...go through the door and look for another way up.

The dumbwaiters not going anywhere, you reason. Time enough to explore the rest of the place with caution before risking everything. The Captain, from the sound of the conversation you overheard, is meeting with Captain Roland and will possibly be meeting with the others in the foyer later this evening as well. With a last look up the service shaft, you move to the unopened door and push against its flat face. It swings without a squeak, gently at first, until you see the empty corridor beyond, then wide enough to slip through.

As before, this corridor is also lined with doors and enough lanterns to see by while maintaining a thrifty gloom. You open the nearest door, sure to first check for light and sound and any other tell-tale signs of occupancy. A dining room; its large table looking a thorned and ungodly beast as stacked chairs point their legs upward across its surface and the white dust sheet hangs low to the floor in a rippling skirt. No stairs, no way up. You move onto the next door down and look inside. Perhaps it was an armoury? Big wooden hooks and shelves, ornate and varnished to perfection, line the walls. They bare nothing, save the discoloured patches where indistinct shadows were cast long ago. Large windows are hidden by the overgrown bushes outside, but there is enough light to see. No way up here as well.

The corridor leads further away from the kitchen, the trail of drips diminishing into rare spots of moisture that catch the light. There are no more doors before it splits, leading the trail away from the back end of the house towards the front. Perhaps the maid will know the way up? Seems strange to reject the dumbwaiter shaft and its potential discovery for one that is guaranteed, but at least you would control the encounter. You avoid it for now, continuing down the corridor ahead.

The next door, tentatively opened, reveals some manner of study? Odd shapes squat in the dark, slanted like writing desks. It’s the smallest of the rooms you’ve seen, and you get the sneaking suspicion that next door leads to the same or similar. You move forward and try. It does.

The end of the corridor approaches, baring no more or less light under its frame than the hall you’re in now. You listen and hear nothing before silently lifting the latch and opening the door.

The sight of a man’s back at the far window halts you in your tracks, and you barely stop the door from swinging wide on its unbalanced hinges, leaving you swinging the door to near closed in a way you hope didn’t blow him a breeze. His shape and outline are tall, his back illuminated more than his front by the rooms candles as he looks out of the window before. Moonlit night is all the distraction it gives, but from the way he remains standing, with arms behind his back and facing the same direction, make it clear he hasn’t noticed your intrusion.

You take a moment to study him. He stands straight and still as a statue between the orange light of the lantern and the pale ingress of the moons beams, giving him the look of some lost idle, sunk to the bottom of the sea and standing against the currents of dusty swirling half-light. He’s well dressed, but not to impress, his clothes tailored and fine but simple in colour and style. No noble or merchant would be so reserved. He almost looks like a professional servant; the kind that would sometimes visit your father’s wood shop to order some lavish craft on behalf of their masters. Only they, in your experience, dressed so precisely when out of uniform, as though missing it terribly.

His short grey hair is the only thing that doesn’t match as it’s unfit for powder or wax, ribbon or ornament, and the nobility like something to work with when dressing up their minions, at least in Coronac. More than that, there’s something off about him. You feel it. He clearly doesn’t belong here. Perhaps he’s visiting to negotiate or do business with the pirates on behalf of his master. Neither is out of the question. Nobles and merchants have relatives kidnapped all the time, usually at the behest of the nobles and merchants more willing to do business with pirates and criminals (the majority, you’d wager, at least for the nobility). Yet, you can’t help but feel that it’s more than that. Is it that if he were here to negotiate, he would look more nervous? Perhaps. His stance is straight and confident, yet somehow easy and fluid. If he is here to do business then why has he isolated himself? Also strange. A dark room in the back of the building is not the place for commerce. Is it because he’s looking at you in the windows reflection, yet hasn’t even reacted?

Yes.

You close the door as softly as you can, trying to control your sudden heavy breathing. Damn! You back away on slipped feet, listening for the cry of alarm or approaching footsteps. None come. Silence. Did he see you? Was he really looking? You’re sure of it.

Before you can relax, the door explodes open with the sudden sound of splintered wood as the man propels himself at through it. Hinges fail their duty to the door frame. The latch scrapes the hall wall before clattering to the floor. His foot extends in a cloud of splinters. It all has such surprising, crashing, thunderous **** that you fall back, sinking in motion slowed by his comparative speed, watching his resolute face focus on your own. Your hand is in your pocket, pulling the knife before you think it, finding air just as floor meets back, bouncing you hard as the missile of the man changes trajectory to your fallen form. You see his eyes, almost lifeless with calm as he takes you in: a black masked and clad intruder, knife in hand and scrabbling back. As sudden as his appearance itself, your wrist is in his hand, twisted to carry the knife away from his body. It hurts. You drop it.

Thanks to your inelegant fall and putting a hand out to keep him from you, the knife falls conveniently into your other hand with a skill that goes no further than pure luck. In fact, it takes a moment for you to realise what happened before you yank your twisted wrist up above your head to stretch out his hardened midsection. His eyes widen slightly with shock; the first expression his iron hard face has shown.

The knife sinks in.

You cry out in pain and shock and above all, confusion. You look down at your midsection. His other hand had grabbed the knife by the blade and turned it, ramming it into your side. The speed… no one is that fast! The man sees it as well, and it’s not what he wanted either.

“Curses! Who do you work for?”

Breath doesn’t come, your diaphragm speared by your own weapon. A killing blow. He pulls down your mask. “Tell me! Are you with the Free Thinkers? The Running Order? Cult of One?”

How many enemies does this guy have!? Doesn’t matter. You try to breathe, nothing. “Tell me and I’ll make this easier on you!” Your mouth opens and closes several times, nothing comes out.

The man straddling you in the dimly lit hallway grips the blade, heedless of his cut hand, and pulls. Cork popped, the wine begins to spill. The breath you drag feels ragged, the air you expel in coughed clumps wet. Darkness closes. It’s brought by pain and fear and despair. You’re going to die here. What horrible luck to see it coming. To have time to muse. The fire of animal instinct that demands you get up, run, fight, do something, is snuffed out by the cold deluge of calculated reality. There is nothing left that you can do, save feel pain. That shouldn’t last for long.

“Tell Me!”

It’s good to know your killer has enough enemies to ensure some vengeance, you suppose. You just wish it was by someone you had heard of. To die with more questions; for you, for a detective, an Agent, that’s just insulting. He swims in your vision, blurred and diminishing. You fight, for a moment, parting your lips enough to parody speech. What did he say? Ah yes. You look to where his eyes should be.

“C-ult –f O-n”

It’s all you can get out, all you can think of, but it should be enough to mislead the bastard. To think your last act would be such a petty one.

A bitter smile is your last act.

Odd to die as a foot note in another person’s story.