Turning the corner, she ran up a staircase at the end of the next darkened hall. Sweat dripped down her neck. A clock seemed to tick in her head, counting down the time until she either found Kouta or was caught in the effort.

She edged around a landing and peered upward to see guards and servants gathered around the banister ringing the next floor’s landing. Servants stood at either end, maneuvering iron chains wrapped around pulleys. Something metallic screeched. From a crack in the ceiling, a steel gate slid down to seal off the staircase to the upper levels. She couldn’t slip under—the guards would shoot her on the spot. She could try to run to another staircase, but those might be getting blocked off too, and she was running out of time. Kouta would be evacuated if she failed to reach him soon.

A vent in the wall with a bronze grate caught her eye. She waited for the steel gate to fully drop, closing off the upper landing and set of stairs ahead of her. But this vent … if it led to the other side, into the inner halls of the building beyond the gate … maybe she could get in that way.

After pulling out the nails holding down the grate with a dagger, it fell to the floor. She cringed at how loud it was, then slid inside before anyone could come to investigate the noise. It was narrow, but she had enough room to pull herself along by the elbows.

The darkness of the vent closed in around her. Pinpricks of light were in the distance, but still far away. Her breaths grew shallow; her throat closed up. She searched the dark corners of the vent as if expecting a giant spider to crawl out and devour her, or for something to grab her and pull her into the depths of the shadows. She hated the dark, but her jobs often required that she used it for cover when she had to. When she still slept on Kosín’s streets, she’d had to sleep in the dark, but often kept her eyes open at night, unable to truly relax. If she couldn’t be brave in the darkness when she had to with her jobs, she’d end up on the streets again. The thought chilled her for a moment, sending doubt through her at lightning speed.

Everything was going wrong. They’d been seen and had left bodies everywhere, some alive, some not so lucky. If Kohl were watching right now, he’d call her the biggest idiot alive. She swallowed hard, trying to shove down the sense of incompetence that rose up, but it clawed at her.

She crawled until she reached another grate. Cool air hit her from beyond, but she couldn’t see much out of the tiny holes in the grate. Instead, she pulled out her dagger again and tugged out the nails. This grate fell to the ground two stories below.

The vent had led outside rather than farther in. She was staring at the gardens, Kalaan and Isar’s moons shining down on her, illuminating the copper skin of her hands where she rested them on the edge of the vent. Taking a moment to breathe in the quiet night and let the light of the red and silver moons wash over her face, she glanced left and right.