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For Brian—

they’re all for you

Chapter One

COOL SHADOWS WASH overme I could revel in the darkness—happily lie under the stars and let the night air unravel ht on rest or fleeting pleasure These are the hours of spies and thieves They’re my hours

I slide two hairpins into the lock, s of a viola This is a song I’ve rehearsed a thousand times, a hymn I’ve played in ers, to shadows and caods Better to steal than to starve

Frogs sing in the distance, and their chorus nearly covers the satisfying click of the lock releasing The servant door into Creighton Gorst’s s open

Gorst has business elsewhere tonight I s for any sign of hiuards on duty, but a few—like Gorst—are so paranoid that they don’t even trust those in their inner circle to be unaccoht like this for months

I pad down the stone stairwell into the cellar The temperature drops with each step, but my skin is flushed from adrenaline and the climb over his property walls, and I welcome the chill that skates across my skin

At the base of the stairs, a glowstone sensesthe floor I disable it with a gash ofthe room in a darkness so complete that I can hardly make out my own hand in front ofin the dark, anyway

Following the walls around the periphery of the cellar with my hands, I reach the cool steel of the vault door I blindly exaertips—three locks, but none too complex They yield to my blade and pins In less than five minutes I have the door open and can already feel relief loosening my muscles We’ll make this month’s payment Madame Vivias won’t be able to enforce more penalties this time

My sht of the symbols etched on the threshold That quickly, the rush from my success ebbs