Cade's place was bigger than hers, but not by much.
She'd never been here before, only ever seen him in the halls, in the field, or half-dressed in the training yard. But it made sense, he'd been in Treviso longer. It looked lived in. A pile of laundry in the corner, two mismatched chairs, a chipped bowl on the table with an apple that had gone slightly soft. It smelled faintly of leather and smoke and sweat, like him.
She followed him up the back stairs, ducking low beneath the beam on the top landing. The tailor's shop below was quiet, long closed. No one on the street had paid them any mind.
The moment the door shut behind them, Cade hissed out a sharp, "Fuuuuuuck."
Starling nodded, crossing to the narrow window and peering through the warped glass. No signs of pursuit. No signs of Elihu. "Yeah."
It was all she could manage.
They said nothing else, not for several minutes. Just paced. Thought. Breathed like the world was collapsing in around the edges.
One by one, the others arrived - pairs, singles, staggered. All of them slipping through the back entrance like ghosts. And soon, the little apartment was bursting at the seams with Crows who were far too quiet for what should have been a celebratory debrief.
Starling leaned against the wall by the wardrobe, arms folded, shoulder pressed into the wood.
Tenna and Alis claimed the two chairs like they'd fought for them. Ridge had taken the end of the bed, sprawled with all the comfort of someone who wasn't going to move for anyone. Everyone else was left to the walls or to stand in the crowded centre.
Jacek hadn't stopped bouncing his leg since he walked in. Neri looked like she was chewing on the inside of her cheek, arms folded tight across her chest. Vasha had barely blinked. Ledo was frowning deeply, jaw ticking, and Brin stood with his hands clasped behind his back, like he was on parade.
No one said anything. The silence pressed in like a held breath.
Starling exhaled quietly, the only sound in the room the soft creak of Cade dragging a hand down his face.
Then Brin spoke, calm and heavy, "The man we killed was under Crow protection."
Her head snapped toward him, and across the room, Tenna's eyes widened in mirrored horror.
Jacek muttered something foul under his breath. Ridge just closed his eyes and swore low and long.
"We don't know what the story is with the chest yet," Brin added. "It could be like Elihu told us."
Starling felt the sharp twist of her stomach again. That sour, nauseating pull that hadn't let up since last night.
"Elihu was gone," she said quietly. "His place wasn't packed, but there were signs it was searched. We don't know if he ran or if someone cleaned him up and made it look like he left."
Ridge leaned forward on his knees, voice grim. "There was nothing in his office. The dossier he gave us? Gone."
Alis, ever the methodical one, spoke next. "We still have our copies. The map. Notes on the manor."
"Which is just proof against us," Jacek snapped, pacing again. "We've got our names all over this shit."
Ledo added, "The chest was gone too. Drop point was empty. Not even a footprint left behind."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Jacek said it, loud and final, "Fuck me. So we killed someone we were supposed to protect and handed off a bunch of magical shit to Maker knows who." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Not only is Caterina going to kill us, she's going to make an example of us."
Starling stared down at the floorboards beneath Cade's rug, her arms folded tightly over her chest. Her fingers dug into her sleeves like she could tear her way through this moment if she just held on tight enough.
It was worse than they thought. It wasn't just failure, it was betrayal. Played like fools, manipulated into committing a crime so big it would stain the Crows for years if it got out.
She looked up at the others, all of them wearing the same realisation, the same fear, the same unspoken question-
Now what?
Because the walls were closing in, and they were ten bodies deep in something they might not be able to crawl out of.
"We could go to Caterina," Ledo said, cutting the silence. "Come clean. Explain what happened."
The room turned on him in a heartbeat. Nine pairs of eyes stared at him like he'd just asked to be hanged right now rather than later. Even Cade, normally good-natured, looked at him like he was unwell.
Only Alis didn't look horrified. "Maybe he's right," she said slowly. "If we throw ourselves on her mercy-"
"Are we talking about the same Caterina?" Vasha cut in with a laugh, sharp and disbelieving. "The woman is ice. Ice doesn't have mercy."
"We definitely do not go that route," Ridge said, tone final.
Jacek shifted where he stood. "One of us could confess. Take the fall for the rest."
"I nominate you," Ledo said flatly.
Jacek shot him a rude gesture without even turning.
"We all have to keep our mouths shut," Tenna said. She was perched on the arm of Cade's threadbare chair, legs bouncing restlessly. "At least until we know who knows what."
"And wait for it to blow over?" Neri asked, her voice tight. "This is not going to blow over."
"We could scapegoat someone else," Brin said at last. "Another faction. There are enough feuds and pissing matches in this city; it wouldn't be hard to stir the pot."
Starling leaned against the wall, arms crossed, jaw tight. The room felt too full, the air too thin.
She was good at lying. At keeping secrets. She always had been. But this wasn't the same as slipping past questions about where she'd been. This was treason. This was death if they got caught.
And worse - they'd done it. Not by accident, not completely. They'd done the job, completed every step. Executed it.
She could still see the guards going down. See Jacek standing over the dead diplomat.
She hated how clean it had felt in the moment. How routine.
And now it was unravelling, all of it. Elihu was gone. The chest was gone. And the moment Caterina figured out who was behind it, they were all as good as corpses.
She looked around at the others - every one of them trained killers. Every one of them her people. Some she trusted more than others. Some she didn't trust at all. But for better or worse, they were in this together.
The silence stretched, each of them replaying the last few days in their heads, trying to find the moment it had all turned. Jacek was the one to break it, of course - he always was.
"We could pin it on Elihu." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Make it look like he was behind it. Alone. Hired outside help, maybe freelancers. There's enough in that dossier he gave us that we could doctor it - make it seem like he planned it all, pulled it off with a team no one inside the Hall knew about."
Brin looked thoughtful, even as the others reacted in a mix of uncertainty and growing intrigue.
Tenna tilted her head, sceptical. "You're talking about planting evidence?"
Jacek nodded. "One of our dossiers, left somewhere in his house. Nothing with our names on it, obviously. Just the map, the surveillance notes - enough to make it clear he had intel. Make it look like he went rogue. Maybe got greedy. He was already working outside normal channels. Makes the whole mess make sense. Diplomat dies, chest goes missing - people start looking sideways at Elihu instead of us. Especially if he's still conveniently missing."
Starling's heart beat a little harder. "And no connection to any of us."
Jacek shook his head. "None. It has to look like we weren't involved. That no Crows were. Just him. Maybe he hired mercs, maybe blood mages. Make it look like he sold out the guild. We don't need to give them an answer. We just need to give them a better question."
There was a long silence after that. The kind that meant everyone was already weighing it. Already seeing how it could work.
Vasha crossed her arms. "We'd need to clean the copy. Nothing that can be traced to us."
"I can do that," Alis said, quietly but firmly.
Tenna tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair. "It could buy us time. Keep leadership spinning their wheels on the wrong track."
Ledo still looked unconvinced. "And when they find out it's fake?"
Jacek shrugged. "Then we better hope it's a long time from now. Or that we've come up with something better."