Volume 2 - Under the Table
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The sound of the banjo was a rough, honest thing, like stones tumbling in a river. It wasn't the polished music of a concert hall, something Andrei would have analytically deconstructed. It was the sound of the road, of hard lives and small comforts, and it carved a path straight through the fortifications Lutz had so carefully built around his heart.
The old man, his face a roadmap of sun and years, sang in a gravelly baritone about a wanderer looking for a place to lay his hat, a simple man dreaming of a simple home. Each note was a pickaxe striking the wall of ice encasing Lutz's grief. He had held it together through the fire and the blood, through the heist of a lifetime and the cold, calculated betrayal of everyone he knew. But this—this raw, unvarnished expression of a longing he thought he'd forgotten—this broke him.
A choked sob escaped his lips, startlingly loud in the quiet space between verses. The music faltered. The old man's fingers stilled on the strings.
"Son?" the old man asked, his voice laced not with suspicion, but with a rough kindness that was somehow worse. "You alright there?"
Lutz couldn't speak. He shook his head, bringing a hand to his face as his shoulders shook. It was not a graceful cry. It was ugly, a torrent of grief and guilt and self-loathing that had been festering in the dark for weeks.
"Hey now," the old man said softly. He didn't move closer, didn't try to touch him, just provided a steady, silent presence. The other musicians—a younger man with a harmonica and the woman that was whistling —exchanged glances but said nothing, offering the privacy of their quiet understanding.
For what felt like an eternity, Lutz sat there on the wooden bench outside the carriage station, finally allowing the storm to rage.
Slowly, the storm passed. The sobs subsided into ragged breaths, then into a deep, hollow emptiness. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his fine coat, the expensive wool scratching against his raw skin. He felt… lighter. Hollowed out, but clean, like a festering wound had finally been lanced.
He looked up, his vision blurry. The old man was still there, watching him with eyes that had seen their own share of sorrow.
"I…" Lutz's voice was a ragged tear in his throat. "Thank you... so much."
"It's nothing son," the old man said with a shrug, but his eyes were knowing.
Lutz nodded, unable to form more words. He looked at the man's gnarled hands, at the simple, well-worn banjo. These people had nothing. They played for coppers to get from one town to the next. And yet, they had a freedom he had just stolen for himself at a monstrous cost.
He stood up. His legs were unsteady. He stepped towards the old man, and in a move that surprised them both, he wrapped his arms around him in a brief, tight hug. The old man smelled of pipe smoke and road dust.
"Thank you," Lutz whispered, the words thick with emotion.
He pulled back, reaching into his coin purse. He didn't grab a few coins. He pulled out five heavy Gold Hammers, their polished surfaces gleaming in the afternoon light. It was a fortune to people like them. Enough to buy a new wagon, or feed a family for a year.
"For the music," Lutz said, pressing them into the old man's surprised hand.
The old man's eyes widened. "Mister, this is too much! We can't—"
"Please," Lutz interrupted, his voice firming for the first time. "Consider it a patron's appreciation. You… you have no idea what you've given me."
Before they could protest further, a new idea, clear and urgent, crystallized in his mind. It was the first pure thought he'd had since his breakdown. A penance. A first step.
"I have a favor to ask," Lutz said, his voice regaining some of its calculated calm, though the rawness remained beneath the surface. "My carriage won't be here until about an hour. Would you mind watching my luggage?" He gestured to his high-quality travelling suitcase and the leather bag that contained the spoils of his heist. "I have something I must do before I leave. I would be in your debt."
The musicians looked at each other, then at the gold in the old man's hand. The trust was instantaneous, bought not just by the gold, but by the shared moment of human frailty.
"Of course, mister," the blind old man said, closing his fist around the coins. "We'll guard it with our lives."
"Thank you," Lutz said again, a genuine, weary smile touching his lips for the first time. It felt strange on his face, like a muscle long unused.
He turned to his luggage. As he pretended to adjust the straps, his fingers moving with a fluid, undetectable grace. The Agile Hands that had picked pockets and disarmed traps now dipped into a compartment of his suitcase, retrieving a heavy handful of Gold Hammers—a dozen or more. He secreted them into the inner pockets of his coat in a single, smooth motion.
With a final nod to the musicians, he turned and hurried away from the station, his pace quickening with purpose.
'If i truly intend to change, i need to start with what i can do right now, there's only one thing left for me to do in this city that's been haunting my mind.'
The internal argument raged as his feet carried him through the winding streets, following half-remembered directions gleaned from a drunken boast in a life that felt a lifetime away.
The Salt-Weep District was just as it had always been. The air was thick with the tang of the sea and the acrid smell of the dye-works that crowded the waterfront. The buildings were cramped, leaning against each other for support, their wood stained and weathered. Fortunately, this was the last time Lutz would need to see this sight. This was the world he'd come from. This was the world he had vowed to change, in whatever small way he could.
He started asking, his voice adopting the cadence of the locals, shedding the polish of "Elias Vogler." He was just a man looking for a woman named Elara. He got shrugs, suspicious glares, and a few wrong directions. But persistence, another skill honed in the harbor, paid off. A washerwoman, her hands raw and red, finally nodded towards a narrow alley that led down to the water.
"The house with the blue door," she said, her voice tired. "Poor thing. She seems to always be really sick, her brother's always been working hard to keep her afloat."
The confirmation sent a fresh wave of guilt through him. Always working.
He stood before the blue door, its paint peeling. For a long moment, he hesitated. He could still turn around. He could leave the money in the postbox, anonymous and safe. He didn't have to face the consequences of his actions. But that was the old way. The way of the phantom, the manipulator in the shadows.
A stronger, gentler person, he thought, and knocked.
The door creaked open a few moments later, revealing a young woman. Elara. She was even frailer than he had imagined, her face pale and drawn, with dark circles under her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and chronic illness. She couldn't have been more than eighteen, but hardship had already etched its signature upon her.
"Yes?" she asked, her voice a timid wisp. "Can I help you?"
Lutz's throat tightened. He had to clear it before he could speak, his voice coming out rougher than he intended. "I'm looking for Elara."
"I'm Elara." Her eyes, a soft hazel, widened with a flicker of hope and fear. "Do you… do you know something about Peter? He's my brother. He hasn't come home in days." She wrapped her arms around herself, as if against a chill. "I'm so worried. Is it… is it that new job? The one on the docks he was so excited about? He said it would pay well, that we could finally get a proper doctor…"
Each word was a needle in Lutz's conscience. The "new job." The promise of a better life that had led him straight to a dark, bloody room in a dusty warehouse.
Lutz struggled to maintain his composure. He was just a man standing before a grieving sister, holding a truth that would destroy her.
"Your brother…" Lutz began, his voice barely a whisper. He forced it to be stronger. "Your brother is working really hard for you. He… he sent me. To give it to you."
He reached into his coat and brought out a sack of Gold Hammers. About 20, it was far more than a dockworker could earn in a couple years. He pressed it into her hands. The weight of it made her arms sag.
Her eyes went from his face to the sack, her brow furrowed in confusion. "He… sent this? But… how? Why didn't he come himself?" The hope in her voice was the most painful thing Lutz had ever heard.
"The job… it's very demanding. Takes him far away. He wanted to make sure you were taken care of," Lutz said, the lies tasting like ash in his mouth. Offering a comforting fiction instead of a brutal truth. "You should use it. For medicine. For whatever you need. A better place to live."
He couldn't bear to look at her anymore. The transaction was done. The penance, such as it was, was paid. He had to get out of this suffocating alley, away from the living monument to his sin.
"I have to go," he said, turning on his heel.
He had taken two steps when a small, cold hand grabbed the sleeve of his coat, clutching it with a surprising strength.
"Wait!"
He froze, his back to her.
"Please," Elara's voice was trembling, on the verge of breaking. "Tell me the truth. Is Peter… is he going to come back? Where is he? Really?"
Lutz closed his eyes. The Thief's Instinct in him screamed to pull away, to flee. The Marauder told him to craft another elaborate lie. But the man, the new man he was trying to build from the wreckage, made him turn his head, though he still couldn't meet her gaze. He looked past her, at the chipped blue paint of the doorframe.
He took a shallow breath. "Your brother…" he said, each word chosen with excruciating care, a fragile, precious artifact. "He's always watching over you. He'll always be with you."
He paused, letting the weight of the unspoken truth hang in the air between them. It was the cruelest kindness he could offer. A promise of a presence, but not the one she wanted.
"I can guarantee that much," he finished, his voice dropping to a near-whisper, imbuing the statement with a finality that was both a comfort and a sentence.
He gently but firmly pulled his sleeve from her grasp. He didn't look back. He heard her breath hitch, a small, wounded sound. Then, as he walked away, the sound of quiet, hopeless sobbing began, soft at first, then growing into full, heart-wrenching cries that echoed down the narrow alley.
He walked faster, then broke into a run, not out of fear of being followed, but to outrun the sound, to outrun the image of her crumbling at her doorstep.
He stopped, leaning against a wet stone wall, his chest heaving.
But as the adrenaline faded, a small, hard kernel of resolve settled in the hollow of his chest. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was a start. It was the first, stumbling step of a Thief not just taking what he wanted, but trying, in his own broken way, to give something back.
He looked down at his hands—the hands of a thief, a murderer, and now, a liar offering a grieving girl a ghost. He clenched them into fists.