The fire burned on the warehouse roof as the last of the night gave way to early morning grey.
Victor stood beside it with his arms crossed, watching the smoke rise and waiting for what he knew was coming. The city below was quiet at this hour, not the comfortable quiet of safety but the particular stillness of a place that had learned to hold its breath.
They arrived within twenty minutes.
Four figures dropped onto the warehouse roof from the surrounding buildings with the practised efficiency of people who had done this many tis before.
The necromancer ca last, stepping out of the shadows at the roof’s edge with the sa pleasant expression he’d worn at Central Station, dark green eyes catching the firelight as he surveyed the rooftop.
He looked at Victor, then at the fire, then back at Victor with the expression of soone who had expected this and found it mildly interesting nonetheless.
"It seems rather soon," he said. "Considering you swore you told us all there was to say."
"They’re moving," Victor replied. "Damon is planning to strike the citadel from the northern approach. He thinks your defences are weakest there." He paused. "I’m telling you this because I need sothing first."
The necromancer tilted his head slightly, knowing exactly what he ant.
"Your sister," he said.
"Yes," Victor responded without hesitation.
A brief mont of silence passed between them as the fire continued to crackle beside them.
The necromancer observed Victor with a keen eye, sowhat amused by his sudden demand. Up until now, he was nothing but cooperative, not speaking out of turn even once.
"You said I’d get her back when this was over," Victor said. "If I tell you where he is, you can go and end the quest."
The necromancer studied him for a mont with the particular attention of soone reading a situation rather than a person.
Then he looked at one of the three lieutenants beside him. It was a brief, wordless glance, and despite that, the lieutenant turned and dropped back off the roof without any need for words.
"It will take ti to bring her," the necromancer said pleasantly.
"I’ll wait," Victor said.
They waited in silence on the rooftop, Victor on one side of the fire and the necromancer on the other, the two remaining lieutenants positioned behind him like fixtures. Nobody spoke. The grey morning light continued its slow arrival across the city.
Thirty minutes passed before the lieutenant returned.
He wasn’t alone.
The girl beside him was young, in her early 20s, with long brown hair that fell across her face and the particular expression of soone who had been frightened for so long that fear had beco the default rather than the exception. She moved carefully, watching the rooftop with eyes that tracked every exit before they tracked any face.
When she saw Victor, her expression broke entirely.
"Victor—" she muttered in a trembling voice.
"Ava," He crossed the rooftop in four steps and put his arms around her before she could finish his na.
She held on with the grip of soone who had spent a significant amount of ti convincing themselves this mont wasn’t coming.
The necromancer watched the reunion with the mild interest of soone observing sothing that didn’t require his input.
After a mont, he cleared his throat, not impatiently, just a polite reminder that their business was still ongoing
Victor pulled back from his sister, his hands on her shoulders, checking her over with the healer’s instinct that never fully switched off. She looked thin and unbelievably tired. But uninjured in any significant way.
He turned back to the necromancer.
"Northern approach," he said. "He’s leaving in less than an hour. He’ll be at the old power substation two kilotres north of your citadel by mid-morning. That’s where he plans to stage from."
The necromancer received the information with a single slow nod.
"And he’ll be alone?" he asked.
"That’s how he always does things," Victor said.
The necromancer’s smile widened slightly. It was a genuine smile that ca from being intrigued by the words.
At the sa ti, Victor looked at his sister once more, then back at the necromancer and his lieutenants. The transaction was complete. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t make the situation more complicated than it needed to be.
He put his hand on Ava’s shoulder and guided her toward the roof’s edge and the ladder below.
They descended without looking back.
The four of them stood around the dying fire in silence for a mont after Victor and his sister disappeared from view.
One of the lieutenants watched the edge of the roof where they’d gone.
"Should we kill them?" he asked, his voice completely practical, without any care for what the answer would be.
The necromancer considered this for a long mont, indicating that he actually thought it through before replying. "No."
"He knows too much about our operation."
"He knows what we allowed him to know," the necromancer replied smoothly. "And a man who just got his sister back is a man with sowhere to be, he won’t be a problem." He turned toward the northern skyline, the city stretching out below them in the flat morning light. "Besides..."
He let the word settle for a mont before continuing.
"We have sowhere to be ourselves."
The green smoke began forming around his arms in slow, steady curls, the particular colour of it catching the last of the fire’s light before the flas finally died.
"He’ll be alone," the necromancer said, almost to himself. The pleasant expression had taken on sothing slightly different now, not quite anticipation, but the particular quality of soone who had been waiting for a specific thing and could finally see it arriving.
"Let’s move quickly," he said. "I am eager to see what the third quest has in store for us."
The three lieutenants exchanged no words as they simply followed their commander straight into the lion’s den.
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