A delivery for Aleksei

[cyanotype]

It was night. The sky was black, scattered with stars, the clarity of its depths feeding the cold air of winter with a bitterness. Tiny, futile scrims of cloud trailed over the clean dark like smudges of dust.

It hadn't taken long to learn where Aleksei had settled in Myrkentown. An interesting choice, everything considered. On an obvious work surface within, perhaps a kitchen table, where it would easily grasp attention from even the slightest of grazing glances, a coin purse had appeared. It wasn't placed by any obvious trespasser's hand, neither did it bloom into existence with the explosive theatrics of magic, it was simply there, where before it was not. The pouch was swollen with gold, and a note accompanied it, the scrawl on the paper legible and neat, with the slightest flourishes curling the edges of the script -


Aleksei,

This delivery reaches you from the hands of Zilliah.


There was nothing else, the words floating orphaned and lonely on the paper in defiant black. No signature, no pleasantries. Certainly no emblazoned crest. The courier had been informed that the recipient would know the details, the whys, the what-fors. Whether the delivery arrived under the safety of slumber, or brazenly in front of the eye, it did not matter. The rogue left as quickly as a parting breath, an imperceptible thickening of shadow that curled out of the room and into the night.