She went looking for trouble.
Her cuts hadn’t healed from the brawl in the tavern, but Lila didn’t care. She wondered if she could find the woman with the black braid, and finish what they’d started. She’d been a good enough opponent. Plenty of knives. What was her name?
Bex.
“Bex, Bex, Bex,” Lila mused aloud, as if she could be summoned. No Bex appeared, but that was fine—she’d had the look of a hired hand, and Lila knew where to go looking for those.
The shal.
The sun had gone down as she walked, and perhaps it was the thinning light behind her, or just a gut sense that she was going in the wrong direction, but Lila noticed how dark the sky was getting.
Her boots dragged to a stop. She scanned the horizon opposite the sun, and the faint light of emerging stars, and realized—
There was no moon rising.
No smudge of white, or hangnail sliver. The image on the coin’s edge came back to her. Full moon. Or moonless.
Lila checked her watch. It was early, just after nine, but she had nowhere else to go. She turned to the nearest wall, fist clenching, nails biting into the cut she’d made to heal the girl. Pain lanced through her palm as the cut reopened. She touched the blood, and drew the mark on the stone—a vertical line and two small crosses—before splaying her hand flat against the mark.
“As Tascen.”
The city dropped away, and shuddered back into shape a moment later, her hand pressed to a different wall, on a different street, the same mark humming faintly beneath her skin. Lila pushed off the wall, and turned to face the house at 6 Helarin Way, prepared to wait all night if she had to.
It turned out, she wouldn’t have to wait at all.
The house, which had been dark that morning, and the night before, had already undergone a transformation. Carriages now lined the street out front, and lanterns dripped from every window, and the grim smile of the gate had broken wide.
And Lila knew exactly what it was.
A pleasure garden. Just like Tanis had told her.
Clusters of men and women strode up the walk. A few were dressed as if attending a royal ball, and Lila briefly considered relieving someone of their fine clothes, the better to blend in, but decided against it when she saw others dressed more plainly.
She crossed the street, slowing as a pair of gentlemen stepped down out of a nearby carriage. One wore a velvet, high-collared coat, the other, a black vest over a tunic, but both spoke with the clear tones of ostra.
“… called the Veil,” said the one in velvet. “It changes venue every time. Took me a month to track it down, but I’ve heard it’s worth the work.”
“How did you find out where it would be?” asked the vest.
“It’s a secret,” said the velvet.
“Pretty crowded secret,” said the vest.
And he was right.
When Lila first found the message on the coin, she had imagined a far more clandestine arrangement, held in the hidden chambers of a darkened house, far away from prying ears and searching eyes. After all, the Hand had been at work for months, and never been caught.
But the best crime was the one you pulled off in plain sight.
Lila had no doubt that half the guests streaming into this place were simply patrons of the pleasure garden. They were providing perfect cover for the rest.
She fell in step behind the men, trailed them toward the door, which hung open ahead, though any glimpse of the house beyond was concealed behind a curtain. A host stood waiting to greet each guest as they arrived. He was dressed head to toe in white: a fitted suit beneath a pale, pearl cloak. Over his face, he wore a golden mask.
If the host noticed that Lila was dressed in men’s clothes—and underdressed at that, her tunic and trousers smudged beneath her coat, the remains of dust and blood from the tavern brawl, though she had buttoned the coat to hide the worst—he made no comment. And if his smile faltered, thanks to the mask there was no way to tell.
“Welcome to the Veil,” said the host, extending a gloved hand. “Do you have an invitation?”
Lila’s fingers twitched toward her nearest knife, a habit whenever the choice was either lie, or fight, but instead she reached into her pocket and produced the coin she’d discovered in the tavern. She checked its edge with the pad of her thumb to ensure it was the right one, then dropped the altered lin into the host’s waiting hand. For a moment, he simply stared down at it, as if surprised to see it there. Then his gloved fingers closed over the coin.
“There will be a toast,” he said, “in the library. At the appointed time.”