Damian stepped out of the building and into the street.
The difference between watching from above and being down here hit him immediately.
Oh.
The noise came first. Voices layered over voices—vendors shouting prices, women laughing, men arguing about something probably stupid. Carriage wheels clattered against cobblestones in a rhythm that never quite synced. Horses snorted and stamped. Somewhere, a child was crying.
Loud. Everything was so damn loud.
Then the smell.
Perfume. Heavy perfume. The kind that made you wonder if someone had bathed in it or just decided subtlety was for cowards. It hit him like a wall—floral, musky, overwhelming. Mostly from the women passing by in their fitted jackets and long skirts, but some men wore enough cologne to gas a small room.
Beneath that: bread baking somewhere nearby. Horse manure. Smoke from chimneys. Sweat. The sharp tang of something metallic he couldn't quite place.
Welcome to Victorian city life. Population: too many. Smell: worse than expected.
Damian weaved through the crowd, shouldering past people who didn't bother looking where they were going. A woman in a burgundy coat nearly elbowed him in the ribs. A man with a top hat cut across his path without warning. Nobody apologized. Nobody even noticed.
The street was packed. Shoulder to shoulder, coat to coat, everyone moving like they had somewhere important to be five minutes ago.
Store fronts lined both sides. A bakery with golden loaves displayed in the window—he'd come back for that later, assuming he survived whatever stupid plan he was about to attempt. A tailor with mannequins wearing suits that probably cost more than his entire office. A bookshop with leather-bound volumes stacked behind dusty glass.
Normal. Mundane. Except for the part where it was all impossibly real and he was walking through it in a dead man's body.
Focus. Find Myra first. Existential crisis later.
Following Damian Void's memories, he spotted a carriage parked on the side of the street. The driver—charioteer, his brain supplied automatically—was calling out to passersby with the desperate energy of someone who hadn't had a fare all morning.
"Fine carriage here! Fast horse! Cheap prices!"
Nobody stopped.
Damian approached.
The charioteer's eyes lit up like he'd won the lottery. "Oh! We have someone with good eyes! Come, come, young man!" He practically leaped from his seat, gesturing wildly at the carriage door. "My horse can pull three carriages at once! Same price as the others but twice as fast! You won't find better in all of Montclaire!"
"Wait, I haven't—"
The charioteer opened the door, grabbed Damian's arm, and practically shoved him inside.
The door slammed shut.
Damian sat there, slightly stunned, staring at the closed door.
Well. Okay then.
Hustling transcended worlds, apparently. The forceful, annoying customer-acquisition method was universal. Good to know.
A face appeared in the window in front of him—greasy, old, grinning with too many missing teeth. "Where to, young man?"
Damian pulled up the memory. "River Cross Street."
The grin vanished.
The charioteer's expression went from cheerful to serious so fast it gave Damian whiplash. His eyes narrowed, scanning Damian from face to boots and back again. Calculating something.
"River Cross Street," the charioteer repeated slowly. "You sure about that?"
"Pretty sure, yeah."
"You don't look like the kind of person who has business in that place." His tone had shifted. Careful. Almost... warning?
Damian raised an eyebrow. "What, because of how I'm dressed?"
"Haha!" The charioteer laughed, but it sounded forced. "I'm not the kind of person who judges by appearances, young man. But..." He shrugged. "Yeah. You're right. That's exactly why."
He snapped the reins. The horse started moving.
"It's your money," the charioteer continued over his shoulder. "But you'll have to pay the entrance fee. Hope you brought enough."
Entrance fee?
Damian frowned, then searched through Damian Void's memories.
Oh.
River Cross Street wasn't just a street.
It was the street.
The carriage rolled through Montclaire, and Damian watched the city pass by through the window.
Montclaire. The name fit—fancy, French-sounding, probably meant something poetic he didn't care about.
What he did care about: the lake.
Not just one lake. Multiple waterways cutting through the city like veins, all of them connected, all of them flowing. They wound between buildings, under bridges, through districts. Some wide enough for boats. Some narrow enough you could probably jump across if you were stupid and confident.
The water caught the light, reflecting buildings and sky in rippling fragments.
Montclaire thrived on trade. The waterways connected to the ocean, which meant ships, which meant cargo, which meant money. Lots of it. The docks were probably chaos—merchants, sailors, goods from a dozen different countries all funneling through this one city.
But the water wasn't just for trade.
It was the city's backbone. Transportation. Commerce. Probably half the city's wealth came from controlling those waterways.
And all of those waterways? They met in one place.
River Cross Street.
The place where only the rich and influential lived. Where the water converged and the money pooled and normal people weren't welcome unless they were delivering something or cleaning something.
Great. Just great.
As the carriage rolled closer, the city started changing.
The dark stone buildings with their heavy, oppressive atmosphere gave way to lighter structures. White stone. Beige facades. Cleaner streets. Wider sidewalks.
Even the people changed.
Gone were the dark coats and practical attire. Now everyone wore lighter colors—cream, pale blue, soft pink. Belle Époque fashion in full force. Women in elaborate dresses with parasols held by servants walking three steps behind. Men in pristine white suits that had probably never seen a speck of dirt.
They looked like they'd stepped out of an oil painting. Beautiful, expensive, and completely detached from reality.
One woman had a butler holding a parasol over her head despite the sun barely being out.
Of course she does.
The charioteer wiped sweat from his forehead. "This is why I hate this place," he muttered. "Their eyes are like leeches. Always watching. Always judging."
Damian understood.
He could feel it too—the weight of stares from people on the sidewalks. They looked at the carriage, at the clearly middle-class vehicle with its worn wood and unremarkable horse, and their expressions shifted. Disgust. Dismissal. The kind of look that said you don't belong here.
Rich people. Same in every world.
The carriage approached a gate.
Tall. Iron. Ornate. Guarded.
Because of course River Cross Street had a literal gate keeping the poor people out.
A guard stepped forward, hand raised. "Halt!"
The carriage stopped.
The guard wore all black—a fitted uniform that screamed authority. Victorian-era police aesthetic, but cleaner, more expensive. Brass buttons polished to a shine. A badge at his chest. White gloves. A baton at his belt that looked decorative but probably hurt like hell if he decided to use it.
His expression matched his uniform: cold, official, and already annoyed.
"You cannot enter unless you state your business and pay the entrance fee." He spoke like he'd said this a thousand times and hated every repetition.
The charioteer leaned out. "We'll pay! He'll pay, I mean." He jabbed a thumb toward the carriage interior. "Ask him about the business part."
The guard nodded stiffly and walked to Damian's window. He tapped the frame with his gloved knuckles.
Damian met his eyes.
The guard looked him over slowly. Head to toe. Taking in the rumpled shirt, the half-fastened waistcoat, the worn boots.
His lip curled.