Kalo hummed. “The one by the edge of the wall?”
Kassa nodded.
Kalo glanced to Nadi. “It processes the raw materials from the Wild before they’re distributed. Destroying it would cut the Nostroms off from all of their supply of powder.”
And with that, would go their control of the streets. And it would potentially cut off the fae from their supply. It’d be more of a gesture of revenge than anything else—Nadi wasn’t about to explain to Kassa how long it took to help an addict off the stuff. She knew. “When?”
“It’ll take a day for us to call our men back from their routes. Two at most. You want our trust? You want our cooperation? Prove you’re willing to bleed for it. Lead the raid.” Kassa gestured between them. “You know their security protocols, their response patterns. She knows the building layout from hertime in the family. Together, you give us the best chance of success.”
Raziel nodded. “It would upend their stable control of the lower rungs of the ladder. I agree. Nadi?”
She nodded as well. “Fine. We’ll do it.”
“Good. We’ll hit it hard. Take out their production capacity, steal whatever we can carry, send a message that the Iltanis aren’t as dead as they thought.” Kassa leaned back in her chair and gestured at one of her guards.
He went to the front door and knocked on it in a particular pattern. Nadi could hear the sound of metal-on-metal, of great squeaking hinges as bolts and windows unlocked.
Oh, good. They weren’t going to be burned alive. How charming.
“Get some rest.” Kassa sniffed dismissively. “Two days until you move. You come back alive? We’ll talk about next steps, then.”
Nadi felt the familiar tension before a mission settling into her bones—the mixture of nerves and anticipation that had carried her through eighty years of increasingly dangerous work.
But this was different. This wasn’t just another job, another target to eliminate for money. This was family. These were her people, what remained of them, trusting her with their lives based on nothing more than a shared vendetta and desperate hope.
“Understood,” Nadi replied.
“Then we’re agreed.” Kassa held out a hand. “Welcome back, Nadi Iltani.”
Nadi took a deep breath. She barely recognized this world. It felt too much like the one above. The old world was gone, burned away to dust by ambition and hatred and the simple, terrible logic of survival.
It felt wrong.
But it was all she had left.
She shook Kassa’s offered hand. “Glad to be…home.”
ELEVEN
The room they’d been given was little more than a storage closet that had been hastily cleared and furnished with a single mattress and a wooden crate that served as a table. The walls were the same reinforced metal plating Nadi had seen throughout the warehouse, welded together with crude efficiency rather than any concern for aesthetics.
It wasn’t luxury. But it was shelter. And it locked from theinside,which was key. It meant they could both sleep at the same time without having to take shifts.
A meal waited for them on the makeshift table—two bowls of what appeared to be mashed turnips, gray and lumpy, alongside portions of something that might charitably be called stew. The meat in it was dark and stringy, with an earthy smell that suggested it had come from one of the Wild’s less appetizing inhabitants.
Nadi picked at her bowl with the provided spoon, a bent piece of metal that had probably been salvaged from shipwreck debris. “Well.” She smirked, stirring the turnips into something approaching edibility. “This is nostalgic.”
Raziel, to her surprise, had already finished half his portion and was methodically working through the rest withoutcomplaint. No grimace of distaste, no commentary on the quality or presentation. He ate like a man who’d known hunger and understood the value of sustenance regardless of its form. She knew this kind of food didn’t really sustain him—he was a vampire, after all.
A curious thought that she ignored for the time being. It didn’t matter. “I’m sure none of this meets your standards.”
He paused, spoon halfway to his mouth, and gave her a look that was both amused and slightly predatory. “Were you expecting me to throw a tantrum? Demand silk sheets and vintage bloodwine?”
“Maybe not a tantrum, but at least some snide jokes.” She gestured at the sparse room around them. “You’re used to having rather more luxurious surroundings. Crystal goblets, servants, actual furniture.”
Raziel set down his spoon and leaned back against the metal wall. “Do you remember the story I told you about my mother and the fountain?” His voice was conversational, but there was something sharp beneath it.
She did remember. And she had seen her order him to strip naked and eat off the floor like a dog. “How could I forget?”
