“Is this your side job?” she asked, gesturing at the theater. He rolled his eyes and led the way.

As they walked, the crowds grew rowdier. Nighttime revelers were on their way to whatever entertainment they could find: bars that never closed, burlesque theaters and brothels that catered to every taste, the casinos sucking in addicts every day. Music blared on street corners, mixing with loud, drunken shouts that kept her senses sharp and eyes peeled.

Soon, they reached a garden-lined street of Rose Court lit by purple and silver lights from the window of a shoe shop. Between a bakery and a silk clothier across the road, a curving bridge led to Amethyst Hill.

The Tower of Steel loomed to their left as they walked, a black monolith against the starlit sky. The streets became dirt, and trees soon surrounded them. She was always uneasy when walking through forests, since the concrete and stone of Kosín were much more familiar to her than grass and tree roots. She had to watch her step carefully to avoid tripping. Teo, on the other hand, had no such problem with the terrain. His parents had been falcon riders in the steppes of Linash, using giant falcons to hunt and to spot gold in the terrain. They’d taught him how to navigate nature. He stepped with a limber gait over fallen branches and twisted roots, his hands touching cypress trunks like they were extensions of his arms.

The plan was simple. This far from the city, the guards never saw any action, so they wouldn’t expect her and Teo until it was too late and Kouta’s maids were screaming for help. It would be done in less than an hour, and she hoped no more blood would be shed than was necessary. The goal was to take out the mark as quickly and efficiently as possible, not to cause a massacre in a city that already leaked blood from the gutters.

Yet if someone stood in her way, it was her job to take care of them, and she would.

They soon reached the gate and waited for a carriage to arrive. If they could have sneaked onto the cleaning company’s carriage, they wouldn’t have had to risk being seen climbing over the gate. But they’d had to come up with a plan fast, and they would be more easily caught as frauds if they entered the company or boarded the carriage with other employees. Besides, they didn’t know when the carriages were set to leave each day, and there hadn’t been enough time to figure it out.

As they waited, Aina touched the hilts of her knives. Even if she lost all her knives or couldn’t reach one, she had poison darts in a pouch at her waist that would paralyze a target within a minute. Kohl’s lessons rang in her head: A good assassin always has a backup plan.

“Remember, we only kill if someone gets a good look at us. We incapacitate otherwise, unless they’re trying to kill us. Try to only attack guards, not servants. Do you remember the backup plan?”