Teo nodded. “If we get caught and all goes to hell, try to get to Kouta anyway—we can’t risk security tightening if we end up having to wait for another day.”

“Yes. But if we can’t even get into the mansion, or if something else ruins our plan, then we’ll wait for the weekend and sneak in with their food supplies.” She hadn’t believed it when Mirran had told her that all the inhabitants of Amethyst Hill had their food delivered to them every weekend, but now that she’d seen the mansions up close, she wasn’t surprised. Still, waiting for the weekend would be pushing too close to her deadline, so that would remain a backup plan.

When the carriage rolled through and blocked the guard’s line of sight, they ran to the line of trees near the wall, and Aina hauled herself up. Kneeling, she bent to help Teo carry himself over. It was then, as she was about to jump down, that she felt a sharp tug on her foot.

She dropped down the wall, twisting out of the grip. Whoever had grabbed her blew sharply on a whistle a couple of times, then reached down to grab her again, but she twisted his arm behind his back, withdrew one of her diamond-edged daggers, and stabbed him through the back of his neck. She pulled out the dagger and he collapsed to the ground where he bled out on the grass.

His whistle had drawn over the other guard from the gate, who ran toward them now. He saw Aina first, but failed to glimpse Teo passing through the shadows along the wall.

“Oh, good sir, this guard attacked me on my nightly walk!” she gushed, making her voice as high-pitched as possible. “I slapped him in the face before he could do anything dreadful, but I surely hope he’s all right!”

The guard slowed, his eyes flicking to the guard on the ground, whose blood he probably couldn’t see because of the dark grass.

That second cost him. Teo lunged toward him from the shadows. Aina glanced across the fields that separated them and the houses ahead, her nerves rising that someone might have seen them and their plan would be ruined before it even really started. But no one was in sight. A sharp crack and an exhalation of air told her Teo had effectively broken the guard’s neck.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said, shaking her head as they hid the bodies behind a tree trunk.

“Do you think we should wait?”

What would Kohl do? she wondered.

Yes, there’d been an obstacle, but these guards were dead. They’d been too close, gotten too good of a look at her face—they couldn’t be left alive. Now, they wouldn’t be able to report descriptions of her or Teo to anyone.

By the time anyone even found the guards’ bodies, Kouta would be dead.

“Let’s keep going,” she said.

They soon reached a long sidewalk that led to the mansions. Aina wiped a bit of the guard’s blood on her scarf and swept her hair from her face. They needed to blend in for a while.