In the days leading up to Ash’s date with Candra Sarnai, the Inspector started to close in on us. She was seen in Coalridge. She was seen in Crow’s Foot. She was starting to ask the right questions of the right people. I tracked her movements through my spy network, while Faith taught the orphans and maintained our cover as altruistic teachers.

Ash, on the other hand, locked himself in his compartment and crammed romance novels.

On the appointed day, approaching Comber’s Coffee House, the three of us spied the Inspector’s Bluecoat detail already in position on either side of the main entrance. We split up, with Ash hurrying down the street like an infatuated young lover, Faith circling around to the staff entrance, and me lagging a good half block behind either of them. Keeping my hood up and my face down, and wishing that I were literally anywhere else – the Hive’s island, the Iruvian Consulate’s dungeon, even the House Anixis interrogation chamber would do – I followed Faith through the kitchen and into the back hallway. As soon as they saw us, the restaurant staff swung into action and blocked the view of the hallway from the main room with a flurry of waiters and carts. Squeezing past them, Faith and I passed the lady’s room and slipped into a corner where we could peek into the dining area.

True to their word, Salia and Nyryx had packed it with customers, and the apologetic hostess was in the middle of offering Ash and Sarnai a private room. “At no extra charge, of course,” she assured them. “I am so sorry about the inconvenience.”

“Oh yes, that would be lovely,” Ash started to accept, but Sarnai interjected, “No, no, I’d rather not.” In her quiet but firm way, she told the hostess, “We’ll wait for a table out here.”

And there went our plan to get her alone.

It didn’t faze Faith one bit. “That’s fine,” she chirped through my hood into my ear. “I’m sure the café has a nice, dank, dismal cellar that will provide an even more appropriate ambience for Hollowing.” (It did. She’d prearranged with Salia to set up the ritual there.) “We’ll just wait until she uses the lady’s room and grab her then. We can…fill it with poisonous gas. Or trigger the trapdoor into the cellar. Or…how do you want to do this?”

I just tugged my hood down lower. I wanted to be involved as little as possible in this score, and she knew it.

She waited patiently, forcing me to contribute.

As last, I said reluctantly, “It’s probably safest if Cricket possesses her.”

“And what if she fails?” she nudged, the same way she prodded the orphans towards the correct answer.

Even more reluctantly, I promised, “I can be backup….”

That was all she needed to hear. “Cricket, go into the lady’s room and activate the noise-dampening device,” she directed. “It should be behind the toilet. Then hide under the sink and possess the Inspector when she comes in.”

I’d been so busy wishing myself elsewhere that I hadn’t even noticed the little ghost lurking in a corner. Now she compressed herself into a long, wispy, electric-blue scarf and streamed through the keyhole into the lady’s room.

While a passing waiter blocked Sarnai’s line of sight, Faith hand-signed the new plan to Ash, who was still hovering by the hostess stand.

His eyes flickered in acknowledgement, and then he told his date in a flustered tone, “Oh, well, of course, sitting out here makes sense, that makes sense! I just don’t want this to be an inconvenience for you at all.”

Obviously, she was worried that she was the one inconveniencing him with her restrictions. “No, it’s all right. It’s just that I’m not supposed to be out of sight of Lewit and Jol,” she explained apologetically.

“Yes, of course, that’s entirely the proper, the proper, oh – why, in fact, it reminds me of – ” Ash referenced a scene in a romance novel that hadn’t been on her shopping list and started prattling away about its lovelorn heroine, whose overbearing parents had locked her away for her own protection.

Apparently Sarnai had already read that book before coming to Doskvol, because she eagerly chimed in with a detailed analysis of the woes of poor Lucella. From there, the conversation flowed smoothly from novel to novel, and the two of them barely stopped chattering when a booth opened up and the hostess finally seated them. (Ash did interrupt a comparison of Sarnai’s two favorite male protagonists long enough to order the most caffeinated tea on the menu.)

About halfway through their eel-and-mushroom pies and super-caffeinated tea, Sarnai set her napkin aside tidily, excused herself, and moved towards the back hallway. As soon as she did, Faith and I ducked into the kitchen to wait for Cricket. However, whatever the little ghost was doing took so long that Sarnai’s bodyguards grew antsy. After an urgent conversation, the female Bluecoat, Jol, marched into the café to rap on the lady’s room door. There was a heart attack-inducing silence before Cricket remembered to deactivate the noise dampener.

Then Sarnai’s voice trilled, “Just a minute!”

“Ma’am?” called Jol, putting her ear to the door. “Is everything all right in there?”

“Yes,” came back Sarnai’s voice, “everything is all right. Please don’t scare my date.”

To me, the irritation rang slightly false, but Jol scowled, turned on her heel, and stomped back outside to report to Lewit. From the disgruntled expressions on both of their faces, they found their charge’s love life excruciatingly boring.

Now it was my turn to enter the lady’s room – but I hesitated so long that Faith had to give me a friendly shove to propel me into the hallway.

Back when we were planning the score, she’d exclaimed, “Oh! Isha, you’re going to have to play the Inspector for a while!”

I’d recoiled. “Why?”

She’d pouted prettily. “Hollowing takes time, you know,” she’d reproached me. “You don’t want her bodyguards to get suspicious, do you? I mean, I know she’s a woman, but even women can only spend so much time in the restroom….”

So now, steeling myself, I forced myself to turn the doorknob and step into the lady’s room. Inside the cramped space, Candra Sarnai dangled like a marionette in front of the sink, scrutinizing her face in the scuffed mirror. She was alternately poking and pulling at her cheeks, as if fascinated by how human flesh deformed. When I shut the door, she rotated to face me.

“Must I?” Cricket appealed. “Can’t I have it just a bit longer?”

As far as I was concerned, she could have Sarnai’s body for as long as she wanted, so long as it delayed the Hollowing. But we were running out of time, so I shook my head and said shortly, “We need to swap clothing.”

Although the little ghost drooped, she did seem to relish the sensation of fabric sliding over skin and nearly forgot to hand over Sarnai’s jacket after she removed it. I should have hurried her along, but instead I let her indulge her little fantasy while I studiedly kept my back to the mirror and peeled off my own clothes. At last, what was probably a worrying length of time later if I’d been in any state for extra worry, I was decked out in a starched white shirt and crisp slate-grey jacket and trousers, and Cricket was happily playing with the buttons of my blouse.

I never wanted to touch that blouse again. “You can keep it, after,” I told her, still curt.

She glowed bright blue. “Okay!”

Swallowing hard, I finally turned to face my reflection. An approximation of Sarnai’s features greeted me, the best I’d been able to do from memory in the railcar. Automatically, I touched up the cosmetics, darkening the skin just a shade, re-outlining the lips, adjusting the swoop of the eyebrows. At last, I ran my fingers through my wig and tucked the hair behind my ears the way she did. In the mirror, Candra Sarnai stared back at me, stricken.

It was time.

Mimicking her gait, I exited the lady’s room and moved briskly back to the booth, although I did step out of the way for waiters and other customers.

Ash was craning his neck and staring at the back hallway in a show of unfeigned anxiety. “Oh, you’re back!” he exclaimed. “I was starting to worry that you vanished – like the heroine of Rules and Roses!”

In Sarnai’s voice, I replied eagerly, “Oh, you’ve read that too?”

We proceeded to converse distractedly about all the romance novels we’d crammed over the past week. However, as soon as he could reasonably excuse himself, Ash hinted awkwardly that he, too, needed to use the restroom.

Pasting a polite, understanding look on my face, I hissed, “What are you doing?”

He gave me an apologetic smile for leaving me, even briefly, during our date. “I need to go gloat over her while she’s still conscious,” he whispered back.

“Don’t do it,” I pleaded. “That’s way too suspicious!”

“My god hungers for it,” he replied matter-of-factly, as if that justified any risk to himself, the rest of the crew, and Salia and the Reconciled – and left.

As soon as he disappeared behind the wall of waiters, Jol came back in. “Is everything all right, ma’am?” she inquired, her impatience indicating that this lunch break had dragged on way too long. “We have a meeting with Mr. Basran in half an hour….”

Thank goodness I’d spent so much time roleplaying the Inspector! Sliding into my best Sarnai impersonation, I replied calmly, “Thank you, but I am aware of that,” and hoped desperately that it would work.

It did.

Jol nodded irritably and returned to her post.

Meanwhile, down in the cellar, our resident megalomaniac found an unconscious Sarnai tied to a chair in the center of a rune circle. Spirit bottle in hand, Faith stood over her, attuning intently while Cricket and a second ghost looked on. Crestfallen that our victim was in no state to appreciate his monologue, Ash watched in silence as Faith funneled Sarnai’s soul into the bottle.

As soon as the last wisp came out, Salia expertly wove herself into the Inspector’s body. Faith untied it, and the Reconciled lurched to her feet to practice piloting it.

Back in the dining room, Ash slid into our booth. “If it’s any consolation, she’s being efficient,” he reported in an undertone, sounding peeved that Faith hadn’t tormented Sarnai the way she had Chime.

I could do without a repeat of that performance. “Okay.”

We went back to discussing Rules and Roses, although Ash was starting to break character and insert snide comments about the protagonists’ terrible communication skills. I lacked the energy to quell him.

After an eternity, the waiter brought our check, the signal for me to return to the lady’s room to swap clothes with Salia. As the same blouse that our victim had worn for her Hollowing brushed my skin, I shuddered.

In a quiet, patient, Sarnai-like voice, Salia addressed my back: “I know you didn’t want to do this, Miss Yara.”

I neither turned nor answered.

“But…this will save a lot of people.” She paused expectantly, as if waiting for me to agree that, sometimes, you just had to Hollow decent people and steal their bodies to serve the greater good.

I still refused to look at or acknowledge her in any way.

Information brokering, not comfort, was the Reconciled leader’s forte. After a moment, she gave up, checked herself in the mirror one last time, straightened her back and squared her shoulders the way Sarnai did – the way Sarnai used to do – and left me alone.

I gave her five minutes, then strode straight out the back of the café without a word to my crewmates. In the distance, Sarnai’s figure, trailed by her useless bodyguards, was just fading into the fog.

I stared after them for a long moment, then sprinted for Crow’s Foot.

Finally, I had my first piece of luck of the day: Bazso was still at home, wearing his overcoat and picking up his top hat from the rack. Bursting through the front door, I threw myself at him and wailed, “I don’t think I can do this anymore!”

After a startled “Oof!” he wrapped his arms around me – which crushed the blouse against my skin.

I recoiled and jerked free. “Wait, I need to change.”

I dashed up the stairs to his bedroom and flung off every piece of clothing that had touched Sarnai, Cricket, and Salia.

As I yanked a clean tunic over my head, I heard Bazso enter. “Which part do you think you can’t do anymore?” he asked. “Being an assassin?”

“I don’t know,” I whimpered. “Any of it!”

I bunched up the contaminated clothing and started to hurl it into the fireplace, then stopped short. I’d promised Cricket the blouse, hadn’t I? I kicked it into a corner for her to retrieve later, at her leisure or never – I couldn’t care less, so long as I never had to touch it again.

“Well – ” Bazso began, but the words tumbled out even though I hadn’t planned to tell him anything that might get him – or us – into more trouble: “I think we just Hollowed the only decent human being I’ve ever met!”

A very long silence, while I ducked my head and rummaged through the dresser for leggings, and Bazso chose not to take offense.

At last, he sighed and sat down on his bed. “I mean, that happens to people, Isha,” he soothed. “They just can’t take the life anymore. No one would blame you if you wanted to step back. Mardin Gull did, and everyone respects him.”

I refused to be consoled. “Yes, but he was forty or fifty or something. I’m twenty-one!”

“So you have your whole life ahead of you to make a career change.”

“But I’m not good at anything else!” I cried, determined to wallow in my anguish. “This is what I’m good at!”

“Do you know?” he challenged.

“Know what?”

“That you’re not good at anything else.”

At that, I had to stop to think. “Uh…I certainly can’t cook,” I said, a little weakly. He chuckled before he caught himself. “I can’t embroider. I can’t paint a fan. What else do normal women do?”

There was a smile in his voice as he answered, “Isha, there are plenty of things in life that do not involve the sorts of skills that a noblewoman would have. You should go into journalism.”

“Journalism?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you all about finding out things? Getting people to talk to you?” I stared at him as if he’d started speaking Tycherosian. “Sending messages that change the world?”

I supposed that was one (highly biased) way of interpreting my actions. But I couldn’t for the life of me – ugh, bad expression – wrap my mind around the idea of going legitimate. As a journalist, of all things. What would Sigmund say? What would Mother and Father think? What would Grandfather do?

And, honestly, I couldn’t picture a gang leader and ward boss dating a journalist, either.

At my expression, Bazso backpedaled. “It was just a suggestion. Like I said, I don’t think anybody is going to fault you if you decide to stop being an assassin.” A hint of dryness crept into his voice. “It seems like a reasonable thing to do.”

Sinking onto the edge of the bed next to him, I confessed, “I just don’t know what to do with myself, if I did.”

“I don’t know. But we can figure it out,” he promised, and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

Flopping against him, I nodded into his chest. “Okay. Okay.”

But as soon as I stopped talking, images of our victim flooded my mind – Sarnai, recommending tea for a complete stranger’s mother; Sarnai, stopping to help pick up a passerby’s books; Sarnai, sharing her thoughts about her favorite novels with someone she thought was a friend; Sarnai, dying for being too honorable and too good at her job.

Although the score wasn’t even over yet and I still had to meet up with the Red Sashes for the next part, I told Bazso, “Now you should get me very, very drunk.”

He had no idea that I was still on the job. “I have just the bottle for that,” he pronounced.

He brought out one of his best bottles of whiskey, and I proceeded to get very, very drunk.