The third row away from the south entrance was quieter at this hour, and that was exactly what Lewin had counted on. He had held position since the eleventh hour, folded into the narrow gap between a building and the drainage channel at its base. The broken drain above him leaked a slow, cold drip onto the stone two feet to his right.

He had set himself so the water struck the rock and not him. He had not made that choice in any conscious way. His feet had found the place before his mind had finished observing the surroundings.

He could account for all five men without looking directly at any of them. Tad and Orm were on the alley side, covering the north window. Ern stood at the passage through the next door building, the one Lewin had not been able to confirm as an exit without exposing his surveillance.

He had placed a man there because the cost of being wrong was higher than the cost of having one extra watcher. Siv had the corner where the third row met the street from the south. Cul stayed behind him, two positions back, watching the street to the north so Lewin did not have to split his attention.

He had chosen those five because each had done something in the residential district skirmishes that told him what kind of work they could handle.

Tad had stayed flat against a wall for twenty minutes during a standoff. Orm had broken left instead of right in a fight where training said right and the situation itself said left.

Ern had been the one who followed the man from the warehouse block in without being told. Siv and Cul he had watched on the food cart route mission, specifically how they moved through narrow spaces after dark.

He was good at reading who was capable of what. He had been doing it since he was twelve, and it was how he had survived the slums long enough to grow up in them.

He thought about why he was here. Not the operation. That part was simple. He had the position, the men, the timing, and the information.

He thought about the month before, when the question of whether to take Beorn’s offer had been genuinely open.

Pay had been the starting point. It still was. But over dozens of small interactions and a few large ones, Lewin had noticed something else. Beorn’s decisions were already forming before Lewin brought him the information.

The information confirmed or adjusted, but it did not change what he would do.

Lewin could not control whether his information would be used, but he could see whether the person receiving it could use it well.

And then there was the other thing, smaller and harder to place in the tone he usually used for his thoughts. His mother and sister were in the citadel workers’ wing.

They had been there since the housing arrangement. His sister was working now in the citadel now, as a cleaner lady.

His mother was sleeping in a stone room with a door that locked, which was not something the slums had ever offered.

Beorn had made that possible without Lewin asking, without conditions beyond the employment Lewin had already agreed to, and without revisiting it when the city split and the street violence began and a man might reasonably have withdrawn benefits to preserve resources.

He had not withdrawn them. The housing was still there.

Lewin had not said anything about it to Beorn, because he was not a man who said things like that, and Beorn did not seem to need to hear it.

Both of them simply knew it for what it was.

Meanwhile, the lamp in the house shifted from dim to occupied.

The change was small. A thin brightening leaked through the crack under the street door. The broken drain changed as well, showing that a second light source had been uncovered inside, where there had been only one lamp at minimum all week.

Then came a sound of more than one person moving inside.

He raised two fingers and held them. The signal moved around the positions. Movement confirmed. Prepare.

He tracked the replies. Tad confirmed. Orm confirmed.

Ern confirmed from the passage position, but too slowly. His silhouette at the alley corner was cut by the overhang, and the obstruction made the signal hard to read.

Lewin counted two beats, then held for a third. The confirmation did not come.

He weighed the chances. Either Ern had answered and the reply had been lost, or something had gone wrong.

He chose the first because Ern had held his position for two hours and was not the sort of man who missed a signal.

Lewin gave the advance signal.

They moved to approach the house.

He felt the relief of finally moving through his legs and let the motion take him.

Four men were outside. Those were the watch.

Two at the front approach, rotating on a two-hour pattern. One at the alley entrance. One who moved between positions on an interval that was not exact, but close enough to matter.

The front two were first. It was close work, both men within arm’s reach of each other, which made the motion tighter but the timing cleaner.

He took the left man from behind. Cul took the right.

The slum stone had no echo at this range. They put a gloved hand against their mouths, and a knife slithering through their throats. After that there was nothing.

The alley man was Tad’s work, and he disappeared in the say way.

The moving guard came around the building’s north side at exactly the wrong moment for him and the right one for Orm, who was already in the alley covering the window and did not need to change position. One more corpse was throw in the dark slums alleys.

Lewin went to the main entrance.

Behind him Siv was already at the street door with a compact crossbow loaded, bolt seated, the weapon ready in the way they had agreed.

Ern held the third position, the unconfirmed exit through the next door building.

A short sound came from the neighboring house. It had the specific volume of quick movement across something that was not floor

Lewin heard it, then heard Ern move in response two seconds later.

That told him the third exit was real and Ern had his man.

He heard nothing else from that direction for the next fifteen seconds.

He reached the main room door to open it.

Through the gap he saw lamplight and the shadow of several men that had gone quiet in the last ten seconds.

Lewin sorted the information quickly. They knew something had happened. They were between awareness and response. They had not yet chosen which response to make.

He had seconds.

He could see through the gap that there was three figures at a low table, the lamp between them, loose papers spread across the tabletop.

One man’s hand hovered near something at his belt. Another was already half-standing.

The third was facing away from the door, though not far enough away to miss the warning, and his head had turned partway around.

Lewin gave the signal.