Dawn in the Valeran gardens arranged itself in careful shades of gray, as if the world had been asked to be respectful.
The laurel hedges stood like obedient sentinels, their leaves holding small beads of mist.
Nyx left the rented house with the scrap folded in her palm and the anonymous note burning at the base of her throat.
The walk to the laurel steps felt longer than the map indicated—every footfall a small biography in the register of the night.
She dressed plainly: a high-collared coat that swallowed the brooch, and a scarf wound low.
Not to hide the scar on her temple—it had the stubborn honesty of a healed wound—but to keep her face from being recognized by the soft eyes of gossip.
The carriage that had brought her here at dusk had gone to other errands. The street was empty but for a few early tradesmen and an exhausted lamplighter.
She kept to the gardens' shadow, where the laurel's scent was sweet enough to make memory feel like a trick.
The steps themselves were a small flight leading down to the private walk, their third step a little nicked from a hundred heels.
The note had specified:
Meet where the laurel's shadow leans on the third step at dawn. Come alone.
The language had been precise, almost theatrical. Whoever had written it liked the architecture of secrecy.
Nyx arrived before the hour.
Waiting felt like a way to think without hurry. She perched on the third step and watched the garden.
A bench creaked in a nearby alcove. For a brief flash she thought she saw someone move: a coat, a hand, the rustle of pages.
Her pulse slowed with the rhythm of the laurel leaves… and then quickened when she thought of Jonas's pale, frightened face.
She felt watched.
And that attention was not all fear.
It felt, in some strange alchemy, like possibility.
The dawn grew an inch brighter.
A voice rose from behind the hedgerow—not a man's voice at first, but the rustling of leaves.
"You came," a low whisper said.
Nyx turned.
A figure stepped from the hedge's edge into the thin light, half a person and half a shadow.
The scarf hid their face, gloves hid their hands. The voice softened into an accent that could not be placed—careful, deliberate.
"You said come alone," the stranger murmured. "You keep your wits about you?"
"I keep them about me enough," Nyx said. She did not try to sound braver than she felt. "Who are you?"
A small laugh, dry as leaves.
"One who removes names from ledgers when asked… and one who sometimes returns them."
The hand that produced the ledger page was quick, confident. The figure extended it between two gloved fingers, as if offering something that might burn.
Nyx's breath caught.
The paper matched the stock in Victor's study—thick, rough at the edges.
A name scrawled across a line. An account. A payment entry marked: maintenance—Valeran estate.
Not Victor's handwriting. Not Sebastian Crowe's either.
But the emblem at the corner of the page—moon with a crossed quill—was Rowe & Kest's. The same emblem stamped on the scrap she had stolen.
"How did you get this?" Nyx demanded.
The figure's eyes glimmered. "Opportunity. Rowe & Kest catalogue more than ledgers. They catalogue futures.
You have three advantages: a scar, curiosity, and a friend outside their circle."
Nyx's head snapped up. "Aiden?"
The stranger inclined their head. "Aiden's name came up. He is useful because he does not know the etiquette of silence."
Her stomach twisted. "Why help me? Why not sell this to Cassandra?"
"Because…" the figure cut in, tone neutral, "I do not serve Cassandra Valeran. I serve truth—when the price is right. And sometimes when silence costs too much."
Their glove tapped the page. "Take this. Go to your Aiden. Do not tell him the source. Ask him to cross-check Rowe & Kest's filings. If he finds nothing, we must be cleverer. If he finds a match, you'll have a thread."
Nyx folded her fingers around the page as if it were alive.
"Who are you?" she asked again.
The stranger only shook their head. "Not yet."
They stepped back into the hedge like a tide retreating, the laurel leaves closing soft as curtains.
"Remember: pull one thread, and the rest will tighten. Beware Mr. Crowe's key. Beware a lawyer who keeps too many copies."
Then they were gone.
Later, in a cramped café, Nyx slid the page to Aiden.
He read slowly, lips pressing at the column of repeated transfers hidden under estate maintenance.
"This is not a mistake," he muttered. "If Rowe & Kest is involved, there's a trail. They're careful, but they're still a business. Businesses leave breadcrumbs."
Nyx leaned in. "So we follow them?"
Aiden nodded, voice low. "Yes. But carefully. If Sebastian Crowe holds the keys, then he controls the storm."
That night Jonas appeared at her door, eyes wide with fear.
"Miss Nyx," he whispered. "They mentioned your name in the servants' wing. They said you're making trouble. They spoke of Mr. Crowe's private keys… and of ledgers taken for review."
Nyx steadied him. "If anyone asks, say you dropped the tray. Nothing more. And Jonas—come to me if Han orders you again. Whatever the risk."
He nodded, but his fear said the question she could not answer: And if they punish me first?
The days that followed were a slow tightening of strings.
Cassandra patrolled the social lanes. Seraphine paraded with Lord Thorne. Mr. Han watched in silence.
The benefactor did not reappear.
But the ledger page sat hidden in Nyx's trunk, beating like a second heart.
Late that night, she stared at it again. The ink swam in the lamplight.
She thought of the gloves. The voice. The ease with which the stranger vanished into the hedges.
Whoever they were, they had their reasons. Whoever they were, they had just changed the game.
The Valeran house slept like a kingdom of secrets. But secrets could be mapped.
And maps always revealed cracks.
Nyx closed her eyes with one thought repeating:
Pull one thread, and the rest will tighten.
But what if the thread she had already pulled… was the wrong one?
Who really is the stranger in the hedges—and what thread has Nyx already pulled without realizing it?