Chapter 217: Apparently I Have Two Women Who Can Get Us Through Checkpoints

Raven didn’t open the envelope in the lobby.

He held it by one corner and inspected the paper, the fold, and the surface before taking it upstairs. No seal, no name, no obvious trace of alchemical powder, and no unusual smell either. That didn’t mean it was safe. It only meant the first inspection had found nothing.

Roland closed the door behind them. "You think it could be trapped?"

"I think someone knew we were coming before we even knew where we’d be sleeping." Raven placed the envelope on the table. "That’s enough for me to treat it as a threat."

Valeria leaned against the wall. "Could also be a demonstration. They want you to know they can find you."

"Still a threat."

Elise studied the paper. "Do you want me to check it for magical effects?"

Raven nodded. "Without touching it."

A faint smile appeared on her face. "I’m learning."

Soft light passed over the envelope. Nothing reacted. Then Valeria checked the edges with a thin needle while Roland kept an eye on the window and the hallway. Only then did Raven open it.

There was a single sheet inside. We hope Marden proves to your liking, Mr. Ashford. Nothing else.

Roland read over his shoulder. "That’s impressively polite for a threat."

"Politeness improves many threats," Valeria said.

Raven folded the paper again. "They don’t just know we arrived. They knew what name to use and where we’d stay."

Elise frowned. "Then we should inform the authorities."

Raven looked at her. "And tell them what? Someone welcomed me to Marden?"

She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. "Put that way, I imagine the conversation would be very short."

"And we’d tell whoever wrote this that they succeeded in making us nervous."

Valeria stepped closer to the table. "Then we do the opposite. Continue what we came here to do, but assume someone can see at least part of our movements."

Raven nodded. "No one goes anywhere alone. Roland checks whether we have a tail. You and Elise use different channels for information. I’ll compare what we get before we decide the next move."

Roland smiled. "Already sounds more entertaining than opening a suspicious envelope and hoping it doesn’t explode."

"That part is over."

"Exactly. Which is why I can joke about it now."

Their first stop the next morning was the commercial registry. It took Raven less than five minutes to discover that Valeria could extract more information without threatening anyone than he probably could with half an hour of interrogation.

The official in front of them maintained a professional smile while refusing full access to the manifests for the third time. "I understand your interest, Lady von Nacht, but those documents require authorization from a superior."

Valeria didn’t lose her smile. "Then request it."

"My supervisor is occupied with border matters."

"I understand that as well. But if irregular biological cargo crossed several companies registered in Marden, and someone later asks why it wasn’t reviewed despite a legitimate request, that explanation will need to exist in writing."

The man studied her. Valeria continued in the same calm tone. "I’m not asking you to violate any regulation. I’m trying to prevent you from having to explain later why you decided not to use the ones already available to you."

Raven saw the exact moment the official stopped thinking of them as inconvenient visitors and started thinking about his own liability.

"Wait here."

When he disappeared through a side door, Raven looked at Valeria. "That was a threat."

"No. It was an invitation to imagine administrative consequences."

"That sounds worse when you say it like that."

"Because you prefer consequences you can punch."

Raven considered answering. Valeria’s smile widened slightly. "See? I’m learning to anticipate you."

Five minutes later, they received partial copies of the manifests.

Elise obtained different things. At a small shrine in the eastern district, the priest receiving her recognized her name before he even finished examining her identification. His posture changed, not from fear, but from respect. The two nearby acolytes lowered their voices, and one quietly closed an inner door to give them privacy.

Elise explained that she was investigating possible forged religious seals connected to biological cargo. She didn’t mention the corpse or Nyxara. The priest pulled out three record books.

"If someone used an older mark, it should appear here. We changed the sequence four years ago after several forgery cases."

Raven watched as Elise compared the seal they had recovered against the records. "This curve is reversed," she said. "And this abbreviation belongs to a sanctuary, not a transit district."

The priest nodded. "Then whoever made it knew the format but not the current procedure."

Elise looked up. "I need to know where something like this might still have worked."

That produced another list. When they stepped outside, Valeria looked at the documents under Elise’s arm. "You didn’t have to imply consequences."

"No."

"Or remind anyone who you were."

"They already knew."

Valeria smiled with suspiciously perfect courtesy. "How convenient."

Elise watched her for a second. "That sounded like it bothered you."

"It doesn’t bother me. I’m merely discovering that some people have an alarmingly uncomplicated relationship with bureaucracy."

Raven walked between them. He wasn’t sure when this had started becoming a competition. He was fairly sure neither woman intended to admit that it had.

The pattern continued throughout the morning. Valeria obtained names, actual owners, and commercial relationships that never appeared on the first page of a contract. Elise obtained cooperation from priests, officials, and soldiers who had no desire to be remembered by a White Saint as the person who obstructed an investigation. Valeria opened social doors. Elise opened institutional ones.

And Raven began noticing Valeria moving ahead of him more and more often. By the time he finished checking one list of companies, she had already separated the ones sharing administrators. When he asked which warehouses could legally receive preserved biological cargo, she had already eliminated half of them. When he started calculating which commercial route could reach Dunvar fastest, Valeria already had an alternate contact prepared.

Raven set one sheet down. "You’re getting too far ahead of me."

Valeria looked up. "I thought that was useful."

"It is. I’m deciding why you’re doing it."

She took a moment before answering. "Because I’ve spent enough time with you to know what you’re going to ask next."

That was true. Not all of it. Raven watched her a little longer. Valeria held his gaze.

"Don’t make that face. Not every human behavior has a second operation hidden underneath it."

"With you, it usually does."

"What a romantic opinion you have of me."

Raven returned to the papers. "I never said romantic."

Valeria smiled. "That was also better than whatever you would’ve answered a month ago."

They gathered the information over lunch: seven forged seals, four indirectly connected companies, three warehouses capable of handling preserved biological material, and one partial overlap with a company they had seen in Dunvar. They still didn’t have a culprit. But they had fewer places left to look.

Roland set the pitcher down. "I have a question."

Raven didn’t look up. "The way you said that already worries me."

Roland gestured subtly toward Valeria and Elise. "Which one of them is more useful?"

Silence arrived immediately. Valeria stopped turning a page. Elise lifted her head. Raven looked at Roland. The trap was so obvious it was almost insulting.

"I survived a Champion. I’m not dying because I answered that question."

Valeria needed a second before she laughed. "That was almost socially intelligent."

Raven picked up his cup. "I learn when the mortality rate justifies it."

Elise let out a softer laugh. Roland raised his glass. "Acceptable answer."

"You started this."

"And you survived. Everybody wins."

The conversation continued without Raven having to escape it with a single word. Valeria noticed. She didn’t say anything, but her expression changed slightly.

By late afternoon, they had found a warehouse worth watching. They didn’t enter. Raven wasn’t interested in turning suspicion into trespassing, especially inside a city controlled by House Caerwyn. They took an elevated street where part of the facade could be observed without standing directly in front of it.

Two visible guards, one at the door and one inside. Roland returned from a side route. "We have company."

Raven didn’t turn immediately. "Following us?"

"No. Waiting."

That was worse. Raven shifted slightly so he could use the reflection in a nearby window. Three men on the next street. Concealed weapons. A wagon parked at an awkward angle. An alley that should have had foot traffic but didn’t.

Then he noticed the metal plate leaning against a wall. Too thick to be scrap, and too carefully positioned to be accidental. Raven looked again. Angled. Partial cover. Placed to break a firing line.

The envelope from the day before came back to him. It hadn’t been a simple welcome. Someone knew he was in Marden and knew what weapon he carried. And now they had prepared the terrain specifically around how he might use the Mk.I.

Raven took one step back. "We’re leaving."

Valeria looked at him. "You saw something?"

"Yes."

Roland was already watching the opposite exit. "The ambush?"

Raven nodded. He didn’t need to say more. This time, the problem wasn’t that someone wanted to steal the rifle.

It was that someone had studied how he fought with it.