Holmes was dead.

Perhaps.

The thought wound through the cold London night like the city’s ever-present fog, thick, unrelenting, impossible to grasp. It curled over the Thames, swallowing the city in its ghostly embrace. London breathed, unaware. The world moved on, heedless of the moment about to unfold beneath its gaslit haze.

A shadow stood by the embankment, her silhouette still as stone, watching. The mist concealed her, an unknown figure on the precipice of something vast and unseen.

Then, as the light from a distant carriage flared, the veil parted just enough to reveal her face. Dame Vesper Fograven. She exhaled, slow and deliberate, gloved fingers tightening against the cold metal case at her hip. To the world, she was just another noblewoman, a fixture in grand ballrooms and whispered court intrigues. But beneath that polished veneer was something far sharper, something the world was never meant to see.

Tonight, the mask had no use.

Below her, the Thames stretched out in darkness, the murky water swallowing the feeble glimmers of gaslight. It was said that London’s secrets sank beneath this river, never to be unearthed. Vesper knew better. Secrets did not die, they shifted, they resurfaced, and tonight, she would uncover one that should have remained lost.

The world believed Sherlock Holmes was dead.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Her grip on the brass-trimmed device at her waist tightened. The delicate machine pulsed beneath her touch, its eerie blue glow flickering to life. The needle atop its dial shuddered, then swung towards his direction, with purpose.

A thrill coursed through her veins, sharp and electric. The cold air prickled against her bare skin, sending goosebumps down her arms. Her breath, deep and steady, lifted her décolletage within the confines of her corset, the tight lacing amplifying each heartbeat. Anticipation coiled within her, winding tighter with every flicker of the device’s eerie glow. He was here. Moriarty.

Holmes had planted the beacon on Moriarty during their final confrontation. In the chaos of their last fight, amidst the roar of Reichenbach’s unforgiving waters, he had done it—subtle, precise, unnoticed. And now, against all logic, that beacon pulsed. Her tracking device, lifeless for so long, had awakened, pointing toward a man who should have drowned. But he hadn’t. He was alive.

She lingered a moment longer by the Thames, adjusting the delicate brass knobs on her device, recalibrating its readings. The flickering blue glow pulsed faster, its shifting values forming a pattern, Moriarty was northward, moving. Clerkenwell.

Her heart quickened. The cold night air licked at her exposed skin, sending a slow shiver down her spine. The corset’s tight embrace against her ribs only heightened her senses, her breath rising and falling, pressing against the laced fabric as anticipation curled deep within her. She turned on her heel, setting off into the city, her boots striking sharp against the damp stone. The streets were alive with the clatter of carriages and the distant murmur of voices, but she moved through them like a shadow, her path dictated by the silent guidance of the device at her hip.

As she slipped into the warren of narrow streets that crisscrossed Clerkenwell, the air thickened with soot and damp stone, the weight of the city pressing down. Shadows loomed, shifting in the flickering glow of lanterns, but Vesper navigated them with ease. Her entire life had been one lesson after another in moving unseen.

The device thrummed again, urging her forward.

Then she saw it, the unassuming brick wall at the end of a narrow alley, ordinary to any passing glance. There was nothing remarkable about it, no sign that it concealed anything more than damp brick and mortar.

She reached into her coat and retrieved another of her creations, her brass-framed goggles, a marvel of her own design. Slipping them over her eyes, she adjusted the delicate knobs at the side, activating the hidden mechanisms within. The lenses clicked into place, filtering through spectrums unseen by the naked eye.

Through them, reality shifted. Faint traces emerged where none should be. And there, just above where her device had led her, a mark flickered into view, faint as a whisper in the stone. A crowned skull. Moriarty’s mark. The symbol of a ruler in the underworld, a king of shadows. It was etched so faintly into the stone that without her goggles, it would have remained unseen, a whisper of his presence, an unspoken warning.

Just below it, another shape materialized, a perfect circle of metal, seamlessly embedded into the wall. An iron ring, disguised so flawlessly that only her goggles had unveiled it. A lever, hidden in plain sight.

The faint glowing signature confirmed what she had suspected, only one person had passed this way. Moriarty. There were no others. No accomplices, no guards. Just him, stepping into the unknown.

Her breath shallowed. This was no ordinary passage. This was the work of a man who thrived in the margins of impossibility.

She reached out, her fingers brushing over the cold metal. The mechanism resisted at first, as if unwilling to yield its secrets to just anyone. But Vesper was not just anyone.

A sharp turn of the ring, a click of unseen gears and the wall parted.

Darkness yawned before her, the scent of damp stone curling from the unseen depths below. A stairway stretched downward, slick with moisture, its edges glistening in the dim glow of flickering brass lamps. The pipes lining the walls whispered with unseen pressure, their metal veins pulsing like a living thing.

She hesitated for only a heartbeat before stepping forward, the hidden entrance sealing behind her with a muted thunk.

The descent was slow, each footstep muffled by the oppressive air. The tunnel tightened around her, its curved brick walls pressing close, trapping the warmth of the flickering gaslight. A blue-tinged glow hummed at intervals, reflecting in the damp sheen of the steps. The deeper she went, the heavier the air became—thick with moisture, the tang of oil, and something else, something electric, thrumming just beneath her skin.Then the passage opened, revealing a cavernous space beneath the city.

Vesper’s breath caught.

A machine unlike any she had ever seen dominated the room, a behemoth of brass and iron. Gears the size of carriage wheels groaned, copper coils pulsed with unnatural energy, and in its heart…

A portal. A massive ring of raw light, embedded flat into the cavern floor like an enormous well. Its edges, lined with moving cogs and shifting levers, rotated in slow, deliberate synchronization. Strange symbols pulsed along its rim, shifting in and out of existence. The air above it shimmered, bending reality like a mirage, warping the space around it. This was no ordinary gateway—it was a tear in time itself, waiting to consume whatever dared cross its threshold.

And standing before it—Moriarty.

He did not turn, did not so much as acknowledge her presence. As if he had been expecting her all along.

The hum of the machine grew into a deafening roar, the air thick with the scent of burning ozone and hot metal. The floor trembled beneath Vesper’s boots, each pulse of energy rippling through the cavern like a beast on the verge of breaking free. Steam hissed from unseen vents, curling around Moriarty as he stood at the portal’s edge, unmoving, waiting.

The pressure built, the shifting cogs accelerating in their relentless motion. Sparks danced along the copper coils, snapping like miniature lightning against the cavern walls. The portal’s glow reached its peak, searing, blinding, alive.

Then, with the assuredness of a man who had already won, Moriarty stepped forward, vanishing into the infernal light.

Vesper surged forward, her pulse hammering in her throat. Heat licked at her skin as the portal’s energy crackled around her, a force pulling her in, irresistible and terrifying. She felt the weight of the moment—this was no calculated step, no careful move in a strategic game. This was a plunge into the unknown, the only path forward.

Her corset tightened against her rapid breaths, her body straining against the sheer force emanating from the machine. The cavern blurred around her, the edges of reality peeling away, stretching and twisting. The pressure in the air grew unbearable, a roaring tempest at the edge of reason.

Then, with one final step, she surrendered to the pull.

The portal exploded in brilliance, swallowing her whole.

The world dissolved into blue fire.