9. The Cane — Victorian Era, 1880s| 3:02 PM
Dark polished wood. Heavy. The silver wolf's head handle caught the LED light and held it — the kind of craftsmanship that cost money and knew it, knew exactly how long you'd stare at it before you stopped wondering what else might be hiding underneath.
Aveline lifted it. Her hand wrapped around the silver smoothly, fingers finding the grip like she'd held this specific cane before, or something close enough.
"Victorian era. Late 1880s."
She walked with it — just once across the room, leaning into it slightly, the gait of someone with a bad knee, an old man with a distinguishing affectation, someone whose most interesting feature was the cane itself.
She stopped and twisted the wolf's head ninety degrees.
CLICK.
The compartment opened. Inside: one brass cartridge, seated perfectly, gleaming with the unashamed confidence of something that had been waiting a very long time for its moment.
She raised the cane and sighted along it the way you'd sight a rifle. Easy. Practiced. Like her hands remembered this motion from somewhere else, somewhere before this room.
"Ten-meter range."
She lowered it, not to rest — she didn't rest — but to reset. "You walk toward your target leaning on this. An old man. Distinguishing. Someone worth looking at for the wrong reasons. Nobody looks twice."
She set it back on its stand.
"They put considerable effort into the wolf's head," she said, almost to herself. "Made it beautiful on purpose. Made it something you'd remember."
She said it like she understood the philosophy of it, the commitment to making the lie so perfect it became true.
10. The Baby Cradle — Soviet NKVD, 1930s
Adrian saw it and his entire nervous system filed a formal resignation letter.
A wicker cradle on its own display stand. Faded blue blanket. A porcelain doll nestled inside, eyes closed, hands curled into small perfect fists — the utterly convincing stillness of something made to look like it was breathing.
No, Adrian thought. I know where this is going.
Aveline approached it differently than the others.
Not the proprietary pride she'd shown the rifle rack. Not the clinical efficiency of the cigarette case.
Something quieter. Something that looked, on careful examination, like genuine respect.
She stood beside the cradle without touching it yet.
"NKVD. 1930s."
Her voice had dropped. Not performance-quiet. Just quiet. The kind that came when someone was thinking about what they were looking at and finding it worthy of consideration.
"Female operatives. International borders. When borders were at their most watched."
She looked at the doll.
"Border guards see a woman with a baby. They wave her through. Because what kind of person searches a baby. What kind of monster does that."
She lifted the doll.
Beneath it: a PPSh-41 submachine gun. Drum magazine. Seventy-one rounds.
The barrel aligned with a gap in the wicker that had never, not once in its existence, been a weaving imperfection.
Aveline smoothed the blanket once. Not performatively. Just smoothed it, the way you'd smooth something you respected.
"Ruthless," she said. "Effective. Completely unsuspected."
She stepped back.
"The women who carried these did it because the alternatives were worse. Because this was the only job that gave them any leverage at all." She was still looking at the cradle. "But they weaponised the one instinct that crosses every border. Every language. Every culture." A pause. "Protect the mother. Protect the child."
She turned away.
"I've thought about that a great deal."
11. The Knife Pistol — CIA Special Operations, 1980s
Seven-inch blade. Serrated. Combat steel that meant business.
The handle was slightly wrong — Adrian's eye caught it before his brain named it. Too thick for the balance. A small barrel opening at the base, sitting there quietly, not hiding exactly. Just not announcing itself to anyone who wasn't already looking.
Adrian was already looking.
Aveline picked it up. Her fingers found the switch without searching — flush with the metal, invisible unless you knew.
"Functions as a knife. Proper balance. Legitimate reach."
She aimed it at nothing.
"Your opponent respects the knife. Maintains distance. They've done the math and the math says they're fine."
She pressed the switch.
Dry fire. The hammer didn't strike, but the motion was smooth, practiced.
"They haven't done all the math."
She set it down carefully.
"The assumption you're exploiting is the most dangerous one. I know what you're carrying. I know the shape of the threat. I know where your edges are." She looked at them. "The moment someone believes that, the moment they stop accounting for what they don't know, you have them. Every time."
12. The Butterfly Knife — Street Weapon
Standard butterfly. Worn handles. The kind of worn that came from actual handling, not age. Sharp blade. The sort of thing that showed up in evidence lockups with depressing regularity and got logged and forgotten about.
Adrian recognised it before Aveline said a word.
"I can use that one."
Aveline's head turned. She looked at him the way she'd looked at some of the display cases — not with surprise, more like a calculation updating in real time. A variable she hadn't accounted for.
"Show me."
He picked it up. Flipped it open with the clean competence of someone whose cover story required it, someone who'd learned from actual dealers because the alternative was getting made and having a considerably worse afternoon.
Closed it. Opened it again.
Muscle memory.
She watched — completely still, the way she got when she was actually paying attention, sharper than her baseline, more present.
"Where."
"Undercover work. Gang infiltration."
He closed it. Turned it once.
She nodded. Slowly. Once.
"Good." A pause. "At least you're not entirely decorative."
Another pause, like she was revising something internally.
"Most people cut themselves badly the first several attempts. You have genuine proficiency. That saves us both time."
She almost said something else.
Then didn't.
That was a compliment, Adrian thought. I'm keeping it.
Weapons Room | 3:08 PM
Aveline turned to face the full length of the room.
All of it. The rifles, the glowing cases, the coin on its pedestal, the cradle with its blanket smoothed back into place. She looked at it the way people look at things they built — or found, which was almost the same thing if you cared enough about the finding.
"I'm going to teach you to use all of these," she said.
She let it sit.
"Not because I find the curriculum objectionable, but because they are unsuspected. Most people's threat assessment doesn't include a Victorian walking stick. Most people have never thought about what a Bible might be carrying. Most people look at a coin and see a coin."
She turned to face them.
"You can move through spaces with these that you couldn't move through otherwise. You can act without triggering recognition. Without triggering defence."
She walked toward the door.
"This was an overview. Full training follows when we have time and sufficient motivated desperation." She glanced back. "Now you understand what exists. What people built. What they'll walk into a room carrying while looking like they have nothing and want nothing and are nobody worth watching."
She paused at the threshold.
"Now. Back to training. You've spent the last hour learning how people kill."
One beat.
"Let's find out whether you can manage not to be killed. It is, technically, a different skill set."
Training Room | 3:15 PM
The mansion's cold landed on Adrian's shoulders the second they left the weapons room, which felt deliberate. Like the house making a comment about his life choices.
Accurate, but rude.
Aveline stood in the centre of the training room with her arms crossed and the expression of someone who had already arrived at all her conclusions and was delivering them in real time as a courtesy.
She looked at Yuki first.
"You've improved substantially. Reaction time is approximately thirty percent faster than baseline. Footwork is more economical. You've stopped telegraphing with your left shoulder." She delivered this with the warmth of a quarterly performance review conducted by someone who had never experienced warmth personally. "Against untrained opponents, in reasonable conditions, you would likely survive. Possibly even win."
Yuki straightened.
"However," Aveline continued, without changing her tone by a single degree, "against trained professionals, people with actual operational backgrounds, people like the ones hunting you, you're dead in under ten seconds."
The straightening deflated slightly.
"You need months of continued work. Possibly substantially longer."
That was encouragement, Adrian thought, watching Yuki reset to determined. That was Aveline's version of encouragement.
She turned to him.
"Your hand-to-hand is solid. NPU training shows clearly. Proper form. Adequate power. Functional defensive positioning that actually makes sense rather than just looks correct." She tilted her head. "Mid-tier. Genuinely competent. Not a small thing."
Adrian exhaled.
Mid-tier. He was putting that on a plaque.
"However," she said, and her eyes found his with the unhurried precision of a scope settling, "you've never fought anyone like me."
There it is.
She walked to the equipment rack. Picked up the marker — black ink, same one that had theoretically killed Yuki several times this afternoon. Turned back.
Adrian went to the rack before she could tell him to. Picked up the wooden training knife.
It felt heavier than it should.
He walked to the centre of the room. Settled into stance — weight balanced, knife at mid-level, guard up. Everything where it was supposed to be. Textbook. Professional. The posture of someone who had trained.
I am competent, his posture said. I am mid-tier.
Aveline stood opposite him and held the marker loosely in her right hand. Left hand open at her side.
No stance.
No guard.
No visible preparation whatsoever.
Just a woman standing in a room, holding a marker, looking at him the way the cat looks at the mouse that still hasn't worked out the situation.
"Whenever you're ready, Adrian."
She makes it sound like she's doing me a favour, he thought.
The mirrors gave them back to each other in every direction: him coiled, careful, professional; her perfectly, infuriatingly relaxed. Yuki at the room's edge in his peripheral vision, pale and very still, wearing the expression of someone who had seen this film and remembered the runtime.
Adrian's grip tightened on the training knife.
Don't rush. She wants the rush. Her whole stance — or lack of one — is an invitation to commit first so she can use it against me.
He shifted his weight, small and testing, the kind of adjustment you make to watch what someone does in response.
She did nothing.
Didn't move. Didn't adjust. Didn't blink with any urgency.
She's already read me, he realised. She read me when I walked in. She's not collecting information right now. She has the information.
She's just waiting for the part she finds interesting.
His heartbeat was doing something loud and unhelpful.
One shot, the optimistic part of him offered. If the angle's right. If I can get ahead of the counter. If I move before she expects—
Aveline's mouth curved.
Just slightly.
She knew. She'd known since the knife. She was simply standing here, patient as something geological, waiting for the part where it got interesting for her.
Adrian raised the knife a fraction. Adjusted his grip by millimetres.
Her eyes tracked it without the rest of her moving at all, running through counters he couldn't see, selecting the one he wouldn't find until it had already happened.
Okay, he thought.
Okay.
Come on then.
He moved.