Lira Neswick's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Lord Cassimer's ledger stayed with him. Lira knew that much. He carried it in a leather case and slept with it near his bed. She could not counsel a man who counted her steps. She had to see the pages. She had to know how much of her pattern he had drawn. So she needed someone who could take a thing from a guarded room and leave no mark. She found Kai Elver near the apothecary shop at dusk. He was a thief she had used twice before, quick-handed and cheap, a street vendor whose cart held goods no honest man could name. He was arguing price with the shopkeeper, his patched coat bunched over hidden pockets. When he saw Lira, he stopped mid-word and walked away from the sale. "Silk again," he said. "You only find me when you want something moved." "A book," Lira said. "Lord Cassimer's. Bound in leather, kept in a case by his bed. I need to read it. Then it goes back before he wakes." Kai shook his head once. "Back is harder than gone." "Back is the whole point. If he misses it, he knows I looked." She placed coins in his palm. "Half now. Half when I've read it." He weighed the coins, then closed his fist. "His man walks the hall twice an hour. Wolf sleeps in the yard." He tipped his head toward a dark shape past the shop, an ember-maned hound chained near Cassimer's gate, its red mane flickering in the low light. "I go over the roof." "Then go tonight," she said. He went. Lira waited by the apothecary's glowing window, its shelves full of colored glass. An hour passed. Kai dropped from a low wall and pressed the case into her hands. "One hour," he said. "Then it climbs back." She opened it under the shop's soft light. The ledger held dates and doors. Every noble she had visited sat listed in Cassimer's neat hand. He had drawn lines between them, matching her lies. But the last page stopped her cold. He had not guessed her scheme was near complete. He believed she served one master and reported to another. He thought her a spy for a foreign court, not a scribe building her own throne. Lira read it twice to be sure. He had the pattern wrong. He chased a plot that did not exist. That误 was a gift. She closed the case and gave it back. Kai vanished over the wall. Before dawn the ledger sat where it belonged, and Cassimer would never know it had moved. Lira walked home under the lanterns. She had her answer now. Cassimer was dangerous, but he was aimed at the wrong target. She could feed that error. She could send him a false master to hunt, and keep him busy chasing a ghost while she took the court apart, one whisper at a time.