The sun wasn't up yet, but the sky had begun its slow crawl toward grey, casting the flat in a soft predawn hush. The job was done, the door was locked, and they could relax.
Evie lay flat on her back on the floor, arms spread like she'd been felled in battle, still wearing her undershirt and trousers from the night's escapade. Her boots had been kicked off somewhere near the hearth. "We're idiots," she declared to the ceiling.
"I've been saying that," Kieran said, slouched sideways in the only chair they had that didn't wobble. "But no one ever listens to me."
"You say it like you didn't levitate the chest yourself," Tai pointed out, sprawled stomach-down on the rug, propped up on his elbows. "Without you, we'd have been dragging that monstrosity through the streets like sad little pack mules."
Kieran gave a slow, elegant shrug. "It was that or listen to you two argue about who isn't pulling their weight for two hours."
Hirik, perched neatly on the edge of the low table, ran a cloth gently along one of the disassembled locks he'd made, a prototype for Evie and Tai to test. His expression was one of a man examining art, not sabotage. "It was a beautiful design," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.
"You should be proud," Evie said, lifting a hand without sitting up to gesture vaguely at him. "Those locks were horrible. Masterpieces, but horrible. I'm genuinely upset at how long it took us to unlock them."
"That was the point," Hirik replied, not unkindly.
"It was infuriating," Tai said, grinning. "I loved it."
Kieran turned to Evie, brows raised. "But you - you - hung a bucket."
"I did." She sounded almost scandalised at her own actions.
"I never thought I'd see the day you stooped to Tai's level."
Evie finally sat up, smirking. "I didn't stoop. I descended with intention."
Tai let out a bark of laughter. "That's what you call it?"
"It was sitting right there!" She argued. "I was compelled."
"It was beautiful," Tai said. "Truly. A work of pure, stupid genius."
Hirik set the lock down and folded his hands in his lap, lips twitching. "It was satisfying. The buttons too. Very... unnecessary."
Tai grinned, and they sat in companionable quiet after that, the kind that only came after mischief, adrenaline, and a narrow escape. They'd pulled off another one. And they'd laughed doing it.
--
Night fell soft over Treviso, veiling the city in the hush of sleeping merchants and guttering lanterns. But in the dark, ink-stained hands worked.
In a candlelit room, Kieran hunched over a worn desk, half his face swallowed by shadow, scribbling with the delicate precision of a calligrapher. He didn't use his usual hand. He'd spent hours practising different styles, testing the slope and curve of anonymous letters until none resembled the clean, academic scrawl of a noble son turned outlaw. "Should look like a paranoid innkeeper or a disgruntled clerk," he muttered, passing the paper to Hirik.
Hirik, meticulous as ever, scanned the text. "This one says Lady Neralda kept a Crow assassin on retainer. That'll sting." He folded the parchment cleanly, sealed it with wax, no sigil, just plain red, and passed it along.
Evie and Tai prepared the delivery. She cut thin leather cords, tying scrolls with a bard's neat hand. Tai packed a satchel with care that was almost reverent. His usual grin flickered under the dim light of their flat.
"So many secrets," he said, patting the scrolls. "It's like Satinalia come early."
Evie laughed quietly.
--
The streets of Treviso were not silent; no city ever was, but the hour between last drinks and first light held its own kind of stillness.
They moved in pairs. Evie and Tai took the Noble Quarter. Dressed as a courier and an early-rising scullery maid, they blended in with the fog and cobblestones. Tai tacked a scroll to the door of a bakery. Lady Aldrene's affair with a Crow Handler, laid bare for morning bread-buyers to read while they queued.
In the Merchant Square, Kieran and Hirik slipped behind a fruit cart and nailed another to a weathered noticeboard. Lord Vetrello pays in coin and pleasure to keep his trade routes murder-free.
Outside the Chantry, a third note found its way to the offering pillar. Chancellor Leopold takes tithes from both the devout and the damned. Confessions traded for favours with the Crows.
By the time the bells rang for dawn, the city was already humming.
Whispers rose like steam from boiling pots. Heads bowed over posted notes. Couriers raced ahead of angry nobles. Merchants read and re-read names they knew all too well. The word "Crow" hissed between lips like a curse.
Back at their hideout, the four of them slouched on their worn mattresses, watching the fire crackle low.
"Think they'll believe it?" Tai asked, arms behind his head.
"They'll believe enough," Kieran replied, quietly. "Fear doesn't need proof. Just suggestion."
Evie looked down at the blackened edge of a discarded scroll curling in the fireplace. They'd do this one drop at a time.
--
Lucanis had always known Treviso by its sounds. The sharp ring of hammer on steel in the Forge Quarter. The rhythmic shouts of the docks. The murmur of the Noble Quarter, measured, always calculating. But this morning, the hum was different.
There was a tension in the air, crackling like the edge of a storm not yet formed. He heard it in the silence between conversations and saw it in the glances merchants traded. The Crows were always watching. But now, people were watching back.
He passed a crowded noticeboard near the artisan square, pretending not to notice the gathered crowd or the parchment nailed dead centre. But his eyes scanned it anyway.
Lady Neralda, loyal friend of the Antivan Crows. Ask her about the man who never came home.
No proof, no names signed, no seal. And yet, a murmur passed through the crowd, like a current caught in a net. He kept walking, didn't flinch, didn't stop.
At the Cantori Diamond, the mood was worse.
Viago stood at the window, watching the street with narrowed eyes. "This one was posted outside the tailor's guild." He held up another parchment. Marceline the Merchant, a loyal and long-time customer. "You know how many dressmakers she employs? That woman will scream in every hall until half the nobility is red-faced."
Teia sat with arms crossed, eyes sharp. "They're choosing targets with care. No nobles too beloved. No lies that can be disproven easily. This is calculated."
Caterina didn't speak right away. She stood at the long table, studying the spread of reports and notes. "They've had these secrets for weeks. Why now?"
Lucanis leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "I don't know. But all these people knew already, or at least suspected. These little truths… they confirm what no one dared say aloud."
Illario lounged with a smirk, but even he wasn't immune to the weight in the room. "You lot look like you've seen ghosts. It's just paper."
"No," said Lucanis. "It's worse. It's doubt. That's harder to kill."
Caterina finally spoke. "We need to bury this. Pay off victims, call in favours, discredit the papers. Quiet it down. But more importantly," her gaze narrowed. "We need to stop them from making more."
Viago frowned. "And how do we find them when they vanish like smoke?"
Lucanis looked down at one of the notes again, his brow furrowed. "They didn't leave proof, but they left… voice, intent, personality."
The lockboxes. The buttons. The drawing. Now this.
Whoever these saboteurs were, they weren't just skilled. They were petty. Or young. Or careless enough to find amusement in this.
But they were also patient. Disciplined and smart. It was a maddening contradiction.
"They're mocking us," Teia said.
"Or," Lucanis murmured, eyes on the parchment. "They're warning us. And we're not listening."