The waiting, once again.
It was no longer the anxious waiting of a strategist hoping her plan would unfold without a hitch.
It was the cold waiting of a queen who has commissioned a dark deed and now awaits the report. Catherine had crossed a new threshold.
By hiring Thorne for a kidnapping, she had moved from psychological manipulation to violence by proxy.
She had hired a scalpel to cut into the city and bring her its secrets. And she had paid the first price by offering him a piece of her own knowledge.
A dangerous wager.
She spent the following day in a disciplined routine.
She read, she analyzed the map of the city, she planned contingencies for scenarios that did not yet exist. In the evening, she received Valerius.
She played her role with a perfection that was beginning to frighten even herself. She was the passionate lover, the attentive oracle, listening to his tales of political triumphs, feeling his dependency on her grow.
Every caress was a lie, every kiss a calculation. She felt more and more like a beautifully painted shell, hollow on the inside. The pain of the revelation about her family was still there, but it was no longer a flame. It was a core of ice in her belly, a cold engine that fueled her actions.
The next day, as promised, Leo brought her the envelope from Thorne. It was even thicker than the last.
Catherine locked herself in and broke the seal. Thorne's handwriting was as precise and devoid of emotion as the man himself. The report began without any salutation.
Subject: Interrogation, Chen The Crow.
The subject was kept sedated until the beginning of the procedure.
The interrogation was conducted using a combination of psychological techniques and alchemical agents of my own composition.
I utilized a low dose of Glass Whisper, a serum that attacks the central nervous system, inducing a hyper-sensitivity to suggestion and a dissolution of short-term memory barriers.
The subject becomes incapable of distinguishing an implanted memory from a real one, which makes him very cooperative in "confirming" the information one suggests to him.
I began by suggesting to him that he wanted to talk to me, that his burden was too heavy. He acquiesced without resistance.
Here is the relevant information extracted:
The Location: The subject Chen does not know the exact address of the new safe house. This is an expected security measure from The Rook's organization. However, he knows the house is in the Dyers' District, near the river, an area of labyrinthine alleys and abandoned warehouses. He describes it as a gray stone house with no windows on the ground floor.
This is a lead.
The Contact: Chen has never seen The Rook. His orders and payment came through a single intermediary, a mid-level lieutenant in the organization. A man known for his brutality and discretion. This man's name is Viktor. It is Viktor who pays the local gangs for the dirty work.
The Inner Guard: I questioned Chen about the security inside the house. His reaction was one of abject terror, even under the serum's influence. He described the guard, Milo, not as a man, but as a "stone golem who never blinks.
" He said: "
You don't talk to the golem.
You don't look at him.
You do your job and hope he doesn't notice you. He's not there to guard the old man. He's there to make sure the old man never becomes a problem.
This confirms our hypothesis: Milo is a jailer, not a protector.
Catherine paused in her reading, absorbing the information.
The Dyers' District. Viktor. Milo confirmed as Park's handler. It was more than she had hoped for. Thorne had been ruthlessly effective. She felt a shiver of satisfaction.
She had chosen the right tool.
She turned to the last page of the report. Her satisfaction morphed into a cold stupor.
"Final note on the subject's disposition:
After the complete extraction of relevant information, the subject Chen's mental state was, as expected, irreversibly fractured.
The prolonged exposure to Glass Whisper, combined with the psychological terror, induced a catatonic dissociation.
He was no longer a useful source of information. In accordance with our unspoken agreement regarding the need for discretion and the elimination of loose ends, I took it upon myself to resolve the issue.
I have disposed of the biological material. My methods are very effective at erasing all traces. There is no more Corbeau Chen. There is no longer a thread for our enemies to follow.
Consider it a service included in the contract. Your silence is as valuable as mine."
Catherine sat motionless, the parchment in her hands.
Thorne hadn't just interrogated Chen. He had tortured him until his mind broke, then killed him and made his body disappear. She had asked him to bring him to her alive.
And technically, he had. The contract was fulfilled. The rest was just "cleanup."
She felt no horror. She felt no disgust. She felt an intense cold. She had hired a doctor and had found a monster who spoke her exact language.
A language of cold necessity and absolute pragmatism. He hadn't waited for her orders to eliminate a liability. He had taken the initiative. He had understood her.
This realization was terrifying. She had an ally who was her equal in cruelty, if not in power. An ally who, she now knew, would not hesitate for a second to turn against her if the contract became less interesting than betrayal.
She looked at the name in the report.
Viktor.
This was her new lead. The man who paid the gangs. Her father's lieutenant.
Her initial plan had been to capture Chen to interrogate him herself, to keep him as leverage.
Thorne had overstepped her intentions, but he had gotten results. And he had shown her his true face.
Catherine stood up and walked to her map.
She took a pin and stuck it firmly in the heart of the Dyers' District.
The hunt continued.
But she now knew that she had to be wary not only of her enemies, but also, and perhaps especially, of the man she paid to fight them.