APARTMENT #N.50 — JUNE 16TH, 1936 — 6:00 A.M.

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The morning light, hesitant and thin, crept across the heavy velvet drapes of Apartment No. 50, daring only to brush the edge of the great canopied bed where Woland lay in a posture of stately repose.

For a long while, he seemed but a shadow among shadows, a shape not wholly subject to the laws of light or time. Then, with a faint stir of the sheets and the glint of one dark eye opening before its mismatched twin, the Master of that uncanny household exhaled softly, a sound like the whisper of distant fire.

“Ah,” he murmured, his voice low and dry, as though amusement itself were weary. “Moscow… still standing, I see.” A pause followed, the silence deepening around him like the calm before a storm.

Then, with a languid gesture of his hand; pale, elegant, ringed with a faint glimmer of infernal gold, he beckoned toward the door.

“Fagotto,” he said, the name drawn out with unhurried precision, as if savoring its sound. “My faithful virtuoso of disorder… it is time. The city has not yet remembered its sins this morning — let us assist its memory.”

He sank back against the pillows, a faint smile ghosting over his lips. “Come, my friend,” he added, almost kindly.

”Dress me for the day. There is mischief to be conducted, and one must, of course, look the part.”