“There he is,” she whispered.

“Wait,” Ryuu said, grabbing her sleeve before she could move too far. “Do we really need his help? I don’t want too many people knowing what we’re doing.”

Yanking out of his grasp, she said, “Don’t grab me like that again unless you want me to punch you in the face. And don’t you remember our deal? I say what we’re doing. Your job is to pay for it and keep quiet. I usually stay away from people who use magic, so I don’t know where to find them. He will.”

When they caught up to him, Teo let out a sigh of relief.

“Aina, you’re all right! I’ve been going around, listening to conversations to try to pick up who’s heard about—” He saw Ryuu then, and his eyes slid between them, probably wondering why she was hauling around a young Steel and whether she was planning to barter him off somewhere.

“Teo, this is Ryuu,” she said. “Ryuu Hirai.”

Teo’s mouth fell open. A moment later, he pulled her a few feet away so Ryuu was out of earshot.

“Why the hell are you with him?” he asked. “Does he know about his brother?”

“He knows I was the one hired to kill Kouta, but I need him around for now,” she whispered. “He thinks we’re helping to find his brother, so he trusts me enough. Relax, I didn’t tell him you had anything to do with last night.”

Teo stared at her like he’d just seen cows flying. “You think I care about that? If you go down, I’m going down with you whether you like it or not, Aina. Why would you talk to him? Has that Kohl taught you nothing?”

Her face burned. “Kohl has taught me enough. Now, we need to find someone who can do a tracking spell. Can you help?”

He shook his head and cast another suspicious glance at Ryuu, who frowned at him, as if he’d just recognized Teo from last night.

“All right,” Teo said with a sigh. “But once we do, you have to tell me what’s going on.”

As they walked, veering toward the southern half of the warehouse district and the beginning of the Stacks, Aina kept her eyes peeled for any older people who might be magic practitioners. It was that feeling of when you searched for something, it was nowhere to be found, but if you stopped searching for it, it would appear. Right now, she could swear every person over the age of thirty had decided to hide inside their homes for the rest of the night.

With mud up to their boots, an early spring wind playing in their hair and mixing with the stench of the river, she, Teo, and Ryuu walked through alleys deep in the warehouse district until they reached the back entrance of a quiet storage building.

With a furtive glance around the corner to make sure no one was watching them, Teo led the way inside and to the building’s dank basement. Secret meetings and markets were often held in the basements of warehouses and factories or in the tunnels that ran beneath the city. Ryuu nearly spoke a few times, but Aina hissed at him to shut up each time. When they reached a door with the smallest of cracks near the ceiling, Teo spoke a password, then slipped a few kors through the crack. The door slid open.