A rusted window latch gave way beneath Jadwiga’s boot knife with the sound of a snapped bone. She tumbled over the sill, landing on a pile of sheared sheepskin that smelled richly of old mutton fat and wet moss. Inside the manor house of Magistrate Stanislaw Bielski, the darkness was thick enough to chew. Somewhere three floors below, ballroom violins still scraped out a mournful waltz for the Midwinter gala, but up here in the east wing, only drafty floorboards greeted her intrusion. "Get down, you fat gargoyle," Jadwiga hissed through gritted teeth. Mishka did not get down. The bog cat squeezed his bloated, mangy gray carcass through the narrow frame with an undignified squelch, planting all four filthy claws directly onto the train of her velvet gala gown. He gave a low, rumbling gurgle that sounded like pea soup boiling over a hearth. "Quiet, or I swear to the saints I will turn you into ear muffs," she snarled, hauling him by his scruff into the crook of her arm. Mishka immediately gouged a claw through her lace sleeve, demanding cheese he had already eaten two hours ago. She ignored the stinging scratch. Time was running out. Borislav Volkov had given her seven days to deliver a traitor among his circle, but the magistrate—one of three suspects on the Duke's list—had slipped away from the dance floor twenty minutes ago with ink stains on his cuffs. In her previous life, the man had died of a sudden apoplexy three weeks after Teodor was shipped to the salt mines; back then, she had paid no attention. Now, every premature grave in Varaz smelled of premeditated rot. Jadwiga stalked toward the official's mahogany desk. The room was cold. A dying iron brazier cast long, shivering shadows across shelves laden with legal folios, jars of pickled sheep kidneys, and land registers. She rummaged through the drawers. False-bottomed jewel boxes, promissory notes from provincial brothels, half-eaten smoked sausages— Mishka’s ears twitched backward like two furry daggers. His throat vibrated. Heavy boot heels echoed on the parquet runner outside the corridor. "Search the east gallery," a gruff voice barked. "The Duke's hounds are barking in the courtyard. If some gutter-thief slipped past the gatekeepers, find them before the Castellan returns." Jadwiga froze. Her hand rested on an unlatched iron strongbox tucked behind a calfskin copy of the Voivodate’s military penal code. The footsteps grew louder, unhurried, iron-shod soles clacking against the stone. She looked down. Mishka was sniffing the edge of a tallow candle with predatory focus. "Mishka. Go," she urged in an undertone, giving his massive, flabby flank a sharp nudge toward the half-open door. The beast needed no moral encouragement to cause violence. Attracted by the scent of grease on the sentry's boots, Mishka launched his fifteen pounds of gristle and spite straight through the threshold. There was a startled curse, a frantic clatter of a halberd striking wood, and a dull, meaty thud as the guard’s skull collided with the marble floor. Mishka shrieked—a high, demonic caterwaul that echoed down the stairwell—and bolted deeper into the gallery, leading the cursing soldier on a frantic, clattering chase toward the laundry chutes. "Good beast," Jadwiga muttered, snatching the slim leather volume from the bottom of the strongbox. She dragged it toward the faint moonlight slicing through the draperies. This was what Volkov wanted: codes, names, troop movements along the northern march. Proof that the magistrate was selling patrol schedules to the rival Boyars. Except there were no troop numbers. Jadwiga flipped the vellum pages, her fingers leaving faint smudges of dust. The ink was fresh, inscribed in tight, cramped handwriting. Column after column listed apothecary shipments: powdered hemlock root, distilled belladonna, dried nightshade stalks, and vials of curdled gall. Then came the records for hired personnel. *To Master Chirurgeon Janek:* *Five hundred gold crowns—for services rendered at Olenka Manor during the autumn chills. Diagnosis confirmed: Weeping Pox. Certificate signed and sealed before the city bailiff.* The air in the room seemed to drop below freezing. Her sister. Stefania. In the first life, Stefania had wasted away over six agonized weeks. The city doctors had kept everyone out of the room, claiming the red lesions on her throat were the dreaded Weeping Pox, incurable and virulent. Stefania had choked on her own blackened phlegm, alone behind barricaded oak doors, while Jadwiga had wept against the wood until her knuckles bled. Stefania had never caught a pox. Stefania had been methodically, painstakingly poisoned. "No," Jadwiga whispered, the word tasting of bile and iron. The room seemed to tilt beneath her slippers. Her chest tightened as if bound by copper wire. Stefania’s gentle smile, her soft hands stained with mint and lavender oils, her quiet voice humming folk ballads over drying petals—all of it had been snuffed out by an account line. Five hundred crowns. Her sister’s life had cost five hundred crowns. Jadwiga turned the page with trembling, furious fingers. Her thumb dug into the parchment, nearly tearing the brittle border. *Final settlement upon completion of the second stage: One thousand crowns, guaranteed by promissory note.* Beneath the figure sat the cipher of the paymaster. Not the magistrate. He was merely the conduit, the bagman laundering the coin through provincial grain tariffs. The signature was a wax seal pressed in lilac-colored resin, stamped with a delicate signet ring bearing two intertwined serpents around a blooming thistle. Beneath it, written in clean, feminine script that Jadwiga would recognize even in the blackest pit of hell: *R.M.* *Countess Renata Morawska.* Jadwiga dropped the book onto the desk as though it were glowing red-hot from a blacksmith's forge. Renata. Renata, who had sat in their parlor yesterday afternoon, sipping bergamot tea, gently patting Jadwiga's wrist with lace-gloved fingers. Renata, who had counseled her to bow her head to Borislav Volkov, who had praised Stefania’s delicate embroidery, who had sent baskets of dried winter figs to the manor every autumn since their mother passed away. *One must be careful not to draw too much attention, my dear. Some eyes are simply too keen.* The words hadn't been a warning from a concerned godmother. They were a threat from an executioner who had realized her victim was wriggling off the butcher's block. Every disaster that had shattered the Olenka family had not been a series of tragic, clumsy accidents. Teodor's wild horse. Stefania's sudden fever. The treason pamphlets stuffed into Teodor's desk. It wasn't bad luck. It was an extermination. And Renata was the rat holding the torch. "You vile, smiling viper," Jadwiga breathed, her voice dropping into a rasping hiss. The blind terror that usually fueled her recklessness vanished, burned away by a searing, singular malice. Her brother was in a cell, her sister was cultivating deadly flowers in a hidden shed, and the woman holding the scalpel was sleeping in a bed of imported silk just two streets away. A floorboard creaked directly behind her. Jadwiga spun, the heavy ledger clutched against her ribs, her dagger raised. A tall figure stood silhouetted against the dark hallway, framed by the moonlight. Black woolen greatcoat. Silver clasps shaped like wolf heads. Eyes cold, calculating, and far too sharp for the middle of the night. Duke Borislav Volkov stepped into the study, kicking the door shut with the heel of his boot. "You are remarkably terrible at remaining in ballrooms, Lady Olenka," he said softly, his gloved hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sabre. "Tell me: did you find my traitor, or did you come here merely to steal the magistrate’s silver?" Jadwiga didn't lower the knife. "I found something much worse, Your Grace."

The Rat in the Walls