Kaleb was there when the peacekeepers arrived to arrest the man at the center of the explosion that had rocked the city. He was animaborn, with a reptilian cast to his features. The color had drained from his face, and he stared at the devastation around him like he couldn't believe it was real. Nothing about him screamed mage bent on destruction—and it had to have been a mage that caused that blast. No other explanation made sense.

The damage to the city was contained to the solitary building, but that lone building had been absolutely devastated. The blast had, quite literally, blown the roof off the place, along with most of the walls. As far as Kaleb could tell, whatever mage or mages had been responsible for it were long gone.

The peacekeepers didn't share his assessment of the situation, as they hauled the animaborn to his feet and immediately slapped restraints on them. The animaborn met them with harsh language, but little else. Further evidence in Kaleb's mind that he wasn't responsible. But he was the only one around, and the peacekeepers needed to grab somebody.

When he tried to break a peacekeeper's grip and run, he was clubbed rather aggressively over the head, and he dropped like a sack of rocks.

Poor guy.

It was a sorry sight, but there was nothing to be done. He still had a lot of unanswered questions, but there didn't seem to be any witnesses he could get easy access to, and he didn't have the magical know how to learn much of anything by combing through the wreckage. Kaleb was about to leave when he caught a snippet of something the peacekeepers said.

"—broke into the Chosen's keep—"

Kaleb froze, but only for an instant as his training kicked in. He'd been keeping his distance from the ruined building, letting shadows and fog conceal him. Now he drew closer, taking advantage of breaks in the peacekeepers' lines of sight to approach without being seen and taking up a new hiding spot behind the crumbled remains of a wall. From a crouched position, he listened to the rest of the conversation.

"—sure it's him?"

"He matches the description. Animaborn, silver hair, blue scales. Zaman's been after this one for months."

"What the fuck's a thief doing in the middle of this mess?"

"Don't know. And don't need to. Let's get him in a cell, and get word to the Chosen. Let him decide if he wants to send somebody to get his money back."

Kaleb stared hard at the unconscious animaborn as the peacekeepers hauled him away. If he understood correctly, that man had burgled the Chosen's keep. Which meant he had working knowledge of the keep's security and interior.

The animaborn's importance shot up several notches.

"You can't be serious."

Though many years older, Al-Sakr wasn't physically much bigger than Kaleb. He was broad shouldered and thickly built, but Kaleb was tall himself, and had the lean musculature of an acrobat. It wasn't the man's physicality that intimidated Kaleb. It was the authority.

When Al-Sakr said something, it was always with absolute mastery, as if he could bend the world to fit what he said. Kaleb's own will warped under the strain of the elder assassin's words—surely, he couldn't be serious.

As much as it was like walking against the current of a river, Kaleb resisted the instinct to yield.

"I am," he said, and was proud that his voice was so steady. "He broke into the Chosen's keep. He doesn't just have knowledge about what's inside, he's got working ideas on how to beat it, and get out.

"That would be useful," Al-Sakr agreed. "If we decide to go in."

"I know we're looking for a way to draw Az-Akat out of the keep, but we might not be able to. Preparing for both options only saves us time," Kaleb argued. Especially since you keep sidelining me. "The Second Principle—"

"Do not lecture me about the principles," Al-Sakr snapped, and Kaleb flinched. His superior's glare eroded his confidence by the second, but mercifully, it faded quickly. "If you truly believe this thief can be useful, then secure him and learn what you can. Do it quickly and quietly."

Years of self-discipline training was all that kept the look of surprised elation from Kaleb's face. He'd done it. He'd argued with Al-Sakr and won.

"Of course," Kaleb said, stone-faced.

"I'm still skeptical that this is worth our time," Al-Sakr said. "The Chosen's keep has only recently reinforced its security. Whatever this thief knows may be out of date. But you have been largely competent in our exchanges with the Pavers, so I'll give you this chance. Do not fail."

Al-Sakr did not attach any consequences to his warning. Kaleb would know them all already.

Even with them hanging over his head, Kaleb still fought the urge to smile, his chest swelling with the rising opportunity.

The ancient sect of assassins known as the Whispered Harvest wasn't the only life Kaleb had ever known. But with his mother dead, and his father absent, it was all he had left.

He'd grown up never knowing his father, but his mother had been a dancer, the trade of people whose beauty far outpaced their wealth. His mother, Aisha, had been beautiful. And warm. And kind. She'd also been lonely, fearful, and secretive.

For every comforting smile or tender embrace, there was a time where she'd fretted over him taking too long to walk home from school, or a question about his father she dodged. Everywhere she went, people smiled and her, and she smiled back. But she never had any friends, and often kept him too close for him to make any of his own.

Kaleb grew up loving one side of his mother, and being confused by the other. He'd wondered how a woman so loving and easily loved could be so afraid of the world, until the day he come home to find her murdered, neck split open, lying in a mess of sheets soaked in her own blood.

He'd been twelve.

He still didn't know who did it, or why, but instinctively on seeing her lying dead, all the fear his mother had carried her whole life suddenly became solid and real. There had been something just over her shoulder, and it had killed her.

Al-Sakr came for him not long after, the way Whispered Harvest recruiters always come for orphans. He asked Kaleb if he had anyone left who could take care of him. Kaleb said no. He asked if Kaleb wanted to be strong, so strong nobody could ever hurt him. Kaleb said yes.

On a farm that wasn't actually a farm, the Whispered Harvest fed him, clothed him, and trained him to kill alongside a host of others his age. They taught him to move, to fight, even to think like an assassin. As far as his instructors were concerned, he was . . . passable at it.

At every turn, his instructors drilled and tested him and his peers mercilessly. No answer was ever thorough enough. No performance ever satisfactory. Whatever the achievement, the response was the same.

Do better.

Fight harder.

Prove your worth.

Over time, Kaleb's peers rose to that challenge, mastering the Principles of the sect, becoming apprentices, proving themselves in the field, and earning new names of their own. Kaleb . . . hadn't. He'd gotten as far as becoming Al-Sakr's official apprentice, but no further.

He'd kept pace with the others of his class in combat and studies, but he struggled with every Principle that concern governing himself. Many of the Principles required a dispassionate approach. Most of his peers had never known their families, and the ones that had usually struggled with thoughts of revenge.

Kaleb simply had too much of his mother in him, even years later. He found it hard to reconcile the assassin he was trained to be with the boy Aisha had raised. His instructors and Al-Sakr agreed it held him back. Kaleb—well, not that he would ever directly disobey Al-Sakr or the sect, but he was sure that even with the tender side his mother had left him, he could be effective.

And if there was one thing the sect respected above all else, it was results.

If he could contribute, really contribute, to Al-Sakr's mission to kill the traitor Az-Akat, Kaleb could prove that he belonged. That Al-Sakr hadn't made a mistake in taking him in.

And now, he'd been given a chance.

"I won't let you down," Kaleb promised.

Al-Sakr gave dispassionate nod. It conveyed acknowledgement more than belief. "I have my own avenues to explore. We'll reconvene here in two days at the latest. If I do not at least receive word from you then, I will assume you captured or dead, and move on without you. If you do not receive word from me, something has delayed me, and you should go to ground."

"What if you need help?" Kaleb asked.

"Can you think of anything that would delay me that you could do anything about?"

Kaleb's head hung a little lower. "Right."

A thought wormed its way into Kaleb's mind, one he almost didn't voice. But the Second Principle was still fresh in his mind, and he felt the need to prepare himself for as many outcomes as he could.

"What if you're not just delayed?" Kaleb asked. "What if . . ."

The question died in his throat under Al-Sakr's intense stare. Kaleb cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

Al-Sakr kept staring for a few long, painful seconds, during which Kaleb tried to think how profuse was too profuse an apology, before finally speaking. "If, by some unforeseen circumstances, I am killed, then I suppose the mission will fall to you."

A weight settled onto Kaleb, and he swallowed. He'd spent the better part of this mission, and the weeks leading up to it, mentally preparing himself to help Al-Sakr kill Az-Akat. Somehow, he'd never considered that he might have to actually do it himself.

The sudden realization that he might filled him with . . . he didn't even have a word for the feeling. It was like a stick he'd been instructed to break had suddenly grown into a thousand year old tree. Kaleb considered himself a competent disciple of the Whispered Harvest. He did not consider himself the match of the infamous Black Cat.

"Oh."