Alphonse stood in the corridor outside the meeting room. The door closed behind him with a soft click.
He pressed his back against the cold stone wall. Closed his eyes.
His hands were still warm. The phantom weight of her .
He exhaled through his teeth. Slapped his own face. Once. Twice.
"Focus," he muttered. "I can't let moments like this seduce me."
The irony wasn't lost on him. He was supposed to be the predator. The one who controlled the tempo, who measured every touch and every word.
Instead, he'd nearly lost himself in the warmth of her skin. The seduction of Isabelle von Hohenberg was a campaign, not a cavalry charge.
He straightened. Rolled his shoulders. Willed his breathing back to normal.
There was work to do.
He couldn't go to sleep before he finished this business. Not tonight.
Alphonse didn't know the layout of the servant expansion. Didn't know which house belonged to the coachman, which barracks held the soldiers. The original Alphonse had never set foot in those buildings. The borrowed memories were blank.
He needed a map.
There was one person in this house who knew every servant by name. One person who stayed when everyone else went home for the night.
The first floor was quiet.
Most of the household staff had returned to their homes.
A few soldiers patrolled the outer perimeter. Inside, the corridors were empty.
Almost empty.
Alphonse heard her before he saw her. The soft scrape of a rag against wood.
He turned the corner into the servants' dining hall.
Lilian Brandt was bent over one of the long oak tables, her right arm working in broad circles, polishing the scarred surface with a damp cloth. Her hair was pulled back in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, a few curling strands escaping to frame the line of her jaw. The sleeves of her blouse were rolled to the elbows, exposing freckled forearms.
In the warm glow of a single mana lamp mounted on the far wall, she looked almost peaceful.
She hadn't heard him approach.
"Lilian, Lilian," he said, stepping into the lamplight. "Always so organized."
"Ah!"
The rag jumped from her hand. She spun, one palm pressed flat against her chest, green eyes wide.
"Young master!"
The peaceful expression was gone, replaced by the familiar mask of attentive servitude.
Think carefully.
She hadn't given him an answer yet. He could see the question behind her eyes, unresolved, gnawing at her from the inside out.
He crossed the room with an unhurried stride. Stopped at the opposite end of the table she'd been cleaning. Rested one hand on the polished surface.
"Still dreaming that my father will send some letter?" he asked. "He won't."
The color drained from Lilian's face. Her jaw tightened. The mask cracked.
"Sir, please." Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. The sir was new. Not young master. Sir. "Please forgive my mistakes. I pro—"
"Don't worry," Alphonse cut in, his tone shifting to something warmer. "That's not why I'm here."
The tension in her shoulders eased by a fraction. Her fingers, which had been twisting the hem of her apron, stopped.
"I need information," he said. "The coachman who drove Sophie and me to the Montefalco ball. Helmut. Where he lives?"
Lilian blinked. The shift in subject caught her off guard.
"Helmut? Julian Helmut?"
"In the expansion houses. The third row, near the stables." She hesitated. Her brow creased. "Is he alright? N-no problems, right?"
She was studying his face, looking for the thing behind the question. Looking for danger.
"Don't worry," Alphonse said. "It's nothing serious. I'll just ask him to fix the carriage. The axle broke again on the return trip. He'll need to arrange a proper replacement."
The lie was seamless. Delivered with the idle annoyance of a young lord inconvenienced by shoddy craftsmanship.
Lilian relaxed. "Oh! Of course."
She described the route in detail. Out the south gate, past the laundry building, down the central path to the third row of cottages. Julian's house was the fourth from the end, identifiable by the blue shutters his wife had painted last spring.
"Blue shutters," Alphonse repeated. "Got it."
"His wife, Felicia, will likely be home," Lilian added. "Thank you, Lilian." He turned toward the exit. Paused at the threshold. Looked back over his shoulder.
She was standing exactly where he'd left her. The rag forgotten on the table. Her green eyes watched him.
"I haven't forgotten," he said, "that you still owe me an answer."
The color that flooded Lilian's cheeks was answer enough. Her lips parted, but no words came.
Julian Helmut arrived forty minutes later.
Alphonse heard him before the door opened. The unsteady gait of a man who'd been drinking.
The latch lifted. The door swung inward.
"Felicia? Felicia?" His voice was too loud for the hour. "You won't believe what happened."
No response. He frowned. Stepped inside. Closed the door behind him.
The darkness swallowed him.
"Felicia?" Quieter now. The first thread of unease winding through the alcohol haze. It was customary to light a lamp before bed at nightfall. The house was completely dark. No candle in the window. No glow from the hearth.
"Hm hm hm..."
Sounds. Muffled. Coming from the front room. The frantic, nasal whimpers of someone trying to speak through a gag.
Julian's hand went to his belt. Found the dagger he carried. Standard issue for household staff who occasionally traveled the roads. A short blade, more tool than weapon, but sharp enough.
He drew it. Held it in front of him. Crept toward the front room.
The front room was darker than the entrance. Julian squinted, forcing his pupils to dilate, trying to see the shapes that lurked in the blackness.
He saw the chair first. The silhouette of his wife, bound to it. The pale strip of the gag across her face.
A flame appeared.
It bloomed from a fingertip in the far corner of the room. Small, contained, casting a circle of warm orange light.
Alphonse's face materialized behind the flame. Half-lit.
"Hello, Helmut," Alphonse said.
The coachman's heart stopped.
It restarted a second later, slamming against his ribs with a force that made his vision pulse. The dagger in his hand trembled violently.
Because the young master was supposed to be dead.
That was the deal. That was what the soldiers had promised. A quick ambush on the forest road, arrows from the hillside, two noble brats who'd never see it coming. The soldiers would flee on cue, Helmut would disappear into the scrub, and by morning, the Hohenberg heirs would be two more casualties of the barony's worsening bandit problem.
Instead, the young master was standing in Julian's front room, holding a flame in one hand and studying him the way a cat studies a mouse.
"You know," Alphonse said, stepping out of the corner. His voice was conversational. Unhurried. "When plotting something like this, you should really inform your wife. Otherwise, it's too easy to break into your house."
He moved to Felicia's side. His free hand drew the looted dagger from his belt and rested the flat of the blade against her throat.
"Hm hm hm!" Felicia's muffled pleas surged. Her eyes rolled toward Julian, wild with terror. The small tears that had been forming since Alphonse first entered the house now fell freely.
Helmut could see them.
"Come on, Helmut," Alphonse said. "Tell me who ordered you to abandon your post."
The coachman's mouth worked. No sound came out. His eyes bounced between Alphonse's face, the blade at his wife's throat, and the flame dancing on his fingertip.
"Unless you want me to set the house on fire." Alphonse tilted his head toward the far wall. Raised the hand with the flame. "Oh, and just a reminder. Your children are asleep in the next room. So try not to make too much noise."
Something broke inside the coachman.
His knees buckled. He hit the floor. The dagger clattered from his hand.
"N-no." The word tore out of him. "Please, no. Mercy." He pressed his forehead against the floor. "I-I made a mistake. A terrible mistake. But not my family. Please. Not them. They had nothing to do with this."
"Fair," Alphonse said. The blade didn't move from Felicia's throat. "But they will pay if you don't tell me something useful."
"Of course. Of course. Anything." Julian raised his head from the floor. His face was streaked with tears and dirt. "I don't know who sent us. I swear on my children's lives. The soldiers approached me. The four escorts, the ones assigned to your trip. They came to me two days before the journey and offered ten gold."
He fumbled at his belt. Pulled free a leather pouch and upended it on the floor. Gold coins scattered across the packed earth, spinning, catching the firelight.
Imperial mint. Alphonse noted the stamps. Standard imperial gold, the kind that circulated through every market and treasury in the empire. Untraceable.
"They said it would be quick," Julian continued, the words spilling out in a torrent. "Simple. Ride to the ambush point, wait for the arrows, jump off the bench and disappear into the trees. They said the bandits would handle everything. They said no one would know."
"The soldiers," Alphonse said. "Names."
Julian recited them without hesitation. Four names. First and last. Ranks. Which barracks they slept in. Which shifts they typically worked. He was crying through all of it, snot running freely down his upper lip, but the information was precise.
"And they never told you who hired them," Alphonse said.
"Never. I asked. I swear I asked. The one in charge — Marcus — he just smiled and said it was better if I didn't know."
Alphonse was quiet for a moment. The flame on his fingertip flickered.
"Good," he said.
Julian's face contorted with desperate hope.
"Your punishment will be simple," Alphonse continued.
He removed the blade from Felicia's throat. She sagged in the chair, a muffled sob escaping the gag. Julian watched the blade withdraw.
Alphonse walked to Helmut. Stood over him.
The coachman looked up from the floor.
"You can keep the money," Alphonse said. "You'll need it. You'll need all of it, for what comes next."
He crouched.
"However," he said, "I'll want something of equal value. Something that will remind you, every single day, for the rest of your life, never to bite the hand that feeds you."
Helmut's mouth opened. A question formed on his lips.
Alphonse's right hand moved.
The dagger was fast. Faster than Helmut could process. A single, clean stroke that intersected with the coachman's left wrist at the exact angle required to sever tendon, muscle, and bone.
The hand came off.
It dropped to the packed earth with a sound that Helmut would hear in his nightmares for as long as he lived. A soft, meaty thud.
For one second — one perfect, crystalline second — there was no pain. Helmut stared at the stump of his wrist. At the clean line where his hand used to be. At the blood that hadn't started yet.
Then the pain arrived.
"AHHHHHHH—!"
The scream ripped from his lungs with a force that shook the walls. His remaining hand clamped over the stump, fingers squeezing the wrist as if he could hold the blood inside by force of will.
It didn't work.
Alphonse moved before the second scream could form. His left hand, the one holding the flame, pressed flat against the stump.
[Fire Spark]
The cauterization was instant. Flesh seared. Blood boiled.
Julian's second scream was higher.
Felicia thrashed against her bonds, the chair legs scraping across the floor, her muffled shrieks rising to match her husband's.
From the bedroom, a child's voice. Sleepy. Confused. "Mama?"
The sound cut through Julian's agony like a blade. His screaming choked off. He bit down on his own forearm, teeth sinking into flesh, stifling the sound.
Alphonse withdrew the flame. The stump was sealed. Ugly, blackened, blistered in a ring around the wrist, but sealed.
"A priestess can reattach the hand," Alphonse said, standing. "If you reach one within a day. After that, the tissue dies and it's permanent."
He picked up the severed hand from the floor. Held it by the fingers, examining it in the firelight.
"But reattachment requires reopening the wound," he continued, turning the hand slowly. "Which means experiencing all of this again. The cutting. The bleeding. The healing. Every moment of it."
He set the hand on the table. Beside the scattered gold coins.
"I think that's punishment enough." He wiped the dagger on Julian's shirt.
Julian was curled on the floor, cradling the cauterized stump against his chest. His body shook with silent sobs.
Alphonse stepped over him.
He paused at the door.
"Disappear from my territory," he said without turning. "Take your wife. Take your children. Take whatever you can carry and leave Hohenberg. If I ever see you or your family on these lands again — any of you, for any reason — I promise what happened tonight will feel like mercy."
He opened the door.
Alphonse pulled up his hood. Stepped into the darkness.
The sounds faded behind him.
He didn't look back.
Hector arrived at dawn.
The Captain of the Guard maintained a rigid schedule. Every morning, without exception, he arrived at his office thirty minutes before the garrison's first roll call. He used the time to review patrol logs, sign duty rosters, and drink the bitter herbal tea his wife prepared.
Today was no different.
His boots rang against the covered walkway. The flask was in his left hand, the day's correspondence tucked under his right arm.
He reached his door. Found it closed.
He turned the handle. Pushed.
The door swung inward.
Hector processed the scene in layers.
First: someone was sitting in his chair.
Second: four of his soldiers were hanging from the ceiling.
Third: the person in his chair was the Baroness's son.
The correspondence fell from under his arm. The letters scattered across the stone floor.
Alphonse sat with one ankle crossed over his knee. His hands were folded in his lap.
The four soldiers hung in a row along the far wall.
All four were conscious. All four were watching the door.
"Good morning, Captain," Alphonse said. "Close the door, please."
Hector didn't close the door. He stood in the threshold, his broad frame filling the doorway, and stared.
His eyes moved from Alphonse to the soldiers. From the soldiers to the ropes. From the ropes to the burns, the bruises, the blood.
His jaw worked. The muscles in his neck corded.
"What," he said, each word dropped like a stone, "is the meaning of this?"
"Embezzlement." Alphonse raised one finger. "Dereliction of duty." A second finger. "Attempted murder." Third. "Conspiracy." Fourth. He paused. Extended the thumb. "And high treason against the empire. Is that everything? Or is there more?"
The Captain's face was granite. His hand drifted to the sword at his hip. An unconscious gesture, the instinct of a man whose first response to any threat was steel.
"What are you talking about?" Hector said. His voice was steady.
"That's what your subordinates told me." Alphonse stood. The chair scraped against the stone. He walked slowly toward the row of hanging soldiers, his hands clasped behind his back, and gestured at the display. "You see, once I entered the garrison, it was easy enough to find the four thugs you sent to kill us."
Hector's hand tightened on his sword hilt.
"They were quite forthcoming," Alphonse said. "Once I applied the right incentives."
"The details are consistent across all four accounts," He continued. "A hooded man approached them three weeks ago. Offered payment for the assassination of the Baroness's two children during a carriage journey to the Montefalco estate. The coachman was recruited separately. The axle was sabotaged. The soldiers were instructed to flee at the first sign of the ambush, ensuring the targets were left unprotected."
He turned to face Hector fully.
"Hector, you really should train your boys better. They were quite easy to drag in here and extract the truth from."
The Captain's expression hadn't changed. The granite mask held. But behind it — visible only in the faintest tremor of his jaw, the slight dilation of his pupils — something was working. Calculating.
"You expect me to believe," Hector said slowly, "that a boy who couldn't lift a training sword six months ago broke into my garrison, subdued four trained soldiers, and hung them from my ceiling?"
"I don't expect you to believe anything," Alphonse said. "The evidence is hanging on your wall."
"Evidence extracted through torture," Hector replied. He stepped into the room. Drew the door shut behind him. The latch clicked. "Any confession obtained under duress is worthless. Every magistrate in the empire knows that. Every judge. Every—"
"Hector." Alphonse's voice cut through. The warmth was gone. What replaced it was something flat. "You're mistaken."
He took a step toward the Captain. Then another. His boots made no sound on the stone.
"You're mistaken because you think this is a legal proceeding. You think there's going to be a trial. Witnesses. Arguments."
Another step.
"There isn't."
He stopped. Three feet from Hector.
"In this room," Alphonse said, "I am the judge."
His eyes held Hector's.
"The jury."
Hector's hand was on his sword. His knuckles were white.
"And the executioner."
Alphonse raised his right hand. Extended his index finger. Pointed it at Hector's chest.
"Guilty."