Inside the Estate

We watched from the trees beyond the eastern wall as Cedric left his estate twenty minutes before the palace meeting was supposed to begin.

His carriage rolled from the main gate beneath two lanterns, escorted by four Imperial Knights. Cedric sat inside with the curtain partly open, blonde hair catching briefly in the fading light as the wheels turned towards the palace district.

I could see the side of his face.

He looked calm, of course. Thirteen years should have changed more than a few lines around his eyes, but it seemed like Cedric had decided that ageing was optional.

The carriage disappeared beyond the neighbouring houses, but I remained where I was.

Isabelle crouched on a branch several feet away, balanced comfortably enough that I suspected she had spent more of her childhood escaping into the wilderness than her father knew about.

We waited five minutes, then ten. No carriage returned, and no rider followed.

The estate settled back into its normal evening rhythm.

Our information about the guards had been accurate. Two stood at the main gate. Another pair remained near the front entrance beneath a stone archway. A patrol crossed the rear grounds once, then vanished around the western side.

Nobody watched the trees.

That seemed rude after we had made the effort to climb them.

The branches stretched over the outer wall from a strip of old woodland left between the neighbouring estates.

When I was younger, trees had mostly been used as places to hide.

Tonight, they had a more practical use.

I moved first, and the branch dipped beneath my weight as I crossed towards the wall. I caught the next trunk, lowered myself onto the stone wall and waited for the patrol to disappear behind the manor. Isabelle landed beside me without a sound.

Show-off.

We dropped into the nearby gardens.

The estate was larger than the schematic had made it feel.

Pale stone walls rose three storeys above clipped hedges still half-neglected from the years the property had stood empty. Several windows remained dark. Others glowed warm yellow behind the newly hung curtains. Crates had been stacked beneath a covered walkway near the eastern service yard.

The place had not decided whether it belonged to Cedric yet.

That helped.

We stayed beneath the trees along the eastern gardens, moving only when the patrol disappeared around the opposite corner.

A bell sounded at the front gate, and we stopped.

A delivery wagon waited outside.

Two servants hurried across the front courtyard while the guards checked the driver’s papers. Another man opened the side service doors, then shouted for someone upstairs. Within seconds, servants were moving throughout the manor.

Perfect.

Isabelle looked up and noticed a second-floor window was open above the eastern gardens. Someone had pushed it wide to air the room while carrying linens inside.

Isabelle looked far too pleased with the discovery.

I knew where this was going.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to suggest the window.”

She tried not to laugh but failed miserably.

“It is a very good window.”

“I have history with those.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Before I could object further, she caught the trunk of the nearest tree and started climbing.

Democracy had failed, so I followed her.

The upper branches reached close enough to the stone wall that the final gap was possible without being sensible. Isabelle crossed first, caught the carved edge beneath the window and pulled herself inside. I waited for the patrol below, but nothing came.

Then I jumped, and my fingers caught stone. A moment later, Isabelle grabbed my wrist and helped pull me over the ledge.

We landed in a half-furnished guest room.

Fresh sheets sat folded on the bed. Two paintings leaned face-first against the wall. A vase of pale blue flowers had somehow arrived before the room was properly furnished.

Isabelle put one finger to her lips as footsteps passed outside.

The old schematic had been accurate about the corridor and less accurate about the doors.

One had been sealed completely. Another opened where the plan showed a wall.

Fortunately, corridors were harder to move.

We slipped out after the footsteps faded. The next ten minutes became a collection of pauses.

A servant carrying towels forced us into an empty sitting room. Two guards crossed the central landing while we waited behind a curtain heavy enough to suffocate somebody. A maid left a door open at exactly the wrong moment and spent an absurd amount of time deciding whether a lamp needed more oil.

Isabelle moved through it all with irritating ease. She watched people rather than walls. Knew which doors servants used without looking at the schematic. Knew that a private staircase would probably be near the family rooms even when the original plan had placed it several yards away.

And I knew how long each guard favoured his left leg after turning.

Between us, the house became manageable.

Cedric’s bedchamber was on the second floor overlooking the rear garden.

The door was locked.

Isabelle dealt with that in less time than it would have taken me to complain.

Inside, the room was almost offensively ordinary: a large bed, wardrobe, washstand and two travel cases beside the wall.

A dark Imperial coat lay across the back of a chair. Nothing that belonged to the man I remembered thirteen years ago. Nothing from Valemont.

We searched anyway, checking the drawers and cases, beneath the mattress and behind the wardrobe. Isabelle checked the floorboards near the bed while I examined the travel cases for false linings and found nothing.

Not even a letter worth stealing.

“He’s either very careful,” Isabelle whispered, “or incredibly boring.”

“He can be both,” I added.

We put everything back and moved on.

The study sat one floor below on the eastern side, exactly where the old schematic placed it.

I expected the door to be locked.

But it wasn’t.

We entered and closed it quietly behind us. The room looked finished in a way the rest of the estate did not.

Cedric had prioritised it.

A broad desk stood before the windows. Bookshelves covered most of two walls. A smaller cabinet sat beside the fireplace, and military maps had been rolled into a wooden rack near the corner.

Everything had a place: pens aligned beside the ink, papers squared with the desk edge. Books arranged with enough precision that I could almost hear Cedric correcting me for returning something half an inch from where I found it. For a second, the room felt more familiar than his face had.

We searched the desk first.

Every drawer came out while Isabelle ran a knife beneath the inner panels and I checked the underside for catches.

The cabinet contained ordinary correspondence, military notices and household accounts. We checked the map rack, fireplace stones, window panels and the back of the desk.

Nothing.

Twenty minutes passed before Isabelle straightened from the cabinet.

“We should move.”

I was standing in front of the bookshelves.

“Library next,” she said. “If those ledgers aren’t here, then that’s the next obvious place.”

I was barely listening.

The books were arranged alphabetically.

Of course they were.

Cedric had once reorganised an entire rack of practice weapons because somebody had returned two wooden swords in the wrong order. He had claimed it was about safety, but it wasn’t.

My eyes moved along the spines: histories, political records, strategy books and several novels I would have mocked him for owning if the circumstances were less murderous.

Then something caught my eye.

One book was wrong—not unusual in itself, but wrong in a way that bothered me.

The title began with an S but sat between two volumes beginning with a T.

I looked at the books above it, then below.

Everything else followed the same order.

“Leon.”

I stepped closer.

“It’s misplaced.”

Isabelle looked at the shelf.

“We’re breaking into the home of a man suspected of helping massacre a noble house, and that’s what concerns you?”

“He wouldn’t put it there.”

“Someone else could have.”

That was a sensible answer.

A servant could have moved it. A porter could have shelved it incorrectly during the transfer. We had already spent too long in this room.

They were all sensible explanations, but the book still bothered me.

“Leave it,” Isabelle whispered. “We’ll check the library.”

I reached for the book, but it didn’t move properly; the top edge came forward perhaps half an inch, then stopped.

A small click sounded somewhere behind the wood.

Isabelle’s head snapped towards me.

Then the bookshelf moved.