The drainpipe was cold and gritty under Lutz's smudged fingers, but it held. His body moved with a spider's assurance. The climb was not the heart-pounding struggle it would have been a week ago, but a series of calculated, fluid movements. He used the slight protrusion of the second-floor window ledge to pivot, his new sense of balance absolute, before making the final, shorter ascent to the dormer window. He hung there, suspended three stories above the ground, and examined his entry point.
The window was latched from the inside with a simple but sturdy lock. From a small pouch at his belt, he produced the set of lockpicks Henrik had been cleaning. Karl's lessons—the theory of tension and torsion, the feel of the pins—flooded back to him. But theory was one thing; practice was another. His fingers, now instruments of impossible dexterity, did the work. The tension wrench held a subtle pressure. The pick, an extension of his will, explored the chamber, its tip feeling each pin as a distinct, tactile whisper. One. Two. Three. He set them with a series of clicks so faint only he could hear them. A final, gentle twist of the wrist, and the lock surrendered with a soft snick.
He slid the window open, the sound masked by a gust of wind rustling the trees below. The space was tight, but he contorted his body and slipped through, landing silently on the rough, unfinished floorboards of an attic. The air was thick with the smell of dust and forgotten things. He stood still for a full minute, listening, letting the house imprint its nighttime sounds upon him: the groan of old timber, the distant tick of a grand clock, the hum of silence from the floors below.
His internal compass pulled him like a lodestone. The valuable documents were below, to the rear of the second floor. The study. He moved to the attic door, easing it open onto a dark, carpeted hallway. The grandeur of the house unfolded—thick rugs, dark wood paneling, portraits of stern-faced ancestors. He was a ghost in a museum.
He descended the main staircase, avoiding the creaking center, his body hugging the wall where the structure was most secure. The pull from the study grew stronger, a constant, low thrum in his mind. He reached the second-floor landing. The door to the study was just ahead, a slab of dark oak. He was almost there.
That's when he heard it. A low, rumbling growl.
His blood ran cold. He froze, slowly turning his head. From the deep shadows of an alcove near the top of the servants' staircase, two points of reflected light glared at him. A large, dark-coated dog—a Rottweiler or a similar breed—stood there, its body tense, its lips pulled back to reveal formidable teeth. It was a living, breathing alarm system he hadn't accounted for.
'Damn it all to hell.'
The dog's growl deepened, its chest vibrating with the promise of a bark that would shatter the silence and bring the entire household down on him. Time seemed to stretch. He couldn't outrun it. He couldn't fight it without making a catastrophic noise.
Instinct, a blend of the original Lutz's street-smarts and the Marauder's predatory calm, took over. He didn't look away, didn't show fear. He slowly, ever so slowly, reached into the inner pocket of his jerkin. His fingers closed around the wax-paper packet of dried sausage he'd brought to snack, it was a custom he'd been having for the last week, Andrei Hayes loved it in his past life. He didn't throw it. That would be seen as a threat. He tore a piece off with his teeth, making a soft, clicking sound to get the dog's attention, then gently tossed it so it landed a few feet in front of the beast.
The growling stopped. The dog's nose twitched. It took a hesitant step forward, then another, before snatching the morsel and swallowing it whole. It looked back at him, its posture less hostile, now merely wary and expectant.
It was then that another sound reached his enhanced hearing—the heavy, deliberate tread of boots on the floor below. The watchman. Heard the faint, foreign sound? Or just making his rounds?
Lutz didn't have a second to spare. He looked at the dog, pointed a firm finger at the ground, and hissed a single, sharp command under his breath. "Stay."
To his immense relief, the dog, now more interested in the potential for more food than in the intruder, whined softly but settled back on its haunches.
The footsteps were on the stairs now. Coming up.
Lutz's eyes darted around. The study door was too far. The alcove was occupied. His gaze fell on a large, floor-standing cabinet filled with porcelain vases and decorative plates, standing a few feet from the wall. It was his only chance.
He moved in a silent blur, sliding into the narrow space behind the cabinet just as the watchman's head and lantern appeared over the banister. Lutz pressed himself flat against the wall, the cool wood pressing into his bandaged back. He held his breath, his heart a frantic drum in his chest. The dust tickled his nose, threatening a sneeze. He clamped a hand over his face, his eyes watering.
The watchman paused at the top of the stairs, his lantern casting a slow, searching beam of light down the hallway. The light played over the carpet, over the portraits, over the very spot where Lutz had stood moments before. It swept past the cabinet, and for a terrifying instant, a sliver of yellow light fell across the toe of his boot. Lutz could see the man's boots through the narrow gap at the bottom of the cabinet, mere inches away.
The dog let out a soft whuff.
"Quiet, Jake!" the watchman muttered, his voice gruff with sleep. He took a single step forward. Lutz could smell the stale tobacco on his clothes. He prepared to fight, to kill if he had to, the knife in his hand feeling cold and final.
Then, the watchman grunted, apparently satisfied. "Nothing but shadows and your greedy gut," he said to the dog. The boots turned, and the light receded. The footsteps descended the stairs once more.
Lutz remained frozen for a full minute after the sound had faded, letting the silence settle back into place. He slowly released the breath he'd been holding, his body trembling with the aftershock of adrenaline. That had been too close. By an inch.
He slipped out from behind the cabinet. The dog watched him but made no sound. Lutz tossed it the rest of the sausage. "We have an understanding," he whispered.
Turning, he finally faced the study door. The lock was a more complex affair, but after the near-disaster in the hall, it felt almost trivial. In seconds, he was inside, the door closed silently behind him. He was in. But the house was no longer sleeping. It was awake, and it was watching.
The study was a sanctuary of ordered wealth, a stark contrast to the violent chaos of the warehouse. The air smelled of lemon polish, fine leather, and the faint, sweet scent of good pipe tobacco. A heavy mahogany desk dominated the room, positioned before a large window that would offer Alaric Vance a view of his well-manicured garden by day. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, their contents looking more for show than for frequent use. The room was a mask, projecting an image of a respectable, learned merchant. But Lutz's new senses cut through the facade.
The hum of value was a clear, direct line to the desk. He ignored the obvious—a silver letter opener, a crystal decanter of amber liquid—and went straight for the source. The bottom-left drawer was locked. It was a more sophisticated mechanism than the window latch. He inserted his tools, the tension wrench a steadying presence, the pick a delicate explorer. In the profound silence of the house, he could feel the pins set, one by one, a tiny, metallic symphony of surrender. The lock clicked open.
Inside, just as Karl had said, was a ledger bound in distinctive green leather. Beside it lay a neat bundle of letters, tied with a black ribbon and sealed with wax impressed by the roaring lion of the Loen Kingdom. The sight of the official seal sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. This was it. The "inconvenient" truth the Baron wanted buried. He slipped both into the inner pocket of his jerkin, the weight of the documents feeling infinitely heavier than their physical mass.
His task was complete. He should leave. Now.
But a Marauder's nature is not so easily satisfied. His gaze swept the desktop. It was tidy, but not sterile. A pen lay beside a silver inkwell. And next to it, half-tucked under a blotter, was a single sheet of expensive vellum, covered in a flowing, hurried script. An unfinished letter. The ink was fresh, the writer having been interrupted.
Driven by an instinct he could no longer suppress, Lutz picked it up. His eyes scanned the elegant script, his mind translating the formal Loenish with ease.
"...and while your initial proposal regarding the 'restructuring' of port fees is audacious, I must express my deep reservations. The consortium you represent, led by that Hass fellow, operates with a lack of subtlety that attracts the wrong kind of attention. My contacts within the Loenish customs service are skittish; they fear not just Feysac reprisal, but the shadowy nature of your backers. Hass assures me his 'partners' can neutralize any local... obstructions, but I find his confidence unnerving. To be frank, the man has the eyes of a graveyard, and I question if we are not trading one form of subjugation for another. I will need further guarantees before I commit my testimony and my capital to this..."
The name hit Lutz like a physical blow. Karbinian Hass.
The flint-eyed "investor" from the Alistair Finch debacle. The man who had coolly assessed Lutz's theatrical solution and severed ties without a second thought. The man who represented a consortium with interests far beyond a single failed merchant.
He's not gone. He's just changed the game.
Theories exploded in Lutz's mind, cold and sharp. Hass's consortium wasn't just targeting individual merchants or small-time smuggling. They were orchestrating a systemic takeover of the port's economy, using Loenish political pressure and Feysac's current weakness as a lever. They were playing a game of nations, and men like Vance were just pawns, valuable for their access and legitimacy, but ultimately disposable. And "neutralizing local obstructions"? That could only mean one thing: the Harbor Vipers. The Baron was the "local obstruction." Hass wasn't just a rival; he was an existential threat.
A slow, grim smile spread across Lutz's face in the darkness. This changed everything. The Baron saw Vance as a political problem. But Vance was just a symptom. The disease was Karbinian Hass. Stealing these documents wasn't just a job for the Vipers; it was the first move in a secret war, and Lutz now held intelligence neither side knew he possessed.
He folded the unfinished letter carefully and tucked it away with the other documents. It was an unplanned acquisition, a piece of a larger puzzle. A Marauder didn't just take what he was sent for; he took anything that might hold future value.
A floorboard creaked elsewhere in the house.
The spell was broken. He was out of time.
He listened intently. The sound wasn't the heavy tread of the watchman. It was lighter, quicker. A servant, perhaps, unable to sleep? It was moving on the floor below, but it was a reminder that the house was stirring.
He had to go. Now.
Exiting the study, he relocked the door out of pure, professional habit. The hallway was empty, the dog, Jake, was now lying down, his tail giving a single, lazy thump as Lutz passed. The immediate danger was over, but the atmosphere was different. The silence was now watchful, pregnant with the potential for discovery.
He retraced his path back to the main staircase and up to the third floor with the same ghost-like silence. Slipping back into the attic, he closed the door behind him and made for the open dormer window. The cold night air was a relief after the cloying stillness of the house.
The descent was, if possible, even easier than the ascent. His body knew the route now, his muscles moving with a confident, economical grace. He slid down the drainpipe, his feet making barely a whisper of a sound as they touched the cobblestones of the side alley.
He didn't run. Running drew attention. He simply merged back into the shadows from which he'd emerged, a patch of darkness detaching from the wall of Number 17 and flowing soundlessly down the street. He followed his pre-planned escape route: over the garden wall, through the service alleys, and out onto the bustling, well-lit main thoroughfare.
As he walked, the persona of the shadowy intruder slowly receded, and Lutz Fischer began to reassert himself. But he was not the same man who had entered that house. He had not only stolen documents; he had stolen a secret. He now knew that the Baron's empire was under threat from a power far more sophisticated and far-reaching than a rival gang. And knowledge, as he was learning, was the most valuable thing a Marauder could steal.
He touched the bulge of the documents inside his jerkin. He had completed his task for the Vipers. But he had also, secretly, begun a new one for himself. The game had just become infinitely more complex, and for the first time, he felt he was holding a card no one else knew was in the deck.