Oath of Steel

5 |A Nightingales' Tale|

Spreading the sheets on the table, he gestured her to come closer, making Rosalynde get up, approaching his pensive and awaiting figure before asking what exactly she was looking at.

A bunch of photos with illegible writings at the bottom, some apparent fraud declarations, even a letter with its edges stained with what seemed to be dried blood was what came out of the first envelope.

"What do you see?" He asked her, stepping back a little for her to look at the items better.

"Tax evasions mostly." She took a piece of paper in her hand, squinting her eyes to see if something had gone unnoticed. But when she found nothing amiss, Rosalynde furrowed her eyebrows, only to then go for the second envelope to open it, but before that she went to meet the gaze of the first Apostle, asking for permission.

"Go on," he incited her.

A new stack of letters, photos of streets: one of a bank, another seemed like District Street, while the third one was without a doubt Reslow Plaza. Rosalynde looked up once more with an inquisitive gaze, still not able to connect the dots.

A photo then fell from the bottom of the envelope, falling to the floor as Rosalynde bent down to get it.

It was the photo of a young handsome man, dark well-kept hair, and eyes the color of the clean barrels of her guns.

"Who's this?" She asked, stroking with her thumbs the edges of the photograph.

"I'm surprised you've never seen a photo of him, even if I do realize that he rarely shows his face in public." Lord Regulus took the photo from her hand, setting it down beside the second photo of the bank.

It then all clicked to Rosalynde. The hints Lord Regulus had provided her had indeed proven themselves essential. She knew the man, but in name only, a controversial one it was too. There was a bank in the High Strands that from scratch had accumulated an incommensurable amount of wealth.

The Bank of Lun, who's owner had established less than five years ago, had already gotten itself a seat in the council overlooking international affairs and commerce. The thing was however, that the man had never shown his face in one of those meetings, always sending his personal secretary to attend in his stead.

Hector Grey was a man that could have bought more than half of the empire for himself and given the other half to the people. Without of course taking into consideration his uncountable wealth, he was known for mostly keeping to himself as he personally overlooked all affairs regarding his bank from the back of the scene, never stepping out of line with the police and with the imperial taxes.

"Hector Grey?" She asked for confirmation.

"That's our man," he replied in a pleased tone.

Rosalynde crossed her arms together, left tucked under the right one as she scorned the photograph.

She went quiet for a while, the gears turning in her head not clicking in place as Lord Regulus watched her closely.

"You want him as an Apostle, don't you?" She asked after an indefinite amount of time.

A twitch of lips was all he gave her to confirm her doubts.

"Now that Haywire is gone we still have a vacant position to fill, I confess that I've been looking forward to having him join our ranks for a long time already." Rosalynde bit her tongue to hold back her reply in sign of respect, but she just could not try and warn him in the least.

"Bankers should not be trusted, my Lord. Grey is known for having an unrequited hatred towards the nobles, and he's known for doing everything within his power to limit their influence both inside and outside the capital," she reminded him with haste.