Page 84 of Of Thieves and Shadows

Still, she is bound to catch on sooner than later, and despite all of Einar and Zaina’s research, we still don’t have a way to defeat her.

There never seems to be enough time. Not for what we’re planning. Not for me and Remy. Not for anything.

But I can’t complain, because that means there isn’t time to think about what it will mean for this to be over. That she will die with the knowledge that I have betrayed her.

Unless she kills me first.

* * *

Another few days pass before Zaina and I are back in the slums, on the roof of a cramped house in the middle of a nondescript neighborhood. It’s the nighttime hideout for some of Madame’s favoritehul gildealers.

Or rather, I am on the roof and have taken out the two men standing guard up here while she is still climbing up the trellis. When she nears the top, I stretch out a hand to help her the rest of the way over.

“I think all your time with the elderly made you slower, Zai,” I whisper, forcing a smirk to my lips.

“Perhaps I’m only tired from all the time I spent with him before we left,” she replies drily.

My eyes widen, and I resist the urge to laugh out loud.

“Was that a bedroom joke?” I ask, creeping toward the door that leads to the top floor. “I’ve never been prouder.”

She hisses what sounds like a laugh, and then all is silent again as we make our way down the steps, taking out everypusherwe come across. The layout of the building makes using any of the gasses all but impossible, so we charge right in.

It’s more complicated without the use of the Nightshade, but this feels more natural to me anyway—using my hands, my weapons, my reflexes.

I doubt, somehow, that it falls into Remy’s definition ofcareful.

But it’s certainly effective.

There are only three men left on this floor and seven more downstairs. I mentally check them off the list in my head with each kill.

Zaina drags her blade across the neck of the closestpusher, his eyes widening in shock as he slides to the ground with a thunk.

“I had him,” I whisper-shout, a star clutched firmly in my hand.

I hurl it at the man coming up the stairs behind her instead.

Eight to go.

“Sure you did,” she mouths back sarcastically, tripping the final man on our floor as he rounds the corner of the doorway.

I grab the dagger from his belt and sink it into his chest before he even registers that there are two of us.

In the months she was gone, I had nearly forgotten how seamlessly we worked together, but the memories come rushing back as we make quick work of the drug pushers.

I can’t dredge up a single ounce of guilt within me for the deaths that are so much quicker than they deserve. They won’t suffer, won’t burn alive, and I think this is as close as I come to Remy’s ideals of mercy.

The next things we hear are the thunderous sounds of boots on the stairs and the whistle of blades sliding from their sheaths. We have the upper hand, between the higher ground and bottlenecking the rest of the men in the narrow staircase.

We’re perfectly primed to finish off the final seven quickly. Then we’ll burn this place and the drugs and be home before dawn.

Until something happens that we don’t expect.

“Call The Flame back!” a deep voice shouts, and several others echo the statement.

Zaina and I both freeze.

The Flame… But I’m—

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