idle and starving would make me a disgraceful coward! Wait and see—we’ll take back what’s rightfully ours by any means necessary!"

  Seemed like a repeat offender with misguided values. Letting someone like him roam freely might pose a danger...

  But Yvette was more accustomed to later-era laws. Attempted armed robbery wouldn’t have warranted execution in her time. Yet here, if reported truthfully, this man would surely hang. And given how factory owners were indeed skilled at squeezing every drop from workers, he wasn’t entirely wrong. So, she took a middle path.

  "Alright, Robin Hood born in the wrong era, you’ll have to come with me now and explain to the constable why you tried pickpocketing this handkerchief from my pocket." Yvette waved her white embroidered handkerchief. "Don’t worry—it’s not worth forty shillings, so you won’t hang. But cooperate nicely unless you’d like to be chased through the streets like a chicken in front of everyone."

  Bolton couldn’t bear that humiliation. Being seen running from a dandy half his size—and a detestable Frenchman at that—would be worse than a death sentence. Even if losing the fight was an undeniable fact.

  Grumbling, he turned and stomped off toward the street, with Yvette strolling casually behind him.

  Before they could find a constable, however, he bumped into another familiar face.

  "Mr. Ke... Keegan?"

  "Finally found you, Bolton. You’ve been all over since your release—never staying in one place. Never mind. Head to Doulton’s Pottery now—something serious might happen there. You’re needed to calm things down!" Keegan said urgently, spotting the burly Bolton but overlooking Yvette behind him.

  "But... right now I—"

  "Mr. Keegan?" Yvette was equally surprised to encounter the organization’s supernatural, the poverty-vowed Irish spirit shaman and Oak Sage, Keegan. Since he took her to last year’s forest coven gathering, they hadn’t met in a long time.

  But Keegan seemed to know this robber—and well, at that.

  "Mr. Keegan, I’ve got some urgent business... Take my crucifix. They’ll recognize it as mine—they’ll listen to whatever you say." Bolton gritted his teeth.

  "What could be more important than this?" Keegan frowned, finally noticing Yvette beside Bolton. "Is Mr. Fisher involved? My apologies—I know this is sudden, but could you lend me Bolton for now? If this inconveniences you, I’ll—"

  "Mr. Keegan!" Bolton cut him off. "Don’t bow to these stinking aristocrats on my behalf. I answer for my own actions!"

  "...What exactly happened?" Keegan was lost.

  "I... Since my release, jobs have been even harder to find... So... I thought I’d get some money off him..." Bolton trailed off. Compared to the robbery, being subdued by a boy who looked as frail as a bean sprout was more humiliating.

  But Keegan could piece together the rest. Ordinary folks stood little chance against a combat-trained supernatural. He swore in Irish. "Damn it—why didn’t you ask me if you needed money?! This is crime!"

  "Mr. Keegan, tolerating the rich extorting unjust wealth from the poor hardly aligns with the Holy Spirit’s will... We’ve already taken too much from you—you barely keep more than a day’s meals for yourself. We can’t keep asking—"

  Keegan answered with another curse.

  After venting, he turned to Yvette. "Mr. Fisher, I apologize on his behalf. Could you allow him a few days before turning himself in? Once this is settled, I’ll personally ensure he faces the law."

  "Of course. Is something serious happening? Need help?"

  "...It’s not as grave as you imagine, nor work-related. They’re planning a strike over wage hikes and overtime pay. With a rush order underway, factory owners fear breach penalties—so the plan has merit. But we’ve heard they’ve got wind of it from an inside informant and hired replacements. Last time, a strike turned deadly when ‘scabs’ were beaten—hated as traitors like Judas. Bolton, as a former leader, can convince replacements to step back and prevent bloodshed."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Yvette shrugged. "Well, no real harm done. If he’s needed elsewhere, so be it. And as a leader, you ought to set a better example. Just this once—no repeats."

  Being lectured by someone he despised left Bolton silently fuming—but after losing the fight and being let off, he had no leg to stand on.

  At least she left promptly, sparing him prolonged embarrassment.

  "Thankfully it was Fisher... Never again! The Christmas donations just went out last month—what urgent expense could you have?!"

  The cherry incident had felt like a rich man’s careless slight—adding insult to injury. But Bolton only muttered, "...Weird... shouldn't be possible..."

  Still hung up on losing to Yvette in strength.

  "What?"

  "Nothing... Just odd you’re chummy with a stinking noble... and a Frenchman..."

  "Fisher donates often to the mutual aid society. The bread your wife and kids ate while you were jailed? Partly from him. Show gratitude, Bolton."

  Bolton froze. "...No one mentioned a donor like that."

  "He doesn’t use his real name, and he dresses plainly to hand out food and coal himself. Ask Jaden—the supplies clerk—about a pretty, strong, sharp-witted flaxen-haired boy who ‘looks like a girl.’ He’ll know. But keep it quiet—mingling with the lower class could ruin his reputation in his own circles."

  "Oh... oh..." Bolton mumbled.

  That night, Yvette abandoned her coffee-making ritual. Around nine o'clock, exhaustion slammed into her like an invisible mallet, and she tumbled helplessly into sleep's embrace.

  Falling asleep felt like drifting downward through water—or perhaps like releasing a rowboat from its tether, letting it bob toward the lake's heart on murmuring currents.

  All human reason and logic depends on wakefulness. When we enter dreaming's depths, the orderly systems built upon consciousness collapse like sandcastles at high tide.

  As Ulysses once wrote: "Each man lives in a world largely of his own making." Our senses refract reality differently for every mind—just as colorblind eyes perceive hues unlike normal vision.

  Now sleep severed even this tenuous connection to external reality. She sank slowly into herself, crossing some invisible boundary where the world above belonged to wakefulness, while below lay only pure being. For now, sleep erased the division between them.

  Dreams guided her to the very edges of perceptible existence, where she glimpsed the realm of formless beings. "Exploration" seems the wrong word—this felt more like homecoming, returning to a world beyond worlds that welcomed her with open arms. Here, illusion's chaotic brushstrokes painted across reality's canvas, revealing the twin truths of existence and void.

  All her fractured selves became one. In waking life, willpower meant constant compromise—desires ignored, impulses checked, small decisions unmade. Each suppressed whim marked the death of some potential self. But now no internal conflicts remained. Thought and action aligned perfectly—she couldn't even distinguish between body and spirit.

  Her eyes opened upon a hedge maze, its pathways paved with mosaics of colored stone. The babble of a hidden spring carried through the crisp air.

  Where am I? How did I get here?

  Behind her, the towering hedges bore a jagged opening just her size. Outside, the world lay shrouded in gloomy twilight, while inside the maze basked in golden afternoon light.

  She ventured deeper.

  The labyrinth unfurled endlessly, its winding corridors punctuated by stone benches, bubbling fountains, and flower beds bursting with blossoms. Every so often she'd find tattered scraps of paper—beneath benches, nestled in flower stems, caught in thorns—like discarded party favors after some great feast.

  She gathered them without questioning why—some primal certainty told her this was right. Piecing fragments together revealed an unusual account of Judas's betrayal: the traitor was actually Christ's most beloved disciple, chosen precisely for this sacred trust before being escorted to heaven's luminous shores.

  The manuscript's margins held a damaged poem:

  [In ■■■ I gathered living souls

  And spoke with lips of living flame

  The dead came running, crying:

  "■■■, pity us!

  Oh show us mercy,

  Break these chains of endless night,

  Unbar the gates unto your light!

  We see death cannot claim you—

  Save us, ■■■!"

  I heard their voices

  And cradled each soul inside my heart

  Placed my name upon their brows

  Now my freedmen they remain...]

  The words spilled from her lips effortlessly—her mind somehow filling gaps the original author never knew. What mattered wasn't the text's imperfections, but the true name she spoke—inexpressible in human tongue. As the last syllable faded, the aftertaste of something rich and metallic flooded her mouth.

  ......

  "That dream..." Sunlight painted her sheets gold as Yvette pushed back the down quilt, last night's visions lingering like perfume.

  She felt it—a doorway had opened to the next sacred sphere.

  "My gums didn't bleed, did they?" That coppery sweetness still haunted her mouth, but the bedside mirror showed no trace of blood.

  The hedge maze remained vivid—the strange gospel fragment, that haunting poem. Oddly, the missing text hadn't hindered her recitation, though now she couldn't recall the exact sounds she'd made. They'd felt sacred yet alien, like no earthly language.

  At her writing desk, she began documenting the dream—a habit she'd adopted like any proper Victorian diarist, though her journal focused solely on supernatural matters.

  Her organization encouraged such records. For beings like them, journals served as medical charts—if one grew unstable or worse, investigators might find answers in those pages.

  But Yvette wrote only for herself. Her path was unique; she must decode her dreams' symbols herself, using them like breadcrumbs to avoid missteps.

  Her pen dripped ink across the page—her hand was shaking badly. She blotted the stain, uneasy.

  Had she overdone the coffee? Or... was she afraid of that poem? Did it conceal some hidden terror?

  Uneasy but resolute, she finished recording the dream, dressed, and went down to breakfast.

  Among the morning papers beside her plate, a small article noted the Doyle Ceramics strike's peaceful resolution. The begrudging tone revealed much: workers had forced management to pay overtime wages. Despite the writer's sneering portrayal of laborers as greedy mobs and the owner as a martyred saint, these were just sour grapes from capital's apologists.

  Clearly Keegan's intervention (bringing Bolton to negotiate) had succeeded. Left alone, the factory would have replaced strikers with desperate unemployed men, shattering worker solidarity. Violence might have followed—perfect fodder for newspapers to paint union men as criminals and scare other laborers into submission.

  How had Bolton convinced starving men to refuse those jobs? That took extraordinary leadership—the kind rarely found when bosses could buy off most agitators. No wonder workers kept losing...

  Then she remembered the queen's offer.

  Margaret IV wanted Yvette as a royal confidant—part of her growing power base. The ambitious young monarch chafed at being Parliament's figurehead. Her mad father's long reign had atrophied royal authority; even her grandfather's powers were now lost to time.

  The House of Lords was an incestuous nest of aristocratic families, while Commons' "elected" members were mostly landlords' puppets. Sure, industrialists sometimes rebelled—but when nobles cracked the whip, these capitalists remembered who controlled their tenant voters.

  Neither faction could help Margaret reclaim power. A clever foreigner like Yvette made a far better ally. The queen was cultivating several such promising talents—most had sworn fealty already, while Yvette remained noncommittal.

  Margaret knew "Mr. Fisher" was supernatural—perhaps unwilling to meddle in mortal politics. Too proud to beg, she'd simply provided a heraldry official's name. Should Yvette choose, she could register arms—joining the Order of the Garter while aiding Margaret's rise.

  Now, reconsidering, Yvette found herself leaning toward acceptance...

  Over breakfast, her thoughts raced like carriage wheels on cobblestones.