A small part of her wished she had refused this job. Right now, Elodie Petalcrest was hosting her grand ball, and while Tessa Skylar had no love for dresses or dances, especially in a world void of boys, she hated missing out on potential drama. Things in the city had been tense lately. Ruby Reddington, from the Attack Force, was missing; sightings of Zombies beyond the wall were becoming more common; and a nasty rumour was circulating that the Snowdrifts had arrested Aziza Tanzanight. This level of chaos, however, made Tessa smile. It sure beats a dull life. She despised the mundane, and that contempt was the only reason she’d taken this job from a desperate-looking Folly Mossbrook: to crack the Tanzanight family safe.
What truly intrigued Tessa was its location. Not in the city bank like the others, but, as her network of informers whispered, all the way out in the desolate eastern mines. Sneaking onto the train had been easy, and a crudely drawn map of the underground passages was now tucked in her pocket. She was working alone by necessity. Her apprentice, Willa, had been arrested during a simple test—the poor girl couldn't even steal bread. Nyxie was another possibility, but after a recent score with Jada, she had enough funds to last, and Nyxie, unlike Tessa, only worked when she needed the coin. As for the sisters in the Noble Families, involving one when the target was another felt like too great a risk of it all getting back to her.
So here she was, alone. The mines were eerily quiet, a stark contrast to the lively ball she imagined. She had to be quick; the train wouldn't wait forever. Her only comfort was that she wasn't the sole person missing the party. Tane, the train’s stoic conductor, would continue her route even if no one was onboard. Her spies promised that Tane took a forty-minute nap at this stop. That was her window. Maybe she could still make the afterparty at Hilda's Tavern. The thought of Petalcrests in a place like that made her giggle. No, Elodie and her sisters would be in bed long before the real fun began.
Tessa navigated the tunnels until she reached her destination: Chiara’s lab. The door was locked but picking it was easy. As she slipped inside, she saw she wasn’t alone. Her informers had insisted Mindy, the sisterless employee of the Tanzanights, had the day off. I need better informers, she thought, watching the girl sleeping soundly in a chair. Mindy must have been exhausted—a full day in the mines followed by an all-night guard shift. The Tanzanights complained of being oppressed by the other nobles, yet they were the greatest oppressors to the sisterless. Or maybe I'm just clearing my conscience again, Tessa mused, well aware of her habit of justifying her crimes. With a final glance at the sleeping girl, she turned her attention to the prize.
She knelt before the safe as if paying respects to a fallen king. It was an old Reliance, a formidable black cube of riveted steel with an ornate, oversized dial. The beam from the headlamp clipped to her beanie cut a sharp circle in the gloom. With the deliberate calm of a surgeon, she pulled her beanie down, tucking away a stray strand of light blue hair, and laid out her tools on a small leather roll: a modified stethoscope and a nub of chalk. Pressing the cold bell of the stethoscope to the safe's door, she closed her eyes. Her world contracted to the sound of silence, waiting for the tumblers within to tell her their secrets.
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Her first move was to wipe the slate clean, turning the dial four full rotations clockwise. The smooth, oily whirrrrr in her ear was the only sound in the room. Then, the true work began. She reversed direction, her touch so light the dial seemed to move of its own accord. She wasn't listening for a click, but for a whisper, the faintest change in friction as the drive cam kissed the first wheel's gate. There… a subtle tick. She stopped, chalking a neat mark at 82. The process repeated, counter-clockwise now, past 82 once and then into the hunt. She ignored a faint click, a false gate, a trap for amateurs, and kept turning until a deeper, more final clunk told her the second wheel was home at 24. The last number was always the faintest. She held her breath, her focus absolute, as the dial crept clockwise again. A soft, solid thump vibrated through the steel and into her bones, the sound of victory, of the fence dropping perfectly into the aligned gates. 51.
A small, confident smile touched her lips as she removed the stethoscope. The hard part was over. She deliberately entered the sequence—right to 82, left past it to 24, right to 51—the dial stopping with a satisfying finality. Gripping the heavy, ornate handle, she braced her feet and pulled.
Nothing. The handle didn't budge, not even a millimeter.
Confusion flashed across her face, a cold wave of doubt. She had heard the fence drop; the combination was correct. She tried again, grunting with effort, but the door remained as solid as the wall it was set in. Frustrated, her gloved fingers abandoned their surgical delicacy and flew across the door's surface, searching for an answer. That's when she saw it. She hadn’t paid it any attention before, but it had to be the reason. A religious seal, giving off a faint yellow shimmer as if mocking her, was set just below the handle. Was this the work of Zalika Tanzanight, the Archbishop? Her informers had sworn Zalika had no true spiritual power, yet this seal blocked her path.
Time was running out. Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out a tiny contraption housing a single drop of green liquid—her payment from Jada Vicinage. An explosive, just powerful enough to shatter whatever holy protection the safe held. She secured it below the seal, then paused. Her gaze fell on Mindy, still fast asleep. Detonating the charge would injure her severely, but Tessa was too small to carry her out of the lab. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She pulled out a dagger she barely knew how to use and stalked over to the chair.
“Wake up, sunshine.”
Mindy’s eyes fluttered open, confused. Tessa made sure the dagger caught the light from her headlamp, and the girl’s confusion turned to terror. Pressing a coin into Mindy’s hand, Tessa whispered urgently, “Get out. Run. Now.”
Mindy accepted the bribe and darted out of the room. Tessa followed her into the tunnel and, once clear, triggered the explosion. The sound was deafening, certainly loud enough to wake Tane. With a terrified Mindy running for the train, it would depart any second, leaving Tessa to face the long walk back through the desert and its horrors. Annoyance flared through her. Mindy had seen her face. Whatever was in this safe had better be worth it, or Folly Mossbrook was going to have a serious problem with the Skylars.
