curved blades at her belt. The steel was discolored, damp with venom. But the Shahiid’s face was already bleeding pale, her footsteps tottering. She sagged back against the desk, eyes wide with fear. Blood pumped rhythmically from Spiderkiller’s sundered throat, covered her hands, her dress, the gold wrapped around her fingers and neck. So much.
Too much.
“I thought long and hard about how to end you, Spiderkiller,” Mia said. “I thought it might be poetic to finish each Shahiid with their own mastery. Steel for Solis. Poison for you. In the end I decided you’re just too dangerous to fuck about with. But I wanted you to know I killed you first because I respected you most. I thought you might draw some solace from that, neh?”
Spiderkiller toppled forward onto the stone, her eyes cold and lifeless.
“No,” Mia sighed. “On second thought, I don’t suppose you would.”
Mouser heard a door slam somewhere out in his Hall.
He looked up from the needletrap he was loading, a frown on his handsome brow. His workshop was hidden behind one of the many doors in the Hall of Pockets, a quiet place where he puzzled with locks or played at dress-up. He was wearing women’s underthings beneath his robes now, as it happened—he’d always found them more comfortable, truth be told.
Mouser rose from his desk, took up his walking stick, and limped out into his Hall. The walls were lined with dozens of other doors, leading off into his wardrobes or storerooms, or sometimes nowhere at all. Long tables ran the room’s length, littered with curios and oddities, padlocks and picks. Blue stained-glass light puddled upon the granite floor, reflected in the dark eyes of the girl waiting for him.
“Mia…,” he said, belly running cold.
“You helped take my familia away from me, Mouser,” she said. “And years later, you actually had the stomach to look me in the eye. To offer me counsel. To pretend like you were my friend. Where do stones like that come from, I wonder?”
Mouser’s hand drifted to the Ashkahi blacksteel blade he always wore at his waist.
“Blacksteel can cut through gravebone, you realize.”
“It’s a fine sword, Shahiid,” the girl agreed. “Did you win or steal it?”
As ever, Mouser’s smile loitered on his lips like it was planning on pinching the silverware. “A little bit of both.”
Mia smiled too. “Best not to risk it, then.”
He wasn’t sure where the crossbow came from—one moment the girl’s hands were empty, the next, she was drawing a bead on his chest. But even with his crippled legs, the Mouser could still move quick as cats, and as Mia fired, he let go his walking stick, grasped his sword, and drew it forth with a crisp ring, sidestepping the bolt speeding toward his chest.
Or at least, that’s how it played out in his head.
But as Mouser made to step aside, he found his boots affixed firmly to the floor. Too late, he brought up the blade to ward off the blow, but the bolt struck home, punching through his gray robes, the corset beneath, and into the chest beyond.
A bubble of blood popped on his lips as he stared stupidly at the fourteen inches of wood and steel now lodged in his left lung. He looked up as Mia reloaded, grunted as a second bolt thudded into his chest, wobbling him on his trapped feet and finally toppling him backward onto the stone. He hurled a fistful of throwing knives as he fell, but the girl was gone, Stepping into the shadows and reappearing a few feet to his left.
She brought her boot down on his hand as he reached for another blade, leveling the reloaded crossbow at his crotch.
“Say farewell to your stones, little mouse.”
Solis opened his eyes to the sound of the choir.
Rising from his bed, the Revered Father washed his face, blinked his blinded eyes. And just as he did every morn, he picked up a wooden sword and ran himself through his practice drills. After thirty minutes, his body was dripping with sweat and he was breathing hard. Smiling at the song of his blade in the air.
Satisfied, he slipped on his robe, his scabbard. Pale eyes open and seeing nothing at all. And yet, seeing everything and more.
Imperator Scaeva and the Lady of Blades would be arriving shortly, and he knew he’d best get himself presentable. Stalking down long, dark hallways, he nodded to the Hand outside the bathhouse door, stepped silently into the empty room. Unbuckling his belt, he