They’d arrived in time to watch Kouta, flanked by his bodyguards, approach the front doors. The servants bowed them inside, holding open the doors and then closing them tightly after Kouta and his guards entered. She and Teo waited behind the fence, searching for some way to enter the building without getting caught.

Long minutes passed. Guards stood in some of the windows and at the back entrance, all of them carrying guns. Her eyes scanned the trees, windows, and rooftops, trying to find a way that could be accessible to both of them. Teo couldn’t climb along a window ledge, and she couldn’t masquerade as a guard since the only ones she’d seen here were men as big and bulky as houses. Even if they did manage to get through a window, they had no way of knowing what the security was like inside.

Just then, the carriage from Spennard Cleaning Company rolled to a stop, hidden behind a copse of trees at the end of the pathway leading to the house. Aina’s eyes widened as she stared at the name of the cleaning company, and for once, she was grateful Kohl had forced her to learn how to read.

She tapped Teo’s shoulder and pointed. A man and a woman in the cleaning company’s uniforms stepped out of the carriage, carrying buckets of cleaning supplies, and approached the front doors. They waved their identification badges at the servants, who allowed them entry after a brief glance. Aina’s eyes narrowed at the pair’s uniforms as they passed through the wide doors.

“I have an idea,” she whispered to Teo. “We’ll need fake IDs.”

Teo nodded in agreement. “Shouldn’t take more than a couple days, you think?”

“I need to introduce you to more people,” she said with a laugh. Maybe it was the fresh air, or maybe it was the sense of being one step closer to all her goals, but right now she didn’t feel the need to hide her pride. “I’ll get them tomorrow. We’ll each be twenty-five thousand kors richer within a day, and I’ll get my tradehouse.”

8

“That looks nothing like me,” Aina said, shaking her head at the forty-something woman with light, short-cropped hair smiling up at her from the black-and-white identification photo. She tossed it back on the table in front of the man selling it to her.

He merely took the cigar out of his mouth and exhaled, the spiced scent filling the room along with a cloud of smoke. They were in a cramped closet in the the back of one of the tradehouses near the warehouse district, this one masquerading as a run-down bar. The loud voices of patrons, local workers loosening up after the day’s shift, drifted to them through the wooden slats.

“Look, that’s all I’ve got on short notice,” he said, another puff of smoke hitting her in the face as he breathed out. “If you want a better one, it’ll cost you.”

She had to fight the urge to laugh. Anyone from a tradehouse could go to another tradehouse and get discounts on services, but he was trying to play her. She was used to people underestimating her until she proved them wrong, and this would be no different.