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I make for the contact route.

Bren’s ash passage lies two streets west of the estate, behind a collapsed laundry wall and beneath a rusted drainage grate. I crouch in the shadow and draw the coded paper Isolde sent blank on the reverse. No long message. No explanation that could be intercepted and used.

One word.

NOW.

I press the strip around a broken bit of ward tile, mark it with the small ash smear Mira described to Sable, and slide it into the gap behind the grate. A moment later, something beneath the passage snatches it away. Bren, Mira, or some other half-invisible route built by people nobles never bother to see.

Good.

I return to the estate wall before the first bells of night.

The blind places are still quiet. The gates still look intact. The courtyard beyond bustles with repair crews, guards, and ward-scribes trying to make burned lies presentable again. Somewhere inside that house, Vaerith’s orders are moving toward Isolde’s chamber. Somewhere inside, she is either receiving my warning or already acting without it because the woman considers caution a tool, not a master.

I climb to the top of the west wall and settle into the shadow of a carved stone beast with broken wings. The rain has stopped, leaving the city slick and reflective beneath a low, bruised sky. I hate every reflective surface I can see.

The hunger sits inside me with its claws folded.

Controlled. Waiting. Focused.

That frightens me less than it did yesterday.

I rest one hand against the stone and let the bond guide my breathing. Isolde is there, distant but bright, the line between us warm enough to follow even through Vaerith’s wards. I do not move when anger rises. I do not move when guards pass beneath me. I do not move when a mirror flashes in an upper window and goes dark again.

I wait for the spike.

Not because I am patient.

Because when Isolde calls the move, I need to be fast without losing my mind.

The estate breathes below me, full of polished halls, hidden ledgers, and men who think ownership is a law of nature.

I smile into the dark.

They have no idea how badly nature is about to argue.

16

ISOLDE

The safest place to hide evidence in Lord Vaerith’s estate is inside paperwork too boring for anyone important to read.

That truth has served me well for years, and tonight it may keep me alive.

The ledger chamber is lit by three lamps instead of one, each flame turned low and shielded with blue glass so the light does not spill beneath the door. The room radiates the scent of hot ink, scraped parchment, dust disturbed from shelves that have not been touched in months, and the faint bitter tang of ward smoke drifting in from the corridor where Vaerith’s scribes are still repairing the damage from the demonstration. Outside, the estate moves with controlled urgency. Boots pass. Voices murmur. Metal clicks against stone. Every sound reminds me that the house is no longer merely watching me. It is preparing to close.

I do not rush.

Rushing wastes movement, and wasted movement gets ink spilled, pages misfiled, hands shaking at the wrong moment. I have three false-bottom ledger cases open on the desk, each one designed to look like a dull archive transport box used for routine audit reconciliation. Beneath the top layer of mundane pages, I fit the copied infernal records into the hidden compartment: soul-energy intake discrepancies, shell vendor identifiers, ritual supply invoices, Vaerith’s memorandum on public exposure, and the Dareth-Ardyn stabilization notes that still make my stomach tighten every time my eyes brush them.

The infernal script glows faintly beneath the lamplight, red-black and unpleasantly alive.

I cover it with municipal ink records.

Grain tallies. Lamp-oil receipts. Staff ration adjustments. Boiler ash removal summaries. The kind of documents guards would sooner chew through their own gloves than inspect closely.

Mira stands by the door with one ear angled toward the corridor and a kitchen knife tucked into her apron sash. It is not a good knife for fighting. It is, however, excellent for reminding a frightened woman she has a choice.