Chapter 1

I didn’t notice it at first.

People looked at me fairly often anyway. Sometimes men, sometimes women, sometimes people who simply let their gaze linger on a stranger’s face a little longer than usual. There was nothing remarkable about it. Over the years I had grown accustomed both to the attention and to the city itself—to its wet streets in the evening, the warm glow of small restaurants, the narrow façades reflected in canals and puddles, and the cyclists who seemed to materialize out of nowhere at the exact moment you decided it was safe to cross the road.

I liked it here. The city had stopped feeling foreign a long time ago. I knew where to get the best coffee, which route would take me around the evening traffic, which shop sold decent bread, and where not to go after three on a Saturday unless I wanted to spend half my life standing in a queue. I had a job, a familiar route home, favorite places, and a life that was, for the most part, comfortably settled.

That was precisely why I began noticing the strange looks. They weren’t ordinary.

Over the past few weeks, the same thing had happened several times. A complete stranger would meet my eyes—in a shop, near a car park, at a crossing—and for a moment seemed to drop out of their own life. They weren’t assessing me, smiling, or trying to strike up a conversation. They simply looked at me as though they recognized me.

At first I found it more amusing than anything else. Then it began to irritate me. That evening, for the first time, it made me uneasy.

I stayed at work much later than I had intended. By the time I closed my laptop and finally stepped outside, the idea of cooking at home had lost whatever appeal it might once have had. So, before leaving the office, I ordered dinner from one of the most popular places near the city center and stopped to pick it up on my way home. My plans for the rest of the evening were extremely simple: eat, take a shower, and go to bed, preferably without accomplishing anything else heroic.

A fine drizzle hung in the air. Under the streetlights, the wet pavement gleamed almost silver, shop windows shimmered in the dark asphalt, and the few people still outside hurried toward whatever shelter they could find. The evening was cool but not unpleasant—the kind that made the thought of getting home, closing the door, and knowing you didn’t have to go anywhere else feel especially good.

Inside, the restaurant was warm and noisy. The air smelled of hot bread, spices, and roasted garlic. A short queue had formed at the counter, and I joined the end of it, pulled out my phone, and automatically checked the time.

A man stood in front of me. I paid no attention to him until he turned around. At first I assumed he had heard something behind me, but his gaze stopped directly on my face.

He was older than I was, perhaps fifty, maybe a little more. An ordinary dark coat, short graying hair, a calm face. I was absolutely certain I had never seen him before.

He looked at me as though he were equally certain that he had.

He wasn’t studying me, and he made no attempt to hide his interest. There was something entirely different in his expression: first a flicker of disbelief, then shock, followed by such strange certainty that I straightened without meaning to.

I waited a couple of seconds.

“Excuse me. Do we know each other?”

The man said nothing.

“Have you mistaken me for someone?”

This time he blinked, as though he had only just returned to the room. Someone behind the counter called out an order number. He flinched, turned away, collected a paper bag, and stepped aside.

I watched him go and immediately became annoyed with myself. So a man had looked at me. It happened.

The queue moved forward. The girl behind the counter kept calling numbers, someone nearby laughed at a message on their phone, and a man with a small boy was trying to zip up his son’s coat while holding two bags at once. The ordinary bustle of the evening quickly reduced the whole incident to its proper proportions.

When my number was called, I collected my dinner, thanked the girl, and headed toward the exit. For some reason, I glanced back just before reaching the door.

The man was standing by the wall, still watching me.

Our eyes met immediately this time, and he slowly inclined his head. It wasn’t quite a bow and not quite a greeting—too brief for the first, too deliberate for the second.

As though he were acknowledging me.

The skin between my shoulder blades tightened unpleasantly.

I stepped outside. The rain had almost stopped, and the air smelled of wet stone, freshness, and something sweet from the bakery next door. Somewhere in the distance, a bicycle bell rang. A car passed along the road, leaving behind the soft hiss of water beneath its tires.

The car park wasn’t far. I shifted the bag into a more comfortable grip and walked faster than usual. Not because I was frightened—at least, that was what I told myself.

I knew this street well. A row of old houses with tall windows stretched along my right; on the left, the wet windows of closing shops gleamed beneath the streetlights. Everything was familiar, too familiar to let my imagination get out of hand. And yet, after a few dozen metres, I had the distinct feeling that someone was walking behind me.

I didn’t turn at once. Instead, I looked into the reflection in the nearest shop window.

The street was almost empty: a woman beneath an umbrella, a cyclist, a couple standing near the traffic lights. No one keeping pace behind me.

I kept walking, but the feeling remained.

When I reached the car, I finally stopped and spun around.

No one.

For several seconds, I stood beneath the last scattered drops of rain, feeling rather ridiculous.

“Wonderful, Alice. You picked up dinner and somehow managed to invent your own personal stalker.”

Sarcasm usually restored my common sense. This time, it only worked halfway.

I unlocked the car, put the bag on the passenger seat, and slid behind the wheel. The door closed with its familiar soft click, and I immediately felt calmer. Everything here belonged to me: my bag on the back seat, the bottle of water in the door compartment, the takeaway beside me, the familiar smell of the interior.

For a few seconds, I simply sat there listening to the occasional drops tapping against the roof. Then I looked into the rear-view mirror.

My heart gave a harder beat.

A man was standing behind the car.

The tall, dark figure was distinct enough that I turned sharply around.

The car park was empty. No man. No movement.

I looked back into the mirror.

Nothing.

“That’s it. You’re just tired.”

I exhaled and reached for the key. I wanted to go home. Eat, shower, sleep. Preferably without strangers, bows, or people appearing in mirrors.

I was about to start the engine when my gaze dropped to the reflection again. This time, I saw only myself—tired face, damp hair, eyes far too tense.

And something flashed inside them.

I froze.

A warm silver gleam appeared deep in my irises. At first it was faint enough to dismiss as the reflection of a streetlamp, but a second later thin silver threads brightened and slowly spread around my pupils.

I turned my head.

The light moved with me.

I leaned closer to the mirror.

It was inside.

Inside my eyes.

“Oh, to hell with this.”

I blinked, and the silver light vanished. My ordinary reflection remained.

For several seconds, I sat perfectly still. Then I checked the side mirror, the rear-view mirror again, the street, my own hands. Everything was normal, and for some reason that irritated me more than anything else.

The man in the restaurant might simply have mistaken me for someone. The bow might not have meant anything at all. The dark figure behind the car could have been a reflection, exhaustion, someone passing by. Even the silver light could be explained if I tried hard enough—headlights, streetlamps, overwork, God knew what else.I started the engine.

“Home. Food, shower, sleep. Tomorrow I can decide that tonight I finally worked myself into hallucinations.”

It sounded like a good plan.

Almost convincing.

I pulled out of the car park and, a few minutes later, was driving along familiar streets, making myself focus on the road. But the feeling wouldn’t leave me. It wasn’t exactly fear. It was more like the irritating certainty that something had happened that evening and I simply hadn’t managed to see it properly yet.

As though, for a few minutes, the city I knew had shown me another side of itself—and then hidden it again.

And somewhere behind me, among the reflections in wet shop windows and darkened glass, someone already knew something about me that I did not yet know myself.