The first time Alfred saw Martha Kane, she had a gun in one hand and a file folder in the other — and looked like she trusted the folder more.

He was late to the meeting.

Thomas had insisted on neutral ground: a quiet back room above a tea shop in Soho, all lace and doilies and the faint smell of overboiled cabbage. It was the sort of place old women whispered in and young men avoided.

Lucius Harland was already there, leaning in the shadows, eyes like narrow blades. Alfred disliked him instantly and on principle.

"You're late," Harland said.

"Traffic," Alfred replied, taking a seat anyway.

Thomas gave him a look. "There is no traffic at ten in the morning if you walk."

"Then I should've walked faster."

The woman by the window closed the file she'd been reading and looked up.

There was nothing dainty about Martha Kane. Her hair was pinned in a way that said she'd done it one-handed while running out the door, and the jacket she wore looked stolen from a man twice her size. Her eyes, sharp and restless, were the most awake things in the room.

"So, this is the famous Alfred," she said. American, like Thomas, but with a different music to it — less boardroom, more alleyway intelligence.

Alfred nodded. "Depends who you ask."

"I asked three people on the way here," she said. "Two said you're useful. One said you're trouble. That averages out to promising."

"I'm flattered," Alfred replied. "And you are?"

"Martha Kane," she said. "I break into places and annoy powerful men for a living. We're on the same side today, unless you give me a reason to shoot you."

She smiled when she said it. That made it worse.

Thomas cleared his throat. "Martha works with a... different branch of the same tree. National security with fewer polite dinners."

"Less 'sir,' more swearing," Martha added.

Harland shut the door with a soft click. "The Ravens are accelerating," he said without preamble. "Gaunt met with you, Pennyworth?"

"Word gets around fast," Alfred said.

Thomas gestured. "Tell us."

Alfred gave them everything: Gaunt's pitch, the enamel pins, the cold confidence of men who believed the city belonged to them.

Martha listened without blinking, tapping the edge of her folder. When he finished, she flipped it toward him. The name stamped on the cover matched his memory.

RAVEN: STORMCLOUD — PRELIMINARY INTEL.

"You're a piece we didn't have yet," she said. "Congratulations. You're a puzzle that bleeds."

"I aim to please," Alfred replied.

Harland finally stepped fully into the light. "The Ravens aren't alone. There's money flowing in from across the ocean — bypassing official channels. L&L Holdings is one conduit. We don't have proof yet, but my people believe it leads back to a man named Lionel Luthor."

"The American industrialist?" Alfred asked.

Thomas nodded; his expression tightened. "Defense contracts. Shipping. Very old money with very new ambitions."

"And he's bankrolling fascists now?" Alfred asked.

Martha shrugged. "He'll bankroll whoever makes him richer and the world more orderly — by his definition of orderly. Right now, that's Harwood and his birds."

"Then cut off the money," Alfred said. "You lot love sanctions and account freezes."

Thomas sighed. "If it were as simple as a stern letter, I wouldn't be begging for your time. His shell companies never quite touch the gun. But Raven operatives do. That's where you come in."

Alfred leaned back. "Of course it is."

Martha slid a photograph across the table. A warehouse by the docks — anonymous, ugly, dangerous in its plainness.

"We think this is one of their transfer points," she said. "Shipments in, shipments out, all off books."

"Could be soap," Alfred said.

"Could be," Martha agreed. "Or it could be canisters for whatever Stormcloud is. We can't get a warrant without tipping our hand. We need eyes inside. Someone who can look like they belong — and disappear when they don't."

"Somehow I think you're not asking Harland," Alfred said.

Harland's jaw flexed. "I do covert. Not theatrics."

"Ravens love uniforms," Martha said. "Gaunt will come back to you. Next time, you let him think you're tempted. You take the job. You go where he wants you. You see what he wants moved."

"You want me to play double," Alfred said.

"I want you to play yourself," Martha replied. "A man who's very tired, very angry, and doesn't trust anyone — but hates bullies even more. That's what they see when they look at you. Use it."

The back of Alfred's neck prickled. He had sworn — at his father's grave — that he was done being anyone's weapon.

"You ever been someone else's blunt instrument, Miss Kane?" he asked.

She didn't blink. "Every time I walk into a room with a man like Luthor or Harwood in it. But I'd rather be the one holding the handle than the one being hit."

Thomas watched Alfred carefully.

"You can say no," Thomas said quietly. "You can go back to the club. Live your life. Pretend you never heard any of this."

He meant it. That made it worse.

Alfred thought of Esme singing under crooked lights, of his mum boiling tea on a stove that wheezed, of Gaunt's eyes on him beneath a yellowed street lamp. He thought of the part of himself that still woke up with his hands clenched around an imaginary rifle.

"I'll go," Alfred said. "But I'm not doin' it for you lot. I'm not doin' it for America or the King."

Martha's mouth ticked. "Then who?"

He looked down at the photograph of the warehouse. A Raven banner's shadow barely visible along the wall.

"For the people who don't know there's a war on," he said. "They're the ones who get killed first when men like that get what they want."

Martha nodded once. "Good answer."

"Try not to get him killed," Thomas murmured to her.

"I'll do my best," she said. "But you know how ghosts are. They go where they're pulled."

---

Alfred left the tea shop an hour later with a thin file, a thicker sense of dread, and a meeting time from Gaunt that he had never agreed to — but had been given anyway.

Outside, the city smelled of wet stone and coal smoke. Old. Tired. And beneath it all, something new.

A storm building.