had come from above, so I had a hostile on the second floor.
I punched through the window, the glass crashing and spreading down the stairs. I cleared out the rest of the shards with a bleeding hand, hissing from the stinging sensations. It didn’t matter.
Pulling myself all the way in, I reached the stairs and bolted up them. Kalon jumped through and joined me, moving like a shadow. I heard a scream somewhere below—a Nalorean woman with a tea tray. We’d scared her, but that didn’t matter, either.
We made it onto the second floor, as I followed the foreign scent into one of the rooms. A Rimian in a black hood was by the window, reloading a brass tube-like contraption with another poison dart. He’d shot the one that had nearly caught me between buildings. He saw me and raised his dart-weapon, but I got to him in a split second and punched him in the side of the head so hard and fast, it knocked his lights out.
“Whoa!” Kalon exclaimed, almost laughing. “You are one savage little vampire.”
“Who are you calling little?” I returned, and took the dart-weapon away from the unconscious Rimian. Kalon grabbed it and pointed it out another window that overlooked the alley from which we’d just escaped. He pressed the small trigger below it, and I heard someone cry out in the distance. He’d hit one of the other attackers.
We stared at each other for a minute, listening to the sounds outside and below. Boots thudded on the floor and on the ground. Hushed whispers. Doors opening and slamming shut. Windows breaking. But no more darts being fired. Something had changed.
“They’re leaving in quite a rush,” Kalon said, his breathing ragged.
The Nalorean woman we’d scared earlier finally found us upstairs, and she was terrified, shaking like a leaf as she held up a broom. “You’re trespassing! Get out or I’ll call the silver guards!” she screamed, her full cheeks red, her lips quivering.
“I’m Lord Visentis, and you will do no such thing!” Kalon shot back, standing tall and menacing in front of the open window.
Whoever had tried to take us down was already gone, from this house and the others—except, of course, for the Rimian I’d sucker-punched into oblivion. The Nalorean woman was just as surprised to see him as we were, though.
“What… Milord… What is going on here?” she asked, unable to regain her composure.
“We’re not sure,” Kalon replied. “But I assure you we mean no harm.”
“You broke my window.” She huffed, gradually calming herself down with deep breaths, leaning against the doorframe, broom still in her hand.
I pointed at the unconscious Rimian. “Do you know him?”
“No! I don’t know what he’s doing here!” she said.
“Then, if I were you, I’d be less worried about the window I broke, and more worried about how this guy made it all the way up here in what I assume is your house. He was trying to hurt us,” I replied.
As if suddenly conked on the head with a magical bat of clarity and common sense, the Nalorean woman exhaled sharply, her pale blue eyes bulging with realization. “He snuck in. He must’ve snuck in. I didn’t hear a thing… What’s that ruckus outside?”
Voices emerged through the open window. I got up and joined Kalon in front of it, to find dozens of confused Naloreans coming out of their homes, their doors wide open and some of their windows broken. Darts were scattered all over the alley, though none had hit their target. Whoever had attacked us had snuck into these people’s homes, and they’d rushed out as soon as we’d taken this Rimian guy down.
That told me a few things about their capabilities. I had a feeling we were dealing with the Red Threads. Rimians didn’t stand a chance against us in direct combat, which was why they’d chosen to fire their poisonous darts at us. I rushed back to the unconscious Rimian and searched his pockets, wondering if—there it was!
I took out a red leather thread, knotted on both ends, and showed it to Kalon. “I think we found the Red Threads.”
Kalon looked a little pale as he gawked at the thread between my fingers. “Oh, good. The day has not been wasted yet. I would’ve preferred different circumstances, of course, but I’ll take what we can get.”
“We can’t take him back to the palace,” I said. “If there are Darklings who have infiltrated the gold guards, he’ll be dead before we get anything out