The manor on the outskirts of Clawdiff had been abandoned for three years.

That was what the records said.

The gates were rusted shut. The gardens had grown wild, swallowing the gravel drive beneath thorn and ivy. The windows were dark, several boarded over from the inside, and the stone cherubs along the roofline had been blackened by soot until their faces looked more like gargoyles than saints.

No carriage lamps burned.

No servants moved behind the curtains.

No respectable Pureblood house would allow itself to decay so openly.

Which was why nobody looked too closely.

Inside, the truth lay scattered across the marble floors.

Boxes.

Hundreds of them.

Stacked against walls, piled beneath staircases, hidden behind moth-eaten curtains. Some were stamped with old Zygurr branding—bright smiling mascots, rainbow labels, cheerful slogans about sweetness, joy, and “a better tomorrow in every bite.”

Others contained rolled plans, shipment manifests, promotional posters, prototype wrappers, and glossy campaign materials showing laughing children holding sweets that had never made it to market.

Now they were covered in blood.

The lord’s men were dead before they hit the floor.

No alarms.

No gunfire.

No heroic last words.

Just the soft collapse of bodies, one after another, as if the shadows had decided they were tired of holding them up.

Lord Percival Grunwick crawled backwards across the marble tiles, silk waistcoat torn, powdered wig hanging loose over one eye. His feet slipped in spilled wine.

Or blood.

He no longer knew which.

The silence around him was worse than screaming.

Men should have screamed.

They should have begged. Cursed. Fired their weapons. Knocked over chairs. Broken windows. Done something loud and living before death took them.

But they had simply fallen.

And now Silent stood over him.

No face.

No breath.

No sound except the faint scrape of ice forming along the edge of one gloved hand.

Lord Grunwick tried to swallow, but his throat had gone dry.

“I can pay you,” he said quickly. “Whatever they offered, I can triple it.”

Silent did not move.

“Quadruple it.”

Still nothing.

Grunwick’s back hit the leg of a table. Above him, half-unpacked Zygurr posters shifted in the disturbed air, smiling down with sugar-bright eyes.

“Land, then,” Grunwick babbled. “I have holdings. Southbank properties. Shares in three canal lines. A private account in Albryne. I can arrange titles, favours, safe passage through Council checkpoints. I know people.”

Silent tilted his head.

The motion was small.

Almost curious.

Grunwick’s trembling smile returned for half a second.

Then Silent spoke.

“The truth.”

His voice was soft.

That made it worse.

Grunwick blinked. “I… I beg your pardon?”

Silent lifted one hand.

A shard of blue-white light opened above his palm.

Footage flickered into the air.

A man entering the manor through the western service door.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Cloaked against the rain.

Kenaz Astallan.

Grunwick went pale.

The footage jumped.

A corridor.

A brief flash of argument.

A package being moved.

Then an explosion tore through the image in white fire.

The recording crackled.

When it steadied again, Kenaz was running from the building through smoke and shattered glass, one arm clutched against his ribs.

Silent lowered his hand.

Grunwick stared at the empty air where the image had been.

“I don’t know anything about that.”

Silent raised his other hand.

A second recording appeared.

This one was audio only.

Grunwick’s own voice filled the room, tinny and frightened.

“The shipment was scheduled for next week. We were told not to move early.”

A second voice answered.

Distorted.

Layered.

Genderless beneath the interference.

“Plans have changed. We need escalation. Make sure the package is delivered early.”

Grunwick’s recorded voice trembled. “If the Council traces this back—”

“They will trace what we permit them to trace. Do your part, Lord Grunwick.”

The recording ended.

Silent let the darkness settle again.

Then he said, “Start talking.”

Grunwick’s jaw worked soundlessly.

Then fear curdled into offended pride.

A foolish instinct.

But Pureblood nobles were bred on foolish instincts.

“Do you know who I am?” he demanded, voice cracking. “I am Lord Percival Grunwick of the Southbank Line. My family held charter rights before the Third Industrial Crown. My grandfather sat two seats from the Inner Hundred. My cousin married into House Valenforth. My name appears in six royal ledgers and three succession—”

Silent flicked his wrist.

An ice blade formed in the air and shot across the room.

It pinned a stack of pedigree documents to the wall with a sound like cracking bone.

Grunwick stopped speaking.

Silent stepped closer.

“I am here on behalf of House Arcturus.”

The lord’s face changed.

All the bluster drained from it.

Silent’s head angled slightly.

“This is outside the court.”

Grunwick’s lips parted.

No sound came out.

“Now,” Silent said, “what was the package?”

“I don’t know.”

Silent took another step.

“I swear, I don’t know.”

Another.

Grunwick’s back pressed harder against the table leg. “You can’t kill me.”

Silent’s brow lifted beneath the shadow of his hood.

Grunwick’s voice climbed. “You kill me and men far greater than you will come. Do you understand? I have seen my fellow men killed for less than mishandling messages. Less than hearing names they were not meant to hear. If I speak, I die.”

Silent stopped in front of him.

“Now,” he said softly, “we are getting somewhere.”

Grunwick began to shake.

Silent crouched.

Not hurriedly.

Not angrily.

Almost politely.

“Lord Grunwick, I am going to ask you one question at a time. You will answer clearly. If you lie, I will know. If you delay, I will encourage speed. If you attempt to bargain, I will remove your ability to make further offers.”

Grunwick whimpered.

Silent continued, voice calm enough to be conversational.

“There are many ways to make a body tell the truth before the mouth agrees. I dislike most of them. They are inelegant. Messy. Time-consuming. But tonight, I am willing to be patient.”

A thin line of frost spread from Silent’s boot across the marble.

It touched Grunwick’s trembling hand.

He gasped as the cold bit deep enough to burn.

“Please.”

“The package.”

Grunwick sobbed once.

Then broke.

“House Cariad.”

Silent went still.

For the first time that night, something like surprise entered the room.

“House Cariad?”

Grunwick nodded frantically. “Yes. Yes, House Cariad. That’s all I know.”

“They were wiped out.”

“I know.”

Silent leaned closer. “How can it be House Cariad?”

Grunwick’s face twisted with terror.

“They went underground.”

The manor seemed to grow colder.

Silent did not blink.

“No.”

“They did,” Grunwick insisted. “After the purge. After the ledgers were cleaned. Some survived. Not many. Enough.”

“That is not possible,” Silent said.

His voice had changed.

Not louder.

Not softer.

Older.

“I counted the bodies.”

Grunwick stared at him.

Then, slowly, with the desperation of a man throwing his last knife, he whispered, “Not all of them.”

Silence settled between them.

Beyond the broken windows, the wind moved through the dead gardens.

Silent rose to his full height.

For a moment, he seemed less like an assassin and more like a shadow remembering the shape of a man.

House Cariad.

Underground.

Operating in silence.

Kenaz.

Zygurr.

The package.

The distorted voice.

The pieces did not fit.

Or worse, they did.

Grunwick’s hand slid beneath the table.

His fingers closed around the pistol strapped under the rim.

He drew it fast.

Faster than a soft man should have.

The gunshot cracked through the manor.

The bullet stopped inches from Silent’s face.

Not slowed.

Stopped.

It hung there in the air, spinning gently inside a thin shell of silver-blue time mana.

Grunwick froze.

Silent looked at the bullet.

Then at him.

“Oh,” he said.

The word was almost amused.

The shadows behind him unfolded.

His cloak split into darkness and frost. The outline of his body shifted—longer, sharper, less human than the polite shape he had worn a moment before. Horns of pale ice curved from the shadow around his head. His eyes opened like two cuts in moonlight.

Grunwick’s bladder gave way.

Silent stepped behind him without crossing the space between.

His real voice breathed against the lord’s ear.

“Big mistake.”

Lord Percival Grunwick screamed.

Outside, the abandoned manor remained silent.

No alarms.

No gunfire.

No heroic last words.

Only darkness.

And one smiling Zygurr poster in the window, bright and cheerful beneath a spray of blood.