She slit the throat of the first Thalmor guard while his friend was busy pouring himself a drink on the other side of the room. The second guard had no way of knowing their conversation was as dead as his bleeding partner, and he turned to listen to what the deadman had to say only to be met with a dagger to the back.

Edna did not blink as she twisted the blade, placing one hand over the mer's mouth to muffle the sound of him choking on his own blood, and laid the body soundlessly on the ground once the life faded out of his eyes. She wiped her hands —suddenly so warm and sticky and red— on the man's armour and rose nimbly to her feet.

She crossed the room, stepping over the bodies; she avoided stepping into the blood as she did— 'messy, you'd make it easy for pursuers to track you, that's not how we operate, sister', dark eyes staring from a darkened room, daggers clashing and the smell of fresh blood—, and tried not to think too hard about how it had been a reflex, rather than a conscious decision on her part to do so.

Edna stuck to the shadows from there, for the most part, adding only a few more kills to her name before she found herself in the ambassador's office, and in possession of several Thalmor dossiers.

As she started making her way towards the dungeon, she knew enough from the conversations she'd overheard and from the stories she'd heard and read about the Thalmor to have an idea about what to expect. The Thalmor were not known for their gentle persuasion skills nor for their mercy, and she was not surprised by the torture going on under their embassy. She threaded lightly and made use of all her stealth as she examined the room, and found a place to hide between two cells as she heard the sound of footsteps going down the stairs.

She recognised the Altmer mage that soon made his appearance as the man she'd pickpocketed the key to the interrogation chamber from earlier, Rulindil. By his side, there was another Thalmor guard, but Edna was far more interested in the mage. If memory served, he was one of the more important Thalmor serving under Elenwen, which immediately made Edna tense.

She could hear the man in the cell nearest to her start to beg for mercy as the Altmer approached, and it confirmed the Dragonborn's suspicion that that this was the prisoner who the Thalmor thought had valuable information— and valuable information which might interest the Blades as well, if this Blade the Thalmor were after was who the Nord woman suspected the old man to be.

"No...for pity's sake...I've already told you everything..." The prisoner begged, and as the sound of something hitting flesh resounded in the room, Edna did nothing.

Rulindil was a dangerous opponent, as Thalmor mages often were, and he was not alone, yet Edna knew she could take them in a fight if she had too. She had the element of surprise and the Voice at her disposal. She could stop them.

Still, she did nothing, not until Rulindil had managed to get all the information out of his prisoner first, after which she did not hesitate to Shout the two mer to the other side of the room, and kill them in cold blood.

Edna Grey-Fur was not a good person.

It had taken her a while, but she had come to accept that. A good person did not walk over still-warm corpses without a backwards glance. A good person did not let an innocent man be tortured just because she thought the information he was giving his torturer might be useful. A good person did not—

She freed the prisoner, but could not make herself to look him in the eyes even as she undid the locks to his manacles.

Edna was a killer first. She was a good killer. She was strong and quick and resourceful, and, as she'd been told not too long before: one needn't worry about being a good person if all she needed to be to save the world was a good killer.

So, she kept busy. She did what she was good at.

When she heard Malborn's voice coming from upstairs, and realised that he'd been outed as a spy in the time it took her to navigate the embassy, she killed the two Thalmor guards that were planning on cutting him down. Warm blood splashed against the left side of her face and some got into her mouth, but she didn't blink. From the corner of her eye, she saw Malborn flinch away at the sight of the carnage, or maybe at the sight of her, but Edna forced her heartbeat to remain steady and turned to face him with a calm drilled into her by Astrid herself over the course of a very long winter.

"I suppose I took too long." She said, a statement, not a question. The Bosmer swallowed visibly, unsettled by her voice or her tone, or maybe still not over the sight of two decapitated men. Edna might have gone a bit overboard after she grabbed hold of one of the guard's sword. No fault of her own, really; one could say all they wanted about the Altmer, but their craftsmanship was lovely, and it would have been a shame not to use such a fine weapon. "Come on, we've been too loud, and I fear more Thalmor might be joining us soon as a result."

Her warning snapped the Bosmer out of his daze, and his lips curled immediately into a frown. "None of this would have happened if you'd have just hurried. Or if you've avoided that Nord at the reception." Malborn claimed, as they climbed down the stairs. "He was probably the one to call the alarm."

For no apparent reason, Edna felt the need to protest. "I knocked him out before I moved to infiltrate the embassy." She dismissed his presumption. "He's probably just now waking up."

Malborn's frown turned into a subtle sneer. "You could have just as well killed him." He said, making Edna pause and look at him. "What do you mean?" She demanded, causing the Bosmer to lift a brow. His expression seemed to imply the answer was obvious, and for some reason Edna did not like where this was going.

"If he's still in that supply room, the Thalmor will find his soon enough, and I think we both know what will happen then." Edna could make an educated guess, and the possibilities made an uneasy feeling grow in her stomach. Still, Malborn was not done speaking. "The will throw him in the dungeons. There were probably enough people that noticed the two of you interact, and that's assuming that there were no people that saw him follow you away from the party. They'll probably assume he was working with you either way. It doesn't help that he's a Nord, either."

Edna felt that unease grow, but told herself she had nothing to feel guilty about.

As she stooped down to unlock the secret hatch in the floor that would get them out of the damned place, though, Edna found herself hesitating.

Gods. Fucking. Damn. It.

She didn't owe him anything. She was nothing but an assassin, and a failed one at that, and she'd never asked for any of this. It wasn't her fault that he'd followed her to the kitchens.

She wasn't a good person. She didn't need to be, either. Asgeir had said so himself.

Still, she found herself handing the key to Malborn. "Go." She said, the words escaping her reluctantly. "There's something else I need to do."

The Bosmer looked at her as if she were crazy, and Edna couldn't fault him for it. "Don't be stupid!" He hissed. "We need to go."

Edna shook her head and tried to not pay too much attention at the terrified face of the prisoner from earlier. "Just go. Both of you. Here, take my daggers." She handed a thin blade to the still unnamed man, and saw him relax just a fraction. "If it's a choice between using them or running, I say you run. Malborn can probably help you get to safety."

As an afterthought, she grabbed the papers Delphine had asked for from her pack and handed it to the elf as well. "Make sure they get to the old woman, yeah?"

The Bosmer in question opened and closed his mouth like a fish, and Edna waved an impatient hand in his face. "I'm going. Leave the door unlocked for when I need to get out of here, and good luck."

…

…

…

Asgeir awoke to the sound of angry shouting and a horrible headache. He brought one hand to his temple and paused when he touched something wet.

There was blood on his fingers when he brought them down to see what that was about, and all that had transpired before he'd been knocked unconscious suddenly came back to him. With it, the rage too came back, with all the subtlety of a charging giant.

He couldn't even blame Maven; the woman had no way of knowing the Dragonborn would attend the party when she sent him to the Embassy in her place. He swore to strangle that blasted assassin the next time they met, for hitting him so hard, if nothing else.

"That wench!" The man hissed under his breath, trying to figure out what else was going on.

"Quiet!" A voice suddenly roared, and Asgeir couldn't help wincing in pain. The earlier voices died down, and Asgeir blinked away the blurriness around his vision and tried to focus on the golden figure that seemed to have spoken last.

The sight of the Thalmor Ambassador herself was not what he'd been expecting, and he found himself swallowing thickly.

"Hello, traitor." Elenwen said, cold and deadly, and Asgeir cursed softly under his breath.