Caterina stood at the edge of the candlelit study, surveying the room with a critical eye. Every detail had been chosen with intent: the scuffed floorboards just polished enough to gleam, the ledger placed with casual precision on the desk, its seal slightly cracked as though it had already been read more than once. The illusion of neglect, laced with just enough carelessness to attract the wrong sort of attention.
Viago slipped a thin blade beneath a floorboard near the doorway, nestling it in place. "If they're as good as they have been, they won't trigger a single trap," he murmured. "But hopefully they'll leave behind something. Somewhere."
Even a strand of hair would be something.
"That's all we need," Caterina replied. "A sliver."
They didn't know who these intruders were - not their names, not their faces, not even how many they were. Three, maybe? Two with unusually good time management? They left behind nothing but disorder and jokes. That, and precision hits on Crow assets, some that should have been uncrackable.
Lucanis leaned against the wall near the window, arms folded. " No patterns. Nothing personal."
"Unless you count drawing a cock on someone's face personal," Illario said with a sharp smile. "I'm still not convinced that wasn't a message."
Caterina arched a brow. "What message? You're not that impressive?"
A few of them chuckled, but the air quickly grew serious again.
"They're not children," Viago said. "They can't be."
"We've all seen prodigies," Teia replied softly from her place crouched near the bookshelf. She tapped a sigil beneath the lowest shelf, activating a false pressure plate meant to draw attention. "Doesn't mean they're not reckless."
"They don't move like children," Lucanis added. "But the giggling... it wasn't professional. It was delighted."
Caterina didn't speak for a moment. She crossed to the far wall, running her fingers across the slightly raised moulding where another ward had been embedded. Their targets had been ghosts, frustratingly nimble ones. And no Crow appreciated being made to look like a fool.
"Maybe two of them," she said at last. "Maybe more. Gender unclear. Age unknown. Accent... potentially Antivan. That's all we have."
Obviously they weren't staying in the safehouse. They knew better. Caterina had quietly deployed a dozen pairs of eyes across the surrounding streets, rooftops, and canals. A rotating watch of mercs, informants, and low-ranking Crows with standing orders: report everything. Do not engage.
"If they spring it tonight, we'll know," Caterina said. "If they wait a week, we'll still be watching."
"And if they don't take the bait?" Lucanis asked.
"Then we try something else," she said. "But most of their targets have been locations with any hint of encoded information. This one looks real enough, and rumours are being disseminated. Something will pull them in."
Teia glanced toward the window, watching the amber light dim behind the crumbling buildings.
Caterina nodded once. "Close the shutters. Burn the candles down halfway. Let it look recently lived-in."
They moved in quiet harmony, smoothing the illusion into place. No traps, nothing overt, just a promise. A carefully wrapped gift for clever hands that couldn't resist a mystery.
Outside, the night grew darker, and the bait sat silent on the desk waiting for curious fingers to lift the seal.
-
Evie stood half in shadow, the wrapped canvas held in front of her like it might leap from her arms and shatter against the cobblestones if she so much as shifted her grip. Behind her, a cart rumbled by, the clatter of wheels loud in the narrow street, but she didn't move.
The gallery sat not fifty paces ahead, its painted shutters open to the dying light, the cheerful brass placard catching sun. Inside, people would be talking about texture and form and balance, sipping wine, pretending not to care who noticed them.
Evie lingered behind the corner like a thief casing a place she meant to rob.
She'd done the portrait. Finished it. After a week of endless revisions and second-guessing every line, she'd finally let herself decide it was done. And not just done - honest.
That was the part that scared her most.
It wasn't a flattering piece. Not really. Not the way people expected when they paid coin for oil and pigment. It wasn't a soft likeness or a well-polished mask. It was... real. The woman who owned the gallery, not as a merchant or patron of the arts but as something fierce and tired and full of stories she didn't speak aloud. Evie had painted the shadows under her eyes, the proud tilt of her chin, the way her hands looked like they knew both fine silk and hard labour. It was raw. Not cruel, but it didn't lie.
What if that wasn't what she wanted? What if it wasn't good enough?
Evie's throat tightened. She ducked her head, pretending to check the wrappings again. Just a girl carrying a package. Nothing more. Not a bard with calloused fingertips, not a soul bonded to someone dangerous, not a royal bastard trying to shed her shame like an old skin. Just Evie.
She shifted her weight, took half a step forward... and stopped again.
"Maker's breath," she whispered, pressing her eyes shut.
There was a kind of courage in stealth, in slipping past blades and traps unseen. But this? This kind of vulnerability, offering up a piece of her soul and asking someone to look, this was far worse.
Evie stood still, heart thudding in her ears, the wrapped painting held tight in her arms, and wondered whether today was the day she would let herself be seen.
-
From the edge of the rooftop, Lucanis looked down below with the practised ease of someone who had spent his life above the city, not in it. From here, the streets blurred, hazy, alive with bustle and late sun. But the figure tucked into the mouth of the alley stood still, fidgeting, the occasional bout of pacing.
"She's just standing there," Teia murmured beside him, crouched low. "Not moving. Not speaking to anyone."
Lucanis didn't answer. His eyes had found her immediately, before Teia had even pointed her out.
There was something about the way Evie held herself when she thought no one was looking. All her practiced bardic poise dissolved into something tighter, something real. She clutched a linen-wrapped canvas to her chest, too close, too careful, as though shielding it from an enemy only she could see. Her body was half-turned toward the gallery down the street, but she hadn't moved from that alley.
"Isn't that your little soulmate?" Teia asked, soft, not unkind.
Lucanis nodded.
He didn't explain that her presence there made no sense, not so close to the trap they had baited earlier. Not when she should be nowhere near their operations. Not when she should be somewhere safer. But she was here, lingering on the cusp of motion, paralysed by something unseen.
"I'll go," he said quietly.
Teia gave him a look, half-smirk, half-warning, but said nothing.
He took the quieter route down, stepping over the low wall of a connecting building, landing lightly on cobblestones. She didn't hear him. Her attention was entirely turned inward.
Lucanis stepped up beside her without a sound.
"I believe suspicious loitering is only forgivable if you look less guilty while doing it."
Evie flinched, then visibly relaxed. Her breath left her in a soft rush.
"Lucanis." His name in her mouth still did something to him. "You scared me."
"You've been scaring people in the area," he said lightly. "We've received word there was someone behaving 'mysteriously' near the gallery. I had to check if we were being robbed or just graced with dramatics."
A smile ghosted across her face, thin and uncertain before she turned and thunked her head against the stone wall.
"I've just been… standing here like an idiot."
His gaze flicked down to the wrapped bundle in her arms. The shape was unmistakable. "A painting?"
"My first real commission."
"You finished it. Congratulations."
She didn't glow. She didn't beam. She just looked down, brows pulled tight, jaw clenched like she'd swallowed something sharp.
"I haven't taken it in yet," she admitted, another thunk of her head against the wall. When she attempted to do it again, he put his hand between her forehead and the wall, catching her.
"Why not?" He asked, easing her head from the wall and earning a little flare of irritation from her.
But she stood up straight, looking uneasily at the gallery across the way.
"She wanted something honest," she said, voice barely audible over the breeze. "Not just pretty. So I gave her that. What I saw. But what if I saw wrong? What if she hates it? What if she doesn't see herself that way and thinks I was mocking her? Or trying to be cruel?"
Lucanis didn't speak right away. She wasn't asking for platitudes. She was confiding her fear, raw and aching.
"Can I see it?" He asked.
She hesitated a few moments. Then, wordless, she turned away from the street and carefully began to unwrap the canvas.
It was… breathtaking.
He saw it the moment the linen fell away. No soft pastels. No flattering lies. The gallery owner was rendered in bold, deliberate strokes, hair pinned back, age lines deepened rather than blurred, eyes fierce. It was honest, yes. But more than that, it was intimate. A portrait of a woman who had survived her own life and stood proud despite it. There was kindness in it. And sharpness. And humanity.
Lucanis felt the breath catch in his throat.
"Evie…"
She didn't look at him. She was studying the painting herself, as if bracing for impact.
He looked at her then, not the painting, but her. Her shoulders were stiff with tension. She was afraid. Of failure? Or being told she had no right to see someone that clearly?
"It's extraordinary," he said.
Her eyes darted to him, wary and suspicious. "Mean it?"
"I do." His voice was low. Certain. "You saw her. Really saw her. That's rare. Most people only know how to flatter."
She looked down again, expression flickering somewhere between pride and disbelief.
"If she doesn't love it," he added gently, "it's because she's not ready to face the truth of herself. But that isn't your fault. You didn't paint cruelty, Evie. You painted truth. And that's what she asked for."
She nodded, slowly. Swallowed. He watched her breathe in, then out, just a little steadier.
She still didn't move.
The painting remained clutched in her arms, linen gathered around its edges again like a shield. Evie glanced toward the gallery, then back to the ground, shifting her weight like the floor might drop out from under her, and she might welcome it. Her thumb smoothed over the cloth absently, her brow tight with uncertainty.
Lucanis tilted his head, watching her. "Evie," he said, gently.
"I know," she whispered. "I just…"
He waited. Let her find the words. It was something he had already learned about her; she'd talk, but not on command. She'd open when she trusted the silence between words wouldn't be used against her.
"I've never shown a stranger something like this," she said, eyes still on the canvas. "Not a finished piece like this. Not really. I've only painted anonymously or for family, and they're biased."
Lucanis looked down at the linen-wrapped canvas like it was some dangerous relic. But what he had seen was anything but crude or uncertain. It had stopped him cold. There was skill in every line. Purpose in every shadow. And heart in all the places that were supposed to be hidden.
"I don't understand what you're worried about," he said honestly. "It's impressive."
Her laugh was soft, self-conscious. "You're biased too."
"Maybe. But I'm also not easily impressed." He meant it. "I've seen commissioned portraits that cost more coin than most people will make in a year. None of them had this kind of clarity. You didn't just paint what was there, you found what mattered."
She looked at him then, meeting his gaze full-on. Her voice was quieter when she asked, "If it were you… if I saw you like that, would you still want it?"
Lucanis froze, just slightly.
The question wasn't rhetorical. She watched him like she needed the answer, and not just about art. He could feel the way the moment bent under the weight of it, fragile and uncertain, like she was bracing for something to break.
He didn't answer right away. Not because he didn't know, but because he wanted to get it right.
"If you saw me that clearly," he said, slowly, "then I'd count myself lucky. It means someone tried."
Evie blinked. A breath hitched at the corner of her mouth, a faint tremble quickly masked.
He looked at her, really looked at her, this too-clever bard with ink-stained fingers and music still caught behind her ribs. His little soulmate. A painter and a performer. Brave in every way except when it came to her own worth.
Lucanis smiled, quiet and crooked. "You're extraordinary, Evie."
She gave him a look, like maybe she didn't believe it, but wanted to, just a little bit.
Then, before she could spiral back into doubt, he nodded toward the gallery. "Go. Before I carry it in for you and take credit myself."
A laugh puffed out of her, real this time.
"Fine," she muttered, half-grinning as she adjusted the canvas in her arms.
He didn't follow her. Just stood there as she finally crossed the street, each step still hesitant, but forward nonetheless. He watched her back, the way she squared her shoulders just before she reached the gallery's steps.
Lucanis stayed on the street a moment before heading back up, proud and impossibly soft in the silence she left behind.
Teia didn't glance over as he dropped back into a crouch beside her, arms resting lazily on her knees. Her gaze was still locked on the street below, where Evie had just disappeared into the gallery.
"Well?" she said, nibbling on the corner of a dried fig. "Did she turn out to be an assassin in disguise? Or just a suspicious loiterer with beautiful hair?"
Lucanis huffed a quiet laugh, watching the door Evie had stepped through.
"An artist," he said. "Having a moment of self-doubt."
Teia finally turned her head. One brow arched. "Huh."
"She finished a portrait," he explained. "Commissioned. She thought it might be too honest. That the gallery owner would hate it."
Teia popped the rest of the fig into her mouth. "And?"
Lucanis exhaled slowly, remembering the way the painting had landed in his chest like a blow, not for its beauty, though it had that, too, but because it looked. It saw. "It wasn't like any portrait I've ever seen. She caught something raw. Like she painted what was under the skin."
Teia eyed him sideways, a slow, amused smirk curling across her lips. "And how long are you planning to keep dancing around this little bond of yours?"
Lucanis gave her a flat look.
"I'm just saying," she went on. "She's here. You're here. Stars above, the tension. What are you waiting for? The Maker's personal invitation?"
"I won't force it," he said, simple and firm. "Not until she accepts it."
Teia's smirk softened. "So, never then?"
"It'll take time," Lucanis replied, still watching the gallery door. "She's not ready. And we've been… occupied."
"Right. Thieves, traps, inked-up victims and upside-down houses. I know." Teia let her back hit the wall behind them. "Still. She opened up, progress I suppose."
Lucanis didn't answer that. He was thinking of the way Evie had hovered at the edge of the gallery steps, fear and hope in equal measure on her face. The way she'd asked if you saw yourself like that, would you still want it?
He thought of how easily she wore her doubt, like it was something familiar. Old and ingrained.
"She moves like a courtier," he said, more to himself than Teia. "Have you noticed?"
"Hm?" Teia glanced at him.
"Evie. The way she carries herself. Too refined for the street." His tone had shifted, curious now. Analytical. "There's polish there. It's not recent, either. Like it was trained into her."
Teia squinted toward the street. "You think she's noble-born?"
Lucanis shook his head, unsure. "Could be. Caterina's put out feelers."
Teia whistled low. "If she's someone important, that could explain the steel in her spine. And the way she looks at everyone like she's weighing whether to trust them with her last copper."
"Or her heart," Lucanis added, musing.
Teia nudged his knee. "You're a romantic."
"Hardly," he said, still watching the door. "Just hers."
She didn't tease him for it. Not this time.