Lucanis had kicked in doors before. He'd spilled blood in foyers and parlours and council chambers. He had found safehouses in ruin and Crow secrets cracked open like bones. But he had never walked into this...
He halted just beyond the threshold of the room, boots scuffing against dusty stone, and tilted his head back slowly. His jaw clenched, eyes narrowing at the scene above him.
Every single piece of furniture, every bookshelf, every table, every chair, was mounted upside down to the ceiling. Perfectly aligned and immaculately detailed.
A desk hung like a chandelier, quills tucked into their inkpots, papers pinned beneath glass weights that hadn't so much as slid. A tea tray with porcelain cups balanced delicately on its surface. Someone's coat hung from a stand above them, the hem swaying ever so slightly in the draught. The rug… Maker, the rug was affixed with such precision that its tassels hung exactly level. Not limp. Level.
And the Crows, three of them. All trussed and strapped with rope, mouths gagged, each suspended from the ceiling like some kind of performance art installation. Eyes wide and awake. All three were awake and had been for Maker knew how long.
"...What the fuck," Illario muttered beside him, breathless with something close to amusement.
Caterina walked in behind them and stopped short, her silence deafening. Her gaze swept the space once, twice, and then locked on the bodies overhead.
"They're alive," she said.
"One of them's drooling," Viago added unhelpfully.
Lucanis stepped forward slowly, taking in the sheer audacity of it. This wasn't vandalism. This wasn't sabotage. This was theatre. And whoever had done it hadn't just meant to embarrass them. They'd meant to perform... And they had succeeded.
"They've been like that for a while," Teia said, voice sharp. "That one's nearly slipped his shoulder out."
Caterina turned sharply to the others. "Why haven't they been cut down yet?"
"Because," a younger Crow replied, entering from the back hall, "none of us can get up there. Not without toppling the whole damn room."
Lucanis's brow furrowed. The ceiling was high, not quite three storeys in this old villa. The walls had been stripped of climbable fixtures. And some of the ropes had been greased.
He swore under his breath and gestured to Teia. "Rope. Anchor point. Let's get them down."
It took longer than it should have. They had to rig a pulley system off the balcony railing. As they lowered the three prisoners to the floor, one of them groaned with a dry throat and blinked rapidly against the sudden change in perspective.
"They left us there," the oldest muttered as the gag was pulled away. "For hours."
"Why?" Caterina asked flatly. "What did they want?"
The second man - a wiry elf with rope burns across his jaw - shook his head, dazed. "Nothing. They knocked us out before we knew they were even inside. We came to… like that."
Lucanis crouched beside the third, a young woman who seemed more embarrassed than afraid. "And what did they take?"
The younger crow who had been trying to figure out a way to get them down replied. "As far as we can tell, nothing."
Lucanis frowned. "Nothing?"
"They just… did that. And then they left a note."
Caterina had already found it. Pinned to the top of the desk that was now above their heads was a parchment, elegantly lettered.
We thought you could use a new perspective.
Illario burst out laughing. "They committed to that pun. Maker's cock. I hate them and I'm in awe."
"They tied living people to the ceiling," Teia snapped.
"And positioned a damn teacup without spilling it," he countered. "You have to respect the craftsmanship. At least one of them must be a mage."
Caterina didn't speak. Her mouth was a hard line, eyes scanning every absurd inch of the scene.
"This is juvenile," Viago muttered. "It's beneath serious operators."
Lucanis's hands tightened behind his back. "Is it?"
He stared upward again, taking in the sheer effort, the logistics, the silence in which this had been pulled off. No one had heard them. No alarm had been raised. They had infiltrated, neutralised three people, and refitted an entire room as a joke.
"This was done with discipline," he said. "And restraint."
Viago scoffed. "It's a prank."
Lucanis's thoughts churned, silent and dark. He felt no closer to understanding them. Were they children with a penchant for chaos? Professionals lashing out in the most baffling way possible?
Both?
Lucanis glanced up at the still-swaying chandelier, where one of the upside-down Crows had vomited on it some time during his suspension. The faint smell was starting to mingle with the scent of dust. He looked at the note again, as if one more look would make it reveal something beyond the idiotic pun.
We thought you could use a new perspective... He didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
Across the room, Viago sighed deeply, hands on his hips. "If it is a message, it's written in a dialect I was never taught."
"No," Caterina muttered. "There is a message. There has to be."
"Maybe the message is the nonsense," Viago offered, dry as desert sand. "What if they're just…" He gestured vaguely at the ceiling. "Idiots. Creative, disturbingly competent idiots. Who get off on watching us try to decipher their art projects."
Lucanis exhaled through his nose, biting back a laugh. "We're being…" He didn't have a word for it. Baited wasn't right, baited into what? Even mocked seemed too extreme. There was almost a friendly teasing to it. "Teased?"
Caterina narrowed her eyes. "By professionals. Don't forget that."
"Oh, I haven't," Viago replied. "It's the professionalism that frightens me."
Teia crossed her arms over her chest and muttered, "I spent ten minutes trying to figure out if the bookshelf order was a cypher. Not as far as I can tell, just... all upside down."
Illario was still chuckling to himself, one hand against the wall for balance. "They even flipped the rug," he said again. "The rug! That's dedication."
Lucanis pressed his fingers to his temple. "This was meant to delay us. Again. That's the only clear motive. Disruption."
"It delayed us," Caterina admitted grimly. "But for what? There was no theft. Nothing missing. No bodies left behind."
Viago scratched at his jaw. "So either it was a message and we're too dull to understand it… or-"
"Or we're being made fun of," Caterina said flatly.
Silence fell for a moment before Lucanis sighed.
"The part that terrifies me… is how well they did it. Everything is inverted perfectly. They must have measured... planned."
Teia nodded faintly. "It wasn't chaos. It was precision. They're playing a different game than we are."
Viago looked around the room again, expression unreadable. "Then the question is... are they brilliant enough to be dangerous, or just deranged enough to be unstoppable?"
No one answered.
Caterina's jaw tightened. "Find out what else they've touched. If they're willing to go to this length for a joke, who knows what they're willing to do for something they actually care about."
Lucanis looked up at the note again and thought - not for the first time - that the worst part wasn't the mockery.
It was that, Maker help him; it was a little bit funny.
"What the fuck are we dealing with?" Teia murmured.
Caterina didn't answer. No one did. Because none of them knew.