Torvares leaned back in his chair and looked at Ludger for a long moment before speaking again, more seriously this time.
“If you are thinking about interrogating the prisoners,” he said, “then think it through properly.”
Ludger said nothing, so Torvares continued.
“They will not be sitting in some neglected cell with lazy guards outside the door. Not if Armandis truly wants them erased. Men like that do not leave compromised allies in convenient places.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “You would have to pass through layers of protection before you ever got close. Some of the best warriors tied to Armandis, most likely. And if the matter has already reached the level of formal treason, there is a good chance royal guards are involved as well.”
That alone painted an ugly picture. Torvares kept going, his tone calm but pointed.
“Those are not men you slip past casually. Not all of them. Not in an area where the defenders expect trouble, even if only in theory. And if you are caught there, it will not be treated like one more border incident or a private feud between nobles. It will be treated as an intrusion into a state matter involving imprisoned traitors. That is pretty close to treason as well, you will be giving them the reason to destroy the Lionsguard that they wanted.”
He let that settle.
“Do you really think the merit of doing that is greater than the risk you would be taking?”
Ludger’s expression did not shift much.
“In this line of business,” he said, “knowledge lost is worse than money lost.”
Torvares said nothing. Ludger continued in the same flat, practical tone.
“Money can be recovered. Territory can be rebuilt. Materials can be found elsewhere if given enough time. But information disappears for good once the people carrying it are dead, silenced, or sealed away behind someone else’s version of the story.”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“If the spies are having trouble, then I have to go deeper into it if I want anything useful.”
That was the core of it. Not recklessness. Not curiosity for its own sake. Necessity.
Because once a trail reached the point where intermediaries started dying, vanishing, or being officially condemned, waiting politely usually only meant arriving after someone else had cleaned up the truth.
Torvares nodded once after hearing that.
Then he said, “Take Luna with you.”
Ludger looked at him. Torvares went on.
“She is good at that kind of work. Quiet, fast, and better suited to infiltration than most people you could ask for. You know that.”
Ludger did know that. Which was why his answer came immediately.
“I’ll go alone.”
That made Torvares frown.
Ludger added, “If I involve Luna, then eventually Viola gets involved too. And I don’t need that.”
That part was simple. Too simple, perhaps. But still correct.
Viola had a way of treating danger like something to be outstared and then walked into harder. If Luna moved, Viola would notice. If Viola noticed, she would push. And if the situation sharpened, it would only get worse from there.
Ludger was not interested in carrying that complication into an operation that already smelled like an execution site wrapped in state secrecy.
“And I don’t need Eclaire involved either,” he said.
That was the other half of it.
The moment too many of the wrong people knew, the matter would stop being precise. Personal loyalties, political instincts, and unnecessary bravery would start crowding around the problem until it became larger than the actual objective.
Torvares sighed. A real one. Not because he disagreed. That was what bothered him most. He looked troubled, but in the way of a man who had been given reasoning he could not honestly dismiss.
Because Luna would indeed draw Viola. Because Viola would indeed complicate things. Because Eclaire, if she caught scent of a chance to strike at rot tied to Armandis, would not sit quietly at the edge of it.
And because Ludger, alone, was often the most efficient shape a dangerous plan could take.
That did not make it pleasant. It only made it hard to argue against. For a few seconds, the room went quiet again.
Then Torvares rubbed once at his jaw and said, “I dislike that I understand your reasoning.”
Ludger gave a small nod.
“That makes two of us.”
Torvares almost laughed at that, but not quite. Because neither of them found the situation funny.
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Torvares was quiet for a moment after that, then asked, “Could you speak with that illusionist and have him help?”
Ludger immediately shook his head.
“I didn’t get that close to him.”
That was the simplest part of the answer.
There had never been real trust there. Not even the beginnings of it. The illusionist had been useful in the narrow way dangerous people sometimes were useful, but usefulness was not the same as reliability, and reliability was nowhere near the same as loyalty.
In the end, the man had not struck Ludger as someone who wanted outcomes. He wanted spectacles. He wanted to see things unfold.
Not guide them toward a goal he believed in. Not build something. Not protect something. Just watch tension ripen, lines cross, masks crack, and consequences crash into one another in the most interesting way possible.
Like the world was some elaborate play staged for his amusement. Ludger frowned slightly as he put the thought into words.
“He isn’t the kind of person who acts to make events fit his goals,” he said. “He’s the kind who prefers not to change them too much because the unfolding itself is what interests him.”
Torvares listened without interrupting. Ludger continued, tone flat and precise.
“That makes him difficult to trust. Someone who wants something concrete can be read. Bargained with. Predicted, at least in part. If they want money, power, access, revenge, safety, whatever it is, you can work around it. You know where the pressure points are.”
He paused.
“With a person like him, the pressure point is interest.”
That was the problem.
“And interest is unstable,” Ludger said. “Today, helping me might be entertaining. Tomorrow, watching me fail might be more entertaining. Or watching both sides become more desperate before intervening might amuse him more than either clean success or clean defeat.”
Torvares’ eyes narrowed faintly. Ludger went on.
“I can’t trust someone whose real priority is the shape of the story rather than the result.”
That was the heart of it.
People who chased gain were dangerous, but manageable. People who chased ideology were troublesome, but understandable. People who chased amusement while hiding behind intelligence and distance were worse. Because they were never fully committed to the same reality as everyone else.
“They stand too far outside things,” Ludger said. “When someone starts treating other people’s risks, losses, and deaths like scenes in a performance, they stop being a proper ally even if they occasionally help.”
His expression hardened a little.
“And the worst part is that they often think that distance makes them clever.”
Torvares gave a small, humorless sound through his nose at that. Ludger folded his arms.
“If I ask him for help, I would be giving him a seat closer to the stage. That doesn’t mean he would betray me immediately. It means I would be accepting that his reasons for helping and my reasons for succeeding are not the same.”
He looked directly at Torvares.
“I’d rather work with an honest enemy than with someone who thinks everything is interesting.”
That made the room go still for a moment. Torvares leaned back slightly, considering the answer. Then he gave a slow nod.
“Yes,” he said. “That is about the answer I expected.”
Because in the end, Ludger was not rejecting the illusionist out of pride. He was rejecting him because he understood exactly what kind of danger a detached spectator became once he was allowed near real plans.
Ludger gave a small nod and said, “I’ll leave the territory in a few days.”
Torvares watched him quietly.
“First,” Ludger added, “I’ll create a proper alibi.”
That was important. Not optional.
If he was going to move against something tied to imprisoned traitors, Armandis, and possibly royal oversight, then simply disappearing at the wrong time would be idiotic. He needed distance built into the story before he ever stepped near the real target. Enough routine, enough visible work, enough predictable movement that any later suspicion would have to fight against a version of events already in place.
Torvares nodded slowly.
“I’ll see what I can do to offer support.”
Ludger accepted that with another brief nod.
Not because he expected miracles, but because any support from Torvares in matters like this usually meant useful background pressure, small things, quiet things, the kind that made roads easier to walk and doors slightly less closed without announcing who had turned the handle.
Then Ludger got up. The conversation had gone as far as it could for now. He left the office and departed soon after, already sorting through the steps ahead in his mind.
Another infiltration mission. Annoying. Necessary, but annoying.
It was not the kind of work he liked most when it came to actual results. Not because he lacked the ability to move quietly, lie when needed, or step through dangerous places without being noticed. He could do all of that well enough. But infiltration had too many moving pieces outside his control.
Too many people making choices in other rooms. Too many guards changing routes for reasons unrelated to him. Too many chances for a plan to bend because someone drunk, stupid, ambitious, or merely unlucky happened to move at the wrong time.
It was volatile work. That was the real issue. In open battle, strength, planning, and execution solved most things. In infiltration, the world insisted on remaining full of variables.
And Ludger hated variables he could not crush. Once Ludger got home, he decided to start preparing to leave. Not openly. Not in the way someone prepared for a trip they wanted people to remember clearly.
This needed shape. Timing. Noise in the right places and silence in the right ones. If he was going to step outside the territory again for something this delicate, then the story around his absence had to exist before the absence itself mattered.
So he sat down and began arranging the outline. After a bit of thought, he settled on something solid enough to hold attention without inviting too much scrutiny.
He would make a large announcement that he was taking some of the new guild members into the labyrinth for intense training. That would work. More than that, it would make sense.
It was the sort of thing he would absolutely do. No one in Lionsguard would find it strange if Ludger suddenly decided a group of recruits needed to be pushed harder, taken into deeper sections, or made to adapt through a few days of harsher practical training. If anything, many people would probably hear it and think, of course. That sounds like him.
Which made it a good alibi. He would stay there for a few days. At least, that was the version people needed to believe.
But before he actually moved, he would give the rumor time to spread properly. Not force it too hard. Just enough. A few comments in the guild. A few visible preparations. Some names attached to the trip. Enough routine around the story that, by the time he vanished into the part of the plan that mattered, most people would already have him mentally placed inside the labyrinth.
That was the key. Not just saying it. Letting people settle into the assumption.
Once that happened, absence became invisible. Anyone who did not see him would simply think he was underground, busy, training others, doing exactly what had already been announced.