The second spy woke up with far less resistance. The bruised state of his partner and the oppressive silence of Break Room did most of the work for Ludger. He didn’t bother repeating the demonstration; the man had already witnessed enough through half-lidded, terrified eyes. Ludger simply asked his questions, voice low and steady, and waited.

  Unfortunately, the second man wasn’t more informed, just more frightened.

  He stammered out what little he knew: the name of the guild that hired them, the Iron Moth Brotherhood, an organization with a reputation for secrecy and eerie branding. Underworld types adored names like that, always trying to sound like mythic horrors even when most of them were barely competent cutthroats. Ludger listened with a faint frown.

  “Location?” he asked.

  The spy shook his head rapidly, breath uneven. “There… there isn’t one. Not a fixed one. The Brotherhood doesn’t keep a home base. Not for recruits. Not for anyone. When you first join, you get your jobs at different places depending on the date.”

  “What places?” Ludger pressed.

  “A… warehouse,” the man muttered. “South of Torvares territory. Only open certain days each month. They post a symbol somewhere near the entrance, the Iron Moth mark. If you see it glowing faintly, it means you enter, show a token, and receive a job.”

  Ludger’s expression didn’t shift, but his eyes sharpened. This wasn’t sloppy criminal planning, it was well-structured compartmentalization. Useful for smuggling networks. Deadly for anyone trying to investigate them.

  “And after that?” he asked.

  “After you finish your first job, they… they tell you a different place. A new meeting point. A new handler. The higher the rank, the more places you’re allowed to know.” The spy swallowed visibly. “But none of them know every location. Not even full members. They rotate. They hide. They keep every thread separate so no one can pull on all of them.”

  Ludger exhaled through his nose. The structure was familiar, frustratingly so.

  It reminded him of the smuggling network in the mountains: hidden tunnels erased without a trace, masked routes, no centralized leader publicly known, layers upon layers of false identities and throwaway operatives. A lattice designed so that cutting one branch did nothing to harm the rest. Tracking a group like that would be…

  “Near impossible,” Ludger muttered.

  The spy flinched as if the words were aimed at him personally.

  This wasn’t a strike team. These weren’t assassins sent for blood. They were disposable scouts, pawns dropped forward to map the board for someone else. Someone patient. Someone organized. Someone willing to spend lives like copper coins.

  Ludger straightened, the weight of the situation settling into cold calculation. Whoever wanted to target the birthday celebration was willing to play a long game, and they weren’t leaving trails behind. And Ludger knew, this was only the first move.

  Ludger didn’t relax after the spy finished talking. He watched the man closely, reading the micro-twitches around his eyes, the rhythm of his breath, the pulse of his mana. There were no spikes of deception, only the heavy resignation of someone who knew he was already dead and had nothing left to gain by lying. When Ludger was satisfied, he circled around the earth cocoon, leaning against the stone wall with his arms crossed.

  “Why a tavern basement?” he asked. “Out of all the hiding spots in Meronia, why pick that place?”

  The spy blinked, confused by the question. He seemed surprised Ludger even bothered to ask something that, to him, felt obvious. “Because it’s… normal,” he said after a moment. “It’s just a random building. People are always coming and going at all hours, travelers, traders, drunk idiots, laborers getting cheap rooms. No one remembers faces there. And the owner keeps a few basement rooms for guests who don’t want to be bothered. No questions asked. No papers. No inspections.”

  That made sense. Taverns offering “privacy rooms” weren’t uncommon in border towns or merchant hubs, and Meronia wasn’t an exception. But the idea of operatives slipping unnoticed beneath Torvares’ city irritated Ludger in a quiet, controlled way. Not dangerous yet, just a reminder that criminals always managed to crawl under someone else’s floorboards.

  He shifted his weight, eyes fixed on the spy. “And when were you supposed to make your report? How long did you have?”

  The man’s shoulders sagged under the weight of inevitability. “Three days,” he whispered. “We had three days to watch the guard rotations around the estate. Count patrols. Mark positions. See how many guards are armed, how alert they seem, if anyone takes shortcuts or gets sloppy. Anything that helps.”

  Ludger’s jaw tightened slightly. Nothing new, exactly what he expected from reconnaissance operatives. Still irritating.

  “And after you finished observing?” he asked, voice flat.

  “Write it down,” the spy said. “A coded note. Then deliver it to the same location where we got the job.”

  “The warehouse,” Ludger muttered. “South of Torvares territory.”

  “Yes.” The man swallowed, fear creeping back in. “No handlers. No meetings. No faces. Just drop the letter in a wooden crate and walk away. Someone collects it after midnight. We never see who.”

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  That structure… Ludger recognized it instantly.

  Decentralized. Compartmentalized. Designed to survive even if half the operatives were caught. No single recruit knew more than one task or one location. A lattice of deniable operations built to shed evidence the moment someone tugged on a thread.

  Ludger exhaled slowly, tapping a finger against his forearm. “Three days,” he repeated under his breath. Meaning the Brotherhood didn’t expect results yet. Meaning they weren’t waiting for anyone tonight. Meaning there was still time to intercept their next move.

  He straightened, studying the spy one last time. Good. Now Ludger knew their timing. Their drop point. Their structure. And the Iron Moth Brotherhood had no idea that their reconnaissance mission had already failed before dawn. And worse, for them, Ludger was now planning the next step.

  Ludger stood in the center of the Break Room, a lantern above him flickering faintly as if the air itself understood it was witnessing something heavy. The two spies were still trapped in their earth cocoons, breathing shallowly, the scent of fear and dust lingering in the chamber. Ludger didn’t speak for a moment. Instead, he held his chin between thumb and knuckle, eyes narrowing in consideration.

  His mind was turning, not emotionally, but strategically.

  Could he use them?

  He wasn’t fond of second chances. Not for criminals. Not for people who willingly took jobs that endangered innocent lives. Mercy wasn’t something he gave freely, or at all. But the Iron Moth Brotherhood was a problem. An organized one. A network that erased traces, rotated locations, and hid behind an army of disposable recruits.

  And disposable recruits… could also be tools. Ludger tapped his chin, silently weighing the possibility. If these two idiots survived long enough to deliver false information, if he could force them to help him infiltrate or mislead the Brotherhood, he might use them to sever more threads, collapse more of the lattice, drag more criminals out of hiding.

  It was tempting. Extremely tempting. But there was a flaw.

  “What if they aren’t the only guild?” he muttered under his breath.

  The Brotherhood might be one contractor. One pawn. But the Rodericks had ties to smugglers, killers, and mercenary groups far beyond their territory. The network still had remnants in the Empire. And shadow organizations had a habit of swarming toward chaos, especially when nobles gathered in one place.

  Viola’s birthday was one giant, shining magnet for trouble. Using these two could give him a lead… but it could also blind him to other threats. Or worse, tip off the Brotherhood prematurely. Ludger exhaled through his nose.

  His pragmatism, a strength that normally served him without question, was now tying him in knots. The more angles he saw, the more complications appeared. The more options he had, the more dangerous the consequences became. He hated that.

  He hated that he was even considering offering breathing room to criminals. But he also hated the thought of letting a guild like the Iron Moth continue operating freely.

  “Troublesome…” Ludger muttered, rubbing his chin harder.

  Pragmatism was his greatest advantage. And right now? It was finally causing him trouble. Because this time, there was no perfectly clean solution. Only the one he chose next.

  Ludger paced slowly across the room, boots whispering against the stone. The two spies watched him with swollen eyes, flinching every time he paused, as if expecting another strike. But violence wasn’t what he needed right now. Information was. Threads. Patterns. A map of the Iron Moth Brotherhood’s structure.

  He stopped in front of them and folded his arms.

  “What were you taught,” he asked, voice quiet but sharp, “when you joined the Iron Moth Brotherhood? How were you recruited? Who trained you?”

  Both men blinked, confused. Not reluctant. Just… confused. As if they couldn’t understand why he was asking something so simple when he’d found and captured them so easily.

  One of them swallowed. “Why… why do you want that? You… you tracked us like nothing. It won’t help you.”

  Ludger’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll decide what helps me.”

  The man quickly shut his mouth. After a moment, the first spy finally answered. “We were… found. By a cloaked man. No name. No face. Just a voice. He acted like he’d been watching us for months.”

  The second man nodded with trembling agreement. “He stayed in the shadows. Always wore a hood. But he knew things about us, where we worked, who we owed money to, what we were desperate for.”

  Classic recruitment. Exploiting weaknesses. Targeting desperation like a predator sniffing blood.

  Ludger stayed silent, expression unreadable. “And the training?”

  The men looked at each other, then began speaking, haltingly at first, then more steadily as fear pushed the truth out faster than caution.

  “He taught us how to watch noble guards without being noticed,” the first one said. “Not just standing around corners. Real methods. How to measure patrol gaps. How to track footsteps by sound. How to count weapons by the way armor shifts.”

  Ludger listened, eyes narrowing slightly. That wasn’t amateur work. That was professional.

  The second spy added, “He taught us how to judge fatigue… how to see when a guard is bored or distracted. How to tell if someone’s pretending to be alert. How to detect magical surveillance tools.”

  The man’s voice lowered. “He even made us watch the same route again and again for an entire night without moving. If we blinked too long, he hit us with a stick.”

  Ludger didn’t react, though internally, he had to admit the method was effective. Brutal, but effective.

  “And the stealing?” Ludger pressed.

  Both men stiffened, but answered.

  “He taught us how to lift things from noble shipments,” one said. “How to slip between wagons when no one is looking. How to cut straps or loosen crates without making noise.”

  “He had us practice on decoy caravans,” the other added. “Once he set up. If we made a single noise, he threw rocks at us.”

  Ludger raised an eyebrow. That part almost sounded like something Kaela would do for fun. The spies continued, voices shaking but honest.

  “He told us… that watching guard rotations and stealing from nobles were the basics. The lowest jobs. The ones given to the newest recruits.”

  “And when you proved yourselves?” Ludger asked.

  The first man swallowed. “Then you got to meet other handlers. More jobs. Better pay. But not… not him. He never showed his face.”

  Ludger was quiet for a long moment. A faceless recruiter. Professional training. Rotating drop points. Anonymous handlers. Compartmentalized tasks. This wasn’t a simple underworld guild. It was a network built by someone intelligent, someone who understood surveillance, infiltration, sensory avoidance, and structured anonymity. Someone who trained criminals like elite scouts.

  They weren’t lying. They weren’t hiding anything. Because they had nothing left to hide.And Ludger now had enough information to see the shape of the threat forming in the shadows behind Viola’s birthday. A shape he was going to crush.