The weight of Dredgen's gaze seemed to cling to Lutz's shoulders as he stepped out of the office and back into the main cavern of the Whispering Market. The atmosphere had shifted. The chaotic energy of the fight and the soothing blanket of the melody had both dissipated, leaving behind a brittle, watchful silence. The air itself felt charged, thick with unsaid things. As he moved through the aisles, he was the fixed point around which every other presence orbited.
He could feel their eyes on him—dozens of them. Hooded figures paused in their packing, their gazes tracking his progress. It wasn't the casual disregard he was used to, the anonymity of being just another customer. This was different. Some looked at him with a newfound, wary respect, the way one might regard a dangerous but useful animal. Others watched with naked fear, their eyes wide, remembering the report of the revolver and the unnatural calm that had followed his whistle's song. He had been a variable in their equation, and now he was a constant, a new and unpredictable force they had to account for. He kept his own gaze forward, his face a mask of detached indifference, but inside, he cataloged every glance. This was a new kind of currency, this reputation, and he would have to learn how to spend it wisely.
Then he saw her. Lorelei. She was at her stall, but it was half-dismantled. Tools and artifacts were being carefully wrapped and stowed in a reinforced travel chest. The process of leaving was already underway. She looked up as he approached, and her expression was a complex tapestry he struggled to read. There was surprise, certainly. A flicker of the professional admiration she'd shown before. But beneath it was something else, something softer and more uncertain.
"Hey," she said, her voice a little breathless. "That was uh... kinda crazy. And cool." She gave a small, nervous laugh that didn't quite reach her eyes. "You didn't strike me as the type who would risk himself to keep a place like this safe... haha."
Lutz stopped, the attention of the entire market feeling like a physical pressure at his back. He needed to control this narrative, too. He couldn't let her, or anyone, believe he was motivated by altruism. In his world, kindness was a weakness, a lever others could use.
"I didn't do it out of goodness," he stated, his voice flat and pragmatic. He gestured vaguely at the surrounding stalls. "This place is an important source of unique materials and items for me. For it to be destroyed in a pointless riot would be problematic. It was a practical decision." He was laying out his logic, building a wall of cold reason. Then, almost as an afterthought, a piece of truth slipped through the cracks in his defenses, spoken before his mind could vet it. "There was also the risk of you being attacked."
The moment the words left his mouth, he felt a jolt, as if he'd touched a live wire. He hadn't planned to say that. He hadn't even fully acknowledged the thought until it was hanging in the air between them. His eyes met hers, and he saw her surprise deepen, the professional mask cracking to reveal something genuinely startled beneath.
A hot flush crept up his neck, staining his cheeks with a tell-tale red. He saw a corresponding blush colour Lorelei's own face, a delicate pink against her skin. The sounds of the market—the clinking of vials, the murmur of voices—seemed to fade into a dull roar. For a handful of heartbeats, they just stood there, the sophisticated artisan and the deadly thief, both rendered speechless by a single, unguarded admission.
Lutz's mind scrambled, his usual composure shattered. The carefully constructed persona of the cold, calculating operative was gone, replaced by a flustered young man.
"Uh... I have things to do," he blurted out, the words clumsy and hurried. "I need to go." He took a step back, desperate to escape the intensity of the moment. "If the gods want, then perhaps we'll see each other in St. Millom. Goodbye."
He didn't wait for a reply. He turned and almost fled, weaving through the remaining stalls with a speed that had nothing to do with tactical caution and everything to do with a frantic need for distance. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, irregular rhythm that had nothing to do with the aftermath of the fight.
Lorelei watched him go, her packing forgotten. The surprise on her face softened into a thoughtful, almost wistful expression. Unlike the other times, there was no formal farewell, no unprofessional well-wishing. As his retreating form was swallowed by the gloom of the cave entrance, she leaned against her half-packed stall, a small, private smile touching her lips. She whispered words into the humming silence, words meant for no one but herself.
"See you, pretty boy."
The journey back to the warehouse was a blur. The biting cold of the night air did little to cool the heat in his face. The familiar, treacherous routes back to the Salt-Weep were navigated on pure muscle memory. His mind was a whirlwind, replaying the moment in a loop. The risk of you being attacked. Why had he said that? It was a liability, an emotional attachment he couldn't afford. He cursed his own stupidity, the lapse in his control.
But beneath the self-recrimination, another feeling simmered, one he couldn't quite name. It was warm and unsettling.
The passive effect of the Night's Melody, a constant, drowsy pressure in his bag, compounded his confused state. By the time he slipped back into the warehouse, the fatigue was a physical weight, pulling at his eyelids and slowing his thoughts. The complex emotions were sanded down by simple exhaustion.
The warehouse was silent, its inhabitants lost to sleep or their own dark thoughts. He made it to his room, the bolt sliding home with a sound of finality. He performed the nightly rituals with robotic efficiency: unbuckling the harness, the weight of it a familiar comfort. He laid Creed and the revolver on the table, and stashed all that he had bought, the tools of his trade. He washed, the cold water a shock that did little to clear his head.
As he lay in the dark, the city's noises a distant lullaby, sleep did not come easily. His mind, usually a fortress of plans and contingencies, was occupied by a single, recurring image: Lorelei's face, surprised, blushing, and that final, whispered phrase he would never hear. A red tinge would occasionally dye his cheeks in the darkness, a silent, physical echo of a connection he hadn't sought and didn't understand. For the first time in a long time, the thief, surrounded by his weapons and his schemes, fell asleep thinking of something other than revenge, his dreams tinged with an unknown, and terrifying, colour.
The third day dawned with a clarity that the previous night's confusion had lacked. Lutz awoke not to the lingering warmth of a blush, but to the cool, smooth weight of Henrik's silver pendant against his chest. His fingers brushed against it, a silent reminder of a debt, a purpose. The fleeting vulnerability he'd felt in the market was a luxury, an error in his code he could not afford to repeat. Today, the mask of the anonymous puppeteer had to be perfect.
He knew the rhythm of the beast he was prodding. The Church of Steam was not a mindless hammer; it was a sophisticated engine of order. The first two days of anonymous tips would have been processed, analyzed, and found credible enough to act upon. Today, Lieutenant Mark's teams would be moving, a silent, efficient wave of arrests and interrogations sweeping up the minor accomplices he had named: the dockworker at Pier 3, the clerk with the gambling debt, the chandlery owner. The first cuts were being made.
And while the beast was distracted, tasting the first drops of blood, he would feed it more. But the game was escalating. The Church would now be actively hunting him, the source. They would be watching the collection boxes, questioning the street urchins more aggressively. His methods had to evolve.
He prepared his messages with a new level of precision. These weren't just lists of names anymore. He included the intelligence he'd gathered from his tails yesterday. He wrote of the corrupt Harbor Master with the missing tooth, detailing the time and location of his meeting with "Jumpy" Jorgen. He described the two city watchmen, their approximate badge numbers, and the bribe they'd accepted from Rikard at the Whisper Jetty. This was higher-value intelligence, striking closer to the Vipers' operational core. He was no longer just snipping threads; he was starting to cut tendons.
But the delivery system had to be overhauled. He couldn't be seen near the drops. He needed more distance, more layers of insulation.
He dressed with a spy's paranoia, starting with the persona of a middle-aged, down-on-his-luck merchant, using a touch of grease to grey his temples and a padded vest to alter his silhouette. In his bag, he carried the other disguises and the folded messages, each written on a different type of paper with a different, untraceable hand.
He came out of the Warehouse after a short greeting with Karl and Peter, who told him about a couple useless tavern rumors he had heard.
His first stop was not near any church building. It was a grimy square in a district known for its transient population, where street urchins were plentiful and desperate. He found a small group of them huddled around a weak fire, their eyes old in young faces. He didn't approach the group. He waited, patient as a spider, until one of them, a girl of no more than twelve with a defiant glint in her eye, broke away to scavenge in a nearby alley.
He moved into the alley's mouth, blocking her light. She froze, ready to run.
Lutz didn't show his face. He held up a silver Shield—a fortune to a child like her—and one of the messages. "A simple job," he said, his voice low and gravelly, disguised. "Take this to the iron collection box on the wall of the Steam Chapel on Oak Lane. Do not look at anyone. Do not speak to anyone. Place it inside and walk away."
The girl's eyes widened at the coin, but suspicion warred with greed. "Why me? Why there?"
"Because I am paying you," Lutz said, his tone leaving no room for questions. He then let a sliver of the chilling intensity he usually reserved for life-or-death situations bleed into his voice. It was a subtle shift, but the air grew colder. "And because if you take this coin and fail to deliver the message, or if you speak of this to anyone... I will know." He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. The implication, delivered with absolute conviction, was more terrifying than any specific threat. "There are other children. Do you want the coin or not?"
Trembling slightly, the girl snatched the coin and the paper. "I'll do it."
"Go. Now."
She scurried away like a frightened rat. Lutz didn't wait to see her go. He was already moving, ducking into a derelict building to shed the merchant's disguise. He felt like the lowest of the low, the type of person Andrei would have hated in his past life, but he was not just Andrei anymore.
He emerged minutes later as the lanky laborer, his posture and gait completely different.
He repeated the process twice more in different, distant parts of the city, each time with a single, isolated person of the streets. The transaction was always the same: the lure of a silver coin, a specific, distant destination for the drop, and the unspoken, chilling threat that ensured compliance. He was scattering his seeds from a great height, ensuring no pattern could be traced back to a single location or a single "type" of messenger.
Between these dispatches, he moved through the city, a ghost observing the consequences of his work. He saw two Church enforcers in their distinct greatcoats leading the weeping baker's wife away from her shop. He saw a commotion near the docks where the compliant dockworker was being questioned. The machine was turning, just as he had designed.
A grim satisfaction settled over him, cold and clean. This was the work. This was the path. The brief, human connection of the previous night felt like a dream from another life, a dangerous distraction from the stark reality of the war he was waging. As he changed back into his own clothes for the final approach to the warehouse, the pendant of Henrik's lost love was a cold comfort against his skin, a reminder that some debts were paid not with warmth, but with ice and steel. The Vipers were bleeding, the Church was hunting a phantom, and he, Lutz Fischer, was the invisible hand holding the knife.