Viktor yawned.
Not politely. The full, jaw-cracking, arms-over-head yawn of a man who has spent the better part of two days doing things that would take a normal person considerably longer, and whose body was filing an honest report about it.
He stretched.
Both arms out, the crack of his spine settling, the cool evening air hitting his face as he stood outside the Hartfield Mansion gates and watched the last of the daylight drain from the sky over the city's rooftops.
Night was coming in from the east. The particular dark blue of it bleeding into the orange at the horizon's edge, the chimney stacks turning to silhouettes one by one.
He breathed.
The city smelled different now. Cleaner. Not literally — Hartfield's streets were still Hartfield's streets — but the , atmospheric weight of a place running on fear and corruption had thinned considerably in the last forty-eight hours.
He'd noticed this before. The way corruption had a smell.
He exhaled.
'Good enough.'
