Lucanis sat at his usual place in the meeting room, third from the head. Not too close, not too far. Just close enough to speak, just far enough to listen. And he listened now.
Caterina's voice was cool, measured, sharper than usual. "Twelve clients in two months," she said, steepling her fingers. "Three more marks who've vanished off the map. Our networks in the outer edges of Treviso are suddenly going dark. That isn't incompetence. It's coordinated."
Across from her, Viago adjusted his cuffs and raised one elegantly groomed brow. "Could be an upstart. The House of Knives has been testing their reach in the northeast. We haven't been taking them seriously enough, perhaps."
"They're sloppy," Lucanis said, his voice calm, even. "Loud. They make statements with blood. This isn't their style. These aren't heads on pikes or warnings. These are… vanishings. Contracts interrupted. Messages intercepted or never arriving. Drops missed. Nothing visible. Just absence."
"Too clean," Teia murmured, arms crossed tight. "Too quiet."
Illario let his boots clunk down from the table's edge. "Like someone's playing a long game. Not killing... unravelling."
Lucanis inclined his head. That was the word that had been clinging to the back of his mind for weeks: unravelling. A slow, deliberate pulling of threads. Whoever was behind it wasn't trying to make a statement. They weren't aiming for destruction. At least not yet. They were studying and testing. Learning how the Crows responded under pressure.
"We've lost hold of the eastern docks entirely," Teia added, flipping a small notebook open and scanning her notes. "No message from our handler in twelve days. No proof she's dead, no proof she's not. Just… gone."
Caterina didn't blink. "The handler was sloppy."
"Or she was smart enough to run before something worse came," Illario muttered.
Caterina tapped her fingers once against the table. The sound echoed in the stillness. "If this is coordinated, then either someone has pierced our security from the outside…" She let the sentence hang. "Or from within."
A heavy silence fell over the table. Lucanis felt it like the drop of a stone into water, ripples of tension expanding outwards.
Viago chuckled lightly, too lightly. "You think we have a traitor?"
"I think," Caterina said coldly, "that something is wrong. And we've been too lenient. Our protocols have slipped."
Lucanis kept his face unreadable. But he felt something tighten in his gut. And then Caterina said it.
"If we can't find the source of the leak, we may need to send a message. Remind everyone what happens when loyalty is in question."
Illario straightened. "You want to start killing our own?"
"If necessary."
Teia's brows lifted. "You want to make examples."
Caterina's gaze was razor sharp. "The Crows have always survived through fear. Our name is the knife in the dark. It must mean something again."
Lucanis's hands curled under the table, unseen beneath the wood. He could feel the heat rising in his chest. Slow and reluctant. Not rage, but revulsion.
He kept his tone calm. "Fear without reason becomes paranoia. Paranoia leads to chaos. We've seen it before."
Caterina's eyes flicked to him. "Your grandfather believed in balance, Lucanis. But he understood sacrifice."
"He also believed loyalty was earned, not forced."
Illario hummed, amused. "How idealistic. Since when did you become the moral centre of this table, cousin?"
Lucanis ignored him. He was watching Caterina. And he saw it, just a flicker, in her eyes. The stress, the pressure, the fear she would never name.
They were losing control. And now she was reaching for the only tool that still felt powerful in her hand: fear.
Lucanis said, more quietly now, "If we start killing suspected traitors, we will make one. We'll break what's left of our inner circle. And when the real threat comes knocking, we'll be too busy cutting each other's throats to stop it."
The silence that followed was thick. Illario looked at him sideways, something unreadable in his gaze. Teia's mouth tightened, but she said nothing.
Caterina leaned back slowly, her expression unreadable. "So what would you suggest?"
Lucanis didn't answer right away. Because the truth was, he didn't know. Not yet. Only that something inside him was shifting. The old certainty was gone. What replaced it was harder, heavier, and more dangerous.
Doubt.
Not about the threat - they all saw it now, smelt the smoke on the wind. But about the Crows themselves. Because if Caterina was right, if they had to turn inward and start culling their own to keep the illusion of strength… then maybe the foundation was already broken.
-
He moved through the marketplace like smoke, flanking Illario as his cousin chattered about their next contract. Another minor official, another quiet death. It wasn't even interesting anymore.
And then Illario stopped.
"Ah, there's my little songbird," Illario purred, grinning as he tipped his head toward the far corner of the square.
Lucanis followed his gaze.
She stood on the fountain's edge, lute in hand, singing to a gathered knot of city folk. A light, lilting tune, something old and Fereldan, but her voice… it was clear and unguarded in a way most weren't in this city. She sang like no one was listening, though they all were.
Lucanis knew beauty. He'd bedded it, killed it, and sold it by the knife's edge his entire life. But there was something about her that made the hair on the back of his neck stir. Not just her face or the easy confidence in her movements. It was the undercurrent. The tension she carried like a second skin, the way her eyes flicked toward every alley and shadow between verses.
A street performer, but one who didn't trust the streets.
Interesting.
Illario was already moving, weaving through the crowd with the smug self-assurance of a man certain he was wanted. "Evie," he called, his grin wide. "You're late for our drink."
Evie? Lucanis saw it. The quick flicker of annoyance in her eyes, gone in a heartbeat, replaced with a bright, practiced smile.
"I told you, Sir, I don't drink with men whose hands wander," she said sweetly, strumming a flourish on the lute as if to soften the sting.
The crowd laughed. Lucanis smirked despite himself. She was quick.
Illario made a pained sound, stepping closer. "Come now, you wound me. At least allow me to introduce you to my cousin, hmm? Lucanis Dellamorte."
And then... that moment. Her fingers slipped on the strings, a single sour note lost beneath the applause of a finished song. She covered it well, dipping her head in a graceful nod.
"A pleasure," she said.
Her voice settled beneath his skin now that it was directed at him. He felt it.
"Evie," Lucanis repeated, tasting the name. "Short for something?"
It was harmless. Offhand. A thing a man might ask a pretty girl in a market. But she lied.
"Evelyn."
Smooth. Easy. A practiced, perfect lie. And yet, he saw it. A tightness around her mouth. Not enough for Illario to notice, but Lucanis wasn't Illario.
He felt the world narrow around her in that instant. She was good. Better than she had any right to be. But not better than him. Lucanis smiled, a soft, polite thing, though inside, something sharp and electric uncoiled in his gut. Something vibrated under his skin.
"Well then, Evelyn," he murmured, inclining his head. "Perhaps you'll grace us with another song."
"No time, Sirs. I've earned enough for the day; I have supper to chase." She swung the lute over her back and hopped down from the fountains edge. Another sunny smile. "Enjoy your evening."
And just like that, she was gone, melting into the crowd as though she'd never been there at all. But the damage was done. Lucanis turned to watch her go, his gaze tracking every step. Every tell. His mind spun, cataloguing her voice, her hands, the tension in her shoulders.
"Pretty thing, isn't she?" Illario said, nudging him. "I'll have her in my bed by week's end."
Lucanis didn't answer. Because he'd felt it. That spark. A pull. And he knew his own instincts too well to ignore them. She was lying. About her name. About more, he was certain. Why did she lie?
And suddenly, whatever business Illario thought they were about could wait. He had a mystery to unravel.
And a little liar to find again.