She was still shaken from her trip across the Danube to the island. Zorya had not crossed water since her vision of the dead girl by the lake, although there was no logic to her reluctance. After all, not every journey over a river or stream involved a movement between worlds: that choice was one for Zorya to make, and previously she had always been the observer, never the observed. But the girl’s awareness of her presence had deeply unsettled her, as well as complicating her relationship with Spiridon Vuksan. Zorya could be of benefit to him only if she could see what he could not, and to do that she needed to be able to explore without impediment.

She had decided to visit the island in order to clear her head, because the city, in all its grandeur, was oppressing her. Back in the Netherlands, she had regularly ventured outside Amsterdam to find relief from concrete and crowds – sometimes alone, at other times with Spiridon or one of his men, if only to avoid attention from those who might be curious as to why one who appeared, at first glance, to be a child was traveling without adult supervision. In Vienna, she had found her movements more restricted because the Vuksans were supposed to be in hiding. After the incident with the Turk Hasanović, the necessity for concealment was greater still, even for Zorya. Yet she could not remain indoors for long. It was too much like another death, too much like the cave.

So she had taken the U-Bahn from Leopoldstadt to Danube Island almost without thinking, keeping her head down while the train left the station, the hood on her sweatshirt raised and a magazine open but unread on her lap. As the train approached the Reichsbrücke for the short journey across the river to the island, she had experienced a tightening in her belly and a pressure on her skull. The lights in the carriage flickered as the train reached the bridge, and the commuters and tourists around her grew faint before melting away entirely. In their place was the dead girl from the lakeside. She was staring at the floor, her hair hanging loosely over her face. Dark fluid dripped from beneath the blond strands and pooled at her feet. It took Zorya a moment to realize it was blood. The dead girl raised her head, and Zorya glimpsed the empty sockets of her eyes, and the flesh and tendons of a face scoured of skin.

The dead girl spoke, her voice transformed by the journey from her world to this one.

found you, she said. found you at last