The morning air tasted like a burnt match and regret. I was out back with a bucket of water, trying to scrub the soot off the stone steps before Oren saw the full extent of the midnight “festivities.” The Sky Wrath had left a scorch mark that looked like a giant, electrified handprint on the cobblestones.

  “Eymire!”

  I jumped, nearly dropping the bucket. Oren was standing in the doorway, his eyes narrowed, staring past me at the blackened alley. He looked like he’d aged five years overnight, which for him meant he looked like a slightly more frustrated raisin.

  “The hell happened back there?” he barked, gesturing to the char-broiled street. “It looks like a dragon had a stroke in my backyard.”

  I wiped my hands on my trousers, my brain scrambling for a lie that wouldn't get me evicted. “I don't know, honestly. I think it was a bunch of those Upper City college kids. You know the ones—too much coin, too little supervision. They were out here with some illegal pyrotechnics or something. Probably a graduation party gone wrong.”

  Oren stared at me. I gave him my best ‘I’m just as confused as you are’ face. It’s a face I’ve practiced in many a broken mirror back in the Warrens.

  Suddenly, Oren’s face went dead serious. The grumbling stopped. The irritation vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp focus. I thought,

  “Listen, Eymire,” he said, his voice unusually quiet. “Whatever you’re hiding, hide it better. Because today, we aren’t dealing with street rats or tailor-shop gossip. We’re making a house visit.”

  I blinked. “A house visit? To who?”

  “The Duchess Malakor,” he said, and I felt the temperature in the room drop ten degrees. “She’s the kind of woman who can have your entire lineage erased from the census if you breathe in the wrong key. We’re delivering her seasonal wardrobe. I don’t have time to train you on court etiquette or how to bow without looking like you’re trying to headbutt a table. Just follow my lead, keep your mouth shut, and for the love of all that is holy, don’t touch anything that looks like it costs more than your life.”

  “So… everything?” I muttered.

  “Precisely.”

  The Malakor Estate was less of a ‘house’ and more of a ‘fortified statement of wealth.’ It sat on the edge of the Heights, draped in ivy that probably cost more per leaf than I made in a year as a mover. The guards at the gate looked at my boots like they were biological hazards, but one look at Oren’s seal and they let us through.

  The interior was worse. It was all marble, gold leaf, and silence—the kind of silence that’s so thick you feel like you’re drowning in it.

  We were led into a drawing room that smelled of lavender and expensive judgment. Sitting in a high-backed chair was Duchess Malakor.

  she was breathtakingly, terrifyingly beautiful. She sat in a high-backed velvet chair, her posture so perfect it looked painful. A cascade of liquid gold hair fell over her shoulders, shimmering with a metallic luster that made her look more like a celestial being than a woman. She had a striking hourglass figure that even the heavy silk of her midnight-blue gown couldn't hide—a silhouette that belonged on the ceiling of a cathedral, or perhaps on the prow of a warship.

  She didn't look like a person; she looked like a statue carved out of ice and dressed in midnight-blue silk. Her eyes were sharp enough to shave with, and the way she held her tea cup made it look like a weapon of war.

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  “Oren,” she said, her voice a low, commanding rasp. “You’re late. Three minutes.”

  “My apologies, Grace,” Oren said, bowing so low I thought his spine might snap. “The traffic near the lower gates was… unpredictable.”, look at this bastred, I laughed internally of course

  She turned her gaze to me. I felt like a bug pinned to a board. I didn't bow—I just sort of did a weird, awkward nod that probably made me look like I had a neck cramp.

  “And this… creature?” she asked, looking at me with pure, unadulterated disdain.

  ‘creature’ hmmm I was called worse

  “My new assistant, Grace. He’s… sturdy,” Oren managed.

  For the next twenty minutes, I stood there like a decorative coat rack while Oren displayed the garments. I tried to stay still, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not by the Duchess—her eyes were on the silk—but from somewhere else. High up, near the mezzanine, I caught a flicker of something in the shadows. A flash of golden hair, the silhouette of someone tall and slender peeking through the banisters. She vanished the moment I looked, like a ghost that realized it’d been spotted.

  The ‘small problem’ happened when the Duchess went to show Oren a specific brocade she wanted matched. She walked over to a massive, ornate oak cabinet—a masterpiece of mechanical engineering with dozens of tiny drawers and hidden latches. She pressed a sequence of buttons, but instead of the satisfying of a hidden compartment opening, there was a sickening, metallic .

  The Duchess froze. Her face went from ‘ice’ to ‘blizzard.’

  “Stuck,” she hissed. “Again. I’ve had three master locksmiths and a clockmaker look at this. It contains the Malakor seal. If it doesn't open…”

  She didn't finish the sentence, but the implication was clear: someone was going to be executed, or at least very thoroughly sued.

  Oren stepped back, sweating. He knew fabric, not ancient mechanical locks.

  I looked at the cabinet. Back in the Undercity, we had a lot of things that got ‘stuck.’ Usually, it was because the foundation of the building had shifted three inches to the left after a rainstorm, or because someone had jammed a copper bit into the gears.

  “It’s not the lock,” I said.

  The room went silent. Oren looked like he wanted to swallow his own tongue. The Duchess turned to me, her eyes narrowing into deadly slits. “What did you say, boy?”

  “The lock is fine,” I said, stepping forward before Oren could tackle me. “The cabinet is leaning. The floor under this wing is marble-on-wood, and the humidity from the garden outside has warped the left leg’s base. You’re trying to turn a key in a keyhole that’s being squeezed by three hundred pounds of oak.”

  The Duchess stared at me. “And your solution, master architect?”

  “Don't need an architect. Just need a shim.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small, flat piece of cedar I’d picked up in Oren’s shop. I knelt down, jammed it under the front-left corner of the cabinet, and gave the side of the wood a sharp, rhythmic tap with the heel of my palm—the kind of ‘mover’s knock’ you use to settle a heavy crate.

  The hidden drawer popped open like it had been waiting for permission.

  I stood up and stepped back, tucking my hands into my pockets. “Gravity is a bastard, Grace. Doesn't care how much gold you put on top of it.”

  The Duchess looked at the open drawer, then back at me. For a second, I thought she was going to have me whipped for touching her furniture. Instead, she gave a single, stiff nod.

  “Oren,” she said, her voice slightly less icy. “Your ‘sturdy’ assistant has a functional brain. A rare trait in the Heights. See that he’s fed.”

  We walked out of the estate five minutes later. Oren didn't say a word until we were past the gates and back on the main road.

  “You’re an idiot,” he muttered, but he wasn't yelling. He actually sounded… impressed? “You could have been thrown in the dungeon for talking to her like that.”

  “Yeah, but the cabinet is open, isn't it?” I adjusted my scarf, feeling the weight of the silver necklace Soren had given me through my shirt.

  “She gave me a fifteen percent bonus on the commission,” Oren grumbled, shaking his head. “Don't let it go to your head. You’re still a gutter-rat with no manners.”

  “True,” I said, looking back at the high windows of the estate. I thought I saw that flash of golden hair again, a quiet observer in a house of loud power. “But at least I’m a gutter-rat with a functioning brain.”

  I thought.

  I sighed, my boots clicking against the expensive cobblestones. Rent-free was starting to feel like a very expensive lifestyle.