The banquet was over.
The candles were extinguished, the music silenced.
The guests, each lost in their own thoughts, departed in twos and threes, and the long hall returned to its cold tranquility.
Philippe returned to his residence in the Noble District.
The mansion had once belonged to a wealthy Knight of the Dawn Territory. Its lavish decorations, however, now only served to irritate Philippe.
He didn't light any lamps, standing alone before the French windows of the second-floor study. Moonlight poured down like mercury, flooding the courtyard.
A figure slipped out from the shadows of a colonnade and knelt on one knee.
He was dressed in the unremarkable attire of a merchant—Philippe's most capable intelligence chief.
"My lord, the men sent to the stone bridge in the Western Territory and the southern three-forked road have returned."
"Speak."
