She shrank into the nearest alley and pulled up her scarf to shield her face, ignoring the coppery scent of dried blood on it. She imagined eyes on her in all directions. Bautix’s words had spread like fire through the crowd, provoking daydreams of buying boats and houses and jewels among workers who could barely afford to eat multiple times per day.

The drawing Bautix had held up resembled her with frightening accuracy. With a slight grimace on her lips and a cold determination in her eyes, the drawing had seemed to almost be in motion. The only person who had gotten a good enough look at her last night was Ryuu Hirai himself. She was a fool to have left him alive. Kohl would scold her for it later.

The Sentinel might have a drawing of her, but if she lay low, maybe dyed or cut her hair, she would be fine. This would blow over eventually.

The longer she thought about it, the more confident she grew. Her nerves from all the things that had gone wrong last night seeped away and left her with an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, like a balloon that had been filled to bursting.

“I did it,” she whispered to herself in the alley.

She’d beaten Kohl’s final test. No longer was she just a Blade doing his bidding. A girl who’d nearly frozen on the street years ago had become one of the city’s most dangerous criminals. She would never fear becoming a street child again because she herself would rule the streets. Everyone in the Stacks would respect her too much to come after her. And Kohl would start to see her differently now, she was sure of it.

She wanted to tell herself not to let the excitement get to her, to be aware that it could all change in a minute, that retaliation could come from any corner … but for once, she chose to be proud of herself.

11

Sticking to narrow side streets, she made her way toward Teo’s apartment. She avoided eye contact with everyone, keeping a dagger in her sleeve to reassure herself she was far from helpless even with a price on her head. She was on her own now, but she still had Kohl’s protection and everything he’d ever taught her, plus her own grit, to protect herself.

One long day of training three years ago, Aina had grown even more determined to do anything she could to survive, anything to prove herself against the people who would see her dead. She hadn’t known that the next night, Kohl would tell her who her first kill would be.

She’d been shooting targets behind the Dom for an hour before Kohl said to stop. Instantly, she’d begun to lower the pistol, her face coated with sweat despite the cold winter air. They’d had targets lined up on the Minos River shore for her to shoot at, and most were fallen, but she was shaking as if she’d been in a real life-or-death fight. Every time she held a gun in her own hands, all she saw was her parents collapsing to the floor. The memory never left, no matter how hard she’d tried to push it away.