I had a day of dull movements as I worked to memorize the story that I would be telling. Should my plan fail for the assassination I would stop, ingratiating myself into the royal family. It was a risky thing but the king could force the Portage family to give my employment to the court and royal family if I made a good enough impression. Now for me to find out where the farm that was outside the limits of the city for them to grow the special crops the former duke would need to fuel his addictions to the eastern smoking plants.

It was the dead of night and I took a deep breath and changed my body morphing my feet to be padded and soft to make sure I was as quiet as a mouse. I sharpened my ears to give me a warning of anyone walking about and I made my body much lighter thinning out my muscles and ridding myself of the false fat I carried. Slipping out of the room I started to prowl through the house heading to the Master’s private room where his study would reside. I would be surprised if he didn’t have some sort of record of lands owned that would give me a hint of where this farm might be.

I paused in the shadows of the stairs and crouched down listening. I could hear two maids talking softly as they moved through the house. The glimmering light of a candle lighting their path. I peeked over the edge of the stairs and stared at them. I recognized the blonde woman as the one that detested me but the other was not yet familiar to me. She had an arm full of pristine white sheets as they moved to refresh a room that no doubt would be used to house a guest of the family in the near future.

Scurrying through the house I kept my body low and stuck to the shadows like a mouse. Moving down the hallways I came to the Master’s door and listened. I could hear the gentle snoring of three people in deep sleep. No lights emanated from around the door so I slowly tested if the door was locked and found that it wouldn’t budge. I knew from my time in the room that it was no lift bar that you would see in the homes in most places and instead was a complicated lock built into the door so I crouched down and peeked through the keyhole. I could barely see into the room with my enhanced eyes and started to use my shapeshifting powers once more.

I pushed a single long thin claw into the lock until it was fully in there and closed my eyes. I began to change the shape of the claw through dozens of different ways while applying gentle pressure against the lock. Every once in a while I felt like I was close to moving it out of the way and then I felt fooling for a moment. I twisted my finger in the other direction when I was almost sure of the shape of my claw and the mechanisms inside moved easily and silently.

I rolled my eyes and felt so foolish. I hadn’t been a thief in ages and these locks didn’t exist when I was a man of the shadows. It was an easy job when you could shapeshift and take advantage of the benefits that many animals had over normal mankind. Have the eyes of an owl, the nose of a hound, and the ears of a bat. Pushing the door open slowly I slipped inside and closed the door with a hush of air. I relocked the door with my shaped claw and looked around the near perfect darkness. If it weren’t for my augmented eyes I would be blind, but I could see just fine.

I could hear that one door lead to the master bedroom with the sounds of the three sleeping people. Probably a couple mistresses that he kept on hand. I had heard nothing of his wife while I was here and assumed she was either dead or complicit in the actions of her husband. Nobles had strange customs like that sometimes so I wouldn’t worry about it. I slipped to the other door leading out of the lounge and slid inside like a shadow amongst the darkness.

I kept my eyes altered as I moved towards the window and opened it up to let the moonlight stream in and give me enough illumination to deal with. I started by searching through the impressive desk for any ledgers I might use in order to sift through. If he had bought the land recently then I would find it there first. The desk was locked so I pulled the same trick as before and was then able to search through its contents.

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One small book no bigger than two hands laid next to each other and about as thick as my thumb lay inside. Its leather cover was well tended to and the vellum pages were expertly crafted. A leather thong wrapped around it to keep it shut so I set it in a shaft of moonlight and opened it up.

A string of numbers filled the page. Different purchases for obscene amounts of money. Trade deals in the thousands of platinum duckets. It was mind boggling as I searched through it. There were mentions of bribery, both of money, potent addictive medicines, and women. I could see a steady march of numbers detailing a slave trade between the eastern countries and a small duchy he seemed to own halfway between the two countries. Ledgers upon ledgers detailing a strong industry focused on making the potent opium that, by his own servants mention was destroying lives.

How he would feel that his master was probably the same one that supplied the den with the very drug he was addicted to and that if he so desired he could supply him for life once more was near madness. If I wanted to sow chaos I could reveal this information to him but he would not believe the word of someone he barely knew over his savior of all people. It was well into the night and I slowly migrated closer to the window as the moonlight shifted before I found what I was looking for. Mentions of several acres of land purchased to the east of the city maybe an hour’s carriage ride away. There was a good amount of slaves to be transferred to the farm as well for the creation of these plants he so desired.

I looked through the room and found a more detailed and current map than what I had found at the Ursal estate and burned it into my memory. I soaked up the information into my mind and looked out the window. Gauging by the moon I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight if I wanted to get out to the farm and work my mental magic on the man.

The window did not open so I put everything back to where I found it, locked the desk once more and slipped out into the Master’s quarters looking for what I remembered. A small balcony with doors leading to it was against the far wall so I headed to it and walked silently onto the tall balcony. I looked over the city in front of me and took in the fresh air and soaked up the ambiance of it all. I pulled off my tunic and tied it around my waist. Stepping up on the rail of the balcony I began to grow my wings.

It was always like freeing myself whenever I revealed part of my true self while in human form and I sighed in contentment as I changed. Twice the size of my body the wings stretched out. The depictions of a thousand stories lay upon them and I gazed at them affectionately. If I was to Slumber once more I would do so in my true form somewhere private where I would not be disturbed.

Bunching my legs down I leapt into the air with a mighty beat of my wings and soared into the sky. I kept myself from whooping in freedom as I took to the air. Soon I was far above the homes and houses of it all and soared circles as I tried to find east. The moon being almost directly over me did not help and I was no pigeon with an unerring sense of direction. Deciding that it was easiest to consult my mental map I had just memorized by gazing down at the dark streets. I watched in pleasure as my shadow rippled across the streets below and soon found my way east.

I soared through the skies and sighed contentedly as I looked towards my target. It was shrouded in darkness with no signs of light in the main farmhouse. Fields of tilled hard earth that smelled of manure mixed in stretched around it. A slave house lay beside it as I descended to the ground. I pulled up at the last moment to and beat my wings against the fall to make my landing as quiet and soft as possible.

Taking a deep breath I pulled my wings back into my body and slipped inside the farmhouse. It was easy to get past the locking bar by slipping a long thin nail through the crack of the door and lifting up. I pushed inside and listened to the house around me. I could hear one man’s heartbeat and the deep breaths of sleep.

I lowered myself to all fours to limit my weight on the probably creaking floors and slipped through the house like an overgrown lizard. In the far back of the house near the backdoor lay a cot highlighted by the light of the moon. I crept close to the sleeping figure and felt like a predator prowling to prey.

I could see his eyes flit behind his lids as he slept fitfully. I prepared myself for the most difficult of mental magics. One I didn’t indulge in as it was a complicated and difficult thing to manage. I placed my fingers on his temples and prepared to sift through his memories and do some rewriting. I soothed his mind into super deep sleep and closed my eyes.

Time to dive.