The temporary membership card for The Aethelstan Club & Social Foundation felt flimsy in Foster's wallet, a stark contrast to the solid weight of the money he'd sacrificed for it.
It granted him access to the common areas: a reading room with leather armchairs that sighed under the weight of history, a billiards room where the click of ivory balls was as muted as the conversations, and a conservatory where exotic plants thrived in the filtered light. He visited twice, each time feeling like a ghost haunting a museum.
He observed. He saw clusters of men and women, some in modern business attire, others in more traditional dress, their affiliations hinted at by subtle pins or the way they carried themselves.
He heard snippets of conversation about "market fluctuations" and "regulatory oversight," but also, once, a lowered voice mentioning "the equilibrium" and "the old families." His ears pricked up, but the speakers moved away before he could learn more.
He was playing a long game, and the first move was the most agonizing: waiting.
He had a club, but he was its only member. The Oxford Club was a name in a ledger, an alias in a book, a shell waiting for life. He needed members. But who? He couldn't risk bringing anyone from the police station into this. The journal's warnings were clear—the H.A.M. had eyes everywhere.
His police work became his anchor in reality. A new case landed on his desk, a missing person.
A young chemist named Elara Vex, who worked for one of the city's renown pharmaceutical companies. She had failed to return home from work three days prior. Her apartment showed no signs of struggle, her finances were in order, and her colleagues described her as quiet and dedicated.
It was the kind of case that often ended in a tragic, personal discovery—a voluntary disappearance, an accident.
But Foster threw himself into it with a fervor that Martha Holmes noted with approval. It was a concrete problem with a clear objective: find Elara Vex.
He spent days retracing her route from work, interviewing shopkeepers near her lab, and reviewing the company's security footage with Neil Humphrey.
"Clean as a whistle," Neil said, scrolling through the timestamps on the large terminal in his tech nook. "She headed out at 6:04 p.m., turns left onto Alder Street, and then… nothing. The public camera on the corner was undergoing maintenance that night. It's a blind spot."
_Another blind spot. Another silence._
Foster's instincts, honed by the Davidson case, twitched. But there was no bone chip here, no torn flesh. Just a woman who had vanished into the city's grimy air.
He coordinated with Eliza, who efficiently pulled all of Elara's public records, cross-referencing them with city databases for any aliases or connected addresses.
"Nothing pops, Foster," she said, her usually cheerful face somber. "It's like she just… evaporated."
The frustration was a familiar companion. He was surrounded by mysteries, both personal and professional, that seemed designed to have no answers.
The Vex case was a reminder that the city consumed people in mundane ways, too, not just through supernatural violence.
One evening, after a fruitless day of door-knocking near Elara's lab, he found himself walking past the Aethelstan Club almost without thinking. He used his temporary card and slipped inside, seeking the quiet to order his thoughts.
He went to the reading room, selecting a newspaper from a polished rack. He wasn't reading it, he was using it as a prop, observing the room over its top.
A group of older men were discussing port tariffs.
A younger woman was sketching in a notebook, her focus absolute.
And then he saw him again.
The man with the gold-rimmed glasses and the neat moustache. He was sitting alone in a high-backed chair near the fire, reading a thick, bound volume. He looked every bit the established, powerful member Foster had pegged him as. A man who would never, ever notice a lone police officer with a temporary membership.
Foster watched him for a long moment, this unnamed figure from the world of higher affiliations. He represented everything Foster needed to understand, everything he was shut out from.
The man finished his chapter, marked his place with a silk ribbon, and stood. As he did, his gaze swept the room and, for a fraction of a second, met Foster's.
There was no recognition, no curiosity. It was the brief, dismissive glance one might give a piece of furniture. Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps silent on the thick Persian rug.
The encounter was a splash of cold water. He was invisible here. The Lonely Saviour was just a name in a book. The Oxford Club was a joke. He had bought his way into the arena but had no weapon and no allies.
He left the club, the grandeur feeling more like a tomb than ever. He had to find members. He had to give his shell a purpose.
The search for Elara Vex and the search for his first recruits became parallel missions, both desperate, both essential to proving he existed in this world at all.
He walked home in the growing dark, the city's twin hearts—one of mundane crime, one of hidden power—beating around him, and he was trapped between them, unheard and unknown.