Rina moved through the crowded bar. She kept her head down, her movements small and unthreatening. She ordered a cup of watered-down cider and moved to a table near a group of off-duty laborers and two men in leather armor who looked like local militia.

  She didn't look at them. She stared at her cup, but her ears were wide open.

  Filter the noise.

  She reminded herself internally. She picked up fragments of conversation.

  "...quota was doubled again. My hands are bleeding..."

  "...saw Lord Thorne get dragged out a couple of days ago. He was not happy, he was screaming and berating non stop while being dragged..."

  Then, she heard a rougher voice. One of the militia men.

  "I'm telling you, it's weird,"

  the militia man muttered.

  "Those fancy Gilded Wolves took over the loading docks. They aren't letting any ore shipments out."

  "So? Embargo?"

  his companion asked.

  "No,"

  the man whispered.

  "Not ore. Furniture. I saw a wagon come down from the Manor an hour ago. Loaded with paintings. Silverware. Even the carpets."

  Rina’s grip tightened on her cup.

  "They're stripping the place?"

  "Stripping it bare,"

  the man confirmed.

  "I am not sure exactly, I heard that they are gonna burn the place down once the 'Primary Package' is secured."

  “Does it mean our debts will be written off if Lord Thorne is no longer in charge?”

  Another man asked.

  “I don’t know, if they really burn the place down, it might be our chance to leave this place and finally be free.”

  Rina felt a chill go down her spine.

  Primary Package.

  That had to be Kaelen.

  They weren't occupying the house. They were looting it and burning evidence. And they were doing it tonight.

  Rina finished her drink, stood up slowly, and shuffled toward the exit. She kept her pace even, but her heart was hammering.

  Ray stood on the roof of a tenement building, shrouded in the shadows of a smokestack. He tapped the silver cuff on his ear.

  "Checking in,"

  Ray whispered.

  "Great to hear you, my lord,"

  Svane’s voice crackled in his ear, sounding relieved to hear him.

  "Status?"

  "I am at the target location."

  Ray replied.

  He looked up at the cliff. Thorne Manor loomed above, three hundred feet of vertical rock.

  Ray activated the Serene Cultivator’s Aetheric Perception skill. Ray focused his eyes. The world turned into a dull grey wireframe.

  He scanned the Manor walls.

  Scribe: “Wards, standard kinetic repulsion on the windows. Alarm triggers on the main gate. But look at the mana density on the courtyard.”

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  The Arcane Scribe noted.

  Ray zoomed in. The courtyard was ablaze with activity. He saw the Gilded Wolves moving with frantic efficiency. They were loading wagons.

  But what caught Ray’s attention was the patrol pattern.

  Veteran: “Twelve guards on the perimeter, rotating every fifteen minutes. They’re tight. But they’re focused outward, toward the road. They don't expect an entry from the cliffside.”

  The Grizzled Veteran assessed the situation.

  Ray shifted his gaze to the foundation of the manor. He saw a faint plume of heat venting from the rocks.

  The smelting exhaust,

  Ray thought.

  ‘Seems like Kaelen’s father built a lab. That vent is the intake.’

  He had the entry point. He had the enemy strength. But he was missing the most critical variable.

  Where is Kaelen?

  If she was in a dungeon, that was one plan. If she was being held in the master suite, that was another. Ray couldn't risk a blind entry.

  He looked down at his shadow. It rippled, two golden eyes opening in the darkness of the rooftop as it felt Ray’s stare.

  During his downtime, Ray has been exploring Nox abilities and one things he had discovered is that he can share sense with Nox, he had only done it once but did not stay connected long as the feeling was new and uncomfortable for him, but now realized that he has to use this ability to the fullest.

  "Nox,"

  Ray whispered.

  "I need your help."

  Ray sat down, putting his back against the warm brick of the chimney. He curled his legs up, making himself as small and hidden as possible.

  "Captain,"

  Ray whispered into the cuff.

  "I am going dark. I might miss a check in schedule, please do not worry, I am going to do Sensory Displacement."

  "Please find a secure and safe location, my lord,"

  Svane replied, guessing that Ray was about to do something dangerous.

  "Whatever it is you just mentioned, please do not stay in that state for too long. Make it quick."

  Ray took a deep breath. He looked into the golden eyes of his familiar. He then closed his eyes and did sensory sharing with Nox.

  The transition wasn't gentle. It felt like being hooked behind the navel and yanked out of his own body.

  Ray’s human vision snapped to black. The roar of the blast furnaces vanished into silence. The smell of sulfur disappeared.

  For a terrifying second, he was nothing.

  Then, his eyes opened. But they weren't his eyes.

  The world exploded into a high-contrast monochrome.

  He was seeing what Nox was seeing.

  To the void-malkin, the night wasn't dark. It was a fluid ocean of grey textures. Heat sources, like the Gilded Wolves guarding the walls, burned clearly with white intensity. Shadows weren't an absence of light; they were solid ground, pathways that he could run on.

  Ray felt the alien physiology. He had four legs. He felt the strange feeling as if he was floating when Nox moved. He felt gravity, but to Nox it was more like a suggestion, not a law.

  ‘Go,’

  Ray commanded mentally.

  Nox surged forward. It didn't run; it flowed. It poured itself up the vertical face of the cliff, its claws sinking into the microscopic imperfections of the stone.

  They crested the wall. A Gilded Wolf walked past, a towering beacon of burning white heat. To a human, the guard was alert. To Nox, the guard was blind. Nox flattened himself, becoming a two-dimensional stain on the floor, and the guard walked right over him.

  Find this scent,

  Ray transmitted a mental description of Kaelen’s scent.

  Nox sniffed the air. It smelled fear, the ozone, the iron tang of blood. And beneath it all, the scent of lavender and old parchment.

  Kaelen. Find that scent

  Ray thought and mentally commanded Nox.

  Nox took off, slipping through a crack in the masonry. It moved through the manor like a virus. It bypassed the noisy main hall where the looting was happening and flowed up the grand staircase, sticking to the dark corners of the ceiling.

  Third floor. East Wing.

  Nox stopped at a heavy oak door. Two Gilded Wolves stood guard outside.

  Nox couldn't open the door. But it didn't need to. It went near the door and just phased through it.

  Inside, the room was big and dim. A single candle light was lighting the room.

  A figure paced back and forth.

  Kaelen Thorne looked exhausted. Her hair was messy, her clothes rumpled. But she wasn't bound. She was pacing with the frantic energy of a caged tiger. She stopped at the window, checking the locks, then moved to the desk, scribbling something on a scrap of paper before burning it using the candle’s flame.

  She was alive. She was unhurt. She was planning.

  Nox let out a low, silent chuff.

  Kaelen froze. She looked around the room. Her eyes landed on the shadow in the corner, a shadow that was darker than it should be.

  She didn't scream. She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing.

  Ray felt a surge of relief/affection through the bond.

  Target found,

  Ray thought.

  East Wing. Third Floor. Two guards. Good boy, Nox. Now Return.

  Ray broke the connection.

  The snap back to his human body was brutal. It felt like falling from a great height and hitting freezing water.

  Ray gasped, his eyes flying open. His human senses crashed back in, the deafening roar of the furnaces, the smell of coal, the hardness of the roof tiles against his back. He shivered, his limbs feeling heavy and clumsy compared to the fluid power of the void-malkin.

  He tapped the ear cuff. His hand was shaking slightly.

  "Captain,"

  Ray rasped.

  "I'm back."

  "Are you okay?"

  "I am fine and I found Kaelen,"

  Ray said, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead.

  "She's alive. Confined to the East Wing, third floor. Two guards outside the door. She's not a prisoner in a cell; she's under house arrest."

  "That makes extraction harder,"

  Svane noted.

  "We have to go up, not down."

  "We go in through the vent,"

  Ray said, standing up and stretching the stiffness out of his legs.

  "We clear the basement. We move up through the servants' passages. I'm returning there now."

  "Understood. I will be waiting, my lord."

  Ray slipped back into the shadows, merging with the darkness as he descended the building. The plan had changed, but the objective remained the same.

  He was going to get his Understudy back.