The mansion was on the edge of town--if the town had an edge--and would have stood out like a sore thumb compared with the relatively poor houses of Northwatch, had it not been thoroughly encompassed by a wall of cut bamboo and beyond that, a curtain of bamboo stands that thoroughly hid it from the city itself. 

You could be forgiven for thinking Northwatch was just a stop on the road to Eastdale or Landfall, depending on which way you were traveling. It was originally a defensive outpost during the First Great Magical War, over 1500 years ago, and, supposedly, it was the starting-off point of several glorious marches, as war goes. But today, it was full of ruins, the stone fort that gave the town its name all but overrun by fresh flora, and those who could afford to had largely moved off in those more urbane directions. 

That fact alone made it strange to see such a large and well-appointed house here. It truly didn't belong with this town. But Hero supposed, as their cart travelled through the well-paved path, that was what the bamboo curtain was for: to shield the compound from the eyes of passers-by and townfolk both, and provide an excellent base of operations for whatever Alex and his "family" did. 

Hero found that once on Alex's side, he was an unfailing gentleman and escort, asking her for her preference in seating, helping her into the cart, and making pleasant, though shallow, conversation. He wouldn't discuss anything regarding the theft until they got to the mansion, he said. Indeed, as they approached the compound and now rode through it, though several eyes turned to watch them go by, he was silent and appeared to be either sleeping or meditating. Either way, she didn't want to disturb him. 

The cart stopped at the entrance of the house and Alex was as if he hadn't just spent several minutes not talking. He opened the door, spoke to the guards, and helped Hero out of the cart before sending it on its way to the stables. 

"Welcome to my home, Hero." He led the way to the front door.

"You live here?"

"I do. Though I am not bloodkin of the Kinden family, as their servant, I am entitled to my portion of their house."

"That's generous, I guess." Honestly, the way he said "servant" kind of creeped me out. It's one thing to be employed, it's another to be a captive slave, especially when you don't realize that you are one. 

Alex smiled. "That's why I'm still working for them. Please, after you." As they approached the door, it opened, revealing another guard inside, who motioned for her to enter, let them both through, then closed the door and assumed the role of "disinterested guard." 

I couldn't resist. "So, as a servant, if you decided the pay wasn't enough...could you just up and leave?"

Alex's smile dropped and he gave me a look that might have been pitiful if it weren't backed by anger, "The pay is sufficient. My family have served the Kindens for four generations. To leave...would be a great dishonor."

I'm not Sasha, but I knew that I'd found a sore spot and it wasn't wise at this moment to keep poking. I nodded silently and followed. Alex's happy face came back on as he pointed out other priceless relics, paintings, photos on the walls. I realized then that while others had their ceramic masks, this smile was Alex's mask. The amount of anger he holds, I thought, shivering.

Finally, we came to the parlor room that had held the swords. You could see where they were missing: centered along the far wall was an altar with the traditional wooden sword-holders, looking empty and forlorn bereft of their charge, like supplicants begging for something.

Alex stopped at the doorway, but motioned me through. "And now, Hero, I leave this to you. Enlighten me." 

Game time. I nodded, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, trying to get the flavor of the room. It's weird, I know, but sometimes, I feel like I can just taste a scene--the acrid bitter taste of electricity, the too-sweet taste of magic, a floral concoction of smells from antiques and furniture polish. Strangely, here I sensed no electricity and no magic. "No electricity. No magic," I said. Alex remained silent. 

I listened; the house was hardly quiet--besides the daily creaking of the bamboo structure itself, there were many people walking quickly to and fro, their footsteps muffled but not entirely lost out to maybe 50 feet or so. Bamboo houses might be cheap and fast to build, but they betray their occupants at every step. I could hear Alex's breathing next to me, calm, steady, patient--here was someone who understood the value of patience, even when time was of the essence. Honestly, under different circumstances...no--I cut that thought off. I was here on a job, not on a date. 

Now I opened my eyes, taking in the whole of the room. Bamboo walls, floors, ceiling. Intricate woodwork. None of it was cut or out of place. No sawdust on visible surfaces. No windows or skylights. "The thief came in through the door," I said neutrally. "Were there guards posted?"

"Yes," was all Alex said and his face was another mask of inscrutability. He would give nothing away.

"We're they killed? I didn't see blood on the way in."

"One was, yes."

"How?"

"Stabbed in the heart by some kind of tool, not a cutting blade, I'm told by our doctor." 

I could see the remnants of a blood spot on the floor. "The other was...what, distracted away?"

His eyes narrowed. "Yes." The way he looked, I almost hesitated on the next question. 

"Are they al--vailable for questioning?"

"For the moment, they are confined to their room." Yes, for the moment. I understood the edge in that voice. Once the swords were found, that guard's time was short, wasn't it? Stay focused, I thought. Or I'm next.

I turned and examined the door. It was also bamboo, though a thick, solid core door that would provide some protection from interlopers. The hinges were not tampered with. There's no point in putting electronic locks on a wooden door, really, so I wasn't surprised to see this one had a simple tumbler lock, key required from both sides. "It was locked, correct?"

"The...surviving...guard assures us it was when he left his post."

"Who has a key?"

"Only two keys. The Master's, and the guard's."

"The Master's is...safe, I presume?"

"It would have taken another theft to get it away, and there was no time for the thief to return it."

I wasn't so sure about that, but I filed that idea away for further examination later. Trade secrets and all that.

"And the keys couldn't have been copied?"

"They could of course, but the molds were broken when these were made, so doing so would require having access to these to make a new one."

"If it were," I caught myself as I was about to say me, "an outsider, that would be the easiest course to take."

Alex gave me a piercing stare but said, "The guard's key was used."

"The, uh, surviving guard wasn't the one with a key, then?"

"No." 

"Hmm. Does the same guard hold the key every night?"

Alex thought for a moment and then his mouth dropped. "Yes! Why didn't I think of that?"

"Don't beat yourself up. You thought an outsider had done this. How would an outsider know that? But now we see that whoever did this was no outsider--they knew where the room was, meaning they'd been in the house before. They knew it had two guards. They knew which of the guards held the key. Either someone told them or someone inside did it themselves."

Alex shook his head. "An inside job, then. Unthinkable."

"The trick to being a good thief is to think the unthinkable all the time," I confided. "The first step in losing something is thinking there's no way to lose it."

Alex nodded. "The guards and key are only the first steps, however."

I bit my lip. It's a thing I do when I'm looking for traps; I don't know why. "The room is trapped. Good. Let's see what we're working with." I knelt down to examine the floor for pressure plates.

Alex warned me, "The traps are still active. None were triggered."

"Shhh," I said. "I like this part of my job."

Taken as a whole, the room was about 5 meters long and 4 meters wide. The woodwork her was exquisite, with scrolling and cross-cutting all over the walls and ceiling; it must have taken a fortune and years to do all this work. But I could see, even from just the doorway, that there were dark holes in that woodwork, places for triggered darts to swiftly and quietly dispatch an unwary intruder. 

Of course, it was a family shrine, which imposed some requirements on the traps. It wouldn't do to have everyone killed just because a child stepped out of line. 

"It's a two-step trap," I said aloud. "The first arms the darts, the second releases them."

I looked at the floor, and, as expected, found that for each square meter, there was a break in the floorboards. "Meter-wide plates makes it hard to step around, but the path to the swords isn't triggering, is it?"

Alex kept quiet. So, there is a trigger still between here and the swords, I thought.

I knew already that the first meter was safe--Alex had led me to that point. So I crawled to that plate and pressed it down. This allowed me to just see under the other plates around it. They had a pneumatic piston attached to each plate and I began to understand how it all worked. The pistons provided air pressure to launch the blowdarts. But I couldn't see the trigger--the second step. It made me nervous. I looked back at Alex, whose face gave nothing away. Clearly, if I couldn't solve this on my own, I was the wrong person for this job. Got it.

I closed my eyes and thought. Here was a shrine, a room that the family would visit every day to pay respects. Here was a priceless artifact. Guarded by two capable guards, one with a key. The house was bamboo. The floor had pressure plates. The walls had ornate, but not well-concealed holes for the blow darts. The pressure plates had pneumatic cylinders under them, but no discernible trigger. 

I opened my eyes and asked Alex, "How many people have accidentally triggered this trap?"

"None," he said quickly and plainly. 

I grinned and took the next step. And the next, and so on right up to the case. Alex followed, joining me next to it. 

"That's a cruel trick on people like me," I said. 

"It is designed with people like you in mind, Antihero."

"I see the wisdom. You don't want to put the family's life in danger. You do want to protect the swords. You have guards to do the actual protection, but dummy pressure plates and oh-so-obvious blowdart holes to make rogues like me think there's something they aren't seeing. But no electricity, no magic, just psychology."

"You understand that, Antihero, and you understand my family very well. Some magic requires manna. Some force requires violence. But the truly powerful need neither."

I grinned again and Alex returned the smile. "Yes, I think I am beginning to understand. And appreciate." I turned our attention to the empty display. "So, this..." I tried lifting the cover and found it lifted easily. "Just a cover?"

Alex laughed. "Actually, no. If you examine the underside, you'll find that it was screwed in. Someone removed the screws."

I had to chuckle. "Okay, did they keep the screws, or am I just not seeing them for another reason?'

"When the theft was discovered, we cleaned up the screws. No sense in stepping on one."

"Hmm. Did they make any attempt to conceal them?"

"The theft was easy to see--our thief didn't seem to feel that was a necessary action."

"Right." I bent over, examining the table. It was simple, two wooden legs, a top, holes for the screws. Not a complicated arrangement. The thief killed a guard, distracted the other, came in, unscrewed...eight screws...lifted the glass frame, removed the swords...." I examined under the table again, but didn't find any further markings. 

"Do we have access to the screws?"

Alex was confused, but snapped his fingers. One of the guards entered. "Fetch the carpenter. Tell them to bring the screws for the sword case." The guard bowed slightly and left. 

While we waited, I looked around, taking in the whole scene. "How thick are these walls?"

"A few rows thick in most places. Enough to keep out the draft with some pitch and provide privacy most of the time. Why?"

"Why not just cut a hole in the wall from outside? Magic could do it easily and quietly. In and out, no mess, no fuss."

Alex grinned. "It's not general knowledge, but magic tends to leave a kind of 'signature' or 'calling card' that certain mages can trace back." 

"Is that common knowledge within your family?"

Alex thought. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"That's not definitive, but it's something." The guard arrived with the carpenter and the screws, which Hero examined carefully for a moment. "See here. No evidence of stripping. These were very slowly, quietly removed with meticulous care." The carpenter agreed. 

"So someone took precious time carefully removing the screws. Why? Why not just smash the glass?" 

The carpenter suggested, "Smashing the glass would have alerted other guards around. You can't hide that sound here." 

Hero nodded. "Yes. They knew that the guard would be busy for a while, the other one would be dead. They took simple tools that would not attract attention and took their time removing the glass so that it would all be very quiet. But they would certainly know that the guard would return, realize the other guard was away, go looking for them and that time was limited. Anyone attempting to run through the courtyard would be spotted, and anyone walking with two large swords would be stopped."

"So...what, did they stay here, then?" asked Alex. He dismissed the carpenter and guard.

Hero chewed on her lip. "Not sure. Possibly." 

"Our mages say they detected no unusual magical activity last night. Just maintenance work."

"What is maintenance work?"

"Common repairs to the structure. Mages do it quietly at night when people are sleeping and the manna cost is relatively low. Plumbing, electrical, carpentry--all done quietly with magic." 

Hero thought for a moment. "Okay. See if this checks out. Our thief to this point has used very non-magical means to accomplish this theft. They are an insider, familiar with the security protocols. They know the schedules. They know the guards. They arrange for a distraction and one of the guards goes to investigate. The other doesn't think anything of the thief, who is probably just talking with them, until suddenly they are stabbed in the heart, collapsing silently, immediately dead.

"They enter the room and begin unscrewing the case. They work fast, but slow enough to make sure every turn counts. They are meticulous, used to careful work. 'Haste makes waste,' they might say. Then, they lift the case, remove the swords, and run back out. Perhaps they see the other guard returning. They don't have time to run, they can't really do anything but hide. They duck into a store room and magically cut their way into the walls, replacing the cuts as they go." 

Alex nodded. "I see. Yes, a maintenance worker could do all of this. But where would they go?"

I opened my mouth to say "I think we should look at the blueprints," but just then, the wall exploded as gunfire ripped a hole in the bamboo only feet from where we were standing. My ears rang with the sudden sound and Alex instinctively pulled me down to the ground.