“No wonder someone wants you dead.”

The portly, middle-aged man lying at my feet snored into the muddy sand that cushioned his ruddy face when he finally collapsed and lost consciousness after drinking himself into oblivion. An empty bottle of wine rested next to his outstretched hand, and the urge to use it as a weapon was strong, but I resisted. It seemed far too easy a death for a man as evil as him.

Lip curling at the stink of body odor and urine, I nudged the empty bottle with the toe of my boot. It rolled away into the heavy darkness that blanketed the shoreline toward the cavernous opening in the cliffside that led to the waterways. In the distance, warm yellow lantern light illuminated the busiest parts of Ironport City, while taverns and brothels spilled music into the cobblestone streets.

A tinkling echo drew my gaze into the darkness as the clouds parted overhead, allowing the moon to peer down at the world below. The empty bottle I’d kicked moments before rolled back into view, and with it, a familiar shadow emerged.

“What a lovely night it was before you arrived.”

Roguish in appearance, wearing head to toe black and a cocky grin, he approached as if we were crossing paths in the streets. Deceptively honeyed words flowed from his tongue, the tone of a lover, but the intentions of a demon. “My apologies. Was I interrupting? A courtship, perhaps?” He glanced at the unconscious man between us. “I suppose there’s no accounting for taste, though I do agree that corrupt down to the very core seems like it would be your type.”

I bared my teeth in a smile. “I hope you’re excluding yourself from that selection since you meet the criteria.”

With a dramatic flourish of his cloak, he bowed at the waist. “I would be honored to be rejected from your spider’s web, Lyra.”

Hearing him say my name always had a worrying effect on me, sending my heart racing at the same time that my temper sparked and my cheeks flushed crimson. I had decided long ago that this physical reaction was the result of a very specific heightened allergy to my nemesis.

“What do you want, Rook?”

I crossed my arms, but kept my hands well within reach of my daggers. With him, it was difficult to know what to expect. I knew why he was here, but I could never be sure of his authenticity, and so often resorted to testing it.

Stepping closer, Rook knelt next to the drunkard and surveyed him with subtle interest. As he answered, he checked the man’s pockets. “Oh, you know, out for a little fresh air.” He withdrew a pouch of coins from the pocket of the man, thoughtfully tested the weight in his palm, and stowed them away into his own.

“You’re not here hunting down a mark, then?”

Rook searched the other pocket but came up empty-handed. Next, he moved on to the man’s boots, replying absently, “Don’t think so.” He tugged off one boot, inspected it, frowned, and then tossed it aside.

“Oh, really? You’re not here because of a contract? For a corrupt banker with a troublesome addiction to gambling and drinking? Who steals from the poor, promising them financial assistance until they sign their homes away as collateral, and then raises the rates until they can no longer afford to pay? At which point, he kicks them out on the street. Unless, of course, they’re willing to offer favors in the form of payment. Favors from young ladies whose families cannot afford his steep demands. One Jasper Waldegrave?”

Rook straightened, eyes widening at me in feigned shock. “You’re telling me that’s him?” he asked, gesturing to the vile man on the ground. “This is Jasper Waldegrave?”

I stared blankly back at him, lips pursed, hoping my gaze properly conveyed the pure seething I was feeling at this very moment.

Rook cocked his head at the man with an unimpressed, “Huh.” Then he stuck out his foot and gave the drunk a shove. Waldegrave was dead weight. He didn’t so much as twitch as his body rolled onto his back, putting him even closer to the water. With a flop, his arm flung out into the tide, his hand now submerged, leaving disturbed sand where he’d just been lying face down in a watery pool of vomit. He must have consumed more alcohol than I’d first thought.

Both Rook and I blanched at the sight.

“Enough of the games,” I snarled. “Move.”

I made toward my target, hoping to get this over with, but Rook cut into my path. “And what makes you think you get to be the one to do it?”

“Because I was here first, and I already accepted the contract.”

I moved to dart around him, but his hand shot out, lightning fast, to grip my upper arm. Though his hold was tight, it didn’t hurt, a fact that surprised me. I wouldn’t have guessed he’d handle me with any semblance of gentleness.

“So did I, and the Boss didn’t mention anything about this job requiring two of us,” he quipped.

I rolled my eyes.

“I went to the trouble of adding a little extra… shall we say… treat to his drink. I know the serving girl at the tavern where he was drinking tonight.” He smirked deviously.

My glare was as sharp as my daggers. “Of course, you do.”

I wrenched my arm free of his grip at the same time I pressed a dagger beneath his chin. He hadn’t even noticed as I withdrew it from the sheath on my thigh. “Now, move aside. I don’t want to have to clean up after two deaths, but don’t think that will stop me.”

Just to show him how serious I was, I pressed the blade a little harder into his skin, watching as a bead of blood welled on the end. Rook lifted his hands in surrender, but the way he arched a brow felt like a challenge. I kept the dagger held between us as I stepped around him, never letting my eyes stray.

Until, that is, the sound of voices echoing from the path leading down to the beach drew my attention. Lantern light swept across the rocky bank leading out to the shore, the outline of two individuals barely visible in the dark as they came closer. I could just make out the clank of metal over the crashing of waves in the distance. Metal armor. Guards.

I must have lingered longer than I realized. Such a foolish mistake. I had memorized the guard patrols long ago.

“We have to go!” Rook hissed, voice lowered in an urgent whisper.

Fear clawed its way up my throat, making my hands tremble at my sides, but when I looked back down at Waldegrave, I couldn’t consider leaving this business unfinished. “Not before I do what I came here to do.”

“By the gods, Lyra! Leave him!”

“No!”

With a barely restrained noise of frustration, Rook looked over my shoulder to judge the distance of the guards before they would reach us. “Then… just do it. Do it now!”

The thought had already crossed my mind, but I hesitated. “And leave him here to be found with our footprints leading them right to us? We’d never escape! They’re too close.”

He raked a shaking hand through his hair, looked desperately between me and the guards, and for a moment I thought for sure he was about to run. There was no reason for him to stay, no loyalty to me. He should have run. He should have turned and fled into the night, leaving me to my fate. But he didn’t.

He lunged for Waldegrave’s body. “Then help me drag him!”

Even as I questioned his motives, I grabbed the man’s ankles while Rook lifted him by the wrists. Together, we heaved the Waldegrave’s body across the shore. The man barely grunted, his head lolling side to side with each movement. What in the kingdoms did Rook put in his drink? It must have been enough to knock out a horse.

“Where?” I grunted, straining under the weight of him.

“The alcove. There’s nowhere else to hide out here.”

The alcove.

Just beyond my visibility, behind Rook, was the large stone alcove where the waterways beneath the city let out from beneath the cliffs along the side of the beach. It was likely where he’d come from, how he’d traversed so quietly in the dark. Further into the black expanse, the waterways were a series of endless tunnels never braved by the city’s guards. Only Ironport’s criminal underworld knew its way around down there. There would be no lugging Waldegrave’s body through the narrow tunnels, but the alcove would hide us for now.

Step by agonizing step, we made our way, hefting Waldegrave’s considerable weight between us as fast as possible, which wasn’t fast at all. I could hear the guards getting closer, making the hair along my nape stand on end in anticipation. Any minute, I expected a shout when their lantern light revealed our presence.

“He’s so heavy! You’re not lifting your part!”

Rook huffed through gritted teeth. “Are you joking? I’m the one doing all the hard work!”

“Just shut up and move!”

The voices grew closer, carried by the wind, just as the clouds opened up again to spill moonlight down onto the beach. I pushed my muscles beyond the strain of exhaustion. Jasper Waldegrave would not be the evil that ended me today. I refused to let him win.

As we neared the bottom of the cliffs, my boots caught in the rocks, the sand giving way to stone and driftwood. Waldegrave seemed to grow heavier by the second, his rear dragging the ground as I tried not to let him slip from my clammy grasp.

With a final heave, we ducked into the alcove, Waldegrave’s body falling precariously onto the edge of the stone walkway built alongside the water waste flowing out to sea. Both of us panted to catch our breath as we hunkered in the shadows and peered around the edge of the makeshift wall to find the guards passing over the place where we’d been arguing moments before. They walked right over it without a second thought, without even noticing the disturbance in the sand, just as the tide rolled in to wash away any remaining evidence that we’d been there at all.

I breathed a sigh of relief, leaning back into the safety of the shadowed alcove to catch my breath and slow my racing heart. I kept checking every few seconds until the guards turned and headed back up the beach toward the path back to the city.

“Are you going to tell me now?”

Rook’s voice broke through my temporary relief. I glanced over my shoulder to find him leaning against the alcove wall. He always appeared so relaxed. I envied him even the appearance of nonchalance.

“Tell you what?”

“Why this contract meant so much to you? I’ve known you a long time, Lyra. Never known you to risk the dungeons for some gold.”

Something pricked uncomfortably in my chest to think he knew me so well.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Chin stubbornly set, I knelt by Waldegrave and began methodically stuffing rocks into his pockets.

“Avoiding the question? Must be personal then. But you owe me an answer, Lyra. I stayed behind because I knew this must be important to you. Please, don’t tell me this was some immature vendetta against the man. What did he do to you? Cheat you out of some gold in a game of cards? Curse at you on the streets? Call you a rude name?”

My blood turned to ice in my veins, my fingers stilling as I reached for another stone. Did he truly think me so callous? Whirling on him, I met Rook nose to nose, hands curled into fists at my sides.

“He’s the reason my sister is dead,” I hissed, eyes flaring with vengeance I promised I would deliver in her name. “When our father died, Waldegrave promised to help us keep our home, but he raised the rent so high we couldn’t afford it. He threw us out on the streets, even after I told him she was sick with the fever and would never survive winter in Ironport without shelter, even when I pleaded for his mercy, even when I…”

The words died on my lips, my eyes stinging.

The smugness that usually overtook his every expression was gone. In its place, only shock remained.

“The contract meant nothing. His death was set in stone the day he threw my sister out of her home.”

Rook stared down at me, the moment like some stalemate neither of us ever really wanted. The bickering was easier. This was harder than hating him could ever be.

A muffled groan interrupted the quiet we’d stolen, and we both turned just in time to see Jasper Waldegrave roll like a dream had roused him from his drugged and drunken stupor. I sensed what was about to happen before it did, my heart seizing in my chest as I tried to make myself move. I wasn’t close enough, wasn’t fast enough, but my boots didn’t leave their place as my eyes widened and I watched him fall.

His body slowly turned over and fell off the edge of the walkway into the filthy water from the sewers beneath Ironport City. He hit the surface with a tremendous splash, sank a few feet beneath the surface, and bobbed back up to sputter and moan, but he was too inebriated to save himself.

Rook and I looked on, still as statues, as he flailed clumsily. After dunking beneath the water a few times, his fighting grew weaker until there was no fight left at all. He settled on the water’s surface, mostly submerged except for his back. In an incredibly anticlimactic end, he floated out to sea with the rest of the city’s refuse.

I waited.

I waited for his death to give me the peace I’d been chasing since my sister’s death, waited for this burning need for vengeance to unfurl in my chest, to settle and fade with every breath I took.

But it didn’t.

It didn’t feel any easier now than it did when I woke earlier that morning.

A tear slid down my cheek.

Rook reached out and wiped it away with his thumb.

I let him.

“Tell me her name.”

Like a secret, I whispered, “Willa.”

Rook nodded. “We remember you, Willa.”

Without looking at each other, we watched as the sea claimed the body in the water. I quietly cried, and Rook quietly pretended not to notice, and for that one night, my enemy became my comfort.

In the morning, when my head was clear and the sunrise revealed a new day, I’d go back to hating him, and he’d go back to hating me, but for now, we had this: he and I and the sea and the moon and one less evil to worry about in the world.