Corin counted the twelfth rotation before it happened.
The patrols moved precisely as expected. Torchlight swayed.
Crossbows shifted hands. Nothing out of rhythm.
Then a man stepped onto the parapet from the northern stairwell.
He was not dressed like the others.
No standardized armor. No crest of Greywatch on his cloak. His attire was dark, fitted, practical rather than ceremonial. A thin silver chain circled his wrist, catching torchlight in sharp glints.
He did not walk the patrol line.
He walked straight to the section of wall Corin and Belphegor occupied.
Corin flattened instantly, pressing into the shadow between merlons.
Belphegor did not move, but the darkness around him seemed to deepen slightly, swallowing the edge of his silhouette.
The man stopped three paces away.
Not looking at them.
Looking at the stone.
His fingers brushed the wall casually, almost lazily.
Corin's breath slowed.
The silver chain around the man's wrist began to emit a faint, almost imperceptible hum.
Not sound.
Vibration.
Corin felt it through the stone beneath his palms.
The torches along the wall flickered, but not from wind.
They leaned inward for a split second, flames narrowing unnaturally, as if drawn toward something unseen.
Belphegor's crimson eyes sharpened.
The man tilted his head slightly.
"…Interesting," he murmured.
He crouched.
Pressed two fingers against the stone.
A faint ripple shimmered outward across the wall's surface, transparent, almost invisible, like heat distortion.
Corin understood immediately.
Detection lattice.
Not magical in the flamboyant sense. No glowing runes. No alarm bells.
A pressure-sensitive ward woven into the stone itself. Subtle. Refined. Designed not to scream, but to whisper.
And it had just whispered.
The man stood slowly.
"There was displacement here," he said softly to himself. "Very slight."
He did not raise an alarm.
Instead, he began walking.
Not randomly.
Systematically.
His path would intersect their position in seconds.
Corin's mind raced.
If they dropped down into the courtyard, exposed.
If they retreated along the wall, risk crossing torchlight.
If Belphegor used Shadow Step, would the lattice react again?
He calculated angles, guard eyelines, distance to the stairwell.
Belphegor leaned slightly closer without looking at him.
"You chose the wall," he murmured. "Now solve it."
Corin's jaw tightened.
The man was three steps away now.
Two.
Corin moved.
Not backward.
Forward.
He rolled over the parapet edge and dropped, not to the courtyard, but to the narrow stone ledge running just beneath the walkway's outer lip. A drainage overhang no wider than a handspan.
His fingers caught the underside seam.
His boots pressed flat against the wall.
From above, the parapet appeared empty.
Belphegor did not follow.
Instead, he stepped into the man's shadow.
Not fully vanishing.
Just aligning himself perfectly within it, matching the angle of torchlight so precisely that his form became indistinguishable from the elongated darkness stretching across the stone.
The silver-chained man reached their former position.
He stopped.
Looked down.
Looked up.
The hum from his wrist intensified briefly.
Then faded.
"…Residual," he concluded quietly. "Probably a bird."
He straightened.
And walked on.
Below the ledge, Corin's fingers were beginning to strain.
Belphegor stepped away from the fading shadow once the man rounded the tower curve.
He peered over the parapet edge calmly.
"You are hanging."
"I'm aware."
Belphegor offered no hand.
Corin climbed back up on his own once the patrol window reopened.
They lay flat in silence for several seconds.
Then Corin whispered, "That wasn't standard guard rotation."
"No," Belphegor agreed softly. "That was something else."
Below them, the silver-chained man descended the stairwell toward the inner manor.
Corin's eyes tracked him.
"That changes things."
Belphegor's gaze shifted toward the lit central wing again.
Yes.
It did.
Greywatch was not just protected by soldiers.
It was protected by someone careful.