The Argent Wing's holding rooms are nicer than most places I've slept voluntarily.
Stone walls, yes. Iron door, yes. But the chair is padded, there's an actual candle rather than a torch stub, and someone has left a cup of water on the table that I'm fairly certain isn't poisoned. By the standards of people who want to intimidate me, this is practically a compliment.
I've been here forty minutes. I know because I counted.
They make you wait on purpose – it's standard. Let the silence work, let the imagination fill in the threats they haven't made yet. It works on most people. Most people don't spend their waking lives reading the worst thing about everyone they meet. After a while, very little imagined is worse than what I've actually seen.
I'm on my second cup of not-poisoned water when the door opens and she walks in.
Sera. No surname yet. The Argent Wing doesn't announce its knights like they're entering a ballroom, which I respect even when it's inconvenient.
She sits across from me and sets a small leather folder on the table between us. Doesn't open it. Just rests her hand on it and looks at me the way you look at a lock you haven't figured out yet.
I look back.
Still nothing. That smooth unblemished skin, and the faint trace of something underneath. That almost-scar at her throat, barely there, more felt than seen. Devotion. The word keeps surfacing like something waterlogged.
Devoted to what?
"You have a name," she says. Not a question.
"Several," I say. "I find it keeps things flexible."
"The one your mother gave you."
"She was creative. You'd be here all night."
Something moves at the corner of her mouth. Not quite a smile but more like the ghost of one, acknowledged and then set aside. "The man you were meeting with. Aldric Voss. You know what he's involved in?"
"I know he imports silk and has strong opinions about canal tariffs."
"He's laundering money for a man named Davor Cassen." She opens the folder. Slides a page across. It's a ledger summary – not the one I'm expecting from Voss's warehouses, a different set. Official. Stamped with an investigator's seal. "Cassen is connected to the death of a Church assessor found in the Underbelly three weeks ago. Throat cut. Tongue removed."
I look at the page. The tongue detail is new. Interesting, and not in a good way. Tongues get removed for specific reasons – testimony, secrets, the kind of information someone wanted to make very sure stayed dead.
"Terrible way to go," I say. "What does this have to do with my dinner?"
"Voss has been funneling Cassen's money through the eastern warehouses for eight months." She taps the page. "We've been building this case quietly. And then tonight, a man with no name and no apparent reason to exist sits down privately with our only direct link to Cassen's finances." She tilts her head. "You understand why I'm curious."
"I understand completely," I say. "I'm curious too, honestly. About why an Argent Wing knight is running a financial investigation instead of, say, the Revenue Office. Or the Church Auditors. Or any of the twelve other institutions that would normally handle this."
A beat. Small, but there.
"The Church Auditors," she says evenly, "have their own interests."
"They do," I agree. "Funny thing about institutions with their own interests – they tend to protect them."
We look at each other across the table.
She's good. No brand to betray her, and even without one she gives almost nothing away. Posture steady, breathing even, hands relaxed on the folder. The only tell is the slight stillness that settles over her when I say something that lands. Not a flinch, more like a pause. A recalculation.
I've been watching for it. I've been watching for anything.
"You were going to blackmail him," she says. "Voss."
"I was having dinner."
"You were going to blackmail him," she says again, like she's just agreeing with herself rather than arguing with me. "You know something about Cassen. Something specific enough to use as leverage over Voss." She leans forward slightly. "What do you know?"
And here's the turn.
Because I came in here planning to play ignorant until she ran out of questions and let me go. Standard approach, well-tested, generally effective. But she's sitting across from me running a shadow investigation around the Church Auditors, which means she already knows the Auditors are compromised, which means she's been working this alone or close to it, which means–
She needs what I have.
She just doesn't know I know that yet.
"What do you know?" I ask. "About Cassen's operation. Specifically."
"I'm the one asking questions."
"You're the one with a case that stops at Voss because you can't get past the warehouse books." I rest my elbows on the table. "I've seen the inside of those books, and I promise you – whatever you think is in there, it's worse. Cassen isn't laundering silk money. He's building something. And the dead assessor with no tongue knew what it was."
The stillness again. Longer this time.
"You've seen the ledgers," she says carefully.
"I have a copy being delivered as we speak." I smile. "Or I did, before you detained me and potentially scared off my courier. In which case we've both lost something tonight."
It's a bluff. Mostly. The address note won't be under Voss's door for another twenty minutes and my courier – Mira, reliable as sunrise and twice as punctual – doesn't spook easily. But Sera doesn't know that.
Or so I think.
"Your courier," she says slowly, "is a woman. Short. Dark coat. She was in the tavern corridor when I brought you in."
My smile doesn't move. I don't let it.
"I had her followed," Sera continues, watching me with those steady brown eyes. "Not detained. Followed. She'll complete the delivery." A pause. "I wanted to see what you'd do if you thought the leverage was gone."
The candle between us doesn't flicker. The room is perfectly still.
She knew. She saw Mira, flagged her, made the call in seconds, and then sat down across from me and waited to see if I'd lie about it.
I lied about it.
She knows I lied about it.
The silence stretches like something about to snap.
"So," she says quietly. "Now we know where we stand."
I look at her. At the clean unmarked skin and the faint trace of something I don't have a name for. At the face that decided to be honest and weaponized it.
"You're going to let me walk out of here," I say. It's not a question.
"I haven't decided yet."
"You have," I say. "Because if you were going to charge me with something, you'd have done it twenty minutes in, not sat here trading information. You need the ledgers and you need whoever understands them." I lean back. "You need me."
Another pause. Longer than the others.
"I need," she says finally, very precisely, "someone who knows things they shouldn't, has access I don't, and has a strong personal motivation to see Cassen's operation dismantled." She stands, picking up the folder. "Whether that person is you specifically remains to be seen."
She walks to the door. Knocks twice. The lock clicks.
"The ledger copy," I say, before she steps out. "When Mira delivers it. You'll see a name on the third page – a payment recipient listed only as V.A. Find out who that is."
She pauses in the doorway without turning around. "Why?"
"Because I've been trying to identify them for six weeks," I say, "and whatever they're being paid for, it's the most expensive line in the entire account."
A long moment.
"Your name," she says. Still not looking at me. "The real one. If we're going to do this."
I consider the door. The night outside. The eleven different smarter options available to me right now.
"Cael," I say finally.
She leaves without giving me hers.
I already knew it, of course. I'd read her insignia while she was walking me in – third-order knight, Varenthis garrison, the small silver mark that means a direct commission rather than a standard posting. It hadn't taken long after that.
Sera Vael. Knight-Investigator. Commended twice, reprimanded once – the reprimand, notably, for pursuing a case the Church Auditors had officially closed.
I sit in the nice padded chair for another moment and think about a woman with no brand and a faint scar that isn't a sin, running a secret investigation into a man the Church is quietly protecting.
Then I think about V.A. and the most expensive line in Davor Cassen's private accounts.
Then I get up and walk out, because no one told me I couldn't.