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SORCHA FLINCHED EACH time a pebble hit her window. There was a short reprieve for a while and she thought Kade had finally given up, then another stone hit the glass. She’d picked up her teacup and almost sloshed the hot liquid all over her lap. Scowling at the window, the assassin put the cup down again. She was tempted to open the drapes and flip the bird at the courier, but resisted the urge. It was best to pretend she wasn’t home and hope he would eventually go away.
It had only been one night since Kade had called her a monster and she hadn’t gotten over her hurt yet. She had no idea why he was there. “Maybe he has a few other names he wants to call me,” she muttered sullenly. Although she’d decided it was for the best for them to avoid each other, it still stung that he thought so little of her.
For the first time in a decade, she wished an assassination order would turn up. The Immortal Triumvirate had either run out of enemies, or they were busy with other matters tonight. “Come on,” she complained. “There has to be someone in the city they want me to kill.”
She picked up her teacup again and hunched her shoulders when another pebble hit her window. Her head whipped towards the door when she heard a letter slithering beneath it. She gulped down her tea, then grabbed the letter when it flew over to her. She opened it and read the message. The spell that bound her to her target settled into place. “Finally!” the sorceress said in relief.
Sorcha stood up and her empty teacup vanished as she teleported to the Shifter District. She arrived in an abandoned building near the industrial area where her target was working in a factory. First, she created an illusion that she was a shifter, then she cast a spell to keep the rain off her. Then she activated the shield that would muffle her scent and any noises she might make. It only took her a few seconds to cast the enchantments, then she headed for the huge warehouse that was a few blocks away.
When she neared the factory, the kill order became more insistent with each step she took. Her victim was a female werebear. She worked with a bunch of other shifters to make the clothes most of their kind wore. Sorcha was almost looking forward to the challenge of taking her mark down for once. Guilt that she was about to kill a woman just for speaking out against Lord Graham drowned out her gladness to be away from her home.
The sorceress should have been out searching for Sebastian, but she felt too depressed to bother. If Madam Quilla’s reading had come true, she would have been free from her masters by now. Instead, she was still tied to them and she was still trapped in her miserable life.
Self-pity dogged her steps as she reached the factory and circled around it to search for the fire escape. Standing beneath it when she found it, she muttered a curse when she saw the ladder was missing. The rain was coming down hard, muffling the sounds that were coming from inside the building. It pummeled her shield and slapped against the windows on the floors above her.
Sorcha looked around for something to stand on, but the area was devoid of any objects she could use to boost her height. She remembered creating a ledge and a bridge made of ice and hoped she could duplicate the feat. Reaching deep into herself, she dredged up the small amount of undine magic that she had access to. The sorceress mixed her other magic into it and used the rain to create a rudimentary ladder of ice. It was thin and spindly, but there were enough handholds and footholds to carry her up to the fire escape.
When she’d hauled herself up onto the metal platform, the assassin used a blast of air to shatter her ladder. Chunks of ice were sent flying as it exploded with more force than she’d intended. “Oops,” she said silently, then camouflaged herself against the brick wall when a window further along the second floor opened.
A shifter stuck her head out the window and instantly became drenched. She peered downwards, searching for whatever had made the noise. The shards of ice were already melting, but she stared at them suspiciously. When she didn’t see anyone lurking around, the werewolf drew back and slammed the window shut.
Sorcha could feel her target on the floor above her and climbed up to the next level. She kept herself camouflaged as she peeked through the window. Shifters of all kinds were crammed into the room, sewing clothes by hand. There was no electricity in Nox and there wasn’t enough magic to power machines. The women chatted as they worked. A few laughs sounded every now and then, but they all looked worn and malnourished.
Her target was fifty or so feet to the right and she wasn’t visible through the window. Sorcha ducked beneath the window and made her way to the end of the fire escape. There were five more windows along the wall. She figured the middle one would offer her the best vantage point.
The assassin climbed over the railing, then realized she would be spotted by the sharp-eyed shifters if she leaped onto the windowsill. She concentrated hard and created another bridge of ice. It was barely wide enough for her to crawl along and spanned the distance from the fire escape to the windowsill of the third window.
Her camouflage spell made the sorceress blend in with the shadows as she quickly shuffled across the bridge. She reached the third window and hunkered down. Her target sat at a table on the far side of the room. The werebear worked diligently, stabbing her needle into the fabric as if it was her mortal enemy. The rain was coming down too hard for Sorcha to be able to hear what the workers were discussing. She wondered what her mark had said to deserve being assassinated, but it didn’t really matter. Lord Graham wanted her dead and her fate had been sealed.
Sorcha harnessed her magic and bored a hole through the window, then used a sliver of air to carve a deadly wound through her target’s skull. The werebear slumped facedown on her table. Her colleagues leaped to their feet and rushed to help her. Sorcha put her hand on the melting ice bridge and shattered it with a pulse of air. She instantly began to fall, but teleported back to her apartment before she could land on the ground three stories below.
Her scent and noise muffling shield had vanished, but her illusion remained in place. She dispelled it, then entered her bathroom. She looked out through the window, but Kade was gone. A stab of disappointment hit her that he’d given up on her so quickly, but she pushed it away. “It’s for the best,” she said and ignored the wistful tone in her voice.
Too restless to sit on her divan and wait for another mission to crop up, Sorcha teleported to the Vampire District to keep watch on the house she suspected belonged to Sebastian. She hadn’t glimpsed the master vampire yet, but it was only a matter of time before she would. The assassin wanted to see the face of the man who murdered her two friends before she ended his life. It was a strange compulsion, but she was going to obey her instincts.
