Azalea cast her gaze down at his open palm and then cold-bloodedly ignored the gesture, burying her hands deeper into the folds of her simple dress.
She had no intention of demonstrating any unnecessary trust to him, let alone obsequiousness.
Lenoir was not in the least offended.
His smile merely grew barely perceptibly wider, acknowledging her small victory in this silent duel.
He was increasingly beginning to harbor a weakness for such displays of her character, though he secretly thought she could have been a bit more welcoming to him.
With one smooth, practiced movement, Dallion unfurled the heavy dark cloak he had been holding in the crook of his elbow and neatly draped it over Azalea’s shoulders, completely concealing her figure from prying eyes.
“Follow me, Miss Rosenthal,” he said quietly, but without his usual familiar, drunken rasp.
“And try to keep up. The night city does not love those who linger in the shadows.”
With a swift gesture, Dallion pulled up the deep hood of his own cloak, transforming in the blink of an eye from a sleek capital dandy into an inconspicuous night traveler, and strode confidently forward.
Azalea followed him, stepping smoothly and soundlessly over the cool cobblestones.
After a few minutes of winding through narrow alleys that smelled of dampness, Dallion led her out onto the spacious square of the night market.
By day, dishes clattered and fabrics flashed color here, but now, at three o’clock in the morning, the space was utterly transformed.
In the air drifted thick, tantalizing aromas of charcoal-grilled meat with wild herbs, sweet turnip baked in the ash, and spicy flatbreads traded by street cooks.
Yet it was not the food that anchored Azalea’s attention.
Right in the center of the square, within a ring of torches and a dense crowd of artisans, wealthy port workers, and petty merchants, a true spectacle was unfolding.
A roaming acting troupe was performing on an improvised wooden stage.
These were the very “Vagabonds” about whom rumors circulated throughout the entire artisans’ quarter.
The actors, in bright, somewhat threadbare costumes and expressive, exaggerated masks, were performing a comedy piece loudly and with great expression.
The audience burst into laughter and approving shouts every now and then, but Azalea, listening closely to the jesters’ lines, quickly realized this was no mere foolish circus designed to entertain the poor.
Through rhymes, songs, and absurd scenes, the “Vagabonds” were retelling the main news and secret rumors of the past week in a theatrical, biting form.
On the stage, an actor wearing the mask of a pompous, fat fox was comically clutching his head while other buffoons danced around him, waving red ribbons that symbolized tongues of flame and scattering theatrical ash.
They were mocking the fox mercilessly, hinting at the recent fire at Bothmer’s warehouses, joking about the sudden appearance of the Imperial bloodhounds, and subtly arguing over whose shares in the Town Hall would now plummet into an abyss.
This was the living, pulsing newspaper of the Lower Town, whose existence Azalea had not even suspected.
Dallion noticed how she slowed her pace and stopped, watching the performance spellbound.
“Interesting?” he asked quietly.
Azalea nodded, her gaze never wavering from the stage.
“I never thought creativity could be used in such a way.”
Dallion guided her confidently through a web of narrow, gradually tightening streets until they found themselves in a dead end wedged between tall brick warehouses.
Here, a pitch-black, almost palpable darkness held sway.
The only source of light was the pale, blurred fog of a crescent moon high in the sky.
Dallion stopped abruptly in the deepest, darkest nook beneath the overhang of an old roof, and with a soft but commanding gesture, held Azalea by the shoulder, forcing her to freeze beside him.
“Shh,” he breathed, barely audible, right into her hood.
“Now we must wait. Look over there, on the opposite side of the street, toward the abandoned docks.”
Azalea obediently directed her gaze in the specified direction, though a dull irritation was boiling more fiercely within her.
They stood in absolute, ringing nightly silence, broken only by the distant, barely discernible lapping of river water and the rare creaking of a weather vane somewhere overhead.
In this viscous moment, the girl questioned for the hundredth time what she was even doing here.
Just a few hours ago, she had been embracing a tearful, happy Elena, making plans to purchase their own home, and burning with the idea of launching her vitamin purification process in the kitchen as soon as possible for the safety of the unborn baby.
Every minute mattered to her; in the morning, hired workers were waiting for her at the half-ruined building, yet instead of sleeping, she was standing in a damp alleyway of the Lower Town that smelled of rotted timber, accompanied by a highly suspicious man who, it now seemed to her, was merely pretending to be an aristocrat.
Beside her, Dallion froze, turning into a motionless shadow.
“And here are our guests,” he said to her quietly, barely moving his lips.
Azalea looked closer and soon noticed a cautious movement on the opposite side of the street, near the gates of an abandoned brick storehouse.
Out of the thick gloom of the docks emerged three people in dark, inconspicuous clothes.
They moved frantically, constantly looking around, and with visible effort carried small, tightly hooped kegs in their hands.
“A fire is about to start,” Dallion stated completely calmly, in a matter-of-fact tone.
Azalea turned her head toward him in surprise, trying to discern his face beneath the deep hood.
Memories of the recent nightmare in the courtyard of the perfume house instantly surged back to life in her mind.
“How do you know?” she asked textually, with mounting suspicion.
“Because I am going to start it.”
Dallion Lenoir smiled in his characteristic flippant and crushingly confident manner, then swiftly withdrew his hand from beneath his cloak and snapped his fingers loudly.
The thunderous roar of suddenly unleashed fire shook the ground.
The building of the abandoned storehouse, which the three arsonists were just preparing to douse with fuel, erupted from the inside with such ferocious strength it was as if its walls had originally consisted of gunpowder. Get faster updates on novelping . com.
Crimson-black tongues of flame blew out the old window frames with a roar, instantly engulfing the dry wooden roof and cutting off the would-be trio’s path to escape.
Caught entirely off guard, the arsonists dropped their small kegs in panic right onto the cobblestones, preparing to scatter in all directions, but the port alleys had already ceased to be empty.
“Halt! In the Emperor’s name!” a thunderous voice, amplified by magic, rolled over the alleyway, pinning the men to the ground with its weight.
Directly out of the wall of fire and billowing smoke, a man jumped softly onto the cobblestones.
Magnus Trent.
In the fierce glow of the fire, his badge bearing the two ravens, pinned to his austere travel uniform, gleamed blood-red.
The Chancellery mage wasted no time on ceremonies.
A short, sharp wave of his hand – and durable stone shackles erupted from the earth, immovably locking the ankles of all three criminals.
They collapsed to the ground, screaming frantically in terror, while Trent approached them cold-bloodedly, retrieving prepared handcuffs as he walked.
Azalea and Dallion stood in the deepest, darkest nook, concealed by the thick shadow of the overhang and their pulled-up hoods, silently witnessing this scene.
The girl’s heart was pounding wildly, but her mind was already cold-bloodedly analyzing the situation.
She turned her head slowly toward Lenoir.
“How did you do that?” Azalea asked quietly, barely audible, staring intently at his profile.
“You didn’t even move your hand. How did you set the entire building on fire from the inside?”
Dallion smoothly shifted his gaze to her.
The nightly fire reflected in his eyes with vivid, dangerous sparks.
“Oh, it wasn’t all that difficult, Miss Rosenthal,” that same familiar, serene smile slipped across his lips once more.
“I simply found out in advance exactly which building these gentlemen would choose as their target tonight. And a couple of hours before their arrival, I politely left a few of my little fire bombs inside. A moment ago, I merely activated them in a chain with my mana.”
Azalea frowned, feeling a dull irritation boil up inside her at his ambiguous games.
“But why? Why play along with arsonists and destroy someone else’s property if you knew their plans? Just to draw out the Secret Chancellery?”
The moment the question left her lips, Dallion’s smile instantly vanished.
The young man’s face became frighteningly serious, and his gaze turned icy and focused.
The mask of a merry capital playboy crumbled to dust, exposing his true, sober core.
“Because, Azalea, those three on their knees are Teresa Bothmer’s men,” he spoke textually, almost in a whisper, and an appreciable chill ran down the girl’s spine at his tone.
“The very same ‘caring’ sister of Hubert who is currently running things in his house. She was desperately attempting to sweep away the tracks before the Chancellery could reach this place.”
Dallion paused briefly, casting a swift glance at the raging flames of the storehouse, and added, tempering every word:
“This warehouse is packed with narcotics that Teresa Bothmer has spent years secretly importing into the Empire under the guise of perfumery raw materials. And if this building hadn’t gone up in flames right now, the entire shipment would have miraculously vanished in a fire anyway.”