Her message delivered, Kyra went back to the window and waited, straining her ears for any sound from within—hard to do because the street noise below was louder. She thought she heard a faint knock—not loud enough to be someone at Ashley’s door, though it could have been Rollan’s men knocking on the building’s main entrance. She risked another peek inside and saw Ashley pause in his work and inch his way toward the door. He held a dagger in his hand. Kyra drew her own blade but stayed put. Her orders were to wait by this window in case he tried to escape.
The door to Ashley’s room crashed open and Rollan’s men rushed in. The clashing of blades scraped Kyra’s ears. A man screamed in pain, and Ashley pushed past the Red Shields out the door as Rollan yelled a command to follow him. Kyra squinted through the crack, trying to see who’d been hurt, but there was too much going on. She jostled the latch. When it wouldn’t budge, she stepped back and aimed a kick at the window. The flimsy shutters gave way, and she swung herself into the room.
It was empty. The door was flung open. A Red Shield named Daly sat in the corridor outside while his comrade, a skinny young Red Shield named Fitz, bound a bandage around his thigh. Judging from the amount of blood, the wound looked deep.
“He needs a healer,” said Fitz as Kyra came closer. Kyra crouched next to them, relieved that the injured man hadn’t been Tristam, then feeling guilty for thinking it. Together, she and Fitz helped Daly to his feet. They had just started hobbling toward the staircase when Tristam and Rollan came running back up.
Rollan shook his head when Kyra caught his eye. “Gone. He went out a trapdoor.”
Kyra sagged under Daly’s weight. All that time tracking the assassin down, and he was out of reach again.
Rollan’s brows knitted together as he took in Daly’s condition, and he motioned for Tristam to take Kyra’s place. “Back to the Palace. Everyone.”
Rollan made the decision to continue hiding their livery as they helped Daly back to the Palace. There was no need to broadcast weakness on the Palace’s part. The party did get its share of curious looks as it marched, but nobody stopped the group, and nobody asked any questions. Rollan dismissed Kyra when they reached the Palace gate.
“We’ll have to consult with Malikel about the next step,” the knight said. “But he’ll be busy entertaining the Edlan and Parna delegations for the next week. He may not be ready to deal with the Guild until after they’re gone.”
As the others entered the Palace, Kyra gratefully headed back home. Idalee was probably cooking dinner by now, and Kyra wanted to be in a place where she didn’t have to hide her frustration. The merchant sector was starting to empty out for the evening. A wide avenue lined with shops had only a handful of people walking through. Kyra had just turned down a smaller street toward home when a wire looped around her neck.
A garrote.
Kyra almost didn’t react in time. Another moment of hesitation, and the noose would have closed. As it was, she fell back into her attacker and managed to snake her arm between the wire and her neck so the metal dug into the wool of her tunic instead of the exposed skin of her throat. She ducked and grabbed the knife from her boot with her free hand, twisting around so her blade touched her opponent’s stomach just as his grazed her throat.
Bacchus, James’s second in command, wore a frightening grin as their eyes met. His wire was still tight around her arm, and his knife held steady at her neck. But he didn’t press his attack.
“You’ve gotten quicker,” he said. There was no trace of fear in his expression. Now that James was imprisoned, he was probably the highest-ranking man in the Assassins Guild. Kyra wondered what the Guild had been doing under his leadership.
“Put your blade away, Bacchus. It’d be a pity if we both died tonight,” said Kyra. While Bacchus looked calm enough to have been taking an evening walk, every muscle in Kyra’s body was taut. Her arm was going numb.
He snorted. “Why don’t you withdraw yours?”