He'd expected the plan to be more complicated, but it was very straightforward. Well, mostly. The part about the underwater cave with an air bubble inside of it was a bit hard to believe at first. But Elaya hadn't seemed to be joking when she'd told him about it, and oddly, he believed her.

Otherwise, it seemed fairly simple. The night of the ship's arrival, a group of thieves would swim to the back of the ship and climb up onto the deck using a grappling hook with rope. The first one to climb up would use blow darts to knock out any guards and crew that might be awake. Then they would repeat this however many times they needed to get inside the hold of the ship, where the money was supposed to be stored. Then they would carry as much as they could outside in backpacks and dive to the underwater cave where they would hide the money until it was safe to transport it outside of the city.

The reason they needed more people for this was that not only it would make fighting the people protecting the money easier, but also because they couldn't go back to get more silver, so the more people there were, the more they could carry. The crew would most likely notice something was going on, and they would sound whatever alarms they had, alerting the guards who were always present in the harbor.

It didn't sound easy, but it sounded doable. As long as they were quick and quiet, they could take a relatively large number of coins back from the dragons. And frankly, Rhenor would rather throw it all in the ocean than for it to end in the dragons' pockets.

From the detailed plans of the ship, the various fail-safes in case something went wrong, and even just the fact that someone from this organization of thieves knew enough about alchemy to brew a potion strong enough to debilitate the guards and crew with blow darts, Rhenor could tell that this had been in the works many months ahead of time.

He would have loved to meet their leader since, according to Elaya, this woman was the one to put all of this together, and clearly much more than that. She had gone by Nova before her capture and most likely execution. Though surely the dragons would want to make that public, wouldn't they? And nothing like that had supposedly happened.

Nevertheless, something about this rubbed Rhenor the wrong way. Elaya had told him that the reason this hideout hadn't been discovered was that each member only knew about one or two of the hideouts, so even if they wanted to betray them, they wouldn't know about everything. Except for the leader, who had to know everything.

So with this logic, assuming it wasn't Nova who had betrayed them, which Rhenor doubted, it must have been more than one person. And with how thought through everything here seemed, and how long they had supposedly been able to keep everything secret, Rhenor had a hard time believing that the city guard would find and apprehend so many members. So how many traitors were there?

There had also been the concern that those traitors had also shared the plans to steal the silver, and that the whole mission would now be a trap, but Elaya had assured him that only Nova had known the full plan, with the rest only knowing bits and pieces, and that they only found all of the plans and documents by turning this place over, searching for anything related to the heist.

"How long can you hold your breath under water?" Elaya asked as she peered down at the map of the ship. It looked like any other ship, but it seemed to have metal plating to give the hull extra protection.

Rhenor shrugged. He wasn't sure since he hadn't exactly had much of a chance to test that ability and possibly train, living a lot of his adult life in the mountains with the only body of water near him a river that would most likely kill him if he tried swimming in it due to its temperature and speed.

But he was sure he could do this. Swimming to the cave to hide the coins would be the least of their worries, he was sure. The biggest problem, in his opinion, would be to sneak back on board to leave the way they had come after they were done collecting the money.

"We'll test that in a few hours, then, when I show you the cave." Elaya raised an eyebrow, looking at him. "Or right now, if you feel up to it, but I assume you want a few hours of rest."

Of course, doing this in broad daylight was probably not the best idea. At best it would be incredibly suspicious, given that there will be lots of people at the harbor. But he also wouldn't mind getting some sleep. He didn't feel too tired, but he felt emotionally exhausted, especially after what he'd heard Kaz say.

Kaz had mostly been staying in the back of the room, looking both hurt and angry as he glared down at his boots through this whole plan explanation. Rhenor knew he was listening to it all, but he hadn't tried to protest, which Rhen was glad for. He didn't want to fight with him, and he was still angry with him enough to make the fight much more personal than it needed to be.

But now Kaz stepped forward, leaning onto the table with his hands, a resolute expression on his face. "I'll go as well."

Rhenor's instinct immediately told him to make Kaz reconsider it. To gently explain to him that he wasn't experienced in sneaking and subterfuge, much less a heist like this, and leave out the implication that Kaz might even hinder them. But right now, Rhenor really wanted to say it like it was.

He held his tongue, though. Hurting Kaz wasn't going to make Rhenor feel any better. It might for a moment, but he would regret it right after.

"No offense meant, Kaz," Elaya said as she grasped her friend's shoulder, "but can you even swim? I don't think I've ever seen you do it."

Kaz huffed, folding his arms as he avoided looking at either of them. "Yes, of course, I can swim. I just...don't like water very much."

That wasn't exactly a convincing argument. In fact, it sounded like Kaz was lying, but Rhenor knew what he usually sounded like when he did that, and this didn't seem to be it. Though what did Rhenor know. Kaz had apparently been hiding very interesting opinions about him, and Rhen had had no idea.

"She means that you'll slow us down." The words left a bitter taste in Rhenor's mouth, and guilt stirred within him when he saw the hurt look Kaz was giving him. But he wouldn't take it back. It was a very matter-of-fact way of saying what they were both thinking.

"Well, that's not exactly what I was trying to say, but...." Elaya cleared her throat, patting Kaz's back.

"But you agree with Rhen," Kaz finished for her, sighing. He gave a small nod, hugging himself, which made him look much smaller than he actually was.

"Sorry, Kaz. It will be safer for everyone if you wait it out here," Elaya said, obviously having a hard time with this. And so was Rhenor. Kaz looked resigned to not being allowed to help now. There was no sadness or anger on his face anymore, and there was this empty look in his eyes. It was awful to see.

"Of course," Kaz finally said, turning away and walking out of the room with his head down.

Elaya sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "You didn't have to be so direct about it."

On the inside, Rhenor winced, but on the outside, he just put on a neutral mask. Kaz would get over it. He was smart enough to realize that this was the only way, anyway.

Rhenor did his best to ignore the fact that Kaz had most likely tried to join them simply out of desperation to protect them rather than an actual desire to help because that thought just made him sick.

"He'll live."

Elaya frowned at him. "Are you usually like this with him?"

Rhenor frowned back. What was that supposed to mean? He shook his head in annoyance. He didn't want to talk about this. And clearly neither did Elaya because she then waved her hand.

"Nevermind. But we'll talk after this is over," Elaya said, raising her index finger almost threateningly. Rhenor sighed. He wanted to argue with her, but he didn't have the mental strength for it.

"Get some rest. I'll wake you up when it's time to go," Elaya continued. "We do have a few extra bedrolls here, now that...." She grimaced and cleared her throat.

He had been hoping for a proper bed tonight, but now that he'd heard everything he had, he didn't care much anymore. And a bedroll sounded much nicer than what his sleeping conditions had been while traveling. Elaya disappeared inside the storage room for a second before coming back with the aforementioned bedroll.

Rhenor took it with a nod of thanks, deciding to just lie down in the corner. If he didn't have to, he didn't want to be in the same room as Kaz. He would never fall asleep then. Though he knew he would have trouble with it anyway.

He rolled out the slightly padded blanket that served as a mattress and lied down on it, throwing his cloak over himself. The basement was warmer than he would have expected, but it was still fairly cold, so he certainly needed the cloak.

He stared at the wall for a moment, his eyes trailing over the off-white, uneven bricks it was made of as he actively tried to think of nothing. And yet, what Kaz had said to Elaya still repeated itself in his mind.

It did make him angry, but now that the initial outrage had fizzled out, it was starting to make less and less sense to him. Why would Kaz be so worried about being with him? Rhen had never heard of wealthy human families being prejudiced against this sort of thing, and he didn't think Kaz deep down cared about such things. He certainly hadn't seemed shallow.

Perhaps things had changed, and marrying into a family like this, even for a former member of one, was a problem.

Rhenor almost scoffed. Kaz was in the other room, adamant that they couldn't be together because of reasons Rhenor didn't at all understand and wouldn't even know about without eavesdropping, and here Rhen was, thinking about marriage.

Ridiculous.

Rhenor closed his eyes, determined to sleep. Elaya was right. They could talk about all of this after tomorrow. Assuming they would still be alive then, but if not then there would be no reason to talk about his and Kaz's relationship, anymore.

And even though he didn't think they'd fail, he was glad Kaz wouldn't take part. He could make it out there on his own. He had when he'd traveled to Arlow, after all. Kaz could just travel to another village and meet someone else.

Rhen sighed in irritation as his heart clenched. Definitely not a good thought to mull over in his head while trying to fall asleep.

After a few minutes of ignoring everything that wanted to distract him and keep him awake, he finally thankfully managed to drift off. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.