Chapter 28 – The Web Within the Web
The summons came at dawn.
Aden was halfway through drafting a ledger when Baelish's page appeared at his door — soft knock, no words, just a folded parchment bearing the seal of the Mockingbird. The ink was still fresh. Now, it read.
He arrived at the Tower of the Hand before the bells finished their morning toll. The corridors were quiet, smelling faintly of oil and sea salt. Servants hurried past, their eyes carefully lowered. Baelish waited in his study, framed by an open window overlooking the city.
"Master Holt," he greeted, voice smooth as silk drawn over a blade. "You've been busy."
Aden bowed slightly. "I serve where I'm needed, my lord."
"I know." Baelish's smile was patient, almost indulgent. "The Braavosi manifests were clever. Very clever. Though, I must confess, I hadn't realized my clerks were such creative men."
Aden said nothing.
Baelish turned the parchment in his hands — the parchment — one of the false manifests, now neatly folded and annotated in his own script. "A chest marked with the sigil of the Iron Bank," he mused aloud. "You do enjoy playing with dangerous ink."
Aden kept his expression calm. "Rumor travels faster than ships, my lord. I only wanted to see which wind carried it first."
Baelish looked up. Their eyes met — predator and apprentice, each waiting for the other to flinch. Then Baelish chuckled softly. "And now you know. The Spider caught it first."
"Yes," Aden said. "And then you."
Baelish stepped closer, hands clasped behind his back. "Ambition suits you, Aden. It gives your voice an edge. But edges cut, and you must learn which way your blade faces."
He leaned in just enough for the warmth of his breath to reach Aden's ear. "Never forget who sharpened it."
When he stepped away, the Mockingbird's smile returned, pleasant as ever. "That will be all. I expect your next reports by week's end. And Aden—"
"My lord?"
"Next time you wish to test a current, make sure you're not standing in the river."
⸻
The city was awake by the time Aden left the tower. The harbor shimmered beneath the morning sun, waves slapping against wood and stone. The encounter had left him uneasy, but not shaken. Baelish hadn't punished him; he'd warned him — which meant he still saw value.
And that was enough.
By noon, Aden was back in his modest chamber, quill in hand, his mind already spinning new threads. The first test had failed to remain unseen, but it had shown him something far more valuable: how quickly both Baelish and Varys reacted when provoked.
Now, he intended to learn how they listened.
He began with a single whisper.
A minor rumor, nothing dangerous — a supposed adjustment to the Queen's tariff on Dornish wine. He passed it quietly through Merrin, the spice merchant, disguised as idle gossip overheard at the docks.
Then he waited.
By evening, his dock clerk Renn sent word that a guard at the River Gate had already mentioned the tariff to a wine broker. By midnight, the same rumor reached a scribe in the Treasury. And before dawn, a courtesan in the Street of Silk had whispered it to a visitor who wore Varys's perfume.
Three voices, one path.
The pattern was clear.
Someone inside Baelish's web was feeding Varys directly.
He didn't know who yet — but he didn't need to. The spider's network was vast, but his whispers carried a distinctive rhythm. Aden could feel it now, hidden beneath the noise — measured, deliberate, patient. Like a spider counting its prey by heartbeat.
He smiled faintly. He could use that.
Instead of sealing the leak, he decided to widen it.
The next evening, he sent another whisper — this one more enticing. A lie dressed in truth. A merchant from Qohor bribing a royal scribe to falsify export taxes. He ensured the rumor passed through the same channel. And as he expected, by morning, Baelish's men were already investigating the scribe… while the Spider's couriers began spreading the story across the docks.
Two webs tugging the same thread — unaware that Aden had tied the knot himself.
⸻
Days blurred together as his small network grew. A dockworker who owed him coin. A scribe who liked to talk when drunk. A laundress who handled the servants' linens in the Red Keep. Each voice added another knot to the quiet tapestry he was weaving beneath the city's louder games.
He no longer needed to chase power. It was beginning to listen for him.
One night, as he sat at his desk by candlelight, he drew three circles on a blank parchment.
The first — Baelish's web, built on debt and desire.
The second — Varys's, spun from whispers and fear.
And between them, a smaller, fainter circle, still unformed.
His.
He dipped his quill again and connected the three circles with lines, looping them until the ink bled slightly. Then he whispered to himself, barely audible over the crackle of the candle.
"The Game has two masters…"
He finished the final line with a slow, deliberate stroke.
"…until tonight."
He sealed the parchment with plain wax — no sigil, no name — and tucked it into the hollow beneath the floorboards.
The city outside murmured like a living thing, shifting and restless. Somewhere in its depths, two great players moved their pieces, each convinced they alone controlled the board.
But beneath their feet, another hand had begun to draw new lines.
Lines that neither spider nor mockingbird could see.
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