Vienna, 1652 — The First Return to Light
The nurse had dimmed the lamps hours ago, but still the room felt too bright to Jakob.
He blinked slowly, eyelids heavy, vision struggling to settle into anything recognizable. At first he saw shapes without names — pale walls, a wooden ceiling beam, a blurred windowpane fogged by winter breath.
He inhaled.
The breath trembled.
So did he.
Sound moved strangely through the room. He could hear the drip of melting frost outside, the rattle of a distant cart two streets away, the heartbeat of someone pacing quietly beyond the door. The world felt too large. Too sharp. Too full. As though the deep layer had stretched his hearing into a net that caught everything, even things he didn't want.
He curled inward slightly.
The blankets stiffened faintly with the movement.
He was cold.
He was alive.
He was back.
But he remembered—The drift.The glow.The shadow.The pull.Voices calling him upward.A voice whispering— home…
He pressed his palms to his eyes, as though that could quiet the spinning inside his skull.
He wasn't sure he wanted to remember more.
A soft knock came at the door.
Jakob flinched.
The knock was too loud.The world itself was too loud.
The door opened with a low creak.
Jakob lowered his hands.
Dr. Otto Weiss stepped inside.
He looked exhausted.Shadows clung beneath his eyes.His coat was wrinkled, his posture one of a man carrying a weight that didn't belong to him yet refused to fall.
But the moment he saw Jakob awake, his entire face changed — something unclenched, something froze, something almost broke.
"Jakob," Otto whispered.
Jakob stared, blinking slowly, as if trying to place the name.
Then — faintly —
"Doctor… Weiss."
Otto exhaled, half-laugh, half-choked relief. He came closer, stopping at the bedside.
"You're awake," he murmured. "You're truly awake."
Jakob swallowed. His throat felt raw, like he had been screaming underwater.
"Hurts," he whispered.
Otto nodded. "I know. Your senses are overwhelmed. They will settle soon."
Jakob shifted. "Is… is it gone?"
Otto's breath caught. "What, Jakob?"
Jakob's eyes unfocused briefly, searching through memories that didn't quite fit into words.
"The… hum," he whispered. "The big… deep hum."
Otto sat carefully on the edge of the bed, voice gentle.
"You drifted far," he said. "Too far. But you made it back."
Jakob blinked. "Someone… helped."
Otto's heart pounded. "Who?"
Jakob shook his head, frustrated. "Don't… know. I heard… voices. Two."
Two.Otto's mind raced.
The Venetian counter-song.
A boy rescued not by Austria — but by foreigners.
He kept his voice steady. "Do you remember anything else?"
Jakob frowned hard, as if forcing his thoughts into shape hurt more than anything physical.
"A glow," he whispered. "A path. And… hands."
His face twisted briefly — fear flickering through him in a way no child should ever wear.
"A shadow," Jakob whispered. "It tried to hold me."
Otto felt his skin go cold.
"Jakob," he said quietly, "do you remember what the shadow looked like?"
The boy shook his head. "No. Not eyes. Not face." He swallowed. "Like… the sea without water."
Otto stared.
The deep layer.
Jakob had touched the place Marin Velluti had only theorized.
Otto reached to steady him. "You're safe now."
But Jakob flinched.
He grabbed Otto's wrist with a sudden, sharp grip far stronger than expected.
"No," Jakob whispered. "Not safe."
Otto leaned closer. "Why, Jakob? What did you hear?"
Jakob's voice cracked.
"They are coming."
Otto's stomach twisted. "Who?"
Jakob stared at him — and Otto felt, for the briefest moment, that the boy was looking through him, as if seeing sound inside his body, the way resonance sees through water.
"Voices," Jakob whispered. "Metal voices. Hard voices."
Vienna.
The Commission.
Rosenfeld's will, tightening like a snare.
Otto tried to steady him. "Jakob, no one will hurt you."
"Not me," Jakob whispered.
He looked toward the window, toward the frozen Danube, toward the far-off horizon beyond Austria.
"They're coming," he whispered again, voice trembling.
"For them."
Otto froze.
Them?
Who?
Jakob's fingers loosened. His eyes drifted half-closed.
"Jakob," Otto said urgently. "Who is in danger?"
The boy murmured, voice softening into dream-bright fragility.
"The ones… who sang."
Otto inhaled sharply.
Venice.
The counter-song.The listeners who had pulled him up from the deep.
"They helped me," Jakob whispered. "They're in danger."
Otto's mind raced — Rosenfeld's intention, the Commission's fear, the fact that Jakob's rescue was already being interpreted as an act of foreign interference.
Jakob tugged Otto's sleeve.
"Promise," Jakob whispered. "Promise you won't let them hurt them."
Otto's breath stilled.
He thought of Venice's shimmering basin.Of Luca.Of Elena.Of the strangers who risked everything to rescue a child they had never met.
"I promise," Otto whispered.
Jakob nodded faintly.
His eyes fluttered closed.
Not unconscious — simply exhausted, drifting into a healing sleep.
Otto watched him breathe for a long moment.
Then he stood.
He walked to the window.
Vienna was awakening — smoke rising from chimneys, iron wheels creaking to life, the faint clatter of workers beginning their day.
And somewhere behind those walls, Matthias von Rosenfeld was already calculating his next move.
Otto closed his eyes.
"Venice," he whispered. "You saved him. And now… we must save you."
He turned from the window.
And stepped into the corridor to face a storm.
Eveline Harrach was waiting.
Her posture perfect.Her expression unreadable.Her eyes sharp.
"Well?" she demanded quietly. "What did he say?"
Otto looked her in the eye.
And lied without hesitation.
"He remembers nothing."
Eveline narrowed her eyes. "Nothing?"
"Trauma," Otto said smoothly. "The mind protects itself."
She studied him — carefully, dangerously — then nodded slowly, suspicion coiling like smoke beneath her calm.
"Very well," she said. "The Chancellor will want to speak with you."
"Yes," Otto said softly. "I imagine he will."
Eveline stepped closer.
"Doctor Weiss," she murmured, "be careful what you tell him."
Otto inclined his head.
"Director," he replied softly, "I intend to."
And he walked away —
carrying with him the weight of a child's warning,the promise he'd made beside a hospital bed,and the unshakable truth:
The battle for Jakob's future had begun.
And the next move belonged not to Vienna…
…but to those who had brought him home.