The lock grumbled as Lyra turned the skeleton key until its tumbler had no choice but to give way. The Crown's red wax seal snapped under her thumb, as she pushed late Lord Harrow's door open and slipped inside.
"Quiet," Kaelan breathed, closing the door with his heel. As the street vanished, so did the noise along with it.
The house smelled like damp paper and old lemon oil. No fire. No servants. Just the kind of hush that remembered the ghost of lavish banquets that were once held there.
"Lord Harrow kept a tidy house," Lyra observed. "Too tidy." She said in a low voice.
Kaelan's eyes adjusted first. He moved ahead, checking corners, hand near his dagger but not on it. "This isn't about the house being tidy," he said. "It's a deliberate cleanup."
They didn't say the rest: for us.
Lyra lit two stubs of candle. The light formed two long, jumpy shadows that made them look taller, larger and braver.
They started in the study. The desk sat in the middle like a stage with no actors. The drawers had been yanked out, nothing left. They stood back, as they observed the hearth that had been swept as well. The poker, put back, too neat.
Lyra knelt by the grate, "Ash tells on you, if you let it." She said more to herself, as she lifted layers with a brass spoon, slow and even.
"Two burns," she said. "One hot and fast, last night and one older."
"Older than his death." Kaelan crouched beside her, eyes on the gray-white flakes and black flecks. "Who burns light first, then hard?"
"Someone who wants witnesses to say he panicked and then 'fixed things,'" Lyra said.
"Delan loves theater."
Kaelan lowered his candle to the floor by the desk. "Ink spatter," he said. "Left of the blotter. "Harrow didn't spatter. He liked his letters tidy." Lyra observed.
She slid open a concealed drawer and found the false bottom by feel. She prided herself in her ability to discover Hidey-holes, like they called to her. She lifted the panel.
Six slips, cut small and folded tight.
"Cipher," she said. "Not the court's. Clerk work. Forced strokes."
"You can read it?"
"I can unpick it," she said. "With time."
He nodded. She tucked the packet into her bodice without fuss.
"Trusting me already?" Kaenan's mouth tipped, almost a smile.
"I'm trusting the room less and less."
He ran a finger along the baseboard. "Scuff. Narrow boot. No polish."
"Servant," she said. "Or someone pretending."
"You notice too much."
"You hide too much." he responded.
"Together, we could be formidable."
"Now he catches on, This is why we are on a thirty days contract."
They didn't laugh, but the air eased a fraction.
Lyra's flame wavered. She cupped it. The flick threw a small ring of fresh white paint on the far wall where a nail had been. She pressed her palm to the plaster. Hollow.
"Panel," she said.
Kaelan came to her shoulder and pushed, she braced as the wall gave way with a sulky pop.
"Be careful, so you don't hurt yourself." She regretted the concern in her voice, immediately the words left her mouth.
He grinned without looking at her, "you be careful what you wish for, I'm attached to you, alive."
"Are you sure it's best we keep it that way?"
The wall gave way before he could respond.
Inside lay a ledger.
Not a palace issue, worn leather, no page numbers, the kind that was created to live in the dark. She opened near the middle. Names, dates, transfers, and there, tidy as a sermon was her seal.
Lyra's face stayed still even though her pulse didn't. Green wax. The Vale crest, sharp V exact.
She quickly concealed it when he wasn't watching.
But she didn't know he had seen it, but decided to say nothing and just observe her . Lyra shut the book like a door.
"We take it," she said.
"We take copies," he said. "If you vanish, the original shouldn't."
"What do you mean vanish?"
"There is no guarantee, you wouldn't " he said, too soft to be teasing.
She hated that he was aware of how sly she could be.
They overhead footsteps. Slow. Careful.
They both went still. A board near the landing sighed like someone trying not to leave one.
Kaelan blew out his candle with a breath that could have been a draft. Her flame made her a target. He slid it from her fingers and set it inside the open panel. The hidden space glowed like a small halo.
"Kitchen stairs," he whispered close to her ear. "Back."
Lyra nodded and moved. No rush. No clatter. The smooth exit of a woman who was accustomed to exiting many rooms unnoticed, while men still talked. Kaelan peeled off toward the front, a larger shadow falling into darker ones.
The servants' passage was narrow and dry. Soap and dust. Halfway down, something pale winked where the tread met the riser. She teased out a torn scrap. One corner sang.
Two words in an old, hard hand: The Wolf.
She turned it. On the back, monk-black ink: …returns from the west, the crown will bleed its own reflection.
She didn't breathe.
Prophecy was for children, zealots, and women who left bread at crossroads. She should have dropped it, but she didn't.
Kaelan appeared at her shoulder, big for the space. "What?"
She showed him.
"Superstition," he said dismissively.
His mouth went flat. "We needed a riddle to know they want me out?"
"No." She slid the scrap into the ledger, an ugly bookmark. "Someone wants me to blame the Crown."
A soft click from the front hall. Metal on metal, quiet on purpose. A latch opened by someone who didn't want to be found out.
Kaelan's hand found her elbow. Firm. Brief. Restraint and also protection.
"We're definitely not alone."