Finally, Bacchus emerged. He had one arm around a serving girl, who giggled as he planted a wet kiss on her lips. She playfully slapped him away before retreating into the dining room. Bacchus stood for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to follow her. He must have elected against it, because he fastened his cloak and started down the street. Kyra had expected him to be more on his guard, but he walked alone and his stride was slightly unsteady. Perhaps this meant the Guild didn’t think she was alive. Or perhaps Bacchus’s opinion of her was so low that he couldn’t be bothered to be careful.

She trailed above and behind him, keeping her footfalls soft on the wooden shingles. As he turned into more secluded alleyways, she ran ahead, silently lowering herself down to a ledge just above his height. As he came closer, she reached into her pouch, took out the cloth, and held it tightly in her fist.

Focus.

Kyra jumped the moment he passed underneath. She landed on his back. The impact knocked the breath out of her, and she scrambled to wrap her arms around his neck. Bacchus grunted and collapsed, first to his knees, and then—with a little help from Kyra—flat on his face.

Even drunk and taken by surprise, Bacchus had good reflexes. He lay stunned for a split second, and then reached for his knife. Kyra straddled the assassin and pinned his arms with her knees. She pulled his head back and flung the damp cloth over his face, drawing it tight. He rolled over and she rolled with him, clamping her legs around his waist and keeping a hold on the cloth as her back hit the pavement. As Ilona had promised, the herb mixture worked quickly. Kyra hung on for a precarious few moments, then the assassin went limp. She kept the cloth over his nose and mouth for thirty more breaths before she crawled out from under him.

A shadow moved at the entry to the alleyway, and she jumped, only to breathe a sigh of relief when she recognized Flick’s head of thick curls.

“Looks like you didn’t need reinforcements,” he said.

“He was drunk. Help me move him.”

Flick took one arm and they dragged Bacchus’s limp body out of view.

Kyra rifled through his pockets. “This one,” she said, holding up one key, “and this one.”

Flick handed her a thin piece of metal and a file. “You take one, and I’ll do the other.”

Kyra laid the key on the ground next to the blank Flick had given her. After comparing the two, she picked up her file. The first stroke of metal on metal shrieked through the quiet alley, and she cringed.

“It’s all right,” said Flick. “It’s not as loud as you think.”

She just hoped the people on the other side of the walls were asleep.