Ten minutes past the seventh bell, three figures wrapped in dark, rain-hooded wool cloaks slipped through the shadow of the dry aqueduct buttress behind the West Quay Stone Granary.
Above them, thirty feet up under the slate eaves of the high warehouse, the six decoy horn lanterns Jon had hung over the smoldering mutton-tallow pans earlier that afternoon were still casting slow, swaying yellow shadows of the burlap hull-sacks across the upper gallery windows. To the two Oath Guard sentries pacing the head of West Quay Lane a hundred yards away—and to Marshal Ors’s forward outriders peering through brass spyglasses from the dark pine ridge across the river—the granite barn looked warm, crowded, and sealed tight for the night.
Down here in the blind masonry angle behind the side postern, not a sentry was in sight. Cael’s guards were watching the front cul-de-sac entrance to make sure no panicked villager wandered out into the streets, never suspecting that the building was empty or that anyone knew of the drainage grate under the northwest plinth.
Instead of crawling through the wet culvert pipe, Jon unlocked the narrow side postern door with the warehouse key he had kept in his waistcoat, drew Lady Signe Lorr and Master Mason Alden Bram inside the dark lower floor, and locked the oak panel silently behind them.
