The hum of Madrid's electric grid was constant now—a soft background whisper that masked deeper, darker movements in the capital's underbelly.
It began with a letter.
Folded into the coat of a Prussian diplomat as he boarded a train back to Zaragoza, it passed from hand to hand until it reached the outer districts of the city, where a narrow house in a tailor's quarter doubled as a safehouse. There, in the basement, a man with graying hair and a precise mustache opened the envelope and read.
His name was Gustav Halberd, an agent of the Prussian Central Intelligence Ministry, and he had been in Aragon for six years—first posing as a language teacher, then a tradesman, and now an investor in ceramics. He had watched the rise of Prince Lancelot with a mix of awe and dread.
Now the letter made it clear: Berlin wanted answers.
