Stephanie had already rushed to start packing when Sergei had tossed her the coin. They were on a noble's estate near the manse, and given the vastness of the land, even if they could have been heard from the road, there was no way the guards could have pinpointed them so precisely. They hadn't even lit their lanterns, for God's sake. So then how did they manage to pick this place out?

It was a noble's estate. They would never have barged in wordlessly, destroyed property to get inside, unless their intel was absolute. This was only common sense. Thus, the thief must have screwed up somewhere. His man at the gate likely wasn't as loyal as he had imagined, or his contact at the estate was duplicitous. Given their proximity to the castle and the amount of time they were there, however, the latter seemed likely.

"Leave it to a named thief to botch a job this hard," she grunted, jumping into her wagon as Sergei lit the guards ablaze and hurrying her horse forward.

"Wizard, climb aboard from the back! Work crowd control! Vert, you and Steve ride alongside George to keep him on course! I'll man the crossbow and pick off the chasers! Move!" Stephanie commanded, grabbing her crossbow.