Liam carefully sneaked through the maze of caravan wagons. Even though most people would probably be busy at dinner, Liam didn’t want to risk being seen.

It didn’t take Liam long to find Bilby’s wagon. It was quite easy to recognize. Along with Blue’s wagon, it was one of the biggest ones of the caravan.

Usually, caravan wagons were pretty similar in structure and design. Of course, some of the wagons had a little personal touch, depending on the owner, but mostly they were pretty uniform.

Bilby’s was one of the few exceptions. It was three stories tall and towered over the wagons neighboring it. Of course, it wasn’t just Bilby’s wagon, as the man shared it with a handful of other people, but from what Liam had heard the man owned it himself.

He still wasn’t sure what function exactly Bilby had in the caravan. Before he had always thought of him as one of the merchants, because of the people the man surrounded himself with, and the amount of money he had. But at the same time, Bilby was undoubtedly one of the mercenaries as well. He had seen that clearly yesterday.

It was almost as if Bilby ran his own small caravan in the middle of Blue’s bigger caravan, dabbling his fingers a little into everything and having people for most fields surrounding him.

Liam glanced around his shoulder, making sure nobody was watching him, and then strolled up towards the wagon.

He felt for the door handle and pulled it slightly. Closed. But he had expected that.

Liam procured two small needles out of his pocket and threw another glance over his shoulder.

He couldn’t see anyone. There were no steps, and he didn’t have any reason to think someone would come back from dinner so early. So he took a deep breath and went to work.

It didn’t take him long. In less than thirty seconds the lock clicked and Liam pulled the door open. He quickly climbed into the back of the wagon and drew the door shot behind him.

There were rows upon rows of crates, barrels, and other utensils to transport goods. It was a truly mind-boggling amount of stuff.

Every caravan wagon carried its fair share of supplies and goods, even the performers who technically didn’t sell anything, but this was probably the most packed wagon Liam had seen so far. The dim light shining through the cracks in the door from the lantern outside gave Liam enough illumination to see rough shapes. But it definitely wasn’t enough for him to read the labels on those boxes.

Luckily he didn’t intend to. If Bilby was truly smuggling something that he wasn’t supposed to transport, something that he tried to keep hidden, then he surely wouldn’t store it with all his general goods where everybody could find it.

No, he would have it somewhere more personal. Somewhere where not a lot of people went.

Usually, caravan wagons were pretty simple in design. They held two stories, with two main rooms. One to sleep, and one to store their goods and spend their time. But there were also bigger wagons, like this one. They were noticeably larger, and taller, with some more elaborate internal design.

They held rooms like offices and private chambers. At first, Liam had thought Blue was the only one who had a separate room for his office built into his caravan wagon, but he had found out that actually a lot of the more high-grossing merchants had one.

He suspected Bilby had as well.

Liam carefully sneaked his way through the lower floor. He passed a small sitting aisle, consisting of a wooden table and a bench. A few cards and half-finished drinks were still strewn around the table. It was eerily similar to their little corner.

He tried to be as silent as possible because he didn’t know if there was anybody on the upper floor. It was unlikely, but not impossible, and if Liam woke up some early sleeper on the level above him, he would be hard-pressed to find an excuse for his presence.

He shifted his weight carefully from one foot to the other. If more of this wagon was similar to the one he was traveling with, then he could bet his left arm that there would also be squeaking floorboards and loose planks.

Bibly’s wagon might be bigger than the one Liam resided in, bigger than most other wagons actually, but it still was only a wagon. Small enough to stay able to be fitted on three axes and six wheels. As Liam passed another row of boxes, he suddenly spotted something. A wooden door frame at the end of the common area, just before the opening to the driver's seat.

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It took a while, but Liam eventually managed to make his way all over to the wooden door without a single squeak or other sound alarming of his presence.

The door was made of the material the rest of the caravan was made of. It flowed seamlessly into the wall, leading to the small outstanding Liam had seen from the outside.

If Bibly hid something, he probably did it here.

Liam tried the obvious way first and pulled on the handle. Locked. Of course, well, that would’ve been too easy. So it was time to get a little more creative.

He kneeled down and inspected the lock. No easy feat in the dim lighting mix of pale moonlight shining through some cracks in the wood above, and the few rays of lantern light managing to penetrate through the storage space all the way to the back.

But he had worked under worse conditions. With locks better maintained than this one. He pulled out his needles again and got to work.

This lock proved much more difficult than the one at the front door. It was intrinsically designed, made out of solid steel, and with the sole purpose of keeping interlopers out. Quite a level about most locks Liam usually dealt with.

It took him almost a whole minute to crack it.

Liam glanced up at the pale moonlight penetrating the window. The night was progressing faster than he had hoped. He had to hurry.

He hushed inside and pulled the door closed behind him. He almost breathed a sigh of relief after seeing there was a huge window of glass set into the roof of the space. It allowed the silvery light of the moon to shine, and give Liam a good glimpse of what luckily seemed to really be Bilby’s office.

It seemed that Liam was actually lucky for once. The first room he had tried already proved a success. Not for a second did Liam doubt that this was Bilby’s office.

The office was a wild chaos. Paper and documents were everywhere. Expensive-looking furniture was strewn around the room and there were more plates with half-finished food than Liam would’ve expected the caravan to own.

It reminded Liam a little of Mr Montgomerie's old scribe's office. Of course without the food leftovers all over the place. There was no eating in the library.

Liam smiled fondly as he thought about the old man. What would he think about what he was doing right now? He would probably scold him and tell him to stay out of trouble. Maybe there was even some wisdom in that. What was Liam hoping to gain from meddling in Bilby's business? Was this petty revenge?

Then Liam remembered the way Bilby had spoken to him and to Jerem. And remembered the addicts he had seen on the streets, the people he had lost to various drugs.

No, this wasn’t about the two silver. This was bigger than that.

There weren’t many places to hide things in this office. You could only cramp so many shelves, drawers, and boxes into a small three-by-three room. So it didn’t take Liam long to sift through most of the things. Unsuccessfully so.

There were some papers that seemed mildly suspicious. Papers in which he manipulated some numbers and faked some accounts, but that wasn’t what Liam was here for.

Liam checked the light through the roof window. It was getting late. Soon the first people would start streaming back from the campfires. He needed to hurry.

His search for the boxes and shelves also amounted to nothing. So when finally Liam was about to give up and made his way back towards the door, a single wooden board below his feet squeaked. Immediately Liam’s stomach dropped. He got a cold sweat and paused still for a second. No sound.

He chided himself for his carelessness when he noticed something. The floorboard had moved, showing a hidden compartment underneath him.

Liam's eyes grew wide, as he looked on the white linen covering something underneath the floorboards. A thick stench hit his nose at the same time.

He had found it, just as he was about to walk away. He hadn’t even thought there could be a hidden compartment in these wagons, but apparently, Bilby had modified his somehow.

He moved down to withdraw the blanket when he froze mid-motion. There was a noise coming from upstairs. He heard soft steps thudding over the floor, moving towards the spot where the ladder was.

His heart dropped in his stomach, but he recovered quickly. His hand moved steadily towards the white linen and drew it back. He found exactly what he had suspected.

A small mountain of dried brown leaves, reminiscent of tobacco, but only by the looks. Immediately Liam’s disgust of Bilby rose. The stuff Liam was looking at was rubar. A common drug on the streets of Charville. And a deadly one. Liam had lost many friends to use, be it through addiction, or death.

It was a substance that got you extremely addicted, after only a few hits, your brain started working differently. It shifted your perception of things, it made you colder, and more susceptible to mood swings, and in the end, it even made you delusional.

Liam shuddered as he thought about some interactions with rubar smokers he had over the years. This was the drug Liam had least hoped to encounter. Bilby was a bigger scumbag than he had expected.

Interestingly enough, there were other leaves strewn in the mix. They were different from rubar, and Liam had never seen them before. They were big and red, almost the color of blood, and half as big as Liam’s hand. Whereas the rubar was dried, these leaves looked fresh.

Liam reached out to inspect one, to his surprise, it stuck to his fingers. The leaves were covered by a thin sheen, they were sticky to the touch and had a poignant smell. Strong enough that it mixed with the rubar.

Was it another drug?

A squeaky sound ripped Liam out of his thoughts and reminded him that he was on a time limit. He quickly threw the leaves back into the mix and drew the blanket over the drugs.

Moving as quickly and as quietly as he could, Liam replaced the wooden floorboard and sneaked to the door. The squeak he had heard came from the ladder. Someone must’ve made his way down already.

Liam had been too slow.