19. The local filth

Under night’s cover, three figures waited in an alley across from the inn. One of them watched the building without letting his attention drift, while the other two stood nearby with their eyes closed, motionless until needed.

When that moment came, all three moved with the silent coordination Alistair had grown used to. One clone crossed the alley and went straight for the back door. The watcher followed a step behind, ready to react if something went wrong. Escapee crouched by the lock, and the instant his hands touched it, his focus came alive. Slip Bind worked through the mechanism quickly and cleanly. In less than a minute, the lock gave with a soft click, and the clone moved aside.

Shade entered first. He slipped into the inn and let the darkness cover him while he checked the reception hall for any sign of trouble. He listened for breathing, footsteps, shifting floorboards, or the scrape of a chair. He checked for lamplight, movement, or any trace that someone was awake.

The place remained quiet. Only then did Seeker enter. Seeker was poorly suited for stealth, so his task was simple. He needed only to find the right place and get out of the way before his presence became a liability. Keen Find pulled him toward a locked room, and once the pull identified the room, he withdrew. Escapee came inside again, opened the door with Slip Bind, and then Shade inspected the room beyond. The room was empty. That fit what Alistair expected. It was a storage room, not a bedchamber, though he never trusted appearances.

Once they were inside, he stopped sending clones in and out of the building. Too much movement would only increase the chance of noise, attention, or bad timing. If someone came too close, he could dismiss the bodies at once. Better that than trying to slip repeatedly through the inn.

The room itself was packed with old things. Spare furniture leaned against the walls, shelves sagged under bundles and broken pieces, and there were loose planks, cracked bowls, worn curtains, and stacks of parchments shoved together carelessly. It was a crowded, neglected place, the sort of room where useful things disappeared into disorder. Seeker had done all he could. He had narrowed the target to this room, but no further. From there, unskilled manual searching would have to do.

The search took too long. At first, the papers only confirmed his frustration. They were records, but they looked like ordinary inn records. Dates, room numbers, payments, guest names. He found no hidden ledger, no obvious code, and no direct proof waiting to be found.

For a few minutes, Alistair felt the risk turning against him. He had already decided not to wait any longer after watching the inn from outside for days and seeing nothing unusual. Lauren had given him only one solid clue in town. During her short stay, the innkeeper had entered the room, seen the bound girl, and ignored her. Still, he needed something more.

In the end, he brought in another class, one that had never found a truly convincing use before.

A true Scribe class would have been better, and Alistair knew it. But the education he had received before slavery had been too brief, and the years after had washed too much of it away. He had failed the Scribe trial in the Hall. Ledgerhand was what he managed to get instead. It was a less useful class, but now it finally had a place.

Once Ledgerhand entered the room, the search changed. The papers did not become easier to read, but they stopped feeling random. Filing Order began arranging the mess inside his mind. Repetition stood out first, and then absence. The room used by the couple and Lauren kept appearing in the records, and what mattered most was not only who had stayed there. The important part was how often that room remained vacant even when much of the rest of the inn was full. That was enough to arouse suspicion. Certain guests were being given that room on purpose.

Then the names began to matter. The man he killed appeared in the records again, tied to the same room during an earlier stay. Another woman’s name showed up a few times. She appeared less often than the dead couple, but the pattern could suggest the same kind of work. Above them all, however, one other entry repeated most often. Roe. Most of the time, it was not a full name, only the surname. Using only a surname suggested rank, or at least status: someone who did not need to identify himself fully in a place where his name already carried weight. He did not steal any paper or write anything down. There were too few names to justify the risk, and Ledgerhand made remembering them easy enough. He fixed them in his memory instead, repeating them inwardly until they stuck.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Then a problem appeared. A small sound carried too far. In daylight, or in a busier building, it would have meant nothing. But the inn was quiet, and quiet turned even a minor mistake into danger. Shade heard movement on the stairs. Then he heard footsteps.

Someone had heard the noise and was coming to check. Alistair did not hesitate. The clones vanished before the footsteps reached the room. One moment, two bodies stood inside the inn; the next, there was nothing. No scrambling, no retreat, no desperate attempt to hide. Only absence.

A short while later, through Seeker’s eyes, Alistair watched Hedra open the room’s door. By then he already knew a little about her. She owned the Split Cup, and was the kind of woman who paid attention. She likely knew only part of the trade moving through her inn, but that part was enough.

Still, Hedra was no hidden mastermind. She was something simpler, and in some ways worse. She was useful filth.

Alistair decided the night’s work was over. He had the names. Greed would only make staying longer foolish. So he withdrew and let the inn settle back into silence. He left with no physical proof, and no trace behind him beyond whatever doubt now remained in Hedra’s mind.

After that, he returned to routine. The next few days followed the same rhythm that had carried him through Emerier so far. One clone watched Lauren, work at La Table d’Or continued, night flower gathering continued, and physical training filled whatever gaps remained. The shards in his pocket started to rise again, slowly but steadily. The wealth came slowly, but it would add up.