Yagrin ran a finger along the blade and sucked in a deep breath. He hated this part. The scent of dumpster trash wafted under his nose, and he pulled his coat tighter around himself. He stuck his head out between the bauble shop and pastry bar where he was lurking.
“Memento sumptus,” he chanted to himself as if that would slay what felt like eels wriggling in his stomach. His gaze sifted between the traffic.
And there she was.
A pink striped beanie sat tucked tight on her head, curly locks blowing beneath. She wore slender jeans and a bright green sweater with kimono sleeves. His nerves lodged in his throat. His foot wouldn’t stop tapping.
But his fingers tightened on the dagger in his pocket.
It was a nimble weapon, its opulent metalwork sculpted to fit the curve of his palm. His fingertip moistened. He rubbed the blood on the lining of his pants, waiting for Pink Beanie to pass so he could blur into the crowd behind her. He would be patient. Careful. That’s why he’d put off doing the job for weeks. To be stealthy. The House name, after all. He had to keep up the House name.
First he’d have to get her alone. Isolated.
You’re not a killer, Yagrin, the voice inside his head argued, but he tamed it with recitations written on his heart. Secretum. Pink Beanie was a direct threat to their way of life, whether she knew it or not. And for it, she must die.
She strode by. He tidied himself in the window across the way before hopping out of the shadowed alley of the bustling retail district to stay on her tail. Her hat bobbed through the crowd; her face pressed to a phone. He couldn’t quite make out her expression, but she strode slow and easy, greeting each person she passed who made eye contact.
His fingers twitched as he replayed his plan over in his head. The magicked dagger would be cleaner. Quieter. He pulled out a round coin, flipping it in the air. Tails. Give me tails, dammit. He shouldn’t be superstitious; superstition was pretend magic, and he didn’t need to pretend. He had the real thing. The coin glimmered in the sunlight and landed on heads in his palm.
“Rats,” he muttered. Whatever his endeavors were for the day would be favorable.
If it weren’t him, it’d be one of his Dragun brothers, he told himself. His insides sloshed. He clenched the coin in his hand. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he stepped aside at an intersection to let a dog walker with a collection of tangled leashes swish by. Pink Beanie stopped for a coffee, and he let her, careful to stay out of sight.
While she folded over a chair, sipping a cappuccino, he tapped his phone, standing a little taller as if this moment of mercy somehow made it better. Made him better. Redeemable for this life that had chosen him. She liked it with cinnamon and extra whipped cream. She loved it cooled all the way down, too.
His finger hovered over “Mother” in his phone, not the one who bore him, the one he was sworn to. He gulped, tapping, and it rang. He tapped again, hanging up, knowing what she would say. Duty is the honor of the willing.
He scanned the area for witnesses, gazing over the crowds in and out of shops. A pair of lovers sat with arms pretzeled around one another sharing a muffin. A curly-haired girl with freckles on her face sat at a bus stop, tugging at a key chain.
He felt a chill sweep through him. Today did not feel like a day for killing.
A little girl waddling by faced off against a triple scoop of ice cream about as tall as she. It toppled in her fingers, and he reached to steady her hand. She smiled at him in thanks, and his lips split in a smile. But he wiped it from his face. He didn’t deserve the joy it brought him.
He gulped, clenching his fist. The more he did it, the easier it would get. But he’d never found any of it easy. Not when he accepted the task. Not when he was inducted into the Order. It was pretending that got him through it then. He’d done the motions, worn the silk-lined tux, donned the mask, held the dagger, pressed it into his heart. Bold he might not be. But clever. Always clever.
The cracking of dagger against bone had been something he’d perfected. Tricking the ears, transfiguring the form and notes as sound moved in the air came easily to him. Making Mother and the rest of them think he’d stabbed himself was simple. If it made the sound and looked as it should, it would appear he’d completed Third Rite. No one needed to know he was truly a coward.
But pretending wouldn’t work today. He had to kill the girl.
And then another, and another. It was beyond time he got used to the gig. He searched for the pink beanie, but found her table empty, except for her mug. His heart leapt in his chest as his eyes skimmed the crowd, brimming with conversations. Briefcases swished between legs.
“She was just here,” he said to himself.
Loitering near a rim of hedges on the café’s patio, he smelled her before he saw her. Vanilla and cinnamon, a garden of jasmine. A tiny hill of whipped cream on her lip.
“Sorry, I was just . . .” She switched up her feet, trying to get by. Her eyes were deep ebony and yet somehow as bright as the sun.
“No, excuse me, sorry.”
“Have we—?” She smiled, tucking a hair behind her ear. “You look familiar,” she said, finally working her way past him.
He walked in stride with her, hand tucked in his pocket, firmly gripping the metal.
“Oh?” He smiled. “I mean . . . I’d like to believe we’ve met . . . or that we were supposed to.”
She blushed and it tugged at him in ways it shouldn’t. But this was a job, so he stuck to the plan: Earn her trust. They walked, and he hung on her words, dotting in responses with smiles and head nods. She talked a million miles a minute, warming up quickly. He dropped details he knew she liked . . . like teacup puppies, cable-knit sweaters, anything apple flavored. Each deepened the creases around her eyes.
“It’s like kismet,” she said.
“Must be.” He felt sick. “If you have a moment?”
“For?”
He shoved down his quivering gut and let the monster he was bred to become take over. “There’s this really quaint café off the beaten trail, that way, with the best beignets you’ve ever had.” He pointed toward an alleyway nearby, past the crowds, past the noise. “Should we maybe grab a bite?”
She hesitated, checking her phone. Put her at ease, Yagrin. He forced his lips into a kind smile, making sure he showed his teeth, pushing his cheeks up so creases hugged his eyes.
“They’re really delicious.”
Her lips pursed in consideration. The twinkle in her eye shifted from curiosity to anxious excitement. “Okay, for a moment. Sure.”
He led her away from the bustling crowds of lunch patrons and down an alleyway, laser focused. “It’s just down here.”
She nodded. The deeper they walked, the more the shade shifted into shadows.
“Is it much farther?” she asked, hugging herself.
He could hear her heart pumping faster. “Just a little farther. Down this way.”
She craned to see. Yagrin felt the familiar grainy heat blustering through him: his magic, warming up. He’d grown to hate the feeling. But now it burned him with the courage he lacked, reminding him of who he was. Twelfth of his blood, magic was strong in him like his father and grandfather before him. Twelve generations of his family, all Draguns. He took a breath and let muscle memory take over, like he’d learned in training. Then he opened his hand, drawing on an icy chill in the air. He held still, the cold clawing its way into his palm, up through his arms. He tingled all over with magic, turned into himself, and disappeared into a cloud of black.
She gasped.
He saw his House sigil on the back of his eyelids and gulped down the dregs of his regret. He pressed into her. She screamed. He tightened from his center, grabbing hold of the Sun Dust coursing through his veins, and plucked invisible threads from the air. Her shrieks of terror turned to laughter, his warm magic bewitching the sounds, note by note. It seemed somehow sweeter that way. He closed his eyes, imagining her smile, the way she smelled.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered to her, limp in his arms. And he was.
But duty was the death of freedom.
