The blood on Hanno's hands had dried to a dull rust. He flexed his fingers, watching the cracks form in the stiff patches, flakes drifting to the carpet like dried petals. It should have hurt. It didn't.
The study door swung open at a touch.
Inside, everything stood perfectly preserved—the ledger left open at yesterday's entries, the inkwell un-capped, the quill resting at an angle as if someone had just set it down mid-thought. A half-drunk cup of tea sat beside it, the leaves settled into a dark sludge at the bottom. Still warm.
Hanno ran his fingers along the desk's edge. The wood was smooth under his touch, worn down by years of his father's impatient drumming. He pulled out the chair—the one with the uneven leg that always wobbled—and sat.
The diary lay where it always did, tucked between volumes of trade routes and tax codes. Hanno flipped it open at random.
"Shipment of Venician glass arrived cracked. Paid the captain half-rate and told him to blame the tides. He cursed me in six languages. Remarkable creativity for a man who can't pack a crate."
Hanno's mouth twitched.
He turned another page.
"Dreamt of the black fox again. It spoke in riddles and ate my ledger. Woke to find the cat shredding last quarter's receipts. Omen or bad luck? Charged the incident to 'miscellaneous losses' either way."
"Hanno asked again why we pray before meals. I told him it's the same reason we count inventory - to remember what we have before it's gone. The boy looked at me with those too-old eyes and said, 'Then shouldn't we pray twice?' Damn child out-logics me at every turn."
The memory surfaced unbidden - his father's exasperated grin, the way his mustache twitched when he tried not to laugh. Hanno's throat tightened.
A quiet laugh escaped him. It sounded foreign in the silent room.
"What's so funny?"
Hanno didn't look up. His thumb brushed the next page—a pressed chrysanthemum, its edges browned with age. "You wrote here that the Duke's envoy tried to bribe you with a barrel of apricot brandy."
"And?"
"You drank the brandy and still charged him tariff."
"Business is business." The voice came from the doorway, amused. "Even poisoned wine tastes sweet if the price is right."
Hanno finally lifted his gaze.
His father stood leaning against the frame, one hand pressed to his side where the blood had soaked through his waistcoat. His skin was pale, his hair disheveled, but his eyes were sharp as ever. A thin trail of red dripped from his fingertips onto the carpet.
Hanno closed the diary. "Let me help you clean that up."
Pitkin waved him off. "Waste of good linen." He pushed away from the door, his steps uneven as he crossed to the decanter. The glass trembled slightly in his grip as he poured. "You're smiling."
"I'm not."
"Liar." Pitkin set the glass down too hard, the amber liquid sloshing. "You always smiled when you thought you'd outsmarted me."
Hanno watched the blood pool at his father's feet. "Someone should stitch that."
"Later." Pitkin leaned heavily against the desk. "First, tell me why you're really here."
"Chapter twelve of the Merchant's Canticle." His shadow fell across the desk. "You always did cherry-pick your lessons."
Hanno finally looked up.
His father stood framed in the doorway, one hand pressed to his side where blood darkened his waistcoat. The wound still glistened wet, dripping onto the carpet in steady rhythm. His skin had taken on the pallor of old parchment, but his eyes burned with their usual intensity.
"Let me see that arm." Pitkin gestured to Hanno's bleeding bicep.
"It's nothing."
"Like hells it is." He limped forward, each step leaving a crimson footprint. "You're bleeding on my accounts."
Hanno exhaled sharply through his nose. "Priorities unchanged, I see."
Pitkin grabbed the decanter with his clean hand, pouring two fingers of amber liquid. "Chapter nine: 'A man who won't tend his own wounds won't live to count his profits.'" He pushed the glass across the desk. "Drink."
The whiskey burned going down. Hanno's fingers tightened around the glass. "They're still in the house."
"Obviously." Pitkin lowered himself into the wobbling chair with a grunt.
Another creak, closer this time. Hanno's muscles coiled. "We should go."
"You should." Pitkin's bloody fingers traced the ledger's edge. "I'll finish the accounts."
The absurdity of it - the sheer, stubborn normalcy - cracked something in Hanno's chest. "You're being unreasonable."
Pitkin's smile was all teeth. "And yet here we are." He flipped a page in the ledger. "The shipment from Rhyan contains more than silk. Check the third crate."
A shadow passed the hallway. Hanno's grip tightened on the letter opener.
"Go," Pitkin said without looking up. "And Hanno?"
"Yes?"
"Next time, bring a proper knife."
The study door swung shut behind him. When Hanno glanced back through the keyhole, the room was empty - no father, no blood, only a single page still turning in some unfelt breeze.
From the darkness of the hall, metal scraped against leather. Hanno pressed his back to the wall, the letter opener cold in his hand. The verse rose unbidden to his lips:
"Though shadows lengthen and night draws nigh,
The merchant walks where killers lie.
His ledger balanced, his debts repaid,
Let no man question how he's paid."
The clock ticked.
Hanno reached for the glass. His fingers passed through it.
The only blood on the carpet was his own.
He saw the assassin step into the light and then Hanno knew he could not hurt him. Under no circumstance would he be able to face him without tearing his conscience. The child was no older than fifteen. And then Hanno wondered if the assailants he had taken down in the dark were also children, and he felt his heart burn.
Hanno lowered the letter opener.
The boy fired.
The first shot shattered the vase beside Hanno's head. Porcelain rained down in jagged shards. The second grazed his shoulder, searing heat flaring across his skin before he even registered the bang. The recoil knocked the child backward, his arms trembling, his breath coming in panicked gasps.
Hanno moved without thinking.
He lunged, tackling the boy to the ground. The pistol skittered across the floor. The child thrashed beneath him, small fists beating against Hanno's chest, his back, his wounded arm—but Hanno barely felt it.
Then the boy went still.
Not from surrender. From shock.
The gunshots had been too loud in the enclosed hallway. The child's ears rang, his pupils blown wide with pain and disorientation. His chest heaved, his lips parted in a silent cry.
And then—the tears came.
Hot, furious, terrified. The boy's face crumpled, his body curling inward as sobs wracked him.
Hanno's hands spasmed around the child's wrists.
A memory sliced through him—sharp as the glass digging into his knees.
Himself, at eight years old, crouched in the dark of his father's study. The smell of gunpowder still clinging to his hands. The way his ears had rung for hours after. The way Pitkin had found him there, trembling, and said nothing—just pressed a cold cloth to his palms and wiped them clean.
Hanno recoiled as if burned.
The boy scrambled back, his breath hitching, his face streaked with snot and tears. He didn't reach for the gun. He didn't even look at it. He just stared at Hanno with wide, wet eyes, his entire body shaking.
Hanno stepped aside.
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then the boy turned and ran—bare feet slapping against the hardwood, his sobs echoing down the darkened hall.
Hanno slid down the wall, his back pressing into the cold wood paneling. The gun lay where the boy had dropped it, its barrel still warm, its muzzle dark as a dead eye. The silence in the hallway was thick, suffocating—no footsteps, no shouts, just the distant echo of the child's sobs fading into the house's bones.
His hands rested on his knees, palms up. Blood smeared the lines of his skin—his own, his father's, maybe even the boy's. He couldn't tell anymore.
The child's crying still rang in his ears. Not the sound of an assassin. Not the sound of a killer. Just a boy. Just a scared, trembling boy.
Hanno closed his eyes.
His breath came slow, measured, but his mind was a storm.
Why send a child?
The question coiled around his ribs like smoke. To unsettle him? To make him hesitate? Or was it simpler than that—just another body to throw at him, expendable, replaceable?
His fingers twitched. The numbness was wearing off, pain creeping back in—his arm, his shoulder, the ache in his chest where the boy's fists had struck.
He should move.
If there were others left, this was the moment they would come. While he sat here, dazed, unarmed. While his thoughts spiraled.
But no one came.
The house was still.
Aidos.
Hanno's eyes snapped open.
Aidos was alone in the infirmary. Unarmed. Weak. If they had sent a boy after him, what would they send for Aidos?
He pushed himself up, his muscles protesting, his wounds burning. The hallway stretched before him, shadows pooling between the flickering sconces.
He didn't look back at the gun.
He ran.