The last person Wade Wilson wanted to see standing in his forge was Ser Jacelyn Bywater. The honest cop was back, his face as grim and unreadable as ever. Worse, he had Mathis with him. Wade's timid manager looked like he was being personally escorted to his own execution.
"Mr. Wilson," Bywater said, his voice leaving no room for pleasantries. "A moment of your time."
Gendry stopped hammering, his shoulders tense. Even he could smell the trouble.
Wade's heart did a little tap dance in his chest, but he forced a relaxed posture, leaning against a workbench. His immediate goal was brutally simple: survive the next ten minutes without getting himself or his pet clerk thrown in a dungeon.
"Commander Bywater! Always a pleasure," Wade said, his tone breezy. "Have you come to commission a sword? I can highly recommend our 'City Watch Commander's Discount.' It's a ten percent surcharge for the honor of your patronage."
Bywater was not amused. "I was just having a word with your man Mathis here. He was delivering these to the records office at the Guildhall." He held up the sheaf of pristine documents – Wade's entire fabricated history. "Very thorough. Almost… too thorough."
Mathis looked like he might spontaneously combust from sheer terror.
"I don't believe in half measures, Commander," Wade said smoothly. "When I do something, I do it properly. My business partners in the Free Cities demand meticulous records."
"So I see," Bywater said, pulling one sheet from the stack. "This seal, here. From the Iron Bank of Braavos. It's a perfect copy. I've never seen a forger in King's Landing capable of such detail."
This was the obstacle. A direct challenge. Bywater wasn't just checking the boxes; he was testing the structural integrity of the entire lie.
Wade clapped a hand on Mathis's shoulder. "And you won't, Commander. This is why I have Mathis. He handles my… international correspondence. The seal was affixed in Braavos before the documents were ever sent. Isn't that right, Mathis?"
Mathis, shaking like a leaf, looked at the document. He swallowed hard, but then a flicker of professionalism, the pride of a lifelong clerk, took over. "Y-yes, Mr. Wilson. The seal is pressed into the vellum with a heated die, a mixture of iron dust and squid ink from the northern shoals. A King's Landing forger would use common candle-wax and soot. The difference is… is obvious to the trained eye."
He delivered the lines with a tremor, but the details were impeccable. It was the best kind of lie: one wrapped in a layer of boring, verifiable truth.
Bywater stared at Mathis, then back at Wade. The Commander was sharp, but he was a soldier, not a banker. The explanation, delivered with the terrified certainty of a subject matter expert, was just plausible enough.
"I see," Bywater said finally. He handed the papers back to Mathis. "See that they are filed correctly. I'll be checking." He gave Wade a long, hard look. "A word of advice, Mr. Wilson. Eccentric foreigners with deep pockets tend to attract the wrong sort of attention in this city. Watch your back."
Oh, Bywater had no idea how much trouble he had already gotten into, did he?
With that, he turned and left the forge.
The moment he was gone, Mathis's legs gave out and he slumped onto a crate, gasping for air. Wade let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. They had passed. His cover was, for all intents and purposes, now officially legitimate. A huge step in advancement.
"Mathis," Wade said, grinning. "You are a goddamn artist. I'm giving you a raise."
His relief was short-lived. No sooner had Mathis staggered off to actually file the papers than one of Alayna's messengers appeared at the door. The boy was silent, discreet, and handed Wade a note before vanishing.
It was a summons. She has news.
He found her in her apartment, the scent of their previous encounter still lingering in the air. She was all business.
"I trust your meeting with our mutual friend was productive," she said, pouring wine.
"He wants a book," Wade said. "The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses."
Alayna nodded, unsurprised. "Then you'll have to be quick about it." She pushed a piece of parchment across the table. It was a shipping manifest. "This came to me from a clerk at the harbormaster's office. A man with expensive tastes."
Wade picked it up. It detailed the cargo and passenger list for a ship called The Storm Dancer.
"Lord Stannis Baratheon has booked passage," Alayna said, her voice cool and precise. "He is sailing for Dragonstone. In two days."
The stakes didn't just rise; they launched into orbit. The mission now had a deadline. A hard one.
Wade's mind raced. Two days. Less than forty-eight hours to get the book before Stannis took it with him, potentially forever. He had the what. Now he had the when. The payoff was a ticking clock.
He had two possible targets. The Red Keep's library, where a copy might be stored under lock and key. A fortress of knowledge, guarded by scholars and Gold Cloaks.
Or he could go directly to the source: Stannis's manse. The home of the most paranoid, rigid, and unyielding man in the Seven Kingdoms. It would be less heavily guarded than the Keep itself, but the security would be personal, hand-picked, and fanatically loyal.
Two targets. Two days. One book. He had to choose, and he had to choose now. The success of his entire mission, and Jon Arryn's life, depended on it.
Wade felt a familiar, frantic energy buzzing under his skin. This was his element. Chaos. Impossibility. A deadline.
He stood in Alayna's apartment, the shipping manifest clutched in his hand. "Two targets," he said, thinking aloud. "The Red Keep library, or Stannis's personal study. Fortress A or Fortress B."
Alayna took a slow, deliberate sip of her wine. "A frontal assault, or a surgical strike. One has more guards, the other has smarter ones."
"Exactly," Wade said, pacing the room. "Which is why I'm not going in blind." He stopped and looked at her, his masked face intense. "You said you had a network. You said you had information. Prove it. I need layouts. Guard rotations. Weak points. I need blueprints for both."
His goal was clear: leverage his new partnership to get the intel he needed to make the right choice and pull off the impossible.
Alayna's lips curved into a slow, satisfied smile. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. The moment her new partner stopped being a chaotic force and started being a strategic one. The moment he truly started to rely on her.
"Information is my business, Wade," she said, rising from her chaise. "And business is good."
She led him to a heavy, iron-bound chest in the corner of the room. She unlocked it with a small, intricate key she wore on a chain around her neck. The obstacle wasn't a lack of information, but its organization. She wasn't a spymaster with a filing system; she was a collector of secrets.
She lifted the heavy lid. The chest was filled with scrolls, parchments, ledgers, and loose sheets of vellum. It looked like a scholar's nightmare.
"Everything I hear, everything I am paid, everything I learn… it ends up here," she explained, her hands deftly sorting through the pile. "A guard captain complains about a drafty patrol route in the Maegor's Holdfast. A stonemason boasts about the secret passages he built for the Targaryens. A serving girl laments the long walk to the kitchens from the library." She pulled out a rolled-up scroll tied with a faded red ribbon. "It's all just noise, until you know which question to ask."
She unrolled the scroll on a large table. It was a detailed architectural drawing of the Red Keep's main floors, hand-drawn by a master builder decades ago. It had been payment for a week's worth of pleasure from a man long since dead.
"The library," she said, tracing a route with her finger, "is here. Deep in the castle. Only one public entrance, always guarded. The windows are high and narrow. Almost impossible to get in or out unseen."
She then pointed to a thin, almost invisible line on the drawing. "But… there is a dumbwaiter. The librarians use it to send meals up and down from a small service kitchen two floors below. It is old, narrow, and rarely used at night."
Next, she pulled out a smaller, newer piece of parchment. It was a simple floor plan, the kind a nobleman might draw up for a decorator. It showed Stannis Baratheon's manse.
"Lord Stannis is a man of routine," Alayna said, her tone shifting to one of cool analysis. "His security is professional and disciplined. No drunkards, no gossips. They are former soldiers, loyal to him personally." She tapped the largest room on the map. "His study. Ground floor. One door, one window. The window has a new iron grille, installed last month. The door has a lock imported from Myr. They say only three keys exist."
It was an incredible, detailed intelligence briefing. This was the goooood stuff. Alayna had proven her worth ten times over.
Wade studied the two maps, his mind working like a machine.
The library: High risk, high reward. A complex infiltration with many moving parts – guards, servants, the dumbwaiter. If he got caught, he'd be in the heart of the royal castle, a place from which there was no escape.
The manse: A simpler target, but a harder shell. Fewer variables, but each one was tougher. Fanatically loyal guards, a masterwork lock, a paranoid owner. If he got caught, it wouldn't be by a random Gold Cloak, but by Stannis's personal household guard.
"The lock from Myr," Wade mused, tapping the map of the manse. "Can it be picked?"
"Not by any locksmith in King's Landing," Alayna said confidently. "Stannis tested it himself."
"Perfect," Wade said, a wide, manic grin spreading under his mask. He had his micro-payoff. He had his decision.
Alayna looked at him, confused. "Perfect? I just told you it's impossible."
"Nothing's impossible," Wade said, rolling up the floor plan of the manse. "You just need the right tool. And I happen to own a forge run by the best master smith in the city."
He looked at Alayna, a new level of respect in his eyes. "You've done your part. Now it's time for me to do mine."
He knew his target. He wasn't going to sneak into the library. He was going to break into the un-breakable study of the most stubborn man in Westeros. It was riskier, crazier, and infinitely more fun.
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