The second spark wasn't a spark.
It was a birth.
From the heart of the sleeping port, a new sun bloomed—a violent, obscene flower of orange and gold that tore the darkness apart. The explosion rolled through the city with a deep, guttural whoomp, more felt than heard. Windows rattled. Chimneys shuddered. The ground itself seemed to flinch.
For one breathless moment, St. Petersburg stood bathed in flickering helllight. A clerk, jolted awake in his tenement, stared through his window in disbelief. The northern docks—once a silhouette of cranes and rooftops—had become a volcano. Black smoke billowed upward, clawing at the pale dawn. Panic followed. Church bells screamed. Dogs barked. The second head of Koba's monster had risen, and it breathed fire.
At the Admiralty, Stolypin was bent over a map when the next report arrived.
An aide burst in, pale and shaking. "Prime Minister! The fuel depot—it's burning! The whole northern quarter's alight! The fire's spreading to the timber yards!"
Stolypin crossed to the window. The distant glow painted the horizon red. For an instant, even he couldn't move. Then, grim understanding dawned.
"He's not attacking us," Stolypin murmured. "He's paralyzing us."
His aides blinked. "Sir?"
"It's him—the Ghost." Stolypin's tone hardened. "Two simultaneous crises. The riot demands soldiers. The fire demands brigades. He's splitting our response, dividing command. He's turning the city against itself."
He paced, mind racing through every option. Ignore the fire, and the port burns. Ignore the riot, and he looks weak. Either path was a defeat.
"Send every brigade to the docks," he ordered sharply. "Full priority. Clear the streets. But the cordon at Warehouse Three stays. Not one soldier moves."
The machine of the state was groaning, stretched to breaking. And Koba was still tightening the screws.
Then came the third message—this one from a frantic telegraph operator.
An explosion on the Tsar Nicholas Railway Bridge. Minimal damage, but the rails were gone. No trains. No reinforcements. The port was cut off—an island of fire.
In the teahouse, Koba received the update without a flicker. The three strikes were complete. The city's order had collapsed into perfect chaos. The map before him wasn't a plan anymore—it was history.
Then a runner appeared. Young, breathless, eyes wide. He handed Koba a sealed note.
The answer to a message Koba had sent days ago—a single question about a single person.
Koba broke the seal.
His eyes moved across the words.
And the world shifted.
Kiev police raid anarchist cell at university. Bomb plot foiled by anonymous tip. Syndicate in disarray. Hunting a traitor. Asset "Nightingale" vanished. Location unknown.
For a heartbeat, everything—the fire, the war, the noise—faded.
Relief hit first, sharp and dizzying. Kato was alive. She hadn't delivered the bomb. She had stopped it. She had beaten them—Grigory, the syndicate, the police. He felt pride so fierce it almost hurt. She wasn't a victim. She was a survivor.
Then came the fear.
The syndicate was shattered, but not dead. They'd hunt her now, not as a courier but as a traitor. The Okhrana would hunt her too.
She was alone. Cornered.
His plan—to buy her freedom with stolen rifles—was worthless now. There was nothing to buy. He had to find her first. Before Grigory's men. Before the state.
He had to reach Kiev. And he had to do it now.
In a hayloft on the edge of Kiev, Kato lay hidden in the dark, pressing herself into the straw. Her lungs ached, her heart still racing from the chase. She had seen Grigory's thugs in the crowd, their faces twisted in rage when the police found the bomb. She hadn't waited. She'd vanished into the stampede, running until the city's noise had faded behind her.
She'd won. She had survived.
But it was the survival of a mouse among cats.
Now she was trapped—alone, penniless, hunted by both the syndicate and the Okhrana. The freedom she'd fought for was thin and fragile, and the walls were closing in. She pressed her face into the hay and, at last, let one silent tear fall.
Back in St. Petersburg, the city howled.
Church bells clanged. Fire bells screamed. Gunfire cracked from the port. The chaos was total—a roaring, endless chorus of panic and smoke.
Koba stood, his expression carved from ice. The note in his hand trembled only once before he folded it and slid it away. The storm inside him had burned clean, leaving only purpose.
"The city is blind," he said. "The board is set."
He turned to Pavel, already dressed in soot-stained wool, his massive hands resting on the polished brass of the fire-cart's pump.
"It's time," Koba ordered. "Get the engine."
Outside, the flames painted the sky blood-red.
They were about to walk into hell—and use its fire as their cover.