At the End of the Lane
17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
The houses of old nobility and deposed prelates rose grey and grim about the square of Abbey Green, the rattle of the wind though the dry grass as though in monkey of the name as a woman wearing the eggshell white shirt and light grey frock of the lettered help moved through the streets, lantern in hand. Anea Ilvor, factotum for the West Winds Company, was as cold and miserable as the weather, wishing for nothing more than a chance to return to her crammed but warm Baker's Street apartment and a cup of warm coca, one of the few indulgences she could afford herself in steep and narrow road of advancement. But the highborn would have their way wouldn't they, their peculiarities? For one not blessed with wealth and a title the request that someone personally pick up their too-soon-arriving luggage in the wee hours of the morning would have been called something considerably stronger than peculiar, mad maybe or at least idiotic.
What difference would it make it something that had already crossed the length of Avistan from the shores of Lake Encarthan to those of the Inner Sea would wait in a damn warehouse until a decent hour of the morning?
Keys rattled at her belt as she rose from her seat, informing the coach driver to wait for her, even though they both knew he's bleed her for the fare. They both knew this was no night for a body to be walking the streets of old Cassomir, the rain drove decent folk indoors even as it drew ne'er-do-well out to hunt.
Where others in her position would have brought a manservent to handle the damn crate, Anea had a ring forged to celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday with a touch of
magic that would allow her to carry as much as a longshoreman at need, so she had no trouble maneuvering the black walnut chest from coach to the door of Number Thirteen Wisteria Lane. The place hadn't seen an owner in half a decade and a living occupant in four times that long until a mysterious noble from the north had acquired it, very hush hush. Had Anea been more inclined to fancy she would have imagined a spy or a mysterious sorcerer. It was probably just some confidence man working the ignorance of the Taldan gentry to fleece them like that one woman who claimed to be the missing princess of Brevoy before she made off with a small fortune in gifts.
Come to Cassomir for the wine and olive oil, stay for the idiots, she thought forcing the half-rusted key into the lock and turning it with all the anger she couldn't show on her face. The entry room was a thing of peeling green wallpaper and moldering wood that somehow conspired to be even more cold than a winter's night and even more humid than the rain. One would would worry about an infestation of rats though even they had probably moved on to more salubrious dwellings. This whole place could sink into the swamp and leave the world better off for its lack.
Now where on earth is the bedroom in this creaking cadaver house?
It wasn't that she didn't hear the sound of the boards creaking behind her.
Maybe she'd just been wrong about the mice, Anea thought. She never saw the figure materialize behind her, pale in the lantern's light, she only felt the iron hard grip around her neck, too keep her from screaming.
The coachman left half an hour later, cursing a streak and in the offices of the West Winds Company across town a portly director struck out a name with a familiar sweep of the quill. It was a pity to lose such a good worker, but the customer had been
particular about their needs and she had been a bit too keen to advance anyway. It was useful to have clever underlings and ambitious underlings, but not ones that were both.
OOC: It's been a while since I got to do a properly ominous interlude. That was fun. 
