The revelation came through Lyra, three days after Blackwood's funeral.
She entered my study with the careful movements of someone carrying information too dangerous to speak aloud, her expression grim with the weight of discoveries that would reshape everything I thought I knew about the game being played around me.
"We need to talk," she said quietly, closing the door behind her and activating the privacy wards that would prevent any surveillance, magical or mundane, from penetrating our conversation.
"About Blackwood's death?"
"About who really killed him. And why." She moved to the window, checking the courtyard below before continuing. "It wasn't natural causes, and it wasn't one of our operations."
"I know. The timing was too convenient, the method too clean. Someone else wanted
