CHAPTER 86: THE NET TIGHTENS

Madrid awoke the next morning to the distant toll of church bells and the rumble of cart wheels over slick cobblestones. To the city’s common folk, life continued in its weary rhythm—fishmongers shouting by the river, bakers shoving loaves into brick ovens, washerwomen bending over basins. But beneath the surface, in the cramped arteries of Lavapiés and the winding alleys of La Latina, another world stirred, one unseen by the ordinary eye.

For Edward Harrow, Britannia’s chief in Madrid, the morning promised certainty. The previous day’s reports had landed like coins on a gaming table, each more gratifying than the last. Warehouse—destroyed. Rebel lines of communication—cut. Watchers—still in place. To Harrow, the city was slowly closing its fist around the phantom insurgency.

He sat at his desk in the Consulado, the sun spilling faintly through tall windows, brandy glass half full despite the hour. A second courier arrived just after dawn, delivering another folded packet marked in the usual cipher. Harrow broke the seal and devoured the contents greedily, lips curling at the words:

Observed cart traffic along Calle de la Ruda. Suspect storehouse at No. 17. Heavy activity at night. Local sympathizers guarding entrances.

It was, in truth, exactly what he wanted to read.

"Another one," he muttered, sliding the paper into his growing stack. He rang for his adjutant, a gaunt man named Wainwright, and tapped the pile. "We’ll move tonight. Quiet detachment, swift strike. Have them ready."

Wainwright bowed, though unease flickered briefly in his eyes. "Yes, sir."

What Harrow could not see was that the report had never been written by his own man. The courier who had once carried it lay bound in a basement two streets away, fed bread and water under guard. The handwriting, the cipher, even the small smudge on the corner of the page had been perfectly mimicked by Lancelot’s people. What Harrow read was a mirror held up to his own expectations, carefully polished to reflect only what he longed to see.

At Calle del Sombrerete, the safehouse smelled of ink, smoke, and damp wool. Isandro leaned over the map table, fingers stained black, while two young scribes worked tirelessly under his direction, copying and altering intercepted reports. They spoke in low voices, cautious, though the shutters were drawn and a heavy bolt secured the door.

Lancelot entered, wiping the drizzle from his cloak. His gaze fell immediately on the growing stack of false papers.

"Good," he said, nodding once. "The more we feed him, the more desperate his strikes will become."

Isandro grunted. "He’ll notice sooner or later."

"Of course. But not before we’ve gutted his network." Lancelot placed a captured journal on the table, its pages already marked with neat annotations in his hand. "Three more runners caught last night. One gave us their fallback points before he fainted from blood loss. They think they’re safe in the taverns along Plaza de Cascorro. I want men there tonight—quietly."

Isandro’s eyes hardened. "And the prisoners?"

Lancelot hesitated. He hated the question. Yet leadership demanded answers, not sentiment. "Keep them alive. They’re worth more breathing than buried. Each tongue is another thread in Harrow’s web, and the more threads we gather, the easier it is to tangle the whole net."

Isandro nodded, though he muttered, "You’re growing fond of the Britannians as tools."

"No," Lancelot replied, voice firm. "I’m growing fond of winning."

By midday, the streets buzzed with rumors. A warehouse fire here, a skirmish there. None of it real, but all of it carefully planted. Lancelot had unleashed whispers like sparks on dry straw, and Madrid’s taverns carried them eagerly. Every mason, cobbler, and stable boy seemed to know that "the rebels had been struck hard" or that "the foreigners had taken another blow." Each version contradicted the next, weaving confusion so thick that no one knew where truth ended and invention began.

It was not chaos for chaos’s sake. It was cover.

While Harrow’s men wasted hours chasing phantoms across half the city, Lancelot’s operatives moved silently to map the Consulado itself. Watchers disguised as sweepers and fruit sellers charted guard rotations, supply deliveries, and which windows were shuttered at night. A washerwoman’s boy slipped in and out of the servant’s entrance, returning with scraps of overheard conversation. Piece by piece, the fortress that housed Britannia’s nerve center was being laid bare.

Harrow, meanwhile, felt the noose tightening—but he believed it was around his enemies, not himself.

That evening he sat before a fresh fire, reports scattered across the carpet like playing cards. Wainwright stood nearby, clearly uneasy.

"Sir," the adjutant began cautiously, "if I may... the volume of reports seems unusual. Almost too perfect."

Harrow shot him a sharp glance. "You doubt the work of our men?"

"I doubt the city itself," Wainwright said carefully. "Too many patterns aligning, too quickly. And the runners—half of them overdue. Clarke, Hensley, Meyer. Not a word in days."

"They’re in the field," Harrow snapped. "Madrid is a tangle. Delays happen."

Wainwright bowed his head but said no more. Yet the doubt had been spoken aloud, and it lingered in the room long after Harrow dismissed him.

Still, Harrow could not resist the intoxication of apparent victory. That night he ordered a strike on the supposed storehouse at Calle de la Ruda, convinced it would be the blow that broke the insurgency.

The strike force moved under cover of darkness—two dozen men in plain coats, pistols and blades hidden beneath. They crept through the alleys, rain slicking their hats, boots splashing in shallow puddles. At their head marched a sharp-faced sergeant, muttering the plan under his breath.

But the house at No. 17 was not a storehouse. It was bait.

As the Britannians forced the door, expecting crates of rifles, they found only empty rooms and damp stone walls. Then the shutters slammed shut behind them, and torches flared in the courtyard outside.

From every shadow, Spaniards emerged—silent, grim, their muskets already leveled.

The Britannian sergeant swore, drawing his pistol. But before he could fire, a voice rang from the upper balcony.

"Drop your weapons. You are surrounded."

It was Lancelot himself, face half-lit by torchlight.

For a heartbeat, defiance flickered. Then, one by one, the pistols clattered to the floor.

By dawn, another two dozen of Harrow’s field men were gone from the streets of Madrid, swallowed into the city’s underbelly.

News of the disaster reached Harrow by midmorning. Wainwright delivered it with visible reluctance, hat clutched in both hands.

"Lost," Harrow repeated numbly. "All of them?"

"Yes, sir."

For the first time, true doubt pierced Harrow’s chest. His reports—so perfect, so plentiful—suddenly looked like a snare. He stared at the stack on his desk, bile rising in his throat.

"We’ve been... fed," he whispered.

Wainwright said nothing.

Harrow slammed his fist onto the desk, sending inkpots rattling. "Then we cut the line. No more runners. No more blind errands. Recall every man to the Consulado. Now!"

But it was too late.

Lancelot watched from a rooftop as Britannian agents scurried back toward their stronghold, glancing over their shoulders like hunted animals. His own watchers tracked them, noting faces, routes, and numbers. By evening he would know exactly who remained at Harrow’s side—and how best to strike.

He returned to the safehouse, where Isandro awaited with fresh intelligence.

"They’re collapsing inward," the Spaniard said with satisfaction. "Every rat back to the nest."

"Good," Lancelot murmured. His eyes moved to the central pin on the map—the Consulado itself. The heart of Britannia’s operations. "That means the nest is ready to be burned."

Isandro hesitated. "And the prisoners?"

"Keep them breathing. Once the Consulado falls, they’ll be our bargaining chips. Some may even be turned."

"And Harrow?"

A long silence. Then Lancelot’s voice, cold as steel: "Harrow doesn’t leave Madrid."

The city itself seemed to sense the storm approaching. That night the taverns were quieter, the alleys darker. Whispers spread of foreign spies vanishing, of secret prisons under the stones, of a shadow war none could see but all could feel. Common folk clutched rosaries tighter, muttering prayers as they shuttered their doors.

And in the Consulado, Edward Harrow paced like a trapped wolf, brandy untouched, pistol close at hand. For the first time since arriving in Spain, he felt not the hunter, but the prey.

The walls seemed to close in on him. Every sound in the courtyard below—hooves striking cobbles, a door creaking open—made him tense. His agents had vanished like smoke, one detachment after another, until only a handful remained. Wainwright tried to reassure him with talk of regrouping, of tightening defenses, but Harrow heard only the silence of empty streets where his men once prowled.

The insurgents were not beaten. They had turned the board against him.

He stopped at the window, staring out at the lamps flickering in the distance. Somewhere out there, Lancelot’s shadows were watching, mocking his every move. The thought burned like acid in his gut.

"Let them come," Harrow whispered to the empty room, voice ragged. He cocked his pistol, the click echoing in the chamber. "If Madrid wants a reckoning, I’ll give them one."

But deep inside, a colder truth gnawed at him: the city no longer belonged to him.

It belonged to the shadows.