Chapter : 663

He ate supper with his parents, discussing the political implications of a new trade agreement with a southern duchy. His father, Roy, noted his focus, praising his growing grasp of statecraft. His mother, Milody, watched him with her knowing, gentle eyes, sensing a new tension in him but saying nothing. Lloyd smiled, made intelligent comments, and felt like a complete and utter fraud. He was a king on a throne of lies, and he wondered how long it would be before it all came crashing down.

That night, sleep offered no escape. He lay on the sofa in his suite, the familiar territory of his awkward armistice with Rosa, and stared into the darkness. He thought of the five women, cycling through their faces in his mind. He found himself hoping, with a strange and desperate intensity, that it wasn't Jasmin. Her betrayal would be the most painful, a repudiation of the very first act of trust he had made in this new life. He would almost prefer it to be Mei Jing; a betrayal born of ambition was something he could understand, even respect on a purely tactical level. A betrayal born of ingratitude was simply ugly.

Meanwhile, a true ghost was at work. Ken Park had become one with the shadows of the manufactory. He had found a perfect, hidden perch in the rafters of the storage attic directly above Lloyd’s study. A small, carefully bored hole in the floorboards gave him a clear, downward view of the entire room, specifically the heavy oak desk that was the centerpiece of the drama.

For the first day and night, the study remained empty, a silent stage awaiting its actor. Ken watched, motionless, his breathing so shallow it was almost non-existent. He was a statue carved from patience, a living embodiment of the sentinel’s vow.

The second day passed in much the same way. The cleaning staff came and went, performing their duties with a rote efficiency that drew no suspicion. Lloyd himself entered the study in the afternoon, made a show of reviewing some papers (not the portfolio), and left again. The tension was a living thing, a palpable pressure in the quiet air. Ken felt it, but it did not affect him. He was a professional. He could wait for an eternity if the mission required it.

His patience was rewarded on the third night.

The manufactory had fallen silent. The last of the day-shift workers had departed, their cheerful chatter fading into the distance. The night-shift, smaller and focused on monitoring the curing rooms, was confined to a different wing of the building. The study was dark, bathed only in the pale, ethereal light of the twin moons filtering through the tall windows.

At precisely two hours past midnight, the door to the study opened with a soft, barely audible click. Ken’s eyes, already accustomed to the gloom, narrowed slightly.

A lone figure slipped inside. It was Pia.

She moved with a quiet, practiced efficiency that spoke of familiarity. She carried a small cleaning bucket and a rag, the perfect cover for her presence. For ten minutes, she performed her duties with meticulous care, dusting the bookshelves, polishing the brass fittings on the globe, wiping down the surfaces. It was a flawless performance of mundane routine. Ken watched, unmoving, his heart a slow, steady drum. He knew this was the overture.

Finally, her "cleaning" brought her to the desk. She wiped down its surface, her movements slow and deliberate. She paused, her head cocked as if listening for any sound from outside. The manufactory was silent. The only sound was the frantic, terrified hammering of her own heart, a sound only she could hear.

Her hand, trembling almost imperceptibly, slid into the pocket of her apron. She drew out a small, dark object. It was a key. Not the heavy iron master key Lloyd had used, but a smaller, cruder, and darker copy. A blacksmith's forgery.

With a final, fearful glance at the door, she knelt down, inserting the key into the lock of the top-left drawer. The lock was old and well-made, but the copied key had been crafted with skill. There was a soft, metallic snick as the tumblers gave way.

The drawer was open. The bait was exposed. The mouse was in the trap.

Ken’s gaze was as cold and hard as diamond as he watched Pia’s trembling hands reach inside and lift out the heavy, leather-bound portfolio. She didn't have time to take the whole thing. She placed it on the desk, opened it under the pale moonlight, and began her work of treason.

Chapter : 664

The portfolio lay open on the desk, its pages drinking the pale, clinical light of the twin moons. To Pia, the intricate schematics and elegant equations seemed to writhe on the parchment, the lines of ink twisting into accusations. She had seen Lord Ferrum’s face when he spoke of this project—the barely contained fire of his ambition, the profound, almost holy belief in his own vision. She was now holding that vision in her trembling hands, and she was about to tear its heart out.

Her own heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, trapped bird trying to escape its cage. Every shadow in the room seemed to lengthen, to deepen, to take on a menacing form. The silence of the manufactory was no longer peaceful; it was a heavy, suffocating blanket that threatened to smother her. She was a trespasser, a thief, a viper in the very garden that had given her shelter.

From a hidden pocket sewn into the lining of her simple work apron, she withdrew the tools of her treason. They felt alien in her hand, foreign objects from a world of shadows she never wanted to be a part of. The scroll was made of a parchment so fine it was almost weightless, designed to hold a vast amount of information in a minuscule space. The ink was a special, fast-drying alchemical compound, thick and black as a starless night.

She uncapped the tiny vial, the faint, chemical scent a stark contrast to the familiar, pleasant aroma of rosemary and almond oil that usually filled this room. Dipping the quill, she forced her hand to still. The first touch of nib to parchment was an act of finality, a signature on a contract with damnation.

Her mind, a place of swirling panic just moments before, shifted into a state of cold, mechanical focus. It was a survival mechanism, the only way to get through the ordeal without shattering completely. She was no longer Pia, the factory worker. She was an instrument, a machine with a single, terrible function: to copy.

Her eyes, sharp from years of checking inventory lists for minute flaws, scanned the fake research notes. She ignored the prose, the narrative of discovery. Her target was the data. She found the core alchemical formula for the "resonant frequency," a beautiful, complex string of symbols that meant nothing to her but felt like the key to the entire project. Her quill scratched furiously, replicating the symbols with a painstaking precision.

Next, she moved to the engineering diagrams. The "Sunstone Infusion Chamber." It was a marvel of design. She didn't understand the principles behind it, but she could recognize the elegance of its form, the logic of its layout. She copied the central focusing array, the network of what the notes called "arcane conduits," and the schematic for the power regulators. Her hand moved with a speed and accuracy that surprised even her, the muscle memory of a diligent worker now repurposed for a heinous crime.

She transcribed the list of components, the materials needed to build this world-changing machine. Her quill flew, listing rare crystals, enchanted alloys, and reagents with names she couldn't pronounce. With every word she wrote, she felt a piece of her own soul flaking away, turning to dust. She was giving away the future. She was stealing a miracle.

The process took no more than fifteen minutes, but it was the longest fifteen minutes of her life. Time stretched and warped, each second a lifetime of guilt and fear. She was acutely aware of every sound—the settling of the old building, the sigh of the wind outside the window, the frantic beat of her own blood in her ears. She half-expected the door to burst open at any moment, to be faced with the righteous, disappointed fury of her lord.

When the last symbol was copied, she carefully capped the ink. The tiny scroll was now heavy with secrets, a leaden weight in her palm. She rolled it into a tight, thin cylinder, securing it with a length of thread. Her mission in this room was almost complete.

Now came the erasure. She placed the portfolio back in the drawer, her hands moving with a new, chilling calmness. The act was done; all that was left was to hide the evidence. She locked the drawer, the quiet snick of the tumblers falling into place sounding like a cell door slamming shut.

She took her cleaning rag and, with a terrifyingly steady hand, wiped down the surface of the desk, the drawer handle, the portfolio’s leather cover—every surface her trembling, traitorous hands had touched. She was a ghost, and ghosts leave no trace.