“What do you desire of us, my lord. Shall we raid the Serpents? We can have their new guildmaster in a noose before mid-afternoon,” he said. Rezkin thought the man a little too optimistic. Thieves did not tend to stick around for raiding parties. As soon as they caught wind of the incoming force, they would flee to their next safe house.

“No, absolutely not,” Addercroft answered as he shifted on his feet anxiously. “Whoever this Raven is, he knows. He must have tortured the information out of Urek.” The man ruminated.

“Raven, my lord?” the captain asked.

Addercroft waved his hand dismissively, only replying, “The note.”

The captain glanced around looking for the fallen parchment and then dismissed the issue. “Urek did not appear to have been tortured. The only injury I saw on the body was to his throat,” the captain said.

“No, you are correct. Urek was stubborn and hotheaded, but he did not give up easily. We have to assume the Raven knows, though. You saw the flowers,” the marquis said with a bit of trepidation bleeding into his voice. Rezkin thought it interesting that the captain also knew the marquis’s secret. He would have thought for sure the man would have been put to death for the crime of knowing too much.

“Maybe he only knows what happened. Maybe he does not know where the … evidence … is located,” the captain proposed. “Did he make any demands?”

Addercroft answered through a clenched jaw. “No. For now, we will not interfere. I want you to find out who he is and where he can be found. Find out everything about him. I want to know where he came from, what he plans, and the names and locations of each and every one of his relatives and friends.”

Rezkin tensed at Addercroft’s last words. He was not overly concerned about the man finding out any details about him since no one knew anything. The warrior had always been warned of the dangers of developing any close ties to anyone, which was one of the many reasons Rule 1 seemed rather odd. Since he had been assigned friends to protect, he had to take Addercroft’s words seriously. He would have to rethink letting Addercroft live. The man did not deserve the air he breathed, and he might get in Rezkin’s way after all.

The young warrior considered his options. He could kill Addercroft now, making it look like an accident or suicide. A suicide would be particularly convenient because he could leave behind a letter of confession that finally solved the mystery of young Lillian’s disappearance. That would leave House Addercroft in disgrace and could even lead to its dissolution. The marquis’s son was a good man, from all accounts, and could do the position justice.