Don’t Miss
Don’t Miss
SERAPHAE
The man was handsome enough. Green eyes that crinkled when he smiled. Hands that knew what they were doing. He knew what the arrangement meant, and he didn’t ask to see me again. He did, unfortunately, ask to stay for breakfast.
I showed him the door with my dagger.
There was a subtle flutter in my stomach as I spent the day packing. The dresses first. A vast collection I was unreasonably proud of, like a stylish criminal. If I were going to ruin lives professionally for a living, I was going to at least look good doing it.
Balance was important.
My apartment was insignificant on purpose.
No art on the wall. No plants. There was nothing to be nostalgic about.
It was a place meant for sleeping between jobs rather than a home.
It was a single bedroom. There was a window in the living room that faced the tavern across the street, where the sounds of patrons coming and going never stopped.
I never bothered with curtains that matched or a rug that fit properly.
That was going to change.
I was going to live somewhere I would actually turn into a home. I would get a job, eventually. Something honest that funded the shopping, the wine, and the general habit of existing.
Maybe I'd get some chickens. They provided eggs and could serve as an excellent alarm system. I'd never had a pet, but a chicken could probably count as one.
I had nearly finished packing when I heard it.
A creak from the window.
My dagger was already in my hand before I turned.
Xander dropped into the room and straightened.
I lowered the blade.
The first thing I noticed was that he looked…wrong. Xander always looked effortless, which was its own kind of effort. Now he looked as if someone had taken that performance and put a crack in it. His shirt sleeve was torn. A cut along his jaw that hadn't been cleaned.
“What happened?” I asked carefully.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he crossed to the table and poured himself a glass of wine. His hands were steady, which was worse than shaking would have been. Because it meant he'd already processed it and accepted the situation.
“The target was fae,” he said without looking at me.
My lungs seized.
The Obsidian Hand rarely took contracts on fae targets, while other syndicates did. Not only was killing fae a political mess no one wanted to be a part of, it was risky.
“They look just like us. I didn't know until it was too late.” He drank. “Speed like that—I should've known. He got clear before I could finish it.”
I had no words. There was nothing to say that wouldn't sound like what it was.
“He got away,” Xander said, in case I'd missed it. “Clean.” He set the glass down and looked at me. “Marr's pier is still warm, Sera.”
Panic clawed at my chest. I crossed the room, stopping just before him.
“Run,” the word came out before I thought it through. “Right now. I have a passage booked. I have coin. We take what I have and go south, go anywhere, just—“
“There's no running from the syndicate.” His voice was even. “You know that.”
I knew that.
Xander would have the same end as Marr did.
“An extension,” I said. “A week, say there were complications, say—“
“They won't give it.”
“You don't know that.”
He wore the look that said he had already come to the same conclusion I was refusing to acknowledge, long before he came through my window.
This couldn't be how it ended.
I spun toward the door and reached for my cloak. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Let me talk to Maven.”
“And say what exactly?”
“I don't know yet.” I tied the cloak on. “I’m out now. Maybe if I just—“
“Just what.”
I thought of the day we first met. When we were both standing in front of Maven, wearing scraps of cloth, dirty and starving for more than just a meal. We bled and fought until we were worthy to be called assassins, and we had done so together.
Now he was standing in my apartment, already given up. I had just gotten free for the first time in ten years, and I couldn't—
“Stay here,” I told him. “Don't open the door for anyone.”
He watched me go without arguing.
That was how I knew he was scared.
The Black Gull was slower during the day.
I went straight down and opened the door to Maven's office without knocking.
The musky scent of her perfume hung thick in the air, but there was a distinct metallic smell beneath it. Not blood, something else I couldn’t name. The cold in the room raised goosebumps across my skin, though I was sure they had been there before I even walked in.
Maven was still here, in her chair behind the desk.
She was always in her office. I wasn't sure if she had ever left.
She had the kind of face that didn't ask for attention and got it anyway. High cheekbones. A mouth shaped for better uses than smiling. Her eyes were the problem. They were cool in a way that had nothing to do with color. One that measured a room and everyone in it.
Those eyes looked up when I came in. She seemed surprised.
“Xander missed,” I said.
“I know.”
“He needs time. An extension. A week, even—“
“No.”
Final. As if she'd already decided before I walked in.
“Maven—“
“Policy exists because exceptions end organizations,” she said, impassive. “I told you this when you were fourteen. I told Xander the same. You both understood it.” She picked up a document and looked down at it. “Understanding it doesn't make it easier. It isn't supposed to.”
I stood there, numb.
Xander and I had once stood where I was currently standing. Looking at Maven as she told us the single rule that we must never forget. Right before she had given us each the name of our first target.
I remembered what Xander had said to me that day.
Don’t miss, Sera. I’ll never forgive you.
My contract was over. I owed her nothing. I could walk back upstairs and through the door and down to the harbor onto a ship. She would not follow.
“What would it take?” I blurted.
Maven looked up at me.
“To clear him.” I straightened. “Name it.”
She was quiet as she considered me. Her expression shifted as if she already knew what she was going to say but was deciding whether to say it.
“There is a job,” she said finally.
“I'll take it.”
“You haven't heard it.”
“I'll take it.”
Something moved behind her eyes that I couldn't read. It came close to concern, but Maven didn't do concern. Or feelings.
“Two of my best are dead because of this job, Sera.”
The back of my neck prickled.
“I'm your best,” I said. “Who's the target?”
Her eyes fixed on me, as if she needed to see the reaction.
“Caelan Vaelor.”
Silence stretched long between us, and I thought I had heard her wrong.
“The prince,” I said.
“The prince.”
A fae who ruled over an actual kingdom in the realm of Primoria. A target that would make Doran Vex look like foreplay.
“If you can kill Caelan Vaelor,” Maven said, “Xander walks.” She held my gaze. “That's the only way.”
I should have thought about it. I should have sat down and run through every reason this was a terrible decision and weighed them against an alternative.
Instead, I said, “Alright.”
Something flickered in Maven's eyes. It looked like relief, though I wasn't sure if it was for me or for herself.
She reached into her desk drawer. The knife she set on the table was the most beautiful thing I'd ever wanted to walk away from.
The hilt worked in a pattern too fine to be decorative.
Two intertwined snakes wound through the metal, their bodies meeting at the guard.
Gold. Pure, solid gold.
“Fae are difficult to kill,” Maven said. “They're faster than you'd expect, even when you expect it.” She nodded at the blade. “This is charmed. Given by the person paying for the kill. It will make it easy.”
I picked it up. The weight was wrong. Too light for its size, as if it didn't fully believe in its own existence. I turned the cool metal once in my hand.
“One condition,” I said.
Maven waited.
“If I miss.” I tucked the knife into my belt. “Xander still walks. Whatever happens to me doesn't touch him.”
She lifted her chin. “You have my word.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Don't miss.”
I left her office, the knife pressed against my ribs. Then I stood on the street for a long moment, listening to the distant noise of the harbor, and the last of the ferries as the world slowed in my eyes. The boat that was supposed to take me south was gone.
What the hell had I just agreed to?