“How is it possible that a rich town like Anvil has an abandoned house?” – Jowan was saying at breakfast. He thought it was very odd.

“Anvil is not just any town. It has a history of secrets – Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, pirates, smugglers, you name it. If just half of the rumours are true, Nocturnal reigns here, or would have reigned if the Grey Fox wasn’t wearing her cowl without permission.”

“So?”

“So, the abandoned house might not be all that abandoned after all.”

Jowan was looking longingly.

“I would love to live in it though. You know – properly, do it up and make it into a home.”

Was that a challenge? A dream? A request? Whatever it was, Lena could not let it go unanswered – she knew how it felt to have your heart set on a house, no matter how modest, but a house that felt like home.

“Well, why don’t we go and see if anyone is home.”

Downstairs the house was messy and abandoned. Furniture overturned, cobwebs everywhere, dust in the corners… Dust… just only in the corners? Indeed, the staircase looked to be in use. Upstairs it was a very different picture. The room was neat, it had a desk in it with a ledger and books on Nocturnal and the Thieves Guild.

“Thieves Guild! Like I said – the house is not abandoned” – Lena pointed at the books. “This will require preparations, and once we know who exactly is here and why, we’ll decide on a way to evict them.”

“And on a way to get the County repossess the house so that Jowan could buy it” – added Hauk. “After that affair with Corvus Umbranox they are not going to be willing to admit housing the next Grey Fox!”

…

“Corvus Umbranox was the Count of Anvil some two centuries ago. One day he disappeared without a trace, and his wife had to run the County on her own. Ten years later a stranger came to the Castle carrying an Elder Scroll stolen from the Imperial Library. Reading the scroll out loud, the stranger turned into the missing Count. No, wait. The stranger had always been the Count, but for some reason no one would recognise him, as if all knowledge of his existence had been erased from everyone’s memory. Reading the scroll restored that memory and everyone – including his wife – recognised him for Corvus Umbranox. He confessed then that he was in fact the most notorious thief of them all – the Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild, the Grey Fox. But – and you’re mad if you believe it – he regretted his ways and was renouncing his life of crime and giving away the Cowl of Nocturnal – the cowl stolen from Nocturnal by the first Guildmaster. And it was all Nocturnal’s fault anyway – it was her cowl, and she cursed it with that erasing from history curse once it was stolen, and there was no other way to lift the curse but to steal the Elder Scroll so that it could be read right here in Anvil. Right, go blame a Daedric Prince for your life of crime, will you. And all this time Corvus Umbranox lived in that abandoned house over there” – the innkeep of The Count’s Arms concluded his story.

“So, what happened after that? And who lives in that house now?”

“After that… Well, this was a scandal to overshadow the Oblivion Crisis itself, and you would think there would be tales and tales of that, and yet… there isn’t anything else to tell. Count Umbranox returned to the Castle, and was seen regularly for a number of years, when he sort of faded away, but his death was never recorded. So he is still the official Count of Anvil, and his wife the Countess is still ruling the County like before.”

“But then she must be over 200 years old! How is that possible? She is not an elf!” – Hauk wasn’t so sure that story was entirely true.

“I don’t know, is the answer” – the innkeep was becoming doubtful himself. “This is what people say. May be she’s part-elf, may be she is a mage, may be she is an imposter and someone else entirely, nobody knows. The same as nobody knows what happened to the Count, or who lives in the abandoned house nowadays.”

This wasn’t going anywhere, so Lena decided on a direct approach.

“I’ll take over the investigation from here for a bit” – she told Hauk and Jowan. “You two hang back and let me do my thing. I’ll return when I have news.” And she vanished.

“She’s going through the Dark Brotherhood” – Hauk remarked.

Jowan was still staring at the empty space where Lena had been a moment ago.

“She is an assassin?”

“She is many things.”

Jowan was torn. He liked his new friends, they did not murder or rob the way bandits do, never attacking peaceful citizens or stealing anything. They liked adventure and he was so drawn to that too. But an assassin… how does murder for money go together with being a model citizen?

“Oh, she is not a model citizen” – Hauk laughed. “I am not either. Are you?”

No. He did what he did because… right… because life is not a squeaky-clean affair.

“Besides” – Hauk noticed Jowan’s turmoil – “she is not going to kill anyone on a whim. Dark Brotherhood has archives, connections, it deals in information as much as it takes lives. She is probably just going to tail that fellow for a while, then to ask around.”

…

Ten days days later Lena returned, walking into The Count’s Arms as if she’d been out shopping.

“It is Corvus Umbranox and I’ve accepted a contract on him. From his wife.”