Berlin didn't feel like the same city.
The snow hadn't fallen yet, but the frost settled deeper. Trees naked along the sidewalks, their limbs stiff with waiting. Smoke clung to the buildings. People moved quieter. Or maybe I was just seeing everything from the other side now.
We didn't return to my apartment. Konrad had a place in Moabit—bare, clean, and hidden enough not to draw attention. We crossed the city at dawn, cloaked by fog, and arrived just as the street lamps flickered out.
He didn't speak much as we entered. Clara and I followed without asking.
The flat was on the third floor, tucked behind a tailor's shop. There was no name on the door. Inside, it was colder than outside. A small stove stood unused in the corner. There were no decorations. Just maps. Two rifles. A set of uniforms. A stack of city patrol reports.
Konrad set his rifle down by the door. "You'll be safe here for now."
Clara stepped past him, slowly taking in the room like a memory half-forgotten. She ran her hand along the edge of a windowsill and didn't say anything.
I watched her, then turned to Konrad. "How long have you been preparing for this?"
He didn't hesitate. "Since I woke up."
"And when was that?"
Konrad looked at me. "Before you."
***
We spent the morning inside. The light came slowly through the window, filtered through frost and smoke. Clara boiled water on the stove—it's hiss the only sound for a while. I sat by the table with my journal open, though I wrote little. Most of what I wanted to say I didn't know how to write.
Konrad left just after sunrise. He said nothing, just nodded once before closing the door behind him. Clara and I stayed in the silence he left.
By the time he returned, it was closer to noon. He sat a bag on the table—bread, some apples, and two newspapers folded under his arms. His coat held a fine dusting of frost. He brushed it off without comment.
He laid one of the papers out and tapped the margin beside the headline.
The front page wasn't what caught my attention. It was the name scrawled just beneath the fold.
Dr. Helene Eberhardt.
Clara leaned over my shoulder. "Isn't that your doctor?"
I nodded slowly. "She specializes in theoretical psychology. Nervous disorders. People who've been… seeing things."
Konrad paused mid-motion as he poured tea into a chipped cup. "Sounds familiar."
"She treated me when this all started," I said. "The visions. The dreams. The thread."
Clara sat down across from me. Her hands folded around the warm mug like she wasn't aware of it. "Do you think she might know others?"
"If anyone does, it's her," I said. "She sees the kind of people no one else listens to."
Konrad folded the paper in half, setting it down carefully. "Then she's where we start."
The room fell quiet again. Not from tension, but from consensus. A direction. A name that wasn't lost.
By afternoon, we had something like a plan. No guarantees. No promises.
But a thread.
And for now, that was enough.
***
We left just before dusk.
Konrad preferred to travel under cloudlight, when the streets softened and the air grew quiet. He knew the paths where patrols didn't linger—alleys that looped behind closed shops, tram lines long since shut down, stairwells that led nowhere useful except escape.
Clara and I followed without needing to speak. Our coats were pulled tight. Our collars are high. The cold didn't bite so much as settle.
We reached Tiergarten by early evening. The clinic sat tucked between two government buildings—polished, quiet, and oddly dim.
I raised a hand to knock, but Clara stepped forward and reached the door first.
"Let me speak," she said softly. "But we all go in."
I nodded. Konrad stood just behind us, silent.
Clara knocked twice.
A moment later, the door opened.
Dr. Eberhardt stood framed in the gaslight, her expression warm and curious. She looked at each of us—first at Clara, then me, then Konrad.
"Good evening," she said, voice as smooth as I remembered. "I wasn't expecting a group."
"We're not here for treatment," Clara said. "We were hoping you might have encountered other patients—people experiencing strange symptoms. Things they couldn't explain."
Helene's smile didn't change. But her eyes moved—once to me, then to Konrad.
"I'm afraid patent records aren't something I share freely."
Konrad stepped forward and reached into his coat. "We're not asking for names. Just direction." He produced a small pouch and offered it forward, the soft clink of coins unmistakeable.
She didn't take it. Her expression didn't shift.
"I don't need your money," she said smoothly.
I stepped beside Konrad.
"But you know me," I said. "You treated me. We talked. You know this isn't a joke."
Something in her expression paused—just slightly. Not surprise. Recognition.
"That's true," she said slowly. "You were… one of the unusual ones."
I met her eyes. "You told me I wasn't the first."
She tilted her head. "No. You werent."
She stepped back, gesturing toward the interior of the clinic.
"Come in, then. Just to talk."