“Not that. You haven’t heard? Kouta isn’t dead. He survived.”

“What?” The word rang hollow in her ears. “No, he didn’t.”

Teo shook his head, a growing dread in his eyes. “Maybe the Sentinel hasn’t heard yet, but news is getting around on the streets, so it’s only a matter of time. This morning I went to the black market to ask around for jobs, and I heard people talking about it.”

Her mouth went dry. Images flashed through her mind, uncertain and weak. Kouta Hirai falling off the chair, red blood dripping onto cedar wood, the distinctive slice of skin and arteries under her trusted dagger. That very dagger seemed to pulse under her clothes, warning that she’d messed up.

She should have known not to be too proud of herself.

“Kohl.” She suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

In his office, his hands holding hers; words of praise and promises of glory; Mazir’s glass-like eyes staring up at her, asking why she hadn’t yelled out or done anything to stop Kohl from killing him.

Aina held a hand to her forehead and took a few deep breaths. This was the first time she’d ever messed up on a kill, but she knew that wouldn’t matter to Kohl. Her future slipped out of her grasp like smoke from rusted steel mills.

“He can’t be alive,” she whispered. Before Teo could do more than call her name, she ran, the sun blinding her as she raced toward the Dom.

12

Her feet slammed across the pavement, propelling her past the bone-white apartments and toward the line of shops and bars that led south toward the Stacks. Pigeons darted out of the way and a girl sweeping outside a storefront yelped when Aina nearly crashed into her.

Whispers sounded from everywhere, words like Hirai and assassin and one hundred thousand kors, boiling a new energy through the city’s veins with the price on her head. If she reached the Dom before Kohl learned of Kouta’s survival, he might give her a second chance. Running in the opposite direction would only mean her death. She fled through two narrow streets choked with pedestrians and down a back road. Entrances flicked past her vision, growing blurrier the faster she ran. But as she sprinted past an alley, something yanked her roughly inside.

She barely got her hands to her knives when she was slammed into a wall, the back of her head banging off it so hard, she bit her tongue and her vision blackened briefly.

Kohl Pavel stood in front of her, one hand gripping her arm so tightly, it went numb.

She tried to twist out of his grasp, but his fist collided into the side of her head with a hard thunk. Her legs almost gave out, but she managed to stay upright. Her head spun, everything blurred and dizzying, so she couldn’t tell if he was moving toward her again or if he’d stopped in place.

Survival instincts kicked in. She jumped out of the way and grabbed the knives from her boots.