“Perfect timing,” he murmured. The light from the guard’s lantern crept up the panelled walls of the hallway, brought a touch of dawn to the dark canvases. His footsteps echoed as he passed by underneath them, giving vent to a booming yawn, his long shadow stretching out over the marble tiles. Morveer applied the slightest blast of air to his blowpipe.

“Gah!” The guard clapped a hand to the top of his head and Morveer ducked away from the window. There were footsteps below, a scuffling, a gurgle, then the loud thump and clatter of a toppling body. On peering back through the aperture the guard was plainly visible, spreadeagled on his back, lit lamp on its side by one outstretched hand.

“Excellent,” breathed Day.

“Naturally.”

“However much we talk about science, it always seems like magic.”

“We are, one might say, the wizards of the modern age. The rope, if you please, Master Friendly.” The convict tossed one end of the silken cord over, the other still knotted around his waist. “You are sure you can take my weight?”

“Yes.” There was indeed a sense of terrible strength about the silent man that lent even Morveer a level of confidence. With the rope secured by a knot of his own devising, he lowered first one soft shoe and then the other into the diamond-shaped opening. He worked his hips through, then his shoulders, and he was inside the bank.

“Lower away.” And down he drifted, as swiftly and smoothly as if lowered by a machine. His shoes touched the tiles and he slipped the knot with a jerk of his wrist, slid silently into a shadowy doorway, loaded blow-gun ready in one hand. He was expecting but the single guard within the building, but one should never become blinded by expectations.

Caution first, always.

His eyes rolled up and down the darkened hallway, his skin tingling with the excitement of the work under way. There was no movement. Only silence so complete it seemed almost a pressure against his prickling ears.

He looked up, saw Day’s face at the gap and beckoned gently to her. She slid through as nimbly as a circus performer and glided down, their equipment folded around her body in a bandolier of black cloth. When her feet touched the ground she slipped free of the rope and crouched there, grinning.

He almost grinned back, then stopped himself. It would not do to let her know the warm admiration for her talents, judgement and character that had developed during their three years together. It would not do to let her even suspect the depth of his regard. It was when he did so that people inevitably betrayed his trust. His time in the orphanage, his apprenticeship, his marriage, his working life—all were scattered with the most poignant betrayals. Truly his heart bore many wounds. He would keep matters entirely professional, and thus protect them both. Him from her, and her from herself.

“Clear?” she hissed.