Kohl Pavel’s manor stood on the banks of the Minos River that circled the city. He called it the Dom, which meant “home” in Durozvy, his parents’ native language. The Dom was a tradehouse, the name for hidden businesses like Kohl’s that traded criminal services for a price. The manor had fallen into disrepair, leftover from the times when the rich built their homes along the shore before the rumble of trains and the smell of smoke became too much for their sensitive ears and noses. Vines covered most of the wide, two-story building and its barred windows. Willow trees clustered alongside the stark white walls and narrow concrete path from the street to the oak door. It bore all the appearances of a haunted house except the monsters inside were real.

A couple of Kohl’s workers were poised on the roof, keeping watch even if she couldn’t see them. She paid attention to the ground. Odd clumps of dirt meant bombs. After crossing the yard, she disabled a pair of knives set to fly at her face from one of the trees, then slipped through the front door. Some voices sounded from above, but cold and quiet surrounded her in the first-floor hallway. It was the only home she knew.

She walked to the second floor where she shared a room with three others who worked for Kohl in exchange for pay, shelter, and protection: another killer, Tannis, who’d smuggled herself into the city on a boat from Kaiyan and who Kohl had picked to join him from the ranks of their old gang; a spy named Mazir who Kohl had found working in a gambling den checking for card sharps; and a thief, Mirran, who’d handled bank and mansion heists by herself until Kohl had brought her into his ranks. But he didn’t call them killers, spies, and thieves; they were Blades, Shadows, Foxes. His tradehouse, his titles, his rules.

A cool wind swept through the window. It was empty except one bed, where Tannis slept. Aina changed her clothes and washed away any remaining blood, then checked her straw bed by candlelight to see if anyone had put a tarantula or loaded gun inside the sheets while she was out, whether as a test or a joke. She sat and withdrew the box of coins.

One thousand kors were inside, engraved with their country, Sumerand’s, symbol: a sword and a pickaxe crossed over a slab of rock. She counted the silver fifties and gold hundreds under her breath. Counting them made her feel safer, like she’d achieved something. As long as her bank account was full, she would never starve on a street corner again.

The door slid open, and she almost jumped. Stuffing the box inside her pocket, she deadened her expression and looked up to see the Blood King, Kohl Pavel.

After six years of living under his roof, his cold gaze still injected a mix of fear and admiration into her veins. It was easy to see him as the man who’d annihilated every contender in the city so that his territory stood untouchable, who broke necks with his bare hands, who caused grown men to scamper when he marched down a half-lit street. But he was also the man who’d made a home for orphans and outcasts like her as long as they could prove useful. She wondered if he could somehow see through her jacket to the box of traitorous coins.