"You still look pale," Lucius observed as I picked at my dinner, his eyes narrowing with something that might have been concern if I didn't know better. "Perhaps you should see a healer."
"It's just a stomach bug," I replied, keeping my voice weak and listless, carefully modulating the tremor in my words to suggest discomfort without overdoing it. "I'm sure it will pass."
"Stomach troubles can be serious," Lady Vivienne added, dabbing the corner of her mouth with an embroidered napkin. Her tone suggested she found my ailment more annoying than concerning, like I was a piece of furniture that had inexplicably developed an inconvenient squeak. "Especially if they linger. You wouldn't want to miss any important social events because of poor health."
Like I had any important social events to attend. The original Kaelen's social calendar was emptier than a beggar's purse after tax collection day. The only invitations he—I—received were obligatory ones where my absence would reflect poorly on House Leone.
"I'm feeling better already," I lied, pushing a piece of roasted pheasant around my plate with deliberate lethargy. "Tomorrow I should be back to normal."
Father grunted from the head of the table, apparently satisfied that I wasn't dying on his watch. His attention immediately returned to cutting his meat with military precision. The conversation moved on to estate business—crop yields in the eastern fields, tenant complaints about the new water tax, the usual mundane concerns of rural nobility clinging to relevance. I contributed nothing, playing the part of an invalid too weak for complex thought, occasionally wincing and touching my stomach when anyone glanced my way.
The candlelight cast long shadows across the dining room, illuminating the faded grandeur of House Leone—once-magnificent tapestries now dulled with age, silver cutlery that had seen better days, servants in livery that had been mended one too many times. Everything about our home whispered of glory days long past.
When dinner finally ended, I retreated to my room with theatrical slowness, one hand pressed to my stomach, shoulders hunched in a posture of discomfort. I paused twice on the grand staircase, as if gathering strength, aware of Lucius watching me from below with what might have been suspicion flickering behind his eyes.
Mira brought the promised ginger tea not long after, along with a small plate of plain bread. Steam curled from the earthenware cup, carrying the sharp, spicy scent that tickled my nostrils.
"Eat slowly," she advised, setting the tray down on my bedside table with practiced care. Her hands, rough from years of service, adjusted the napkin with a motherly touch. "Your stomach needs time to settle. Small bites, and chew thoroughly."
"Thank you. You're very kind," I said, allowing genuine gratitude to color my words. In this den of vipers, Mira was perhaps the only person who showed me authentic concern.
She smiled, the expression transforming her plain features into something almost beautiful, lines crinkling around eyes that had seen decades of Leone family drama. "Rest well, Young Master. Tomorrow will be better."
If everything goes according to plan, yes. Tomorrow will be very different indeed. Either a significant step toward survival or a premature end to my second chance at life.
After she left, closing the door with a soft click, I waited until her footsteps faded down the corridor. Only then did I extinguish the room's magical lights and light my single candle—less conspicuous to anyone who might notice light from my window at an unusual hour. The parchment emerged from its hiding place beneath my mattress, creased but intact. I spread it across my desk and studied the layout one final time, the flickering candlelight casting dancing shadows across the hand-drawn map.
The service entrance was my way in—neglected, rarely used except by the lowest-ranking servants. A narrow corridor led from there to the main archive chamber, where centuries of Leone family documents gathered dust in wooden filing cabinets, forgotten testimonies to a legacy slowly crumbling to dust.
I traced the route with my finger, the rough parchment catching slightly on my skin: through the service door with its rusted hinges, down the narrow corridor where the floorboards creaked near the wall but were silent in the center, left at the first intersection where a portrait of some stern-faced ancestor stood eternal guard, straight to the archive chamber with its musty smell of old paper and secrets.
The main door would be locked—iron key, complex mechanism, beyond my limited lockpicking skills—but I'd noticed something during my earlier reconnaissance disguised as aimless wandering. The chamber's windows were barred but not sealed, and one of the bars had worked loose over the years, corroded by rain and neglect. A determined person could squeeze through the gap if they approached it just right.
A determined, desperate, and reasonably slender person. Good thing the original Kaelen was built like a scarecrow with consumption. For once, his pathetic physique works in my favor.
The return journey would follow the same route in reverse, hopefully with no one the wiser. If everything went smoothly, I'd be back in my room within an hour, the rune in my possession and my future a little less precarious. If things went wrong...
Don't think about that. Focus on what you can control. Planning prevents poor performance, as my old engineering professor used to drone.
I set down the charcoal and studied my handiwork in the wavering candlelight. The map was complete, every corridor and chamber marked with careful notation. Guard schedules (predictable to the minute), lock types (ancient and neglected), potential obstacles (that creaky third step on the servant staircase)—everything I needed for tonight's mission.
The [Rune of Diminishment]. According to the forum discussion I remembered from my previous life, it was a cursed artifact that concealed the bearer's true capabilities from the System's omniscient eye. The original poster had speculated about its potential uses, wondering why the author had introduced such an interesting magical item only to never mention it again after a brief appearance in Chapter 43.
Because it wasn't meant for the protagonist. It was meant for someone like me—someone who needs to hide their true nature from a world that wants them dead. Someone who needs to fly under the radar of fate itself.
I folded the parchment carefully, creasing it along lines that would allow quick reference in darkness if needed. The plan was solid. The timing was right. The route was memorized down to the number of steps between each turn.
The candle flickered as I blew it out, plunging the room into darkness broken only by slivers of moonlight through the curtains. Outside my window, the estate settled into its nightly routine—guards beginning their patrols, servants finishing their final tasks, the family retiring to their respective chambers to plot tomorrow's petty cruelties.
I slipped the folded map beneath my pillow and closed my eyes, but sleep eluded me like a skittish cat. The loose bar on the archive window—what if it had been repaired during yesterday's rainstorm? The service door lock—what if someone had finally gotten around to replacing it after all these years? The guard schedule—what if they'd changed it without the servants' knowledge?
Stop. You're spiraling. You've planned for the variables you can predict. The rest is just noise. Analysis paralysis will get you killed faster than any guard.
I forced myself to breathe slowly, counting each inhale and exhale until my racing thoughts began to settle into something resembling order. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed one, then two, its sonorous tones echoing through the sleeping house. Somewhere in the distance, a night bird called out, its voice echoing across the empty grounds like a lonely sentinel.
The mission is a go.
Just a simple heist in a house full of people who wouldn't hesitate to see me punished for such an offense.
How hard could it be?
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