Chapter 76: The Gillis Brothers

When Leo entered the room again, Spade was seated at the long table eating. Someone had laid out a plate of grapes, cheese, and loaves of bread. Leo raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t thought Lenore would give them free food, but then again she had given them that note for the Blue Cup. He shook his head. He didn’t think he’d ever understand the woman’s odd mix of extreme pragmatism and odd generosity in other ways.

Allan took a seat a few chairs away from the [Executioner], who glanced up at them as the door swung shut. Her hair was loose, Leo realized. Spade’s usual ponytail was low to the neck, so he hadn’t noticed the difference at first.

“You two figure something out?” she asked.

Leo slid out a chair and sat down across the table. He immediately jumped to the topic at hand.

“You executed Marcus Gillis, right?”

Spade raised an eyebrow. “I did,” she confirmed. “You think the Gillis family hired the Hunter?”

Leo quickly summarized his conversation with Kai, explaining how the man’s personal skill worked and the images he’d seen attached to Asher’s arrow. The whole time, the [Executioner] listened without comment.

As he spoke, it occurred to Leo that Spade probably already knew what [Judgement] did. He’d been vague when they’d bargained in that prison cell, but after she joined the party and was able to see the rest of his stat sheet, it would’ve been easy to guess that his personal skill was the one that let him see fragments. That meant she’d have known about [Judgement] before Allan did.

Hazel eyes flickered over to the man in question. The [Healer] looked relaxed—no trace of the earlier tension anywhere to be found. Still, Leo remembered the odd flatness in the man’s face. An unexpected wave of guilt rose, but he quickly shoved it down. Later, he told himself. Right now they had to get the fragment. Leo turned back to Spade.

“…so we think his younger brother’s probably the one who hired Asher,” he finished.

The [Executioner] hummed thoughtfully. “The brother’s name is Darius, right?”

“Yeah, it is.” Leo’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t think you’d remember something like that.”

“I had a long chat with Marcus before his execution. Rather fascinating man. It was one of my most memorable conversations.”

Leo cringed. Right. He’d forgotten about the [Executioner]’s weird habit of talking to all her victims before their executions. In his case it had ended up working out in his favor, but he still didn’t get the logic behind it. To him, it seemed pointless to learn someone’s life story when they were going to be dead in an hour, especially if you were the one executing them. It would be much easier to keep them as nameless faces to be cut down on the job.

“What’d he say?” Allan asked. The [Healer] looked curious.

“Not much that would be useful for us, I’m afraid.” Spade cocked her head. “He had a rather interesting worldview and quite the ego. As far as I can tell, he did seem to care about his brother. Frankly that might’ve been the only thing he cared about. As for Darius himself, I don’t know much. Marcus described him as reserved, if a bit paranoid, and soft-hearted.”

Allan raised an eyebrow at the last part, and Leo snorted.

“Sounds like that didn’t last.” Either the noble had snapped after his brother’s death, or he’d just been better at hiding his apparent total lack of empathy until the fragment hunt brought it out in full force. Leo doubted Asher would’ve broken the ward stone unless he knew he had the noble’s approval.

“What did Marcus get executed for, anyway?” Leo found himself asking. Kai had never stated exactly what his crime was, though the implications alone had already been disturbing.

Spade hummed and reached over to the plates of food, plucking a piece of cheese and popping it in her mouth before answering.

“He had a penchant for serial murder. It was quite a big deal back in the day, especially once he began targeting nobles as well.” She pointed to her chest. “His signature was to cut open his victims’ chests and remove one of their rib bones, if I remember right.”

Leo blanched as he digested the information. He was glad he hadn’t touched any of the food. Yeah, that would be enough to get an aristocrat executed, especially if they were targeting other nobles. If it was just people from the slums, he probably would’ve gotten away with it.

Allan raised an eyebrow. “He cut open their chests? That’s kind of ironic.”

“Disturbing, more like,” Leo muttered. Images of the wrecked bedroom and the couple lying on the bed, chests torn open, flashed in his mind.

Marcus Gillis had killed for his own pleasure years before the Administrator class crest had shattered, but it did feel like an eerie prelude for what was to come—especially now that his younger brother was participating in the fragment hunt. He was no System-fate believer, but if he was, then this would be something he looked to as evidence.

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Leo shook his head and changed subjects. Deranged killer or not, Marcus Gillis was already dead. It was his younger brother that they now had to worry about.

“Okay, so Asher probably went to the Gillis manor. We’re gonna have to break in to get the fragment.” He frowned, glancing over at Spade. “They do have a manor, right? You know where it is?”

She nodded. “It’s at the edge of Alnwick, quite isolated. The Gillises were known for being reclusive.”

The reason for the reclusiveness probably had to do with the former head being a psycho killer, but this was good. The further away from the more populated parts of the city the manor was, the easier it would be for them to get in and out without being seen. Leo hummed, resting his head on his hand as he thought.

“We’ll need to figure out what the layout of the place is, see if there’s any way in. And we’ll probably have to split up once we’re inside to cover more ground.” He frowned. “If we could get the floor plans, that’d help a ton. You know who’d have those?”

“The architect, I assume,” Spade said. She raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning on stealing the floor plans?”

Across the table, Leo and Allan exchanged glances.

—

“—I must say, it’s been quite some time since I’ve had a client who appreciates my chimney designs!”

“I find them exceptionally creative, truly marvelous work!”

Leo tuned out the chatter of the architect and Allan as they continued to talk in the main room. The single wall and door separating them was quite thin, which made it easier to keep track of the architect’s location, but it also meant he had to be extra careful to avoid being discovered.

Leo peered around the office. It was decently large, but the amount of clutter made it seem smaller. He carefully crept around the stray boxes scattered about, moving over to the heavy desk sitting in the center of the room. Slowly, he slid open the bottom drawer. The inside was stuffed with different files and folders. Apparently organization wasn’t the man’s strong suit, because the floor plans weren’t organized at all. Leo mentally cursed and quickly began flipping through them.

After a bit of asking around (namely, asking Kai who seemed much happier to divulge information for free than Lenore), it turned out almost all the manors in Alnwick had been designed by one architect, and he had an office located on the city’s main street. The moment they had an address, they’d headed out.

Through the wall, Leo could hear Allan continuing to talk with the architect, now discussing something about different types of wood and their pros and cons for engraved furniture. Leo was once again impressed at the [Healer]’s ability to bullshit. The architect seemed to be falling for it, so he kept searching, shutting the bottom drawer and moving on to the top one.

“Come on,” he muttered. Laughter sounded from the main room, but he was too focused on the files to catch what was so funny about furniture.

There. Leo’s fingers stopped at a familiar crest. He quickly pulled the folder out and flipped it open. Sure enough, the front page had the Gillis family crest stamped on it, the same one Kai had drawn earlier. Leo’s eyes scanned the other papers inside. There were a few notes and records, some letters and copies of invoices, but at the very back, there they were. The floor plans.

Leo shut the drawer and carefully tucked the folder under his arm. He crept over to the office door, where through the crack, he could see Allan and the architect still conversing on the other side. He activated [Visual Illusion], projecting a quick message to Allan, then turned and made his way over to the window in the back of the room.

It took more time than he’d like to get it open without making a sound, but once it was high enough, Leo squeezed through, folder in tow, and leapt down into the back alley. He shut the window behind him. He couldn’t lock it again from the outside, but hopefully the architect would just think he’d left it open and forgotten to close it. Leo hadn’t left any traces in the office, and he doubted the man would notice a single missing folder—especially not in such a cluttered office.

“That was quick.”

Leo jumped and spun around, cursing when he saw who it was. He shot a scowl at Spade, who stood leaning against the alleyway wall, arms crossed casually and an eyebrow raised. She nodded at the folder, then at the building, where Allan was still inside and probably wrapping up his conversation.

“You two seem very familiar with this,” she remarked.

The former [Thief] snorted. “You have no idea.” After he’d first arrived in Sindrey and met Allan, they hadn’t had a lot of options. Eventually they’d stopped the thefts—Allan started working as a [Rickshaw Puller] while Leo took on odd jobs in an attempt to get rid of the [Thief] class—but at this point they’d done enough coordinated thievery that they barely needed to plan it out first. It was all too easy to slip into their old roles.

“I feel rather useless waiting here,“ the [Executioner] continued, but she looked amused. Leo rolled his eyes. The one thing they had discussed was that Spade would wait for them outside. A heavily scarred six-foot tall executioner drew exactly the wrong type of attention for their usual strategy to work.

Leo heard the sound of a door closing, and he turned to see Allan exiting the building. He took that as his cue to leave the alleyway, Spade following behind him.

“You found them?” Allan asked quietly once they’d regrouped. Their voices were easily lost in the chatter of the surrounding passersby.

It was the busiest time of day, the sun beaming high above them, and the street was flooded with people. Leo heard several residents discussing the Echo attack, which hadn’t reached this particular part of the city. It was almost odd to see so many people around after last night. Life went on, he supposed.

Leo nodded and pulled his cloak closer, double checking that the folder was still in place. “Yeah, I got them. Let’s head back.”

They had a lot of planning to do.