The darkness over the old city - Klagenfurt, was not merely an absence of light. It was a velvety, breathing substance, soaked through with centuries of fear, grime, and human sweat. The moon, a cold and indifferent sliver, clung to the sharp spires of gothic rooftops, as if hesitant to illuminate what transpired in the narrow, winding alleys. The city slept. And predators crept from their lairs.

Her arrival did not break the silence. Carmilla walked the cobblestones with a measured, unhurried pace, as if gliding above the ground. The long dress, the color of dried blood, did not rustle; it merely washed in a light wave over her pale, bare feet. A gust of the night wind stirred a strand of snow-white hair, but failed to displace a single one from her forehead, perfectly smooth and cold as tombstone marble.

Lady Carmilla was not out for sustenance. Common blood, the fear of a commoner in the night - that was too primitive. She sought something greater. A thread of information that, woven into her intricate web, could loosen the local authority's grip. Her target was leverage. Something to aid in negotiations, or an attack. Or enslavement, should the local ruler prove sufficiently attractive and amusing.

Her sharp chin was lifted with unflappable arrogance. The world of men seemed to her a fragile, foul-smelling toy, woven from fear and greed. She saw those fears scurrying behind shutters, heard the frantic beating of hearts when her shadow momentarily fell across a crack in a doorframe. She inhaled this scent of panic like fine perfume, and a shadow of a smile played upon her lips.

She turned into an alley so narrow it seemed the walls converged above her head. The darkness here was absolute. But to her eyes, which saw the warmth of life and the cold of death, it was transparent as glass. From the folds of her dress, with a light motion, appeared a small casket inlaid with ebony. Its lock clicked, and a cold radiance flared in the dark. Shards of a mirror, levitating, assembled themselves into perfect wholeness, reflecting not her face, but a bottomless, shimmering void.

"The city sleeps, sisters, but its dreams are anxious and full of coin," her voice sounded in the airless space, quiet and clear as the strike of a needle on glass. "The guard is lazy and blind. Do not waste legions. For the first visit, a squad of elite guards will suffice - enough to impress, not enough to provoke panic. I will prepare the ground."

The mirror, its mission complete, dissolved into shimmering dust and vanished back into the casket. The corners of her lips twitched. At home, in the impregnable halls of Styria, her sisters were already at work: Striga and Morana extracting secrets from captured documents, and Lenore honing every phrase of the future speech, crafting the clauses of a treaty from which there would be no retreat. But that was merely the canvas. She was the artist, the organizer, the one who mixed the colors and applied the first, decisive stroke. So she believed herself, and any other opinion was an insult. With pride, the tall woman moved further down the streets, and her undulating silhouette in the burgundy gown was elusive.