Gillian pulled the heavy cloak tighter around his broad shoulders, drawing the oversized hood down until it covered most of his face. He walked at an easy pace, his boots making little noise against the muddy cobblestones. The streets smelled of old garbage, fried river fish, and damp brick, nothing like the perfumed halls of the Auzelian embassy.
He turned sharply into a narrow, dead-end alleyway squeezed between a run-down bakery and a boarded-up weaver's shop.
Stopping right near a row of empty wooden rain barrels, Gillian halted, his ears straining against the quiet crackle of evening fires in the distance.
A moment later, a floorboard creaked above him. A tall figure wrapped in a matching dark cloak dropped lightly down from the bakery's fire escape, landing on his knees with barely a sound before straightening up.
"Your High..." the man began hurriedly, reaching to pull down his face mask.
