I looked at the rusted gears and the copper wiring on my workbench, my mind already calculating the quickest route through the brush to the Old Quarry. It was nearly midnight, the kind of darkness that swallowed the silhouette of the trees whole.
"I'm going alone," I said, sliding the "interceptor"—now a convincing hunk of humming, glowing junk—into my leather satchel.
Avaris stopped mid-stride, her eyes narrowing. "You most certainly are not. You're an Architect, Ilyas, not a ghost-runner. If you trip in that quarry and twist an ankle, you'll be a very well-educated sitting duck."
I turned to her, my expression softening. I took her hands in mine, feeling the callouses that spoke of a much harder life than the one I had given her. "Avaris, the Empire is looking for a Sentry. If we both go and something goes wrong, the children lose everything. I can't let you take that risk. I'm the one who built the lie; I'm the one who should plant it."
I was being my usual chivalrous self, trying to be the sturdy pillar I thought she needed. But Avaris didn't look impressed. Her lower lip gave a tiny, tactical tremble, and her eyes began to shimmer with a sudden, watery sheen.
"If you leave me here to pace the floors while you play hero in the dark," she whispered, her voice cracking just enough to pierce my heart, "I am going to cry. Right here. And I won't stop until the garden floods."
I froze. I could handle Imperial interrogations, geological collapses, and Grey Cloaks, but a single tear from Avaris was a structural failure I couldn't calculate a way around.
"Alright, alright!" I hissed, putting my hands up in surrender. "No crying. Please. But listen—if I am not back within exactly two hours, you come looking for me. Not as the Architect's wife, but as the Sentry. Agreed?"
She instantly dried her eyes, a triumphant, dangerous spark returning to her gaze. "Deal. You have one hundred and twenty minutes, Master Verne. Don't make me come out there and rescue you."
The Planting
I slipped out the back door, moving through the tall grass like a shadow. To anyone watching, I was just the "Boring Architect" taking a late-night walk to clear his head, but every step was a lesson in silent movement.
The Old Quarry was a jagged scar in the earth, filled with stagnant water and piles of discarded stone. It was the perfect place for a "rebel" to hide a device.
I found a small, limestone overhang near the old crane ruins. I set the device down, connecting a small battery that made the blue resonance stone pulse with a rhythmic, "secretive" light. I even took a piece of charred wood and scrawled some nonsense Northern coordinates on a nearby rock, making it look like a hurried evacuation site.
I moved with a fluid precision I didn't know I possessed. I wasn't just planting a fake machine; I was designing a narrative. I obscured my own tracks, leaving only the "clumsy" prints of a heavy-booted soldier—exactly what the Empire expected a rebel to look like.
As I climbed back out of the pit, I checked my pocket watch. One hour and forty minutes.
The Return
I slipped back into the cottage just as the clock neared the two-hour mark. Avaris was standing by the door, a kitchen knife in one hand and my heavy surveying coat in the other, ready to launch a one-woman invasion.
"I'm here," I breathed, closing the door behind me. "The 'Ghost Architect' has delivered the bait."
Avaris exhaled, a long, shaky sound of relief. She put the knife down and walked over, checking me for scratches. "You're late by three minutes, Ilyas."
"I took the long way around the creek to be safe," I said, smiling as I pulled her into a hug. "The trap is set. By tomorrow morning, the Empire will be so busy digging up the quarry that they'll forget Old Man Hallow even exists."
"You did well," she whispered, resting her head on my chest. "For a boring man, you're becoming quite a good ghost."
The bait is in the quarry, humming its blue lie. Now we just need someone to 'find' it.