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The moonlight from above illuminated her face, her pale skin and eyes. Her hair was shorn short as it always had been, even back in their days at the Academy, when they had been classmates and not partners in crime. Back before Shan had recruited her to her cause. It had been a good choice, one of Shan’s earliest successes. Delia Alessi was driven and clever, and she could go far. But she was the daughter of an Unblooded woman and a no-name Blood Worker, with little power of her own. Everything that Alessi had, she had fought for.

And Shan respected her for it.

“You came, Sparrow,” Alessi said, a lit cigarette dangling from her lip, her excuse for being up here on the roof. Nothing suspicious, just another young woman indulging in a simple, addictive vice.

“Of course, Alessi,” Shan replied. “I received your note.”

“You don’t always check it,” Alessi shot back. “Not fast enough.”

Shan kept herself from inclining her head. Whatever point Alessi might have, it wouldn’t do to show weakness before her. Perhaps there should be a way for Alessi to contact her directly—unlike most of her birds, Alessi already knew her identity anyway. But that was neither here nor there. “What did you find?”

Alessi rolled her eyes, dissatisfied. But she answered anyway. “A rumor come alive. A young man with a gift to bend others to his will through words alone.” Alessi slipped her a piece of paper—notes copied in Alessi’s hand—and Shan snatched it up.

“I had started to believe he was just a rumor,” Shan said as she scanned the words. The explanation—the murder, the man, the strange power he seemed to wield over a Blood Worker. Alessi herself. And best of all, a name and an address. It was more than she had ever gotten before.

“Aren’t all rumors born in a kernel of truth?” Alessi asked, parroting the words Shan had drilled into her birds. Nothing was too small for their notice. A single offhand comment could be the key to tying the whole story together.

But stories such as this? They were almost too good to be true.

“I’ll investigate it personally,” Shan said, and Alessi nodded. “Did you report this?”

“Only to you,” Alessi replied. “Well, aside from the parts that were relevant to the investigation. But that power? No.” She tossed the butt of the cigarette over the edge of the building and turned away. “Until next time.”

Shan nodded, then bit into her lip again and leapt off the edge of the roof into the night.

Shan sped through the night once she reached the ground. She ripped off her mask, slipping into the crowd and blending into the masses as she moved closer to the docks. She couldn’t wait—not on a lead like this. Not when he had slipped through her fingers so many times before.

Her breath came easier as the crowd around her changed, as she became less other and more home. This was the Dameral she loved. The Dameral she belonged in. The one she wanted to save. Where people of all cultures and backgrounds mixed and mingled. A blend of languages crashed over her, words that she had no hope of recognizing flowing over her as conversations melded together, some soft, some sibilant, some guttural, all flowing to their own music. The smells from people’s windows floated through the air, sharp flavors that made her mouth water—rich and spicy on her tongue.

Despite the vast cultures they came from, there was something familiar about it. Though their skin ranged from the palest white to the darkest black, though they spoke different languages and came from different traditions, they all brought something here from their pasts.

And Shan ached for that level of connection, that level of comfort. The community that her father had stolen from her when he had made it so their mother could not bear to live in the home that never welcomed her.

She knew that she didn’t belong here, not truly. That she had been born to privilege and wealth and power that the people could never achieve, not under the current system. And all because of the magic in her veins.

She had to fix it, even if it took her whole life. Even if she damned herself in the process. It was the only way she could live with herself.

But to do that she needed this man. It was the only way she could make this fool plan work—if she tore down the King with nothing to replace him, it wouldn’t just be the system that burned. It would be the whole nation.

But with the right puppet? Well, it certainly changed things.

When she found herself standing outside the address that Alessi had given her, she looked up at the dilapidated building with a frown. It was several stories high, and it was clear that no one had cared for it in decades. It was a heartbeat away from being condemned, the lower windows boarded over, the walls washed out and faded, and Shan swore she could hear it creak in the breeze.

And it wasn’t even a strong wind.

It was practically squalor, the worst of Dameral’s slums. It was hard to imagine the long lost Aberforth, heir to their legacy, living here. Especially with the power he was rumored to have. If he could bend people to his will, if he could have whatever he wanted, why would he choose to live like this?

Her stomach twisted in sudden fear. The sheer breadth of rumors was one thing, but the facts weren’t adding up. What if they were wrong? What if this was just some boy with no ties to the King? What if his power wasn’t real? Just a simple mistake born of fear and superstition? What if he had nothing to offer her?

Shan swallowed her anxiety—she knew nothing concrete at this point, and there was only one way to find out. If he wasn’t who she was looking for, she still knew how to handle him. She’d turn him into one of her birds or she’d make sure there wasn’t a problem. She had plenty of knives to spare.

It would be a shame, but she had done it before. She’d do it as many times as she needed to if it kept her plan safe.

She entered the building, preparing to lay a trap. To strip this young man bare and learn the secrets from his very blood. Before this night was through, she’d have her answers—and if she was lucky, a new ally as well.

Chapter Six

Samuel